Baen Books

by Larry Correia

Monster Hunter series

Monster Hunter International

Monster Hunter Vendetta

Monster Hunter Alpha

The Monster Hunters (omnibus)

Monster Hunter Legion (forthcoming)

The Grimnoir Chronicles

Hard Magic

Spellbound

with Mike Kupari

Dead Six

THE MONSTER HUNTERS

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2012 by Larry Correia

Monster Hunter International copyright © 2009 by Larry Correia, Monster Hunter Vendetta copyright © 2010 by Larry Correia, Monster Hunter Alpha copyright © 2011 by Larry Correia

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

A Baen Book

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY  10471

www.baen.com

ISBN: 978-1-4516-3784-7

Cover art by Alan Pollack

First Baen printing, June 2012

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY  10020

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Correia, Larry.

 The monster hunters / by Larry Correia.

      p. cm.

 ISBN 978-1-4516-3784-7 (hc)

 I. Title.

 PS3603.O7723M66 2012

 813'.6--dc23

                                                           2012003333

Printed in the United States of America

10    9    8    7    6    5    4    3    2    1

Monster

Hunter

International

Chapter 1

On one otherwise normal Tuesday evening I had the chance to live the American dream. I was able to throw my incompetent jackass of a boss from a fourteenth-story window.

Now, I didn’t just wake up that morning and decide that I was going to kill my boss with my bare hands. It really was much more complicated than that. In my life up to that point I would never have even considered something that sounded so crazy. I was just a normal guy, a working stiff. Heck, I was an accountant. It doesn’t get much more mundane than that.

That one screwed-up event changed my life. Little did I realize that turning my boss into sidewalk pizza would have so many bizarre consequences. Well, technically, he did not actually hit the sidewalk. He landed on the roof of a double-parked Lincoln Navigator, but I digress.

My name is Owen Zastava Pitt and this is my story.

*   *   *

The finance department of Hansen Industries, Inc. was on the fourteenth floor of a generic-looking office building in downtown Dallas. There were ten of us accountants, placed in ten cubicles in a narrow patch of office sandwiched between marketing and the women’s restroom. It was your standard professional office, complete with blue industrial carpet, motivational posters, Dilbert cartoons, and some dead potted plants. I was the new guy.

It was a pretty good job. The pay was respectable. The work was semi-interesting. Most of my co-workers were easy to get along with. It was my first actual serious career-type job after college, or at least my first job that didn’t require heavy lifting or bouncing drunks.

Now I had a 401k and dental benefits. My plan was to work hard, find myself a wife, have some kids, and settle down in the suburbs. I was a young professional, and my future looked bright.

There was only one major drawback to my job with such a fine, established company. My boss was an angry idiot. Mr. Huffman was the worst kind of boss, incompetent and always able to find an underling to blame for his own screw-ups. Plus he was mad at the world, not really for any specifics, mind you, but more mad at the world in a general way for being mean to him. Despite his laziness and stupidity, his little pig brain just could not comprehend why he was never promoted beyond the same position that he had held for the last decade. It was obvious to him that the world was out to wrong him. After getting to know the man, I could not blame the world one bit.

As the newest hire in the Hansen Industries Internal Auditing Department, I was the designated whipping boy for Mr. Huffman’s fury. The previous newest hire had committed suicide, thereby creating the opening that I now filled. At the time I had not really made the connection between job satisfaction and the likelihood of taking a bottle of sleeping pills and washing it down with a fifth of scotch.

It had been another twelve-hour day, as had become my custom, always hopelessly behind, trying to learn as I went, and realizing that college really did not have much of anything to do with the real world. Since my supervisor, the vile Mr. Huffman, was supposed to train me, I was pretty much screwed from the get-go. Since I currently had no life outside of work (except for every Saturday when I worked on my hobby), I did not really mind staying late. Hopefully it would impress somebody important at the company, who might offer me a transfer to their department and out of Huffman’s.

At least the month had been pleasant. Mr. Huffman had been on vacation camping at some national park or another. He had come back for a week, wherein he had stayed locked in his office, never speaking to anyone or returning any calls, and then went out on sick leave for a few more weeks. His annual vacation was usually my department’s most productive time of the year. Go figure.

I glanced absently at my watch. 8:05 p.m. The surrounding blue-carpeted cubes were quiet. My stomach growled, signaling that the bag of Cheetos and the banana I had eaten for lunch had long since worn off. It was time to go. I logged out of my computer, locked up my files, and put on my coat as I headed for the door. Believing I was the only one there, I killed the lights on the way out. Then the intercom buzzed. It made me jump.

“Who’s there?” The ponderous voice belonged to Mr. Huffman. That was a surprise. I had not known that he was back yet. Damn. I kept walking, deciding to pretend that I had not heard the intercom. If Huffman were here this late, then I did not want to get assigned whatever crap job he was working on, which, knowing what a lazy slug he was, was sure to happen. He would probably call it delegating, and pat himself on the back for being such a proactive member of the management team.

“Owen? Is that you? Come to my office immediately!” Busted. “Now, Owen. This is important!” He sounded as officious and pompous as usual.

As I sulked toward his office I had to wonder how he had known it was me. Probably a lucky guess. He must have seen the lights go out from his office. I started thinking of excuses to give him about why I needed to leave, but knew from long experience that he would just shoot them all down. Martial arts class? Nope, he already thinks I’m too militant, and he doesn’t even know about my gun collection. Church? Fat chance of that. Date? I wish. Sick mother? Worth a shot, I thought. So I approached his office preparing the story about how I needed to tend to my ill mother. She lived three states away, but what Huffman didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.

When I entered Huffman’s office, all thoughts of my mom’s imaginary sickness disappeared. The lights were off, which was very weird. I could not see my boss, as the back of his leather swivel chair was toward me. The city lights provided a small amount of illumination through the windows. I never could figure out how a toad like him had scored a corner office with a view. Perhaps he had some incriminating photos of the CFO with a hooker or something. His huge oak desk was a mess, and there was a stained paper sack sitting in the middle that must have been his dinner. Whatever was in the bag was slowly leaking a sloppy puddle onto the papers on the desk.

“Have a seat, Owen,” Huffman rasped. His voice sounded strange. He did not turn around to look at me. From the top of his head it appeared that he was looking at the evening sky.

“Uh, no thanks, sir . . . I’ve really got to be going. My mom is sick and . . .”

“I . . . said . . . SIT!” he shouted as he spun around in his chair. I gasped, partly because Mr. Huffman had a look in his eyes like he was insane, but mostly because he was totally naked. Not something that I ever thought I would have to see. The lower half of his jowly face was stained with something dark and greasy, as if he had gone hog-wild at a barbeque.

Okay, that’s certainly different. I raised my hands in front of me. “Look, sir, I’ve got to say that I don’t swing that way. You do your thing. I don’t care. Some guys would be flattered, but I’m out of here,” I stated as I slowly backed toward the door.

“SILENCE!” he shouted, slamming his chubby fingers onto the desk hard enough to rattle it and knock over his dinner bag, spilling its contents. I froze, surprised at the fierce intensity of the command, which was unexpected coming from a man like Huffman, who had what could best be described as “jiggly man bosoms.” “Do you know what tonight is, Owen? Do you? Tonight is a very special night!”

“Is it all-you-can-eat shrimp night at Sizzlers?” I replied calmly as I reached back and put my hand on the doorknob. It was official. Mr. Huffman had gone nuts. It looked like he was foaming at the mouth.

“Tonight I punish the wicked. A month ago I was given a gift. Now I’m king. I’ve seen how you and the others talk about me behind my back. How you don’t respect my leadership.” My boss’s voice had lowered into a growl. His eyes darted about as if he were seeing exciting things in the dark corners of the office. “You’re the worst, Owen. You’re not a team player. You don’t respect my authority. You want to steal my job. You want to stab me in the back!”

I didn’t want to stab him in the back, but I was about ready to punch him in the face. My earlier assessment was right. He really was foaming at the mouth. Being attacked by fat, naked Mr. Huffman was not that much of a worry, as I was what could best be called a big fellow, and surprising for an accountant, knew how to kick some butt if necessary. The situation felt surreal and slightly amusing, but I knew that crazy people could be unpredictably dangerous. It was time to slip out and call for some professional help. I turned the door handle, idly wondering if our health plan covered psychiatric care.

“Just take it easy, Mr. Huffman. I’m not out to get you. I’m just going to step out for a second.” Then I noticed what had spilled out of the dinner bag.

“Is that a hand?” I blurted.

Huffman ignored me and continued yelling and pounding the desk. Each strike made his layers of blubber ripple dangerously. It sure enough looked like a woman’s hand, complete with painted nails, a wedding ring, and a jagged stump where the wrist bones were sticking out. Holy crap! My boss wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill crazy. I was working for a serial killer.

The naked, crazy, fat man pointed out the window. “The time has come! Tonight I am a god!” he squealed.

His sausagelike finger was pointing at the full moon.

As I watched in the pale lunar glow and the yellowish backdrop of the city lights, that finger seemed to stretch. The hands began to elongate, and the fingernails thickened and spread. He looked at me, and I saw that his grin now stretched from ear to ear, literally, and his gums and teeth began to protrude menacingly past his lips. Thick dark hair was sprouting from his pores. Huffman screamed in pain and exhilaration as the popping and cracking of bones filled the room.

“Owen. You’re mine now. I’m gonna eat your heart.” His words were barely understandable through his dripping jaw and swelling tongue. His teeth were growing in length and sharpness.

For a second I froze, paralyzed by conflicting emotions as reason came to a screeching halt. The room was dark enough that the civilized part of my brain was trying to convince the primitive caveman section of my brain that this was just some sort of visual trick, a sick practical joke, or something else logical. Luckily for me, the caveman won.

To this day I don’t know why at that moment I felt the need to make a confession to my rapidly mutating boss. Even though I was in accordance with Texas state law, I was in direct violation of the company’s workplace safety rule.

“You know that ‘no weapons at work’ policy?” I asked the twitching and growing hairy monstrosity standing less than ten feet from me. His yellow eyes bored into me with raw animal hatred. There was nothing recognizably human in that look.

“I never did like that rule,” I said as I bent down and drew my gun from my ankle holster, put the front sight on the target and rapidly fired all five shots from my snub-nosed .357 Smith & Wesson into Mr. Huffman’s body. God bless Texas.

The creature that had been Huffman staggered back against the window, leaving a smear of blood and tissue as it slid down the glass onto the carpet. Some of the bullets had either missed or over-penetrated and cracked the thick window. Not staying to examine, I turned and ran, almost breaking my nose as I crashed into the door while trying to open it. I took the time to slam it behind me before sprinting down the narrow hallway, empty gun in one hand, fingers of my other hand groping through my coat pocket for my speed loader of extra ammo.

Huffman’s office door flew open with a bang. The thing standing in the doorway was clearly more animal than man, but obviously not any normal animal. My supervisor’s fatty bulk had been somehow twisted into a sleek and muscled form. Long claws tore divots into the blue industrial carpet. Coarse black hair covered his body, and the wolf face was a nightmare come to life. Lips pulled back into a drooling snarl, revealing a row of razorlike teeth. Now on all fours, he raised his muzzle and smelled the air, howling when he spotted me.

The blood in my veins turned to ice.

Running in the direction of the elevator, I snapped the cylinder of my revolver closed with five more Federal 125-grain hollowpoints inside. The creature was fast, much faster than an Olympic sprinter, and I was no Olympic sprinter. My lead down the hallway dwindled in seconds. I spun and fired as it leapt at me, striking the beast in the face. His snout turned on impact and momentum carried him into the wall, crushing the sheetrock. Immediately he started to rise, jagged fur bristling down his back.

I’m a very good shot. The tiny revolver was not my best weapon for accuracy, but I did my part. Focusing on the front sight, aiming for the creature’s skull, I pulled the trigger. With each concussion I brought the little gun back down and repeated the process. I was rewarded with a flash of red and white as a .357 hollowpoint blossomed through Huffman’s brain, but I kept pulling the trigger until the hammer clicked empty. I was out of ammo.

My vision had tunneled in on the threat. My pulse was pounding like a drum. The adrenaline running through my system had tuned out the horrendous muzzle blasts. I brought the gun down to my side. Huffman was dead.

I tried to control my breathing as I began to hyperventilate. Perhaps I was losing my mind, for lying not twenty feet from my cubicle was a dead werewolf. A monster from fairy tales, but somehow it was here, sprawled on the carpet, brains blown out. There had not been time to feel fear or any other emotion as the creature had been chasing me, but that all came out now as if a dam had burst. The uncontrollable shaking in my limbs was slow at first, but quickly gained in intensity as I got a better look at the beast on the floor. It was like being in a car wreck. The almost disbelief as the events unfolded. The lack of emotion during the impact. And finally the brutal realization of what had happened. I just killed a werewolf.

Then Mr. Huffman rose up and snarled at me.

The exposed brain matter pulsed back into his head, and with a crunching noise the plates of his skull rejoined. The creature stood on his hind legs somehow, even with knees twisted like a canine’s. With one taloned finger he speared a chunk of tissue from his fur and tossed it into his maw, chewing his own discarded flesh. Returning gracefully to all fours he shook himself like a giant dog, splattering the blood from his wounds on the white walls and motivational posters in the hall.

The monster howled again, long and high-pitched, and the sound ignited some primal survival instinct buried deep within me. I turned and ran faster than I ever had before. Somehow I kept my wits, and rather than trying to outrun the creature to the elevator, I twisted hard to the right and through a doorway, slammed the door, locked it, and shoved a heavy desk in front of it. A computer monitor fell to the ground and sparked. I was in the marketing room. A poster with a kitten forlornly holding onto a clothesline had the caption: hang in there. Thanks for the advice, buddy.

There was no time to think. I kept moving, hoping that the door and the desk would slow Huffman down. It did, for a few seconds at least. In a cloud of splinters the werewolf began to tear the door apart, snarling, grunting, gradually pushing the desk out of the way. There was another doorway at the end of the office that led to a side corridor. I slammed the door behind me, but there was nothing there to block it with. Weapon. Need a weapon. My gun was still in hand, but it was empty, and a lightweight snub was definitely lacking as a club. I had a concealed weapons permit for defense against muggers and assorted scumbags. I had never thought I would need it to fight a creature from the SciFi channel. There was a fire extinguisher mounted on the wall so I pulled it down and took it with me. It was better than nothing.

Down the corridor was the door to my department, if I could get through it and I had a shot at the elevator. Legs and heart pumping, I heard the door behind me crash off of its hinges. Not sparing the time to look, I yanked open the door to Finance and rushed through, trying to pull it closed behind me. The door slammed into Huffman’s claws and muzzle. I tried in vain to close the door but he was far stronger than I was. He swiped his talons down across my chest, tearing cleanly through my clothing and into me. Pain. Unbelievable pain. Screaming, I fell on my back and activated the fire extinguisher, directing the spray into the werewolf’s gaping mouth and eyes. The creature howled, reared up on its hind legs, and covered its face. I lashed out with my foot, kicked the creature in the ribs and knocked it back into the corridor. Scrambling to my feet, I pulled the door closed and locked it.

My chest burned from the lacerations. The injury looked bad, and blood was soaking across my shirt, but the pain was now just something throbbing in the background behind the wall of adrenaline rushing through my system. The hurt would come later. I had a monster to worry about right now.

The werewolf punched through the wooden door, talons narrowly missing my flesh as he searched for me. I raised the fire extinguisher above my head and lashed out at the hairy arm, smashing it again and again with blows that would easily have broken ordinary bones. Finally the forearm shattered with an audible snap, but Huffman was not deterred. The claws kept swinging, and within seconds the limb had seemingly healed. Shouting unintelligibly, I continued bringing the extinguisher down on Huffman, the metal echoing with each hit.

We were at an impasse. He could not push through with me crushing his arms. His animal mind must have come to that same realization. As fast as it had appeared, the arm disappeared, leaving nothing but a gaping hole through the heavy oak door.

My breath came in ragged gasps from the exertion. Nothing seemed to hurt him. I had to think of something . . .  Silver. That’s what always worked in the movies. Where was I going to get silver in my office? But I knew the answer to that one immediately. Nowhere.

If I could make it to the elevator I would be home free, but to do so I needed to cover forty feet of Finance, and then about a hundred feet of hallway. Cradling the fire extinguisher in my arms I stumbled for the door. In the darkness, the green light from the exit sign was my beacon. The blood running down my stomach was warm and slick. I made it as far as my cubicle before Huffman got a running start and crashed into the room. There was no way I could escape before he would be on me, claws and teeth flashing, and I would be a dead man.

Flight wasn’t working, so now it was fight time. At least I was on my home turf.

“Huffman, you son of a bitch! Come and get me!” I roared as I sprayed him with the fire extinguisher. “This is my cube!”

The werewolf swatted my improvised weapon away, breaking my left hand on impact. He rammed into me and hurled me straight into the air. The ceiling tiles barely slowed my flight and I rebounded off of a heating duct with a resounding clang. I fell onto the top of my cube wall. It was not designed to take the impact of a three-hundred-pound man. It collapsed and I slammed onto my desk.

Keep going. Groaning and trying to catch my breath, I tried to think of something, anything, that I could do. The werewolf’s head rose at the base of my desk. I kicked him hard in the face. Huffman bit my shoe off.

With leg muscles like coiled springs, the werewolf easily hopped up beside me, claws clicking on the hard surface like fingernails on a chalkboard. I felt the instinctive twinge down my spine. I tried to roll off the desk, but Huffman effortlessly sunk a claw deep into my thigh, pinning me down. I screamed in pain as the talon pierced through the muscle. Grabbing the back of his hairy claw with my one working hand, I tried to pull it out. It wouldn’t budge.

He had me. I lay there bleeding with my leg pinned to my desk. The werewolf seemed to be enjoying himself, taking his sweet time, savoring my pain. I wondered if somewhere deep inside that animal Mr. Huffman was there, enjoying this, loving the power, finally being able to strike back at the world he hated so much.

My fear was replaced with anger.

The shooting pain in my leg was unbearable, and all reason told me that I was a dead man, but I would be damned if I was going to die at the hand of that fat piece of shit Mr. Huffman.

The werewolf opened his jaws slowly, impossibly wide, and lowered them toward my face. His breath was hot, and stunk like rotting meat. He was going to eat me and somehow I knew he was going to do it as slowly and painfully as possible. Trying to be inconspicuous, I reached into my pocket. Huffman licked my face. The tongue was damp and rough and I cringed in revulsion. Bastard probably wanted to see what I tasted like first.

My pocketknife opened with a snap the instant before I jabbed it into his throat. The three-inch Spyderco was not really a fighting knife, but I put it to the test. Twisting and pulling, I tried to do as much damage as I could. Blood geysered across my cube as I severed his jugular. He jerked his claw out of my leg, and I almost fainted as blood flooded out the gaping hole. I pulled the little blade back and stabbed it into his eye. My knife, slick with fluids, slipped out of my hand as Huffman pulled away, and it remained stuck in his face. He lashed out, striking me in the head. The claw tore down to the skull, opening my flesh, dragging down across my face. I felt it in almost clinical detachment, knowing it was bad, but beyond the point of feeling or caring. My whole life had dilated down to one simple thought: Huffman must die. Lights flashed in my eyes as my enemy roared.

“Regenerate this!” I bellowed as I grabbed my letter opener off of my desk and stabbed it repeatedly into his chest. Reversing my grip, I thrust it up through his bottom jaw, lodging it deep into the roof of his mouth, pinning his muzzle shut. Then I kicked him in the balls and smashed my chair over his head for good measure. He hit me with a backhand that knocked me across the room like a human cannonball. I crashed through a potted plant and rolled across the carpet.

Disoriented, I left Huffman swirling about like a tornado of death while I limped away, trying to staunch the massive bleeding from my leg. The werewolf thrashed, trying to pry one little knife out of his eye socket and a letter opener out of his palate. I had landed near Huffman’s office so I pulled myself through the door. Options were running out. I was going to pass out soon from blood loss. The only thing sustaining me was anger and determination, and that wouldn’t last much longer. I needed to think of something, and I needed to think of it quick. Taking stock, I saw filing cabinets on each side of the door. Chair. Desk. Golf magazines. Some lady’s hand. But nothing that I could use as a weapon.

I could hear the werewolf raging, smashing apart my cube, destroying anything within reach, ripping and snarling, then gradually quieting as he caught my scent. He was coming for me again. I was waiting for him.

But not where he expected. As Huffman charged in, led at this point only by instinct and pure animal fury, I jumped from the top of the filing cabinet onto his back. We collided with a great deal of force and he crashed snoutfirst into his desk. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I choked him, straining as hard as I could. “Let’s see how tough you are without air!” I screamed in his pointy ear. We flipped over the desk but I stubbornly held on. His jaws snapped shut but I was safely under them. He reached over and raked razor claws down my back. We spun crazily and crashed into the already damaged window, shattering it and sending shards raining to the ground below. By some miracle we did not fall. Keeping my damaged left arm around his throat, I grabbed his muzzle with my good hand and wrenched it to the side with all of the strength and anger and fear that I had left. I grunted under the strain and roared. The beast’s spine was like rebar. Somehow I pulled harder.

The werewolf’s neck broke with a sickening pop. Severed from the impulses firing in his brain, the creature’s body spasmed wildly. The claws dropped away from my ravaged back and he lay under me, flopping violently. I rolled off and dragged myself away, barely able to stay conscious. Pulling myself along with one arm, shoving with one leg, the other leg limp and leaving a wide trail of blood, I made it to the other side of the desk and collapsed.

I heard the scraping of bones again as Huffman’s vertebrae realigned. In a second he would be back up, and I would not be able to fight him off again. With my good hand I struggled up so I could see over the desk. There was Huffman’s dinner, and in my brain that was running dangerously low on blood and oxygen, it struck me as funny. “Need a hand?” I asked nobody in particular and giggled.

The werewolf was starting to sit up. In another few seconds I would be providing him nourishment. Then he would be off killing innocent people at every full moon. On the other days of the month I was sure that he would just keep being the worst boss in the world. I don’t know which one made me angrier.

Huffman swiveled his from head side to side as he regained his senses.

“Not this time, asshole!” I said as I heaved all of my weight against the heavy desk. With a groan of protest it moved from its depression in the carpet. Desperately shoving, my one good leg straining for traction, made even more difficult because I was missing my shoe, I pushed the desk into Huffman, knocking him over, and before the werewolf realized what was happening I had pushed him and his damned desk out of the window.

Chapter 2

I could tell I was dreaming. Everything had that fuzzy, disjointed dream feel to it. First I had flashes of dragging myself toward the elevator, my belt being used as an improvised tourniquet on my leg. However, in my dream it didn’t hurt a bit. Movement was slow as though I were underwater. There were glimpses of an ambulance and men sticking me with needles and pounding on my chest.

The next scene was weird, since I usually dreamed in a first person perspective. I floated weightless as I looked down and watched people in masks shock my heart with a defibrillator.

Back in the first person again. Now I stood in a field. A good, strong, green crop of some kind. My feet were bare and I could feel the wetness of the dew as I wiggled my toes. The sky was dark blue and the air smelled fresh and clean like after a summer rainstorm. A herd of cows grazed in the distance.

A man stood nearby. He was old and bent. His white hair was wild and he had a kindly smile, but hard eyes behind small round glasses. He leaned on his cane and waved.

“Hello, Boy.” The old man had some sort of heavy Eastern European accent.

“Are you God?” I asked.

He laughed hard. “Me? Ha! Is good one. ’Fraid not. I just friend.”

“Am I dead?”

“Almost. But you need go back. You have work to do. Yes, much work.”

“Work?”

“A calling. Is hard, but is good.”

“A calling?”

“From before you born. How you say?”

“Preordination?”

“More like you get short straw. Now go. No time. I send you back.”

“Will we meet again?”

“Only if you are slow-witted boy and get dead again.”

The nice dream ended and my world exploded in pain.

There was a steady beeping noise. It matched pace with my heartbeat. Bump-bump. Two black shapes stood over me.

“I say we waste him now.”

“Not yet.”

“No way he’s clean.”

“You know the rules.”

“The rules are wrong. I could smother him with his pillow and nobody would ever know.”

“I would know.”

I went back to sleep.

I awoke to the smell of hospital antiseptic. My eyes were matted shut, my mouth was horribly dry, and my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. I had that weird, tingly, high on painkillers feeling, which I had not felt since the last time I had surgery years before. Forcing my eyes open and gradually adjusting to the muted light, I could see that I was in a hospital room. Hospitals make me nervous and uncomfortable, though right now it sure beat the alternative.

Trying to sit up, I realized that I had an IV running into my arm, bulky bandages placed on my chest, legs, and back, and my left hand was in a cast.

Wincing at the tightness in my scalp, I gingerly reached up and touched my forehead. There was no bandage there, and I counted at least fifty prickly stitches that ran from the crown of my head, right between my eyebrows, across the bridge of my nose, and ended on my cheek. I was thankful that I did not have a mirror. Being naturally curious, and of course fearless on a morphine drip, I lifted up the edge of the big bandage on my chest. They had used staples to close the deeper lacerations there. In my drug-induced stupor, it struck me as funny that the doctors had shaved my chest. That would probably itch bad later.

I did not remember how I had gotten here, or even how long I had been out. My watch could tell me what day it was, but it was missing, as were all my clothes. All I had on was a flimsy gown and a medical supply store’s worth of bandages.

As my senses gradually returned, I started to remember what had happened to put me here. I had to admit that at first I blamed my strange memory on the drugs. Killer werewolf boss? Yep, whatever they gave me, it sure was some good stuff.

You imagined the whole thing, the logical part of my brain told me. You must have been in some sort of accident, and woke up here. There’s no such thing as monsters. Mr. Huffman didn’t turn into a werewolf. You didn’t push him out a window. Those can’t possibly be claw marks. They’re from a car wreck or something. The whole thing is a bad hallucination. Everybody at work will laugh when they hear your crazy story. Huffman is probably there now, complaining that you are out and running up workers’ comp.

Screw you, logical brain. I know what I saw.

There was one way to find out what put me in here. There was a call button attached to the IV. I pushed it and waited, trying not to dwell on the image of Huffman’s face turning into an incisor-filled muzzle. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the door opened. Unfortunately, it was not a nurse.

“Mr. Pitt. I’m Special Agent Myers and this is Special Agent Franks. We’re with the government.” The two men flashed their credentials in my general direction. One agent was a dark, brooding type, obviously muscular and grim of attitude. The speaker was older and looked more like a college professor than a Fed. They were both wearing off-the-rack suits, and neither looked very happy. They pulled up chairs. The professor crossed his legs, steepled his fingers, and scowled at me. The younger one pulled his gun.

“Move and I’ll kill you,” he said, and I did not doubt him for an instant. It was a Glock, and it had a sound suppressor screwed onto its muzzle. I did not know what caliber it was, but from where I was sitting the bore looked freaking huge. The suppressor did not waver. I did not move.

The professor spoke. “Mr. Pitt. Would you care to tell us what happened at your office?”

Speaking was difficult with my bad case of cottonmouth. “Msssph umm suh . . .” I told them. “Wah um fa?” They could probably tell that I was either asking for water or speaking in tongues. The professor hesitated and then obliged, taking a cup off of the dresser and pressing the straw to my lips. The cold wetness was the best thing in the world. The agent called Franks leaned slightly forward so he could still shoot me if necessary. That guy obviously took his job very seriously.

“Ahhh . . .  Thanks,” I croaked.

“You’re welcome. Now tell us what happened before Agent Franks here gets cranky.”

I paused, not really wanting to tell the FBI that my boss had transformed into a monster and tried to eat me, before I managed to snap his neck and shove him out the window. They would lock me up for sure if I said that, so I improvised.

“I fell down the stairs.” Hey, I was on morphine. It was the best I could come up with on short notice.

The professor frowned. “Cut the crap, Pitt. We know what happened. We watched the security tapes already. Five days ago, your supervisor, one Cecil Huffman, transformed into a lycanthrope, a werewolf in this case, and attempted to kill you. You fought him off, and pushed him to his death.”

I was shocked. The FBI agents seemed to not have a problem with the idea that my boss had turned into a werewolf. I was also surprised that I had been out for five straight days. But mostly I was surprised that Mr. Huffman’s first name had been Cecil.

“It was self-defense. I’m the good guy here. Why the gun?”

“You know how people become werewolves, don’t you, Mr. Pitt? That’s one thing that the movies get right. If you’re bitten by one you, too, will be infected. The DNA-altering virus lives in their saliva. If you’re clawed there is a smaller chance that you can be infected, but it’s still possible. If we had found a single clear bite mark on you, we would be disposing of your body right now. Under the Anti-Lycanthrope Act of ’95 we’re supposed to terminate all confirmed were-creatures immediately. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t think he bit me,” I squeaked. But I felt a lump of dread in my gut. He had mauled me pretty badly. Was I going to turn into a werewolf? Or was the FBI just going to shoot me first?

“Silver bullets,” grunted Agent Franks. He kept the Glock centered on my head. I don’t know what kind of Jackie Chan move he was expecting me to pull, but I wasn’t planning on going anywhere. I could barely move. “Just in case.”

“So now what?” I queried.

“We wait. A sample of your blood has been sent for testing. If it comes back positive you will have to be put down. If it comes back negative, you’re free to go. We should be getting a call shortly.”

He said “put down” like I was some sort of dog. This encounter was just strengthening my already strong anti-authoritarian tendencies.

“You’ll just let me go?”

“Yes. Though if you ever speak of this in public you will be in violation of the Unearthly Forces Disclosure Act, and you’ll be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Franks nodded and muttered, “Lead bullets.” His conversation skills seemed rather limited.

Myers’ eyes betrayed an emotion that I thought might have been pity. “Look, Mr. Pitt, this is for your own good. If you’re infected, we’re doing you a favor. Otherwise in three weeks you’ll be eating little old ladies and babies. Hopefully the tests come back negative, and we forget this ever happened.”

“So what now?”

“Just chill for a while,” Agent Franks said.

“Easy for you to say.”

A doctor came in and took my pulse and blood pressure. A nurse changed my IV and checked my bandages. The staff seemed intimidated by the Feds, and left without talking. Flowers were delivered. They were from Hansen Industries, with a card wishing me a speedy recovery. Along with the card there was also a letter on Hansen Industries stationary that informed me that I was fired for violating the Official Workplace Safety Code No Weapons in the Workplace Rule. If I did not want to risk an interruption to my Workers’ Compensation, I had best not protest the firing. Hugs and kisses, Human Resources.

I pushed the button on the motorized bed so I could sit upright. Myers turned on the little TV and we watched Jeopardy. Watching television kept my brain occupied, and more importantly kept me from dwelling on the possibility of ending up dead, or even worse, like Huffman. Myers was pretty good, but I was destroying him. I’m a Trivia King. Franks kept the gun in his lap and sipped a Diet Coke. I tried not to think about the fact that the nice men from the government were here to shoot me in the brain with silver bullets. The feeling of helplessness was horrible. Alex Trebek had all of the answers. I just had questions.

“What is Constantinople? So, Myers, how bad was I injured?”

“You lost a lot of blood and technically died on the operating table for two minutes. No brain activity at all. You have about three hundred stitches and staples in you and some broken bones. If we don’t have to shoot you, you should heal up just fine. But you won’t ever be pretty. What is the Great Wall of China?”

The thought that I had actually been dead was interesting. That was kind of cool. I wondered if I could use that as a pickup line.

“Who is Ghandi? What happened to Mr. Huffman?”

“He landed on a Lincoln Navigator. The desk landed on him. He was pulped. Nobody else got hurt.” He was frustrated. I was tearing him up in the Famous History category. I could tell the professor was used to winning. Ha ha, sucker, eat hot trivia death! “What was the Magna Carta? Huffman didn’t pull back together or anything, did he?”

“Damn, you’re fast. Nope. Lycanthropes can regenerate from just about anything other than silver, but it takes energy to restore tissue. There’s only so much energy stored in one body, so if you inflict enough damage on them, they die.”

“Fire,” grunted Franks.

“Indeed, fire works great. Wait, I know this. What is uranium?” he shouted.

I made a buzzing sound. “Wrong. What is beryllium? Damn, Myers, I thought you had to have an education to be a G-man. You suck.”

The senior FBI man changed the TV channel to CNN and sulked. Well, at least I had the satisfaction that if they were going to kill me, I had defended my honor on the field of useless knowledge. The news was saying something about a huge pipeline explosion in a remote part of Russia apparently caused by Chechen terrorists. I tuned it out and went back to harassing the Feds.

“Does this kind of thing happen all of the time? How did Huffman become a werewolf? Are there many more out there?”

“You ask too many questions,” Franks said.

“My associate is correct, Mr. Pitt. This subject’s on a need-to-know basis. You just need to know to keep your mouth shut.” Fine. I figured I would just go back to sleep. Stupid Feds.

There was a knock on the door. It must have just been a mere courtesy knock because whoever it was immediately barged in. Franks barely had time to hide his Glock under an issue of Martha Stewart Living.

The man was of average height and lean, with short-cropped, sandy blond hair, probably in his mid-forties. With no really remarkable features, he was not a memorable-looking guy, but emanated an old-school toughness when he strutted into the room, an attitude like a Bogart or a Cagney from the golden age of movies. A cigarette hung lazily from the corner of his mouth in clear violation of hospital rules.

Myers grimaced and it looked like Franks gave some serious thought about pointing his gun at somebody else for a change.

“Well, if it ain’t the junior danger rangers. How’s the murdering witnesses business?” the man asked, reaching into the pocket of his leather bomber jacket and pulling out a business card. He stuck the card into the edge of my wrist cast. It stuck there, vibrating slightly.

“Screw you, Harbinger,” Franks said.

“Situation’s under control. No need for you here,” the professor stated in a cold voice.

“I’ll be ice-skating in hell before I believe that you federal weasels have anything under control.”

“You better shut up,” Franks growled.

“Or what?” the man said with calculated belligerence and just a touch of a southern accent. “Gonna arrest me? You might not like it much, but we’re a legitimate business again. If you Feds hadn’t booted us out of Yellowstone, that werewolf wouldn’t have gotten away, that fat guy wouldn’t have gotten bitten, and this guy never would have gotten attacked.”

“National parks are our jurisdiction. Your people can’t legally be armed in them, so you were out of luck. So you just need to calm down,” Myers stated in a manner that suggested he was used to being obeyed.

The new guy sneered. “I need to calm down, Myers? Your bureaucratic nonsense caused this trail of bodies. You could have let us break a couple of stupid laws and you wouldn’t have two dead people and this one.” He jerked a thumb in my general direction.

“The rules are there for a reason. Not obeying the rules is what got you shut down the first time. I think it was a mistake to ever let your kind back into business.”

Needless to say, the atmosphere in the room was very tense. I was pretty much forgotten in my heap of bandages and bedpans. Myers and the interloper were locked in a staring contest. Franks looked ready to escort our guest out, preferably headfirst down the stairs. Anybody who made these guys that uncomfortable was all right by me.

“Umm . . . Not to interrupt this love fest or anything, but who are you?”

Finally Myers must have blinked and ended the stare-off. The stranger looked at me as if he was sizing me up. His eyes were cold, blue, and intimidating. After a long unblinking moment he finally must have decided I passed muster, since he held out his hand to shake mine. Franks removed the Martha Stewart magazine to display his gun, just to remind me not to try anything.

“Name’s Earl Harbinger. I’m with MHI.”

“Owen Pitt. CPA.” His grip was like iron. “MHI? Is that like some top secret government agency or something?” I asked.

Agent Myers snickered. “Not even close.”

Harbinger just scowled at them. “No. If I worked with these idiots I would kill myself. We’re a private organization. We’re a for-profit business, and if I do say so myself, we’re the premier leader in our field. One which I would say that you would probably be pretty good at. You did good back there.”

“Thanks, but I don’t think it’s going to be good enough. These guys tell me that I’m probably going to end up turning into something like my boss.” It was an ugly thing to say, and I could feel a great cold weight in my chest as I said it. “I don’t want to end up like that.”

The stranger shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Recruiting some fresh cannon fodder, Harbinger?” Myers interrupted. “Right now Mr. Pitt is in our custody, and he doesn’t go anywhere until I say so.”

“I’m not recruiting, Myers, but if you’re looking I hear Wal-Mart needs a new door greeter,” he responded. Turning back to me, he continued speaking as if he had never been cut off. “Have you asked yourself why every one of your injuries is bandaged except for that great big slash on your head?”

Subconsciously I reached up and touched the nasty pile of stitches that snaked down my face. All I knew was that it was going to leave a horrible scar.

“It’s uncovered so they could watch it. If you had started to heal unnaturally fast, they would have dropped you dead in a heartbeat. From the amount of damage you sustained, I’m sure they were positive that you were going to make the change. I don’t think anybody has ever been that torn up by a were-creature and lived. I’m also guessing that since you haven’t started to heal yet, they’ve sent out for a blood test to be sure, because they’re probably itching to finish you. But they don’t dare, just in case you’re still human.”

“They said they were waiting for a test.”

“Damn right they are. But let me tell you something. I wrote the book on these monsters. If you haven’t shown any signs after five days, I give you my word that you ain’t infected.”

“Really?” I felt the first real surge of hope since I had woken up in this antiseptic dungeon.

“You’re going to be fine. Look, when these jerkoffs get their test back negative, and you get out of here, give me a call. You have my card. We need to talk. Get some rest.” Strangely enough, I believed the stranger’s promise. He did not strike me as the kind of person to sugarcoat an ugly truth.

Harbinger stalked out, rudely bumping into Agent Myers on the way. The senior agent appeared ruffled but he did not speak until after the door shut and our guest was gone.

“You’d best stay away from that bunch, Pitt, if you know what’s good for you. They’re going to screw up some day and every last one of them is going to end up in prison or dead. They don’t respect governmental authority.”

Well, neither did I. I flipped the agents the bird. “You know what, I’m going back to sleep. I’ve had a crappy day. If your stupid test comes back positive, just shoot me and get it over with. If it comes back negative, get the hell out and leave me alone. Either way you don’t need to wake me.” I pushed the button to lower the bed back into a sleeping position. It wasn’t as dramatic as a good door slam, but it would have to do.

It actually only took me a few minutes to fade out. My body was still wracked with painful injuries and the painkillers still hummed through my system, but I was careful to first safely cradle the business card in my hand.

The Feds went back to watching TV.

I had a strange dream. It was hazy and blurry, jerky and disjointed, violent and quick. Not like a normal dream at all.

There was a battle. I did not know when it took place, but somehow I knew that it had occurred in the past. Details were obscured by billowing clouds of snow. Huge numbers of soldiers defended against a single unnatural being, trying in vain to keep him from his goal, and dying by the score. The only thing that mattered to him had been taken, and he had come to reclaim it. He was the Guardian.

There was an evil thing in the dream, even more sinister than the Guardian. It too was old, cursed and blighted, and seething with rage and hate. It was weakened by failure, and retreated as the Guardian approached. Its final minions fell before the immortal killer as the cursed thing fled into the ruins.

The last soldier waited for the Guardian. He had been the leader of the blood-drenched elite force. He stood defiant in his black uniform, towering over the body of a frail human sacrifice, proudly shouting that his lord would return to finish what they had started. The soldier placed his pistol against his temple and ended his life.

The final moments of the dream had a small bit of clarity to them. I was able to finally see the Guardian. He was a giant of a man. Every inch of his skin had been covered in strange tattoos. The ink lines moved like living things. He looked right at me across space and time. His eyes were solid pools of hate-filled black.

“Thou shalt die by my hand.”

I woke up with a start. What a freaky dream . . . I had no idea what that had been about. Weird shapeless evil things, tattooed killers fighting in the snow, and a bunch of soldiers screaming in German. I blamed it on the drugs.

A cell phone was blaring an annoying downloaded ring tone. I think it was “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” I kept my eyes closed and pretended to be asleep. There was some fumbling and then Agent Myers’ voice. “Myers.” I eavesdropped intently, hoping to get an early clue to my fate. By nature, I’m not a particularly religious man, but I found myself praying that the stranger had been right. Twenty-four was too young to die. I would miss my parents and my brother, and I wished that I had more time to fix my relationship with them. I wished that I hadn’t wasted so much time on the little things. It was too late for that now. My life came down to the contents of a single phone call, and the trigger pull of a Glock.

“Uh-huh. Yep. Uh-huh . . . Okay . . . Sure . . . Bye.”

Well, that end of the conversation sure didn’t help much. I stiffened up and waited for the bullet to blow through my skull and mushroom in my gray matter. For a long moment I wondered if Franks was a good shot. The last thing I wanted was to end up as a vegetable. Would it hurt? I bit my tongue. There would be no begging; better to end it this way than twisted into something inhuman at the next full moon.

The wait seemed to last an eternity. There were a few whispers and a small rustle of movement, but no flash of gunpowder, no crack of muzzle blast. The only constant was the quiet beep-beep of the machine matching my heartbeat. That particular pulse was noticeably faster than it had been a moment before. It was hard to pretend to sleep when electronic devices were so ready to betray you. My lungs ached from holding my breath, and my stomach muscles were clenched painfully tight. Some sick part of me hoped that my exploding head would make a real nasty mess on their cheap suits. Dry-clean that, you jerks.

Finally I heard the agents move. The door opened slowly. I risked a quick peek as the two FBI men walked quietly from the room. Franks looked dejected, deprived of his chance to legally kill somebody, and surprisingly enough Myers appeared to be politely trying to keep the noise down. The door closed and they were gone.

Slow minutes passed as I made sure they weren’t coming back, but all was still. The call had come. The stranger’s promise had been true. I was not infected, was still human, and wasn’t going to die. I laughed until I pulled something in one of the many lacerations in my back and then I cried in pain and then in relief. As I said earlier, I was not normally by nature a pious man, but on that night I sure was. I sobbed and heaved as all of the stress left me spent and wasted.

There were two final things to do before I went back to sleep. I grabbed the bouquet of get-well flowers from Hansen Industries and hurled it across the room. It had been a stupid job anyway. Then I pulled the business card out, brought it up close to my face, and tried to read it with my blurry eyes. I couldn’t focus well enough to read the fine print, but I could read the heading.

*   *   *

Monster Hunter International

Monster Problems? Call the Professionals.

Established 1895

*   *   *

Chapter 3

Physical therapy sucks. Recuperation sucks. And the never-ending itching that comes from under a cast has to possibly be the worst form of torture known to man. The worst, unless you happen to have your parents invade your home in an attempt to comfort you. My folks had flown in when they had been informed of the “incident,” and had immediately set about being a huge nuisance.

Before that, however, my hospital stay had dragged on for another week. Apparently, dying, even if only for a minute or two, could be quite a stressful event. The doctors had been impressed that I was even alive. When I had asked one of them approximately how much blood I had lost, he had responded wryly with “most of it.”

Treatment had consisted of me trying to move around without tearing anything. Gradually my strength returned until I was able to hobble a few feet on my own and even digest some of the hospital food. Detectives from the Dallas PD had come out to interview me. They did not say anything about supernatural monsters or the FBI agents, and believe me, I did not bring them up either. Instead the cops were under the impression that Mr. Huffman had been some sort of deranged serial killer high on PCP and armed with a 14-inch bowie knife. I was sure that my new friends from the federal government had arranged the crime scene to show whatever story they wanted, and it certainly didn’t involve werewolves. The police thanked me for ridding the world of a very bad man, and told me that their investigation showed a clear-cut case of justifiable homicide. There was no indication that I was going to be indicted for anything, and they even arranged to return my .357 once everything was cleared through the prosecutor’s office.

The local papers had run stories about my heroic defense against the crazed serial killer Cecil Huffman. In an amusing note the cover story featured both of our employee pictures. I’m sure that most casual readers would conclude that my picture showed the insane murderer, since I was big, young, muscular, swarthy, generally ugly, and beady-eyed. Mr. Huffman looked more like the victim type, a fat, middle-aged middle manager, with big sad eyes and triple chins. Looks could be deceiving. During my hospital stay I had repeatedly turned away reporters. The last thing I wanted to do was to make up a story, or screw something up and draw the ire of the FBI. I had even turned down a potential guest spot on Oprah. My mom had been royally ticked when she found out about that.

The folks had arrived right before I was discharged. Now, don’t get me wrong. I honestly love my family. They are good people. Crazy, but good.

“Damn, boy, you look like shit,” was the first thing that my father exclaimed when he saw my face.

My father was an upstanding citizen, a decorated war hero and member of the tight-knit Special Forces community, a man who was respected by his peers. At home, however, he was an emotionally distant and stern man who had a hard time relating to his children. When I was younger I had taken this to mean that he did not approve of us or even really like us much. I had dealt with that by trying to follow in his footsteps. My younger brother had dealt with that kind of thing by dropping out of high school and forming a heavy metal band. While I had become a CPA, my brother’s band had landed a record deal and was always surrounded by hot groupies and wild parties. I think I got the shaft in that deal.

Apparently my father was a little ashamed that I had gotten so torn up by a corpulent schmuck, when I myself was young, fit, and—since I had been brought up right—carrying a gun. I imagine that if Huffman had succeeded in eating me, my father would have been more embarrassed that a Pitt had lost a fight than saddened by my actual demise. The last time my father had been obviously ashamed of me was when the Army recruiters had turned me down because of flat feet and a childhood history of asthma attacks. That had been a tough day for him.

He had brought his sons up to follow in his soldiering footsteps. In fact, the idea for my first name came from the Owen submachine gun that he had used to save his life in the backcountry of Cambodia during a war that never officially existed. He thought the name had a nice ring to it, and the actual gun had come in handy for mowing down communist insurgents after he was trapped deep in enemy territory with nothing but an obsolete Australian weapon older than he was. Believe me, as kids, we had heard all of those stories.

“Oh, my baby! My poor, poor baby! How did this happen? You poor thing!” was the first thing from my mom. It continued like that for several minutes in a barrage of hugs, kisses, and dampened tissues. Mom was the emotional one in the family. She also showed her love by cooking, which is why I was always the chubby kid growing up. In my house, if you weren’t eating, obviously you were not loved. Needless to say, the Pitts tended to be big people.

They had taken me back to my apartment, where to my surprise they promptly settled in for a stay. I tried to assure them that I would be fine, and that I would not need any help. Since I could barely walk and was still covered in bandages I don’t think I made a very convincing argument in favor of my independence.

Weeks passed as I gradually healed. My strength was returning, and after a few doctors’ visits, I was running out of staples. I had to admit that I loved my mom’s cooking, and between the lack of exercise, atrophied muscles, and 3,000-calorie meals I was starting to put on some weight. The trade-off came in the constant questioning. “Why no girlfriend? When are you going to get married? When will you find another job? What are you going to do now?” These were always followed by invitations to move back home where I could find another job and meet a nice girl.

Friends came to visit several times. Mom rented lots of movies for me to watch. I caught up on my reading, and checked the want ads for a new job.

Dad mostly played golf.

This whole time the business card that I had received at the hospital lay discarded in a drawer in my bedroom. I had thought about calling the number, but couldn’t bring myself to do so. It was much easier not to think about a world where creatures like Mr. Huffman existed.

The hardest part was not being able to talk to anybody about it.

One night I received a phone call from my brother Mosh. His real name was David, but it had been a long time since anybody other than our parents had called him that. Since I was the only one in the family that he ever spoke with, and that was only on rare occasions, he had not known about the Incident until then. He had called as soon as he had found out. We spoke for a while, him wanting the blow by blow, and me giving him the FBI-approved version. Of everyone that I had spoken with, he was the one I was the most tempted to tell the truth to, but I really didn’t want the government to kill me, so I refrained.

I had asked how he was doing. His band, Cabbage Point Killing Machine, was doing well and they were going to release their next album, Hold the Pig Steady, in the next month. I made him promise to send me a copy, and VIP passes for when his tour hit Dallas. He told me he would, as long as I managed to not get murdered before then. I gave him my word that I would try.

The night before my parents were scheduled to fly out, my father took me aside for a conversation. He waited until Mom was occupied in the kitchen cooking another four-course meal, then motioned me into the living room.

“Owen, we need to talk.”

“Sure, Dad. What’s up?” It was not very often that my father wanted to speak with me. He usually just spoke at me, but tonight he seemed rather agitated.

“Look, son, let me just come right out and say it. I know you aren’t telling us everything.”

“Huh?” This was a surprise. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve seen your injuries. I’ve seen knife wounds, hell, I’ve given knife wounds. Those aren’t knife wounds.”

He had me there. I didn’t know what to say so I just nodded.

“Plus, I know what you did to put yourself through school, and I know that you never told us because you didn’t want your mother to worry.”

That made me jump. I had had no idea that he knew.

“What do you mean, Dad? I worked in a warehouse.”

“Sure you did, for a while, except after that you bounced in a biker bar, and you used to compete in underground fights for money.”

“How did you know?”

“Remember crazy Charlie from my office? He had a gambling problem. Old guy would bet on anything. He caught one of your performances one night. Called me the next morning to tell me how he had seen my boy kick the living hell out of some tough customers. So I did a little checking is all . . . Did it pay good?”

Early on in life, I had discovered that I had a remarkable gift for violence, which had been encouraged and cultivated by my father. That, coupled with my physical ability to soak up a beating, had enabled me to make some pretty decent money on more than a few occasions. It didn’t have the perks of accounting, but I do have to admit that punching people in the face had its own certain charms.

“Twenty percent of the house if you win. Five if you lose. Very illegal. I did the bar gig for a while. I was the cooler; they actually just let me hang out in the back and do homework until they had a problem.” I neglected to mention that we had had problems on an hourly basis and it was the kind of bar where the local paramedics had our address memorized. “I only did that kind of thing long enough to pay for school.” That was a shameful lie, but I could never tell my father the truth about why I had quit. “How come you never said anything?” I asked after a time.

He looked a little sheepish for a minute. Confused by emotion, he quickly turned up the gruffness. “Not my business, you were an adult.”

I believe that was the closest he had ever come to giving me a compliment.

“But anyway, what I’m getting at is I’m guessing you’ve got experience handling guys with knives.” He had no idea. My body had a lot more scars than just the new ones. “I want to know how that asshole managed to wipe the floor with you, break walls, smash furniture, get shot ten times, and still manage to rip you open?”

“Drugs, I guess,” was the only response I could think of.

He continued, “I’ve seen wounds like that before. I saw a guy who’d been mauled by a tiger once. Looked like what happened to you. He got raked up and down, dragged around. The cat toyed with him for a while. Unlike you, he had the muscles on his back eaten right off, right down to the bone like we would eat a fried chicken, and that was ’fore he got flipped over and cracked open so it could eat the sweet spots out from his guts.” I remembered that story, if I recalled correctly. Dad had shared the long, gory version as a bedtime story when I was about six.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Dad.”

He looked me hard in the eyes. He was still a remarkably intimidating man, physically and emotionally. “Look, I know there’s some weird stuff out there. I’ve heard stories from people I trust. I’ve seen a few things myself back in the day that no rational man can explain.” He shook his head vacantly as if he was trying to forget something. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I know you didn’t just tangle with a normal man. If you want to tell me the whole story, I’ll listen.”

I didn’t reply.

He scowled, eventually tired of waiting, and left the room without saying another word, no doubt ashamed of me once again.

They flew out the next day.

I cursed and swore as I hobbled through my apartment, crutch banging randomly into objects as I tried to make my way to the entrance. The doorbell rang again, and this time they held it down, and wouldn’t let up. It was a very shrill doorbell.

“Just a minute!” I bellowed as I stumbled around the couch. My leg was getting much better. That had been by far the worst wound, and it was still the most tender, especially when I tried to walk on it. The rest of my injuries were healing nicely, and even my hand cast had finally come off. I promised myself on my long journey across the living room that if the person ringing my doorbell was with the media, I was going to shove my crutch through the reporter’s chest cavity and leave the corpse propped up in the hallway as a warning to the others.

Peering through the peephole, all I could see was darkness. The hallway light had burned out again. “Who is it?” I yelled through the door, ready to give the crutch treatment if they said anything about a newspaper or television station. The media were apparently drawn to my story like flies to garbage, probably due to the made-for-TV movie feel of the whole thing. Serial killer thrown from a high building? Sounds like a winner to me.

“Earl Harbinger,” came the muffled reply. “We met at the hospital.”

I had almost managed to forget about that business card. Almost.

“What do you want?” I shouted.

“I need help with my taxes, what do you think I want?”

I debated opening the door. On one hand I could go back to my normal life, find a job, pretend that the biggest dangers in the world were good old-fashioned bad people, and sleep well at night. On the other hand I could get some answers.

Curiosity won out in the end. I unlocked the two deadbolts and opened the door.

Harbinger had brought a friend.

She was beautiful. In fact she was possibly the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was tall, with dark black hair, light skin, and big brown eyes. Her face was beautiful, not fake beautiful like a model or an actress, because she was obviously a real person, but rather Helen of Troy, launch-a-thousand-ships kind of good-looking. She wore glasses, and I was a sucker for a girl in corrective eyewear. Since I was ugly it was probably some sort of subconscious reaction in the hope that I might have a chance with a cute girl who couldn’t see very well. She was dressed in a conservative business suit, but unlike most women I knew, she made it look good. If I were to guess I would have said that she was in her mid-twenties.

“Mr. Pitt?” she asked. Even her voice was pretty. She was a goddess.

I tried to answer, but no words would come out. Talk, idiot! “Um . . . Hi.” Smooth . . . So far so good, keep going, big guy.

“You can, um . . . my name is . . . Owen. My friends call me Z. Because of my middle name. It starts with a Z. Or whatever works for you. Come in. Please!” Well, so much for smooth.

She smiled and held out her hand. “Julie Shackleford, pleased to meet you.” Her grip was strong, with surprisingly callused working hands. Her handshake sent the message that she was no wimp. Had I found the perfect woman?

Her eyes widened when she saw my face. The scar. It was healing nicely, but I knew that it was still grisly. Once the swelling went down I was left with a massive red strip that evenly halved my forehead, split the bridge of my many-times-broken nose and ended up on my cheek. It was brutal.

She looked away. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to stare.” She had a small hint of a Southern accent.

“It’s no big deal. Just a scratch. Think of it as Harry Potter on steroids,” I said, trying to make her feel comfortable. “Come in, grab a seat. You need anything to drink?”

“No thank you,” Julie said. Julie . . . Such a pretty name.

“I’ll take a beer,” Harbinger growled.

“Sorry, no beer,” almost adding that I didn’t drink, but not wanting to look like a wuss. The truth was after spending so much time working around drunks, I never touched the stuff.

Harbinger just grunted in disappointment. They both sat down on my thrift-store couch. It took me a minute to get my crutch repositioned so that I could move gingerly to a chair. It’s hard to impress a pretty girl when you’re a big clumsy oaf balancing on a stupid padded aluminum stick. I flopped down and dropped the crutch.

“Feeling better?” Harbinger asked.

“Much. Doctors say I’m healing fast. I got my cast off, and I can start doing upper-body exercise again as long as I’m really careful not to push too hard.”

“You lift?”

“A little bit,” I answered. In truth, before the Incident, I had been pushing just over a 400-pound bench press. I didn’t look it, but that was the disadvantage of being both tall and stocky. Because of the injuries on my chest and the amount of time off, I knew that it was going to take a while to get up to that weight again.

“Careful you don’t hurt yourself. You got banged up good. In fact I’ve never seen anybody take on a werewolf like that and live. Not without some good silver weapons at least, but tangling hand to hand, that’s crazy. You were lucky.” He talked about werewolves like it was a common and everyday item of no special interest. Like a normal person would refer to a vacuum cleaner or a toaster.

“Mr. Pitt . . . Sorry . . . Owen,” Julie started, “what we’re about to say may sound a little weird, but after your recent experience you of all people will understand that we’re not crazy. Earl and I represent a company called Monster Hunter International.”

“Okay. I’m listening.” Julie could tell me that she was from the moons of Jupiter and I would give her my full attention. Less weird than that? Piece of cake.

“MHI is a private organization, and we handle monster-related problems. I guess you could say that we are in fact Monster Hunters.”

“Sounds reasonable.” I smiled. It didn’t sound reasonable at all. It sounded wacky as all get out, but if I told a shrink about my Huffman experience I would be in a padded cell inside of fifteen minutes. So I listened.

“As you now are aware, monsters are very real. They’re out there, and are a serious threat to the world. Our company specializes in neutralizing monster threats,” she said.

“Good money in that?” I asked jokingly.

Harbinger reached inside his jacket, pulled out a plain envelope and tossed it to me. I caught it.

“What’s this?”

“There’s a federal bounty paid on undesirable unnaturals. It’s called the PUFF,” Harbinger stated.

“Puff?”

“Perpetual Unearthly Forces Fund,” Julie answered. “Teddy Roosevelt started it when he was president. PUFF is a tool for controlling monster populations. It’s a big source of income for MHI. We make the rest in contracts set up with various municipalities, organizations, and private individuals with monster problems.”

“Go ahead and open it,” Harbinger suggested. “The Feds weren’t going to tell you about it, but you killed a newly blooded adult werewolf by yourself. That makes you the sole recipient of any bounty for that particular creature. I took the liberty of doing the paperwork for you. I didn’t think you would mind.”

Inside the envelope was an ordinary-looking check. Sure enough, it was from the Department of the Treasury, with PUFF stamped in green ink under their insignia. It was made out to one Owen Zastava Pitt in the amount of $50,000.

I think that the noise I made could best be described as a squeak, only less manly. This could not be real. My job, which I had been fired from so recently, had paid less than that in a year. “You have got to be freaking kidding me!” Fixing Julie with an incredulous look, I did my best to raise a single eyebrow.

“Nope,” Julie laughed. She had a beautiful-sounding laugh. “That check is totally legit. The bounties change depending on the severity of the monster populations and the number of human casualties. In this case lycanthrope attacks are at an all-time high, and this particular specimen had already taken a few victims the night before. Now if he had been older, or had eaten more people, then you would be looking at a bigger bounty.”

“So you’re telling me that the government gives people money for killing werewolves?” I was prepared to take her word for it, but I was definitely going to limp down to the bank and try to deposit this thing as soon as they left.

“Yes, and other types of unnaturals.”

“Others? So what else is out there?”

She shrugged. “Lots of things, but I don’t want to get too far off of the subject. If you don’t agree to our offer then anything I tell you can never be shared with the general public, or the government will arrange for you to have a chainsaw accident or something equally bad, and I’m not kidding about that one bit. They have a strict policy of keeping all of this secret. So before I tell you what else is out there, let me ask you if—”

I cut her off. “Zombies? Are there really zombies?”

“Owen, please, I need to . . .”

“Yes, there are zombies. A whole bunch of different kinds. Slow ones, fast ones. Nasty bastards,” Harbinger said.

“Vampires?”

“Oh yeah. And let me tell you, they ain’t the nice, charming, debonair kind of thing you see on TV, those suckers are meaner than hell. Trust me on this one; pop culture makes them all intellectual and sexy, there ain’t nothing sexy about getting your carotid artery ripped out. There’re actually a mess of different kinds of undead.”

Julie sighed as she gave up on her pitch. I was going to find out what exactly was real, and Harbinger was more than willing to talk. He seemed to be enjoying himself, and also getting a kick out of Julie’s discomfort.

“Bigfoot, the Yeti?”

“Yep, but no bounties because they ain’t really a problem.”

“Chupacabras?”

“Goat suckers. They’ll tear you up.”

“Giant mutant animals?”

“Sure, but the Japanese have cornered that market.”

“Sea monsters?”

“Yes, but only bounties on the evil kind.”

“Wow, no kidding? Space aliens?”

“No intelligent little green men, if that’s what you’re thinking of. If those are out there we haven’t ever dealt with them.”

“Ghosts?”

“We have a strict policy: we only hunt things that have physical bodies. No physical body, no contract, and no way to collect a bounty either. We stick with things that are flesh and blood, or at least bone, exoskeleton, or slime.”

We continued on like that for a few minutes, with me thinking of every creature from every horror movie I had ever seen, and Harbinger letting me know if it was real or not. Every answer he gave was in total seriousness. If he was making any of this crazy monster stuff up, I sure would hate to play a game of poker against him.

Finally, after asking about the creature from the black lagoon and finding out that that was actually based on a true story, Julie had had enough and jumped in. She elbowed Harbinger in the ribs. “Sorry guys, back to business. Owen, we’re looking for new Hunters. Because of the nature of what we do, we can’t exactly advertise. Usually we meet people through our business who have monster experience, and who have handled themselves well.”

“I did okay, I guess.”

Julie laughed again. Harbinger smirked. She pulled a DVD case out of her purse. “Do you mind?” I shook my head and she stood up and put the disk in the player and turned on my TV. “I don’t think you’ve seen this. As far as your former company is concerned, and as far as the Dallas PD knows, this doesn’t exist.”

“Put it on channel three. There you go.”

It was a black-and-white security video of the fourteenth floor of my former office building. The screen was split into four squares, each with a different view. It was surprising where some of the cameras were pointing, as I had never been aware of any cameras in those locations. There was even one that had a good view of Huffman’s office.

“They have hidden cameras all over the place. I guess you folks have a big problem with employee theft,” Harbinger stated. I knew I should never have taken those Post-It notes home.

The video started. The digital readout showed the time as 8:05. I thought that I looked silly, as most people do when they watch video of themselves. There was no sound, but it unfolded pretty much exactly as I remembered it. Only this time I was surprised by how fast everything happened. The transformation that had seemed to take forever actually happened rather quickly when seen from a strange angle in clinical detachment. The entire battle had been over in a matter of minutes, yet for me time had dilated down so that each fraction of a second had been an eternity. The creature was not nearly as intimidating on the screen as he had been when his hot breath was straining at my face. The third camera winked into static as my body was put through the ceiling tiles. We combatants would disappear from the cameras for a moment, only to reappear jerkily in another frame a few seconds later. In black and white, I was surprised how plain all of our blood appeared on the walls. Finally I watched as I snapped the werewolf’s neck and pushed the desk out the window.

I realized I was breathing hard.

Julie quietly shut the TV off and carefully placed the DVD back in its case.

“You just did okay, huh? Looks to me like you put up an amazing fight. You could have given up a bunch of times. You would be surprised. Most people faced with something out of their nightmares will just freeze up. Their brains can’t begin to process what they’re seeing, and by then it’s too late, and next thing you know something from the great beyond is flossing with their spine. Hunters don’t freeze. Hunters fight.”

“Listen, I’m just a normal guy. I’m an accountant even. It doesn’t get any more normal than that!” I exclaimed in defense of my average life.

Julie pulled a manila file folder out of her purse.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Your secret file from the Department of Homeland Security.”

“If the government didn’t want it stolen, they shouldn’t just leave it out where any master hacker can break in and get it,” Harbinger explained patiently.

“Owen Zastava Pitt, age 24. Born in Merced, California . . . Zastava?” Julie asked.

“My mom’s family is mostly mixed Czech and Serb. It’s an old family name. Like the place that made those little cars,” I answered.

“Little cars?” she asked.

“You know, the Yugo.”

“Oh.” She continued, “Black belt in two martial arts. You wrestled in high school and took the state championship heavyweight division two years in a row. Homeland Security has you flagged because you’re considered a militant right-wing gun nut. You became involved in competitive shooting at eight years old, and have a master rating in International Practical Shooting. You’ve placed in the top five in several different national-level three-gun tactical competitions. You were ranked as one of the top young shooters in the country, though you’ve slipped over the last few years.”

“Working too many hours, hard to keep up the practice routine.” My father had been more drill instructor than dad, trying to prepare us for some kind of future apocalypse that existed in his paranoid imagination. I could hit targets at a quarter mile with a rifle before I could ride a bike. When normal kids went to summer camp and made crafts out of beads and twigs, my brother and I had gone on miniature death marches with giant rucksacks. Other children got sports, I got hand-to-hand combat training. I suppose showing up in a government database shouldn’t have been too shocking.

“You tried to join the Army but were turned down due to some minor health problems. DHS also notes that you’ve participated in illegal pit fighting and in illegal sports gambling organizations.”

I cringed, it not being something I was real proud of now.

“It says here that you earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in six years total, top of your class, passed the CPA exam the first time. National Honor Society,” Julie continued.

After coming within a couple heartbeats of ending another fighter’s life, I had devoted myself to being as boring as possible, no more pushing the limits, nothing but normal. And what was more normal than an accountant?

“You speak five languages fluently, mostly because of your extremely varied family background, and know enough to get by in several others. Your psychological profile says that you’re a pathological overachiever with severe overcompensating tendencies as a result of your relationship with your father, and the fact that you were always the picked-on fat kid while growing up.”

“Does it actually say ‘fat kid’?” I asked in total bewilderment.

“Actually it says it in some sort of psychological mumbo-jumbo about body image and self-esteem, but I’m just paraphrasing.”

“I wasn’t fat. I was big-boned.” I leaned back in my chair and rubbed my temples. I was amazed that all of this was from some government database. Chalk up a few more points for my antiauthoritarian side.

“Look, Owen, you’re not a normal person; none of us are normal, either. MHI is a family business, my family. My great-great-granddad founded the company, five generations of Hunters. You haven’t seen weird until you’ve met my family, so don’t feel bad.” Julie patted my knee. She touched me! I perked right up.

“We’re not looking for normal people. Normal people scream and run and get eaten. You have to be a little different to do the kind of stuff that we do. I mean, heck, looking at your shooting scores, I’ve been shooting pistols since I was a little kid, and your classifications blow mine away. Your National Match rifle scores are equal to mine, and I’m the team sharpshooter.”

As Julie said this I realized that I had in fact met the woman of my dreams. Attractive, smart, and a shooter? Wow.

“I don’t know. I don’t have any experience with this kind of thing. Aren’t you better off with soldiers or Marines or Navy SEALs and stuff like that? My gosh, I’m an office dweeb.”

Harbinger answered this time. “We have all of those, and we also have former truck drivers, school teachers, farmers, doctors, a priest and a stripper, and pretty much anything else you can think of. It comes down to finding people who don’t have a problem coping with weirdness. The best Hunters are people whose minds are . . . flexible.”

“Well . . . the pay seems good,” I said as I held up the check.

“Keep in mind that was for you on a solo bounty. When you work with a team you share bounties with the team, and the company. However, people who try monster hunting as individuals usually get real dead, real quick. Working with backup is the only way to stay alive. But with the amount of business that we do, the pay’s good,” Harbinger said.

“How good?”

Harbinger shrugged. “We have a real problem with our experienced people retiring and buying small countries.”

“I’m guessing it’s dangerous?”

Julie shrugged. “I won’t lie to you. It’s super dangerous. Our job is to go head to head with the forces of evil. We lose a lot of people, but with well trained groups that work together as a team, we do better than any other group of Hunters, and that includes the Feds.”

I sat silently in thought. My visitors didn’t say anything for a moment. Finally Julie tried one last thing.

“Look, I’m going to tell you the truth. We have the most insane job in the world, many of us die young, and sometimes in really horrible ways. But this is the best job there is. It’s never boring, and you get to do something really worthwhile. We’re the pros, the go-to people when all hell’s broken loose. When the situation is totally hosed, we’re the ones they call. We do the job that nobody else can do, and we do it good.” She said this with deep and sincere emotion. Julie obviously had a passion for her work.

I absently rubbed my facial scar. A random thought popped into my mind and I instantly muttered it under my breath.

“What was that?” asked Julie.

“A calling. Is hard, but is good.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know, just something an old man said to me once. Short straw.” I thought about the strange dream that I had had in the hospital. Had it happened while I was technically dead?

“Huh?”

“Never mind.” I had to admit, I was interested in what they had been telling me, and I was a real chump when it came to a pretty girl, especially one who was smart, and into guns, to boot.

This was crazy. I had spent the last few years trying to be average just for once, until my boss had tried to have me for dinner and life had pulled the rug out from under me. The smart thing to do would be to push this whole incident to the back of my mind, and forget it ever happened.

But I did need a job, and Owen Z. Pitt, Monster Hunter, had a certain ring to it.

Ah, what the hell.

“Tell you what, Mr. Harbinger, Ms. Shackleford. I’m going to go down to the bank and try to deposit this check. If it’s real, and I don’t get arrested for trying to pass a make-believe check, I’m going to believe everything that you said. I’m in, on two conditions.”

They waited for my terms. I paused as I screwed up my courage.

“If at any time I think this job is totally insane, I’m out of there. No questions, no ifs, ands, or buts. Don’t think I’m kidding either. I’ve been shafted already, and I’m not going to do that again. You screw with me in any way, shape, or form and you can color me gone.”

“We wouldn’t have it any other way,” Julie said. “And what else?”

“You, uh . . . need to have dinner with me tonight,” I stammered, surprising myself with my own courage. There you go, Casanova. I had no idea why I had said that, it had just kind of popped out.

Julie looked momentarily taken aback. I could not tell from her reaction if she was flattered or insulted by my lame attempt to ask her out. Earl rolled his eyes.

“I guess you ain’t talking about me,” he said.

“No, I . . . uh . . . well, I just thought, you know . . .” It wasn’t exactly poetry.

She did not respond immediately. I think I took her by surprise. I knew that surprise was good in war, but it wasn’t necessarily what I was going for here. I have never been very good with women. Actually, that’s an understatement. I turn into a bumbling incompetent oaf around them.

“Was that a lame attempt to ask me out?” she queried. “It’s usually considered bad form to do that in what is basically a job interview.”

“Well, I just wanted to . . . maybe ask some questions. About, you know—”

Earl cut me off. “There’s some more business that I need to conduct anyway. I’ve got to go. Julie can fill you in on the rest of the details.” He stood up. “You kids have fun.”

“Earl, wait a second, what about . . .” Julie started to stand. My heart lurched. Had I offended her?

“Julie, you know what I’m talking about. You know what tonight is. Stick around. Fill Owen in on the details of our operation.” He adjusted his bomber jacket.

She slowly slid back down the couch. Way to go, Earl! I thought happily. Harbinger made as if to leave. I tried to grab my crutch so I could stand to see him out.

“Not necessary,” he said as he shook my hand. “I look forward to working with you.”

“Me too,” I responded before wincing at the amazing strength in the man’s fingers as he easily crushed my much larger hand. He was far stronger than he appeared. I tried not to visibly show how much pain he was inflicting. He bent down and spoke low enough in my ear that Julie couldn’t hear.

“That took guts, but be a gentleman with her, or I’ll be displeased,” he whispered. I had no doubt that his displeasure would somehow involve me becoming seriously injured.

I nodded. He let go, grinned evilly and patted me on the back, before swiftly leaving.

Julie Shackleford sat on my bargain basement furniture in my rundown apartment in a bad part of town and examined me quizzically. I had no idea what she was thinking. It was an awkward moment.

Finally she broke the silence.

“Want to order pizza?”

“So you know all about me because of that file,” I said after swallowing a blob of cheese and pineapple. Delivery had been relatively swift, the pizza was good, and surprisingly enough Julie seemed to be enjoying our conversation. After the first few awkward minutes she had warmed up to my attempt at flirting, and was at least tolerating me. Her smile was contagious, and I felt better than I had in weeks. The sun was starting to set, and long orange shadows were cast through my barred apartment windows.

“Scary, isn’t it? How much they keep track of people,” she said, trying to be polite and not talk with her mouth full, and failing miserably. “You should see what mine says. If you read it you would probably be scared to be around me. They think I’m totally nuts.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” I replied, going for another slice, trying not to lean forward on my bad leg too much. “You don’t seem nuts to me, except for the whole good versus evil zombie werewolf thing at least.”

She noticed my predicament and helpfully shoved the box closer on my little coffee table. My furniture was sparse and mostly cheap junk, but at least the place was clean, even if it was only because my mom had visited recently.

“They think everybody in this line of work is certifiable. They even think that about their own guys that Hunt.”

“Like the two that visited me in the hospital?” I asked.

“Myers and Franks? Myers isn’t so bad. Believe it or not, he worked for us before the government recruited him, but that was a long time ago. He had a bit of a falling out. Franks on the other hand is a jerk. I’m surprised he didn’t kill you just to be on the safe side. We have to deal with the Feds once in a while. They watch us like hawks. They’re actually in a special unit in the Justice Department, the Monster Control Bureau, that deals with problems like you.”

“Problems like me, gee, thanks. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about those guys.” I really did not. I wanted to talk about her. “Like I was saying, you’ve seen my file, so you have the advantage. Tell me about you.”

“Well, first off, I’m in a relationship if that’s what you want to know,” she replied mischievously. “I’m just here as a professional courtesy.”

Ouch.

“Really, I wasn’t trying to say anything like that,” I responded quickly.

“Owen, you may be a great accountant, and one heck of a shooter, but you’re a horrible liar.”

She leaned back on the couch and put her feet up on the coffee table next to the pizza box. I noticed that she was wearing heavy-duty boots that did not really match her conservative suit. As she made herself comfortable and her jacket fell open revealing her fitted shirt, I realized two things: a) She had a great body, and b) she was carrying a gun in a leather pancake holster on her right hip.

Not able to comment on a) in a polite manner, I instead remarked on b).

“What are you carrying?”

“This?” She reached around, drew the gun, dropped the magazine, racked the slide and expertly caught the ejected round in her off hand. She then passed it over to me with the action open while she rattled off the stats only another gun nut would appreciate. “Commander-sized 1911, Baer slide and frame, match barrel. Heinie night sights. Thin Alumagrips. Bobtail conversion to the frame. All Greider tool steel parts. Trigger and action job. It’s a good shooter. I’ve carried this one for a year now.”

I examined her gun. It was a gorgeous piece of work. The slide was so smooth it felt like it was on rollers. It was obviously used hard, but well cared for.

“Mind if I try the trigger? I’m a 1911 guy myself.”

“Go for it,” she said with a grin. She was proud of her gun.

The break was clean and light with no detectable creep. It was a very good trigger job.

“Who did the work?” I asked. It was obviously a high-quality custom build. Being a serious competitor on a limited budget I did my own gunsmithing. My stuff tended to be ugly but functional. This specimen was obviously functional but it was so well fitted that it was almost a work of art.

“I did most of it myself,” Julie said with obvious pride.

“Will you marry me?” I blurted.

She laughed, and it was such a pretty laugh. I reluctantly handed her gun back. She reinserted the magazine, chambered a round, and then took the mag out to top it off with the extracted round she still had in her hand. She paused for a second and then tossed it to me. Reflexively I snatched it out of the air.

Examining the cartridge, I noticed it was a strange design. The case was normal brass, but the bullet itself was different. It was shaped like an ordinary .45 bullet, except that it appeared to be a standard jacketed hollowpoint, with a shiny metallic ball filling the cavity. The two pieces appeared to be sealed together into a solid projectile.

“What’s this?”

“Contrary to the Lone Ranger, silver bullets really suck compared to good old-fashioned lead. Silver’s too hard, and it doesn’t fully engage the rifling. It’s lighter than lead, so you get really lightweight projectiles with lousy accuracy. It’s pretty useless except for one thing: it’s the only thing that will kill some of the stuff we face.”

“Why is that, anyway?” I asked.

“Nobody knows for sure, but we have some theories. Most popular is it is a violent reaction of evil creatures to the thirty pieces of silver that Judas was paid. The Vatican’s Hunter team says that it is because silver is a pure metal that represents goodness, while lead is a base metal of the earth. You get other weird ideas from Wiccans and mystics, but even science is stumped why silver works so much better on bona fide evil creatures. All we know is that it does. Lycanthropes can’t regenerate, and even vampires feel pain from silver.”

“Looks like a Corbon Pow’r Ball.” That was a type of regular defensive ammunition that I had used a few times before. It used a ball stuck in a hollow cavity designed to squish back to force expansion of the bullet on impact, thereby increasing the severity of the wound.

“Good call. That’s who we stole the idea from. The ball in front is pure silver. It penetrates well, and as the silver is forced back it expands the traditional lead slug around it. Usually the silver fragments off after a few inches and leaves a separate wound cavity. Best of both worlds. Still works like a regular bullet, shoots like a regular bullet, but enough silver to do a number on evil. We have them made for us specifically. They cost a fortune, so we only make them in .45 for pistols and subguns, and .308 for rifles. When we need lots of silver up close and fast, we use a modified silver double-aught buckshot.”

“Now you’re talking my language.” I held up the bullet. “So I guess that’s what the Feds were going to shoot me with if I had been infected.”

“Nope, they use a sintered metal. Silver powder encased in a polymer matrix. Neat stuff, but the company that makes it only sells to the government.” She caught the bullet when I tossed it back. She loaded it back in the magazine, inserted that back into her 1911 and reholstered without looking.

“You really know your stuff.”

“Thanks. I love my job . . . I really shouldn’t have another piece, but this stuff is great,” she said as she went for another slice of pizza. “I think you’ll fit right in at MHI. It really is a great thing that we do, and we’re a good company to work for.”

“So about this ‘relationship’?” I used my fingers to make quotation marks. Julie rolled her eyes at me behind her glasses.

“You don’t quit, do you?”

“Isn’t that why you guys want to hire me?”

“Tenacity good. Stalking bad.”

“Okay, agreed, stalking bad. Especially when the stalkee is packing heat. So are you and Earl an item?”

Julie snorted and started to choke on her pizza. I couldn’t tell if she was trying to laugh or not die. So I didn’t know if I should be in on the joke, or try to perform the Heimlich maneuver.

“Earl? You’ve got to be kidding me. No. Oh no. Hell no. We’re related. This is a family business. Why would you even think that? Earl’s much older than me.”

“He doesn’t look that old.”

“Let’s just say that the man has aged well. Earl has been like a dad to me. He pretty much raised me and my brothers.” There was an audible trace of her Southern accent when she said that.

“Why?”

She thought about it for a moment, as if debating whether she should tell me or not, finally she shook her head in the negative.

“Never mind. It doesn’t matter.” It was obvious it did matter, but it was a sensitive topic and none of my business. On that subject she seemed to be wound tight as a spring. “Just know that Earl is probably the greatest Hunter alive. If he tells you something, listen.”

“So is your boyfriend a Hunter too?”

“Yes he is, and if you ask me any more personal questions, I’m going to beat you to death with your own crutch.” She was only half joking, and in my current physical condition, she could probably do it without elevating her heartbeat.

We finished the pizza as the afternoon slowly turned into evening. Julie gradually filled in the gaps in my knowledge about her company, though she was tight-lipped and uncomfortable talking about herself. I did learn more about this interesting woman as she talked about her work, because it was so obviously a big part of her. Julie had worked in this field since she was a child, and seemed to know it very well. As the daylight fled, she started to glance nervously toward the window. I did not ask why.

She was a veritable encyclopedia of monster-related knowledge, and she even let slip the fact that she had earned a degree in ancient history and a master’s in archeology because it pertained so much to her life’s work.

When I had asked why those particular fields, she explained that the battle did not start recently, and she left it at that. The open window kept drawing her attention. It was dark outside. Finally I could not help but ask, “So why are you so distracted? What’re you looking for?”

Julie sighed, and brushed back her long dark hair, looking relieved. She yawned, stretched, and stood, adjusted her jacket and prepared to leave. She patted her gun to make sure it was properly holstered. “I’ve got to be going.”

“Why?” I asked, puzzled by the sudden change.

“You don’t realize what tonight is, do you?” she asked.

“Thursday?” I answered helpfully as I grabbed my crutch and pulled myself out of my chair.

“I wonder if we stole the right file, because for a genius you’re not real fast on the uptake.”

I shrugged. I had no idea. She grabbed my arm and helped me stand up. Julie looked me in the eye, and I could see my reflection in her thick glasses. Her brown eyes were beautiful.

“It’s been one month since you were attacked. The test came back negative, but they’re not always right.”

She guided me as I hobbled over to the window. The full moon hung low and bright above the Dallas skyline. I realized now why she had stayed. Other than my still-sore leg and healing muscles, I felt fine. I wasn’t spouting any hair, at least not any more than my normal prodigious amount.

“So it was a test?”

“Nothing personal. We just had to make sure.”

“Oh.” I could not think of anything to say. She had been prepared to kill me all along.

We silently watched the sky. I realized that she was still holding my arm, standing close, and I could feel the warm, soft pressure of her body against mine. There together, in the light of the moon, just the slight tenseness of her hands on the muscles of my arm, I could feel her breath on my ear. It was a good moment. I wished that it could last forever. Unfortunately she was only holding me to help keep my pathetic crippled ass from falling down.

Once she was sure that I was stable on my crutch she let go. She reached into her purse, produced a card and handed it over. The card had a set of directions, a very basic map, and a picture of a green happy face with horns.

“We’re putting together a training class. It’s going to be brutally hard, because we only hire the best. Once you have had a chance to think about it, if you’re still interested, be at the location on that card in three weeks.” I put the card in my pocket.

“I’ll be there,” I promised.

“Good. Welcome to MHI.” She shook my hand in a professional manner.

“Thanks.”

“I’ll let myself out,” Julie said. She started to walk away, leaving me to watch the moon.

Julie Shackleford made it a few steps, and then surprised me by turning around and coming back. I felt her full lips brush softly against my cheek in a brief kiss. Luckily the crutch was well grounded or I might have fallen headfirst out the window in shock.

“You’re a sweet guy, Owen. Thanks for the nice dinner. See you in a few weeks.” Then she glided away.

At least I waited for the confirmation of my front door closing before grinning like an idiot. It had been a good day after all. I had gotten some of my questions answered. I had found a new job, one that at least sounded interesting, even if it was a bit of a career change on the insane side. I had, in theory at least, a check for $50,000 in my pocket. And best of all, a pretty girl had kissed me on the cheek. Yes, it had been a great day indeed.

I pulled the card and examined it. I was going to Alabama.

Chapter 4

The next three weeks had passed quickly. The PUFF check had, surprisingly enough, cleared. And with a bloated bank account, I had packed my bags, sold or given away most of my stuff, broken the lease on my apartment, and driven to the middle of nowhere, following the directions that Julie Shackleford had left me.

Everything that I still owned was stuffed into the backseat and trunk of my rust-brown Chevy Caprice. All I had was a couple duffel bags with clothing, my laptop, a few other supplies, and about a dozen guns. There was no way I was parting with those. It was a good thing that a Caprice’s trunk is big enough to suit a Mafia don.

Julie’s directions had been printed on a 3x5 card. Her parting instructions had been for me to meet at the location listed at a certain time and date. She had told me that food and lodging would be provided, but she had not given me any other details.

I had driven straight through from Dallas to Alabama, thoughts of the absurdity of what I was doing nagging at me the entire time. welcome to the heart of dixie, the sign on the border had proclaimed. I stopped once in Montgomery to pick up a better map. According to the card’s directions the place I was driving to was nothing but an almost blank green spot on the map with only one road and one small dot for a town. Cazador, Alabama.

It took another two hours from Montgomery to arrive in Cazador, but a good half of that was spent driving lost through the forest. The trees were dense and the underbrush was thick and still over the iron-red soil. The country around Cazador consisted of beautiful rolling hills interspersed with many streams and creeks.

The town itself was really more of a village. There were a few small stores, a Baptist church directly across from a Church of Christ, and a scattering of houses. The buildings appeared old and weathered. An old sign near the road read simply cazador, alabama, population 682. A slightly newer sign beneath stated that guided tours of the catfish plant were available from noon until four. I’m sure that was a barrel of fun.

I stopped for overpriced gas, a soda, and to scrape the bugs off of my windows at the only convenience store in town. A few locals made eye contact but nobody spoke to me. I overheard a toothless geezer murmuring to the cashier something about fresh meat. I didn’t care to guess if he was talking about me or the lunch menu.

Following the final directions on the card, I had taken a small, barely paved road through some more hills and into even deeper woods. It branched and I kept to the west for another mile. I almost missed the gravel turnoff. My main indication that I had found the home of Monster Hunter International was a small sign painted with the letters mhi and a green smiley face. The smiley face had horns. As my car bounced slowly down the gravel road I took note of the many no trespassing and trespassers will be shot warnings.

Finally I came to an open gate surrounded by high chain link and razor wire. Near the gate, a man sat in a folding chair under the shade of a large umbrella, relaxed and apparently listening to a big battery-powered radio. He waved lazily as I braked and rolled down my window.

He was an interesting-looking fellow, weathered to the point that it was difficult to guess his age, a little shorter than average, with a shaved head, small wire-rimmed glasses over a blunt freckled nose, and a thick red beard that was absurdly long and pointy. The end had even been braided with a few decorative beads. He was wearing a Rush Tom Sawyer T-shirt, cargo shorts, and Birkenstock sandals. He looked kind of like a granola-eating environmentalist type, except for the worn M4 carbine hanging idly from a tactical sling draped over his shoulder. He was spitting the remains of sunflower seeds into a cup.

“Hi. I’m looking for MHI,” I said.

The man adjusted his glasses and looked at me, head tilted at a slightly strange angle as he smiled absently. Suddenly he clicked his tongue and pointed at me.

“Big dude . . . Scar face. You must be that guy Earl found. Threw a werewolf out a window?”

“That would be me.” I realized that the boom box was set to a talk radio station, and the subject was something to do with black helicopters and cattle mutilation. “Julie Shackleford offered me a job.”

“She does that a lot. We’re a little shorthanded right now, but that’s a long story. Drive straight in, park in front of the biggest building. You’re a little early, but a few other Newbies are already here. The Boss said that he would say a few words to you guys, so just hang out.”

“Newbie?”

“New hire. Greenies. Monster bait. Organ donors. You know. It’s slang.”

“Oh, okay . . . I’m Owen Pitt.” I stuck my hand out the window.

“Milo Ivan Anderson. Jack of all trades, master of a couple. Call me Milo. If you live long enough I’m the guy that gets to teach you how all of the cool stuff works.” He shook my hand and grinned. His beard stretched halfway to his shorts. “See you around.”

I parked in the lot that Milo pointed out, locked the doors out of habit, and checked out the surroundings. The MHI property could probably best be described as a compound. The main building appeared to be the only permanent structure, being constructed of heavy red brick and steel. It was an office building, but with narrow windows, obviously thick walls, and iron bars. It looked like it could pass muster as a fortress if the need arose. I wouldn’t be surprised if there had been a big pot, full of boiling oil, just out of sight on the wide, flat roof. As I entered I realized that the main doors opened into a small room that funneled down to a smaller set of doors. Suspended overhead was what appeared to be a heavy portcullis that could be dropped to seal the secondary doors. Very interesting.

An older lady was seated behind a massive reception desk. She smiled at me as I approached. At least the staff here was friendly. She had to be in her sixties and looked plump and cheerful. She was wearing a matronly purple knit sweater, but the large-frame revolver in her shoulder holster was printing pretty badly through the fabric.

“Hello, dear. You must be here for the orientation,” she said.

“Yes. My name’s Owen Pitt.”

“Oh, I recognize you. You’re the one that kicked that werewolf’s ass. That was some mighty fine brawling, sonny.”

“Uh, thanks, I guess.”

“No, thank you. Earl showed us all that video. It was right entertaining. I hate werewolves. Used to hunt the sons a bitches once my own self. Used to could do a fair job in my day, till one of the bastards took my leg. This one here is plastic.” She knocked on her plastic leg for effect. It made a hollow noise. “My old one was made out of wood, but it would swell up when it got humid. I reckon it does get mighty wet in these parts. No place at all for a wood leg. Could be worse. Old Leroy had himself a wood eye. Painted it brown, same color as the other. Summer time roll around, damn thing would swell till it would get stuck pointing in one direction. Poor old Leroy. He was a good one. Oh well, sign in here.”

My signature was quick and sloppy on the clipboard. As an accountant you have to sign your name a lot. You try to keep a pretty signature when you have to sign it a couple hundred times a day. There were at least twenty names ahead of mine.

“My name’s Dorcas. Some kids nowadays snicker at that name. But my ma said that it was a right fine biblical name, and it has suited me for close to seventy years. Any punk kids make fun of my name, I’ll put my plastic foot in their ass. Got that, boy?”

“Yes, ma’am.” That was my instinctive response to crotchety old ladies. Especially former Monster Hunters strapped with what appeared to be a .44 magnum.

“Good, go down the hall. Double door on the right. That’s the cafeteria and meeting hall. Now scat. I got business to conduct.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I hurried away so Dorcas could continue her game of solitaire on the computer.

As I strolled in the direction the receptionist had indicated, something caught my eye. I paused in front of a wall of small silver plaques. There had to be at least four hundred of them and they took up quite a bit of space. Not all of them had pictures, but all had a name, a birth date, and a death date. The oldest plaques mostly lacked photos, and the birth dates started clear back in the 1850s. It was a wall of remembrance for fallen comrades. There was an inscription in Latin carved into a large polished board at the top of the wall. Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.

Being an auditor by trade I could not help but notice the curious fact that almost a hundred of the newest memorials shared the same death date: December 15, 1995.

Whatever had happened on that date must have been a black day for the Hunters.

Also strange, there was a span going forward from that day, with no new death dates until a few in the current year. The six-year gap was conspicuous by its absence.

A group was waiting in the cafeteria. There were a few small pockets of conversation, but mostly they had pulled up chairs by themselves and were waiting nervously. Not being one for socializing, I grabbed a metal folding chair and took up residence in the back of the room. The fellow to my right was snoring loudly. To my left was a young Asian man, warily watching the others. He shook my hand and introduced himself as Albert Lee. When I asked him how he had ended up here he muttered something about spiders. Big spiders.

More people gradually arrived. To pass the time I studied the others. I caught a few of them studying me back. The group was about eighty percent male, and I would guess that the average age was probably just under thirty. Most of the Newbies looked relatively fit, though surprisingly there were a few people I would call gravitationally challenged. The group was a good demographic cross section of America, with the biggest numbers being Caucasian, but also some Hispanics, Asians, Blacks, and a couple of people like me of indeterminate race. Don’t bother to ask. My ancestors really got around.

Finally when I counted about forty others in the room, I heard a voice bellow for everybody to quiet down and take a seat. Earl Harbinger paced back and forth at the front of the cafeteria. He was wearing the same leather bomber jacket, and he had the same intense presence, as when I had first met him. Several other individuals entered and took seats behind him. I recognized Milo from the gate, and there was Julie Shackleford. She smiled when she saw me. My heart skipped a beat.

“Hello. My name is Earl Harbinger. Many of you know me already. I’m the Director of Operations here at MHI. Welcome to our new Hunter orientation. Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat. We hunt monsters. That’s what we do. Every one of you has had the experience to realize that there is a lot more out there than you’ve been led to believe. In the coming days I would just ask for one thing. Keep your mind flexible. Don’t get caught up in what you’re sure is real, because if you can’t believe in them, you can’t fight them.”

Harbinger stopped speaking just as an older gentleman limped into the room. He was tall and gaunt. A black patch covered his obviously empty left eye socket, and the skin on that side of his face looked as if it had been badly burned at some point in the distant past. He had a stainless steel hook instead of a right hand. His hair was thick and white, and had been neatly combed. He wore an obviously expensive, dark Italian suit. He walked slowly, one foot slightly dragging.

“Ladies and gentlemen. Let me introduce Raymond Shackleford, President and CEO of Monster Hunter International.” Harbinger quickly sat down. Most of us started to clap politely.

The senior Shackleford shushed us and waved his hook in our general direction. “Enough of that nonsense. I ain’t no politician.” He paused, folded his arms behind his back almost as if he was at parade rest and proudly addressed the room. He had the air of an old Southern gentleman. The boom of his voice did not fit his frail appearance.

“Welcome to Monster Hunter International. My name is Raymond Shackleford the Third. You can call me sir, Mr. Shackleford, or Boss. Today you are going to get a little history lesson, so pay attention.” He cleared his throat loudly. “My grandfather founded this company in 1895. Raymond Shackleford the First, but around these parts everybody knew him as Bubba. Bubba Shackleford was born and raised in this very valley, here in the heart of Keene County. One winter the good folk of Keene County started to disappear: sadly, some of them even came back, only they were not quite human any more. My grandfather formed a group of concerned citizens, best could be described as an angry mob, and took care of the problem. The fault lay with what we now know to be a vampire. Grandpa Shackleford lynched the creature twice, and when it wouldn’t die they finally, in frustration, burned it at the stake. One by one my grandfather’s men found every newly created vampire, and destroyed each in turn, until finally the county and Cazador township was made safe.”

The old man coughed, then pulled a white handkerchief from his suit coat and wiped his nose. It was plain to see that he was not in good shape, but it was obvious that he still maintained an amazingly strong will and presence. I had met a few people like that before, mostly at Veterans’ Day functions. They were the kind of men that even my father saluted.

“Word spread across the state, and then across the South. Bubba’s reputation grew. Turns out that there were many other towns that had their own supernatural problems. Grandpa was offered what was for the time princely sums of money to travel and dispatch other monsters. As time passed he assembled a group of strong men to assist him. They learned from their mistakes and they improved their methods. In December of 1895 they formed Bubba Shackleford’s Professional Monster Killers. It has a certain ring to it, doesn’t it?” he asked rhetorically.

“A contemporary of my grandfather was one Theodore Roosevelt. As luck would have it, Teddy, being an adventurous sort, had had a few monster encounters of his own—once as the New York City police commissioner, and then again in Cuba during the Spanish American war. When Teddy became President he was hell bent on the creation of some means to keep the forces of evil in check. Thus the Perpetual Unearthly Forces Fund was begun, or as we like to call it, PUFF. This was intended as a bounty system to award entrepreneurial brave men who would aid the nation by destroying dangerous monsters. My grandfather was the first person awarded a PUFF bounty.

“Since those early days this company has led the way in the fight against evil. After taking big jobs in Mexico for Standard Oil and in the Caribbean for United Fruit, the name was changed from Bubba Shackleford’s Professional Monster Killers to something considered a bit more respectable: Monster Hunter International. Grandpa’s company grew in stature and wealth, and he was even offered a position of some authority with the government’s newly created Monster Control Bureau. He turned it down because he hated the government and had vowed never to work for any Yankees.” There was some laughter at that.

“Eventually my grandfather died doing what he loved. His son, my father, took over the company at that time. He, too, was struck down. When I was old enough, I became the head of this company, and I have seen it change from a small operation into the premier monster hunting organization in the world.”

He suddenly coughed again, this time with much greater intensity, a deep racking hack that sounded painful and wet. He covered his mouth with his hook, and Julie quickly stepped to her grandfather’s side to offer assistance. He gently waved her away and, looking very concerned, she returned to her seat.

He continued as if nothing had happened. “For over a hundred years, this company has fought the good fight, the noble fight. We have always fought in secret because the powers that be don’t want the sheep to be scared. We are the sheepdogs, and there are wolves out there, as all of you know firsthand. But things have changed. We have entered dark times indeed. For a brief time the fools in power, who should have known better, declared our business illegal. They caved in to monsters’ rights groups, and the bureaucrats who assured them that federal agencies could handle the problem. There was an executive order. We were shut down, our assets confiscated, and any of us who opened our mouths were threatened with jail time. The damn nanny state couldn’t handle the idea of private citizens taking care of their business.” He was becoming visibly agitated. That explained the gap in the memorial plaques, but not what happened on December 15th.

“Ha! Ignorant bastards just had to have their fingers in everything. Monster attacks went up three thousand percent in the six years PUFF was shut down. The government has long had a policy to keep the truth secret. That is why so many of you here today were paid visits by agents and threatened with physical harm if you talked too much. But with incidents going through the roof, they were not going to be able to keep the lid on for much longer. Even with the full cooperation of the media, word was starting to spread. Not all of those crazy folks on that Internet thing are as crazy as you might think.” He grinned widely, obviously amused at that thought. “Once enough voters were getting eaten, Congress had had enough and pressured the next President to reinstate PUFF and revoke the executive order that had banned professional monster hunting.

“So now we have restarted operations, and are trying to move past our dark days. Unfortunately we are short handed, and the monster problem is out of control. We are spread thin, with only small teams of experienced Hunters scattered around the country trying to put out fires. On the bright side, with so many attacks, it certainly makes finding and recruiting brave people like y’all much easier.” He gestured at us with his hook.

“Thank you for coming. I look forward to working with each of you who make it through our training process. It will be hard. Earl here is gonna be a mean one, but it’s for your own good. I must be going now.”

We all stood and clapped as he shuffled out of the room. Judging by the man’s injuries and attitude, I was willing to bet that he was a student of the lead-from-the-front school of management. His savaged appearance was sobering though, and I’m sure it made a few of the other Newbies question wanting to try monster hunting as a career.

Harbinger stood and addressed us again. “Every single person in this room was contacted after they survived some sort of monster encounter. Trust me, just surviving means that each one of you is statistically significant. We personally invited about double the number of people that you see here. Most of those decided not to come. That either makes you braver, or maybe stupider than the others.” There were a few chuckles from the crowd.

“I ain’t joking, people. I’m going to be flat-out honest here. I’m sure you all saw that wall outside. The one with all of the pretty silver things on it? Each one of those represents a fallen Monster Hunter. There is just over a hundred years of history on that wall. What we do is dangerous, sometimes stupidly dangerous, but it is necessary, more necessary than you might even realize for reasons that you’ll come to understand with time. The only way that we win is if we work together as a team and be every bit as tough and ruthless and clever as the things we’re chasing.

“Many of you will wash out of training, or get kicked out if you ain’t up to snuff. That’s fine, so don’t get hurt feelings. This job is not for everybody. There ain’t no shame in quitting. If at any time you decide that you want to quit, no problem. Talk to Dorcas, we’ll write you out a check for your time and there are no hard feelings. Keep in mind, however, that if you talk about us in public, the nice men from the Monster Control Bureau, that most of you have already met, will probably kill you.” Harbinger moved like a predator, eyeing the group with unnerving intensity.

“Your teachers will consist of experienced Hunters. Listen to them carefully. Read everything that you’re given. Your life, or the lives of your teammates, may depend on your skill or knowledge.” Harbinger pointed at the small knot of people sitting behind him. “We’re not normally teachers. The folks sitting behind me are actually my personal team. I trust each of them with my life, and any of them would trust me with theirs. If any one of them decides that any one of you does not have what it takes to be a Hunter, then you’re gone. That is all. Don’t screw around with us. We’re much better killers than we are babysitters.” I knew Julie, and I had met Milo briefly, but I had no clue who the others were. One instructor had a giant mustache, looked like a cross between a cowboy and a truck driver, and reminded me of Kenny’s dad from South Park.

“Some of you are here because you’re tough, some are smart, some are warriors, some are not, it doesn’t matter. Everybody will go through the same training. We recruited many of you because of your brains, and though you will probably never need to be on an actual hunting mission, you will still be trained to the same standards in weapons, tactics, and other skills. You need to understand the people you are supporting as good as you understand yourself. Those of you we recruited because you’re fighters, you will need to learn every single bit of monster-related information that the smart folks learn. For those of you who think you are both smart and tough, don’t get cocky because you will probably be the first one to get eaten.” A few people started to snicker at that, but most of us realized that it was not meant to be funny. I was feeling rather sober and slightly intimidated.

“Training will last until we decide that you’re good enough. After that you will be assigned to your duties. Some of you will be assigned to Hunter teams. We have teams stationed all around the country. Those teams respond to crises as they develop. Other people will work in direct support of the teams. We will go into greater details about how this entire thing works as training progresses. Every employee will be paid bimonthly according to your position. Any PUFF your personal team earns will be shared by the whole company, with your team getting the largest percentage. Think of it as profit sharing. That means that if your team wins a huge bounty you don’t get to keep it all. Be careful not to bitch too much about that, however, because the next week it will probably be some other team that wins the big one and not you. Don’t worry, though, the lowest paid employee we have probably made more than most of you did in the last year. Our business is monsters, and business is booming.” He showed a lot of teeth when he smiled. It almost reminded me of when Mr. Huffman was about to eat me.

“Any questions?”

It was quiet. I was positive that there were many questions, but everyone was afraid to ask. I debated for a moment, but once again, curiosity got the better of me and I hesitantly raised my hand.

“Pitt.” Harbinger pointed at me.

“What happened on December 15th, 1995?”

The instructors looked at each other uneasily. The pause was unnaturally long, and I realized from the creaking of folding chairs and the rustle of forty separate adjustments that the whole room was looking at me.

“How did you know something happened on that day?” asked one of the instructors in an accusatory tone. He was a handsome man, and was dressed more stylishly than the others. I immediately didn’t like him.

“Lots of plaques with that date. Beginning of the big gap,” I answered.

“Are you a detective or a reporter or something . . .”

Harbinger held up his hand and the other instructor shut up.

“Worse, he’s an accountant.” Harbinger nodded in my direction. “Very astute of you, Pitt. I’ll answer your question, but not today. Most of you in this room are not going to make it through training. Those folks get to walk away from this place and never look back. They don’t need to know. Trust me, they don’t want to know. For those of you who make it, I’ll tell you the story personally, because I was there, and it affects every single Hunter. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back and got us shut down. It was the one-hundred-year anniversary of the founding of the company, and it was one hell of a Christmas party.”

The room was quiet.

“Any more questions?”

No one else said a word.

“Okay, everybody grab your crap and follow me. I’ll show you where you sleep, and then we get started. We have work to do.”

Chapter 5

Over the last week I had become very familiar with the compound. There was the two-story office building/fortress, and several smaller buildings that served as barracks, classrooms, workshops and armories. A few hundred yards away was the hangar, housing one medium plane and one strange-looking helicopter of foreign origin. Behind the asphalt runway, just far enough away so that the noise would not be distracting, were the shooting ranges. Bulldozers had pushed up huge berms of red clay soil to serve as backstops. A razor-wire-topped chain link fence stretched around the entire property, intimidating and sharp wherever it had not been overtaken with kudzu vines.

At that moment I was standing in front of a small group of other recruits on one of the shooting ranges. Ten yards away were five eight-inch steel plates, each one about a yard apart. Snugly tucked into my shoulder was the rubber butt pad of a slicked up Remington 870, pump-action, 12-gauge shotgun. The muzzle was kept at the low ready, and my trigger finger was extended safely along the receiver. I could sense the instructor standing behind me, holding the PACT timer right behind my head.

“Shooter ready?” he asked, voice slightly amplified through my electronic earplugs. The MHI-issued plugs were the most advanced that I had ever used. Totally comfortable, and wired into a communications net, they would block all sounds over a certain decibel level, while normal conversation was perfectly audible, even if slightly directionally distorted. I nodded.

“Stand by,” the instructor said mechanically. I waited.

The timer beeped. This was the moment I lived for. In one fluid motion I deactivated the safety and pulled the shotgun into position. Leaning forward with my center of gravity one with the shotgun, I focused on the plates and willed them to be shot. I had no conscious thought of controlling the trigger. Having practiced drills like this thousands of times, the muzzle automatically sought out the plates. With each shot my arm pulled the pump without thought or hesitation. The barrel rose slightly only to settle almost instantly on the next plate. I absorbed and rolled with the heavy recoil of the double-aught buckshot. I knew that each shot had been clean even before the last payload of shot had impacted the steel surface. I lowered the gun as the last two plates fell with a clang.

“Holy shit.” The instructor’s voice was incredulous as he glanced at the electronic timer. It was designed to pick up the sound of each shot and digitally record it. It was a very handy training device. “One-point-eight-seven seconds. You did a Dozier drill in one-point-eight-seven with a pump shotgun and full power buckshot. That was unbelievable.”

I stayed facing downrange. My personal best on this particular drill had been several years earlier in a match at 1.75, but that was with one of my personal guns that I had worked over myself. Contrary to popular myth, a shotgun pattern is not a huge room-clearing boulder of death; at ten yards it is usually smaller than a basketball. The real key is learning how to be one with the recoil. I had been doing stuff like this since I was a little kid.

“It sounded like it was full-auto,” one of the other newbies said.

“Fluke,” said another voice that I had seriously grown to dislike. “Have him do it again.”

“Okay,” said the instructor, a former U.S. Navy SEAL turned Monster Hunter named Sam Haven. He was our main weapons and tactics instructor. Sam was the walrus-mustached man, a burly guy with a penchant for western wear, rodeo belt buckles and Stetson hats. He was also a bad mo-fo, whom I would never on my best day want to mess with. “Load up.”

Somebody else pushed the button to activate the pneumatic target system. The five plates reset themselves with a hiss. I decided to show off a little for the crowd. Since the action was open, I quickly plucked a spare round of buckshot from the elastic sidesaddle mounted on the shotgun’s receiver. I dropped it into the chamber, and instantly slammed the pump forward. Instinctively my support hand moved to the bandoleer of spare shells strapped across my chest. Grasping four cases, I palmed them under the loading port and rapid fire shoved them in as if my hand itself was a spring-loaded mechanism. Snick, snick, snick, snick. Four shells loaded in under two seconds.

It was a trick used by three-gun competitors. We would often shoot in long field courses involving rifles, pistols and shotguns. The shotgun portions sometimes consisted of twenty or even thirty separate targets. Since we were scored according to our total time, and since shotguns are low-capacity weapons of five to nine shots (with some exceptions), the winners were the people who could keep their weapons loaded the fastest. Combine large groups of hyper-competitive type A personality gun people, and I guarantee you will see some amazing and creative ways to do things.

I heard another Newbie say something about a magic trick. Not magic, my friend, just the result of practicing until my thumbs were a mass of nerve-deadened scar tissue. I tucked the shotgun back into the correct position, positioned my feet, and squared off against the targets. I indicated my readiness to Sam.

He leaned in close and spoke loud enough that he knew I would pick it up, but quiet enough that the rest of the class would not. His breath smelled of Copenhagen chewing tobacco.

“You’re gonna have to show me how you do that loading trick.”

I grinned, and answered, “Shooter ready.”

Beep. This time I was really in the zone. The five shots came out as a continuous thunder of buckshot pelting steel to the ground. I lowered the smoking muzzle.

Sam paused before saying the time. “One-point-eight-two seconds. Hot damn.”

I could not help but gloat a little as I smiled for my nemesis. Grant Jefferson. The smug bastard had only been able to do it in 2.5, which was still pretty respectable, but not even close to as fast as mine. And the best part was that he knew it. He was the one who said my first run had been a fluke. Grant was not used to being bested at anything. I enjoyed watching as he stomped off in frustration. He did not like me, and the feeling was mutual. I handed the shotgun over for the next shooter.

Grant was no Newbie. He was a full-fledged member of MHI, and also one of our instructors, though he was the junior man on Harbinger’s team. He had only come out to shoot in the hopes of showing us poor folks how it was done. Grant was totally my opposite. Lean and handsome, witty, charming, a product of the finest schools, and descended from the oldest established (as in super wealthy) New England families. He even had nice hair. He was the type of person everybody liked, and everybody wanted to be liked by.

I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. I thought he was a pompous ass from the moment I had met him, and I felt the primal and instinctual need to beat him up and take his lunch money.

But the real reason that I hated his guts was that he was Julie Shackleford’s boyfriend.

Julie and I had only spoken briefly since my arrival at the compound, and that had been mostly a “Hi, how are you” kind of thing. I had been totally swamped with training, and she was always occupied with one piece of business or another. It wasn’t like she had ever even given me any sort of indication that she liked me as anything other than as an employee, so I don’t know why the thought of her dating a jerk like Grant bothered me so much. As much as I hated to admit it, I had a horrible crush on her.

Sam interrupted my reverie. “Pitt! I want you to tell everybody else how you shoot like that. I’ve told y’all what I know, and most of you still can’t shoot for shit, you damn bunch of worthless derelicts, so let’s get a fresh perspective. The pump is not your main weapon, or even your first choice, but there’re times when it is the absolute best thing you can have. We have a lot of specialty rounds that won’t run through a semi. Every one of you needs to know how to use this thing because one of these days it might save your life.” Knowing how to do things because they might someday save your life was the mantra of our experienced Monster Hunters.

The former SEAL spit a mighty wad of tobacco juices into the gravel. That was good. I noticed that most of the time he just swallowed the stuff. That could not be healthy.

“Okay. Um . . .” I looked over the group and thought about what to say. “What I’m seeing from most of you is that you aren’t really familiar with your weapons yet. You need to get to the point where your gun is an extension of your body. You don’t think about shooting, because if you’re thinking then you’re going too slow. You just let the shot happen. Shotguns are more of an instinctive weapon than pistols or rifles. Some of you guys need to relax and let it flow.”

I pointed at one of the other Newbies, a muscular black man with dreadlocks. “Trip here is a great example. When he uses the pump, it’s shoot, dramatic pause, pump, pause, shoot, pause, pump. You’re thinking too hard. Thinking takes time. It’s just boom and go. Like playing an instrument, you don’t think about the notes, you just play.” He nodded in understanding. Trip and I had hit it off, and he was currently my bunkmate in the barracks. His real name was John Jermain Jones, and he was at a loss to explain what his folks had been thinking when they had come up with that combination. The nickname that had stuck was Triple J, and after a week, most of us just called him Trip.

Trip had been recruited by MHI after a voodoo priestess had placed a curse on his small Florida town and caused some of the recently deceased to rise from their graves to feast upon the brains of the living. He had solved the zombie problem with judicious use of a pickax. He was a great guy, and so far his only real challenge in training had been his lack of exposure to firearms, though he was coming along really well with the subguns. They just suited his personality more. Considering that a year ago he had been a high school chemistry teacher, he was actually one tough dude.

“Then the other problem I see is that some of you are just kind of recoil sensitive, like Holly.” I pointed out the next Newbie. Holly Newcastle was an attractive young woman with bleached blond hair and an amazing boob job. She never told the rest of us how she ended up at MHI, but apparently she had worked as a stripper, or as she preferred, exotic dancer, before being recruited. The rumors were that it had involved a hot lesbian vampire, but I’m pretty sure that that was just wishful thinking by most of the guys in the barracks.

As far as I could tell she had exactly zero experience with any sort of firearms, but she was coming along gradually. She really surprised me when it came to the class portion of our training; she had an amazing ability to soak up knowledge and monster-related trivia. She may have looked like the stereotype, but she was no dumb blonde. I had no doubt that whatever she had done to get herself recruited by MHI, she had done very well.

“Holly, the shotgun kicks, but once you master the correct form, you learn to just flow with the recoil and it’s no big deal. It’s all about proper fit, and how you hold it. If you’re doing it right it doesn’t hurt at all.”

“So what you’re saying, Z, is that it’s kinda like sex. If it hurts, you must be doing it wrong?” She smiled seductively and winked. I blushed. Everybody else laughed, including Sam the instructor.

“Pretty much.” I had a sneaky feeling that Holly wanted me to help her with more forms than just her shotgunning. It’s kind of a bummer that for a person with such a dark complexion my cheeks turned red so easily. “Seriously though, fit is very important; we need to find you a stock that’s a couple of inches shorter.” I hurried along before anybody thought to make a nasty joke about that comment.

I continued my demonstration to the other new recruits. We were an odd collection. Ages ranged from mid-forties all the way down to barely old enough to drink. We had people from all parts of the country and all walks of life. We had everything from an Army Ranger to a taxi driver, from a narcotics cop to a librarian, and we even had a plumber. Take my word for it, you do not want to hear the detailed account of his first monster encounter.

Despite our differences, we all had a few things in common. Every single one of us had come face to face with something from mankind’s darkest imagination, and every single one of us was a survivor.

At the beginning of our training we had been informed that not all of us would make it, and they had not been kidding. The experienced instructors made judgment calls as necessary, and many a recruit was sent packing with an extremely generous severance check and an admonition not to talk too freely about what they had learned. Other Newbies quit on their own. Some could not handle the physical stress; others, the mental. There was no real shame in quitting. Anyone was free to leave at any time, and many did. I thought about it a few times myself.

I was too stubborn to admit it to anyone, but every day that I had been here, I had struggled with the idea of what we were doing. I was torn, part of me loved the idea and the challenge, but the part of me that had sought to be normal for so long was having a real hard time adjusting to the fact that I was learning how to kill monsters for fun and profit.

The physical training was difficult, though according to our former Ranger, it was a total sissified cakewalk. Personally, my leg was still tender and weak, and the running was killing me. I hate running. I was still walking with a limp, and I had despised running when I was totally healthy. Running is for skinny people.

Weapons and tactics was my favorite segment. Not just because it was what I had done for fun for most of my life anyway, but also because I excelled at it. Many of the Newbies struggled through, while others would never have what it took to work as a well-coordinated team, armed with lethal weapons, operating seamlessly together under intense pressure. That was fine. We had been told early on that not all of us would end up as the tip of the spear, on an actual fighting Hunter team. There was plenty of other work that also needed to be done—research, support, admin, technical stuff, and other jobs—but every employee of MHI was to be proficient enough that they could stand in as an emergency replacement if needed.

Out of our current group I was guessing that about half of us would be assigned to Hunting teams. Not bad considering that we had started with forty recruits and now we were down to only twenty. There were a few I was not sure about, who could probably go either way, and then there were the last few, who personally I was not comfortable with even having loaded weapons anywhere near me. Some people just did not have the proper mindset to ever rise above mere proficiency with a firearm.

The classroom sessions were by far the most educational for all of us, because regardless of what kind of bizarre background somebody might have hailed from, the things we were being taught were guaranteed to be new material.

Earl Harbinger sat with his feet up on the desk. In one hand he held the remote control for the slide show, and the other held a yardstick that he used to point out interesting things. The photos on the slide show were disturbing to say the least.

“There’s many kinds of undead. Undead is basically a catchall term for any being that’s scientifically dead, yet still animated. They range from your basic zombie, which is nothing more than a flesh-eating corpse, all the way up to your virtually invincible master vampires and pretty much anything you can think of in between. You’ll need to know them all—their strengths and especially their weaknesses.” Click. This slide showed a large number of chewed-up corpses littering a suburban street. It could have been in any town in the country. Some of the modest ranch-style homes in the background were on fire. “Undead are our bread and butter. In North America alone we average at least one incident involving them a month. Factor in South America and the Caribbean and we probably have a Hunter team working an undead outbreak at any given time. With your basic lower-level undead, the key is a swift response. They multiply like rabbits, and the denser the human population, the more danger there is.”

Click. The next slide appeared to have been taken with a cheap disposable camera at a really bad angle. The subject was a woman lunging with filthy hands outstretched toward the unseen photographer. Most of her face was missing, and her lower jaw consisted only of exposed bone, but she did not appear to notice. Her eyes were wide and hungry.

“Zombie. The walking dead. Not very fast. Not very smart. They’ll head straight for you, they never stop, they feel no pain, they never tire, and they never quit. Luckily they’re about as creative as broccoli. The real danger is their bite, as the guy taking this picture found out. A single bite is infectious and the victim’s destined to end up a zombie themselves. The worse the injury, the faster you die, the faster you come back. George Romero was an optimist. Yes, head shots work, but you’ve got to really damage their brains for a reliable stop.” We had learned that oftentimes cultural and entertainment ideas about monsters had some basis in fact.

“Where do they come from?” one of the class asked.

“Voodoo,” muttered Trip. The twenty remaining Newbies sat on metal folding chairs behind rickety plastic tables. We were in a small room located in the main building. The air conditioner kept us alive in the freshly arrived Alabama heat.

“That’s one possibility, and a good thing to keep in mind. If you can bag the person that animated the dead to begin with, by all means do it. Animating the dead is a serious felony, and the Feds usually pay a good reward for renegade witch doctors or mad scientists. I’ve got to keep going, though, because we have a lot to cover. All of this information is in your packets, and I’ll get to specifics later, today is just the overview. Last thing on zombies, PUFF is usually about $5,000 a head, depending on the severity of the outbreak.”

Click. The thing in the picture had obviously once been a person, but was now a hunched and rotting pile of rags and jagged edges and pointed teeth. The creature held what appeared to be a human leg in its mostly skeletal hand. It looked as if its lunch had been rudely interrupted by the flash of the picture. “This is a ghoul. Think of it as a super zombie on crack. Much smarter, much faster, way harder to stop. Luckily they’re rare, which is a good thing because the one in this picture soaked up about two hundred rounds before it finally quit kicking. Head shots don’t usually work, though they tend to slow them down. Your best bet is to hammer them until you break down their skeletal structure to the point where they just can’t fight anymore. Then burn them to be sure. They’re usually found around cemeteries, as they’re carrion feeders. PUFF for a ghoul runs around 20K.”

Click. “This is a wight. Toughest of the zombie family. One of old Europe’s least popular exports.” This picture took me by surprise. Sure the creature was as nasty as expected, appearing to be a normal man except for his horribly distorted visage, sharp, black teeth and red eyes, but this picture caught my attention because it was an action shot. Julie Shackleford was in the corner of the frame, with a long spear in her hands, keeping the creature at bay while it clawed at her. She was wearing some sort of strange body armor that I did not recognize. Her dark hair had been captured flying wildly around her head like a halo, and there was an intense look of fear and concentration on her face. She was frozen in midmovement, gracefully lunging toward the claws of the undead beast. It was like a cover shot from Sports Illustrated only this time the sport was Mutant Tag and the penalty for losing was painful death.

I studied her face. She was much younger, far too young to be doing what she was doing. Not as gorgeous and distinct then as she would turn out to be, but obviously filled with courage. She was wearing her glasses, but I could still see her brown eyes, and her teeth were a hard white line in her face. My heart knotted at the sight of her in danger, though obviously that incident must have turned out just fine. She was beautiful.

I’m such a sap.

I snapped out of my reverie and tried to pay attention to Harbinger’s lesson. I had missed part of what he had said, but I did not dare ask him to repeat it. He was finishing up on the dangers of facing wights.

“Their touch causes immediate paralysis, even through armor. It wears off quickly, but by then it’s usually too late. They can be insanely strong. So don’t screw around against these without backup and heavy weapons.”

“What happened?” I blurted.

“Huh?” he answered.

“In the picture, with this . . . wight.”

Harbinger paused. Probably debating whether he should rip me for butting in, or just tell the story. He was notorious amongst the Newbies for not telling the stories behind their adventures, as opposed to Sam or especially Milo who seemed to love it. Finally the internal battle was ended and he decided to share. However, the look he fixed me with let me know that I would be running laps until I puked because of the interruption.

“Outside of Sandusky, Ohio, October of ’95. Just before Halloween. Crazy time of year in this business. My team was taking care of a ghoul problem at an old cemetery, when this one surprised us. We didn’t expect a wight. It popped out of the ground right in front of our vehicle, crushed the whole front end with its bare hands, and smashed through the window like it was nothing. I was in the passenger seat and it was on me so fast that it was a blur. It hit me and all of my muscles locked right up like I was frozen. Milo was driving. It nailed him too. Julie was in the back seat. She opened up right between us with her pistol, surprised it apparently, because it quit trying to kill me and Milo. The wight jumped on the roof and started peeling it back to get her. She bailed out with that spear.” He paused and chewed on his lower lip for a moment.

“Make a note, it was a good thing she didn’t just keep using her gun. Firearms will stop a wight eventually, but eventually is the key word. See, the longer an undead like the wight exists, the stronger it becomes. New ones are pretty easy to kill, but this particular son of a bitch dated back to the Civil War. They can take forever to quit, so you work in teams, hold them off you while you pour fire into them. The rest of the team heard the commotion on the radio, and they were coming fast, but not fast enough.

“So anyways, Julie gets out and uses the spear to hold it back. Every time it moved, she would stick it. You can see in the slide that it has a catch past the blade to keep creatures from slipping down the shaft to get you. She kept sticking it and basically played keep away. It couldn’t reach her as long as she kept stabbing it, but there was no way that spear was going to put it down. The guy that took the picture was no help. He was just some bozo bystander. Great shot though. Finally the feeling returned to my limbs enough to flop out of the Suburban and I lit him up.”

“Lit him up?” somebody else asked.

“Flamethrower. Don’t fight high-level undead without one. Once its flesh was on fire it was only a matter of time before it ran out of steam. Julie pinned it to a mausoleum door and held it there until it quit kicking. Took forever. Mean sons o’ bitches.”

“How old was she?” Holly asked.

Harbinger thought about it for a moment.

“She had just turned eighteen.”

“Damn.”

“It runs in the family.” He returned to the lesson.

Sawing off a human head is harder than it looks. The body tends to flop around every time you hit it, and it makes a really nasty mess. Once goo gets on the handle of your knife, it gets even worse, and the next thing you know, your blade is glancing off of bones that you didn’t even know were there. I grunted as I strained the blade against the rubbery flesh.

“Damn it, Pitt, don’t saw. This ain’t gardening. It’s killing. Chop it!” Sam shouted at me. Sam always shouted.

Responding to the order, I raised the heavy knife over my head and brought it down with as much force as possible, this time chopping completely through the tissue and breaking the vertebrae. The cadaver’s head rolled off the table and landed on the floor with a damp thud.

“Much better!” the instructor bellowed. “See that, class? Don’t screw around with them. There are some things that don’t quit until you take their heads off. If you have got to do it, do it quick. Solid whack like you’re chopping wood. Don’t pussyfoot around. And remember the fresh ones squirt more!”

Our class of remaining Newbies was slowly shaping up into a coherent team of Hunters. Currently we were standing in a small refrigerated room near the hangar, known as the Body Shack. MHI had saved the most disgusting lessons for the last of us. I’m sure that staking and beheading corpses was practical training, but I believed that the main reason we did this was to weed out the trainees who couldn’t handle the sheer nastiness of lopping off a human head.

It probably would have been more efficient to do the horrific stuff first, as it really took out anyone with a weak stomach. According to Milo the reason we saved it for this late in the training was that it was hard to get a good supply of medical school leftover bodies. By saving this part until most of the trainees had washed out he had to scrounge up fewer corpses. Milo was a pretty efficient guy.

“Next team. Newcastle and Mead,” Sam said to Holly and Chuck, the next people in line, as Milo used a hose to spray down the floor. Several of the other Newbies had lost their lunch on this exercise. Mingled fluids coagulated around the central drain.

Placing the gore-splattered knife on the table, I stumbled away to wash my hands. They were shaking badly and I felt a strong urge to vomit. Trip was already at the sink scrubbing furiously.

“Dude, that sucked,” he hissed.

“Next time I stake, you chop,” I replied.

“Hey, you called heads. Not my fault.”

“At least it wasn’t the Gut Crawl.”

He frowned at me. “Come on, man, I’m already trying not to barf as it is, don’t bring that up.”

The Gut Crawl had consisted of a single Newbie wiggling through a long section of pipe filled with cow entrails. Between the dark, the smell, the heat of the pipe and the horrible squishiness of it all, it was probably the worst experience of my life, up to and including actually dying. Supposedly it had been a test of our ability to deal with disturbing surroundings and still keep our wits. Personally I thought it was Harbinger torturing us. Two of our class had quit rather than do it, and when I had been stuck halfway down that dark pipe, covered in slime and feces and intestines, I had envied them. One other trainee had made it halfway down the pipe, only to suffer a panic attack and lock up. All three of them had been given fat severance checks and sent home.

There were only a dozen of us left. Judging by the standards of our instructors, it was no surprise that MHI was currently short-handed. Harbinger had been very up-front about it though. He was a firm believer that the harder we sweated in practice, the less we would bleed when it was for real.

Holly finished her staking and came over to wash up. She seemed unperturbed by the minor fact that she had just used a hammer to drive a sharpened wooden shaft through what had once been a real live person’s rib cage. I had been surprised by our former stripper. Nothing ever seemed to faze her, and she attacked every job with a vengeance. We still had not learned her story, but it was obvious that she well and truly hated the other team, and she was looking forward to exacting some payback. If that required crawling through guts, or chopping off limbs, no problem.

“That wasn’t so bad. Chuck got stuck with the head. Poor guy, he brought it on himself though,” she said, flashing us with a wicked grin.

“How?” asked Trip, still washing his hands. I had news for him, no amount of water was going to make us feel clean after what we had just done.

“He always goes rock. Never paper or scissors. Dumb ass.” She examined the old blood staining her nails. “By the way, I overheard Dorcas talking to Milo. Harbinger’s pretty happy with how we’re doing. We’re going to get the whole weekend off.”

“Awesome,” I exclaimed. We had been training hard for a solid month. I’d be more than ready for a break this weekend. With the prospect of an actual couple of days off, I suddenly didn’t mind so much being covered in gore. “It’ll be good to get out of here.”

“No kidding,” she replied, then turned toward Trip who was adding more soap and giving it another try. “Dude, Trip, you need to hurry up, the rest of us need a turn too.”

“Ugh, you have no idea what kind of bacteria is in something like this,” he said. “You’ve got to do a good job sanitizing.”

“Weren’t you a science teacher?” Holly asked.

“Chemistry, and I subbed band, and I was the assistant football coach. It was a small school.” Being his roommate, I knew his story well. Having to cave in some students’ heads once they had joined the ranks of the undead really tended to mess up a teaching career.

“I figured with all of the frog dissecting you wouldn’t be so damn squeamish. Hey, you have some blood or snot or something in your dreads.” As he reached up in disgust, Holly cut in front of him to wash her hands. “Sucker.”

With a thwacking noise and a flourish Chuck took his cadaver’s head off, and Sam bellowed at us the fact that we did not do too bad for a bunch of derelicts, thus ending another day of training.

My breath came in ragged gasps. I had long since passed the point where I could control it. The muscles in my legs were on fire, especially where Huffman’s talons had pierced me, and my feet and knees ached with each footfall. Blinking away the sweat in my eyes, I pushed on, trying to once again find that point of oblivion where the pain didn’t matter. I hate running. All big men hate running. Sure, I could sprint, but you don’t see very many three-hundred-pound marathoners for good reason. Only crazy people run for fun.

The last mile of forest trail was the worst. It had the steepest hills and the most rutted path of the whole trek. But I took comfort as I made my way up the red dirt road, as we were almost done for the day. It had started just after dawn, with hours of physical training, tactics, armed and unarmed combat practice, monster class, and now the sun was down and we were limping in from a six-mile run from hell. Finally the trees thinned, and I even managed to smile as we passed the kudzu-covered chain link fence to enter the compound. Most of the Newbies had already arrived and were crashing out on the available benches or stretching on the grass. The good runners like Trip, Lee, and Mead looked almost relaxed and refreshed from the little jaunt. Trip’s good natured thumbs-up made me want to beat him to death.

“About time, Pitt,” Grant Jefferson shouted. He glanced at his stopwatch in disgust. “Pathetic. Just pathetic.” He had led the run and had made most of the rest of us look bad. Of course, some of us came out looking worse than others. One of the other Newbies stumbled off to the side to puke. Grant just smirked. “All right. We’re done for now. Stretch out tonight, because we’re doing this twice tomorrow.” Everyone groaned.

I sat on one of the empty benches and put my head in my hands. I knew that I was supposed to walk around and gradually let my heart rate subside to avoid muscle soreness, but man, I just needed a break. I excelled at everything physical except for this. Gradually my panting turned to normal breathing, and my heart was no longer pounding away. The other Newbies began to wander off toward the barracks for some much-needed sleep. I stayed on the bench to enjoy the cool twilight.

“Hi.” A lovely voice spoke from behind me. “Mind if I have a seat?” It was Julie.

“No. Yes. I mean, of course,” I stammered, sliding over so she could fit. She dropped down next to me with a smile. She was wearing shorts and looked like she had been working out. I tried not to stare at her well-muscled legs. I was suddenly very self-conscious about my sweat-soaked T-shirt. I bet I stunk.

“So how’s everything going?” she asked.

“Fine, I’m doing okay. Except for that.” I jerked my thumb toward the cross-country track. “That sucks.”

She laughed, hopefully with me, and not at me. “I know it. I hate it too. Not all of us are like Grant.” She pointed across the field. A lone figure stood a hundred yards away, throwing punches at invisible foes under the lights of the obstacle course.

Grant Jefferson had stuck around after the Newbies had left. He had stripped off his shirt and was practicing what appeared to be some extremely difficult martial exercises. I hated to admit it, but the man was a near-perfect physical specimen. If monster hunting didn’t work out for him, I was sure he could get a gig as an underwear model.

“So . . . how long have you guys been dating?” I asked, trying not to sound jealous. I don’t know if I succeeded.

“A couple months,” she answered as she looked at me suspiciously. “Why?”

“Oh . . . I don’t know. He just seems a little . . .”

“Arrogant?”

I paused, not quite sure how to answer that. “Uh, yeah, I guess. He just doesn’t strike me as your type is all.”

“And you know my type how?” she asked, studying me carefully. I swallowed, wanting to shout “Me.” Thankfully she continued before I had to answer. “Yes, I know Grant comes off a little arrogant, but he really is a great guy. He’s smart and ambitious. He was in Harvard Law School when we recruited him.”

Figures, I thought to myself. “The CPA exam is way harder than passing the Bar,” I muttered.

“What?”

“Uh . . . nothing.”

“We hit it off when he arrived here. Grant’s traveled the world. He’s sophisticated, cultured, educated. He’s done a lot of really interesting things. So he’s kind of . . . confident. That comes off as cocky sometimes.”

Comes off as an ass. I bit my tongue. I knew the truth. I bet he drowned sacks of puppies for fun. In the distance Grant had dropped down and started doing pushups.

“Well, good for you guys . . . I’ve got to get some sleep.” I stood up to leave.

“Goodnight, Owen.”

“Yeah, ’night, Julie.” I wandered off. It figured that I had finally met the perfect woman, only to find out she wasn’t interested in me. I kicked over the garbage can outside the barracks. Screw it. I was tired.

“What’re you doing?” Trip asked me as he entered our tiny barracks room. The windows were open and loud insects chirped and whistled in the darkness outside.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. I was sitting on my bunk, suitcase open on the floor in front of me. My right hand ached from the impact it had taken an hour earlier. “Thinking about packing, I guess.”

“You didn’t strike me as a quitter,” he said simply. “That was an accident with Green. You didn’t mean to hurt him. Milo says he’ll be out of the hospital in a week. It’s just his collar bone and a concussion.”

“I only hit him once.”

We had been practicing going hands-on. Never a good choice against a monster, but a necessary skill to have nonetheless. They had paired me up with Green, a muscle-bound former narc. It had gotten kind of competitive.

“Stuff happens,” Trip shrugged. “Don’t be a baby about it.”

“Sam said I wasn’t being aggressive enough.”

“He probably shouldn’t have said that to somebody who beat up a werewolf.” Trip sat on his bed. “When Green wakes up, he’ll be cool. It was an accident.”

I shook my head. “No. It wasn’t. I got angry. I didn’t hold back. Look, man, this is why I should probably go. When I get mad, when I lose control, people get hurt.”

“You make it sound like you’re the Hulk,” he laughed. “You’re training to be a Monster Hunter. We’re supposed to hurt things. Come on, dude, what’s the deal?”

Trip had become a good friend over the last few weeks of training, and I could tell that he did honestly want to help. I stared down at the open suitcase. “You know I used to fight for money, right?” I continued, not looking up. “A few years ago, I had a big one. My last one. Lots of cash on the table. The other guy was supposed to be a real badass. Supposedly he had killed a couple of people in prison. There were no rules, and it wasn’t supposed to stop until one of us couldn’t fight anymore. Last man standing got paid.”

“Why would you do that?” he asked, sincerely perplexed. Trip was a good man, and the idea of inflicting violence on another human being for no good reason was truly foreign to him.

I sighed. “You’ve got to understand. My whole life, my father tried to prepare me for something. All he did was push. He had some sort of fucked-up vision of the future, and he wanted me to be ready for it. I guess I just needed to prove that I was as tough as he thought I was.”

“So what happened?”

“The other fighter really was a bad dude. Meanest I had ever dealt with. I couldn’t take him. He just wouldn’t quit. Then, something happened . . . Something snapped, broke loose. No pain, just focus. Like when Huffman tried to eat me. Next thing I knew, I had blood up to my armpits and I was kneeling on this guy while I hit him until my knuckles broke.”

Trip looked shocked. “You killed him?”

“Almost, and I would have, but the promoters pulled me off. They managed to stitch his skull back together, but he lost an eye, and I’ve heard he’s still all messed up. . . . I would’ve killed him. And right then, I wanted to kill him, and for what? How stupid is that?”

“Pretty stupid.”

We sat in silence for a while, Trip not really knowing what to say. I knew from our talks that he was a devoutly religious man and was probably trying to think of how to politely tell me that I was surely going to hell. Finally I spoke. “You know why I became an accountant?”

“Pays better than teaching.”

“I picked the most straight-laced, stereotypically boring thing that I could think of. My entire life I’d been taught to be a killer, but after that night, I just wanted to get as far away from it as I could.”

“But you still carried a gun every day?”

“I didn’t go looking for trouble, didn’t mean I wasn’t ready for trouble to look for me,” I answered.

“Beats hitting zombies with a pickax . . .” he muttered.

“And now here I am. In this place, where all the things I’ve spent the last few years trying to distance myself from are not only encouraged, they’re mandatory. And it seems like I might actually be pretty good at this. But I’m worried . . .”

“That you’ll hurt somebody who don’t need hurting?”

“Yeah, something like that.” I clenched my scarred-up fists. My hand throbbed from where I had slugged Green. It had only been a brief instant, a flash of anger, but that was all it took.

Trip thought about it for a few long seconds, absently chewing on his lower lip, then stood. “The way I see it, we’re here to do good. I don’t know about you, but I came here to stop monsters from hurting folks. The Lord’s given you a gift, a weird one, but still a gift, and the fact that you’re worried about misusing it means that you’re not a bad guy. So put that suitcase away, man up, and let’s get to class before Harbinger realizes we’re late. He kind of scares me.” He thumped me on the shoulder, and walked out the door.

I waited a moment, listening to the angry buzz of the insects crashing against the window screen. Then I pushed the suitcase back under my bunk and went back to work.

I thought I understood discomfort and heat. I had lived in Texas for a few years, and I had grown up in the San Joaquin Valley of California. One was miserably hot and windy, and other was muggy from all of the open-air irrigation. But summer in the Heart of Dixie was a whole new type of evil. So hot that you couldn’t think, and so wet you could almost drink the air. Summer had come to Alabama.

So of course this was the day when we were issued our body armor. It was heavy, and though well designed to be comfortable and breathable, during summers in Alabama a pair of shorts and a tank top were considered warm clothing. I was sweating profusely, not that that said much, considering that men of my bulk usually started sweating at room temperature, but this was particularly bad. Thankfully the armor came equipped with a CamelBak water bladder and drinking tube. As their ad so eloquently stated: Hydrate or Die.

Milo Anderson paced back and forth in front of the assembled Newbies. Today he was wearing a Violent Femmes T-shirt and his red beard had been braided into two separate forks, both seemingly long enough to rappel from. Occasionally he would stop before a Newbie, examine them critically, and then pause long enough to adjust some strap or buckle. He was the creator of the suit, as well as many of the other devices the Hunting teams used.

Grant Jefferson watched us smugly in our discomfort. He was wearing his armor, which had been tailored to suit him better. Holly had said that he was dashingly handsome, and even she, being so very jaded and cynical about men because of her background, found him very charismatic and charming. She told me that it was easy to see why Grant and Julie had hooked up. He was young, smart, good-looking, knew how to talk to people, and everybody loved him. I still wanted to kick his ass.

On Grant’s shoulder was a patch with the green smiley face with horns that was the unofficial company logo, which only Harbinger’s personal team wore. We had been told that the other teams made up their own logos. The only other team logo that I had seen here at the compound had been a fire-breathing warthog that Dorcas had engraved onto her plastic leg. Grant wore the smiley face with pride—apparently it was a real honor to end up on Harbinger’s team. I had learned that he had only been a Hunter since the business had reopened, but he had shown so much potential in training that he had been picked to fill a void on what was considered the best team.

“You will learn to live in these suits for days at a time. This suit will save your life. This suit will become like a second skin to you.” Grant was lecturing us, gesturing at his own gear. Milo stopped in front of me with a scowl and adjusted the webbing around my torso. Apparently Milo had never had to make a suit for somebody as big as I am, and it had been a bit of a challenge to come up with Kevlar sheets for a sixty-two-inch chest.

“Psst . . . Milo,” I whispered. “Since these are supposed to be like second skins, where’s yours?”

“Screw that. It’s hot,” he answered.

And he invented the darn thing. Testify, brother, I thought.

“One time this suit saved my life. You can see right here where I was clawed by a golem. See, right there on the abdomen. Surely this would have been a mortal blow, but I was able to shrug it off and stay in the fight. I dispatched the monster and was able to rush to the aid of my team and save them from certain death,” Grant told us, lifting up the front of his armor so we could all see his sculpted abs. The man must do crunches in his sleep to look like that. Grant had been talking forever, and unlike the other instructors, did not have a drop of humility in his soul. I was about ten minutes from a heat stroke, and we were stuck suffering in the sun while our teacher blathered.

Milo rolled his eyes and went back to adjusting straps. “Some golem. It was three feet tall,” he muttered under his breath so it was barely audible to just me, “ass.”

The armor was a modular system that could be configured by the user depending on what kind of threat we were going to face. A thick layer of stab-proof Kevlar covered the vital organs. Though not much heavier than regular thick clothing, the sleeves and pant legs had the same fibers sewn into the fabric. There was a neck guard that could be raised to resemble a turtleneck to protect against bites. Most of the threats we would face would involve teeth or claws, so unlike regular body armor, ours was designed for that rather than for bullet resistance. Milo informed us that the torso was rated the same as a traditional level IIIA bulletproof vest, able to stop most pistol rounds. There were pouches on the front and back designed to hold ceramic plates that could stop rifle rounds if the threat warranted it, and if the user didn’t mind the extra weight. The system incorporated load-bearing gear and pouches for magazines, weapons, tools, medical kits, or whatever other useful things the Hunter might need.

There were two different types of gloves that came with the suit. One was a basic shooting glove that offered a small amount of protection, but still allowed good dexterity. And the other was a heavy armored gauntlet for when you needed maximum protection and just had to wade in and crush some heads. The heavy units could be attached to the end of the sleeves. There were also two types of helmets. The first was simply a modified hockey helmet, good basically to keep you from banging yourself in the skull when blundering around in the dark. The second, an armored monstrosity that looked kind of like a motorcycle helmet with a full visor and face shield, could be attached to the neck guard. With the heavy gloves and big helmet, a suited Monster Hunter could become a chew toy for a pile of zombies and come out gnawed on, but unbitten. Unfortunately for me, Milo did not have a helmet that would fit my enormous head so he had special-ordered one. Hopefully nothing would try to eat me before then.

The armor had lots of extras designed just for the people in our peculiar business. A CO2 cartridge was carried in the shoulder harness. In case of emergency it could be activated and the harness would inflate. Handy if you got dumped into deep water, because it was difficult to swim while strapped with piles of gear. My understanding was that Sam, our former SEAL, had insisted on that device. Each suit also had a GPS unit for navigation, which occasionally came in handy to locate a Hunter’s body when the bad guys won.

The armor could be ordered in whatever color you wanted, as long as it was black, olive drab, or coyote brown. There was not a lot of use for festive colors in monster hunting, nor were there a lot of suppliers of heavyweight military-strength Cordura in any other colors. I had gone with brown. Grant had gone with black. He probably thought it made him look tough. I thought he looked kind of like a silly version of Darth Vader. I took comfort in the fact that he had to be cooking in the sun right about now, though the bastard did not even give me the satisfaction of looking uncomfortable.

“Pay attention,” Grant snapped at me. Milo rolled his eyes again. I snickered. Grant stormed toward us like a bulldog.

“Pitt. I don’t like your attitude.”

“Trust me, Grant. It’s mutual,” I snapped back.

“What did you say?” He poked me in the chest with his trigger finger. I couldn’t feel a thing through the armor, but that did not change the fact that I did not like getting poked. It was hot, I was tired, and frankly in no mood to put up with any nonsense. Milo wisely moved aside.

“I said it’s mutual. Meaning I don’t like your attitude either.”

“I’m trying to teach you Newbies how to stay alive.”

“Then teach. All I’m hearing is stories about how great you are. I came here to learn how to kill stuff, not to join your fan club.”

He stabbed me again. “I’m a pro. You need to shut your stupid Newbie mouth. You think you know so much. I saw that video. You got lucky with that werewolf, and now you think you’re hot shit.”

“You had best take that hand off of me,” I said. The rest of the class was gradually spreading out around us. The group could sense trouble brewing and were ready for some entertainment. Apparently I was not the only one in a foul mood.

“Or what?” And he poked harder. It was really kind of a useless gesture considering the armor could stop a battle-ax. With years of experience bouncing rowdy people from bars, I had a good sense of when somebody was itching for trouble, and Grant was itching bad.

“I’ll take it off and feed it to you.” I smiled at him and winked. That really seemed to anger him. Grant’s movie-star face turned bright red. He was as tall as I was, but not nearly as big or as strong. I had no doubt that I could beat him mercilessly.

“I could have you kicked out of here like that.” He took his hand away long enough to snap his fingers, then he went back to poking me.

“For what?” asked Milo, arms folded, studying the other instructor. Milo was by far the senior in experience, and in the amount of respect he received from the trainees. That was easy though, Milo Anderson was a likable guy. Grant on the other hand . . .

“Insubordination,” Grant hissed. “One word to the Boss about your attitude and you’re gone.”

“If I’m going to get kicked out, believe me, I’m going to have some fun doing it.” I felt my body tense as the adrenaline began to flow. If Grant wanted a piece of me, I was prepared to give that preppie piece of trash what he wanted.

“Grant.” Milo spoke quietly. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. You’re picking a fight with somebody who outweighs you by a hundred pounds of muscle. Insubordination, my butt. You say anything to the Boss and my side of the story will be that you were trying to commit suicide by accountant.”

“I could take him,” the junior instructor stated coldly. “He isn’t as tough as everybody thinks.”

“Grant, I could kick your ass. Pitt would make you his bitch.”

That took the wind out of Grant’s sails. I could see the realization dawn in his blue eyes, the realization that I could probably turn him into pulp. I just kept smiling, still prepared to mess up his pretty face and give him the opportunity to digest some of his perfectly white teeth. He had already pushed too far, though. He could not back off now without looking bad. He leaned in close and whispered in my ear.

“Stay away from Julie, you son of a bitch. I’ve seen you looking at her.” I was surprised. So that was what this was all about. I had barely even seen her since training had started.

“Bite me,” I replied.

“Enough!” Milo shouted. “Class is over. It’s too hot and everybody’s tempers are short. You’ve been working hard. Go grab some lunch.”

Grant stepped back and glared at the little man. Milo met his gaze evenly. I think that my nemesis quickly realized that the other instructor had just given him a window of opportunity to back out of his potential beating and not look like a wimp in front of the others. Grant Jefferson may have been a prick, but he was no dummy.

“Fine. Class dismissed,” Grant sneered. “I’ll be seeing you around, Pitt.” He spun on his polished boots and haughtily strode away.

“Looking forward to it,” I rumbled under my breath as the group began to disperse. Milo shouted for all of us to turn our suits in to his workshop for adjustments before we left the compound for our weekend off. There were some relieved sighs as the Newbies unceremoniously began to remove their armor. I stomped away to avoid speaking to anybody.

Not that it did me much good. One person followed me. Trip patted me on my armored shoulder to get my attention. “Have I ever told you how much I respect your professionalism and restraint?”

“Some people just need a good beating.”

“I agree. The man’s a jerk. But last night I talked you out of quitting, so I don’t want to see you get fired today,” Trip said as we started toward the cafeteria, new suits creaking. Hopefully they would break in and soften up. My friend continued speaking as if I was one of his former ignorant teenage students. “You know why he hates you, right?”

I had spoken about my infatuation with Julie Shackleford to Trip. He was my roommate after all. “I suppose I do.”

“Well, then, you would be wrong.”

“Huh?”

“You think it’s because of the girl. Grant probably thinks it’s because of the girl too. That’s because you’re both idiots.”

“Gee, thanks, Trip.” We continued walking slowly, talking quietly so the others wouldn’t hear our conversation. “Well, if it isn’t because of her, what’s his problem?”

“You’re his problem. I’ve seen this before. Grant is the golden boy. He came in here last year and tore stuff up. He’s the best at everything. Even the big dogs took him under their wing. I bet he has won at everything he’s ever tried. You come along, and you’re naturally better than him at some things, so immediately he doesn’t like you. It is all about pride, my friend, and Grant is stuffed so full of it it’s a wonder he doesn’t burst.”

“Okay, I can see that.”

“And you do keep staring at his woman like a slobbering moron.”

“Slobbering?” That hurt.

“And you’re a smart ass who can’t help but show him up every chance that you get.”

“Fair enough.”

“And you can’t handle losing just as bad as him. You’re both torn up with pride, and like the Bible says, pride is the sin that will drag you down faster than anything else.”

“Where does it say that?”

“Luke chapter . . . something or other. Well, that’s what my mom said about it anyway.”

“Thanks, Pastor Jones. I’ll be sure to keep my pride and my slobbering in check from now on.” I laughed. He was not that much older than I was, but somewhere along the line Trip had gained a lot more wisdom than I had.

“That’s Father Reverend Elder Jones to you . . . heathen. Now let’s get some lunch. We got the whole weekend off, and we’re going to need our energy. I’ve got an auntie who lives in Wetumpka, up past Montgomery, and we’re gonna have us a party. Have you ever had chitlins? Bona fide Southern delicacy.”

“Can’t say that I have. What the hell’s a chitlin?” The way he said it, I didn’t know if chitlins were a delicacy or a form of torture. Probably could go either way, depending on your perspective.

“Then you’re going to have yourself one hell of a weekend, Z.”

Chapter 6

I was dreaming. I found myself in the same field as I’d been in during the strange dream that I had experienced in the hospital. Once again, the crop was lush and green, and my feet were bare. The air was cool and fresh, so I definitely was not in Alabama. The sky was darker and thick black rain clouds were collecting on the horizon. It looked like it was going to be a terrible storm.

The Old Man was there also. This time he was sitting on a small grassy mound. His hair was still wild and white, his cane sat on the ground next to him, and he was absently polishing his small round glasses on a white handkerchief.

“Hello, Boy. Welcome again here.” His accent was still thick, reminding me somewhat of my grandparents on my mom’s side of the family. A deep Eastern European sound, but not from any of the languages that I spoke.

“What am I doing here?” I asked, sitting down on the grass next to him. We watched the storm front approach. The wind was beginning to pick up and the crop was waving under the onslaught. “I thought you said that we wouldn’t meet again unless I did something stupid and got killed.”

“I was wrong. I new at this too,” he answered. “Is closer now. So I help more easy.”

“What is closer now?”

“You will see. It comes.” He pointed at the storm roiling across the distant landscape.

“What comes?”

“The storm. I show you when can. I help you if can.”

“Help me with what?” This was a confusing dream, not helped at all by my host’s mangled English.

“The evil comes. The Cursed One brings. You will stop, if can. If not, time will die.” He stated it as if that cryptic information was a simple fact.

“Who are you?”

“I told you. I am friend. I here to help.” He spit on his glasses and continued to polish them. I noticed that he wore a small Star of David around his neck. His clothes were old and simple, and appeared to be sewn by hand.

“What’s your name?”

“No one ask that for long time.”

“That doesn’t answer the question,” I replied.

“My name not matter now, boy. I am just Old Man.”

He held up the glasses and examined them, nodding in satisfaction before placing them on his face. “Is good. Help me up, please.” I stood, and then lent him a hand as he slowly rose to his feet. I retrieved his cane and handed it over. The polished wood was surprisingly heavy and dense.

As I looked up I realized that somehow the storm had drawn impossibly close. The blue sky was blotted out and the wall that was approaching was a swirling mass of darkness, clouds, and lightning. The sky had taken on a green halo and I could feel the energy crackling through the ground. The crop was lying down or being torn out of the soil as powerful gusts struck us.

“We go now. I show you what I can. I need your help.”

“Okay,” I answered, not knowing what else to say.

“You help me. I help you. No can promise it will work, but I will try.” He grasped my wrist. His cold hands were frail and arthritic.

He adjusted his glasses and watched with hard eyes as the storm approached. It was moving across the land like a tidal wave now, closing on us with what seemed like malevolent intent. As it grew closer I could see that there were shapes in the clouds—warriors, monsters, death, plague, famine, suffering, pestilence and war. My pleasant dream was changing into a nightmare. The roar of wind and crashing of thunder and wails of something else washed over us. The wall of black hit us, and we were swiftly engulfed.

Still dreaming. Only now, I was somehow above the MHI compound. I had no body, but somehow I could see, and not only that, I could see everything. Walls meant nothing to me. Maybe seeing wasn’t the right term. I was aware of everything. I was not limited by the information that my eyes could register or that my brain could process. I found my body sleeping peacefully in the barracks. Trip, in the bunk above, was reading some pulp fantasy novel as he did every night. The man was a fantasy book addict.

The rest of my fellow trainees were sleeping or pretending to. In the women’s barracks I was not surprised to learn that Holly Newcastle slept in the nude. As interesting as that sight was, I moved on. I was no Peeping Tom, or in this case a peeping ghost.

The office/fortress was totally open to me now. It was much larger than any of us had realized, with a huge underground level that was a complete secret to the trainees. In the dark corners I glimpsed that not all of the other employees were human. What a strange dream. On the top floor our instructors were holding a meeting around a huge table. Julie, Harbinger, Sam, Milo, and Grant were arguing about something. I focused in on that, and somehow my presence joined them in the room. Movements were cloudy, and the voices were indistinct and muffled because of all of the other sensations I was receiving without my normal faculties.

“No other teams are available. Just us and the Newbies. Boone’s team’s in Atlanta. They just finished a case, and they can meet us on the way. I can send them the schematics.” Julie was speaking.

“We’ll need extra men,” Sam said, his voice echoing strangely. “Freighter that big is too hard to cover with just two teams. And we don’t have an effing clue what we’re facing.”

“The Newbies aren’t ready,” Milo stated flatly. “Most of them would get killed if it gets hairy.”

“Who do we have who’s ready then?” Harbinger asked. “We can keep them in reserve. They don’t need to be in front.”

“Mead, Lee and maybe Triple J,” Grant said. “Green could, except that oaf put him in the hospital.”

“Newcastle can handle support,” Milo added.

“Agreed,” stated Harbinger.

“What about Pitt?” Julie asked.

“No way. He’s out of control,” Grant replied hotly.

“He’s also the best shooter we have. I hate to admit it, but he’s even better than I am,” Sam said. The big cowboy banged the table for emphasis.

“Pitt’s a hothead. He’ll blow it,” Grant retorted.

“He is a natural leader, however.” Milo stuck up for me. “Put him in charge of the Newbie squad. The others will follow him.”

“I vote that he goes,” Julie said. “You heard the French. They lost a whole team on that boat. We don’t know what’s out there. We need every shooter we can get.”

“I don’t like the Frenchies, but their Hunters are first rate. I’ll give them that,” Milo said. “If something on that ship took out their team, then I’m guessing that it’s bad news. I’ve got a feeling we’re going to need trigger pullers.”

“Done. Wake up Pitt, Jones, Mead, Lee and Newcastle. Let’s move, folks. Clock’s ticking,” Harbinger ordered. Grant sulked and the rest of the team sprang into action.

Cool, I thought to my disembodied self. This was an interesting dream. Harbinger jumped as if somebody had startled him. He turned and scowled at the corner of the room that held my consciousness. Before he could act, my presence was suddenly jerked out of the room, through the roof, and into the night sky, leaving the man scowling in puzzlement at the now empty room. I heard the mysterious Old Man’s voice.

“Sorry. Lost you for minute. I not done this before.”

The ground flashed by below as my awareness sped through the air at what had to be a thousand miles an hour. The darkness was interrupted by the occasional lights of human activity, and finally a mass of lights on an otherwise dark coast came into focus as we appeared to slow. I could sense masses of people, most sleeping, a smaller number awake. The ocean stretched black and unrelenting before us, while above, unfettered by normal human senses, I could make out literally billions of stars. It was beautiful.

Then I was on a dark beach. Behind me was a patch of swampy forest, lit by incandescent gasses and teaming with life. Out to sea, something approached. I could sense the shape of men in a small lifeboat. The boat moved soundlessly toward the beach, propelled not by wind, oar or engine, but rather by some force that even in my dream state I could not understand. As the boat approached, the sounds of life behind us were suddenly silent as every living creature either fled or hid. Somehow I knew that even the fish in the water were swimming away from the boat in a panic. They knew something in their simple brains that all of the sleeping humans nearby did not. An unnatural fog, somehow icy in the humid southern air, swirled around the small craft.

“He comes,” said the Old Man.

“Who is he?” my dream self asked.

“I know him as the Cursed One.”

There were multiple shapes in the boat. Some appeared to be human, and were crouched low in the hull, red eyes scanning the beach, noses sniffing the air for prey. I recognized them from Harbinger’s lectures. Vampires. The kings and queens of the undead, and from the vibe that I was getting from them, these were ancient and powerful beings. Master vampires. According to my lessons, masters were solitary creatures who had never been known to work together. Apparently the lessons had been very wrong. My dream was getting ugly.

Standing in the midst of the creatures was some thing. At first it appeared to be a man. Cloaked in a huge robe, only the reflection of what appeared to be a polished steel breastplate and helmet could be made out through the unnatural fog. The armor reminded me of the type that the conquistadors had worn. A sense of pure evil emanated from the cloaked being, an icy feeling of dread that I could feel piercing through my consciousness. I could not imagine how horrible it would have been if I had been there in my physical body instead of in this dream. As the image drew closer I could see a mass of withering blackness glistening between the creases of the armor and under the helmet. I could not comprehend what it was, but it certainly was not flesh. Somehow the twitching movement brought back memories of the boxes of live earthworms that my father used to fish with.

It looked almost like the famous painting of Washington crossing the Delaware, only this time featuring a host of evil undead, and some hideous monstrosity in the place of the great general. There was a name painted on the side of the craft. Antoine-Henri. The lifeboat glided up onto the sand with a crunch, and the vampires immediately sprang out and formed a protective circle around the thing. Some splashed out into the surf to cover that direction. There were six of them, both male and female, and they were unnaturally graceful and swift. They were evil and savage, but somehow beautiful at the same time. A seventh vampire remained in the craft with its master. If the thing was the commander, then that vampire was its lieutenant. I felt a seething hatred around me. It was coming from the Old Man, and it was directed at that seventh and final vampire in particular. It was a tall, pale thing with a hatchet face, slicked-back hair, and a dark trench coat that it wore like a uniform. The vampire actually stood at attention as the armored monstrosity glided onto the beach.

When the thing touched the sand, the whole universe jolted. A blast of discomfort rippled through every living being for hundreds of miles. You may have felt it yourself; an unexplained shiver, a sensation of fear that had come out of nowhere, a crawling feeling in the pit of your gut, a jolt that tore you out of sleep. That was the Cursed One setting foot on his new land.

The lead vampire announced something in a foreign language. It took me a moment to recognize it as Portuguese, or a dialect thereof. I knew enough of the language to understand.

“Welcome home, Lord Machado,” the creature crowed, bowing deeply. All of the other vampires forming the perimeter immediately bowed as well, the ones in the surf submerging themselves completely in the saltwater waves. It did not matter to them. They did not need air. The abnormal fog drifted up onto the beach, serving as the fanfare for the abomination before us. “Your kingdom awaits.”

The thing was silent. It slowly rotated, taking in the sight. Beneath the cloak and armor I could not tell how it moved, but it was black and damp and slithery. It turned until it looked right at us. I could feel its gaze sweep across us, and if I had been in my body I would have been trembling. I could not see eyes, but somehow it knew we were there. Instantly the vampires jerked up and followed their leader’s gaze, somehow locking onto the Old Man and me. I felt fear greater than I ever had before. Greater than when I had died. Greater than anything I could imagine. The creature did not want my life. It wanted my very soul and the soul of every person I had ever loved.

“Hello, Byreika.” The lead vampire smiled, revealing pointed incisors. “My, it certainly has been a while, hasn’t it? I see you brought a friend.”

The Cursed One raised a strangely-jointed, cloaked limb and pointed at us. I could feel the flash of panic from my incorporeal companion. With an explosion of sand and seawater, several massive shapes crashed into the surf around us. I had not sensed them circling above. Giant horrific things with massive wings beating, they surrounded us, and moved toward us, murder in their blank eyes. They were enormous clawed beasts, horns and talons glistening with sea spray.

“Get us out of here!” I screamed.

The world jerked wildly around us as my consciousness was pulled again through the night sky, faster this time than before. The winged monsters below us sprang into pursuit, blasting holes through the ice fog with their gargantuan wings, but they were limited by their physical bodies and we were not. Far more terrifying than the monsters was the feeling of the Cursed One somehow trying to latch onto us to keep us from escaping. It was as if a net of blackness were being thrown, and we were the target. The creatures beneath us rapidly shrank from view. Somehow we slipped through the evil grip as my consciousness screamed across the sky at unbelievable speeds. I had one last view of the MHI compound before I flew through the roof of the barracks and slammed back into my body.

I awoke screaming, tearing at my sheets, and crying for the Old Man to save us from the Cursed One. Trip was standing at my bedside, shaking me.

“Owen! Dude! Wake up. It was a dream. Calm down.”

Gasping for air and lying back on the sweat-stained sheets, it was only a dream. The storm. The Old Man. The Cursed One. The vampires. It was all a dream. Everything was fine.

“I had the worst nightmare,” I gasped.

“No kidding. You were really freaking out. Everybody was. Just a couple of minutes ago everybody in the barracks woke up. Like the whole place was having a nightmare or something. I get the feeling that something really bad just happened.”

Then our door opened. Earl Harbinger and Sam Haven were standing in the hall, both were suited up in full armor, bristling with ammunition and weapons.

“What’s the racket?” Harbinger asked.

“Just a bad dream,” I answered.

The Director of Operations frowned at me. He had felt the strange sensation as well. “Both of you. Grab your stuff. Get over to the armory and get suited up. We have a mission. Consider the weekend cancelled,” Harbinger ordered, as he slung an ancient Thompson submachine gun over his shoulder.

“We have a ship to catch,” grunted Sam, while twirling the ends of his mighty mustache. “Think of this as a field trip.”

Chapter 7

The small boat rolled on the harsh waves, leaving me with a slightly nauseous and uncomfortable feeling. I held onto the guardrail until my knuckles were white, or at least I’m sure they would have been if I could have seen them through my gloves. I had been uncomfortable since the coast had disappeared. The ocean stretched as far as my eye could see. The sun had risen shortly before we launched, and now cast a golden light over the blue surface. I’m sure that if I wasn’t mentally preparing myself to go into battle I might have found it a stunning sight. I had never really been out to sea before, other than brief trips on tourist boats off the California coast. I’m sure some of my father’s islander ancestors would have scoffed at that.

There were ten of us Hunters on the small boat, the Brilliant Mistake, which Harbinger had hired to transport us to our target. I did not take the name of the boat as a good omen, but once the captain had been given a large wad of cash, he had assured us that the name was in reference to a favorite song and not to any flaw in his boat’s design or crew. I still did not like it either way. It was a rusty, old, creaky thing, but it had been available, and even better, the crew didn’t look like the type that talked too much.

We had assembled before midnight at the compound, burdened with all manner of equipment and weaponry. Most of us had been loaded into MHI’s cargo plane, an old but serviceable former U.S. Mail carrier. It did not look like much, but it got the job done, and it could haul a ton of gear. Then we had flown first to a small airstrip outside of Atlanta, where we had picked up another team of Hunters, before arriving at our final destination, another small airport on the Georgia coast. The rest had taken the slower, but necessary for this mission, helicopter and rendezvoused with us there while Harbinger was securing us a boat. The team leaders had spent the flight memorizing diagrams e-mailed to us from a French shipyard.

In Georgia we had broken into two groups. The larger group boarded the Brilliant Mistake under cover of darkness and the smaller group took the helicopter. The plan was for the airborne unit to fly over our target to scope it out, and then to drop some of the Hunters onto the ship. That unit would secure a rope ladder for the rest of us to climb up, while the helicopter provided covering fire if necessary. Both vehicles would stay nearby in case we needed a quick escape route.

It sounded simple enough. My job was to do exactly what the smart people told me, and carry lots of extra ammunition.

Trip stood beside me at the railing. Unlike yours truly, he did not appear to be feeling seasick at all, but rather seemed to be enjoying himself. He was descended from Jamaican fishermen, so he must have been more in touch with his ancestors’ seafaring genes than I was. I had told him about my dream.

“I still have nightmares. I think most of us do,” he told me. I knew that some of the zombies that he had been forced to dispatch had been some of his friends and former students. Something like that is bound to weigh heavy on a man’s mind. “Something weird was in the air last night.”

“But I heard the instructors’ meeting about us. I knew about this mission before they came to get us. Explain that.”

He shrugged. “You know how it is when you wake up confused. Your brain chemistry’s all screwed up. Your unconscious mind just fills in the blanks as needed. We found out about this right after your dream. Seems like the logical thing to me.”

“Seems to me that if you want to be logical, you sure did go into the wrong line of work.”

He ignored that. “And six master vampires working together? That isn’t supposed to happen either.”

“Seven,” I corrected him. I couldn’t forget about the one in the boat, the sharp-faced one that had so enraged and terrified the Old Man.

“Either way. That has never happened. They’re too powerful, and too territorial. According to Harbinger there probably aren’t that many Masters in the whole world. Besides, how could you tell they were so powerful? All of them look the same.” That much was true. From what we had been taught all vampires looked pretty much human, unless you caught them feeding.

“I don’t know how I knew. I just did. And there were huge winged monsters, but I didn’t get a good look at them. But the other thing, the thing in the boat. That was the scariest. I mean it was the worst thing I’ve ever seen.” I nervously checked my Remington 870 for the twentieth time. It was still there.

“Quit worrying about your dream, man. We’ve got real stuff to worry about. Let’s put our game faces on.” He slugged me in the arm, hard. Damn football players.

Sam Haven had us gather at the rear of the boat for a briefing, away from the ears of the crew, who I was positive were already really curious what the ten strangers in body armor and carrying guns were doing on their boat. Lucky for us, fifteen thousand dollars in cash for one day of work was considered good enough money to put up with all manner of weirdness. Of course it was half up front, the other half after they picked us up. Since we were the waterborne team, Harbinger had placed our former Navy man in charge. Thus Sam was even louder than normal. He and Milo were on the boat with us, and the rest of their team was in the chopper. One of the Newbies, Chuck Mead, a former Army Ranger, was up there as well. He knew how to rappel and that was a handy skill to have for this mission.

“Listen up, folks. Here’s the deal.” Sam began to brief us as he methodically unloaded, checked each round and reloaded his rifle. The rear of the boat smelled like fish. “A few hours ago we were contacted by the French corporation that owns the freighter. It was destined for the USA carrying an extremely valuable cargo. The freighter lost contact a week ago in the Atlantic. The last transmissions indicated some sort of supernatural problem.”

“What did they say?” asked one of the Hunters out of Atlanta, whom I had not met.

“Unknown. Mostly gibberish. They did say monsters, but they didn’t say what kinds. But this was an experienced crew so it is doubtful if they did something stupid.” Sam’s personal weapon was a very strange choice. It was a Marlin .45-70 lever action carbine. Very slow to reload. Low capacity. Slow rate of fire. But as he had pointed out while boarding, the 450-grain hard-cast bullets he was shooting could go through a buffalo longways. That was no small comfort, just in case the freighter had been taken over by militant evil bison.

“What’s the ship’s name?” someone asked.

Sam shrugged. “Something French. Hell if I know.”

“Why did they contact us? The frogs hate hiring American Hunters.” That was from the man named Boone. He was the leader of the other team, and from what I had seen so far, he was a serious professional. According to what I had heard on the trip, he had recently gotten off of active duty with the Army Special Forces in Afghanistan, and had been eager to get back into hunting when the company reopened. Boone was a lean and good-natured guy, and his team was ready to follow his lead into anything. I took that as a good sign. He had a stubby Russian Krinkov slung from his chest, and apparently his team’s logo was a mini-lop bunny armed with a switchblade.

“We weren’t their first choice. The day after they lost contact a French team was dispatched to intercept. They flew out to the freighter, and their last transmission indicated that they’d landed and were starting to clear the ship. They haven’t been heard from since.”

“Well, that’s great,” Boone said.

“Wait, it gets better,” Milo Anderson interjected. “Jean Darné was the leader of the French team.”

Several of the experienced Hunters began to mutter. Boone swore.

“Who is this Dar Nay guy? And why is that bad?” I asked.

“He was the best that they had. Probably the best team lead in Europe. You know they didn’t do anything sloppy. Whatever is on that boat is serious,” said one of the experienced Hunters, a South African immigrant named Priest.

“So we’re going in hard and fast.” Sam worked the lever on his Marlin and chambered a round. “Since we don’t know what’s on that freighter we’re coming ready for anything. Everybody is armed with something that shoots silver, even if it is just your handgun. We have every specialty round for the shotguns that we can think of. Big fifties. RPGs, flamethrowers, thermite, C4, and I even have a chainsaw around here somewhere. The Hind will stay airborne and provide covering fire if we need to bail out.”

“Mission parameters?” Boone asked.

“Don’t hurt the cargo. Cargo is boxed in the hold. Apparently it’s priceless art or some shit. So no bullet holes or fire in the hold. Rest of the ship is open game. If we can save any crew or the French Hunters, do it. Don’t sink the ship.”

“What’s the contract worth?” Boone again.

“Julie negotiated it, so of course it’s a good deal. We got a million up front. If the cargo is unharmed then MHI gets another 3.5 mil. The more the cargo is damaged, the less we get. If we sink the ship then we don’t get nothing. So let’s not sink the ship.”

We continued to cover details. There had been thirty crew, a ten-man security detail for the cargo, and a dozen French Hunters. So if we were dealing with an undead infestation we were looking at over fifty potential hostiles, not including whatever started the infection to begin with. The Hunters hazarded guesses about what we could face on the ship, including weird but not unheard-of things like Saughafin, fish-men, or just a plain old giant killer mollusk. As we continued toward our target we tried to iron out details and figure out any potential problems. Luckily for us, radar indicated that the freighter had stopped moving last night, so it must have dropped anchor. At least it would not be steaming toward land any longer, but it also raised the question what exactly had dropped the anchor.

“The freighter was headed for points northward. Two days ago, it turned south and has been paralleling the coast. GPS transponder is still working, so we know right where she is,” Sam told us over a spread-out blueprint of the ship. “When we pull alongside, just try not to fall off the ladder. The fall probably won’t kill you, but we ain’t got time to screw around fishing you out.”

Finally we could see the freighter. It was a massive gray construction, with superstructure rising high into the air. It was a beautiful summer morning, but I could not help but feel an ominous shiver when I looked at the otherwise-normal-looking ship. I knew from the briefing that the mammoth ship was just under 600 feet long and displaced over 15,000 tons. Sam had assured us that the ship was not as big as it appeared, since most of the interior was open cargo space, but it was still going to be a beast to search.

Suddenly there was a massive roar as the bulbous helicopter flew low over us and charged the freighter. Wind and salt spray buffeted those of us at the railings. A figure manning a door gun waved at us as they passed. “Show-offs!” Milo yelled and waved back.

MHI’s helicopter was a surplus MI-24 Hind. Harbinger had picked it up for next to nothing after the collapse of communism. It was possibly the ugliest thing ever designed, but it was considered a flying tank for a reason. Utilitarian in comfort, it was nonetheless reliable and versatile. It was missing its missiles and rocket pods because the Feds would not allow it in the country that way. Instead the pylons had been replaced with storage compartments for gear and extra fuel. It was big enough to carry eight of us, and could carry enough weight and had enough fuel that the entire team could be evacuated on it if necessary, provided we did not mind hanging off of the wing pylons. It was fast, but it lacked maneuverability at low speeds.

In its original communist paint job it had been a strange enough sight that the company had avoided using the Hind during daylight hours over populated areas. A few flights had resulted in calls to the authorities that Red Dawn was happening for real. To combat this, Harbinger had ordered the chopper painted white and red, so now it was usually mistaken for a medevac or search-and-rescue helicopter instead. They had, however, taken the liberty of painting a huge pair of sharp-toothed jaws around the cockpit. That was a nice touch.

The chopper swept quickly over the freighter, banked hard, and made another pass. It slowed until it was hovering and then lazily rotated over the center of the ship. Sam Haven stood nearby, listening intently into his earpiece. All of us were on the same radio net and could listen along. We had been warned to stay off of the radio unless absolutely necessary, except to check in every five minutes once we were onboard.

Julie Shackleford’s voice crackled over the radio. She had been the waving door gunner.

“This is Julie. I see no movement. Deck looks clear. No bodies. No signs of damage. French chopper is still on the pad.” We were a small enough group that we just used our names on our secure radio net.

“Chopper One. This is Boat One. Can you see into the bridge? Over.” Except for Sam, of course. He did not get to be in charge very often, and was not going to waste his chance to use correct radio jargon.

The Hind gradually changed position until it was directly in front of the superstructure. Julie leaned out the door, secured only by bungee cords clipped to her harness. She mounted her rifle and used the scope to scan the windows.

“Negative, Sam. We have a ghost ship.”

“Roger that,” the big cowboy radioed back. He nudged Milo in the ribs and gave him a Copenhagen-colored grin. “Did you know my middle name was Roger?”

“Yes, Sam, I know,” Milo responded. Great guy, but a little bit of Sam went a long ways.

Harbinger’s voice came over the radio next. “Let’s do it. Front of the ship is clear. We’re going to rope down and set up a perimeter. We’ll send down the ladder. Front, left-hand side.”

“Chopper One, this is Boat One. It’s the prow, damn it. Left is port. The front of the ship is fore and the back is aft. Over,” Sam responded in consternation.

“Roger that. Front, left-hand side. Ladder is going to come down near the anchor chain. If nothing comes out to attack us we will throw down a second ladder. Signal us when you’re in position,” Harbinger radioed back.

“Damn Army pus-nuts.”

“Navy dumb-shit,” Boone said as he flipped Sam the bird. The cowboy grinned and spit a huge gob of chew on the deck.

Directions were given to the captain and the Brilliant Mistake motored into position. Orange bumpers were thrown over the side to protect us from the much larger vessel. Luckily for us the ocean was relatively calm, or at least that is what they told me. I was having a hard time standing up without holding onto something. The deck was slick and the steel-gray wall approaching us was intimidating as hell. I was not looking forward to climbing a wet ladder while wearing forty pounds of gear, but it could be a lot worse. The freighter could be moving. The waves could be higher. Sam had told us that before they had a helicopter, they used to board ships by actually climbing up the anchor chain.

“Chopper One, this is Boat One. We will be in position in one minute. Over.”

“Roger that. We’re heading down.”

From the boat we could not see the five Hunters in the Hind as they rappelled to the deck. Gradually our boat bumped its way into position. We waited breathlessly. Nothing could be heard above our own engine, the roar of the chopper beating gravity into submission, and the crashing of waves.

Our only indication of success was when a chain ladder came hurtling toward us, rattling violently as it unrolled down the freighter’s hull. Sam lunged forward, grabbed it, and gave it a mighty tug. Nodding in satisfaction, he turned to us and stabbed his finger upward. Milo led the way; he was the best climber of the bunch, since he free-climbed mountains for fun. The smaller man grabbed onto the chains and pulled himself up effortlessly. With his long red beard, and bristling with firearms and knives, he reminded me of a pirate. A very mellow pirate, but a pirate nonetheless. Sam went next. Though burly and not as graceful as his predecessor, he had the most experience at this kind of thing, and was still remarkably fast. A second ladder came crashing down, and Boone’s team started to clamber up them as well. The Newbies were to go last. Except for Holly Newcastle. She had been given support duty. That meant that she needed to stay on the Brilliant Mistake and send up any of the special gear that ended up being needed that was still on the boat. We would send down a cord and she would tie it to the necessary equipment. She got to stay where it was the safest, and she did not like it one bit. In fact, she had been royally insulted.

“This sucks,” she said as I waited my turn at the ladder. I was extremely nervous, but I tried not to let it show.

“It’s an important job. Somebody has to do it,” I replied. “We don’t know what’s on this thing, and we can’t haul all of this with us. Who knows what might come in handy.”

“Blow me, Z,” she retorted.

“I’m gonna have to take a rain check on that one. Thanks, though.” Conversation was good. Conversation kept me from thinking about what I was going to have to do in about thirty seconds.

“You know what I mean. I should be up there with you guys. I can handle this.”

“I know you can. Don’t worry. You’ll get your chance. Hey, me, Trip and Lee are just guarding the escape route. That isn’t very heroic.”

“Don’t matter. We still get paid!” Trip shouted over the noise. It was his turn. Lee was already halfway up the first ladder. My friend let out a mighty rebel yell—“Yee-Haw!”—and started climbing. It was strange to hear a black man shout a Confederate battle cry. Hey, whatever worked.

It was my turn. Lee was almost over the bow. It looked to be at least a twenty-five-foot climb. Dangling from the side of a ship. On a slippery metal ladder. Hanging over the open ocean. Fun. I checked to make sure my 12-gauge was securely slung and that all of the pouches on my load-bearing gear were still closed. It was go time.

As I hit the ladder I realized that at that moment I was well and truly beginning my career as a professional Monster Hunter. I was prepared. I had recovered from my previous injuries, and I had been working out harder than I had in years. I was in excellent physical shape. I was scared and nervous, but I was actually looking forward to this. This is it.

I had been the last one up the ladder because I was the heaviest, probably the strongest too, but I had to pull a lot more weight than the others. There is a reason you don’t see very many big, muscle-bound guys as mountain climbers. The ladder was as bad as I feared, and it was difficult to get my big boots on top of the narrow rungs without twisting them. A sudden wave crashed against the freighter and splashed cold salt water on my face. I spat it out and kept going. By the time I was halfway up I could feel the muscles in my biceps and calves burning. I passed a small porthole, but it had been blacked out from the inside. I focused on the gray painted hull inches from my face and pulled myself up as fast as I could. Radio banter had started above me as the teams moved into position. They were waiting for me and I wasn’t going to let them down.

A huge painted letter A gradually appeared as I made my way up the hull. I froze, blinked hard, gasped, and had to catch myself as I almost fell off the ladder into the waiting ocean below. Stenciled in black block letters directly in front of my face was the name of the ship.

Antoine-Henri.

“Holy shit!” I exclaimed.

I had not been able to see it from the angle of our approach, and when we had been directly under the letters, I had been too preoccupied to notice. It was the same name that had been printed on the little boat of evil in my dream.

Trying not to panic, I keyed my mike. “This is Pitt. I need to talk to Harbinger, right now!”

“Pitt. What’s wrong?” crackled the response in my ear.

“We have to get off this ship, fast.”

“Why? Say again.”

“There are seven Master vampires onboard, some giant flying monsters, and a super-evil armored thing. Or at least there were. I think they might have gone ashore last night.”

“How do you know that?” said an amused voice. Grant Jefferson.

“I dreamed it last night. I saw them.” I knew that everyone was listening to me.

Somebody laughed at me over the radio net.

“He’s panicking on the ladder. Big dummy. Told you guys. Pitt, go sit in the boat,” Grant ordered.

“Grant, you stupid son of a bitch, shut up and listen. I saw the name of the ship in my dream. The monsters came ashore in a lifeboat with the name Antoine-Henri painted on it.”

The radio net was silent. I hung from the ladder. Twenty feet below, Holly stared up at me incredulously. Five feet above, the Hunters were assembled and either scoffing at me, or hopefully, pondering what I had to say. The stenciled letters on the ghost ship taunted me.

Finally Harbinger’s voice came back on. “Pitt, get your ass up here.”

I climbed the rest of the way as fast as I could, clambered over the railing and slipped and sprawled onto the gray-painted deck. I leapt to my feet and looked for Harbinger. The Hunters had spread out, using whatever cover was available, and had secured the front of the ship. The Hind roared overhead, tearing at us with wind.

“What’s going on?” Harbinger asked. He held a Tommy gun in his hands and there was murder in his eyes. He angrily glared at the chopper and made a whirling motion with his finger. Julie was still in the door, she gave him a thumbs-up, shouted something at the pilot and the chopper backed off enough that we could converse.

“I had a dream last night. I saw you guys talking about this mission. You were picking which Newbies to go. Then I saw a lifeboat land on a little beach by a swamp; the boat had the name Antoine-Henri on it. There were seven Master vampires on board, and some sort of dark, evil, cloaked thing that was wearing armor. They were taking orders from it. Then it saw us and some winged demon-looking things attacked. I woke up after that.”

The Director of Operations studied me carefully. I could not tell what he was thinking. Several of the other Hunters were glancing nervously our way. This episode was costing them valuable daylight. Finally he keyed his neck mike.

“Julie, do another pass around the ship. Check for missing lifeboats.”

“Got it, Earl,” crackled in my ear. The Hind took off in a burst of speed, nose suddenly down as it headed toward the rear of the freighter. He kept watching me. I readied my 870 and studied the deck. We had thirteen Hunters armed to the teeth, and Julie with a sniper rifle overhead. I did not feel safe at all. Sam and Grant detached themselves from the perimeter and trotted over to join us.

“What the hell is going on?” Grant demanded. His black armor was still polished bright, and somehow not dirtied from the rappel down. His personal weapon was an extremely expensive, customized, suppressed Knights SR25 .308 carbine. “We don’t have time for this nonsense, Harbinger. Send him back to the boat. Pitt can’t handle it and he’s freaking out.”

“Shut up, Grant,” I snapped.

Harbinger held up his hand, cutting us both off. Julie had come back on the radio.

“I don’t think there were any lifeboats mounted. Looks like they have inflatable rafts for that.” Her voice was distorted with static.

My spirits sank. Grant laughed at me. Harbinger frowned. Sam spit a glob of chew overboard. I suddenly felt very stupid. Maybe it had just been some weird fluke coincidence of my subconscious.

Not a chance.

“You saw me. In your meeting last night. You at least sensed me somehow. I thought something, and it surprised you. I was in the corner of the conference room,” I told Harbinger desperately. “Then I was gone, and that’s when the monsters landed. When the big one touched the ground, that’s when everybody got that weird feeling.”

As I have said before, Harbinger was not a man that I would want to play poker with. He did not normally display his emotions, but right now they were as easy to read as the name on the side of this cursed ship. His jaw dropped open, and his eyes widened. That had shocked him.

“How in the hell—”

He was interrupted midsentence as Julie came back on the radio.

“Earl. I take back what I said. Looks like they had a motor launch or something. There is a pulley system rigged near the end of the ship. Looks like it was used to lower or haul something out of the water. It’s empty and the cables are dragging in the water, I repeat, it is empty and the cables are in the water. There was a boat of some kind, but it is gone.”

“Thanks, Julie. Keep your eyes peeled,” he responded, took his hand away, thought better of it, and then keyed his mike again. “Boone, get over here. We need to have a little meeting.”

Sam clutched his .45-70 warily. “No way, Earl. Seven Masters? That don’t sound right. They don’t work together. At least they never have.”

“Are you guys crazy? The Newbie is full of it. He needs—”

“Grant. Get back on the perimeter,” Harbinger stated flatly.

“But I—”

“Go,” the Director snapped. Grant angrily complied.

Boone joined us with a worried look. Harbinger gave him a quick rundown. Julie had told me that Harbinger was much older than he looked, but right now he appeared to have aged a decade right in front of us. Boone looked at all of us as if we were crazy.

“So are you supposed to be like a psychic or something?”

“Not that I know of. I’m an accountant.”

“We’ve seen weirder things, Boone,” stated Harbinger. “Remember, flexible minds.”

“No shit. But this is weird even for us,” Boone replied. Then, turning towards me, he asked, “All right, big guy, how did you know they were Masters?”

“I don’t know. I could just tell. But they worked together, like a military unit.”

“Come on, Earl. That’s impossible. If vamps worked together, they could have taken over the world by now. It’s been twenty years since there was a confirmed report of a Master.”

“Closer to thirty. I know. I’m the one that killed it,” Harbinger answered. “But Pitt is right on one thing. Something surprised me last night. I couldn’t see anything, but there was something in the conference room with us. How else could he have known that?”

The four of us jumped when the radio sprang to life.

“This is Priest. You lot aren’t going to believe this, but I’ve got signs of life. Somebody must have heard us arrive.”

“What?” Boone responded.

“Listen, I’m going to put my mike on it. I’m getting this through a duct.”

Every Hunter on the ship strained to hear. It was a series of seemingly random clicks, repeated over and over. I did not immediately recognize it. Sam picked it up first.

“Morse code,” he translated. “SOS . . . T R A P P E D space E N G I N E R O O M space D A R N E space SOS.”

“Priest, send a message back,” Harbinger ordered.

“No can do, chief. Don’t know Morse code.”

“On it, Earl,” Sam responded and hurried off in that direction.

Harbinger got back on the radio. “Okay, folks. Mission parameters have changed. This is now a rescue.” He released the mike. “Boone, gather your men. Let’s clear this ship!”

“Won’t be the first time Americans have saved the French,” the Special Forces vet shouted over his shoulder as he ran to rejoin his team.

I waited for my boss to address me. I could not tell what he was thinking.

“Pitt.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Cut the ‘sir’ crap. Can you think of anything else from that dream of yours that might help?”

“Not really. If the dream is right, then the really bad dudes have disembarked. So do you believe me then?”

He did not answer my question directly. Instead he got back on the radio.

“Holly, send up every stake we have. We need to kill us some vampires.”

“So is that a yes?” I asked again.

“Come on . . . We’re burning daylight. Nobody’s ever killed a Master in the dark.”

Chapter 8

Vampires are one of the most dangerous forms of undead—brutal, swift, and smart. No Hunter in the world takes one on lightly. They vary greatly in ability, with the weakest being only super dangerous, while Masters are virtually unstoppable, perfect killing machines. Unluckily for us, anyone who is killed while being fed upon by a vampire could rise as one the next few nights, so we were potentially looking at fifty enraged bloodsuckers on the freighter. Luckily for us, newly created vampires tend to be confused and disoriented. The longer the creature exists, and the more blood that it has fed on, the greater its power would become.

Once again, literature and the movies got the story partially correct. Vampires are creatures of the night. Indirect sunlight can burn them. Direct sunlight will kill them. Their cells can regenerate almost instantly, but a stake through the heart will paralyze their advanced circulatory systems, and shut them down long enough to take their heads off. Even in our line of work there are not too many things that could survive getting their brain housings severed. Holy symbols like crosses and blessed water occasionally have an effect, but are dependent upon the personal faith of the user. Most Hunters opt for violence over faith; we’re kind of like soccer fans that way.

I took small comfort from that fact as I hauled a case of fragmentation grenades up from the Brilliant Mistake. They could be destroyed, and we had the means to do it. I grunted as I set the heavy case down on the deck, unclamped the cable, and threw it back over the side. Holly waited below for our next request. Trip and Lee stood nearby, scanning for any threats. We were the security detail. Julie was in the Hind, still on overwatch, and the ten other Hunters had broken into two raid teams and were making their way gradually toward the engine room.

“This is Harbinger. Still haven’t seen anything.”

“Boone’s team. All clear. Stay frosty.”

We had sent a coded message down the duct. The French Hunter tapped back that most of his team had been taken out by vampires, and they had sealed themselves in a compartment, were out of ammo, and were hiding.

“Newbie team. All clear on top.” I cradled my Remington and watched the deck. Nothing was moving except for the French flag flapping in the breeze. Since we were standing in broad daylight, and worried about creatures that burst into flame when they got too much sun, there was not a lot for the Newbie team to do other than keep a sharp eye on nothing. The Hind circled lazily above.

“How come Chuck got to go inside, and we’re stuck out here?” Albert Lee complained. He was a small-statured man of Asian descent. He had been a librarian once upon a time, before a colony of giant mutant spiders had taken up residence in his archives and started sucking the fluids out of his clientele. Unlike your average librarian, however, he had put himself through college on the GI Bill, and had been a demolitions specialist in the Marine Corps. His giant spider problem had met a fiery end, thanks to diesel fuel and ammonium nitrate fertilizer. Sadly, the library had burned down as well. He was sharp, and unlike many of the Newbies, had already known which end of the gun was the dangerous one. I was glad that Harbinger had picked him to come along.

“Chuck has more CQB training,” I answered. CQB stood for close quarters battle, and Mead had a lot more experience in it from his Ranger days than the rest of the Newbies. Lee just shook his head and we went back to waiting. Time passed slowly except for the occasional radio check-ins. The two assault teams were converging on the engine room from separate corridors.

“This is Harbinger. Galley’s clear. Buckets of blood on the floor. There was a struggle here.”

“This is Boone. We’re above the boilers. More blood. Lots of shell casings. This must be where the French bought it.”

“This is Julie. Deck is clear.”

“Newbie team. All clear on top,” I said again.

“This is the ‘support’ team. I’ve got stupid sailors trying to hit on me and this damn boat smells like fish guts,” Holly reported.

I checked my weapons again. The 870 had an 18-inch barrel and a two-shot mag extension, giving me seven total shots in the gun. It was a personal favorite of mine. I had owned this particular unit since I was fifteen. I had replaced the fore end with a Surefire high intensity flashlight, mounted a glow in the dark XS bead sight on the rib, attached a side saddle that held an extra six shells, and added a nylon butt cuff that held six more. My load-bearing gear was heavily laden with extra shells: silver buckshot, silver slugs, flechettes, armor-piercing quadrangle shot, internally suppressed buckshot, Milo’s special magnum breaching charges, and even a couple of Penguin tear gas rounds. I had strapped on everything but the kitchen sink, and I’m sure that they had a specialty round for that as well.

My handgun was also an old friend. At MHI, Hunters are able to customize their kits to suit them, and any handgun is allowed as long as it is a .45 that is reliable with our special silver bullets. My pistol was a Kimber/BUL polymer-framed double stack 1911 that I had been shooting in three-gun matches for years. The fat magazines held 14 rounds of .45, and I had six extras on my belt. I had customized it with huge tritium Ashley Express sights, that gave up a little precision for a whole lot of speed, which suited me just fine. I had over 10,000 rounds through that pistol, and I had won more than a few trophies with it.

There were several grenades on my webbing, a few sharpened stakes, and other miscellaneous tools. The enormous knife strapped to my chest completed my ensemble. Being a big guy, I had taken one of the biggest knives in the armory. Milo had said that it was a kukri from Nepal, the weapon of choice of the renowned Gurkha troops. It was curved deadly steel, with a fat heavy end designed for maximum chopping power. The version I had strapped on was called a ganga ram, and it was longer than my forearm. If I had to chop any heads off, I wasn’t going to screw around. Most of us were wearing the lightweight hockey helmets, as the big ones were too bulky for the close quarters of the ship.

I was as ready as I could be. I felt like I had in the minutes before a big money fight. Every one of us had been training hard, both physically and mentally. The Newbie team was ready to rumble. The others were armed with Heckler & Koch .45 subguns. I wasn’t particularly impressed with the guns, and thought the whole German engineering thing was really overrated, but Milo had gotten a good deal on a couple dozen, so they were passed out to most of the Newbies until they were proficient enough to pick their own gear.

The radio crackled again. The deeper the teams moved into the bowels of the ship, the greater the distortion. We were using top-of-the-line communications equipment, but there was only so much that radio waves could do through layers of steel plate.

“Boone here. We have movement ahead. Five yards from the engine room.”

“This is Harbinger. Movement ahead.”

“Shit. They’re behind us too.”

“Incoming. They’re coming through the grates.”

“Under the floor. Coming through the floor.” Gunfire erupted in the background.

“Ambush! It’s an ambush!”

The radio cut out. I couldn’t hear a thing. The three of us on deck stared at each other in confusion.

“Earl, come in, Earl. Boone. Anybody hear me?” Julie asked over the radio from the circling helicopter. She sounded worried.

I looked up to see her holding her hand to her neck, sniper rifle dangling from its straps. She was shouting something at the pilot, then she looked at me, and quickly snapped her rifle to her shoulder.

“Newbie team. You have incoming!” she shouted over the radio as she fired right past my head.

The supersonic crack could be felt in my eyeballs and eardrums as the bullet whizzed by, mere inches from my helmet. I spun in time to see a hideous undead face fall away from the ship’s railing, an extra hole in its gray forehead. Gore-stained men in rags were coming up over the sides, and charging with fast loping gaits, directly toward us.

No time for emotion. Training kicked in.

Without any conscious thought I raised the shotgun, flicked off the safety and caressed the trigger. I slammed a creature to the deck with a load of double-aught to the chest. Before it had even fallen, I had pumped and fired at the next creature in line, tearing off its jaw in a spray of black ooze. It kept coming, arms outstretched and clawed hands grasping for me. I cranked off two more rapid shots and it stumbled and fell over the railing. The chunk-chunk-chunk sound of suppressed subguns opened up as Trip and Lee fired their H&K UMP .45s.

Grabbing shells from my vest I rapid-fire shoved them into the loading port as I searched for more targets. The ashen undead were pouring over the sides of the ship, and spilling out around us in a confused mass. I fired at them as fast as I could, the gun an extension of my will. I put twelve silver-pellets through the brain cage of a creature closing on Lee, and dropped a slug through the chest cavity of another charging Trip. I felt a cold wet splash as the head of an undead that had appeared behind me was vaporized by a .308 round from Julie’s rifle.

“Close ranks. Get back to back! Back to back!” I shouted at my team. Somehow in the confusion they heard and ran toward me, all of us firing simultaneously in different directions. Some of the monsters that had been put down were already standing up again. I punt-kicked one as I passed, a move that would have broken every rib and probably killed a human. All it did was send the creature to its feet faster. It opened its maw in a soundless roar and lunged. I stuck the 870’s muzzle under its sternum at near-contact distance and blew a softball-sized hole out its back. It stumbled away momentarily, but then changed its mind and kept coming. I crushed its skull with the butt of my gun, and kicked its legs out from under it.

Lee screamed in pain as a bone claw struck him in the leg, and he collapsed to the ground. Trip stitched the monster through the face, grabbed Lee by the drag handle on the back of his armor, and pulled him to safety. I emptied my shotgun into the throng of undead, trying to take head shots, and then dropped it when it clicked empty. My tac sling kept it from hitting the ground. I instantly transitioned to my Kimber, centered the sights on the closest target and started firing. Bits of meat and bone flew from the creatures’ heads as the bullets struck home.

The three of us clustered together, shooting and reloading wildly. Lee lay prone on his stomach, firing his UMP upwards. More bullets cracked past us as Julie fired into the crowd. The slide of my 1911 locked back empty just as a creature was almost on me. My hand flashed toward a new magazine in a speed reload, but Trip was suddenly past me and took the monster’s arm off at the shoulder with his hatchet. With its remaining arm the creature brutally swatted Trip to the deck. I slammed the fresh mag home, dropped the slide and shot it through both eye sockets.

Lee was reloading, struggling to get a magazine out of his chest pockets while lying on them, his legs paralyzed beneath him. Trip wasn’t moving.

There were only two creatures still up, but they were coming our way fast. One was wearing what used to be a sailor’s uniform, and the other was wearing some sort of security coverall. Their eyes glowed red, and their teeth were broken and black. Sharpened bones appeared through the torn ends of their hands. I hammered two quick rounds into the first creature’s head, and it spilled forward onto the deck.

I shot the former sailor in the face. Its claws slashed out toward me as I threw myself down in an attempt to avoid them. My back hit the deck, sliding through the spilled fluids, firing upward into the creature still relentlessly pursuing me. Its neck erupted in a spray of black as Julie nailed it, temporarily slowing the monster. I pulled the massive ganga ram from my chest and swung at the creature’s legs. The big knife tore through the monster’s knee, severing the limb. It fell beside me and I cleaved the top half of its skull off, spilling pink brains and black fluid onto the painted deck.

The front of the ship was littered with steaming gray bodies. Some of them were still moving, and a few were already starting to rise. I raised the huge knife over my head and shouted in rage. I hacked wildly at anything that twitched, spraying fluids and meat with every swing. Lee struggled to his feet shakily and shot .45 caliber holes in anything that looked suspicious. The Hind dropped altitude, and roared over the side of the ship.

“Owen! The undead are coming out the portholes. They’re crawling up the sides of the ship. Holly needs help.”

Shit. I slammed the still sticky knife back into its sheath, holstered my pistol, retrieved my shotgun and started loading it with slugs as I ran toward the chain ladders. Julie was dangling from the Hind, firing at the side of the ship below me. A ricochet sparked upwards and struck my body armor. Ignoring the painful but not dangerous hit, I leaned across the railing to look down at the deck of the Brilliant Mistake. Holly was firing her UMP at the monsters dangling unnaturally from the slick steel hull. They were crawling along it somehow, in violation of gravity and common sense, heading directly toward her. There were at least five of them, and they were soaking up bullets without much effect.

I put the bead on a creature directly below me. It was an awkward angle, and I had to lean over so far that I was afraid I was going to end up in the ocean. I stroked the trigger and put an ounce of silver through the first undead’s shoulder blades. Arms limp, it slipped from the hull and fell into the waves. I pumped the action and took aim on the next target.

Then a cold feeling surged through my body, starting in the center of my back, and spreading out into my limbs, so very cold it burned. My legs went numb and buckled beneath me. My 870 slipped from my grasp and dangled on its sling. I was jerked around like a rag doll. An undead sailor held me by the straps of my armor. Its touch had caused instant paralysis. I looked into its clear, blood-red eyes as it opened its mouth impossibly wide, black razor teeth glistening. I tried to move, but all I could manage was a weak flopping of my arms, twitching the muscles of my face, and a small tingle of my fingers. I was about to die.

Suddenly the top of the creature’s head opened up like a cantaloupe stuffed with firecrackers. Julie had fired right past my limp body. The bullet actually grazed my helmet. It was perhaps the best shot I had ever seen. The creature fell, lifeless claws trailing away from me. I could see Trip and Lee heading my way, trying to reach me before my limp body went over the rail. Trip dived recklessly over the near-headless undead, arms outstretched like I was the winning end zone pass.

He did not quite make it.

I fell the thirty feet into the ocean soundlessly. Not because I was too brave to scream, believe me. I was screaming on the inside, but my throat was too frozen to make any sound. I hit the waves with a huge splash. Immediately the weight of my armor and weapons dragged me down. My limbs floated numbly around me. I was at least able to close my mouth, but water started to rush relentlessly down my nose. I tried to move. I willed my arms to move. Nothing was happening. I tried to struggle. I raged soundlessly at my helplessness as I spiraled into the depths.

The light was dwindling above. I did not know if that was because I was putting some serious distance against the surface, or because my brain was running out of oxygen. The water was cold, but my body felt colder still. Lights began to pop behind my eyes as water expanded into my lungs. I knew that soon they would lock up in desperation, and I was screwed.

What were the undead that paralyzed you at their touch? We had discussed them in class . . . There had been a picture of Julie fighting one. Wights. Wights could paralyze you. How long did it last, though? Lee had gotten up pretty quick, and Trip was moving around when I slipped over the edge. A minute? Maybe two? Unfortunately I didn’t have a minute or two. My depth was increasing, and I was starting to panic from lack of air. Terror without the outlet of movement is a real bummer. I kept trying to move, willing myself to respond with all my might. My fingers wiggled slightly. Not enough.

It had been fun while it lasted.

Then I stopped. The Old Man from my dream was in front of me. I could see him clearly in the dark water. He was perfectly dry as fish swam past his bony shoulders. He shook his head sadly.

“Boy, we have to stop meeting like this.”

He reached out with his heavy cane and stabbed the emergency button on my armored harness. The CO2 canister erupted with bubbles, instantly inflating the shoulder portion of the armor, and giving me positive buoyancy. I started to rise.

“Up you go now. Your friends need help. You not very good at this. No more getting dead!”

As my armor carried me toward the surface in a cloud of bubbles, I could sense the feeling returning to my body. It was an awful, tingly pain. Combined with the screaming, air-starved agony in my chest and the explosive pain in my head, it was horrible. My legs began to kick and my arms began to tear at the hard water, forcing myself ever faster toward the light and a breath of precious, precious air.

My head broke the surface. I somehow gasped and filled my mostly liquid-distended lungs, and simultaneously violently vomited salt water. That hurt. Immediately one of the fishermen started to wildly strike me in the helmet with a pole.

“Kill it! Kill it!” one of them shouted.

I tried to swat the pole away, but my limbs were still regaining their strength. “Stop it! I’m human, you idiots,” I croaked as they tried their best to shove me back underwater.

“He’s on our side. Quit hitting him, damn it!” I heard Holly order. “Pull him in.”

I did my best to grab the end of the pole and I was dragged to the Brilliant Mistake. Rough hands grabbed me by my harness and pulled me aboard, soaked, shaking, gasping and still vomiting. There was sudden movement in the waves as one of the wights broke the surface and did a savage impersonation of dog-paddling toward our boat.

“You can whack that one,” I gurgled, as my numb fingers tried to grasp my still-secured shotgun.

“I’ve got it. Fire in the hole!” Holly shouted. I heard a plopping splash, and a few seconds later a thunderous roar as the frag grenade detonated. The ocean erupted. Water and miscellaneous undead bits rained down on the little boat.

“That’s the last of them,” Holly reported. “Are you okay?”

I rolled onto my side and retched and coughed horribly. My chest was racked with spasms of pain and I was seeing double.

“Yeah, I’m cool,” I gasped.

“Sure, you’re the picture of health. Come on, Z.” She tried to help me up, but I was far too heavy to budge. I struggled to my knees as she pulled at the drag handles on my armor. There was a large scorch mark on the hull of the Antoine-Henri, with a small jagged crater torn through the metal in the center. She saw me looking at the hole in puzzlement.

“What? You thought you guys were going to leave me down here with all of the cool stuff and I wasn’t going to use any of it?” She pointed at the spent RPG launcher lying on the deck. Next to it was the headless body of a still-twitching wight. She had pinned it to the wooden deck with a boathook.

“They need help up top,” I said as she helped me to my feet. I had to stop and vomit once again. It still hurt but it was getting easier. That one had contained my dinner from the evening before. Nachos.

“I’ll go. You stay here. The captain is casting off. They’re going to get the hell away from this demon boat, and I can’t say I blame them. They’ll pull back and wait for our signal in case any more of those things come squirting out the portholes.”

“I’m going,” I stated.

“You almost drowned,” she pleaded.

“And I didn’t even get any mouth-to-mouth. We’re wasting time.” I grabbed onto the ladder as the Brilliant Mistake’s engine turned over with a cough and ejected a cloud of diesel smoke. Holly shook her head in consternation and grabbed the second ladder. We started climbing as the little boat pulled away. If I had thought that it was hard the first time, doing it after almost drowning was infinitely more difficult. My boots and armor were soaked, and had seemingly tripled in damp weight like giant Cordura sponges. Holly easily outpaced me—her lighter weight and excellent muscle tone surely helped—and she went over the top first. Trip and Lee were waiting for me, and helped drag my carcass the last few feet.

“Ugh,” I grunted as I fell onto the deck for the second time. “I hate that stupid ladder.”

“It’s easier than upside-down pole dancing, you sissy,” Holly stated as she unslung her UMP. Surveying the deck, I could see that my companions had been busy while I had taken a little swim. Every wight had been hastily chopped into its component bits. Some gray arms were still pulling themselves along, and a few severed heads were glaring and gnashing their teeth. The Hind was still circling above us. Surprisingly, my radio still worked.

“I popped a couple climbing up the other side. I think we’re clear,” Julie’s voice said. “No response from the assault element. I’m coming down.”

The chopper stopped directly above us, a rope was thrown out the side, and Julie unclipped herself from her bungee cords. She expertly fast-roped down, dropping swiftly to the deck. As soon as her boots hit the surface she was heading our way, helmeted head pointed down to avoid the harsh blast of the rotors. The Hind immediately gained altitude and banked hard and away.

“He can stay for another twenty minutes, tops, then he needs to refuel,” she shouted as she approached. “Is everybody okay?”

“Good to go,” Holly stated. The rest of us nodded.

I suddenly dry-heaved and went to my knees coughing and choking. Once it passed, I shakily lumbered back up. “Just peachy,” I said giving a big cheesy grin and a thumbs-up.

“Good. We’re going in,” Julie ordered. She dropped the partially expended magazine from her accurized M14, and replaced it with a full one. “Assault team has been out of contact for a few minutes. They probably need help. Let’s move out.”

She trotted toward the entrance to the belly of the beast. The rest of us followed obediently. It had been felt that the Newbie team had not been ready for the brutal close-quarters battle that was monster hunting in a claustrophobic ship’s interior. That didn’t matter now. We were the cavalry and we were coming to the rescue. At least Julie knew what she was doing.

“Take grenades. But be careful how you use them. We’re going to be inside a steel tube. Back pressure from an explosion can kill. Don’t hose shots. Everything ricochets down here. Watch your muzzle and be aware of where the rest of your team is. No flames. The ship is metal, but everything onboard can burn, and a ship fire is bad news. If anything moves, and it isn’t human, shoot it. Questions?”

Nobody said anything. We stopped in front of the massive metal door. Julie grabbed Holly by the straps of her armor and looked her in the eyes. “It’s going to be dark in there, Holly. Just like the hole. Are you going to be okay? You don’t have to do this if you aren’t ready.”

“I’m fine. I hate vampires. Let’s kill these assholes,” she replied angrily. Julie nodded and smiled. I had no idea what that was about.

“We’re going to move fast. We’re not going to stack at each entrance. We’re not going to do a full clearing. Keep moving. Watch above you. Watch floor grates. Lee, you bring up the rear, watch behind us. I’m on point, then Pitt, Trip, and Newcastle. Got it?”

“Let me take point,” I suggested.

“Why?”

“I’ve got the shotgun. You’ve got a sniper rifle with a scope on it. Plus I’m expendable. If you’re in front and you die, then the rest of us are screwed.” I wasn’t being chivalrous. For conversational distance a shotgun beat the pants off of a long rifle with a magnifying optic.

She thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Pitt on point, then me. Any questions?” It probably made more sense to put one of the other three with the suppressed subguns next in line, but I did not think Julie was real confident in their shooting abilities at that point.

We were quiet, each of us preparing ourselves in our own way to enter the dark. Trip was obviously mumbling a prayer. Lee had his eyes closed and appeared to be doing controlled breathing. Holly was wearing an evil, predatory grin. I made sure my shotgun and pistol were fully loaded and my magazines and knife were in place. At least my quick dip in the ocean had cleaned most of the wight juices off of me. The rest of the Newbie team was coated in them.

Julie slapped me on the back of my soggy armor.

“Go.”

The first floor we covered was still lit with fluorescent lights, but by the time we hit the stairs for the next level down, we were forced to switch to our helmet-mounted night-vision monoculars. Something had systematically smashed every light. Glass crunched under our boots as we quickly made our way through the narrow steel corridors. I had a pair of lights on my shotgun, one a super-bright white light, and the second cast a brilliant beam that was invisible to the human eye, but lit up the whole world in green through my monocular. The rest of the team was similarly equipped with infrared lights on their guns as well. Since we were fighting undead, the thermal-imaging gear had been left on deck. It was not very useful against things that were already room temperature.

We swiftly passed through what had been the galley. I kept the shotgun at the low ready, elbows tucked down to keep from banging them on the walls. Meals lay half eaten and rotting on the tables. The walls were splashed with a thick fluid that was indeterminate through night vision, but my gut told me that it had once been bright arterial spray. I bumped into a wine bottle with my foot and sent it spinning under one of the tables. The doors were basically watertight hatches, and I had to carefully step over a steep sealing lip on the base of each portal as I passed. So far all of the hatches had been open.

The crash of gunfire echoed through the corridors and ductwork. That was a good sign that our friends were still alive. My small team quickened its pace. According to the blueprints we’d studied on the way to the ship, we needed to go down one more flight of stairs, through some quarters, down a long corridor, and then we would be right on top of the engine room. We all flinched as an explosive whump vibrated the whole freighter and rattled the utensils in the galley.

“Bomb?” Trip asked.

“Hard to tell,” Julie answered.

“I hope we don’t sink,” Lee grunted.

Our boots rattled on the metal stairs as we double-timed it to the next level. The time for stealth had passed. I turned the corner into the crew quarters, light probing ahead, shotgun butt ground tightly into my shoulder pocket. The long, narrow room was filled with double bunks. Pornography had been crudely taped to the walls, and it looked strange in the glowing green light. Blankets and trash were strewn everywhere. It was a veritable warren of hiding places. Jerking my fist up, I signaled the team to freeze. I had sensed something.

Julie drew against me, her rifle at the ready. I could hear her breathing. There was a clank as another member of our team tripped on the doorway. Something was in the room with us. I could feel it.

Nothing happened.

The group continued to shine our invisible lights around the room. I could not put my finger on what I was feeling, but something was waiting for us.

Julie must have felt the same thing. “Everybody, NVGs off. Go to white light,” she commanded.

I flipped my monocular back and complied, pushing the button that activated the 120-lumen Surefire light on the forearm of my 870. Brilliant, scalding light suddenly filled the room from five waving points.

A night-vision monocular has some advantages over a similar pair of goggles that cover both eyes, but it also has its disadvantages. On the plus side, with the single lens, one pupil will be fully dilated for natural human night vision, and the other eye will be looking at an already bright-green world. The human brain, being the amazing thing that it is, superimposes both lighted and unlighted images together. You get electronically enhanced vision, with one eye still able to see as well as any human could in the dark if the device gets lost. With two-lens goggles, you have better night vision capability, but if your device goes out, you’re pretty much screwed until your eyes adjust to the dark. Great as our monoculars are, there’s a disadvantage inherent to them as well. When you suddenly flip on bright lights, one of your eyes is immediately blinded.

So the five of us were down to one sort of functioning eye and one dazzled eye when the Surefires kicked in. That was probably why the image of the vampire crawling down the ceiling toward us was extra surreal. As I had been told, it did in fact look like a normal person. This one looked like a regular sailor. Pale and defying gravity, but human.

I reacted a fraction of a second before the rest of the team. In that moment I was able to pump two silver slugs through the vampire’s chest and pelvis. The concussion of the shotgun was deafening in the confined space, but nothing compared to the sonic crack of Julie’s M14. Her bullet clipped the vampire through the shoulder. The creature dropped to the floor, and both of us hit it again on the way down. The rest of the team did not have a clear shot through us.

The vampire screamed inhumanly as Julie and I simultaneously dropped to our knees. The three Newbies behind us opened fire over our heads. The suppressed weapons shuddered as .45 bullets stitched the creature, with plenty of other bullets missing and hitting the walls and bunks. It shook and staggered, but kept coming. Impact holes puckered in the monster’s pale skin, only to instantly close. I emptied the rest of my slugs in a continuous burst, nailing the monster from the crotch to the forehead, the last shot snapping the vampire’s head back violently.

I dropped the smoking Remington, drew my handgun, and fired two shots before I was swatted aside. My body armor cushioned the blow, but I was hurled through the air and slammed into the steel wall. Pain surged through my ribs and I lost my pistol on impact. Julie dropped down and rolled under a nearby bunk, narrowly avoiding the vampire’s foot as it smashed an indentation into the metal floor. Illumination from five different flashlights pointing in strange directions created a hellish and confusing scene.

The rest of my team emptied their subguns into the creature as it closed on them. Holly and Trip started to reload and Lee drew his knife and swung wildly. The vampire moved so quickly that it was hard to track visually. It side-stepped the blow, grabbed Lee by his arm and tossed him across the room. I heard the smaller man skid roughly across the floor. The vampire was distracted from Trip and Holly as heavy .308 bullets struck it in the feet and legs.

Julie’s cover was torn away as the sailor thing grabbed the bunk and ripped it from the wall, easily breaking the heavy bolts. It reached for her but I got there first. I swung my ganga ram with all of the fury that I possessed. Somehow it sensed me in midswing, and started to move. I had been aiming for its neck, but instead my blade sunk deep into its shoulder, breaking the collarbone and grinding out against the top of the monster’s ribs. Black fluid sprayed everywhere like a pierced hydraulic cylinder.

Spinning away, the creature ripped my blade from my grasp. The vampire flew backwards, and stuck to the wall like a spider. Screeching in anger, it reached up, grasped the hilt of the massive Nepalese blade and drug it out of its back. The noise of steel scraping on bone was sickening. The blade dropped to the floor with a clatter. I heard the near simultaneous dropping of bolts as Trip and Holly got their UMPs back in action. Julie was reloading. Lee wasn’t moving. I reached for a specialty 12-gauge round, dropped it into the open chamber of my 870, and ran the pump forward.

The wound was already sealing. It hissed something obviously profane in French.

“Parley-vous this, motherfucker.”

It leapt at me, launching itself like a demon frog missile. I brought the shotgun up and pulled the trigger as the muzzle contacted the vampire’s chest.

A regular breaching round is used by police to safely break the locks or hinges on heavy doors during raids, which fragments without endangering any bystanders. The 3-inch magnum 12-gauge sintered magnesium/tungsten breaching charge that I had just fired had been designed for blowing through hinges suitable for bank vaults. Milo had told me that, during testing, this special breacher had put a basketball-sized hole through a side of beef.

The recoil was amazing, even by my standards. The noise was going to leave all of us with ringing ears for a week. The vampire’s torso exploded in a black mist.

The creature’s momentum carried it into me. We both crashed to the floor, rolling and thrashing. Entrails were spilling everywhere. Its legs were kicking on the ground, but its top half kept fighting. I pushed it off as it clawed at me and rolled away. Trip and Holly responded by pouring two full magazines of .45-caliber silver into the thrashing monstrosity, riddling it with holes. As soon as they ran dry, Julie charged the torso. She placed one heavy boot on the creature’s neck, raised a sharpened stake high over her head and, with a cry, slammed it through the evil black heart.

A fountain of black ooze shot into the air and the hideous shrieks pierced us to the bone. Julie was splattered, but undaunted. The vampire was twitching, but could barely move. She held her hand out. “Big knife.”

Grabbing my ganga ram from the floor, I limped over. I handed it over hilt first. The knife was huge, but she was a strong woman. She swung it back with one hand like she was clearing brush with a machete, then struck. There was a thud and the screaming finally stopped. The head rolled free. She kicked it in disgust.

“Reload. There’s more where that came from. Lee, you still with us?” Julie said. She wiped the knife blade on her leg and handed it back over, mouthing the word “thanks.” She looked deadly serious covered in vampire gore and illuminated by powerful flashlights.

“I’m okay. Ow, damn,” Lee said as Trip helped him to his feet. He sounded weak and raspy. “I think I broke a rib.”

“Take it easy for a sec. Holly, cover the other doorway. Keep it on white light. Our vision is shot, and the lights disorient them.”

“That was disoriented?” Trip asked.

I speed-reloaded the shotgun. I did not dare load any more breaching rounds since they were useless past contact distance. “Anybody see my pistol?”

Lee handed it to me, scuffed, but undamaged. I changed magazines and reholstered. The bunk I was leaning against had a picture of a sailor’s wife and kids standing in front of the Eiffel Tower. I shined my light on the vampire’s body. The flesh was slowly bubbling and melting into a tarlike substance, leaving only sticky bones. The eyeless skull appeared to be watching me.

“So that’s a Master vampire. They aren’t so tough,” I said.

Julie surprised us all by laughing. It was a genuine sound of merriment, and was totally out of place in the splattered crew quarters. She paused in cleaning the slime off her prescription goggles long enough to look at all of us poor befuddled Newbies. She shook her head and smiled.

“That was just a baby.” All of the Newbies had some choice words at that. Holly swore so creatively that it was almost poetry. “Masters can move so fast you can’t hardly see them. They can eat a stack of Bibles and wash it down with a lit Molotov cocktail. This guy was probably turned in the last week. Abnormally quick regeneration, but the more powerful the creator, the stronger the creation. Whatever started this mess was one bad son of a gun. It would have to be to create those wights to serve as daylight guardians too.”

Satisfied that she could see again, Julie pointed toward Holly and the passage to the engine room. “Owen on point again. Trip, stay by Lee and help him if he needs it. Holly, you bring up the rear. If we come across more vamps, stop, then throw in some grenades first. All right, let’s move.”

I took my place at the door, light stabbing ahead, searching for targets. Julie took the second position. She spoke softly in my ear.

“Parley-vous, mother effer?”

“It sounded good at the time,” I shrugged. “Hey, if we don’t die in the next few minutes, are you doing anything for dinner tonight?”

She thumped me in the shoulder to indicate that it was time to move out. I took that as a no. I moved quickly, the light from the flashlights behind threw my hulking shadow down the hall. I had pulled something in my leg in the struggle with the vampire. My head and chest ached from my earlier adventure in the water. My stomach and throat hurt from all of the heaving. My nerves tingled with adrenaline and terror-induced endorphins. I was still seeing purple ghosts in one semi-blinded eye, and I was covered in vampire juices. I was having a great time and had never felt more alive.

Finally a voice came over the radio. It was Harbinger.

“Lights coming near the engine room. Who is it?”

“Hold your fire. It’s me and the Newbie team,” Julie answered.

“Stop where you are. There’s a mess of hostiles about thirty feet from your position through the door on your left. We’re at the end of the hall on the other side of that. Why ain’t you up top?”

It was good to hear Harbinger’s voice. I pointed my shotgun at the indicated compartment. Anything that came through that portal was going to get a snout full of buckshot.

“We lost radio contact after you got ambushed. The deck got swarmed with wights. We killed them, but the boat crew wasn’t going to stick around, and the Hind was low on fuel. The Newbies did good, only minor injuries. We decided to come find you guys. I thought for a minute we had lost you, Earl,” Julie answered.

“Nope. But Boone lost a man. Roberts got swarmed in the ambush. We have some others wounded, but nothing critical. It was bad. There had to be at least twenty vamps. And they rigged the lights to blow when they attacked.” His voice sounded tired and ragged.

“That doesn’t sound right. Undead don’t coordinate,” she said.

“These do. It was planned. We killed most of them, and the rest are holed up in that engine compartment. There are at least five.”

“Fire?” Julie asked, sounding hopeful.

“Negative. Fuel storage is through there. Same with explosives. We set anything off in that room and we’re swimming home. Plus the room that Darné and his men are locked in is on the other side of where the vamps are.”

“Plan?” she asked.

“I haven’t figured that out yet. We can go in shooting. But if we do we might hit a steam line and cook us all, or we might hit the boiler and blow a hole in the bottom of the ship. Either way we’re running out of time. We got another coded message from the French Hunters. The vamps are trying to break into their compartment—wait a second.”

I did not turn to look. I kept my muzzle on the door. We had a great position. Both groups of Hunters could fire with impunity into the doorway, and the angles were such that the chances of ricocheting a shot into the other team were virtually nil. Trip and Holly both squeezed around me so that they would have a shot as well. The injured Lee watched our backs and Julie stayed on the radio. The walls and floor vibrated slightly from the powerful engine nearby. The air smelled of diesel and rubber and rust and the faint copper smell of blood.

While we waited for Harbinger to get back to us, I could not help but ask, “Did any of you guys know Roberts?”

“He was the tall, skinny, blond guy on the boat,” Trip said. “Seemed like a good guy.”

“He was a great guy. Brave. A little crazy, but he was a dang good Hunter,” Julie told us. “Roberts has been with us since we restarted. First batch of Newbies we had. He’ll be missed. I think he had an ex-wife and some kids in St. Louis.”

Harbinger’s voice crackled in my earpiece. “Sam says that he found something on the schematics. We’re directly under the main cargo bay. There’s an escape hatch there that leads into that engine compartment. Sam says that we can put somebody through it, and they can pierce a steam pipe in the vamp’s room, and then close the hatch before they get cooked. The steam will fry the undead, or at least flush them into the corridor where we can blast them.”

“Won’t that kill the Frenchmen also?” Julie asked.

“Sam doesn’t think so. Might raise the temperature a little, but judging from the schematics they should be fine. I’m sending Sam, Grant and Mead up to do it.”

“What about Boone’s team?”

“My team’s a little occupied, Jules,” Boone replied over the net. “Your uncle Earl neglected to mention that we have at least two more of the bloodsuckers pinned down by the shafts. One of them is the son of a whore that bit Roberts.”

“Roger that.” She released her mike. “Wait for the cookout.”

“I could place some claymores down the hall. Give them a surprise when they come running out,” Lee offered helpfully. Just like a former demo guy, always looking to blow something up.

“No, we’re too enclosed.”

She was probably right. But judging by the number of projectiles these things could soak up, I sure was not looking forward to five of them heading our way at the same time. There had been an FN MAG machine gun brought on board from the Brilliant Mistake. I had left it behind since it was so long and unwieldy inside the tight confines of the ship. However, 200 rounds of belt-fed .308 full-auto firepower would have been great right about then.

“I’ve got some smaller stuff. It should do the trick with minimal damage to us, but it’ll turn anything that comes through that door into hamburger.” For emphasis, Lee patted a pouch that was clipped to his webbing. “I’m hurting pretty bad, so I don’t think I could throw it far enough, but one of you guys could probably land it right outside that hatch. It’s radio detonated.”

Julie thought about it for a moment and then nodded at Trip. Lee unclipped the pouch, opened it, made a few adjustments, zipped it back up and handed it over. Trip gently bounced it in his hands a few times to test the weight, then he underhanded it with perfect accuracy, landing it on our side, just in front of the targeted hatch.

“Good throw,” Holly said.

“I helped coach the girls’ softball team too. Slow pitch.” All of us gave him funny looks. “It was a small school,” he added defensively.

Time passed. Harbinger informed us that the captive French were sending more messages. The vampires were slowly battering their way in, looking for fresh blood. Sam checked in to tell us that the three of them were almost in position. Boone’s team was down to four, and two of them were injured, and they had problems of their own. Harbinger and Milo were in position, but since there were only two of them they were in for trouble if all of the vampires headed their way. We were spread awfully thin. It was going to be tight.

“This is Sam. We’re in place. Main cargo bay appears empty. But there’s a mess of Conex containers up here, it’s hard to tell. We’re gonna pop the hatch. You should know if this works. Over.”

“Go get them, Cowboy,” Julie whispered under her breath, while tightening the grip on her M14. We were positioned so that anything stepping into the hall was going to get a big surprise. A bit of high explosives and four of us that were able to provide direct fire. Julie and I were even pretty decent shots. Who was I kidding, I was pretty good, but from what I had seen up on the deck, she was amazing. I glanced surreptitiously her way. Her brown eyes were focused through the lens of her ACOG scope. Her gloved finger was resting easily just alongside the trigger guard. She was leaning against the steel hull to steady herself. Her features were strong, and somehow she was still attractive in her relatively unflattering green body armor despite the scratches and slime all over her face. Julie Shackleford was the girl of my dreams.

In the distance the sound of banging metal could be heard and then a rapid series of gunshots and another clang of metal on metal. Trip was prone on the floor, so he felt the vibration first. “Here we go!” he shouted.

A metallic screeching tore at our ears, as a wall of white vapor poured out of the open hatchway. The noise was a bastardized version of the world’s greatest and most terrifying teapot. Even from where we were, the temperature rose dramatically as the scalding mist began to fill the hallway. Just under the onslaught of noise could be heard other equally inhuman screams, this time from the engine compartment’s resident vampires.

Something moved in the hatchway. First one, then two, and finally a third vampire stumbled into the corridor. The steam was boiling their fluids and peeling their flesh far faster than they could regenerate. One of them turned malevolently toward us with blind, molten eye sockets and screamed.

“Hit it, Lee!” Julie shouted. Our demolitionist librarian complied and compressed the clacker in his gloved fist.

The small charge detonated. The explosion was more of a muted thump than the expected fireball. In the open, Lee’s little bomb might not have been very impressive, but in the narrow metal space, the energy of the C4 tore through the undead. Their bones were smashed into powder and their bodies were disseminated into their component materials. We were thirty feet away but we were still peppered with a fine mist of vampire.

Two more creatures spilled from the hatchway, just having missed the bomb. One moved in our direction, the other turned toward Harbinger and Milo. Six weapons opened fire. The creature heading our way was blind, burned, and torn. Some of its internal organs had expanded under the intense, wet heat, and the creature appeared lopsided and ungainly. Our bullets tore into it, rupturing through fluids and tissues, breaking bones, and spilling the vampire’s unnatural life onto the floor. It fell to its knees under our onslaught, dragging itself inexorably toward us. One scalded claw was torn completely off by my last round of buckshot, and it still somehow continued trying to pull itself on its one functioning limb.

It fell silent as we ran our guns dry. My ears were partially protected by the high-quality earpieces, but even with that my head swam from the barrage in the tight echoing chamber. No gunfire could be heard from the other Hunters’ position.

“Earl. Come in, Earl. Are you okay?” Julie dropped her spent M14 mag, and inserted another, letting the bolt fly forward to chamber another round. “Can you hear us?”

“Got it. Our vamp is down.”

“We’re coming around the corner to finish ours. Hold your fire.”

“Roger that.”

The vampire was torn asunder, but already it was beginning to heal. This time Trip and Holly did the honors while I covered them. Holly put her boot down on the creature’s spine, and slammed a stake through its back with a vengeance. This vampire was too damaged to scream. Trip grimaced as he pulled out his hatchet. I suppose that the correct term was tomahawk for the Vietnam-era weapon that he had picked out of the armory. My friend raised the little ax and brought it down swiftly. The vampire had been shot through the neck so many times that it did not take much effort. The tomahawk slipped through with enough force to raise sparks on the floor. Immediately the tissue began to dissolve and drip through the grating, leaving only a black, damaged skeleton with abnormally long teeth.

The noise of the escaping steam died off as the ship’s emergency systems took over, shutting down the boilers and locking down specific valves. The white mist in the hall slowly dissipated. The temperature had risen at least twenty degrees, and I could feel the sweat rolling down my body.

“Julie, that should be all of these. When it cools down enough, get in there and rescue Darné and his men. Milo and I are going to help Boone.”

“Roger that, Earl.”

The Newbie squad waited patiently. Lee was hurting bad, and Trip was doing his best to help the smaller man walk.

“Are you going to make it?” Julie asked him softly. “We grab the French and we head back up top. We should be almost about out of undead.”

“I’m just having a hard time breathing, is all,” he grunted.

“Whatever doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger,” Trip stated solemnly.

“Remember that when I’m kicking your ass later,” Lee laughed, and then grimaced in pain.

The vampires that had fallen prey to Lee’s bomb were reduced to pulp and bones. There was not even enough left to put a stake through. As I entered the engine compartment, the intense heat made my head swim. The air was thick with damp, hot vapor. A bit of residual steam hissed from the giant ruptured pipe that Sam had shot. Water dripped from everything. It was as if it was raining from the ceiling. The room was like a sauna, only worse, as all of the exposed metal pipes and fittings were hot enough to burn us. I could feel the heat of the floor through my boot soles. I took another swig from my Camelbak. The room was lit by red emergency lights. I turned off my flashlight to retain my batteries. Overhead, water dripped from the ladder and the hatch that led to the main cargo bay.

I paused in front of the heavy metal door that held the French survivors. I tried the wheel. My gloves provided enough protection to touch the metal, but not for long. It was stuck. I pounded on the door. The fist falls echoed loudly.

“Anybody know Morse code?” I asked. Everybody shook their heads in the negative. Not a whole lot of former Eagle Scouts on my team. Julie shoved past me and struck the butt of her rifle against the door. Dum-du-du-dum-dum. Shave and a haircut.

We waited a few seconds. Dum-dum. Came the response. Two bits. The wheel began to turn. I sighed in relief and tried in vain to wipe the sweat and moisture from my face. I could hardly wait to get out of this sauna. The door opened.

The famous French hunter Jean Darné stood before us, tall and imposing in his black body armor that differed only slightly from our own. He was a legend. Considered one of the greatest Hunters the Europeans had, he had hunted more monsters in more places than probably anybody but Earl Harbinger. His team was well respected, and he was considered by many to be the best of the best.

He was also currently dead. As were the four other members of his team standing to his side.

“We have been waiting for you,” the vampire said.

Chapter 9

None of us moved. The vampire and his four wights stood separated from the Hunters only by one narrow doorway. Julie and I were closest. For some reason the vampire did not move. The wights made chewing motions and stood tensed, ready to pounce. Their red eyes studied us hungrily. They were all wearing the same black body armor. Darné smiled at us, showing off his elongated incisors. He absently rapped his knuckles on the metal hatchway. S-O-S.

“Well, if it is not little Julie Shackleford. My, how you have grown up,” Darné said. “You are the image of your mother, an absolutely lovely woman. What a pleasure.”

“The pleasure is all yours, Jean,” she answered. She shifted her rifle slightly. The two of us were blocking the doorway. The undead were close enough to smell. I did not think I could move fast enough to get away. It would only take a single touch from one of those wights to end up paralyzed.

“Now, now, little girl. Do not try anything hasty. The only thing holding back my ‘men’ is my will. They are bonded to me. If I lose concentration for an instant your team is doomed.” He would have been a very handsome man when he was alive, suave and distinguished with just a touch of gray at his temples and in his thin moustache; his English was impeccable. I’m sure he could have been quite the charmer except for the whole evil vampire thing and the four undead pit-bull equivalents standing beside him.

“So why didn’t you make your move? You could have just charged us immediately and taken us by surprise.” I could tell Julie was stalling for time. But I wasn’t sure what exactly she was hoping for.

“Americans have no flair for the dramatic. You are almost as bad as the Germans. No romance in your souls. Always straightforward.” He snapped his long fingers. “I want to make a deal.”

“We don’t deal with vampires,” she stated flatly.

“But you have made deals with monsters before. The truth of that is undeniable. I want to make a deal with you. I will let you live, and I will give you important information, in exchange for safe passage from this ship after sunset.”

“Except the monsters that we have made deals with don’t leave a trail of bodies wherever they go. I can’t do that to the world,” Julie spoke softly. One of my teammates moved slowly behind me.

“So naïve, girl. Your father would be ashamed. He was such a practical man. He would make a deal with the devil for the right cause. Order your man to stop what he is doing or I release these wights. You don’t want to try to toss a grenade in here. There are thousands of gallons of fuel and vapor in these pipes. You would kill your whole team and the others as well.”

Julie shook her head. “No explosives. Okay, Jean. Let’s talk. But leave my parents out of it.”

“Fair enough.” The movement behind me stopped. The vampire continued, “Your team will go to the bridge, pull up the anchor and set course for the mainland. Then you will leave this ship.”

“How do you know we won’t walk out of here and just sink the ship?” Julie asked.

“Because I will keep you as a hostage. Your uncle is running this operation. He will do anything to protect you. I will let you go free when we run aground.”

Julie laughed coldly. “And I’m supposed to believe you? You would bite me as soon as the helicopter lifted off. Screw you, Jean.”

“Now, young one, please, I did not choose this path, but I am a survivor. I just want to live.”

“If you can call that living.”

“Do not be so quick to judge. You of all people must wonder about this life. It is marvelous. I fought the darkness for so many years. I did not know what I was missing. I can see everything, Julie. I can feel your pulse from here. I can feel the world. The heartbeat of the very world. It is ecstasy.” The vampire was beginning to wax poetic. I had to try something.

“Hey, Jean,” I interrupted. “The girl’s hardheaded. I’m willing to talk business.”

“Your standards are slipping. When did MHI start hiring gorillas?” the vampire asked wryly, glancing in my direction. His red eyes bored into me.

“Owen? What are you doing?”

“Shut up,” I snapped at her. “I don’t want to die here. You can keep the girl. I’ll go up and pull up the anchor and point this barge at Florida. Old man Earl isn’t going to want anything to happen to this chick. We will leave.”

“A sensible one. You must be new, yes?”

“Yeah, I’m just a mercenary. I’m just in this for the money,” I lied. Moisture dripped onto my helmet and rolled hotly down my spine.

“Ahh, good.” The vampire steepled his fingers.

“Now you said you had some valuable information. Just what are we talking about, Frenchy? Valuable means something that I can use.” I had no idea if vampires were good judges of character.

“I can tell you about the six old ones, and their leader. They are on your country’s soil now.”

“And what about the Cursed One?” I ordered.

The four wights shrieked in chorus. Darné cringed.

“How do you know of Lord Machado?” The vampire hissed the name.

“Me and him are old pals. Now if you want the girl, I want to know what he’s here for.”

“Very well then. But it is your doom. Lord Machado has the artifact. He will take it to a Place of Power and he will use it. You cannot stop him. No mortal can stop him.”

“Look, Jean, I don’t want to stop him. I just want to make sure I end up on the winning team. Know what I mean?”

The vampire smiled. “I can help you then. You do not want to be on the wrong side when Lord Machado rules. Do we have a deal?”

Julie interrupted angrily. “Owen? What the hell are you thinking? No deals with vampires; he’ll kill me as soon as you walk out the door.”

“Shut up, bitch!” I snarled. I move very fast for a big man. In the next second, I dropped my shotgun, letting the sling catch it. I lifted my right hand as if I was going to backhand her. Julie’s eyes widened in shocked surprise. The vampire’s eyes followed my uplifted hand, as my left hand lifted a grenade off of my webbing. I brought my hands together smoothly. Instead of throwing my fist, I stuck my finger through the safety pin and pulled. The sound of the pin landing on the steaming floor was exceedingly loud.

“Run, Julie. Run now.” I held the live grenade up next to my face. The only thing keeping the grenade from exploding was the thin spring-loaded metal spoon that I was holding down with one finger. If I relaxed my grip the fuse would ignite. Five seconds later it would explode, and possibly ignite the engine room in a massive explosion. Julie did not say anything. She nodded and then retreated. The rest of the team followed quickly. I shouted one final instruction: “Get ready to abandon ship!”

“You idiot!” the vampire roared. The wights hissed and thrashed in unison. “You will destroy us all!”

“Better my way than yours, you snail-eating bastard.” I started slowly backing away. The wights exploded from the room and spread out in a skirmish line, snapping and clawing at the air. Jean Darné stepped through the portal and strode forward. In the residual steam and in the red emergency lights he looked like the traditional versions of the devil. So this must be hell.

“Give me the grenade,” he ordered. Darné locked his eyes on mine. Shivers ran down my spine, though the room temperature was running around a hundred and thirty degrees.

“Oh, I’ll give it to you all right.”

“I compel you. Hand me the grenade, safely.” The red eyes bored into mine. The words repeated themselves in my conscious mind, and burrowed into my subconscious like tendrils. I felt myself starting to comply. The wights began to inch closer. My vision began to darken.

“NO!” I shouted, shaking my head wildly. The wights shrank back.

“You have a strong will, ape man, but it won’t do you any good. Give me that grenade. You do not want to die.”

“Neither do you! Stay back!” I waved the grenade in front of me. A pound of high explosives was my holy symbol.

“Maybe I should just take it. I am greater than you can understand. The greater the creator, the greater the creation. My creator was the greatest of them all.” Darné’s devil visage continued to advance.

“If you think you’re fast enough, come and get it.” I backed into something solid, the escape ladder leading to the cargo bay, forty feet of iron rungs standing in the middle of the crowded room between me and safety. I knew that Darné would never let me make it to the corridor.

“You are not leaving me with any choice, human,” the vampire hissed. He stopped, less than ten feet away. His wights stopped alongside of him, two on each side. There was about a yard between each of the creatures. An image of black steel plates popped unbidden into my mind.

It had to be fate.

I kept my left arm extended with the grenade. I reached down with my right and grasped the stock of my shotgun. I had fired this gun hundreds and thousands of times, practiced until my fingers had bled and my shoulder formed thick recoil calluses. My father, the ruthless perfectionist, had driven me hard when it came to shooting, because he sensed that I had a gift and would not settle for anything less than perfection in his sons. The wood was worn smooth under my glove. The Remington glistened darkly with moisture from the steam. I brought the butt into contact with my shoulder. My life came down to this instant. I needed to beat my record.

“Catch!” I tossed the grenade to Darné. The spoon released with a metallic sproing, igniting the fuse. The vampire moved as a blur to snatch the grenade out of the air. The wights mindlessly tracked the moving object. For me, time ceased. The gun and I were one seamless melding of man and machine. The safety was released as my finger knowingly sought the trigger. The muzzle rose perfectly. The trigger was pulled. The sear released. The hammer fell. The firing pin struck the primer. The powder burned.

I was bringing the muzzle onto the second wight’s head before the buckshot struck the first. Fire. Work the action. Repeat. Five shots. Faster than I had ever gone before. The fusillade was a continuous roar without pause. I did not miss any of the five undead craniums.

Dropping the shotgun onto its sling, I grabbed the ladder and started to climb as fast as I humanly could. I did not wait to watch for results. I heard thuds as some of the wights fell to their backs, or collapsed to their knees.

Darné had been a Monster Hunter for longer than I had been alive. He knew what to do with live ordnance in a bad place. He had caught, and then immediately launched the grenade with a pitch that would have made any major league pitcher proud, right through the doorway and into the corridor. He did that even as my silver buckshot pellets penetrated his skull.

The grenade hit the corridor wall and rolled away, now belching orange signal smoke. It was a harmless smoke grenade.

Darné screamed as the silver burned him. “Kill him! KILL HIM!”

Two of the wights shrugged off their shattered skulls and damaged brain tissues, leapt to their feet and charged. The first began to climb after me as the second jumped onto one of the engines and began to climb up the metal surface like a spider. One wight had its eyes put out and stumbled blindly for the ladder, searching for me by smell. The last had its spinal cord severed and was flopping wildly as random impulses fired from its undead brain. I climbed as fast as I could, legs pumping, arms grasping and pulling with all of the desperate strength I could muster. The wights were far faster.

I was halfway up the ladder when the first wight clawed at my boot. Grabbing the shotgun, I fired a single round straight down between my feet. The creature’s hand exploded on impact and it fell toward the ground. The blind wight quickly took its place, scurrying after me. The wall crawler matched my pace, and launched itself at the ladder. There was barely time to swing around to the other side as it crashed into the slick steel bars. I dangled over the floor as it wildly tore at me. One paralyzing touch and I was dead. I swung the shotgun like a club, smashing the wight in the face. It tore my weapon away, ripping through the sling as it fell to the deck. I slipped on a wet rung, and then forced myself to start climbing again.

Darné caught my Remington in one hand. He expertly pumped the weapon, aimed it at me and fired. The buckshot slammed into my armored chest, knocking me back. I grunted in pain, but the silver pellets stopped against the woven Kevlar. My gloves slipped on the wet steel, and I toppled backwards in flailing panic. My knee wrenched painfully as I crashed upside-down into the ladder. I hung suspended, my boot wedged under one rung, and my knee bent over the top of another, like an insane trapeze artist. The blood rushed to my head, and I watched as Darné pumped the shotgun, aimed it right between my eyes and pulled the trigger.

Nothing. The click was the loudest sound in the world. That had been my seven shots.

The blind wight surged upwards, sensing my warm blood. Still facing down, I swung my fist and shattered its undead face. The creature was knocked aside and fell. Instantly my hand went numb, and coldness rippled up my arm. I grunted as I did an upside-down sit-up, grabbed the rung above me with my left hand, and pulled. My right arm hanging limply and my knee throbbing in pain, I kept pulling myself along; push up one rung, lean in, reach up for the next one, repeat. My shotgun shattered as it ricocheted spectacularly off of the rail next to my head. Darné had a good arm.

“That was my favorite gun!” I bellowed as I kept inching nearer to the hatch. I now had a wight on the ladder below, rapidly gaining, and two more scaling the wall to pounce on me. The hatch was still ten feet away.

“You should have taken my offer,” the vampire roared.

He jumped impossibly high and landed on the ladder directly below me. The metal shook under the impact. Hot water droplets flew off and struck me in the face. Three wights and a vampire in striking distance in the next few seconds. I just kept climbing because that was my only option. I was pretty much screwed.

Then the hatch opened, directly above my head. It was my savior.

It was Grant Jefferson.

“Grant! Help me!” I screamed, clawing my way toward him.

His eyes grew wide as he saw the undead creatures swarming upwards. He started to hold out his hand to me, and then he apparently decided that he did not have time before the creatures would be on him as well. I could see the fear register on his face as he did the math. They were too close. Grant stood in his polished black body armor, bristling with useful weaponry, and said two words: “Sorry, Pitt.” He looked right at me as he slammed the hatch.

“Arrgghhhh!” I shouted unintelligibly. Darné laughed below. I stuck one of my legs through the ladder to lock myself into position as well as possible. I reached across my body and drew my pistol with my left hand, sighted on the closest wight spider-crawling upward, and shot it in the head four times before it slipped from the wall and fell thirty-five feet onto its back with a bone-jarring crunch. The other wall-crawler leapt, and I just barely had time to align the front sight on the monster before impact, firing a silver slug through the monster’s brain. The wight’s momentum carried it forward where it struck one of my legs. It fell away screaming in rage. Darné easily avoided the falling undead, but the blind wight underneath was not so lucky. The two monsters collided and fell the rest of the way to the hard metal floor. This time they did not rise. My now-numb leg buckled, and I only barely held on.

Now it was just me and Darné. He flew up the ladder. I fired the remaining ten rounds as fast as I could pull the trigger. I hit him repeatedly but with almost no effect. I dropped the pistol, and he swatted it out of the air. I watched hopelessly as it flew into multiple pieces. I grasped wildly for my knife, but it was too late. He was beside me on the ladder.

His clawed hand clamped around my throat like an iron vise, choking off my air. A bullet hole in his forehead closed and squeezed out a mushroomed .45 slug like some disastrous pimple. I learned a few things right then. Vampires did not breathe, and I was in fact still afraid of dying. I was surprised that I was thinking about Julie. I just hoped that she made it.

“Tell me just one thing, you poor brave idiot,” the vampire ordered as he shook me. “How did you know about Lord Machado? How?”

“I went to France once,” I gasped.

“And what does that have to do with anything?” Darné asked, fangs extending as he prepared to feed on me. I wondered if I had the strength to break free long enough to fall to my death. It beat the alternative.

“My family went there to see where one of my grandpas was buried. He died on Utah Beach.”

“How touching. Now, if you tell me how you learned about Lord Machado, I’ll make your death painless.”

“I learned that the people in the countryside were pretty nice. But the people in Paris were a bunch of stuck-up, self-righteous pricks. I’m guessing you’re from Paris.”

“Idiot.” Darné’s jaw distended as his mouth opened like an anaconda about to eat a goat.

“Darné!” a voice shouted from below. It was Earl Harbinger. He strode into the engine room through the swirling orange smoke.

The vampire’s mouth slowly closed. “Hello, Earl. It has been a while.”

“Come down here and face me. You know you’re not going to get out of here alive. MHI controls the whole freighter. Your goons are all staked. It’s over.”

“I have your man as a hostage. Let me go, or I kill him,” the vampire hissed.

“You know the rules. You helped write them. Let him go and come down here and fight me. You know you’ve wanted to prove something for a long time. Let’s go. Either way you’re going to die. At least this way you get the satisfaction of seeing if I am as good as they say.”

“And what if I just kill this piece of merde?” He squeezed so hard that the vertebrae in my neck popped. I cringed in pain, and involuntary tears rolled from my eyes.

“Then I’ll have my men at the hatch above you throw down buckets of holy water. I’ll just stake you while you’re laying on the ground and sizzling. Or even better, I’ll tie you up and drag you into the sun. You’ve seen it. You know how much that has to hurt. I swear that if you kill that Hunter then I’ll drag you out of here and nail you to the superstructure and watch you burn. I figure you can probably go a while before you finally quit kicking.” Harbinger unbuckled his armor straps and set his weapon harness on the deck. “Just you and me, Darné. One last go-round.”

“How do I know you don’t have ten Hunters waiting in the hall?”

“You don’t. But you know my reputation.”

“I do. Fine, Earl. Let us see who the best Hunter really is.” The vampire released me and I dropped, barely managing to grab a rail. Darné let go and fell swiftly to the floor, landing as if it was nothing.

The two combatants squared off in the red light and steam. I watched in amazement as Harbinger began to circle. He was just a normal man, maybe two thirds of my weight, and in training he had never given any indication of having any sort of special fighting skills. On the other hand, I had just watched Darné perform several superhuman feats and smash my pistol into bits with his bare hands. This did not look good for Harbinger.

The hatch creaked open above me. Strong hands reached through and grasped the handles of my armor. The smell of Copenhagen told me that it was Sam Haven. He hung upside-down through the hatch and scanned the room. He saw Harbinger and Darné preparing to fight.

“Oh hell. We’ve got to get out of here!” Sam blurted. He tugged on me and grunted. “Help me, you hare-lipped derelict! You’re too damn heavy.”

“What about Harbinger?” I asked in a panic.

“Don’t worry about Earl. He’ll be fine. You don’t want to be around him when he gets into one of his moods. Now move, damn it!” I struggled up the ladder with Sam pulling me. More hands grasped my arms and helped. Chuck Mead was there as well. The two burly men pulled me into the cargo bay. Sam threw the hatch down and spun the wheel to seal it behind us.

The cargo bay was much cooler. The steel of the floor was cold under my face. I lay there for a minute, panting, as the feeling painfully returned to my arm and leg. I could not understand what had just happened. Earl Harbinger had just given up his life for mine. I was sure that Darné was tearing him to pieces as we sat here uselessly. I gradually pulled myself to a sitting position, my back resting against a sheet-metal shipping container, my stomach clenched in agony, and my knee twinged as I moved it.

“We have to help him.”

“Trust me, Pitt. Earl’s fine. Too late to do nothing now anyways. Let’s get up to the weather deck.”

“What’s a weather deck?” Mead asked with a blank stare. The big Ranger was splattered with blood, and there appeared to be claw marks on his M249 Squad Automatic Weapon.

“Fricking army. The top. The top part of the ship. The part that can see sky.”

“Oh, okay. Sunlight would be good.”

“I’m unarmed. Darné broke my guns,” I stated as Mead pulled me up.

“And that’s a sorry state to be in. Here. Take this thing. The French guys don’t need it no more.” Sam handed me a French FAMAS bullpup assault rifle. It was a slightly unwieldy and strange-looking weapon, but it would have to do. “The crew, security team and Hunters have all been accounted for. We should be clear, but you never make no assumptions in this business. Let’s get.”

As we made our way out of the cargo bay, I could not help but ask, “Where is Grant?”

Sam scowled, his handlebar mustache scrunching in consternation; he finally spit a nasty clump of chew and shrugged. “Reckon I don’t know. Probably in the light.”

“He left me to die,” I said hotly.

“Yep. I figured as much. Some folks are brave when others are watching them, but it is harder to be brave when there ain’t no witnesses. Grant’s never flaked on us before. He probably figured you were dead anyway, no use getting killed for no reason. I reckon that Earl will want to talk with him about that.”

“Yeah. Me too.” I cracked my knuckles. I had murder in my heart and it must have been obvious to Sam. He just smiled.

“Just don’t kill him. We’re short-handed as it is,” the former SEAL pointed out. “Plus then Julie would probably shoot you, and you don’t want to mess with her.” Sam pointedly went back to his radio traffic, warning the others that we were coming out. I could not listen along. Somewhere along the line my radio had been broken.

The daylight was beautiful. The breeze was cool and refreshing. I was surprised at how low the sun was on the horizon. We had been in the dark bowels of the ship forever. It felt good to be alive. Almost all of the Hunters were milling around on the deck. Boone’s team was somber near the sheet-draped body of their lost man. My team was there. Holly and Trip rushed to me, hugging me and slapping me on my back. Lee was lying on some blankets, his shirt off and thick bandages encircling his chest. He shouted my name and clapped. Julie was there as well. She quit giving orders long enough to run over and grab me by my armor.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t come back for you. There were more of them in the corridor waiting for us. We got jumped. I’m sorry. How did you make it?” She looked really happy to see me. The feeling was mutual.

“Earl saved me. I think he’s dead.”

“Nope. I just talked to him on the radio. He is on his way up and he has Darné’s skull as a souvenir.”

“How?” I asked in surprise. My spirit lifted upon hearing that bit of news.

“Like I said. Earl is the best Hunter alive. Don’t worry about it. I’m just glad you’re okay. I thought for sure that you were dead . . .” She paused. “That was really brave. Stupid, but brave. Thank you.”

I blushed. “No big deal.”

She patted my arm. “I’ve got to go inspect the cargo and make sure nothing is damaged before I contact the clients. You stay here and get some food and something to drink. You look like crap.”

She signaled for a few of the others to go with her. Nobody was going to go anywhere alone on this tub. I watched her walk away. Even coated in dried vampire juices, she was the prettiest girl I had ever known. Trip interrupted my reverie by handing me a Gatorade and a power bar. I scarfed them down as he gave me the blow-by-blow of their last vampire encounter. I sat on a crate of grenades and listened to my friends. What it all came down to was this: it did not matter what high-tech gear we had, or what weapons, or even what training. It came down to the friends that stood by our side, and our will to fight for them. It felt really good to be alive right then, I would stand with these people any day, and I knew that they would stand by me.

I started to tell them about my close encounter with Darné when I heard a voice. I stopped instantly, leaving the others regarding me curiously. Lumbering to my feet, I limped with resolute purpose in the direction of that voice. That smarmy, prideful, movie-star voice. I bent my head from side to side and cracked my neck and back, an old habit that I had picked up in my bouncing days. I used to do that before beating down rowdy drunks.

“Hey, Grant,” I said cooly as I approached him.

“Pitt. I’m glad you made it. Look, I’m really sorry, but—”

I cut him off. I was closing distance. I did not want him to run because I didn’t think I could catch him.

“Grant. You left me to die.”

“Wait just a second.” He lifted his hands defensively. “It isn’t like that. They would have gotten me too. If I left that hatch open, we would both be dead.”

I tried to look nonviolent. That is difficult when you are a hulking, scar-faced brute of a man. I kept slowly closing distance. The Hunters from Boone’s team that had been speaking with him sensed serious trouble and backed away.

“You left me behind.” I was directly in front of him now.

The railing was to his back and he had nowhere to go. He must have sensed what was coming because he tried to duck. It did not work. I felt great satisfaction as his nose broke with an audible crunch under my meaty fist. His legs buckled and he started to fall.

I grabbed him by his neck guard and jerked him around until he was facing me. Blood was streaming down his face. He tried to perform an aikido wrist lock to break my grasp, but I was far too strong and angry to fall for that. I slammed him backwards into the railing.

“Do you know how to swim?” I asked coldly.

“Pitt, it wasn’t my fault, please wait . . .” he begged. I punched him solidly again, this time in the mouth, smashing his lips and cracking a few teeth. My cup was not exactly overflowing with mercy.

“I said: Do. You. Know. How. To. Swim?”

“No, please. I’m sorry.”

“You had best be a quick learner then,” I said as I lifted him off of his feet, and heaved him over the railing.

I stepped away, not even bothering to watch him hit the water. That had felt really good. I was not worried about him drowning. In a moment of unusual kindness that surprised even me, I had hit the button to activate the emergency flotation device on his harness before tossing him. I can be a jerk, but I’m no monster.

Boone moved in front of me. He did not look happy. All of the other Hunters had come running to see what the commotion was about. From the looks on their faces I was guessing that they had seen Grant take his plunge.

“What the hell was that?” he demanded.

“He left me for dead back there. He left me in a room with a vampire and some wights. He slammed the door in my face, and he apologized before he did it. Son of a bitch is lucky I didn’t just shoot him in the head.”

The former SF man studied me. He signaled one of his men. “Throw Jefferson a rope.”

“He isn’t going to drown. I turned on his CO2 before I tossed him over.”

“I’m not worried about him drowning, fucktard. I’m worried that all of the wight meat in the water has riled up the sharks and they’re going to chew on his pompous ass.”

Crap. I hadn’t thought about sharks. Oh well. I went back to my Gatorade.

The sun was setting over the bow of the Antoine-Henri. The fourteen surviving members of the MHI teams were gathered on the deck in a rough semicircle, illuminated in our ragged exhaustion by the fading golden rays. Grant Jefferson had been safely retrieved from the water and was standing as far away from me as was possible, with a giant, white cotton swab shoved into each nostril. Harbinger had not been happy, and had promised to talk to both of us later. I was not looking forward to that, and I just hoped that it did not end up with me being terminated.

Julie had cataloged all of the valuable cargo. None of the artwork had been lost. The others had found her excitedly browsing through an open cargo container filled with priceless art. Not being a connoisseur of painting, all of the French artwork looked like bunches of colored dots to me. She had not been very happy when she had heard about what I did to her boyfriend. The look she gave me had been oddly similar to the one that she had given that first vampire before she had shafted it through the heart.

All of the crew and French Hunters had been accounted for. Tissue samples had been taken from each individual creature to be sent to the PUFF offices for confirmation and to begin the bounty paperwork. Between the huge PUFF reward and the fulfillment of the French contract, it had been a very lucrative day.

But it had its price.

The body of Jeremiah Roberts had been laid upon an unzipped body bag on the cold steel deck. His neck guard had been torn away, and unlike the neat little puncture holes that most people seem to imagine for vampire bites, the Hunter’s throat was missing a massive chunk of flesh, leaving a hole from his trachea to his spine. Boone’s team stood the closest to the body. This was their business. The rest of us were mere watchers. The man they called Priest said a few words. As it turned out, they called him that because he had been one once upon a time. This was a Hunter’s funeral, and it was as sacred as any service inside a church.

“He was the bravest amongst us. So fearless that regular people would think he was crazy, but not us. We understood him and loved him for it. Jerry was afraid of no man or beast on Earth or from Hell. I am alive because of him. Our whole team is alive because of him. He is here because he took the brunt of the attack to protect the rest of us. And today was not the first time he did that, just the time that his luck ran out. We are taught, Greater love has no man than this, that he lays down his life for his friends. My friend. Our friend. May you rest in peace. Until we meet again in the better place. Amen.”

“Amen,” chorused the group as one.

Boone stepped forward. His face was streaked where tears had run through the grime on his cheeks. He looked somberly down at his fallen teammate, and then he slowly knelt at his side. The warrior gently touched his friend for the last time.

“I’m sorry I failed you, Jerry. I’ll be seeing you around.”

I had to avert my eyes because of what I knew was coming next. I was not the only one. The sound of Boone’s fighting knife being drawn from its sheath seemed to go on forever. Roberts had been bitten by a vampire. It had to be done.

When Boone was finished the rest of his team helped him to his feet. He cleaned his knife on a rag. Priest zipped up the rubber bag, and the Hunter’s funeral was over.

Chapter 10

Harbinger summoned me to the cargo bay. There were only a handful of us left on the freighter. The Hind had taken the most injured of the Hunters, and the Brilliant Mistake had been signaled to return to pick up a few more men and our gear. Surprisingly, the little boat’s crew had stayed nearby to help us. Harbinger gave them an extra $20,000 for their trouble and the admonition to never talk about this unless they wanted the government to pay them a very unpleasant visit. He must have been feeling generous due to the big haul. The Director also gave them business cards, along with instructions to contact us if they ever heard of any more monster problems. Since we could not advertise, much of our business came in the form of referrals. Representatives of the French shipping corporation were already en route to retrieve their valuable cargo. The remainder of our fee was to be wired to us upon receipt. The Hind was to return for its last pickup shortly.

I limped painfully down the stairs into the vast central bay. Each bootfall echoed hollowly through the cavernous room. I had been paralyzed, drowned, beaten, shot with my own gun, partially paralyzed and choked, and I was hungry, tired and saddened by the loss of some of my favorite guns. If anybody should have been put on that chopper it was me. However, it seemed that Harbinger wanted to speak privately first. That was not a good sign. Even Grant had been sent back to land to get his nose and teeth checked.

Earl Harbinger, Sam Haven, Milo Anderson and Julie Shackleford stood before a giant orange container, the heavy-duty kind that could be picked up through the opening in the deck by a giant dock crane and set onto a semitrailer or train. The sheet-metal double doors were hanging open, and the four experienced Hunters were gathered at the opening.

“Hey,” I said as I approached, not that they did not hear me coming, but I couldn’t think of what else to say. None of the four looked up. Julie had her arms folded and she appeared rather cross. Harbinger pointed inside the container.

“What do you make of this, Pitt?” He shined a flashlight into the interior. There were seven wooden crates inside. Each was long enough and deep enough to easily hold a person. I ducked my head as I entered, pulling out my own flashlight to get a closer look. The air tasted stale. The lids for the crates had been set aside, and the interiors seemed to be filled with nothing but dirt. I ran my hands through one; it was a thick black loam. Another was white particulate sand, and yet another looked almost like Alabama red clay.

“Coffins,” I said. “For the seven Masters in my dream.”

“Yep,” Harbinger said. “And I’m willing to bet that the dirt is soil from their native lands.”

“What does that mean?” Julie asked. “I know I’ve heard about that in the folk tales, but we’ve never seen evidence of vampires actually needing to sleep in soil from their homeland.”

“Beats me. But this is really a weird bunch. I’ve never seen anything like this before, and I’ve never even heard or read about anything like this either.”

“We don’t know for sure that they are really Masters, Earl,” Sam said. “We haven’t actually seen any of them yet.”

“The stronger the creator, the greater the creation. Some of those sailors we killed were way too powerful to be that young, but they were. Plus creating wights as daylight guardians? Darné was as powerful as a hundred-year-old bloodsucker, and he has to have been turned in the last week. Whoever turned him was one bad dude. So there is at least one Master in this gang. I would bet on it,” Harbinger replied.

“So how did you beat Darné anyway?” I asked. The other Hunters glanced at their team leader, curious to hear his response.

“Later. It isn’t important right now.”

“He was a good guy when he was human,” Sam said. “Losing him is a damn shame.”

“People change when they are turned. It doesn’t matter what they were like before. No matter how good they were, when they turn, they come back as pure evil . . .” Julie trailed off, and then changed the subject. “We probably need to alert the Feds. Seven high-level vamps on U.S. soil? They would shut us down in a second if they found out that we knew and didn’t tell them.”

“I hate Feds.” Milo spoke for the first time. Sam spit on the floor.

“Me too. But they need to mobilize. They’re somewhere in Georgia, and heading who knows where. I’ll call Myers,” Harbinger told them with a look like he had just bit into something sour. “They probably won’t believe us though. Hell, I don’t believe what I’m saying.”

I looked in the other coffins. Thicker sand, rich topsoil, alkali dirt, and finally broken shale and gravel. I noticed something as I shined my light in the back corner.

“You guys seen this?”

“What?” Harbinger asked as he entered and came up next to me. I squatted and pointed at the ground. Something had dissolved all of the paint in the corner. A dark substance coated the floor. I sure as heck wasn’t going to touch it. It felt unnatural from where I stood, and I had a visceral feeling that it was some sort of secretions from the cloaked and armored monstrosity from my dream. Harbinger knelt and studied it. “Ichor. Looks like snot from somebody with real bad allergies. Let’s take a sample.”

I breathed a little easier once I was out of the claustrophobic box.

“But wait, there’s more,” Sam stated. “I saw this earlier when we were getting set to blow the steam pipe. Check this shit out.”

He took us to another shipping container. This one appeared normal until we circled it and saw what was on the other side. The steel walls had been pierced and peeled back from the inside. I touched one of the edges. The steel was a quarter-inch thick, and the reinforced tubing around the edges had been easily bent.

“Wow,” Milo said, stroking his beard absently, “no sign of explosion or cutting torch, or anything like that. Something just punched its way through. Isn’t that special?”

“Yeah, it just fricking warms my heart,” Sam said. “Why can’t we ever fight cute, helpless monsters? Like the ones on Sesame Street?”

“The big things from my dream,” I said. “They could have done this. They had to be at least ten feet tall. And they could fly, they had huge wingspans. They were ugly, and they had horns and big teeth and claws. That was about all I saw because I was just moving too fast.”

The four Hunters surrounded me.

“Now start from the beginning and tell us the whole story about this dream,” Harbinger ordered.

“So that’s why you brought me down here. I thought you were going to yell at me for beating up Grant,” I replied cheerfully. Julie folded her arms and glared.

Harbinger shook his head. “Oh, don’t worry, I’ll get to that. But business first. From the beginning, tell us every single detail you can think of. Even things that you might not think are important.”

“We might as well get comfortable. This is going to take a while.” I told the whole story. Starting with my initial dream in the hospital. I tried to convey the weirdness of it, and probably failed. I went into as much detail as I could about the next dream. I did not, however, tell them about seeing the Old Man when I had been underwater. I was still not sure if that had actually happened, or if it had been a panicked trick of my oxygen-starved brain. When I was finished the others began to drill me with questions, only some of which I could answer.

“The head vampire called the Old Man Bar Eeka?”

“As near as I could tell. Something like that.”

“Could he be a wraith? Maybe a revenant even?” Julie asked. “No, wait, those have bodies. How about a shade?”

“Beats me.”

“There is a possibility,” Harbinger stated. “I’ve heard some weird stories since I’ve been doing this kind of thing. He could be a ghost, and he could have hooked up with you while you were dead on the operating table. You might have actually met him on the other side and brought him back. Now he’s using you somehow. Problem is, we don’t know jack about ghosts, so how do we figure out why he’s trying to help you?”

“Be sure to ask him that the next time you see him,” Milo told me.

“Except I only see him when I’m dead, or about to come close to death,” I added sardonically.

“That will be convenient for you then. You’re a Monster Hunter now. Plenty of good opportunities to die all of the time!”

The ocean rushed by below. The interior of the Hind was very loud, and that was not helped by the fact that our pilot felt the need to blare heavy metal through the intercom. Excellent selection though. Disturbed, Slipknot, Rob Zombie, and even the latest single by my brother’s band. I figured I would have to let the pilot know that I knew Cabbage Point Killing Machine’s guitarist once we landed. I had not met the pilot yet, and all that I had been told about him was when Milo had jokingly said that he had been included in the purchase of the chopper. I had no idea what that was supposed to mean. All that I had seen so far had been the back of his helmeted head.

I had never ridden in a helicopter before, and it was kind of exciting, loud and with painful vibrations, but still fun. Almost like a roller coaster ride with the added advantage that it could shear a bolt and kill you in a matter of seconds.

We were sitting in the cramped crew compartment. The Hind had originally been used to move Russian infantry, though this particular specimen had been tweaked and customized extensively by MHI. It was still tight, but I was given to understand that it was downright plush compared to what it had once been.

Almost all of the other Hunters had immediately gone to sleep. They understood the basic principle of “sleep when you can, because you don’t know when you are going to get to do it again.” I couldn’t do it, so I passed the time by picking silver buckshot pellets out of my armor. I made a mental note to add Milo Anderson to my Christmas card list.

I held up one of the silver pellets, now deformed from the impact, and studied it, deep in thought. I had almost died today. Now that the adrenaline had left my system, I found my exhausted brain once again pondering just what the hell I was doing, and truthfully, I didn’t have an answer.

Julie’s head was rolled to the side and she was snoring. She had hardly spoken to me since she had found out about my little altercation with Grant. I was not about to apologize. He had left me to get eaten, and I did not like that one bit.

Harbinger opened his eyes. He had been awake. He checked to make sure Julie was out, and then unbuckled his seatbelt and moved next to me, flopping solidly into the uncomfortable chair. He turned and shouted in my ear.

“I wanted to talk to you about Grant.”

“Okay,” I shouted back.

“I know about what happened.”

“He left me behind to save his own skin.”

“I know,” he yelled. It was hard to have a conversation by shouting. “Grant says that he didn’t think he could save you . . .  That you would both have been killed.”

Perhaps. I did not respond, not knowing what to say, and not wanting to admit that Grant very well might have been right, and honestly not really knowing what I would have done if our situations had been reversed.

“Don’t ever let something like that happen again. I’m the boss. I take care of discipline. You undermined my authority.”

“That’s it? You aren’t mad at me for hitting him?”

“Oh, if I was mad, you’d be swimming home.”

“Serious?” I asked.

Earl sighed and rubbed his face.

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

“Huh?”

“What are you going to do with Grant?” I said, turning up the volume.

“I don’t know yet. Maybe Grant’s right, and he would’ve died keeping that door open, and I don’t believe in committing suicide to prove a point.”

“Sam said something about it being easier to be brave when others are watching you. Maybe Grant isn’t so tough when there aren’t any witnesses,” I insisted.

“Yeah, Sam’s a regular philosopher,” Earl responded. “You can face some really scary shit, and be just fine, as long as you’re doing it for your team.” He grew suddenly serious, and I had to look away from those cold eyes. “Either way, it ain’t none of your business now. Don’t ever do something like that again. Hunters can’t lose control. Got that? You never lose control. Do you have a problem with that?”

“No, sir.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to the rotors beat the air, and some amazing guitar playing by my brother. From the expression on Harbinger’s face, I don’t think that he cared for metal. I refrained from banging my head in deference to his tender sensibilities.

“What about Julie?” I asked.

“What about her?”

“Does she believe that Grant abandoned me?”

“None of my business. She’s a grown-up.” The look he gave me told me to shut it. He quickly changed the subject. “Let me ask you this, Pitt. You’ve been with us for a few months. You’ve gone on exactly one mission. Could you leave now and go back to your spreadsheets and your tax forms?”

I did not answer. Did Earl know how much I was doubting the path that I was on? He was the experienced one, maybe he could see what I could not.

“Well, you’ll probably need to.”

My heart sank. So this was it. Was he going to let me go because of my rash actions? If he felt he could not trust me then I would be out. Did he think that I was too hotheaded and impulsive to be a member of the team?

“I got a letter yesterday. The IRS is going to audit us. I’m gonna need your help; our books are a mess. Once we handle this little vampire problem, of course.”

I grinned. That I could handle.

“I can deal with the IRS. They’re a little easier than vampires. Not much, but a little.”

“Will sunlight banish them?”

“Maybe. I haven’t tried that before.”

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg though. OSHA is crawling all over us for—I kid you not—workplace safety violations. As if there is anything safe about what we do at all. The EPA is angry about some of the pollution we have caused by burning certain kinds of monsters. Fish and Wildlife wants to fine us for killing a giant mutant Tennessee River catfish because it was endangered. Sure it had just crawled up on land and eaten some teenagers, but it was still an endangered species. We’re in trouble with the BATF for some missing compliance paperwork for the machine guns and explosives—paperwork which they lost. And Immigration is investigating us for employing some illegal aliens.”

“Are we?”

“Sure, but who doesn’t? Do you think you just put an ad in the paper for people who can fly Russian attack helicopters?”

“Why are the Feds hammering us?”

“We’ve pissed a lot of people off in Washington. Our company was shut down for a long time. PUFF was only reactivated by the slimmest of margins. There are a lot of bureaucrats who are itching for us to fail. They’re making it damn near impossible to get our jobs done.”

“So what are we going to do?”

Harbinger grinned savagely. “From the amount of money we made on this job, I’m going to buy me some congressmen, maybe even a senator.”

I was shocked. “Are you talking about bribery?”

“Why? Does that offend you?” he asked.

“Oh hell no. I’m a libertarian at heart. Screw ’em.”

Chapter 11

That night I dreamed again. But it was not about my apparent friend, the Old Man with the poor English. Nor was it about the Cursed One and his gang of abominations. This was something different.

A lone mountain rose out of a bleak, dead forest. The side of the peak had been torn asunder in some sort of huge explosion. Trees had been shattered, stripped of their bark, or bent to the earth. Rock was charred and broken, the very foundations of the mountain had been cracked, and the face of the mighty peak had collapsed in an avalanche.

Amongst the shale and gravel was a low spot where the rubble had settled into what had once been a natural cavern or perhaps an underground structure. In the deepest depression, small bits of gravel and dust began to stir as something pushed against them from underneath, gradually and laboriously moving the weight of the earth above. Finally a dirt-encrusted hand thrust its way into the air, followed by a massively muscled arm. The torn and bloodied fingers clenched into an angry fist.

It was covered in black, swirling tattoos.

I woke up the next morning, groggy, sore, and cranky. We were staying at the bug-infested Radio City Motor Lodge in some little Georgia town that made Cazador look like a thriving metropolis. It had been the closest lodging to the dirt strip that passed for the local airport. It is hard to sleep when roaches keep skittering across your body. My understanding is that since roaches can’t shift into reverse, if one of them crawls into your ear canal it can get really nasty and potentially kill you. Sleep on that.

The injured Hunters had been dispersed to seek medical care. The cargo plane had dropped off Boone’s two injured men at their home city of Atlanta. Roberts’ body had gone with them. The plane had then continued west, delivering Albert Lee and his fractured rib back to Alabama. Grant Jefferson had flown the plane. He had been sent back to the compound supposedly to take over and continue the Newbies’ training. I figured that I probably needed some medical care as well, but Harbinger wanted to keep me around because of my dreams, and also possibly because he worried that I might murder Grant once I was left unsupervised.

So that left ten of us in coastal Georgia. Eleven if you counted our mysterious helicopter pilot, who had apparently slept in the chopper. I still had not seen the man without his face-shielding helmet, and he never seemed to speak. The experienced Hunters seemed used to the odd behavior and did not even bother to remark upon it.

There had only been three available rooms. The ladies had taken the nicest one, meaning that the toilet worked, and there weren’t as many unidentifiable spots on the walls. I had bunked with Trip, Mead and Milo. Taking pity on me because of the beating I had received, they gave me one of the twin beds. Milo had seniority so he got the other. Trip had won a game of rock, paper, scissors (of course Chuck went rock) to get the couch. Mead got to sleep on the carpet with the mystery stains.

We gathered in Harbinger’s room not long after dawn. A large map of Georgia had been purchased and was stuck to the wall with someone’s throwing knives. Julie and Boone both had powerful laptops open and running. Boxes of our gear and munitions had been hastily piled into the corners. We had hired a flatbed to move it from the docks to here.

The group was sitting around in their shorts and T-shirts, all except for the Newbie squad who had not known to bring any clothing other than our armor. Holly had borrowed some clothing from Julie. Trip and Chuck had stolen some from somebody else. Since I was the only 4XL I stood in the corner wearing my boxer shorts and a towel for modesty. I had hosed the undead juices off of my armor. The suit was still drying in the shower.

“Pitt. This is an informal meeting. You shouldn’t dress up so much,” Sam told me. At least he didn’t try to steal my towel and flick me with it. I could tell he was tempted.

“Okay, everybody. Here’s the situation,” Harbinger began, a cigarette dangling unlit from his lips. “We have seven very powerful vampires, possibly Masters, that landed somewhere near here, along with some other monsters of unknown type. They must have arrived sometime in the last three days. If they launched as soon as the freighter turned south down the coast they would have arrived near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, though my gut feeling’s that they didn’t do that. The ship dropped anchor off this coast for a reason. If they came straight to shore they would’ve landed in this area east of us.” He put his finger on a spot of coastline. There were a lot of islands, peninsulas and inlets under that fingertip.

“If they started moving as soon as they landed, then they could be almost anywhere. They could still be on foot, or they could have secured some transportation. If they’re in a vehicle then they could be in Florida, Alabama, or South Carolina by now.”

“Vampires can drive?” Chuck asked blankly.

“Yes, Mead. Vampires can drive. Just not during the daylight. If they secured a truck with a trailer, it would give them a place to sleep during the daylight hours too.”

“What if they split up?” Milo asked.

“They won’t,” I answered. Nine heads swiveled in my direction. I tried to cover myself with the towel as best as I could. I was a little self-conscious, especially with all of the thick red scar tissue on my chest and back. “They’re like a protective detail. The Cursed One is their principal. They’re guarding him. Wherever he goes, they go.”

“Yeah, about that. I’ve been meaning to ask, how do we know you aren’t just bloody nuts?” Priest asked. “No offense intended.”

“None taken. To be honest, I don’t know. But the seven coffins is a pretty good indicator.”

“Fair enough,” he answered.

“What about this Cursed One? Do we have anything on record about that?” Milo asked.

“Negative. I can’t find anything. Lots of things with curses, but not that match this one. Nothing comes up in a search, and nothing under Lord Machado. No entries about anything wearing a suit of armor either. I’ve got a bunch of folks hitting the books back at the compound looking for something. There might be something in the old archives that hasn’t been scanned in yet.” MHI kept meticulous records of all known monster encounters, and also drew upon a massive library of information gathered from around the world. The stuff that we dealt with did not just pop up during a Google search.

“Maybe if we had a better description it might help,” Julie said coldly. She was still pretty mad at me.

“Sorry, I was incorporeal at the time.”

“Machado is a Portagee last name. It means ax. Like the kind that an executioner would use,” Sam told us. His useful information was a bit of a surprise. His teammates regarded him strangely. The cowboy spent a lot more time busting heads than he did studying monster history. “What? I had a master chief with that last name. He thought the ax thing was pretty cool.”

“We’re listening to the local police bands. If we’re lucky somebody will see something and call it in; if we’re unlucky, somebody is going to end up as lunch. So we are also listening for any missing persons reports. This is Boone’s turf so he’s trying to contact some of the locals who might be first in line for information.”

“First in line?” Holly queried.

“Cops, coroners, reporters. In this case, I’m going to contact hookers, pimps, and drug dealers. Also some backwoods hillfolk that I’ve dealt with before. When vampires feed, they will usually go after the underbelly of society. They keep off the radar that way.”

“How often do they need to feed?” Trip asked.

“Unknown. The usual low-level vamps that we deal with seem to do it every chance they get, with probably a minimum of about once a month. I know that the Feds have captured a few in the past and done testing on them, even starved a few, but they don’t share that kind of info with us,” Julie said.

“Speaking of the Feds, I had to call them,” Harbinger said sadly. He paused during the inevitable cursing long enough to light his cigarette and take a long drag. “Didn’t have much choice. We’re still short-handed. We have to face the fact that we might not be able to tackle all of them, especially if they’re roaming together.”

“What did they say?” Milo asked.

“Nothing basically. They said thanks for the tip. That was it. I think they thought I was nuts.”

“We can handle them, Earl. We don’t need no Feds,” Sam said.

“Maybe if we catch them while they’re sleeping and toss in a couple hundred pounds of C4. Facing them while they’re awake? No way.” There was some murmuring at that. We were a testosterone-charged, confident, well-trained team. “No offense, but I’m the only person here who has actually killed a Master. I’m one of the only people alive who has even seen one. And I was just lucky. Trust me on this one. We’re good, but we ain’t that good. If we find them, we wait until they hole up, and then we blow it to hell with bombs or napalm or something. Face to face, no thanks.”

“Who else can we call in?” Boone asked.

Julie played with her laptop for a minute. “Closest other Hunters are Hurley’s team out of Miami, but they’re on a case in the Bahamas.”

“Lucky bastards,” Sam grunted.

“Nope, they’re tracking a luska.” She shuddered.

“Oh, never mind,” he said quickly. I did not know what a luska was, but if Sam or Julie did not want to mess with one, neither did I.

“After that the only other MHI personnel in the south are Boone’s guys, and then the Newbies and a few others at the compound. I don’t think we want to call up Grandpa or Dorcas. Going out from there we have two teams in the northeast, both on cases right now in New York and Baltimore. Next closest after that is Phillips, who’s currently dealing with some devil monkeys in St. Paul. Only five other teams left, and they’re out west or out of the country. Every single team is working a case.”

“We need to speed up the training process,” Milo suggested.

“I know, I know. But it doesn’t do any good to train them fast if they just get killed on their first mission. Julie, send every team a message. Give them a brief summary about what we’re probably facing and tell them that if we beep them, they need to drop whatever they’re doing and get here as quick as they possibly can. This case takes precedence over anything.”

“Because of the danger to people?” asked Trip, always looking out for the little guy, being the team’s resident good Samaritan and idealist.

“No, because the bounty on a Master vampire is fricking huge,” Sam said.

“How huge are we talking about?” asked Holly. We had been told that our next bimonthly check would probably hover around $20,000 for our cut of the action from the Antoine-Henri. I couldn’t wait to see what the year-end bonus looked like.

“Like we could buy Idaho kind of money.”

“Back to business. Here’s the plan. We break up into groups. One group stays here at base, monitors communications and checks all of the gear. Boone will take a group and start hitting up his sources.”

“Priest can take a group also, he knows the same people I do. We can cover more ground that way. Some of these folks are not the kind of people that you can just get on the phone.”

“Good. Final group takes the chopper. I’ll head up and down the coastline looking for that little boat or where it might have possibly landed. Pitt comes with me and we will see if we can’t identify anything from his dream.”

“Uh . . . what do we do about cars?” Mead asked.

“Head into town. Buy some from the locals. Let Milo do it. He’s our best scrounger. We have two suitcases full of money, so try to get something nice.” And I had wondered why we had IRS troubles. We threw cash around like the Cali cartel.

“Oh, and somebody, for the love of all that is holy, buy Pitt a pair of pants.”

The Hind sat on the broken tarmac, looking like a squat and angry amphibian. I jumped out of the back of the pickup, and just barely had time to grab my gear before the truck roared off and sprayed me with gravel and dust. Milo was having entirely too much fun with the jacked up 4x4 that he had just bought off of a local named, and I’m not making this up, Cooter. There were even naked lady silhouettes on the mud flaps, and a little sticker of Calvin peeing on a Ford symbol in the back window. Harbinger and I headed toward the chopper.

We were wearing normal clothing, concealing only handguns, with our more serious gear shoved into the duffel bags that both of us were lugging. The pistol that I had under my shirt had belonged to Roberts. It was a big stainless-steel Smith & Wesson 4506. Not my style, but it was available, and he was not using it anymore. It sure beat being unarmed. Milo had picked me up some regular clothes at the nearest country store. The only shirt they had in my size was lime green and was emblazoned with the deep philosophy of “No Fat Chicks.”

Our pilot was waiting for us. I finally got to see him without his helmet. Unfortunately he was wearing a black balaclava and tinted goggles. Harbinger waved as we approached. The pilot waved back.

“So what’s the deal with the pilot?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, it’s already eighty degrees out here and he’s wearing a ski mask.”

“Oh. He’s just shy is all.”

We stopped in front of the chopper. I held out my hand and introduced myself. The pilot tilted his head to the side and studied my hand. I gradually lowered it, and finally put it my pocket, slightly embarrassed.

“Well, he’s foreign. Weird customs, you know, a bit antisocial.”

“Right. Nice to meet you, Mister . . . ?”

The pilot grumbled something guttural and incomprehensible. It sounded like gibberish to me. I looked to my boss.

“It means Skull Crushing Battle Hand of Fury in his language. We call him Skippy.” Harbinger seemed to be enjoying himself. “Saves on time that way.”

“I was told he came with the chopper?”

“Kind of. It’s a long story. I met him in Uzbekistan. His tribe came from there. MHI is kind of his tribe now. He has himself a little place just outside the compound. Skip here is one hell of a pilot, however, and keeps this bird running great too.”

“You have great taste in music, Skippy,” I told him slowly. “One of the bands you played, CPKM. My brother plays guitar for them.”

“You . . . are . . . blood of . . . Mosh Pitt?” The pilot’s voice was very deep, and he seemed to struggle with the unfamiliar words.

“Yes. He’s my little brother. I can probably get you some backstage passes when his tour comes through town. I think they’re playing Birmingham in September.”

He dropped to his knees. I stepped back in surprise. Skippy prostrated himself on the ground and bowed until his balaclava was touching the asphalt. He said something else in his strange language.

“Skip, please, you’re making a scene,” Harbinger said as he grabbed the pilot’s arm and stood him up. The airport manager was watching us through his trailer’s miniblinds, and another pilot, putting fuel in his Cessna, stared at us strangely.

“Sorry, Harb Anger . . . I not know . . . that big scarface Hunter . . . how you say . . . Grzystilikz?”

“What? Royalty? Oh hell no.”

“Huh?”

“He thinks you’re from a royal family. Uh, equivalent to a great war chief or something like that.” He shrugged. “I’ve never seen Skippy bow to anybody before.”

“Wow. Uzbekistan really appreciates their heavy metal. No, Skippy, I’m not royalty. This is America. And I’ll still get us some VIP passes, okay?”

“Great honor . . . great honor on my tribe.” The gravel-voiced pilot seemed positively giddy.

“All right, let’s get in the air. We’re burning daylight.” Harbinger tossed his duffel bag into the crew compartment. Skippy bowed a final time, not quite as deeply as before, and then he ran for the pilot’s compartment. From the horrible noise he made, I think he was trying to sing the chorus from “Hold the Pig Steady.” I work with the strangest people.

We spent the next hour flying over the coast around St. Catherine’s Island and then to the east of Sapelo Island. We were not having much luck. There were lots of places where a little boat could be landed, and there were a lot of boats in the area as well. But none of the spots we flew over matched the little patch of sand from my dreams.

“It’s possible that the boat washed back out to sea. Weather report says the tides have been pretty low the last few days, but you never know.”

“I hope not,” I replied. Skippy was blasting my brother’s CD loud enough to be heard over the rotor. He had one heck of a good sound system installed in this thing. Harbinger kept cringing every time the music got particularly good. There is just no accounting for taste.

“We can either head toward Brunswick or Savannah next. I would guess Brunswick, since it’s smaller,” Harbinger shouted over the noise, pointing at the map. “They’re probably staying away from population centers.”

I shook my head in the negative. “In my dream there were a lot of lights nearby. From overhead it was pretty big. I say Savannah.”

“Okay, then.” He keyed the intercom button. “Skippy, take us north, hug the coast. Stay low. If the ATC hails us, let me know.”

“ATC?”

“Air Traffic Control. They have a real airport. Everybody else is shafting us with fines, I don’t want to piss off the FAA.”

“Does he even have an actual pilot’s license?”

“Beats me.”

“You can’t fly without a license.”

“Sure you can . . . just not officially.” He shrugged and went back to looking out the window. And before I worked here, I thought that I had a bad problem with authority. I fit right into this gang of misfits.

The area was beautiful from a hundred feet and a hundred miles an hour. Homes would appear between the dark green trees, only to quickly vanish as we soared past. Miles flashed by, lots of little boats and little beaches, but not the one that we were looking for.

“Ossabaw Island,” Harbinger announced.

It was difficult to tell in the daylight. Everything looked different after dark. We flew over the nature preserve, and then turned inland, back toward the intercoastal waterway. There were lots of boats in the area. Most of them appeared to be for shrimping. The chopper ate up ground fast, and we flew low over a historic fort and recreation area, but I still had not seen anything that looked right. More homes began to appear as we neared Savannah.

“Whoa. Have Skippy flip a U-turn.”

Harbinger gave the order, and our pilot pulled a maneuver that left me dizzy. I searched again for the spot that had just flashed by. It was a small patch of sand, with deep swampy forest surrounding it.

“Bingo.” I pointed at the small white boat. It was still grounded on the sand. “This is it.”

The Hind circled the area. There was a single home set back into the trees a few hundred feet from the landing spot. It was a nice home, two stories with an attached garage, a red-shingled roof and a big chimney. It was a gorgeous piece of property. The nearest homes were a considerable distance away.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Damn sure. I can feel it in my bones.”

My boss nodded and punched the intercom, cutting off a good drum solo. “Skippy, can you get us down on that beach?”

We approached the boat cautiously. The Hind tore away, heading farther out to sea to hover and wait. It was broad daylight, but after my experience with the wights, I knew that didn’t mean squat. I held Jerry Roberts’ FAL carbine at the low ready. Earl nonchalantly cradled his Thompson.

“They ain’t here.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“I can smell vampires,” he answered. “Plus birds are singing in the trees. If your ten-foot winged things were here, I don’t think there would be birds singing or squirrels playing.”

“How do you know? Maybe they really like squirrels?” I kept my weapon pointed toward the boat. Sure enough, it read Antoine-Henri. It was empty.

“More of that slime,” Harbinger pointed out. “Same stuff from the shipping container. Your Cursed One was here. Boogery thing, ain’t he? I hate monsters that leak all over the place.”

There were no visible tracks in the sand. Any sign left by the creatures had been obliterated by wind or surf. The forest was alive with noise and light. Not at all like the night in my dream. It was good to have the final piece of physical evidence washed up here at my feet. This proved that I was not crazy. Well, maybe not that I wasn’t crazy, since I was standing on a beach with a battle rifle talking about vampires, but at least not certifiable.

“Let’s check the house,” he said.

“What if somebody’s home?” I raised my rifle to accentuate my point. I had a bag of spare magazines slung over my lime-green T-shirt. We did look a little odd.

“There’s nobody home.”

“How do you know?” The house was half a football field away through the trees.

“I don’t hear anything. I don’t see any lights. It’s hotter than hell and the air conditioner isn’t running. If they can afford that house, they can afford to run the air conditioner.” I had no idea how he could tell that from this distance. From all of my years of being around loud guns and louder rock music, I could barely hear our conversation. “I want to see why this place is special. They turned that ship a couple hundred miles off course to land here, and I want to know why.”

There was a small path through the thick vegetation. I tried to move silently over the packed earth, without much luck. I’m not built for stealth. Harbinger moved like a ghost. He held up his hand for us to stop. He quietly pointed at a spot on the house’s roof. There had been some damage to the shingles in a few spots, and one of the corners had been broken cleanly, with the rain gutter dangling into the yard. Something heavy had landed on that roof, a few heavy things actually.

The back door was ajar. A muddy pair of boots had been set aside, as well as a fishing pole and a small plastic tackle box. A welcome mat was slightly askew on the porch.

Harbinger entered first. The door creaked on its hinges as he opened it fully. I had never done anything like this before. It was like a scene out of a bad cop movie, except we were private citizens. We were merely breaking and entering.

I leaned in close and cupped my hand over my mouth. “Are you sure nobody is home?”

“Hello! Anybody home?” he shouted. We waited. There was no response. “Happy?”

“I guess.”

The back door entered into the kitchen. The interior was uncomfortably warm. My suspicion had been right; this was the home of an affluent person. All of the appliances were top-of-the-line stainless steel, and the counters were made of real marble. There were dried mud footprints on the otherwise spotless floor, several pairs of them.

The living room was much the same. The fine furniture could have been found in any upper-middle-class home in the country. There were dirty footprints running across the thick carpeting, and running up and back down the wide staircase. Huge polished bookcases lined the walls, filled with thousands of books. Most of them appeared to be history books: Ancient American archeology, Meso-American art, mound builders, Native American religion. There were stacks of magazines and scholarly periodicals, Archeology, the Smithsonian, BYU FARMS newsletter. All of them were addressed to their subscriber, Dr. Jonas Turley. I noticed that many of the books had his name on the spine. The doctor was a prolific writer.

We proceeded to the next floor. I began to touch the banister and my companion stopped me. “Don’t leave fingerprints.” I nodded. We had not been upstairs yet, but already we both knew that this was shortly going to be considered a crime scene by the local authorities. No need for complications.

The door to the master bedroom had been smashed into kindling. As I stepped through the wreckage, my nose was assaulted by the smell of decay, and small biting flies buzzed around my head. We had found the Turleys. Tissues break down rapidly in the warm humidity of coastal Georgia.

“Do we need to cut their heads off?” I asked hesitantly. The old couple had been savaged and torn. Blood had coagulated and dried on the sheets. I tried to sound confident to the more experienced Hunter, but desecrating the bodies of old folks in their own bedroom was a lot more wrenching than doing it to a creature that had just tried to take my life.

“No. They’re dead. Really dead. They ain’t coming back. The vamps didn’t bite them, they beat them to death. I wonder why?”

“Maybe they didn’t want him coming back. Why this guy? What makes him so special?”

“I don’t know. Search the place. Look for papers. Journals. A diary. Find his computer. Anything.” The doctor’s office had been ransacked. Pieces of ancient North and South American art had been pulled from the walls and smashed. The computer had been pulverized. Papers and books were strewn everywhere. In the far corner a small wall safe had been ripped from the studs, and the door had been torn open. The contents, a stack of fifty-dollar bills and an old .38 special, had not been disturbed.

“This is going to take hours. There’s got to be thousands of pages of notes here.”

“We don’t have hours. We’ve got company.” Harbinger craned his head back and closed his eyes. “Helicopters. Lots of them. Low and fast . . . Feds. Damn it.” He must have had freakishly good hearing. I could not hear anything other than the creaking of the floorboards. “We don’t have time to meet with the Hind. No need for Skippy to get dragged into this.” He pulled a radio out of his pocket and clicked the transmit button three times. The response came back with two clicks in the affirmative. Our chopper was heading back to the airport.

By the time that we reached the living room even I could hear the drumming of the multiple helicopters. There were at least four UH-60 Blackhawks, and two Apache gunships to provide cover. They surrounded the Turley home, and multiple teams of black-clad men rappelled to the ground.

“Wow. Isn’t this a bit of overkill?”

“That there is your tax dollars at work. Best throw your guns down in case one of the storm troopers has an itchy trigger finger.” He placed his Thompson and his snub-nosed 625 on the loveseat. I carefully put Roberts’ FAL and Smith on the couch. We both stepped to the center of the room, away from anything that could be considered dangerous. Harbinger placed his hands on top of his head. That seemed like a good idea so I copied him.

“Should we open the door for them?”

“Nah. The Feds are going to blow it open anyway. Best close your eyes and stick your thumbs in your ears. Open your mouth a little, that will equalize the pressure. This is gonna hurt.”

I had no idea what he was talking about, but they proved to be good instructions. Almost simultaneously half of the windows in the house shattered into tinkling glass as flash-bang grenades were tossed in. The concussions were horrendous, the noise was amazing, and I was dazzled even through my closed eyes. Harbinger was laughing.

The black-suited Feds came crashing through the door, piled on top of each other, each one taking a section of room and covering it. They began to scream commands at us. I went to my knees, and kept my hands on my head. It didn’t matter because somebody moved behind me, kicked me in the back with a heavy boot, forced me down, and ground my face into the carpet. My arms were jerked behind me and I was placed in handcuffs. They really cranked them on tight, biting the steel deep into my wrists. The boot was placed back on my spine, and I had no doubt that the trooper’s muzzle was aimed at my head.

I stayed there, with my face shoved into the carpet, while the Feds secured the home. They entered each room by tossing in more distraction devices, clomping around, and then shouting “Clear.” After a few minutes the noise died down a bit, and the radio chatter started up. A slightly scuffed black leather wingtip stopped inches from my nose.

“Hello again, Earl. And if it isn’t Owen Pitt, CPA. I warned you not to fall in with this crowd.”

“Hey, Myers. How’s it hanging?” I mumbled through my mouthful of high-quality rug fibers. He barked an order and my arms were yanked in a vain attempt to get me up. The Fed doing the pulling couldn’t dead-lift me, and I wasn’t feeling particularly cooperative. Another one grasped me, and with a grunt they jerked me to my feet. I was about ten inches taller than my old friend that I had dubbed the Professor. Agent Franks stood behind him, now in his black body armor and carrying a brand new FN F2000 with grenade launcher. The stone-cold killer looked far more comfortable in his combat gear than he had been dressed up at the hospital. Myers was still in a cheap suit.

“Franks. What’s up, my brother? Kill anybody interesting lately?”

“Tons.”

“Good for you,” I said cheerfully.

The muscular Fed read the message on my lime-green attire. “Nice shirt.”

“We’re not doing anything illegal, Myers. We called and let you guys in on this case as soon as we knew how big it was. We’re totally in our rights.” Harbinger had a thin smear of blood next to his lip. Apparently one of the Feds had felt the need to help him to the ground.

“You are at a crime scene related to that case and you haven’t bothered to call. That could be construed as withholding information concerning a monster menace,” Myers stated in a smug and condescending manner, “which is very illegal.”

“We just got here. We were meaning to call. My cell phone wasn’t getting a signal,” he lied.

“I bet. So tell me, how exactly did you find this place?”

“We flew down the coast until we spotted the motor launch missing from the freighter. The same launch I told your people about last night.”

“So you just happened to fly around until you found it? And you just picked it out of the ten thousand other boats around here.”

“Pretty much.”

“I’m supposed to believe that?”

“Come on, Myers. How else do you think we found this place? Do you think we have visions or magic dreams or something? Okay, I give up. You got me. We called the psychic friends network, they gave us the coordinates.” My boss certainly turned into a smart-ass when dealing with federal agents.

“So what are you guys doing here?” I asked.

Myers started to answer and then caught himself. “None of your damn business.”

“You got our call last night about the seven vampires and the Cursed One, and within a few hours you end up right here. That has got to be an amazing coincidence.”

“Yes. Pretty amazing coincidence, Mr. Pitt.”

“Ironic,” Franks said, patting his Belgian assault rifle tenderly.

“Yeah, silly me. Never mind I said anything.”

Myers’ phone rang. He still had that annoying ring tone of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” “This is Agent Myers . . .” He listened for a minute, then he covered the receiver and spoke to us. “Earl, get your crew and take them home. This is no longer your affair. If I see a single Monster Hunter poking around Georgia I’ll shut you down so fast your head will spin.”

“I’ve got Hunters that live in Atlanta, Myers.”

“Well, they better not be doing anything involving this case. At all. Period. I want you and your freak show back in Alabama immediately. You’re lucky you caught me in a good mood. I don’t want to hear about you doing anything with these seven vampires, or anything related to them. This case and everything pertaining to it is a federal matter. Got that?”

“Understood. Mind if we call a cab or something?”

“Get them out of my sight.” He went back to his phone call.

We were shoved rudely out the front door. Franks stopped us on the porch long enough to undo our handcuffs. I rubbed my tender wrists. My boss leaned in close and whispered a single word.

“Stall.”

I raised a single eyebrow incredulously. What the heck was I supposed to do? Talk about the weather?

“Hey, Franks?”

“What, Pitt?”

“What about our guns?”

“They’re evidence.”

“Evidence of what?” I had the urge to punch the morose man in the snout. He was one ripped son of a gun, he even had big veins bulging in his forehead and neck, so at least I would get a good fight out of it. Except the other forty Feds would probably shoot me. Scratch that stalling plan.

“Crime.”

“What crime?”

He shrugged.

“Dude, that FAL and that 4506 belonged to the Hunter that got killed yesterday. Have a little heart. Give them back and I’ll deliver them to his sons. Give them something to remember their dad by.”

“No.”

“Why not?” I knew that there was no way that was going to happen. The Smith was legal, but the full-auto FAL had to be the property of MHI, because it would be too illegal to own without the special paperwork and permissions. Stupid laws.

“Evidence.”

“Listen, you monosyllabic moron. Let me spell this out. You can’t just go around confiscating private property. There’s a fourth amendment. Maybe you heard of it?”

“Did you just call me a moron?” That was possibly the longest sentence I had ever heard from him.

“Yeah, I did. I’m using my right to free speech to call you a moron. That falls under one of those other amendments.”

Franks handed his FN to one of the other Feds. He tapped his radio. “This is Franks. Are there any cameras or witnesses in the immediate area? Over.” He listened for a moment and then smiled.

He hit me harder than I have ever been hit before. His fist was like lightning, striking deep into my gut. The air exploded out of my lungs in a rush. I have fought in dozens of brawls and underground fights, and won most of them. I’ve been hit by bikers, construction workers, crackheads, karate experts, and semiprofessional boxers, and just yesterday I had been hit by a vampire. Franks must be dropping some serious ’roids, because none of the others held a candle to him.

I fell off of the porch and landed in the flowerbed. I jumped up, and turned to face him just in time to catch a hammer blow to the side of my head. I tripped backwards over the small white fence and landed on my back. Some of the other Feds stepped forward to give me a little stick time, but Franks just held his hand up to dismiss them. This was his gig.

He waited patiently for me to stand up. I dropped into a fighting stance, legs bent, arms up, hands open and loose. The pain was displaced by my anger. I was ready. “Come get some.”

“Okay.”

Franks moved faster than I thought possible. I blocked his first two punches, and narrowly ducked under the third. His dark face was emotionless, and his eyes were unblinking. I threw a fast jab and then a hook. He dodged them easily, and then kicked me in the chest. I was rocked backwards in shock. He followed with a spin kick, again hitting me in the stomach. I grunted as my abdominal muscles absorbed the blow.

I’m extremely fast for my size, unbelievably fast. I threw a flurry of punches, and then followed with elbow and knee strikes as the range closed. I did not manage to hit him once. Franks swatted my blows aside with bone-jarring force. He dodged under my elbow, blocked the knee, and then head-butted me in the face.

With eyes watering, I dove for his waist. I had been a wrestler. If I could take him to the ground I would have a chance. He pushed off against my shoulders, avoiding my trap, and broke some of my teeth with a hook. He followed that by kicking me in the sternum. Good thing I’m padded with muscle or that one would have killed me.

“Enough!” Myers shrieked.

Franks instantly stopped. He was not even breathing hard. I was panting and bleeding. I spit a blob of blood and half of a molar on the ground. The Feds that had been watching moved aside to let Agent Myers through.

“Striking a federal agent? This is a new low even for your thugs, Earl.”

“He didn’t hit me. Too slow,” Franks stated.

“I’ll try harder next time,” I gasped.

“Look forward to it.”

“Get off this property now before I have you arrested,” Myers ordered. Harbinger put his arm over my shoulders and led me away. We walked down the driveway, more like my boss walked and I weaved. My head was throbbing, my eyes were watering, my nose and lips were bleeding, my chest and stomach burned in pain, and I felt at least two broken teeth with my tongue. I had not gotten my ass handed to me in a one-on-one fight like that since I was fifteen.

He waited until we were well away from the helicopters and perimeter of armed guards before speaking. “Good stall. Not exactly the tactic I would have used, but letting Franks beat you up was great.”

“I didn’t let him.”

“Good job anyway.” He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to me. I held it tightly under my nose.

“So what was the purpose of that little exercise?” I asked. “What was I stalling for?”

“I was trying to listen in on Myers’ phone call. He was standing right in the living room.”

“Do you have superpowers or something?”

“Nope. I just have good senses,” he smiled. “And I know how to pay attention.”

“So did you hear anything?”

He was quiet for a long moment as we crunched our way down the long gravel lane. “Not really. He was talking way too softly. And there were helicopters overhead.”

“So I took a beating for nothing?”

“Pretty much. But it was entertaining.”

We called for help and Milo retrieved us an hour later with the jacked-up Chevy. We drove south in silence. Our mission was at a dead end. The Feds were running us off. Harbinger was in a bad mood as we stopped for gas in a small town. Milo apologized, but apparently the newly purchased truck got about three miles to the gallon.

Back at the Radio City Motor Lodge, the rest of the Hunters were not particularly thrilled either. The ten of us were gathered in our improvised command center, sweltering in the humidity. I passed the time by flicking pennies at the roaches scurrying up the walls. A few of the bugs were big enough that they shrugged off the impacts, and one particularly impressive specimen even latched onto the coin and kept it.

“This is bullshit!” Sam said as he kicked a hole in the sheetrock.

“If we took all of them down it would be the biggest PUFF bounty in history,” Boone added. “Seven high-level bloodsuckers, and we would be set for life.”

“Myers doesn’t bluff. We’re on thin ice as it is.” Julie was the voice of reason. “We have to go home.”

“I don’t like it at all, people, but we ain’t got much choice. We’re leaving. Boone and Priest can head back to Atlanta. You can take whatever gear that don’t fit in the Hind.”

“I’m short-handed, Earl. I’m down a man, and it’s going to be a while before the other guys are healed up,” he said.

“You guys earned the vacation. Spend some time with your families. Get some rest. We won’t send any missions your way until your team is up and running. As for short-handed, you want some Newbies? I think we can consider these graduated from basic training.”

The Atlanta team leader critically studied Chuck, Holly, Trip and me. It reminded me of when we used to pick teams in grade school. I sucked my stomach in and tried to look tough. He looked each of us in the eye individually, and nodded in satisfaction.

“Earl. I would be honored to have any of them. From what I understand, each one of them did good on that freighter, and that was some hairy shit. If they can keep it together through that, they’ll be just fine. I’ve been running with only five men, and five is a pretty small team to start with. I would take them all if you would let me.” I took that as quite the compliment.

“I can’t spare them. I’m going to need to spread them around. I’ve got other short-handed teams, and we need to put together a new team based in the intermountain west. Sam’s gonna lead that one.”

Sam quit angrily putting holes in the walls long enough to stammer something in surprise. I believe that he used the F word as noun, verb and adjective all in the same sentence.

“Team Haven?” he said. “No way.”

“We need another team. You’re the best man for the job. Congratulations,” Harbinger said. The former SEAL slowly sat on one of the beds in shock. Milo patted him on the back. The rest of us voiced our congratulations. “We’ll work out the logistics and the details when we get back to the compound. I’ve got to spread around my experienced people.”

“Good for you, Sam. You’ll do fine. As good as any Navy guys can be expected, at least. So who do I get?” Boone said.

“I could send you Grant,” Harbinger suggested.

“Only if you give me Pitt too. Grant would end up at the bottom of the Chattahoochee within a week. I could deal with that,” Boone said. He grimaced as Julie slugged him hard in the arm.

“Roberts was a gunman. You need a gunman. You get Mead. I watched him shoot that SAW on that freighter, and he was hell on wheels. He’ll do you proud.”

“Aw, shucks,” said our big, simple Ranger.

“Chuck, say hello to your new boss. Don’t screw up.”

“Yes, sir!” he shouted. Boone shook his hand, welcoming him aboard.

“Okay. Now for the rest of us, here’s the deal. We’re leaving, but we ain’t quitting this case. We keep working our sources. We put out the word to every team, every informant, and every sewer-dwelling mutant out there. As soon as these things show up on the radar we’re going to nail them. I’ll call in every single Hunter in the country if necessary. Feds be damned. We started this and we’re gonna finish it.”

“So if we do track them down and destroy them, how do we keep from losing our charter?” Milo asked. “I mean, if we get them, won’t the Feds just shut us down for nosing in on their case?”

“Not if we just ‘blunder’ into the seven while we’re working on something else.”

“Groovy.”

We were dropped off at the little airport. The sun was gradually setting over the Georgia countryside, and mosquitoes and little evil gnats swarmed over our bodies. The Hind was prepped, and we made our way toward it, carrying duffel bags and heavy cases. The airport manager sat in a lawn chair in front of his little rusted trailer, an old gray dog curled at his feet. He waved at us lazily.

I was at the rear of the group, lugging a heavy wooden crate filled with all manner of controlled destruction. The big guy always gets to carry the heavy stuff. Julie broke away from the others and stopped in my path.

“Owen, we need to talk for a second.”

“Sure,” I grunted as I set the crate on the ground.

“First off, I appreciate all of the hard work that you have done. And I really appreciate you risking your life to save me and the others. That was very brave.”

“Look Julie, I’m sorry, but—” She cut me off.

“But what you did with Grant was over the line.”

“You can stick up for your boyfriend all you want, but he left me behind. He left me to get killed by Darné.” My cheeks flushed hotly in sudden anger. I wasn’t about to be told that what I had done was wrong.

“I know. That wasn’t right, but Earl will deal with it. Not you.”

“Wait a second. You’re mad because I stepped outside my authority, and not because I punched out your boyfriend?” I was confused.

“And you threw him into shark-infested waters, don’t forget the shark part. Your temper will get you killed in this job. It only takes one stupid decision to get you or your team killed. You need to keep the emotions in check.”

“Like you,” I said pointedly.

“I guess.” There was a long and uncomfortable pause. “Look, I just . . . I don’t want you to get hurt. You seem to do that a lot already.” She lightly touched my bruised and swollen face. Her fingertips were surprisingly gentle. “Damn. Franks really did give you a beating.”

“I am sorry. I’m not sorry about hitting Grant or even the swimming with sharks part, but I’m really sorry about . . . you know. I don’t want you mad at me.” I took a deep breath. “I felt like I betrayed you, and that’s what I’m sorry for.”

“I’m fine, but I’ve got one request. Stay out of my business. What happens between me and Grant is between me and Grant. Not you, not Earl, not Milo, or Sam or anybody else who feels the need to harass me about it. I know how you guys see him, but I know him better than that. I’m sure he had a reason for what he did.”

“Are you going to dump him?” I asked, suddenly hopeful. “Because he panicked and left me behind?”

“What did I just say?”

“Stay out of your business?”

“Right.” She must have realized that her fingers were still on my cheek as she reflexively snatched them away. She lowered her voice to just barely over a whisper. “Owen, look . . . I know that . . . well, I know how you feel, and I—”

“Brother of War Chief!” Skippy rumbled as he interrupted her. He was still covered from head to foot, the mirrored visor of his flight helmet was down, showing only my reflection. I was a little perturbed. Skip, you have lousy timing.

The pilot fell to his knees and bowed again, until his helmet hit the ground. “Hind is . . . she ready to fly . . . Noble One.” His voice sounded like rocks being poured into a cement mixer. He sprang quickly to his feet.

“Noble One . . . no carry . . . he no carry.” He made that horrible noise that represented his real name as he grabbed the handles of the heavy crate and bucked it up onto his knees. He clucked when I tried to take it from him. “Skip carry . . . Bring honor to tribe.”

The black-garbed pilot waddled with the heavy load toward the waiting chopper. Julie’s brown eyes were wide behind her glasses. I shrugged. It didn’t make a lick of sense to me either.

“Noble One? What the hell? He’s not your own personal porter, Owen,” she said as she turned and stalked away. The moment was gone.

I took one last look at the sunset, swatted a mosquito, muttered something suitably profane, and followed Skippy, who was once again trying in vain to sing. It sounded particularly horrible when he tried to grumble-hum the sounds of the instruments.

“Hold pig steady . . . dum dum dum . . . ra ra ra . . . yeah. Pig. Pig! PIG!”

Chapter 12

That night I slept in my comfortable and familiar bed at the MHI compound. The barracks were clean and roach free. I passed out within minutes of getting home.

My dreams were confusing. I saw an enormous cargo plane take off from an airfield somewhere far in the bleak north. It was a giant, unfamiliar, four-engined monstrosity, bellowing smoke and noise. Inside, the plane was packed with boxes, cargo and even some recently butchered livestock. A man stood near the rear door of the huge cargo plane. He did not need to hold onto anything, despite the uneven vibrations and turbulence, and I knew that he would stand the entire long trip. Unmoving, arms folded, legs wide, thick fur cloak covering most of his features, black eyes staring unceasingly in the direction of his destination.

His face was a mass of black tattoos, giving the illusion of a leering skull. In my dream the ink on his skin moved.

I got back from Montgomery in time to catch most of the meeting. The dentist had fixed my two broken teeth. Half of my face was numb and tingly with Novocain and I could not help but poke at my cheeks to feel the weird pressure. They were using the conference room from my dream. All of the experienced Hunters were there, including Raymond Shackleford III himself. The few Newbies who it had been felt were ready for action were sitting around the huge wooden table. Holly Newcastle smiled and gave me a little wink as I tried to sneak in. I sat as far away from Grant as I could. Grant and his nose bandage studiously ignored me.

Julie was speaking. She stood at the head of the table to give her briefing. “Dr. Jonas Turley was considered one of the premier experts on the religion, art and history of the ancient civilizations of this continent. He wrote over twenty books on those subjects, and has done research and been a major part of archeological digs from Alaska to Argentina. I got to hear him speak once at in Birmingham. The man knew his stuff.”

“So why did the bad guys go directly to his house and beat him and his wife to death? They tore apart all of his possessions looking for something, something important. I’ve got an idea as to what.” She let slip a brief moment of pride as she made us wait for the answer. “While Pitt was bluffing that he was going to blow up the Antoine-Henri, Darné said that this Lord Machado had some sort of artifact and that he was going to take it to a Place of Power to use it. Dr. Turley had done a lot of research concerning ancient religious sites. His last book was about that very subject, and the word in the academic community was that his next paper was going to be an exhaustive catalog of sites and what their importance was. My theory is that the bad guys went to his house for information. They are looking for a particular place, this ‘Place of Power,’ so they can use their artifact.”

“What does this artifact do?” the senior Shackleford asked.

“I’m the historian; ask the psychic.” She pointed at me.

“I’m no psychic. I just have a strange old Jewish man that visits me in my dreams and takes me on wild and crazy adventures—hey, that sounds like a children’s book.”

“What does the artifact do?” repeated the head boss patiently.

“I don’t really know. But I was told that the evil comes. The Cursed One will bring it. We stop it if we can, if not time will die.”

“Time will die?”

“That’s what the Old Man told me. I saw a storm coming. It brought Armageddon with it.”

“I see. That would probably be bad. Carry on, Jules,” Mr. Shackleford ordered.

Julie continued, “We need to figure out what this Place of Power is. Then we can get there first and set a trap.”

“For seven Master vamps? How are we going to pull that off?” Sam asked. “We got any nuclear weapons stashed?”

“Well, actually—ouch!” Milo started to speak and Harbinger painfully kicked him under the table. Whoa. I had no idea what we had stashed in the basement, but I wasn’t even willing to consider that. I forcefully banished the thought of Milo Anderson armed with a thermonuclear weapon out of my brain.

“We will think of something, but right now we need to gather information. We need to find out where Turley’s places are, and which one is the right one. We need to keep an ear out for any sign of these monsters, and we need to keep searching the archives until we find out who Lord Machado is and what this artifact does.”

“No luck with the search yet,” Albert Lee told us. In the last few days he had become our unofficial librarian. “There are a lot of books down there, and no offense, but your cataloging system absolutely sucks.”

“And a lot of the archives got burned in ’95,” Sam said.

“About ’95? When do we get to hear the story?” I asked.

Harbinger shook his head. “We’ll get to it, but later.”

“There is one person who knows all the stories in the archives better than anybody,” Milo suggested. “We could go ask him. If anybody would know who Lord Machado is, it would be him.”

The experienced Hunters gave each other incredulous looks. Milo’s suggestion went over like a lead balloon.

“No way,” Harbinger ordered with some force.

“I forbid it,” Mr. Shackleford said.

“Milo, don’t be stupid,” Julie snapped. She visibly paled at whatever the red-bearded man was suggesting. I had never seen anything shake her like that before.

“But if this artifact is really going to end time or blow up the world or whatever, don’t you think it is worth the risk?” Milo argued. “This isn’t just a normal case. We’re talking about some serious stuff. He’s mad at all of us, but he would talk to Julie.”

“But I don’t want her to talk to him. He’s dangerous,” Harbinger stated flatly.

“Earl, he’s still her dad. He wouldn’t try to hurt her.”

“I’ve got ninety-seven dead Hunters that say otherwise. End of discussion, Milo. Don’t bring it up again.”

Milo leaned back in his chair and rested his palms on the table. “Fine. Forget I said anything. Just don’t blame me when the world blows up.” The conference room was uncomfortably silent. Julie just stared at her hands. And I had thought that my family had problems.

“We do have other options.” Harbinger broke the silence. “We can talk to Turley’s colleagues. See if any of them know anything about a Place of Power. He had to confide in somebody. We’ll need to be discreet though, or the Feds will find out. When I called and told them about the seven vampires, they knew right where to go.”

“They could have tracked us there,” I said. “The Hind does stick out a bit.”

“Possibly, but I don’t want to assume that. Even if they did, they’re probably in the same boat we are and they will be interviewing the same people. Word gets back to Myers and we’re screwed.”

“We could knock Pitt out, and see if he has any more dreams,” Grant offered.

“Or I could try to divine the future with your entrails. I hear that works with chickens,” I replied. He glared at me. Julie shook her head in resignation. I had never promised to play nice.

“There are some other sources we can go to though. There are others out there who are more in touch with . . . uh, I guess you would say the magical world and all of this Place of Power mumbo jumbo. Or if Lord Machado is evil enough, they may even be able to sense his location,” Milo suggested. “We could pay a visit to the Elf Queen.”

“Not a bad idea. If we bring a good enough offering she may speak to us,” Julie said.

“Whoa. Back up. Wait just a minute. Are you trying to tell me there are really elves?” Trip said.

“Yes, Trip. There are elves,” she told him. I refrained from asking if they lived in a magic tree and made delicious cookies.

“Like as in J.R.R. Tolkien elves?” Trip asked again. His eyes lit up in wonderment like a kid who still believed in Santa on Christmas morning.

“Old JR was quite the character. He learned from a few British Hunters who knew their stuff. Always hanging around them and picking their brains about languages and whatnot,” the senior Shackleford wheezed. “He did tend to romanticize things a bit in his writing, however.”

“I can’t believe it,” Trip told us. “It’s just that this whole time all I’ve learned about is horrible ugly things. Evil things and dead things that hurt people. I mean I understand that our job is to fight them, so we have to know them, but I didn’t know that there were good and magical things too. This is great!”

“Son, just remember. Old JR did tend to exaggerate to spin a good yarn. Real life ain’t always like the books or the movies,” Mr. Shackleford warned. He glanced at his antique watch. “We got time. Sounds like somebody is taking a trip to the Enchanted Forest. Go with them if you must, Mr. Jones. Milo, it was your idea so you’re in charge. Take Pitt too, I reckon he’s the psychic.”

The Hind set down in Booneville, Mississippi a few hours later. Our target was actually closer to the town of Corinth, but Skippy refused to land any closer to the Enchanted Forest than we had to. He did not share his reasons, and Milo Anderson, who was leading our little expedition, did not feel the need to argue about it. Luckily for us there was a place in town to rent a car. Sadly, the only available choice was a Ford Escort station wagon. The air conditioning wheezed, hissed and died before we had gone five miles heading north on 45.

“Now when we get to the Enchanted Forest, don’t speak unless spoken to. And try not to stare at them. They find that insulting.”

“Because they’re so beautiful?” Trip asked.

“Uh . . . probably something like that.” Milo was driving. I was in the passenger seat, knees crushed uncomfortably into my chest. Spacious interior leg room my ass. Trip and Holly were in the backseat. When it came to monster research or interviewing Dr. Turley’s associates, most of the Newbie squad was pretty useless at the compound. Lee was having a great time exploring and organizing dusty books and journals back at the archives. He had found his niche. As for the rest of us, we were still working on that. I decided that the hole in my gums was done bleeding and I spit the wad of gauze out the window. The Novocain had worn off and my face hurt.

Milo continued speaking, stroking his beard absently. Today he had removed the beads and was going with just a simple braid. He had dressed up for the occasion with a purple paisley shirt and green pants. “Let me do the talking. Etiquette is very important to their people. If they ask a question, answer it, but don’t try to make small talk. They can be very touchy and secretive.”

“I bet it’s because they’re so ancient and wise,” Trip said. Holly put her finger in her mouth and made a gagging noise.

“Hey, laugh all you want, but I grew up poor in backwoods Florida, with an immigrant, single mom. I’m the only person in my family who learned to read, and that was only because of comic books at first, and then fantasy novels and an active imagination. I got addicted to them when I was a kid and read like crazy. I must have read thousands of them. So I’ve been reading about elves and that kind of thing for twenty-plus years. I can’t help it if I’m excited.”

“You were a geek,” she said.

“Well, I guess.”

“I bet you played Dungeons and Dragons in a friend’s garage.”

“Well, yeah.”

“Nerd.”

“Hey now,” Trip protested.

“Since you were such a nerd, how did you manage to get so buff?”

“Well, one day I learned that I could run really fast with a football, paid for college.”

“Still a nerd at heart though, aren’t you? Oooh, magic elves.” She actually mimicked him rather well. “Happy fairy magic wonderland.”

“Holly! Quit picking on the nerd!” I shouted.

“You should talk, spreadsheet boy.”

“You kids, don’t make me stop this car!” Milo said as he turned on the radio and cranked the volume as high as it would go. The channel was Spanish language love songs, but it succeeded in finally drowning us all out. The miles flashed by. Deep green trees and farms, cows and goats, interspersed with patches where out-of-control kudzu vines had managed to kill off all of the native vegetation. Kudzu was the real monster of the South. The open windows only served to circulate the hot, damp air. Sweat rings formed in my armpits and spread down my chest, quickly soaking through my dress shirt.

We stopped at a Piggly Wiggly in Corinth. Milo did not explain what we were doing. We three Newbies bought sodas and tried to stay in the air conditioning as long as possible. Milo purchased a shopping cart full of supplies and loaded them in the back of the station wagon while a large fan distracted the rest of us. He had to honk the horn to get our attention.

Milo drank a Sprite while we headed out of Corinth. He pointed out a spot on the map. “Here is the Enchanted Forest. The locals pretty much know to leave it alone. Now for future reference, this area over here is known as Natchy Bottom. Do not ever go there. MHI has had a few cases in the Bottoms over the last hundred years. There are some places on Earth that you just shouldn’t mess with, some out west, a couple in Maine, one in the New Jersey pine barrens, places that are just pure evil. That is one of them. That place is just plain bad. The people that live out there are pretty strange and keep to themselves. Heck, they didn’t get electricity until the late ’90s. There is some crazy stuff back in those woods that you just don’t want to mess with.” He did not elaborate further.

We took a series of turns, heading deeper and deeper in the hills. The few scattered houses we passed became shoddier and older as we went. The last few houses we saw were so dilapidated that it was surprising that anyone was able to live in them, but lights were on, and dogs roamed the trash-filled yards. The woods grew thicker, older and darker. It rained briefly out of the clear, hot sky. The rain was warm, and quickly passed, serving only to increase the already brutal humidity.

Finally we stopped in front of a small sign. It read enchanted forest in big letters, and trailer park in smaller letters underneath.

“Probably a trick to keep outsiders away,” Trip told us. Milo sneezed loudly as he had an allergy attack. The Escort’s tires crunched over pea gravel as we entered the Enchanted Forest.

It looked like a trailer park to me, and a run-down one at that. The trailers were rusty and old. Cardboard served as windows in places. Garbage and beer cans were strewn everywhere. Milo swerved around what appeared to be a pile of used disposable diapers. There were a few old cars, but it had been a long time since they had been mobile. Most of them were up on jacks or cinder blocks, tires long since rotted away. There was no life to be seen other than a couple of mangy dogs trying to stay in the shade. I could hear the sound of televisions through some of the open doors. Somewhere a baby cried.

Milo stopped the car in front of a double-wide trailer with a no-longer-used giant satellite dish rusting in front. A rudimentary porch had been built out of scrap lumber. A recliner and a big faded couch were on the porch, and a fat, greasy dog was sleeping on the cushions. We exited our little vehicle. Heavy black flies landed on us to check if we were edible.

“Wha chu want?” a voice shouted from inside.

“We bring gifts,” Milo replied.

“I didn’t order no free Bible off o’ the TV, so git,” the voice replied.

“We are here to speak with the Elf Queen.”

It was quiet except for the sound of a professional wrestling match blaring on the TV. Trip looked hopeful. Holly adjusted her pistol under her shirt. She still wasn’t used to packing heat, and she kept touching it nervously. Finally the owner of the voice appeared in the doorway.

He was tall and very skinny, wearing a stained wife-beater tank top and a puffy trucker hat. His blond hair was long and stringy. His fingertips were stained yellow from nicotine, and his teeth were crooked when he smiled. His features were fine, and sharply pointed ears stuck out from under his mullet. “Well, if it ain’t some Hunters. Come to see the Queen. Well, she be busy, so git, ’fore I sic the dogs on ya.” He pointed at the fat dog on the couch. It regarded us sullenly, but it must have decided that it was too hot to growl.

“We have brought gifts,” Milo said casually. He opened the back of the little station wagon. The trailer park elf regarded us with suspicion in his beady blue eyes before he stepped off the porch and looked at our purchases from the Piggly Wiggly. He whistled when he saw the contents. Milo had bought several cases of Budweiser and ten cartons of Marlboro lights.

“I’se go get her. See if she wants to speak at chu.” He grabbed a carton of cigarettes, stuffed it under his tank top, and headed for the trailer. We could hear him yelling from the yard. “Rondel! You’se got company.”

Trip’s face had fallen a bit, but he still looked hopeful. “It’s all just a trick to keep away outsiders,” he assured himself.

“Dude, he looks like Kid Rock with Mr. Spock ears,” Holly whispered. “He sure ain’t no Orlando Bloom.”

The elf returned. He was unnaturally graceful and long-limbed, but other than that and the ears, he made a convincing redneck. “The Queen will be out in a sec. Y’all have a seat,” he said, pointing at the couch. The dog didn’t move. It had gone back to sleep.

“Git offa there. We’s got guests.” He kicked the dog with his bare foot. It woke up, stood, and urinated all over the cushion. He kicked it again and it scurried off of the porch, tail between its legs. “Sorrys ’bout that,” he said as he flipped the couch cushion over so we could sit on the dry side.

Milo gestured for us to sit. I reluctantly sat on the old couch, so as not to offend the elves, but leaned forward as much as possible to keep a minimal amount of contact between my pants and who knows what. Trip, who was a mild germaphobe, did not look so good.

“I think I’ll guard the car,” Holly stated. Milo shook his head sternly, and after a moment’s hesitation she sat next to me. Our elf host excused himself and went back into the double-wide. Milo, being the experienced and wise Hunter that he was, sat on the steps. He sneezed violently.

“Well, this is a little different than what I expected,” I said cheerfully.

“It’s got to be a diversion,” Trip whispered.

“The elf keeps staring at my chest,” Holly said coldly.

A few humid minutes passed. A bright-blue electric bug zapper noisily executed some mystery critters. I noticed a few sets of eyes checking us out through cracks in various trailers’ miniblinds. Our host returned. He passed by us, crunched across the gravel in his dirty bare feet, opened the back of the Escort and started unloading beer and cigarettes. He grabbed a few cases and took them into the house.

“Queen Ilrondelia will be out in a sec. Y’all want a beer?” That was a mighty generous offer considering that we had just paid for it.

“No thanks,” said Milo. The rest of us followed the experienced Hunter’s lead and turned him down as well. Trip really looked like he could use one though. I think the ugly truth was just sinking in. Kind of like when you are young and you eventually learn that your heroes are only human, only I imagined that this was probably a whole lot worse.

The Elf Queen appeared in the doorway. Perhaps filled the doorway would be a better description. She was probably pretty close to me in weight, but about two feet shorter. She was wearing a flaming red muumuu and white bunny slippers. Her arms dangled fat rolls, and I stopped counting chins at number five. Her blond hair was up in curlers, and her blue eyes were beady between layers of lard. Other than the pointy ears, there was not much magical here. She was a definite candidate for gastric bypass surgery.

“Presenting Queen Ilrondelia. Ruler of the Elves of the Enchanted Forest. Mistress of all she sur-vaaays. Y’all have a good un.” He popped a Budweiser and went back into the trailer to watch wrestling. The Queen waddled over to her Lazy Boy recliner/throne and flopped into it with a satisfied grunt.

“Your Majesty. We have come to ask for your wisdom. We seek knowledge,” Milo told her.

“I don’t do spells no mo. I’m on disability. I done hurt my back. Get me a check from the gubmint, says I can’t do no spells no mo,” she said in a very plump and semiliterate voice.

“Well, Your Majesty, that’s fine. We aren’t looking for any spells. We’re looking for some information. Elves are long-lived and wise, and you pass down the wisdom of your forefathers.”

“Yup. I’ll be a hunnert an’ fifty in August.” I did a double-take at that. She looked to be in her forties. Milo did not seem to question it.

“So, Your Majesty. Since elves are so much more in touch with the spirit of the earth, we need to know if you have sensed a new evil in this land.”

“There be plenty of evil in this land, Hunter. Y’all know that.” She smiled in satisfaction as the bug zapper electrocuted something particularly large.

“Yes, but something landed on the coast in the last few days.”

“Oh, him? Yup. Felt it clear to the Enchanted Forest. He’s a bad un a’ight. I figured he was why y’all came to call.”

“Do you know who he is?” Milo asked excitedly.

“Nope. But he’s been here before. Back ’fore he got hisself cursed, he was jus’ a man. Came here before the first elves settled in these parts, back when we all lived in Yur-Up. He was some high an’ mighty type general or sumpin. Cut a deal wit the Old Ones, down in wha’ y’all call Bra-Zil nowadays. Got hisself cursed for it real good.”

“How long have elves been on this continent, your Majesty?” Trip asked.

“Oh, my grammy brought our people over, four, maybe five hunnert years ago. Back in them days, the Enchanted Forest was a heck lot finer place.” Her jowly face broke into a wide smile.

“I bet,” Holly muttered under her breath.

“What kind of deal did he make with the Old Ones, Your Majesty?” Milo queried.

“I don’t rightly know. You know how the Old Ones is. Everythin’ black and dark and scary evil like. It was sumpin to do with messing wit time. No mortal man can mess wit time, but he wanted to turn it backwards. He lost his love, and he wanted to make it right.”

“His love?”

“I ain’t be knowing the story, jus’ wha I gets from my cousins over in Yur-Up, but they don’t ever call no mo. This noble’s wife or lady friend got herself kilt, he went too damn far trying to get her back. ’Bout all I know.”

“Do you know why he is here now?” Milo asked. She shrugged her meaty shoulders. Her muumuu had ranch-dressing stains on it. “Can you sense where he is now?”

“No, but I reckon right now he’s near water. Cain’t say why I know, but I know.”

Fat lot of good that did us. You couldn’t swing a dead cat in the South without hitting a body of water.

“Do you know about an artifact that can kill time?”

“Lots of artifacts out there I reckon. I’d have to see it to tell y’all.”

“Do you know about a Place of Power nearby?” I asked.

“Boy, don’t y’all go messing wit that. Humans ain’t equip-ed to deal wit that stuff.”

“He’s looking for a Place of Power.”

“They are all over the place. Especially this land, can’t go no place wit out being someplace right powerful. Good thing they ain’t active mos’ of the time. Only some times when the sun or the moon or the stars is just in the right spot and that only happens so many times in a life, an’ I ain’t talking ’bout no short little human life. Stuff gots to line up jus’ right to have a Place of Power.”

“Do you know where the next one is going to be?”

Another shrug. “Y’all about done? Wheel of Fortune comes on in a minute.”

“Well, that is what we came for, your Majesty. Thank you for your time,” Milo said.

Suddenly there was a horrible high-pitched screech. I jumped, startled off of the urine couch. Something the size of a bird was stuck in the bug zapper. Blue flashes and sparks fell to the porch as the device swung wildly from its chain. The Elf Queen took off one of her bunny slippers and hurled it against the zapper. The slipper hit true, and what appeared to be a tiny human with butterfly wings buzzed hurriedly away. “Damn pixies! Stay offa my porch!” the Elf Queen shouted as she shook her blubbery fist in the air.

Milo gingerly picked up the slipper and handed it back.

“Y’all be careful. I don’t know whas coming, but I can feel it. Sumpin big is coming. If it ain’t stopped, then I figure we all done in.” She put her slipper back on, and leveraged herself to her feet. She lumbered into the double-wide while we excused ourselves and stepped off of the porch. She stopped in the doorway, turned and shouted.

“Which one of y’all is the dreamer?”

Milo nudged me to respond.

“I guess I am, ma’am.”

“You seen the tattoo man. The one with the ink?”

“Yes, ma’am. I have.” That was a surprise. I had just thought that was a normal dream.

“If’n you see him fo’ real. Run. He ain’t nothin’ but the spirit of hurt and revenge.”

“What do you know about him? Who is he?”

“I don’t know, but I seen him in my dreams too. Y’all run. Run fast as y’all can go. He ain’t on nobody’s side, not good not evil.” She started to waddle away, but then thought better of it.

“Dreamer. One last thing. Y’all got a mission. Don’t screw up. Or we all git dead. This here is serious, and I ain’t just funnin’ ya.” She regarded me solemnly. “As Queen of the Enchanted Forest, I order y’all not to fail. Kill the bad un, or it’s all over.”

“What’s all over?” I asked.

“Everything . . . Now git. Wheel of Fortune is on.” She turned away and the red muumuu swished. An argument started up immediately between the residents of the double-wide over game shows versus WWF.

“Let’s get the hell out of this hole,” Holly said. We all agreed. Trip almost looked like he could cry.

We drove back into town to grab some lunch and call in our findings to headquarters. We stopped at a Subway in Corinth. It felt good to be back in civilization. People were friendly, the cars weren’t on jacks, and I was relatively certain that nothing had urinated on my seat. Trip had not spoken since leaving the Enchanted Forest. We ordered our sandwiches and sat in a corner booth. Milo stepped outside for a little privacy while he called headquarters.

“That really sucked,” Trip finally said around a mouthful of food.

Holly was serious for once. “I really am sorry. Forget about the nerd teasing. It’s tough when your illusions get shattered. I know about that. Trust me, I do, but you will feel better.”

“It’s just that I got my hopes up. You have to understand, I loved my life. I loved teaching kids. When it all went to hell, I just couldn’t go back. Once I found out what ugliness was out there, the magic was gone. Everything became bleak. So when I got the chance to fight evil, I took it, plus—don’t get me wrong—the massive pay raise helped too; I’m not fighting evil for free or anything naïve like that. But come on now, with so much secret evil in the world, I thought for just a minute that there might be a secret good. I just got really excited. Maybe the magic was still out there, you know?”

I nodded. Personally I was still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that I had just seen a pixie and was apparently having visions. I looked at the mushrooms on my sandwich suspiciously.

“I’m sure there is a greater good out there that offsets the evil, Trip. You will find it someday, just don’t give up hope. You have seen the dark, but for every dark thing, there is light,” Holly said, and patted him on the back of the hand. That was possibly the kindest and most upbeat thing that I had ever heard out of Holly Newcastle. Of course she immediately followed it with, “But if I have to deal with another stupid elf and their mystic crap I swear I’m going to shoot them all in their stupid inbred hick faces and burn their stupid trailer park down.”

Milo came back and slid into the booth. He tore into his sandwich with a vengeance. “Don’t let me forget to pick up a sub for Skippy too. He loves tuna salad,” he mumbled with his mouth full.

“Milo, I’ve got to ask. Why did Harbinger and the Shacklefords freak out so bad in the meeting this morning?” I asked.

He hesitated. “I probably shouldn’t answer that. It’s Earl’s job to tell the story about ’95. I’m just the gadget guy. It’s a touchy subject is all, what with all the death, and unimaginable horror, and rifts in the very fabric of reality, and whatnot.”

Now I was really curious. “Come on, Milo. You’re way more than just the gadget guy.”

“True, I’m the guy that takes care of all of the little things. Hey, Milo, we need to make det cord pretzels. Hey, Milo, where can we find a thousand gallons of Holy Water at two in the morning? Hey, Milo, hurry up and build some new device that we need right now out of old junk A-team style. Hey, Milo, cast out these evil spirits. That kind of thing. But when it comes to a good suggestion, No, Milo, we won’t go with your idea, because we’re sensitive.”

“Everybody takes advantage of you,” I said.

“Ha. Nice try. I’m still not talking. You want to know about the Shackleford family and what happened at the Christmas Party, you got to talk to Earl. He saved my life when I was only fifteen years old. I’ve been with them ever since.” He chewed his food for another minute.

“You really rebuke evil spirits?” Trip asked. “Cast them out like in the Bible?”

“Sort of. Hey, I’m a Mormon. Every team has to have at least one person with a little faith. Not all problems can be solved by shooting the heck out of them. Well, most problems can. If not, then high explosives can really be your friend, but every now and then you just need to put your faith against the bad guys. For most Hunters that’s a losing proposition, so that’s why company policy is that if it don’t have a physical body, take it up with the religious authority of your choice. Sometimes we don’t get a choice in the matter though. . . .” He slurped noisily from his straw. “Look guys, back to the subject, I grew up in Idaho, the youngest of fourteen kids. So family’s important to me. When most of them got eaten, MHI became my family. And I’m loyal, so if Earl doesn’t want me to tell you about ’95 then I’m not gonna do it.”

“Fair enough,” I said. We all went back to our food and studiously avoided talking. Milo appeared to sink into his beard, deep into thought, chewing contemplatively.

After a few minutes of actual relaxation, Milo signaled that it was time to move out. We refilled our drinks and prepared ourselves to move back out into the stifling heat. Our group got a few looks from the locals saying that we obviously weren’t from around them parts. I picked up a sandwich for Skippy and another foot-long meatball for myself. The senior Hunter waited for the other two to walk out the door before catching my arm.

“Owen.” He looked to make sure nobody was listening. “I know you like Julie and that’s why you’re so intent on finding out what happened to her family.” He pulled off his little round glasses and wiped them on his horribly ugly shirt.

“No, it’s not that at all,” I lied.

“Whatever. I didn’t fall off the potato truck yesterday. Look, all I’m saying is that if stuff heats up, and this Cursed One turns out to be as bad as my gut tells me he’s going to be, I’ll fill you in on the details—provided you do me a couple of favors.”

“And those would be?”

“Help me talk Julie into speaking with her dad. He might be the only person in the world who knows what’s really going on. I don’t want to go behind Earl’s back, but this might be the only way. She might listen to you.”

“Really? Why would she listen to me? Did she tell you she liked me?” My hope spiked temporarily. Milo quickly brought me back down.

“No. But she thinks you have visions.”

“I’m not going to lie to her.”

“I don’t want you to. But if the choice comes down to having the world blow up, or having a painful Shackleford family reunion, personally I would rather have the reunion.”

“Why don’t we just go speak to him ourselves?”

“He’s real particular who he talks with,” Milo whispered. Holly sounded the horn. She actually held it down for a full ten seconds. “Just stop by my workshop tonight, and we’ll talk then. And I’ve got a piece of hardware I want you to try out. I think it might actually suit your personality.”

“Little green bookkeeper visor that clamps to my helmet?”

“Nah. Full auto, magazine-fed, 12-gauge shotgun.”

My earlier hunch had been correct. Milo Anderson was a mad genius.

The drive back to Booneville and the return flight to the compound were uneventful. The rest of the Hunters were busy reading through old books or making phone calls. I helped give a short debriefing about the information we received from the Elf Queen. At the end of the little meeting I was taken to task for not telling the others about the Tattooed Man from the dreams.

“You should have said something. We could have been researching him too. Who knows what clues that might have turned up?” Julie snapped at me. She was tired and discouraged from a long day of research. I couldn’t really blame her.

“Sorry. I didn’t know. I thought they were just normal dreams.”

“Yes, but your dreams are somehow tied to this case. I don’t know how, but until we figure it out, you need to report every single dream you have.” She pushed away from the table and stood to leave. “I’ll go see if I can find any records matching the Tattooed Man’s description. If you will excuse me, I’ve got a hundred years of dusty garbage to read.”

After she stormed off, Harbinger assigned me to go to the range and help coach the remaining Newbies with their pistol shooting. At least there was one thing that I was good at. I stopped by the armory and picked up another pistol on the way. I needed to replace my poor broken Kimber. Stupid vampire.

There was an absurd number of weapons to choose from. The armory was actually a concrete bunker with a bomb-proof door, filled from floor to ceiling with weapons. I could spend hours in that room fondling and drooling over the various guns. There was a wall dedicated to just .45 caliber handguns: Colt, Springfield, Kimber, H&K, CZ, Sig, S&W, Beretta and other lesser known brands. I picked out a lightly customized CZ 97B. I was always a sucker for a big .45. Ten rounds in the mag, plus one in the chamber. I could carry it cocked and locked; it would not be in the armory if it had not passed the reliability test with our ammo. I took the CZ, an inside-the-waistband holster, and several extra magazines. Dorcas would make sure that it came out of my check.

That evening I stopped by Milo’s workshop. It was a corrugated steel building located behind the main office. All manner of tools and gadgets were hung on the walls. Drill presses, welders, machine tools and worktables filled almost every square foot of the large space, leaving only narrow foot trails to navigate through the mess. A large American flag was taped up on the far wall. Huge speakers mounted in the corners were playing Oingo Boingo. Sparks flew as Milo used a grinder on some sort of massive device that appeared to be a harpoon launcher. He lifted his plastic face shield when he saw me coming.

“Ooo-wen. What’s up, my man?” He bobbed his head to “Only a Lad.”

“Milo, what the hell is that thing?”

“Harpoon launcher.”

“What for?”

“In case we need to harpoon something.”

I nodded slowly. I think even by the bizarre standards of Monster Hunters, there were still a few of us who marched to the beat of a slightly different drummer. In another corner there was a stuffed head mounted on the wall. It looked kind of like an alligator, but it had antlers. I did not dare ask if it was real.

“Check this thing out. We can still hit the range while there is a little bit of light left.” He led me to a workbench where a strange-looking gun was mounted in a vise.

“Saiga?” I asked. That was a Russian shotgun that was based upon the action of an AK.

“At first. On this one I mounted an adjustable ACE stock, with recoil pad of course, FAL pistol grip, holographic sight system, EOTech in particular, night vision compatible. Full rail system, so you can mount lights or IR illuminators, or as you can see here, a Tula 6G15 40mm grenade launcher, front-loading, single-shot. The barrel has been cut down to twelve inches, modified choke, gave it the Vang comp treatment also so the patterns are good and tight and recoil is softer. I modified the trigger group, so top position is safe, middle is full, bottom is semi. I’ve got the gas adjusted so you are looking at about 700 RPM on full.”

He was speaking my language. “Don’t these only come with five-shot magazines?”

“I’ve got a bunch of nine-round box mags, and two twenty-round drums. I’ve tested them all, all are reliable, but on full you can run through the nine rounder in a second, so use it sparingly. Go ahead, check it out.”

I gently picked up the massive weapon. It was short, but it was thick and heavy, and that was while it was empty. Add almost a box of shells and a grenade and it would be even more so. I worked the action. The bolt was slick and the spring was powerful. Milo had thoughtfully added a shelf to the safety so that it could be operated with the trigger finger. It pointed better than it looked when I snapped it into position.

“What about specialty munitions?”

“There is a gas regulator at the end of the hand guard. I machined a new one so that it now has three positions. If you have the regulator in the right spot for the right ammo, it isn’t going to malfunction.”

I ran my finger along the regulator, and found detents for the different power levels. There was also a mystery button. When I pushed it a hinge unlocked, and an eight-inch, heavy-duty bayonet was released. The blade was absurdly sharp and thick. With a flick of the muzzle it locked into place with a snap. It was not the world’s best-balanced spear, but I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of it.

“No freaking way. That is awesome.”

“I got the idea off of Czech CZ52, but I improved it. It folds to the side, out of the way of the grenade launcher. You don’t hardly even know it’s there until you need it. Bottom edge is good cutting steel, on the top edge is a silver inlay. You stick this in a lycanthrope and it’s going to know it.”

“Why did you paint it brown?” I asked as I slowly turned the monstrous weapon over in my hands. It felt good. I realized I was grinning like an idiot.

He shrugged. “I’m tired of black guns. Everybody has black guns. I wanted this to be a little different. Plus black gets hot in the sun. I tried to give it kind of a desert-tiger-stripe thing. So do you like it?”

“Milo . . . This is the coolest gun I have ever seen in my life. And I’ve seen a lot of guns. How does it shoot?”

“Let’s go find out. From what I’ve seen from you in practice, and from what Julie told me about your shooting on the freighter, I have been waiting for somebody worthy of Abomination.”

Abomination? That was just too cool. Milo handed me a sack of loaded magazines. “Okay, just one more question. Exactly how many gun laws does this break?”

Milo’s red eyebrows scrunched together in thought. He started to count on his fingers, and then thought better of it.

“All of them.”

The Abomination shot far better than I had expected it to. It was not sleek, it was not stylish, it could never be considered pretty. But it was reliable, and it was amazingly fast. The front-heavy weight swung quickly, and the heft helped keep the barrel down as I poured shell after shell into the targets. The holosight was amazingly fast. At close range you just put the target into the giant floating circle and pulled the trigger. I knocked down steel plates, I dusted clay pigeons out of the sky, and I put slugs into pie-plate-sized targets at a hundred yards with ease. The mag changes were so fast that it put my old reloading trick to shame. If I felt the need I could keep the rate of fire high enough to melt the barrel off of the mutant shotgun from hell.

I even got to run through a dozen flour-filled practice grenades, and even a handful of high explosive shells. Shove them in the front of the stubby launcher until they click, pull on the absurdly heavy trigger, and launch a blob of deadly high explosive out to the end of the range. The explosions threw clouds of red Alabama clay high into the air. What’s not to love about that? By the last grenade I had figured out the approximate amount of holdover necessary to get hits out to two hundred and fifty yards. Well, perhaps not hits, but like the old saying goes, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

By the time I had emptied all of the magazines, it had been dark for hours, and I was standing in a sea of spent plastic hulls. My clothing reeked of unburned powder, and the muscles in my face hurt from smiling. What can I say? I’m a gun nut.

“Oh my gosh. That is so cool,” I gushed. “I have to have one of these. This thing is going to rock against undead.”

Milo was obviously proud of his latest creation. I had no idea how much he was paid by MHI, but whatever it was, he certainly deserved more. “Go ahead and take it. It’s yours.”

“For real?” I said, putting the warm gun over my shoulder.

“Yeah, you get to be the beta tester. If any other Hunters want one I can build more. Personally, I’m going to stick with my carbine. Abomination is a little on the clunky side for me.”

“Thanks, dude.” Christmas had come early for Owen Z. Pitt.

“You can consider it bribery. Remember what I was talking about earlier? About that . . .” He drew in close. I felt rather conspiratorial. “Look, here’s the deal, after Julie’s mom was lost on a mission, her dad kind of withdrew from the world. He spent all of his time down in the archives. He read and studied every book we had, and then he started gathering more from all over. It became his thing. You think Julie is smart? She gets that from Ray. He was probably the smartest Hunter we have ever had. If anybody has heard of this Cursed One it would be him.”

“What happened to her dad? Why the falling out?”

“From all of his studying, he learned things that no human should have ever learned. It was stupid. Ray loved his wife and tried something desperate to get her back. It did not go according to plan.”

“So why doesn’t Julie want to speak to him, and why do her grandfather and her uncle freak out at the mention of his name?”

Milo jumped about a foot off of the ground when he heard Julie speak. “Because my dad is dangerous and insane.” We had not heard her approach. I stupidly removed my ear plugs. I had shut down the amplification to avoid wasting the batteries. I found myself wishing that I had left them on.

“It didn’t go according to plan?” Julie snapped at Milo. She strode between us, and stopped directly in front of him, arms folded. She was quite a bit taller than he was. “Didn’t go according to plan? Don’t you think that’s a bit of an understatement?”

“Well . . . I suppose that you could say . . .”

“According to plan? According to plan? Milo, all hell broke loose. Literally. Ninety-seven Hunters were killed, and it was only a miracle that we didn’t suck all of Alabama into another dimension. Even then the government shut us down, and put all of us out of work. Monster attacks on innocent people went through the roof because we weren’t around to stop them, and Dad is responsible for that too.” Milo shrank a little in the face of the onslaught. She whirled and faced me. “And you. What did I tell you before we left Georgia?”

“Stay out of your business?” I answered, feeling like an idiot.

“Do I need to put that on flashcards? Do I need to have it branded on your forehead? I could have it put on backwards; that way you could read it in the mirror.” She was seething. “Were you two going to try and get me to talk to Dad? What the hell were you thinking?”

“Julie, listen. The bad guys want to destroy time. That sounds like a bad thing. We have seven Masters tromping around working as a gosh-darn team for heck’s sake, and it has even scared the elves and the Feds. If the bad guys get to the Place of Power and turn on their evil gizmo, we could be screwed. Ray can probably tell us where that’s going to be,” Milo asserted.

“Yeah. What he said,” was my addition to the argument. Julie gave me the evil eye.

“Owen. Listen to me very carefully. You have no idea what level of trouble we are talking about here. The reason Milo thinks my dad is going to know where this evil place is, is because it is similar to the insane stunt that he pulled. He risked the lives of every living person for thousands of miles.”

“He did it for a good reason,” Milo insisted. “He was crazy with grief. Your dad was desperate.”

“He risked the lives of millions to try to bring back one single person who was already dead. That is the definition of insanity!” she raged, grabbing Milo by the shoulders and shaking him violently. “Don’t you get that? My dad did evil things. He is one of the bad guys. If I had known just how far gone he was I would have shot him myself.”

“Ray did evil things, but he wasn’t in his right mind. I’m not saying that we should let him out, just that you should talk to him. Get information, prevent another big problem. If he could help us stop the Cursed One, then it would be a way for him to make up for some of what he did,” Milo shouted back. “He is our best chance. We could still be screwing around in the archives when they set off their evil gizmo.”

Julie dropped her hands and kicked some shotgun hulls angrily. Her face was drawn tight, and she was frowning. She tucked an errant strand of dark hair behind an ear. “I know,” she muttered.

“And another thing!” Milo started to yell, and then stopped abruptly. “You know?”

“Yes. I know. That was why I was looking for you, you idiot. The situation has gotten worse. We just got word from Boone. He’s been keeping tabs in Georgia. About forty-five minutes ago there was an attack on the home of another university professor, strong vampires, at least a couple. Right in the suburbs, just after sunset. They were looking for something. Unfortunately the prof was throwing a party at the house at the time. The place is crawling with the Feds’ reaction team, so Boone couldn’t get a good look, but he was guessing at least twenty dead.”

“Let me guess. A colleague of Dr. Turley?”

“Yep. She was on our list to contact. A Ph.D. in anthropology, religion specialist.”

“Smart vamps don’t hit parties in the suburbs,” Milo said. “That brings too much heat and attention. Vamps feed on the outskirts. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Unless the payoff is worth the risk,” Julie said. “My guess is they’re looking for the when and where to use their artifact.”

“You think we’re running out of time?”

“Why else would they risk having the Feds track them? The Monster Control Bureau guys are not the most efficient bunch, but they have resources we can only dream about. Vampires, especially old ones, don’t pull stunts like this. That’s how they lived to be old to begin with,” she said with authority. “I don’t think we are running out of time—I know it.”

“So who’s the idiot now?” Milo queried, somehow managing to look both smug and innocent at the same time.

“Don’t push it. Milo, tomorrow you cover for me. Grandpa and Earl can’t know what I’m going to do. Pitt . . .” That was a good indicator that she was not happy, she almost never called me by my last name.

“Yes?”

“Try to dream something useful tonight, because tomorrow you’re going to meet my dad.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“It won’t be.”

Chapter 13

Dreaming. Pleasant dreams, just the normal disjointed clearing of the human subconscious. I slept deeply, able to tune out Trip’s snores from the other bunk, and my only visions were good ones. Julie’s beautiful smile and full-auto assault shotguns.

Then it changed. Events came into focus. My consciousness shifted gears. The pleasant, normal dreams evolved into something sharper, with seemingly real physical sensations. Cold snow under my bare feet, and the smell of smoke in the air.

I was standing in the remains of a small town. The nearby buildings had been shelled into rubble. A light dusting of snow covered the broken stone, shattered wood and rusting metal. There were a few signs and torn advertising on some of the crumbled walls. I did not recognize the language, but it seemed familiar. The style of the art was simple and old-fashioned. A gray winter sky loomed fat and heavy overhead. The world was totally and impossibly silent.

The Old Man leaned against a piece of rubble, cane in hand. He took a pocket watch out of his homespun coat and examined it absently when he saw me.

“You are late, Boy. Much work to do.”

“Sorry.”

“No, I the one that is sorry. Almost killed, I got you last time.”

“When the Cursed One saw us on the beach?”

“Too dangerous to take your spirit out of body. I not know what I doing. I new at this. Too, how you say . . . stupid to do again. But I had to show . . . show Cursed One to you so you know what I know. Too dangerous. No more out of body.”

“What would have happened if he had caught us?”

“For me, probably stay same. For you, you end up like me. Something else probably come and take your body while it empty.” He shivered when he said that, drawing his collar up against the winter cold. “Would be bad.”

“Something would inhabit my body?”

“Yes, there are things that not have body of own. They are, how you say . . . jealous. We not leave your body again. Not safe. I have to find new way to show you things.”

“So where are we right now?” I gestured at the silent town.

“In your head, Boy. Where did think?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been here. I’ve never been to that field we met in before either.”

“In your head. But from my memory. I am friend, I am guest here. I can show you thing that I know. Is hard to show, but I getting better. For smart boy, you are sometimes dumb.”

“Hey now,” I said defensively.

He laughed deeply. “Is fine. I forget. Real world is different where I am. Rules change. Come, I show you.” He pointed with his cane, and walked away through the snow. I followed.

The church had been old and battered even before most of its roof had been blown off by artillery. The stained-glass windows had been shattered, and small parts of the walls were charred ash where the church had caught fire. It was obvious that it had been a simple but beautiful structure at one time.

“What is this?”

“Is church. Got blowed up.” He made an explosion noise and opened his hands, pantomiming a bomb. “I not know name, I go to synagogue own self.”

“I can see that. I mean, what are you trying to show me?”

“Is Place of Power. Cursed One brought ancient artifact here. Under this land was place where old kings make sacrifices; before man, other things use this place. This is last place that Cursed One used to try to destroy time. Time is his enemy. Lucky for us, his learning was not right. He was not ready for such bold move. He failed.” We continued toward the building. The stone stairs were cold and slick with ice. “Lucky that time.”

“What would have happened if he had succeeded?” I ducked my head under a broken beam in the doorway. The interior of the church was just as damaged. Pews were smashed or knocked over. There was an altar at the far side of the room. “What does it mean to destroy time?”

“He not want to destroy. Cursed One thinks he can control. He has old device. Older than world. When matter was organized to create this world, the artifact was already there. Not meant for this world. It can torture time. Turn it . . . backwards. Make it stop for some. Go for others. Is bad. Very bad. Cursed One is vain, full of pride, nobody can control time. Will destroy world.”

“The Elf Queen said that he is trying to get back his lost love.”

“Yes. That was first reason. Now I think he is so much twisted with evil and hate I not know. I will try to show you. If you understand him, maybe you can stop.” He reached up and put his cold, arthritic hands alongside my face. “I try to show. I not take you out of your body, but I can maybe show you Cursed One’s memories.”

“Wait. What is your name? The vampire called you Bar Eeka.”

“Byreika,” he corrected. “Not important who I am. Now shush, is hard to show. Must concentrate.”

“Are you a ghost?”

“Ugh. Quiet, Boy. Time is short. Maybe is ghost. I not know.” The Old Man squeezed my head. He wore an intense look of concentration.

“What is this place?”

He took one hand away, and brought it back with a surprising slap. It stung.

“Always with the questions. Respect your elders. Now shush!”

The Old Man closed his eyes in concentration. The church and the smoldering town began to darken and fragment. Falling snow froze in midair. The world he had created began to fall apart without his attention. I could see my reflection in his glasses. As I watched, my face changed into someone else.

Confusion, resolving itself into a hazy vision from long ago.

The jungle road was hot. My horse was exhausted by the heat and lathered with foam. My plate was splattered with the blood of my enemies, and my helmet and plume sat heavy on my sweat-drenched brow. The air was thick with smoke and the acrid smell of powder. I rested my battle-ax across my saddle and passed my matchlock to my secondary to be reloaded. Large carrion birds circled overhead, eager to have their chance at the carnage on the jungle road.

My men were following after the routed, scattering enemy, cutting down as many as possible. Worried about possible counterattacks, I signaled my northern mercenary captain to call the men back. When the undergrowth became thick, the advantages of our muskets and plate were negated. The big man spurred his horse forward, shouting for the men to rally at his position.

I dismounted my steed as a prisoner was brought struggling before me. My men shoved him to his knees. The prisoner was obviously a man of some importance, adorned with gold jewelry and wearing complex armor made of hide, and crowned with a helmet constructed from a jaguar’s skull. The prisoner babbled in his incoherent pagan language. I took my helmet off and waited patiently for Friar de Sousa.

The priest came. As a man of many letters, he had made a study of the enemy’s language, and was able to communicate with them in a very rudimentary fashion. I waited as the priest and the pagan spoke in a mixture of words and hand signals.

“He is a leader of his people. He says that a great ransom will be paid for his return,” the priest said. Shots echoed through the jungle as my men happened upon a few other stragglers. “His city is wealthy and the very streets are paved in gold.”

That was more like it, for gold was the very essence of this conquest. Legends of the natives’ Dorado, their land of endless gold, were what kept my men focused. “Where is his city?” I asked. The priest translated. The prisoner pointed down the road and said something, holding up a pair of fingers.

“Two days’ march.”

“Excellent . . . Why take a ransom when you can take the whole city?” The priest understood and stepped away to avoid splattering his robes. I casually raised my ax and brought it swiftly down on my captive’s head.

NO!

Calm down, Boy. It is not you. These are Cursed One’s memories. You see world from his . . . how you say . . . perspective.

But I just killed a man. I couldn’t stop it.

No. Cursed One killed him. Killed him five hundred years ago. He is . . . I think you would say, mean son of bitch. We just observing.

How?

I am attached to him. Hard to explain. I have gone back too far in memory. Must go forward.

The jungle road faded away, only to be replaced with a city of giant stone buildings and massive pyramids. The city was wedged between jungle-covered peaks and surrounded by a swift river. Brilliant scarlet streamers hung above the roads, and trained jungle birds sang from cages hoisted over the intersections. The vision was jerky as the Old Man tried to control what I saw. If I was truly viewing the Cursed One’s memories, that would explain why I somehow understood medieval Portuguese.

It was a strange and unnatural sensation, to see through another person’s eyes, to smell the odors of a city long since gone, to hear the voices of people dead for hundreds of years, even to feel the sensations through another’s skin, like wearing an all-encompassing suit made out of human senses: it was perhaps the strangest thing I had ever experienced. And worst of all, I could hear his thoughts—not truly hear them, but hear them as though they were my own, only not under my control.

The scene was slightly distorted. Less important details were fuzzy or incomplete, leaving gray patches on the otherwise brilliant landscape. Time moved quickly, only to drag to impossible slowness. Sounds were distorted. Conversations of less interest were merely buzzes of background noise. Of course, memory is an imperfect recording device.

The occupants of the city lined the street. Almost all of them bowed in fear. I ordered my men to kill the few who did not bow as a warning to any who would dare challenge their new rulers. My small army had penetrated further into the interior of the continent than any previous conquistadors, and I intended to claim the riches of this city as my own. I led my men toward the central palace, lances up, muskets ready. Many of the people averted their eyes rather than see us in our armor and upon our horses. Bah . . . primitives.

The people of the city were right to be afraid. We had ground their entire army into the earth only a few hours before. I had lost seven men and a few hundred native conscripts. They had lost over a thousand. Their army had been for ceremonial purposes, full of show, and probably good at raiding small villages to take slaves and sacrifices. My army was made up of hardened warriors, good at nothing other than killing and looting. Isolation rather than strength of arms had been this city’s real protection, but no longer.

The priests were happy. We were going to send souls to the Lord, one way or the other. My men were content. There was more plunder, gold and women than they could have ever imagined. It was only through fear and loyalty to me that I had kept them from immediately looting the city. My troops worshipped me, and an entire country feared me. It was a good day.

I had a dream. Dare I say a vision? I saw myself riding forth at the head of a great army, conquering all of this land and making it my own. Returning home in glory, not as a failed merchant, not as just one of the many sons of a nobleman, but rather returning home in my own glory and with my own riches. I ordered no messengers to be dispatched to the sea. This was going to be my bounty, and mine alone. King Manuel would learn of this only when I was ready for him to learn.

My troops marched toward the city center, where the largest palace loomed. I called a halt as we entered the central courtyard, and had my men set up the cannon just in case a trap had been prepared, for surely not all of these backwards people could think that we were gods.

The royal entourage met us in the courtyard. They were brilliant in their finery. A contingent of jaguar-helmeted guards surrounded the royal family. Scores of priests and priestesses, wives and concubines, scribes and courtiers filled the square. A man stood at their head. His skin coated in gold dust, his raiment a robe of brilliant feathers, surely this was their king. He was frail and weak with age. The king approached, ahead of his personal bodyguard, and laid his staff upon the ground in front of my horse’s shoes. His eyes were the sad eyes of a broken man. I summoned Friar de Sousa to translate.

“In the name of his Royal Highness, King Manuel the Great of Portugal, your kingdom has been conquered, and must pay tribute. I am General Joao Silva de Machado. My word is law in this land. You will provide gold and treasure as I see fit. You will provide food, lodging and clean women for my soldiers. You will provide able-bodied men to join my army in the continuing pacification of this land as I see fit. Your people will learn the true Catholic faith and receive the blessings therein. Failure to follow my orders will result in your death and the deaths of your people. Trickery will not be tolerated. For each of my men attacked by your people, I will kill five hundred of yours. For any of my priests attacked by your people, I shall kill five hundred of your priests. If any of you tries to harm my officers or me, I will raze this city to the ground until no two stones stand upon another. I will kill every man, woman and child, feed your flesh to our hounds, and salt the earth so that nothing will ever grow upon this blighted land ever again.” I waited for the friar to catch up. He spoke loudly so that the whole crowd could hear. I imagined that de Sousa’s gift of languages would only carry him so far, but as long as the heathens understood the fundamentals of what I was trying to convey, I would be satisfied.

“But do not think that you can harm us. For we are gods to you.” The priest stuttered a bit as he translated that bit of blasphemy. “You have witnessed the power we control. I can call fire from the heavens and smite you to dust. You cannot harm us, but you can try. If you try, you will be punished. Is that understood?”

The priest finished and the king bowed before me. The royal party did so as well. Jaguar helmets touched the ground as their army followed suit. I could grow used to this.

All bowed except one, a dark-skinned woman in the opulent robes of a priestess. She alone met my gaze. She stood proudly as the other members of her strange priesthood cowered. I had not seen such beauty and poise since I had been banished from the royal courts so long ago. I gestured for two of my men to seize her and bring her forward. She held up a hand to stop them, and approached of her own volition.

The king glared at her as she made her way across the courtyard, and hissed something at her in their incomprehensible language. I spurred my horse forward. With a snort and flared nostrils, the mighty beast knocked the king roughly to the ground. The royal party gasped in astonishment as the old, broken man scurried away from my warhorse’s iron-shod hooves.

“Who are you and why do you think you should not bow?” She was a beautiful wench, and it was going to be a waste to kill her as an example, but the pagans could not be allowed to see weakness from my army. My fingers drifted toward the handle of my ax. Regardless of the answer I planned to take her head, though perhaps if she amused me I would have my way with her first, and I would do it in front of the royal family. Friar de Sousa hurriedly translated.

She cut him off. “I am Koriniha, High Priestess of the Temple of Neihor.”

My hand moved away from my ax. “How do you speak our tongue?” Many of my priests and soldiers began to murmur at this surprise. We were the first civilized Christians to make it this far into the interior of the continent, that we knew of at least. Had some of the blasted Spaniards beaten us here?

“There is power here, untapped for generations. I have learned your language in preparation for this very day. The spirits burned your words into me so that I may speak with you,” she boldly retorted. “I have been waiting for you. Your coming was prophesied by the Old Ones. Your men come here, searching for riches, like pigs, simple in their greed. Your priests come for souls, numbers to feed their machine. But you, my Lord Machado, you are different. Your quest is for power. It is what you seek in your heart. I can offer you power. Power beyond your dreams.”

“She is a witch,” exclaimed Friar de Sousa. “Kill her, Lord Machado, the devil has given her our speech.”

“Silence, priest. Do not presume to tell me what to do.” The friar bowed his head in submission. I was interested. Something about the beautiful priestess provoked something deep in the back of my mind. “What do you speak of, woman? Make it good or I will be most displeased by this interruption.”

She bowed slightly. “I can offer you much, Lord Machado. With my help I can keep this city docile and willing to serve you.”

“They will do that now,” I stated.

“But only out of fear. You are a wise general. You know that eventually they will rebel. Brave ones will rise up, as they always do. I know that you are only men. Mighty and wise men to be sure, but you must sleep, and you must eat our food, and your flesh can be pierced by an assassin’s blade when your guards are not alert. You need not rule this city out of fear, if I can make this people serve and worship you. Why plunder one country, one people, when you can instead bend that city to your will and use it to build your own kingdom out of this land?”

I found myself intrigued by the ruthless cunning of the witch.

“Tell me more, Priestess.”

I blinked and the vision was gone. I was no longer an unwitting passenger in the Cursed One’s memory. We were back in the destroyed church, except now the make-believe world was no longer in sharp focus, there were blank spots around us filled with nothing. The Old Man was losing his concentration. He was sitting on the steps of the altar, pale and wheezing. His hands were shaking. I sat down next to him.

“Sorry, Boy. Can only do for so long. Is very difficult.”

“What were you trying to show me?” I felt unclean from seeing the world through the Cursed One’s eyes, feeling his pride and his calculating mind, hearing his thoughts, and experiencing his casual brutality.

“Can’t explain. Must show. I will try again if there is time, but now am weak. Very weak.”

“How are you tied to Lord Machado?”

The Old Man was silent. He gently tapped the hard wood floor of the church with his cane, apparently lost in thought.

“How are you tied to him? I want to help you.”

“Don’t worry about me, Boy. I am trapped. I am no matter.”

“Do you know where he is? Or where he is going? Can you show me a current memory?”

He laughed tiredly. “You can see his old memories from when he was man, but now? One look in his head and you either dead or go crazy.” He used his finger to make a swirling motion around his ear. The universal sign of insanity. “Maybe I can send image. Maybe like photograph from what he sees. I will try . . . after I rest.”

“Thank you.” I thought for a moment. “One last thing.”

“Hurry.”

“What about the tattooed man?”

“Guardian of the artifact. Do not trust. He wants one thing. Just one thing. Get in his way—” The Old Man dragged his bony finger across his throat and made a gack sound. “You go now. Help your lady friend. Keep her safe. She is good girl. You two make cute babies someday.” He patted me on my arm.

“Huh?”

“Go, stupid boy. Try not to get dead!”

I awoke with a start. My alarm was buzzing with all of the gentleness of an air-raid siren. I pounded the snooze button and jumped out of bed, alert and breathless. The sun would not rise for a few more hours, but I had to tell the others about my dream immediately. I still did not understand exactly what was happening to me, but somehow I was being given some serious knowledge about our adversary. I threw on a T-shirt and a pair of jeans, and rushed out of the barracks, not even bothering with shoes. I crashed into Trip on the way out the door. He swore as he spilled his coffee. I shouted an apology as I sprinted for the main office building.

The MHI library was located in the basement. It was a massive room, tight with shelves and dusty tables. All of the company’s monster encounters had been logged and documented for the last hundred years. In addition, books of topical value had been brought here by more scholarly-minded Hunters the entire time. In total there was a century of accumulated paper moldering away in that room. It was probably the world’s biggest collection of actual monster lore, but it was a daunting task to find any one particular thing.

I found Earl Harbinger in the archives, staring vacantly at a heavy old book. From his appearance I could not tell if he had gotten up really early, or if he had never gone to sleep.

“Another dream? Did you learn something?” I nodded in the affirmative. “What did you get?”

“It was weird, but I got his whole name, General Joao Silva de Machado, and I know a lot more about him. He was an evil bastard when he was human, and apparently he has just gotten worse with age.”

Harbinger smiled tiredly. Apparently that was the best news he had gotten lately. “Good work. With that I bet we can pin him down. I’ll go get the others,” he said as he left.

I pulled out a chair and sat down tiredly. Whatever happened when I had these dreams, it certainly wasn’t restful. I put my head down on the old wood table. I closed my eyes. The minutes ticked by. I did not feel so good.

Then the vision began. The Old Man had been true to his word. Once he had recovered enough he attempted to bring me a more recent memory from the Cursed One. This was merely a visual snapshot, just a single image that might help us locate the enemy, nothing more.

However, it came from such a tortured mind, so filled with hate and darkness and pain, that just the brief second I felt the connection was enough to knock me to the ground and leave me gasping for air in a blind panic. The Old Man must have made a mistake. I could feel the Cursed One as he sensed me intruding. I could feel his anger, and his promise to destroy me and the very fabric of my world. He sent me a message. I screamed in agony and clutched my face as I was wracked with spasms of unspeakable pain. Crashing out of the chair, I twitched wildly as thousands of invisible blades stabbed at my flesh. Tears streamed from my eyes as I thrashed about, trying to evade the pain. Everything went mercifully black.

The others were standing over me. Julie was kneeling at my side, her hand gently resting on my forehead. They all looked very concerned.

“What happened?”

“You were having a seizure or something,” she said. “How do you feel?”

“Like crap. That wasn’t a seizure. Lord Machado sensed me. I had another vision.”

“While you were awake?” Harbinger asked sharply.

“I requested it. Last night in my dream. I asked for a picture, a current memory . . .” The other Hunters looked at each other in confusion. “I’ll explain later, look . . .” I tried to sit up but I was too dizzy. I gave up and embraced the cold floor. “I saw one of his memories. I saw the world through the Cursed One’s eyes. I don’t know from when, but it was a recent memory.”

“Owen, take it easy. Tell us what you saw.” Julie’s voice was soothing and relaxed.

“He was in some sort of vehicle. It was dark. I just saw the road illuminated in the headlights. They were approaching a sign . . .”

“What did it say?” Julie asked.

“Welcome to Alabama.”

Chapter 14

The Appleton Asylum was located on the banks of the Alabama River. It was an isolated location, far off of the main road, nestled deep into the thick surrounding trees. According to the map it was only sixty miles from the MHI compound, but the barely-paved route to the asylum was so circuitous that I think we had to go twice that far. The nearest actual town was Camden, and to call it close was a stretch. The afternoon air was still thick with dew. Spanish moss dangled over the roads, dappling them in shadow, and dragged along the roof of our van.

The asylum itself was an enormous, four-story gothic construction, gray and stern, surrounded by a high wrought-iron security fence. The narrow windows were barred, and the building emanated a quiet bleakness. The sign above the entrance said appleton. I had almost been expecting it to have a quote from Dante’s Inferno instead.

Julie and I had slipped away after the morning debriefing. I had given as much detail from my dream as I could to the other Hunters. None of us really knew what it all meant, but we knew that the Cursed One and his minions were now on our turf. Unfortunately, as near as we could figure, there were at least a dozen roads along the border that had a sign like the one I had seen, plus we had no idea how old the memory was. Reports had begun to drift in that the government had activated all of the National Guard units in the southeastern U.S., including units that had just gotten back from long deployments overseas. The morning news had a report showing tanks and trucks parked at the Pharr Mounds in Mississippi. Reports indicated that there were also troops protecting Civil War battlefields, Indian burial grounds and historic monuments. The spokesman from the Department of Homeland Security explained that it was merely an exercise to prepare for potential terrorist threats. Apparently the Feds were nervous as well, and trying to cover any spots that might potentially be the Place of Power.

Julie Shackleford was silent as she drove up to the gate. She had barely spoken during the drive. Her lips were set in a hard line, and she wore a look of concentration similar to the one that she had before we had stormed the bowels of the Antoine-Henri. She tapped her fingers nervously on the steering wheel. She was not looking forward to speaking with her father.

“It will be okay, Julie. Don’t worry about it,” I said, in an inane attempt at comforting her.

“Are your parents weird?” she responded, still staring out the window. She had stopped beside the security intercom, but she had not yet hit the button.

“Mom thinks that if we don’t eat all of her cooking we don’t love her. When she gets excited she forgets to speak English. My dad made us kids call him Sergeant.”

“Well, Owen, that sounds like Leave It to Beaver to me. My mom disappeared on a mission and my dad locked himself in a library for a few years. He twisted forces of ancient and unspeakable evil to his will and tore open a rift in the fabric of space and time to bring her soul back from the other side. He failed, and a horde of rampaging demons from a different dimension killed most of the friends I have ever had. Now Mom is still dead, and Dad’s insane . . . so don’t think that you can tell me that it is okay.”

“Got it,” I answered. So much for being helpful. Another minute passed in silence. Finally, with a dejected sigh, she rolled down the van window and pushed the intercom button.

“Who is it?” asked the tinny and static-laced voice of the intercom.

“Julie Shackleford. I’m here to visit my father—Raymond Shackleford. He is a patient of the Doctors Nelson.” There was a long pause before the heavy iron gate creaked open under hydraulic pressure. We drove through.

“Doctors Nelson?”

“Lucius and Joan. Husband and wife team. One is a psychiatrist, the other is a psychologist. I can’t remember which is which though.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Beats me. I was a history major. You’re the trivia nut,” she replied. “They are actually both retired Hunters. They bought this place from the state when they left MHI. They’re good folks. I’ve known them since I was a kid. They are getting up in age, but they do really good work here. The Nelsons have done some great research. They help a lot of people with special problems.”

“Special problems?”

“Mostly they work with regular mental problems, like any treatment center, but they specialize in people who have had monster encounters. Not everybody has a flexible mind like those of us who become Hunters,” she answered.

I had never thought about that. I was still internally freaking out about the things that were happening to me. I could only imagine how some people would react from that kind of trauma. Apparently here was my answer.

We parked in the near-empty lot under a large tree. Thick leaves dangled across the windshield. Julie cautioned me to make sure the door was locked. Her suggestion made sense considering that there were crazy people roaming the lawn, and we had something like a dozen firearms, grenade launchers, a flamethrower, edged weapons, and several pounds of high explosive in the back of our huge Ford passenger van.

The grounds around the asylum were immaculate. The lawns were green, and comfortable chairs had been placed in various strategic locations for the patients to make themselves at ease. A group of casually dressed people were sitting in a circle, listening to one of their own tell a story. The woman was very animated, and obviously distressed.

“They would bite me, and it would hurt, and they would suck on me until I was so weak I was almost dead. But they would never kill me. They would just go until they got full, and then they would just stick me in the hole with the others. They would throw enough food down the hole to keep us alive. It was always dark, so we couldn’t tell what we were eating, but it was always raw meat. But we were so weak and hungry that we had no choice.” The woman was crying and shaking. She was twisting the bottom of her Winnie the Pooh sweatshirt violently. She was young, and had been probably been very pretty once, but was now prematurely aged from stress. “Sometimes, when one of us would finally get too weak, and . . . and . . . and finally die . . . Then the next day there would be more food. So we knew what it was. But we were too weak to fight. Some of us went crazy. Crazy. Waiting for them to come back and drag another one of us out of the hole to feed on. It went on and on and on like that. I don’t know how long because it was always dark. So dark.” She finally broke down in deep, pitiful sobs.

An older woman who was obviously a doctor stood and comforted her, hugging her and telling her that she was so brave, and that it was all going to be okay now. The group echoed the sentiment, congratulating the woman for sharing. The crying patient returned to her seat.

“Vampires,” said a man who had stopped beside me.

I had been so distracted by the patient’s story that I had not heard him approach. He was a short, pudgy gentleman with huge, thick glasses and wild hair. His pants were hitched up over his belly button and kept there with a giant pair of suspenders. If I were to guess I would have to say that he was in his sixties.

“One of the ways that they stay off the radar. Abduct some poor folks, and keep them locked in a pen, like cattle. Rotate through, feeding just enough to keep them alive. They don’t need to take as many victims that way. Keeps them from drawing the attention of Hunters. Saddest part of all is that even if a victim has only been bitten once, even if it was years and years before, when they die, they will return as a vampire themselves. That’s the real reason we embalm people nowadays. Keeps them from coming back. Even though this poor girl survived, she has to deal with that knowledge the rest of her life.”

“Dr. Nelson!” Julie exclaimed. She hugged the man. He grunted as she almost lifted him off of his feet.

“Ah . . . little Julie. You have grown so much. My gosh, let me have a look at you.” He studied her for a moment at arms’ length. “My dear, you look just like your mother. Susan was a beautiful woman too.”

I swear that Julie the fearless Monster Hunter blushed. “Thanks, Doc. I’m told that a lot. Everybody loved Mom.”

“Yes, we did. She was a shining light to all of us knuckle-dragging hooligans. She kept us in line, kept me and Joan alive on more than one occasion as well. How is your grandfather? Still a cantankerous old bastard I hope? Is he well?”

“Of course, on the cantankerous part. Healthwise? He’s getting older, but he’s tough.”

“Good, good. And Earl? Staying out of trouble? He needs to call more often to check in. I would love to write a paper about his condition if he would just sit on my couch long enough for an interview.”

“Earl is good. I’ll tell him to call . . .” She changed the subject. “This is Owen Pitt. One of our newest Hunters.”

The doctor shook my hand. His grip was strong for an old man. His grin was infectious.

“Nice to meet you.” He pumped my arm vigorously. “Considerable facial scarring. Claws, yes?”

“Werewolf,” I said, self-consciously touching my face. “I pushed him out of a tall building.”

“You must be the lad from Dallas then. Good show on that one. I knew as soon as I saw the report that you would become a Hunter, though I would not have minded having you here for my research—werewolf encounter, survivor’s guilt, and a near-death experience, all in one patient. My, but that would make a splendid paper. Perhaps if you have the time you could give me a blow-by-blow account, maybe tell me about any psychosomatic problems you have faced since, obviously not lack of appetite. Ha!” He punched me lightly in the stomach. “Perhaps bad dreams or sexual dysfunction then?”

Julie snickered at my discomfort. Luckily I was spared any further quizzing by the arrival of the other Doctor Nelson. She was a small, thin, birdlike woman. She was probably about the same age as her husband, but the main thing that they had in common was the enormously thick glasses. She also hugged Julie, but before they could even converse, Doctor Joan called the group of patients over.

“Look, everybody. These two people are from Monster Hunter International. They are real live Monster Hunters.” I waved sheepishly. Some of the patients oohed and aahed. Others held back and sullenly smoked cigarettes.

“You are so brave.”

“Hunters saved my life.”

“You were my savior.”

“Thank you.”

Probing hands grabbed at me. I was hugged and kissed on the cheeks, and tears fell onto my clothing. I was stunned by the outpouring of emotion, and mostly tried to keep my hands on my concealed weapons. I did not want to find out if any of the patients were feeling suicidal or homicidal. Finally the crowd drew back, leaving Julie and me disheveled and tear-stained. It was a strange experience to be thanked by total strangers for things which I had never done.

“Where were you people when my kids were getting torn apart?” one of the patients snarled. He was a middle-aged man who did not look comfortable in casual clothing.

“Now now, Barney. The Hunters are only human. They can’t be everywhere. They can only do their best. We can all learn from that example.” The female Doctor Nelson clapped her hands. “Okay, everyone, the sharing circle is done for today. It’s lunchtime. Today we are having meatloaf.”

“Bah.” The man named Barney spit on the ground in my general direction and stormed away. The group dispersed.

“What’s his problem?” I asked.

“He must not like meatloaf,” Lucius Nelson answered.

The interior of the asylum was much warmer and friendlier than the gothic exterior. The Nelsons had remodeled the building until it looked less like a state-run ward, and more like a comfortable and relaxing place to live. The walls were painted warm colors, and the staff was courteous and friendly. Julie had gone with Doctor Joan to see her father. She had understandably not wanted my company for the painful meeting. If we were needed, Doctor Lucius had his beeper.

I was getting the tour. “Those patients you met are some of the more well-adjusted people we have staying here. Most of them are on the verge of really dealing with their issues. Hopefully some of them will be able to return to the world soon. We also, I’m afraid, have others who are not doing so well. This common area is made up of people who are no longer really a danger to themselves or others. The other sections have greater security.”

“Which one is Ray Shackleford in?”

“Maximum security. He is actually a ward of the state, and only released into our custody because of the nature of our facility. We are required to keep him locked up and guarded.”

“Is Julie going to be safe?” I could not help but ask.

“I saw that girl beat an Indonesian blood fiend into submission when she was sixteen years old. I’m not worried. But just in case, Ray has been restrained. I would have administered drugs, but I’m guessing that you want him lucid.” He adjusted his suspenders. “I wish that MHI would have called and warned us you were coming.”

“It was kind of a surprise decision.” I shrugged. Some of the patients were playing Ping-Pong. One of them had scars that made my own look miniscule.

“Well, I’m glad that Julie is finally speaking with her father. I just hope that she has prepared herself for this. It could be potentially traumatic.” He chuckled softly. “That is why my wife went with her instead of me. She is the loving one.”

He pointed at other patients as we continued walking. “Part of the problem we face here is the whole government-mandated secrecy about monsters. Many of our patients were put into regular mental health facilities after their encounters, before we were able to find out about them and bring them here. Unfortunately, when a severely traumatized individual is taken in for treatment, and they are already struggling with the reality of what they have experienced, regular doctors are not much help. Can you imagine going to a normal psychologist and explaining that your boss turned into a werewolf and tried to eat you?” He did not wait for me to answer. “They would think that you were delusional and they would pump you full of drugs. You know what you saw. They don’t think that is possible, so after a while the sane and healthy patient begins to doubt their own memories, that leads to insecurity and that snowballs into all sorts of mental problems. If you can’t trust your own memory, what can you trust?”

“I got security camera video,” I replied.

“Ha. Like most of these poor people get to see anything like that. Damn quacks can ignore piles of evidence, because they are sure that monsters are only figments of our subconscious. I’ve read huge textbooks explaining how the werewolf and vampire legends, that date back to the dawn of recorded civilization and span every single culture on the planet, are neatly explained by mass hysteria, religious fervor, vain attempts at understanding natural pathological psychoses, or even hallucinations caused by ergot in bad rye bread. Ha. Joan and I were staking vampires while we were still in med school, so our methods are a little unorthodox in the scientific community. Learn this, Mr. Pitt, there are three kinds of people in the world: people who can’t believe in anything, suckers who believe in everything, and a few of us who can face the truth.”

We stopped in front of a large security door. A hulking orderly nodded at us, and Doctor Nelson scanned his badge to get us through. We entered a long corridor, lined with steel doors with small window slits. Screaming, crying and gibbering nonsense echoed through the hall. It gave me shivers.

“This ward is for people who have had serious monster trauma and are not coping with it well. They are suicidal, violent, or unable to distinguish reality from fantasy.” We stopped before a door. I peered through the slit. A man was sitting cross-legged in the corner. He was wearing a straitjacket, and he was softly beating his head against the padded wall. He was humming “Mary Had a Little Lamb” over and over again. Drool was running down his chin, and forming a puddle on the floor.

“Believe it or not, Carlos here was a Monster Hunter. He worked for MHI up until about fifteen years ago. He was one of our team leads in New England. Brilliant man, great Hunter, good leader.”

“What happened?” I asked softly. Carlos cocked his head to the side as if listening to something very far away. After a few seconds he went back to humming.

“Have you ever read any H.P. Lovecraft, Mr. Pitt?”

“Please, just call me Owen. I read a little bit when I was a kid, why?” I did not say that his stories had given me nightmares.

“Lovecraft was no Hunter, but he heard the stories, and he did his research. He had a pretty good idea of what was out there. If you remember, a common theme in his work was the protagonist’s gradual descent into madness over a period of being exposed to the darkness of the other side. There are things out there which man is not meant to ever see or understand. Poor Carlos here is a perfect example.”

“What did he see?”

“Nobody knows. His whole team went missing, and he was found wandering in the countryside, naked and confused. Just keep that in mind as you continue your career, Owen. There are some things that are best just left alone.”

We exited the ward, leaving Carlos and the others to their songs.

Lunch was filling, and the meatloaf was surprisingly edible, considering it was mass-produced in an insane asylum’s cafeteria. Doctor Joan called at one point to tell us that Ray was finally speaking a little bit to his daughter. I overheard part of the conversation. He was coherent, but the Shackleford family reunion was not exactly a joyous occasion.

After we ate, the tour continued, terminating on the back lawns of the Appleton Asylum overlooking the sluggish Alabama River. A high fence ensured that none of the patients decided to take a swim. It had rained briefly, and this time it was enough to break the humidity and lower the temperature to an almost comfortable degree.

As we walked along the lawns, many other patients came up to speak with me. Some wanted to touch my hands, or give me hugs. Many of them thanked me for what I did with heartfelt emotion. I was not used to such attentions.

“They are trying to give their thanks. Of course, I find out about many of my patients from your organization. Many of them would not be alive if it weren’t for MHI or your competitors,” the good doctor explained. “They see people like you as saviors, as heroes, as champions.”

“I’m no hero,” I replied. “I’m not even particularly brave.”

“It doesn’t matter. Everybody needs something to believe in. So for those who have been hurt by evil, they need to have champions of good to offset that in their minds. For the victims, they see people like you as Batman or the Lone Ranger. It keeps their worlds in balance. Mankind needs our heroes.”

“I’m not sure exactly what I am, but I’m nobody’s champion.”

“Don’t be so sure. I’ve been around Hunters longer than you have been alive. It is a job that requires bravery to the point of insanity. Everyone has their own reasons. Some of us are just in this for the money, others are in it for the thrill, others because they need a place to vent their violence in a manner that is not only legal but encouraged. Some do it out of a thirst for revenge. Some, like Julie I’m afraid, do it because it is the only world they know or really fit into. And then there are the few, the very, very few, who do it because they really are heroes, and they don’t have it in them to be anything else.”

I thought of Trip when he said that. My friend was in this for the right reasons. He just wanted to do good and help people. Guys like him were the heroes. I was just an accountant with a gun.

“So why are you doing this, Owen?”

“You going to psychoanalyze me now, Doc?”

He laughed. “I’m just a curious man by nature.”

“Honestly, I don’t know. I’m still not sure this is right for me.”

“Why?”

I scratched my head. “Well . . .” He was a shrink after all. “Growing up, my father had this weird apocalyptic idea about the future, and he wanted me to be ready for it. So he pushed me into being something that I didn’t really think I wanted to be. Then when I got older, I felt like I let him down, so I did something really stupid, lost my temper, and almost killed somebody who probably deserved it, but that’s beside the point. So when I tried to distance myself from that kind of thing, and tried to be normal, I find myself involved in something even worse than before. Monsters are real, and it looks like maybe my father was right all along, and the future really is bleak, and I’m supposed to be a violent brute, and it’s good that I’m good at killing things. But I still lost my temper and almost killed another Hunter, who once again, probably deserved it, but at least the sharks didn’t eat him, so I’m still managing to screw stuff up. Now I’m having visions and hearing voices.”

“Okay . . . I’m going to need to bump a few appointments from my calendar this afternoon to squeeze you in . . .”

“No time for that, since it looks like some super monster is trying to destroy time, and somehow I’m tagged by fate or the universe or something to fight him. But when this is over, if I live, I really need to figure out, do I really want to do this kind of thing? Or is it better to just forget this ever happened, and go back to my normal life?”

Doctor Nelson digested my ramblings for a few moments while we strolled along the walk. “Ehhh . . .” He shrugged. “Normal people are lame. Stick with monster hunting.”

We stopped as another patient came up to shake my hand.

“Thank you for what you do,” he stated vacantly. “The screaming killer frogs done ate my whole family. But y’all came and saved the rest of the town. Thank you. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. I did not have the heart to tell him that I did not even know what a screaming killer frog was. “Our pleasure. You just get some rest and get to feeling better. Okay?”

He thanked me a few more times before letting go of my hand. He had some more information to share. “There are some killer frogs flying around. Big ones. These ones are shaped like men. But bigger. And they have wings and horns, so I reckon they ain’t really frogs. But you know how that goes. I done saw them in the trees by the river, watching the place. If you get a chance, Mr. Hunter sir, you should probably go kill them or something.”

“Thank you for the information, Travis. We will look into it.” The doctor patted the young man on the shoulder and sent him on his way. We watched as he ambled off. “Poor boy. He has spent more than half of his life here and he is still delusional. That’s too bad. He has not been seeing monsters for quite some time. I’m afraid he may be relapsing. I’m going to have to adjust his meds.”

The doctor sat down tiredly when we came to the next bench. We had a good view of the forest, the river, and the back of the asylum. “It has been a long day. I need a little break, and then I’m going to have to return to my duties. And my door is always open, when you take care of your current monster problem. I’m afraid Joan and I don’t get many visitors. I do realize that many people find this place kind of depressing.”

“Just a little,” I lied. I stretched my legs and studied the intricate architecture of the building. It was a remarkably depressing structure considering how much good the Nelsons were trying to accomplish. The building was hideously dark. The walls were thick, blocky stone, with carved designs on the edges, and the look was completed by the pair of massive stone gargoyles that sat on the building’s roof. “Maybe it’s the setting? This place looks more like a haunted castle than an institution dedicated to helping people.”

“That it does. But you should have seen it before we bought it from the state. Joan and I wanted to put our earnings from MHI to good use. This facility is perfect for what we do. Though I will agree, it does bring to mind The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

“Yeah, it looks like what insane asylums look like in horror movies. Sorry, mental health facilities,” I said. “Heck, you even have gargoyles. Isn’t that kind of a bad idea with patients who are scared out of their minds by monsters?”

He adjusted his absurdly thick glasses and studied the roof.

“Hmm . . . I may not need to change Travis’s medication after all.”

“Huh?”

“Our building doesn’t have gargoyles.”

We watched as one of the giant statues swiveled its horned head as if it was analyzing the air. The other creature slowly and ponderously stretched one of its wings.

“Oh, shit,” we said in unison.

Chapter 15

“Julie! We have gargoyles on the roof. At least two of them,” I shouted into my cell phone as I sprinted around the property for the van and our stash of weapons. Doctor Nelson had left to sound the alarm to lock down the facility.

“How big are they?” she asked.

“Freaking huge. Probably ten or twelve feet tall. I think they’re the big monsters from my dream.” I leapt over a bench, surprising a patient who had been napping. “Get inside! Run!” I shouted at the patients as I went past. Just as I said that a horn began to blow. The alarm. “What do we do? I haven’t learned about gargoyles yet.”

“Grab big guns. Explosives. Gargoyles are stone golems. Animated creatures. If you have to engage with small arms, go for the joints—those are fluid. That’s how they move. I’ll call Earl.” She hung up.

I made my way to the parking lot in an all-out sprint, fumbling in my pocket for my keys. I looked up in time to see a third gargoyle land on the front roof of the Appleton Asylum. The roof splintered and cracked as the creature settled its weight. Its wingspan had to be forty feet across, and it nearly blotted out the sun. There was a whooshing noise as the monster gently flapped its wings. It settled deeply into a powerful crouch, talons digging into the roof tiles. Massive arms dangled at its sides, ending in pointed claws. Long horns extended from its head, and continued down its back, terminating in a stubby tail. The beast was gray, and had the texture of poured concrete. It swiveled its head and studied me with blank stone eyes.

I crashed into the van, keys in hand. I picked out the correct one, but before I had a chance to insert it, the gargoyle spread its wings and leapt downwards, covering the four stories in an instant. There was no natural explanation for how such a big thing could glide. It landed on the roof of the van, crushing the center, shattering every window, and compressing the shocks. I jumped aside as the van rocked wildly. The gargoyle swung an absurdly long arm at me, and I barely had time to fall backwards as the claws dug long furrows into the asphalt.

Patients were screaming, falling to the ground and covering their heads, running or hiding, and a few were just standing there mumbling to themselves. I ran for the entrance, and seconds later heard the concrete stairs break behind me as the creature jumped from the roof of the van. Not looking back, I jerked open the double door and entered the asylum. It closed automatically behind me.

Doctor Lucius was there, pushing his way through the panicked crowd. He was breathing hard and his face was gray. The retired Hunter knew to fetch us some hardware, though. The doctor shoved a rifle into my hands, and then shakily lifted his own. They were old M1 Garand rifles from WWII. He handed me a few 8-round en-bloc clips that I dropped into my pants pocket.

“Armor piercing .30-06. That should get his attention. It’s already loaded,” he gasped, and then added, “I’m really far too old for this kind of thing.” Patients and staff were moving around us in confusion. “Get out of the main hallways. Get to your rooms, or get to the basement!” he ordered.

I stuck my finger in the trigger guard to remove the safety. I pointed it at the door and waited. Nothing happened. The doctor continued to bellow orders over the screaming and hysterical crying. Since I had a moment, I took my electronic earplugs out of my shirt pocket and stuffed them into my ears. If I lived through this, at least I might keep some of my hearing. I quickly studied my surroundings. A large open room, some Ping-Pong tables and couches, there was no real cover to use in the common room. Nothing that a giant stone creature couldn’t just bull its way through.

I interrupted the doctor’s shouted orders. “You better get out of here. Get your people and go. I’ll hold it as long as I can.” I kept the old rifle pointed at the door. I did not know what the creature was waiting for.

“No way. This is my home. No monster pushes me around.”

“Then we stick and move. Fall back when I tell you to.” Had the creature taken back to the sky? Could I risk returning to the van for some bigger weapons? I caught the doctor nodding out of the corner of my eye. Good, the last thing I wanted was for him to stay here and get turned into paste. Then I heard the noise as stone talons clicked rapidly toward the entrance.

There was a tremendous crash as the gargoyle threw itself against the doorframe. Mortar rained from the wall under the impact as the wooden doors broke inward. The heavy wood flew, crumbling into splinters. A horned head appeared through the cloud of dust. The creature tried to crawl through the entrance, but its shoulders were too large. The doctor and I opened fire.

I fired my eight shots in a few seconds, the empty clip ejected with a metallic ping. Dust rose from the gargoyle as the bullets struck. The impacts made small craters in the stone, but the creature was seemingly unfazed. It pulled its massive bulk back and crashed into the frame again, dislodging several heavy stones and knocking them to the floor.

“Fall back, Doctor!” I shouted as I reached into my pocket and pulled out an en-bloc clip. I thumbed it into the open action, narrowly avoiding getting my thumb pinched as the bolt flew forward. The doctor obliged and I lost track of him as he retreated toward a side hallway. I took careful aim at the creature, trying to find a joint. The monster’s giant stone face opened, showing a throatless mouth filled with huge, blunted teeth. It was a roar, but no sound issued forth. The gargoyle drew back for another run, crashed into the stones, and then backed up to come again. A few more tries and it would be inside. I placed the front sight carefully on the gargoyle’s massive neck and fired. The bullet struck high and ricocheted off. I adjusted my aim and shot it again. This time there was a flash of molten liquid as the .30 caliber round punched into softer material. The thing reeled back. It had felt that one. I shot it in the armpit when it tried to cover its throat, and was rewarded with another splash. The monster flinched as if in pain, and leapt straight into the air and out of my view. I could hear the powerful beating of wings as it soared upwards.

“Doctor Nelson! Are you okay?” Nobody answered. I heard whimpering and crazed babbling from some of the patients who were too confused or paralyzed with fear to run. “Anybody seen the doctor?” I shouted again.

“He’s over here. I think he’s hurt,” someone called.

Doctor Lucius had made it a few yards down the hallway before he had fallen. He was clutching his chest and his face was contorted in a grimace. A female patient was cradling his head and an orderly was trying to help him.

“He-he-heart . . .” the doctor said. Sweat was rolling off of his forehead and he had lost his glasses.

“Aw, hell.” For all I knew the gargoyle could be coming back any second. “Get him out of here. Drag him if you have to. Find a doctor or a nurse or something.” The orderly and the patient complied.

There was a loud crash from above, and dust fell from the ceiling. Julie! I sprinted back into the common room and up the stairs. I barely reached the second floor when the entryway exploded in a cloud of stone, wood and debris. Pieces of furniture were hurled clear to the second-floor balcony.

The gargoyle had not retreated at all. Rather, it had taken to the air to build momentum. The thing rolled crazily through the foyer, turning furniture into kindling. I had no idea if all of the patients had evacuated or not, though I doubted it, and I had no time to find out. The unnatural creature stood on its crooked hind legs, and somehow I knew it was searching for me. Its wings unfurled outwards, filling the big room and shattering many of the barred windows.

The Garand barked as I fired down on the beast. The gargoyle folded one huge wing over its body like a shield, and the bullets shattered against it. The empty en-bloc clip automatically ejected, and I reached for a new one as I resumed running.

The center of the Appleton Asylum was one large room, with stairs that circled clear to the top. I knew from my conversation with Doctor Lucius that the maximum-security ward was on the top floor. I pushed myself as fast as I could go, fervently wishing that I had spent more time on the company Stairmaster. Unable to spread its mighty wings inside the confines of the asylum, the gargoyle clambered up the stairs after me. It crawled rather than walked, long arms extended. The stairs and support boards cracked as each stone claw came crashing down.

So far, the creature appeared to be ignoring the patients and concentrating on me. I did not know if the gargoyle was targeting me because it somehow knew I was a Hunter, or because I had the nerve to shoot it, or because it recognized me from my dream.

The gargoyle paused as something struck it from behind. It swiveled at the base of the stairs. A patient was standing defiant, holding Doctor Nelson’s rifle. It was the man who had not liked Hunters. I believe his name was Barney. He held the rifle at his waist, pointing it in the general direction of the monster.

“I hid from you demons last time while you ate my kids. But not this time! Die, you son of a bitch!” Blam! He jerked the trigger. The first shot fragmented off of the monster’s wide chest. The next shot impacted the wall four inches from my head. The patient laughed in glee. “I’m free. I’m finally free!” He shot the creature in the foot.

“Barney! Run! Get out of there!” I shot the gargoyle in the back, but the armored wings covered all of the vulnerable joints.

The creature absently flicked one long arm, talons spread wide. Barney exploded in a red haze. His lifeless torso bounced off the wall, leaving a huge stain of blood and entrails on the bright paint. He slid to the ground, almost cut in two. Having dealt with the annoyance, the monster turned and regarded me with lifeless eyes. I ran.

Third floor. The gargoyle was directly under me and gaining fast. It was cumbersome, but it was impossibly large and covered a lot of stairs with each lunge. I leaned dangerously far over the edge and fired at it. The creature barely slowed as most of the bullets bounced harmlessly off of its stone body. I was going to need a bigger gun if I wanted to do anything other than just piss it off.

“Owen! Up here, quick!” Julie shouted from the fourth-floor balcony. She had her pistol in one hand and was guiding a strait-jacketed man with the other. Doctor Joan was behind them, aghast at the destruction being visited upon her facility. I clambered up the stairs toward them. I heard Julie order the doctor to take her father, and then gunfire broke out as she tried to slow the climbing gargoyle.

“Down that hall.” Julie gestured with her head as I reached her position. She was inserting a new magazine into her 1911. She dropped the slide. “Elevator. Hurry.” My pursuer was about to reach the fourth floor. More noise rang out from the opposite corridor as another gargoyle tore its way through the building’s walls.

I ran a few yards down the hall, gunshots banging away behind me as Julie tried in vain to slow the monster. I took up position, and waited for her to leapfrog past. She fired until her pistol was empty, and then turned and sprinted past me. At least three thousand pounds of unnaturally animated, living-stone destruction and pure evil came bearing at me, blank eyes wide, stone mouth gaping. I slowed it down as I placed bullets into its knees and elbows, splashing molten rock onto the walls, which immediately began to smoke and smolder under the superheated fluid.

The monster stumbled, limbs temporarily buckling, and faceplanted into the balcony floor. The sudden blow brutally shook the fourth-floor balcony. The old wood structure tore away from its supports with a dust cloud and a screech of bending nails and breaking boards, spilling the gargoyle over the edge. It clawed at the ledge, but the thing was far too heavy, and its talons pulled through the building materials. It fell silently, lacking the room to spread its huge wings, and a second later I was rewarded with a massive echoing crash as the gargoyle smashed through the floor tiles and into the basement.

“So long, sucker!” I shouted as I ran for the elevator. There was still another gargoyle on this floor. I could hear it breaking its way through the narrow halls to reach us, and there had been a third one on the roof that could be anywhere by now.

The ceiling exploded. A porous rock claw grasped at my head. I dodged under it and dived into the waiting elevator. Doctor Joan stabbed at the buttons frantically as Julie fired on the monster’s arm. We had found our third gargoyle.

“Going down?” I asked as I rolled over and patted my pockets, searching for another en-bloc clip. I was out.

“You got a better idea?” Julie asked. It was taking the doors forever to close. The nearest gargoyle was battering its way in from the roof; tiles and wood splinters rained down as it applied its bulk and fury against the feeble barrier. We only had seconds.

Gradually the door closed. Pulleys whirred as the elevator started down.

“What happens if it comes after us while we’re still stuck in here?” I asked absently as I pulled myself to my feet and drew my pistol from inside my waistband.

“Have you ever stepped on a ketchup packet?” Julie asked rhetorically. “Kind of like that, but a whole lot nastier.” She kept her 1911 pointed at the roof of the elevator car. Not that that would do us an iota of good if the gargoyle made it into the shaft. Dropping several thousand pounds of animated stone onto the car would probably kill us all instantly. It was a tense moment. I thought about telling the doctor about her husband’s apparent heart attack, but I refrained. It wasn’t like she didn’t have enough other problems to worry about right then. Soothing instrumentals played over the elevator’s sound system.

“Kenny G?” I asked, also keeping my CZ .45 pointed upwards in a futile gesture.

“John Tesh,” answered Doctor Joan. Great. Not exactly the music I would have chosen as the soundtrack for my death. I had been hoping for something a little more dramatic. And with drums. It had to have drums. The elevator continued down. Crashing noises echoed down the shaft.

The third floor gradually passed. “Why aren’t we stopping?”

“The door is stuck on that floor. We were going to have it fixed,” the doctor explained patiently. “Really, we were meaning to get around to it.” Wonderful. Our getaway vehicle was the slowest elevator in the world. We all jerked upwards in surprise as small bits of debris began to rain on our metallic roof. I did not think we were going to make it.

Ray Shackleford sat on the floor, staring blankly off into space. He was a surprisingly big man. In his prime he must have been nearly as muscular as I was. His nose was hooked, and had been broken many times. His hair was prematurely gray, long and unkempt. His face reminded me of the senior Shackleford, and vaguely of Earl Harbinger. Julie must have taken after her mother. Thank goodness.

“Since we’re about to die together, my name’s Owen. Nice to meet you,” I told him.

He regarded me sullenly for a moment before responding. “And I’m Napoleon Bonaparte. Nice to meet you . . . Chill out kid, just kidding. I’m not that kind of crazy. Julie, please tell me this moose isn’t your boyfriend.”

Julie kept her eye on the ceiling. “No, Dad.”

“Good. Damn, he’s ugly. Now will somebody get me out of these restraints? I can help here.”

“Not a good idea,” Doctor Joan stated.

“Joan, you old biddy. I’m not gonna wring your neck. You and Lucius have been right kind. But I can help, damn it.” Something heavy rebounded off the top of the car, shaking all of us, causing the lights to flicker and the easy listening music to stop. Finally. I shot two quick rounds through the roof. The sound from the silver .45 slugs inside the narrow confines was brutal. I was glad that I had put my plugs in.

“Hold your fire! That was just the doors coming down. Cut him loose, Doc. Get ready to bail,” Julie ordered. The doctor moved to unlock Ray’s restraints. The digital display stopped at 2. A chime sounded. I knew that at any second, several thousand pounds of gargoyle were going to land on us. The doors gradually began to slide back, not fast enough. I wedged my body between them and forced them to open faster.

“Go!” We spilled into the hallway. A horrible screech of metal on stone came from the shaft as one of the gargoyles finally forced itself into the narrow passage. The elevator car was crushed as the massive creature smashed into it. The car and the monster disappeared down the shaft, hurtling toward impact in the asylum’s basement. Dust billowed up as car and monster collided with the concrete floor.

“They’re after my dad,” Julie said as she glanced down the now-open shaft. The dangling cable jerked wildly. “Crap. Monster’s already starting to climb. Wish I had a satchel charge.”

“I think one of them is after me,” I said. “They seem to be ignoring everybody else who isn’t shooting at them. If we can get out of here they’ll probably follow. The van got stepped on, but it should still be driveable.”

“Let’s go.” Julie quickly led us to the main room balcony. The stairs curved down to the common area and our escape. There was a huge hole in the floor from where the first gargoyle had crashed from the fourth-floor balcony. “Clear,” she said after a quick scan revealed no giant monsters. If the sound coming from behind us was any indication, the elevator gargoyle was almost free.

We ran down the stairs, jumping carelessly over wreckage. Doctor Joan gasped when she saw her dead patient, Barney, nearly cut in two. But she was a former Monster Hunter, and she did not shake easily. I stopped her with a firm hand on her shoulder.

“You need to tend to your husband. He’s down that hall.”

“What do you mean?” Her eyes widened and her head bobbed as she swallowed in surprise. “What happened to Lucius?”

“I think it’s his heart.”

“But, but . . .” she stammered. Her eyes blinked in confusion. She was wearing bright blue eye shadow. “Not Lucius.”

“You’d best go.” She nodded and ran in the direction I was pointing. She was fast for an older lady. I sure hoped that her husband was okay, and I also hoped that this worked and these damned evil things followed us out of here and away from all of the defenseless patients.

I ran around the edge of the massive hole in the floor. Wild sparks flew from severed electrical cables and water poured from busted pipes. I saw a slippered foot sticking out from under some wreckage. Not all of the patients had run after all. Damn. Julie was at the smashed doorway, with her father standing right behind her. He was breathing heavily, not used to the physical exertion.

“I don’t see any of them. Let’s head for the van.”

“I’ll drive,” Ray offered.

“Oh, hell no,” she responded.

I felt it before I heard it, a deep rumble as a stone body rubbed on walls. A claw, as big across as my torso, crawled up over the edge of the hole. The monster pulled against the floor, trying to heave itself up and at us. A second gargoyle appeared above us on the ragged edge of the destroyed balcony. The elevator shaft gargoyle smashed its horned head through the wall on the second floor. Three pairs of blank eyes fixated on our position.

“We got company,” I said. All three creatures exploded forward at once.

We reached the van in record time. Ray tripped on the broken stairs, and almost fell. I caught him by his arm and pulled him along. Julie headed for the driver’s seat. I had lost my keys, so I reached through the already shattered window and unlocked the passenger side door. I hurled Ray in headfirst, and I squished myself in beside him. Between our twin bulks, I was not even able to close the door.

Julie turned it over. The powerful V8 caught with a roar. She slammed it into reverse and stepped on the gas. The nearest creature leapt off of the stairs and lumbered at us on its squat legs. I pushed Ray out of the way as I fired my pistol out the front window. The van whipped around in a squeal of rubber.

My neck snapped back painfully as the rear end smashed into a parked Lexus with an MHI Alumni bumper sticker. Julie put the big vehicle into drive and floored it. The van roared past the nearest gargoyle. It swung a claw at us and with a screech of metal and sparks the creature tore the sliding door completely off the side of the van. Julie swerved around the next monster as its talons ripped a huge gash through the sheet metal on the driver’s side.

We escaped in a spray of gravel. Ray flopped into the backseat. I pulled the door closed. In the rearview mirror the gargoyles spread their huge wings and with powerful legs launched themselves into the sky.

“They’re airborne,” I warned.

“I bet they can’t do a hundred,” Julie replied. The van tore down the Appleton Asylum lane at reckless and dangerous speeds. She continued to accelerate as we approached the gate.

It was a very heavy-looking gate.

“Julie. Gate. Gate!” I pointed. Wind rushed through the broken windshield.

“I know. Buckle up. This is going to hurt.”

“Honey, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Shut up, Dad.”

I quickly fumbled around for my seat belt, snagged it on my holster for a panic-filled moment, and then got it buckled. The gate approached far too quickly. I closed my eyes and braced for impact. Crash. Our front end crumpled. The van shuddered, but our momentum tore the heavy gate from its rusted hinges. Julie turned hard to the side and we slid onto the open road.

“That was awesome,” was all that I could think to say.

“Yeah, that was cool,” Julie said as she picked her glasses out of her lap and put them back on. “I don’t see them. Are they following . . . ack!” She struggled against the wheel as something huge collided with our roof.

I turned in time to see a stone talon pierce the sheet metal over the rear of the van. More claws appeared as the creature wedged its way in and began to peel our van open like a ripe banana. I tried to get up, realized I was still strapped in, and then hit the button to set myself free. I fell into the back seat beside Ray and groped on the floor through the various gun cases. The van shook wildly as the gargoyle’s weight shifted. I found the case I was looking for and unzipped it. I lifted the heavy weapon, inserted one of the huge magazines into the gun’s side and worked the heavy bolt. It was so long that it was difficult to turn the gun from the horizontal to point toward the back of the van in the tiny space available.

“Cover your ears!” I shouted. Ray obliged. Julie was driving and I just hoped that she had put her plugs in, otherwise the blast from the Coke-can-sized muzzle brake on the end of the .50 BMG was probably going to blow her drums out.

The Ultramag 50 was equipped with a 10X scope for precision fire at extended ranges. It had not been designed to be used inside the confines of a moving vehicle. I stuck the butt stock under my armpit and pointed the muzzle in the direction of the gargoyle. At this range the barrel was halfway there.

BOOOOM!

If the windows had not already been shattered, I had no doubt that the concussion of the 750-grain bullet would have done the job. The enormous slug impacted the monster at nearly 2,800 feet per second. Stone fragments imbedded themselves into the seats, hot fluid sprayed the interior of the van, and I yelped in pain as some splashed on my unprotected arm. The backseats caught on fire. The gargoyle flinched as the massive chunk was torn violently from its arm. It did not, however, let go.

“Get off my van!” I had four more where that came from. I worked the heavy bolt, ejecting the smoking brass case and shoving another huge armor-piercing round into the chamber. I elevated the muzzle slightly and fired again. The gargoyle fell from the van as the second bullet pulverized its face. It pulled the rear doors clean off of their hinges. Monster and metal fell, clanking and clattering down the asphalt, pieces flying everywhere. We kept accelerating.

“Damn! That was loud!” Ray exclaimed.

“Julie, are you okay?” I shouted.

“Fine. Hang on.” She pumped the brakes, and somehow managed to keep the van on the road as we careened around a corner. The van was not a sports car, but it did manage to stay on all four tires. She accelerated out of the turn. “If I can build up speed I can lose them, but the roads are too curvy. If I push it we’ll end up in the trees.”

“Is there a straightaway around here somewhere?”

“Son, you’re in rural Alabama. Just how many straight roads do you think you’re gonna find?” Ray asked rhetorically.

I swore, climbed over the center seat, and positioned myself in the back cargo space. I scanned the skies through our new gargoyle-supplied sunroof.

“I don’t see them,” I shouted over the roar of the wind. I held on as Julie slalomed our boxlike van around another bend. “Ray, pass me that OD green case. The stubby one,” I ordered. If we couldn’t outrun them, we would outfight them. I spotted a huge black spot in the clear sky, heading right for us.

There had to be some sort of explanation for how the creatures were able to fly so fast. They were huge. They were heavy. But they flew like birds. When this one folded its wings and dived, it came out of the sun like a Stuka dive bomber. I yelled a warning as I planted the rifle against my shoulder. The .50 weighed thirty-two pounds, most of that towards the muzzle. It was designed to be fired from a prone position with a bipod. I was about to use it while kneeling in the back of a wildly moving vehicle. Not the best recipe for success.

Julie shouted something, and I was flung against the wall. I lost my balance and almost fell out the open rear of the van. Pavement rushed by, painted lines and a trail of fluid leaking from our damaged radiator, all a foot under my face. I scrambled to grab onto something. An air horn blew in protest as Julie swung us beside a loaded logging truck. We were in thick forest on a curving hillside road. This was not a good place to be stuck trying to pass somebody. If another truck came around the bend, we were going to be road pizza.

I pulled the heavy weapon up, searching for the diving gargoyle. I spotted it above us, losing altitude quickly. I snapped the rifle to my shoulder, struggling to find the creature in the narrow field of view of the scope. One of the world’s most powerful sniper rifles had never been meant to be used like a skeet gun. I shot. Missed. Worked the bolt. Shot. Missed. The recoil pounded me each time, but I did not have time to notice. Last shot. The creature was larger now, looming above the logging truck and heading our way. It spread its wings to control its descent, aimed directly at us. It flashed black through the scope, I raised the muzzle and let the heavy weight bring it down. I fired as something darker than sky filled the lens.

The .50 BMG did a real number on the gargoyle’s wing. A hole appeared in the stone membrane, molten stone splashed as one wing dipped and the creature crashed onto the top of the logs. The heavy chains kept the load in place. It lashed out with its talons, sinking them deep into the wood, and anchoring itself to keep from falling. Blank eyes locked onto our van, and it immediately began to slink toward us.

I dropped the now-empty rifle to the floor, reached around to take the green soft case from Ray. He was one step ahead of me. He had removed Abomination and held it out for me to grab. The gargoyle was moving, ready to leap onto our van. Julie was trying to get away, but the truck was swerving in panic. We were in range of the gargoyle. I reached forward and pulled the heavy trigger on the under-slung grenade launcher. My aim was a little off. The 40mm shell struck under the gargoyle, but it was close enough. The explosion was more of a muted thump, turning green logs into kindling, and snapping heavy safety chains. The gargoyle fell back, hanging onto the load now by one talon.

The trucker laid on the horn, confused by our gunfire and whatever the hell was landing on his trailer. Julie had not been able to pass on the narrow, curvy road. The driver must have decided we were the threat, because the truck drifted into our path. Julie would have made a great NASCAR racer; she braked, dodged the trailer, then took us onto the shoulder and partway into the grass to avoid the oncoming tons of steel and wood. The van thumped and rattled over the ruts and potholes. An unfortunate armadillo blundered into our path and was sent on its way to armadillo nirvana.

Unfortunately our loss of speed put us right next to the gargoyle clinging to the trailer. It launched itself, smashing into our van with the force of a car wreck. I lost my balance and flopped about in the cargo area. Claws pierced through the side wall as the gargoyle latched on. I shouted for another grenade and Ray thumbed through the case. When he found one of the yellow-painted shells he handed it over. I could not use the grenade against a target so close, and the shotgun shells would be virtually useless. The van swerved back onto the road behind the weaving trailer. Julie looked in the mirror, saw me loading the grenade and shouted something.

“What?” The grenade clicked into place. Farmland and forest flashed by. One stone arm came searching for us, tearing through the van like it was made of tinfoil, ripping through the still-smoking center seat and sending foam bits into the rushing wind. Ray pushed himself as far away as he could without falling out the opening where our sliding door had been.

“Hang on!” She stepped on it, and we pulled behind the accelerating semi. She timed it perfectly, waiting for the end of the trailer to sweep past, red-flagged log ends only feet from her open windshield. The van pulled alongside the rear of the trailer, and Julie swerved toward it. She was going to attempt to scrape the gargoyle off. I pushed myself against the far wall as claws swept past. The arm was still stained with red. It was the gargoyle who had gotten poor crazy Barney. The van shook as Julie played bumper cars with the eighteen-wheeler.

Ray looked at me with wild eyes. “I taught her how to drive,” he said.

Julie leaned on the wheel, forcing the gargoyle into the rear set of trailer tires. The van screamed in protest. Truck tires popped in a moving cloud of smoke and rubber. The giant claws were sucked away from my face as the gargoyle was pulled and partially crushed under the trailer. Much of our van was peeled away with it. We swerved from the trailer, back onto the shoulder, but then back again as our monster-side tires blew and sent us out of control. Somehow the gargoyle was still hanging on. Chains snapped and logs spilled onto the narrow road.

For an instant, time seemed to stand still as we tilted, then it sped forward as we rolled onto our side in a fury of sparks and tearing metal. I fell as down changed to sideways. Somehow I managed to hold onto the back seat for dear life, a torn opening gaping below me, hard pavement flashing by.

Luckily we only rolled onto our side and no further. The van gradually slowed as our remaining energy was spent against the pavement. The seat cushion tore in my grasp and I slipped from safety.

Crying out, I fell through the gap and onto the road. Rolling, pain, tearing, everything a wild flashing of movement, cracking myself against the pavement and leaving inches of skin behind. I slid and flopped to a wet stop.

I lay there in the road.

It hurt to think.

Excruciating agony. I looked at my hands. Blood. All down my arms, a bloody road rash. Bits of gravel were embedded deep into my skin. I tried to sit up. I realized that my clothing hung in ragged tatters, torn away by the gripping pavement.

“Son of a bitch! Worthless fucking monster bastard asshole!” Blood splattered as I shook my fist in the air. I forced myself to stand. Grimacing against the road rash, I stumbled down the road. The van was thirty feet away, resting on its side. The logging truck disappeared around the bend, torn tires flopping madly. The driver was no doubt glad to be away from the crazy people who had been shooting at his load. A few huge logs lay splintered, blocking the way. A tranquil and cozy farmhouse stood a hundred yards to our side, behind a small pen full of goats. I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. I had to reach the van. There was still one uninjured gargoyle somewhere and I was fresh out of big guns.

The van’s wheels had stopped turning. The engine had died. There was an eerie silence punctuated only by ticking noises coming from the hot engine. A green pool of antifreeze was spreading. As I approached, my pain-fogged mind realized why the van had not kept rolling when we had flipped on our side.

The gargoyle was wedged underneath. Its massive bulk was partially crushed into gravel, silver liquid poured from its interior, steaming and smoking on the pavement. One of its arms was missing. The other ended in a jagged stump. Its lower half was trapped under the driver’s side. It continued to stab at the roof with its stump, searching for Julie and Ray.

My hand flew to my holster, only to discover that at some point of my road-rash roll my CZ had been knocked loose and lost. I spotted the .50 lying in the road, scope shattered, scuffed and battered. It looked operable, but it was empty. I picked it up to use as a club. The gargoyle shoved its pointed stump through another spot in the roof directly over where Julie would have been buckled in. I heard a scream of pain come from the van. The stump came out.

The jagged end was splattered with blood.

The pain stopped. My anger focused like a laser beam.

“Hey!” I shouted, limping toward the wounded beast. Its gray eyes turned in my direction. “Yeah. I’m talking to you.” It tried to move against me, but it had been hopelessly damaged by the truck. It did not matter. I was coming for it. I was not going to let it get the others.

I raised the heavy rifle over my head and charged. It swung its stump. I stepped out of the way as it crashed into the asphalt. I smashed the rifle into the stump, again and again. The butt stock broke off, so I shifted it in my hands and used the barrel like a bat. I pounded the stone arm until it quit trying to move, and then I stepped over the dusted remains and with a cry of rage swung at the monster’s head. I struck it again and again. The barrel bent, and my hands bled as I swung at the unyielding rock, steel bar against stone face, over and over. Muscles straining, I continued to shout as smoking fluid spilled from the creature’s broken face and splattered me with burning bits. “Die! Die! Die!” I raised the barrel and drove it forward like a pack bar. The creature twisted its powerful neck and I lost my weapon. I spotted something else that had spilled from the back of the van. I left the creature for a moment, retrieved the tire iron, and then went back to work. I hammered the creature as it twitched and thrashed.

Finally it quit moving. The molten stone that served as the creature’s blood formed a smoking puddle, and then gradually solidified as it cooled. Cracks formed in the stone body. Perhaps it had never truly been alive, but it was certainly dead now.

“Can anybody hear me?” Gasping, shaking, I went to the front of the van and knelt before the shattered windshield. Julie was trapped on her side, and there was blood on her shirt. Far too much. “Are you okay?”

“I whacked my head. Then got stabbed.” She gestured weakly at the hole the monster had just punched through the roof.

“How bad?” I asked frantically as I tried to gently pull her through the window.

“Hurts . . .” She had her hand pressed against the top of her shoulder. “I can still move.”

I pulled her out and helped her sit. The entry wound appeared to be through the flesh above her collar bone, and into the muscles of her back. It was bleeding, but not very fast. I did not know squat about anatomy, and I had no idea how deep it had penetrated.

“Dad? Where’s my dad?”

“I don’t know. Just keep pressure on it.” I kept scanning the sky. There was one gargoyle left somewhere.

“Find him, please.”

“What about you?” I asked.

“I’m fine. I don’t think it’s that bad. Find him, Owen. Keep him safe . . .” Her eyes rolled back, and her head dipped forward. I caught her.

“Shit. Julie. Julie! Come on. It’s going to be okay. Julie!” I shook her. She did not respond. Blood rolled out of her hair and down her cheek from her head wound. I rested her on the ground and went through the window for the first aid kit that was stored under the passenger seat. I tore a wider opening in her shirt. I pulled out a package of Quick Clot, ripped it open, and poured it into the hole in her shoulder. I stuffed a bandage over the top of that. It wasn’t much, but it was the best that I could do at the time.

I felt the rush of air before I heard the beating of stone wings. The final monster did a pass overhead, slowly circling. Wings spread, it landed twenty yards away and perched on top of one of the many spilled logs. The huge wings folded and the creature put its long forearms down until its clawed fists rested on the ground. It began to crawl toward us. It was the size of a compact car. All I had was a tire iron.

I flung the tool at the creature. It ricocheted harmlessly away. I abandoned Julie; no matter how much I did not want to, I did not have much choice. I dived into the van, searching for a weapon—any weapon—but preferably a really big gun. Stone feet crunched as it made its way closer.

“Hello there, big fella. I think I’m the one you’re after.” Ray. Julie’s dad appeared out of nowhere. Looking a little worse from the accident, he limped calmly toward the monster. The gargoyle stopped, seemingly confused by having a human not run from it or shoot at it. “No reason to kill these others. You want me, you can have me.”

The gargoyle turned away from the van, and started for Ray. He made no effort to evade the monster. He spread his arms and walked straight toward it.

“Come on. That’s a good monster. Yeah, that’s a good boy. Just kill me and get it over with.”

But the gargoyle had not been dispatched to kill him. The Cursed One was looking for information. The monster reached out and grabbed him around the waist with one gnarled claw, easily lifting him into the air. The creature spread its massive wings, preparing to leap into the sky.

My hand landed on Abomination. Somehow the brutal, stubby shotgun/grenade launcher had not been tossed out of the vehicle. I hugged it against my bloody chest and crawled for the exit. There was no way I was going to be able to make it in time to save Ray, but I was going to try.

The monster crouched, building energy in its powerful legs, wings spread a full forty feet across the road. Ray was tucked easily under one arm. The man was not even struggling. Julie was still out. I pulled myself along, trying to think of something, anything, which I could do to stop the monster.

The gargoyle shook as the heavy bullet struck its head. The weight of the impact was enough to jar it. The boom followed a split second later as the sound caught up. I pulled myself out of the van, shotgun lifted ahead of me. I had no idea where the bullet had come from. The second mystery shot collided with the creature’s upper arm, splattering liquid stone from a pierced joint. It spasmodically dropped Ray Shackleford to the pavement. Ray lay there, unmoving.

I flipped the selector to full-auto and dumped twenty shells of alternating slugs and buck into the monster as I charged it. The shot was mostly useless, except for the few pellets that struck joints. The slugs, however, carried quite a bit of energy, and disoriented the creature further. I snagged Ray by his arm, and dragged his limp form away from the monster. If I could get him far enough away, I could use my grenade. The mystery shooter fired a third shot, striking the monster in the neck. The gargoyle raised its hands to the injury as rock splashed forth.

I dragged Ray back by Julie and dropped him. I turned toward the monster and aimed Abomination, fingers seeking for the 40mm launcher’s heavy trigger. I did not know for sure if we were safely out of the minimum safe range for the blast radius, but I did not have much choice. The gargoyle reared up, wings spreading in a roar. I pulled the trigger.

There was barely enough distance for the grenade to achieve the rotations necessary to disarm its safety mechanisms. The heavy shell impacted just under the gargoyle’s chin. The thump of the explosion shook me and I was pelted with stone and bits of superhot liquid. The gargoyle fell backward in a cloud of dust and fragments. Its chest was ragged, blasted and scorched.

It shrugged off the impact and wobbled to its feet.

“Aw, crap.”

It took two hesitant steps, weeping cracks spider-webbing across it, before it shattered like a dropped glass, stone clattering onto the pavement in a spreading pool of silver.

I knelt beside Julie. She was breathing, and the clotting agent and the bandage seemed to be working. Her pulse was decent, not great, but decent. Her head wound looked pretty ugly. Ray was mumbling something and waving at the air.

“Hey hey we’re the Monkees, and we like to monkey around!” he sang. I resisted the urge to put my size 15 boot through his head.

“Are you folks okay?” a voice called. The man was older, and had a thick southern accent. He came walking tentatively from the nearby farm, an embroidered NRA hat on his head, and an enormous bolt-action rifle in his hands. “What in the hell was that thing?”

“Gargoyle. Animated monster. Bad mother.”

“Damn.” He saw Julie, bloodstained and unconscious. “My wife called the cops and told them to send the paramedics. They’re coming out of Camden, but they should be here right quick. Brother, you look like you need them your own self. You look like hell.”

I looked down at my road-rashed arms. Blood was welling from several spots around embedded gravel and there were a few spots that appeared to be totally devoid of skin. It really stung. Thus far I was showing a bad tendency to get my ass kicked in this job.

“That was some good shooting back there,” I told him. “You saved us. Thanks.”

“Yup. I was in my living room when you crashed. I saw it right out my window. Saw the big monster thingy hanging on the side so I grabbed my big gun.” He shook the heavy rifle. “Four-fifty-eight Winchester Magnum. And to think my wife told me, Carlyle, you don’t need no damn expensive elephant gun. What’re you going to do with an elephant gun? Harumph. Women . . . Showed her.”

Amazingly enough my wallet was still in my pants. I thumbed through it until I found the business card with the little green smiley face with horns. I had not had the chance to get my own made up, so Harbinger’s would have to do.

“Tell you what, Mr. Carlyle. If you ever get tired of farming and want to kill monsters for a living, give this guy a call. Tell him Owen Zastava Pitt sent you. I’m gonna pass out now.” I wearily slumped down next to Julie, ignored Ray’s babbling, and settled in to wait for the ambulance. I was unconscious in seconds.

Chapter 16

The Old Man was waiting for me on the steps of the bombed-out church. He was whittling away at a small block of wood with a tiny pocketknife. The world of the destroyed town was once again whole and complete. Battle-damaged, but at least there were no gaps of nothingness. Snow crunched under my bare feet, yet it was not cold. In my dream, I was not in pain. I received a scowl and a firm finger-shaking as I approached.

“Boy. You not very good at this job. Werewolf scar you. Wight paralyze you. Fall off boat. Vampire beat you. Policeman beat you. Gargoyle chase you, and now you fall off car. Moving car at that. Maybe I think we should have picked some other person.” He continued shaking his finger. He reminded me of my Czech immigrant grandfather—easily exasperated, and often having a hard time expressing it. “You can no seem to help. You are like, how you say . . . punching bag. You say, hey monster, here I am. Hit me in head.”

“Look, I’m pretty tired of getting my ass kicked too. You want to pick somebody else to bug, feel free.” I sat down beside him on the steps. I could not tell what he was carving. One thing was for sure, he did not appear to be very good at it.

“I need to get back. Julie needs me. I need to wake up.”

“Sorry, Boy, not can do. You are hurt. Need time for body to rest. You must take time for other things now.”

“I’ve got an idea then. How about some straightforward answers for a change?”

“Bah.” He spit in the snow. “You want answers. I give you answers. I try to help you, Boy. Some thing I not can say, I can only show. Is hard to do, you know.”

“Why did the Cursed One go after Julie’s dad?”

He shrugged. “He is just like you. Always wants the straight answers. Just like you, even has the same questions.”

“Where’s the Place of Power and when’s he going to use it?”

“See. What did say? Same questions. How am I supposed to know this thing?”

I picked up a rock and hurled it against some rubble. I was rewarded with a crash.

“Boy. You are mad, yes? Very angry?” I nodded. The Old Man paused in his carving for a moment and patted me gently on the arm. “You are mad because girl is hurt. Old doctor is hurt. And some of crazy people get smooshed by gargoyle, yes?”

I did not respond. After a moment he got tired of waiting for my answer.

“Hunters must learn, not can save everyone. Sometimes not can save own self even. Is just how it is . . .” He trailed off. “Bah! Enough talk. Time is short. You wake up soon. I try to show you more memories.”

“Not anything recent, I hope,” I said fearfully. My brief encounter with Lord Machado’s mind had left me very uneasy about that idea. I did not want to risk that again, because I had a sneaky feeling that I might not wake up from it.

“No. Is old memory again. Much safer. He probably not know about this. I not strong enough to try new memory. Too dangerous. Put worms in your head. Eat your brain out.”

I did not dare ask for an explanation of whatever the hell that was supposed to mean.

“Listen, Boy, hard to explain. This Cursed One, I not can show you things that are in his mind now, for he will know. But these other things, they are long ago in his past. Buried like body in ground. He not pay attention to them now anymore. So we sneak in for look, he not know. You shut up and learn.”

“How can you do that?”

He scowled as he searched for the words. “I stuck here, because of stupid artifact. Because of Cursed One, I not can move on. Trapped for long time. Cursed One forgot about me. But he—how you say?—underestimates things I do to try stop him. I sneak chance to talk to you, to help. He not expect that. Now shush. See what you have done with questions? Waste much time.”

He set aside his carving, folded his knife, carefully put it away, and placed his hands on my face.

“Let’s do this thing,” I said, with more courage than I actually felt.

The blasted town faded away.

Lord Machado’s memories. I settled into them like an actor taking on a role. I was immersed into the senses of a man who had long since ceased to be a man. The memories were hazy, fragmented, but the important things had engraved themselves deep into the Cursed One’s mind.

The priestess Koriniha led me deep beneath the pyramid. I followed, hoping to find answers to my questions. My reign over the city was a success thus far. Treasure filled my coffers, and my small army was training a much larger army of local conscripts. She had been good to her word: the city did not just abide me as a conqueror with an iron fist. They were treating me like their true king, and perhaps, dare I say . . . their god. I could grow used to being worshipped.

She had told me of her dark and secret knowledge. The priestess’ offer had been intriguing. Eternal life and strength. An immortal army under my command. Powers so great that not only could I control this new land, but I could return to my old, and take upon me the very birthright that was taken from me. If the words of Koriniha were even partially true, I could return home and take the very crown, and the crown of any kingdom I desired.

I desired all of them.

King Manuel the Great? I would show him who the great one really was. Philip and his blasted Spaniards would be next. After that, why not all of Europe, forcefully united under my banner. If a fraction of the dark secrets the priestess had whispered to me were true, then all of that would be a simple task to accomplish. And from the signs that she had shown me, I believed her to be telling the truth.

I followed her farther into the darkness. The priestess’ hips swayed beneath her thin robes. She was a wanton creature, beautiful and cunning, wise in many arts unknown in my homeland. I had already taken her as my concubine, as was part of our initial agreement. It had been a very beneficial arrangement indeed. It had legitimized my rule over this people, and I enjoyed the benefits befitting a man of my station.

The torch in my hand flickered and spat as damp winds traveled down the tunnel. I had a brace of pistols in my belt, fresh matches stored in a wax-tight pouch, and the very ax that was the source of my family name slung over my back, yet somehow I still felt uneasy. There was darkness under this pyramid, not just darkness of the eyes, but a darkness of the soul.

Friar de Sousa had attempted to warn me away from the priestess and her strange cult. I had discovered him trying to send a messenger back to our ships on the coast. The note had been intercepted. The Jesuit had been worried that I was descending into madness and following a pagan religion, and especially damning, he wrote of the riches of the city and how I had thus far kept our expedition a secret from both the crown and the church. He had been a kindly man, wise and merciful, and his knowledge of languages had been a valuable tool of conquest. It had saddened me momentarily when I hsd ordered him burned at the stake. Of course to keep that fact from the men, I had blamed it on the locals and had had five hundred of their priests executed, supposedly in retribution. Appearances had to be kept up, after all.

Some of the men had been suspicious, but as long as I kept them supplied with riches, I was not worried about their loyalty. Sacks of gold would satisfy even the most pious amongst them. The crown’s military governor had no knowledge of our expedition’s location, so my troops were effectively sealed from the outside world. My secrets were my own to keep.

We walked for what seemed like hours, always down, always descending. The walls changed from stone and mortar into natural rock, and then finally into something else. Something that I had never seen before. Slick, soft and oily, almost pulsing with its own strange energy. Out of the corner of my eye it would sometimes seem as if the very walls were moving.

Finally we entered a huge space, deep in the bowels of the earth. I could not tell how big it was, but my meager torch could illuminate but a small portion. The floor was smooth and slick, and I had to be careful to maintain my footing. Water drizzled down from above, splashing upon my armor. The air was heavy, and did not taste like air that should be breathed into the lungs of men. It was salty, and the cavern smelled faintly of decaying fish.

Koriniha led me toward the center of the vast darkness. We walked for miles. I realized that if she had so desired, she could have run out of the circle of torchlight, and I might not have ever found my way out. A lesser man might have felt fear at that, but not I. The temperature dropped until I could see my breath. The floor became softer, and my boots left impressions in the oily surface. The priestess halted in front of the first landmark we had happened upon in the otherwise featureless room.

It was an obelisk of black metal, tall enough to disappear into the darkness above, yet so thin that I could not comprehend how it could stay upright. The object had been inscribed with strange writing. Not like the now-familiar picture writing of the civilization above, but something rather far more complex. The runes appeared to move under the flickering light of the torch. A small, unadorned stone box sat in a tiny alcove of the obelisk. It hurt my eyes to look directly at it, as if I had stared into the sun.

“What is this thing? Is this the key? Tell me now,” I ordered.

She smiled at me wickedly, dark eyes flashing red in the torchlight. “Yes, Lord Machado. This is the key to unlock infinite power. The very power of the Old Ones themselves, and they have been waiting for one such as you.”

“Such as I?”

She placed her delicate hands on my bearded cheeks and her eyes bore into mine. They seemed to flicker unnaturally in the light of the sputtering flames.

“Yes, my lord. The Old Ones left this device. It is ancient. Older than this world. It is an item of such power that it was never intended to be used by mortal man. It is a device intended for the service of what you know as angels or demons, and even then best left alone even by them. Yet every five hundred years, a man will be born, a mortal with the power to use this device and bend it to his will. You are this man, you are the one who has been prophesied by the Old Ones.” As she spoke, I felt the air rush past as if something incomprehensibly huge had just taken a breath.

“Tell me this prophecy, woman.”

She took her hands from my face and gestured at the obelisk. The runes changed, and were now written in the Latin letters I had learned as a youth.

He will come

Son of a great warrior

Taught in the skills of the world

Yet drawn to the sword

His very name taken from

The weapon of his fathers

Given a quest by the crown

To defeat an impossible foe

Possessor of visions

Ally of dark forces

Friend of monsters

Leader of men

Only he will have the will

And the power

Through his love of another

To break time and the world

The words resonated with me. I was the one meant for the power and the greatness. My family name came from the very ax now strapped to me, the very weapon used by my forefathers. My father had been a great general. As one of the younger sons, I had been sent away for an education, expected to manage the family fortune, yet I had failed, and become a soldier and eventually a commander. My task was to pacify this land for the crown and deliver its treasure unto my king and its inhabitants’ souls to my mother church. I had visions of leading my host to glory. As for darkness, I had no doubt that my concubine and her cabal of heart-removing priests and their rivers of sacrificial blood would serve that purpose.

“So what does this mean? What must I do now?” I asked. The priestess did not answer. She reached into the alcove and removed the small rectangular box. She shouted something in her language, and the rush of air changed direction as if something massive had just exhaled. I held out my hand, and she placed the box gently in my palm. It was small, but unnaturally heavy. I shuddered as cold shivers pulsed down my arm. “What is this?”

“It is the key, my lord. Alone, it is an object of mighty strength, capable of great magic, but when you are prepared, I can take you to the proper place, a Place of Power. There you can utilize it to inflict your will upon the entire world. No one shall stand in your way. The world will be yours.”

“Is that all?”

“There is but one last thing to fulfill the prophecy, my lord. You must do it through love of another. You are a lover of power, but not of people. You must do so to utilize the artifact. Love is a notion of the weak, yet through it great power can be unlocked. It is a tool to be used as needed.”

“I have a wife and children in Lisboa, will that not suffice?” I did not have time for weak notions such as love or mercy. Not when there was plunder to be taken, and lands to be crushed. A wife of good blood was a political necessity and a way to produce heirs, nothing more.

“Perhaps not, my lord. But I will provide a way.” The priestess untied the front of her robes and let them fall to the slick floor. “I can be your love. Together we can rule the world.”

The damp wind picked up again, almost as if the cavern itself was filling unseen lungs, far greater in intensity this time. My torch was blown out, plunging us into darkness.

I was sitting on the steps of the church, once again in my own body, and seeing the world through my own eyes. Reliving the Cursed One’s memories left me feeling unclean. The Old Man had gone back to his carving, gently flicking the blade of the knife over the small block of wood. Chips were falling onto his homespun pants. Even if the clear winter sky around me was a figment of my imagination, it was a far nicer place than the mysterious, unnatural cavern.

“Why are you showing me these things?”

“So you understand. Is important.”

“What is important? That Machado was an evil bastard when he was human, so bad that even the Aztecs or the Incas or whoever they were prophesied him coming, and that some mysterious Old Ones wanted to give him a magical whatchamacallit to blow up the world?”

“You not have name for that people. They are gone. World not know about them today. Is probably for best. But there is more, Boy. You must pay attention more.”

“Pay attention to what more? He was about to score with the evil priestess chick. That was pretty hard to miss,” I replied.

“Young people. Mind always in gutter. No, more important things to learn.”

“How about you just tell me how to kill him?”

He shrugged. “I not know.”

“Who are the Old Ones? The Elf Queen mentioned them also.”

“Very bad. Very much bad. I not know. But they here long before us. Not supposed to be. But they are—how you say?—trespassers. They want nothing more than to kill world. They kill anything they not can have.”

He used his coat sleeve to brush aside the snow on one of the steps, creating a clear spot. He placed his carving on the smooth surface and spun it. The little top made it only a few turns before flopping over. It looked like crap and was horribly unbalanced. He was not very good at whittling.

“Your top is broken.”

“Is not ‘top.’ Is dreidel. Fun little game. Should be made out of clay. But I try wood.” He picked it up and went back to carving. “No laugh, Boy, is harder than it looks. Time for you to go. You wake up now. Be careful of big red thing. No want to crash.”

“What big red thing?”

“You see.”

I woke up disoriented and confused. I was lying on some sort of gurney, and I cracked my face painfully into a white metal cabinet when I sat up. Julie was a few feet away, also lying on a stretcher. Her shirt had been cut away, and a much better bandage had been placed on her shoulder. She was still out. A siren was blaring. We were in the back of an ambulance.

“What the hell?” I said, as the ambulance turned far too sharply and I bounced off of the wall. Mad laughter came from the front.

“Hang on, kid. It’s been a while since I’ve driven last. You know, with being locked up and all that.” Ray Shackleford honked the horn and screamed out the window. “Watch out, moron!”

I squeezed my way through the narrow space and into the passenger seat. I had to push aside a big black duffel bag. I was glad to see that it was the bag that held my armor and personal gear, including spare magazines and grenades for Abomination. My shotgun was sitting on the dash, sliding crazily back and forth as Ray jerked the wheel. The speedometer showed one hundred and five miles an hour. I had not known that an ambulance could go that fast.

“What happened?” I shouted over the siren. Ray’s gray hair was flapping madly in the wind from the open window. He was grinning maniacally, and having far too much fun for an escaped lunatic.

“You passed out. Can’t say I blame you. You look like shit. Julie had a cell phone in her pocket. It started ringing so naturally I answered it. It was Earl.” The crazy man laughed. “Old son of a bitch was a bit surprised to find himself talking to me. Didn’t expect that one bit. Well, anyway . . .” He swerved around a truck and into oncoming traffic, dodged a station wagon, and jerked back into the correct lane. I cringed. “As I was saying, Earl called, said that the Feds were heading this way fast. They put out an APB on me and both of you. He said not to go to the hospital because the Monster Control Bureau guys were already en route, and not to go back to the compound because the place was already crawling with Feds. So I’m supposed to take us someplace safe to hide out.”

“You didn’t kill any of the paramedics, did you?” I gestured at Abomination.

“Oh no. I’ve never killed a human being . . . on purpose, at least, so I ain’t gonna start now. I bluffed our way out. Told them I was an escaped mental patient.”

“Gee whiz? I’m surprised they believed you.” I had not realized, but he was wearing sweats and a bathrobe. With the matted hair, and the unkempt beard, he looked the part. Plus when I had passed out he had been singing the theme song from the Monkees.

“I know. Imagine that.” He scratched himself as we tore down the road.

“Julie needs medical attention.”

“Earl has arranged for some. Don’t worry. We’re going home.”

“But the compound is covered in Feds.”

“Nope. You’ll see. Earl said ‘Go to your house, Ray. You can remember how to get there. Just go home.’”

Ray turned to look at me as he explained. Crazy people must use the Force to drive or something. “We’re going home. It’ll be just like old times. All the kids, Ray the fifth, Julie, even little Nate, they can play in the tree house. And Susan will be there too. It’ll be great. We can have a barbecue.”

“Ray. Watch the road.” I noticed flashing red lights ahead. He was no longer living in the same world; instead he was taking a little trip down memory lane.

“Maybe there’ll be an Alabama game on today. Roll Tide. That would be fun. Maybe even the Alabama versus Auburn game. Best game of the year. Yep, I lost a lot of money on that one last season, I tell you what.” I realized that the flashing lights originated at a train crossing. The crossing arms were coming down.

“Train. Ray, brake. Hit the brakes!”

He turned and studied it absently. “Yep, train. How about that? You like hotdogs or hamburgers? Susan might have even marinated some steaks if we’re lucky.” I watched in horror as the train came into view. The engine was enormous and red. We were not going to make it in time.

I shoved my way over into the driver’s seat, squishing Ray painfully into the door. I stomped my boot down on the brake and I fought for control of the wheel. The tires locked up with a squeal, leaving behind plenty of rubber and smoke. Ray tried to fight me. I elbowed him violently in the forehead, snapping his head back against the seat.

Keeping the van under control while braking and fighting for the wheel against an insane man while barreling toward a train is not a pleasant experience. Luckily the ambulance had some decent brake pads installed. We broke through the wooden safety rail with a slow crack, and skidded to a halt, our front bumper inches from the sparking train wheels.

“Car-jacking! Car-jacking!” he shouted in my ear as he tried to stick his thumb in my eye.

Ray kept fighting, unaware that I had just saved his life. He tried to choke me with the seat belt, so I elbowed him in the face until he stopped moving. It took three good blows to his noggin to put him out. I’ll admit, I enjoyed that part. I put the van in park and crawled back out the passenger door. I went around, deafened by the roar of the train only scant feet away, opened the door, after a moment found the switch to kill the highly annoying siren, pulled Ray’s unconscious body out of the driver’s side and set him on the gurney in the back. There were straps to hold down thrashing patients, and I applied them snugly.

Julie stirred. Her eyes fluttered open.

“Owen. What’s going on?” she mumbled sleepily. “Wait a second,” as she realized that her shirt was cut open and she was only wearing a bra beneath. “Pervert.”

“Hey, blame the paramedics. Listen, Julie. I don’t have time to explain. We need to get you someplace that your dad called home. Earl is going to have help for you there.”

She was obviously high on painkillers or something that the paramedics had given her. She smiled absently. “Hey, what happened to Dad?”

“Uh, he got sedated. Look, can you give me directions? Earl said for us to go home, not the compound, but someplace your dad would think of as home.”

“Sure . . . I can find home. Where are we?”

“I don’t know. Look, I’m going to help you to the front seat. You just stay awake and tell me where to go, okay?”

“Okay. Can do. And look, next time you want to see me naked, just ask. Don’t cut up my clothes. That’s creepy . . . and I liked this shirt.” Her eyes closed and she went back to sleep.

I carried her to the passenger side, as gently as was possible, careful not to disturb her wound or bandages. I buckled her into place as the last of the train cars passed. Julie stirred and mumbled something.

“What?”

“I know this place. We’re near Greenville. Just keep going.” Her speech was slurred, but she did not appear to be losing any more blood. I decided that if she started to look any worse I was going to take her to the nearest town and doctor. Keeping from getting arrested was not worth her life. Hopefully I would not have to make that choice.

I put the ambulance into drive and continued down the road.

Chapter 16

The home that Ray Shackleford had been referring to was an enormous old plantation house nestled in a beautiful patch of woods and streams. It was far off of the main drive and isolated from the rest of the world. The home had been opulent at one time, but had fallen into disrepair. Thick Doric columns, cracked with age, lined the front porch. Moss and vines were growing up some of the walls, but it appeared as if some recent efforts had been made to paint and restore the old place. There was a black sedan parked near the dry fountain in front of the home.

I parked the van near the entrance, honked the horn, and jumped out to help Julie. She had remained semilucid for the remainder of the short trip, but she was pale and did not look very good. Despite her feeble protest that she could do it herself, I picked her up in my arms and carried her onto the porch. She was not light by any means, but rather heavier than she appeared because of lean muscle. She winced in pain as the pressure changed against her wound. The main door was open, leaving only a screen.

“Hey! Anybody there? We need help,” I yelled.

“Z. Thank goodness.” It was good to hear Trip’s voice. The screen door opened and he stepped out. A smaller figure stood behind him, totally cloaked in what appeared to be a black burkha. “Come on. We have a spot ready. Earl said Gretchen here’s as good as any doctor.” The robed figure nodded. Only a small patch of her face was showing through her hood, and even then her eyes were covered with large mirrored sunglasses. She gestured for me to follow.

I cradled Julie’s limp form against my chest as we hurried down the entry hall. The interior of the home was undergoing serious renovation. Flooring had been pulled up and was in various states of repair. Some walls had been painted, while others were a work in progress. Sawdust and miscellaneous tools littered the floor.

Gretchen led us across the spacious parlor, through a huge dining room complete with chandelier and twenty-foot table, down a small hallway, and into what was probably meant to be a guest bedroom, though right now it looked a bit like an extemporaneous field hospital. A small table had been moved into the room, covered by a white cloth, and littered with strange surgical-looking implements and jars filled with unknown fluids. Gretchen nodded toward the bed and I placed Julie down as gently as possible.

Julie’s eyes peeked out from under heavy lids.

“I can’t see,” she said.

I began to panic. The blow to her head . . . had it blinded her? Was Julie going to lose her sight? She was a lover of art, and an amazing marksman. Going blind would kill her. I grabbed her hand and squeezed.

“Don’t worry. It’s going to be okay. I’m here for you. I’m sure your sight will come back.”

“Owen.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “You big dummy. Of course my sight will come back. My glasses are on the floor of the ambulance. Be a dear and grab them for me . . . Is that Gretchen?” The robed woman came over and patted Julie’s forehead. I had not noticed that the strange woman was wearing surgical gloves. “Hey, Gretchen honey. I’m glad you’re here. I’m going back to sleep now . . .” she mumbled as she drifted off.

Gretchen took her gloved hand from Julie’s head and immediately started to remove the blood-stained bandage. The petite robed woman examined the injury. The wound path actually started behind the point of Julie’s shoulder and traveled down into the muscles over her shoulder blade. It was a nasty puncture. I had seen a few knife wounds like that while I had been bouncing, but never one that big or at such an angle. The mysterious woman must have then realized that I was still in the room. She looked up until I saw my reflection in her mirrored shades and she made a shooing motion.

“Me?” I pointed at myself. She nodded and kept waving her hands at me. “Sorry.” I backed out of the room and gently closed the door behind me. Trip was waiting for me.

“Don’t worry. Earl said Gretchen’s the best. She’s supposed to be able to fix any injury. Milo and Sam swear by her. I guess we’re supposed to leave her alone to do her thing.”

“Any relation to Skippy? They share the same fashion sense.”

“Yeah. They said she’s one of his wives. I think she’s like the tribal healer,” he said.

“Wives? With an S? As in plural?” That was a bit surprising.

“Sam said he’s got like five of them. Hey, different cultures. Whatever works, I guess.”

“Dang. I don’t even have a girlfriend and Skippy has extra wives,” I replied.

“No wonder. You look like shit,” Holly said from behind me. Between her sultry looks, her swimsuit model’s body, and the .308 Vepr in her hands, she looked like she should have been in a James Bond movie. “You’re bleeding all over the carpet. What the hell did you do to yourself this time?”

I turned to regard her and smiled broadly. “I fell out of the van. While it was moving.”

“You should stick with accounting. Holy crap. You have gravel stuck in your arms. Sit down, I’ll grab some iodine. Trip, get a towel, and by the way, the property is clear. I didn’t see anybody out there.”

“Julie’s dad is strapped down in the back of the ambulance. He’s out cold. You should probably see to him first,” I told them as I studied my shredded arms. They looked almost as bad as I felt.

“Is he hurt?” Trip asked. “I’m no Gretchen but I know first aid.”

“Mildly concussed probably. Crazy son of a bitch tried to drive us into a train so I clocked him in the head until he quit. Watch him. He’s nuts. Find a room to lock him in, and keep him tied up. Preferably chained to something heavy.”

“You really are a people person, aren’t you? Give me the keys too, I’ll hide the ambulance around back.” I tossed them over. He left to retrieve Ray.

“I’m not kidding. Lock him in the attic if we have one,” I shouted after him. “And check the room to make sure there aren’t any weapons in it.”

Holly forced me to take a seat in the kitchen while she raided the extensive first aid kit. I sat next to the marble sink with my shirt off while she painfully removed each piece of bloody gravel with a pair of needle-nose pliers. The kitchen was also under construction, someone had pulled down most of the cabinets to be restained, and a pair of sawhorses and some plywood served as the kitchen table. Mercy was not Holly’s strong suit, and after violently ripping each piece free she dropped them into the sink with a clatter. It was not a pleasant experience.

She told me about how after Julie had called from the asylum, Earl had immediately loaded up a response team in the chopper to come to our rescue, only to be intercepted and forced to return to the compound by the Monster Control Bureau’s helicopters. While the Feds were watching them land, Earl had called to check on our status and had gotten Ray instead. Since Holly and Trip were considered mere untrained Newbies by the Feds, and not really important in the grand scheme of things, he had given them directions to the Shackleford family home and had them sneak off with Gretchen.

“What’s this stuff? Looks like you got splashed with slag from a cutting torch or something,” she asked as she removed a chunk of metal from my arm. It left a small hole that immediately began to well up with blood.

“Gargoyles bleed molten. I beat one of them to death with a fifty barrel. It kind of got on me.”

“No kidding?” I flinched as she jerked out a particularly pointy piece of asphalt.

“No biggie. It only had one arm. And it was stuck under the van. It was the bastard that stabbed Julie. I lost the barrel, so I finished it off with a tire iron. When I cracked its head it kind of just squirted everywhere.”

“You rushed a giant monster with an empty gun to save her?” She jabbed me with the pliers.

“I guess. Ow. Careful.” I grimaced as she grabbed a chunk of flesh instead of rock.

“Hold still, you big sissy . . . Look, Z, let me be honest here. I’m getting a little worried about you. Seriously.” Holly sounded earnest. She paused to wipe her brow. It was uncomfortably warm and stuffy in the kitchen. “Back on the freighter you were willing to play chicken with a vampire to save Julie. And now you take on a damn ten-ton gargoyle with a stinking tire iron to protect her?”

“It wasn’t that big. And on the freighter I pulled that grenade to save all of us, not just her.”

“Sure . . .” She did not sound convinced. “Z, I’m not stupid. I can see how you get all dopey around her. Whatever. I don’t want to see you do something stupid and get killed for her is all.”

“Nothing that I wouldn’t do for anybody else,” I said defensively.

“I don’t doubt that either. You would probably do something stupid to save anybody. You and Trip both. Idiot wannabe heroes who would probably run into a burning building to save kittens or some shit. I’m surrounded by idiots.”

“I didn’t know you cared.” I grinned. She stabbed me again.

“Trust me on this one, Z. There’ll come a time when you’re going to have to make a choice. Somebody who you can’t save, no matter what. And then you’re going to have to choose, you can either save yourself, or you can die trying. Sometimes the choice is between running like a coward, or fighting like a fool.” Holly sounded angry as she said that.

“What are you trying to say?”

“Just something I learned the hard way is all. You know, before . . .” She trailed off, then changed the subject. “I think that’s the last of it. I’m going to put some iodine on this now. You’re missing a ton of skin, so this might sting.”

“Before what?” I pressed. “You’re the only Newbie who has never told us how you got into this business. Everybody knows about my werewolf, or Trip’s zombies, or Lee’s spiders. Holly, you’re tough as nails, and you don’t take crap off of anybody, but you’re buttoned up so tight about your past. What happened before? You know you can tell me any . . . Yeeaaarrrgghhh!” I screamed as horrible burning pain ripped through the raw nerves of my arms.

“Oh, my bad. That wasn’t iodine. That was rubbing alcohol. All your babbling distracted me. Now shut the hell up,” she ordered.

I did as I was told. I wasn’t going to push it while she still had that bottle of liquid pain. Damn, that hurt. The iodine stung, but it was nothing in comparison. Trip returned after he had secured Ray and had hidden the stolen ambulance.

“What did I miss?” he asked. “Holly, you don’t look happy.”

“Nothing,” she replied stonily. “Hold still. Some of these holes are going to need stitches.”

“Gretchen could do it, probably?”

“She’s busy. Julie has a real injury, this is just a boo-boo. Besides, I know what I’m doing. This won’t hurt a bit. Well, actually it’ll probably hurt like a son of a bitch. Bite down on something,” she suggested.

Trip pulled up a chair and sat down next to the improvised table. “I put Julie’s dad in a bedroom upstairs. I checked the room for weapons, found this. I think Julie has loaded guns stashed in every room of this place.” He placed a .45 Beretta in front of him. “Don’t worry though. I’ve got him handcuffed to a wrought-iron bed frame. He isn’t going anywhere.”

I thought about that for a moment. It beat thinking about the needle that Holly was running thread through. I hated getting stitches. I had done it plenty of times without local anesthesia. Illegal fighting rings did not exactly have the best insurance. “Where exactly did you get handcuffs?”

He shrugged. “They were in one of the gear bags.”

“They’re mine,” Holly said. Trip jumped. She looked up at us in consternation. “Get your mind out of the gutter. Damn, I am supposed to be the support person, remember? I was just thinking ahead. Earl said we had a dangerous crazy guy to baby-sit.”

“Sorry,” Trip said.

“Bible thumper,” she muttered under her breath as she stuck the curved needle through my skin.

“No really, I didn’t mean—”

“Whatever, Trip. Just because I danced naked for money doesn’t make me a whore.”

“Sorry. That wasn’t even what I was thinking,” he replied, raising his hands defensively. Holly was quiet as she continued stitching me up. Trip was too dark to blush, but he was obviously embarrassed. “I’ll go check on Gretchen.” He left the room in a hurry.

I watched as the tear in my flesh gradually closed. She did good work. I felt the need to defend my friend. “I don’t think Trip was judging you. He’s real religious, but he isn’t that way at all.”

“I know.” She continued stitching. “He’s probably the nicest guy I’ve ever met. And he’s real innocent at heart. At least as much as somebody can be in this job.” She finished closing the gash.

“You’re pretty good at that. I should know . . . I’ve been stitched up plenty of times. I’ve even done it to myself when I didn’t have help,” I told her.

“Thanks.” She tied off the end. “I learned how in nursing school.”

“You were in nursing school?”

“Yeah . . . don’t act so surprised. You think I took a degrading job because of the quality people I got to hang around? I needed to pay bills, you know.”

“I’m not. I understand.”

“I was at UNLV. I only had a couple of semesters left is all . . . And don’t ask.”

“Got it.” I understood. There seemed to be no shortage of Monster Hunters with secrets in their past. She finished stitching me up and wrapped clean gauze over my arms.

“That’s about all that I can do,” she said. “You need to get some rest, and you probably need to eat. I saw some food in the fridge. Trip and I will keep watch tonight.”

“Thanks,” I told her. She stood and stretched, then retrieved her rifle and slung it over her back. She paused on her way out of the kitchen.

“Think about what I said earlier. I don’t want you getting killed for no reason.”

“I promise I won’t,” I replied.

“Whatever . . . Stupid heroes.” She left the room. “Sweet dreams, Z.”

I picked one of the many bedrooms on the top floor. The plan was for all of us to sleep in the same general part of the house. Splitting up seemed like a stupid thing to do considering that we did not know how safe we were here from the Cursed One’s minions.

It was a small room, and the walls were bare sheetrock, but the bed was soft and I was exhausted and still in pain. I popped a handful of Tylenol and hoped that it would help. There were plenty of stronger painkillers in the ambulance, but the last thing I wanted to be was groggy. It took me a few minutes to find a comfortable spot on the bed where nothing was rubbing a scabbed-over patch of missing skin. That was rather difficult considering the extent of my road rash.

The Cursed One was coming. I knew that. I could feel it in my bones. I knew that he was close, I was not aware of how I knew that, but somehow I knew. Ray was the key. Something in the man’s head was the secret that Lord Machado was looking for. Some bit of knowledge gleaned from his own forbidden studies in breaking the laws of nature and bringing back the dead. I would kill Ray Shackleford myself before I let him fall into the hands of the enemy. I did not relish the thought of murdering a human being, but it beat the alternative.

I was asleep in minutes.

My dreams that night were brief. The Old Man did not pay me a visit, and thankfully I did not have to see the world through the lens of the Cursed One’s memories. For most of the night I slept like a normal man, not bound by strange visions or plagued with old prophecies and mysteries.

I had a brief nightmare, a panicked, disjointed chase through the halls of the Appleton Asylum. This time the gargoyles were much faster. This time I could not save Julie from them. They took her from me and tore the life out of her with their stone claws. A well of rage and hate opened up inside of my soul. Every bit of anger that I had ever possessed was uncorked and unleashed upon my enemies. I crushed the massive unnatural beings into dust with my bare hands as if they were nothing. My rage continued, until finally in my wrath I destroyed everything around me, leaving nothing but a smoking wasteland of death.

I slept.

I woke up late the next morning, sunlight streaming through my window. I felt remarkably good considering how badly beaten up I was. Despite my hectic schedule over the last few weeks, and my total lack of down time, I felt downright refreshed. Rolling out of bed, I could already tell it was going to be a great day.

A horrible odor assaulted my senses. My bandages were missing and had been replaced by something foul. A green, tarlike substance was smeared all over my arms. It stunk of dead road kill and body odor. I gagged reflexively as it hit my nostrils like a hammer.

“Hey! There’s something going on!” I bellowed at the top of my lungs. Considering the weirdness we dealt with in this business, I figured that if you woke up to find yourself coated in strange secretions, it was probably best to alert your co-workers. Unlike most polite jobs, of course.

Trip burst into the bedroom, subgun at the ready, scanning for threats. He must have been right outside the door.

“Something slimed me.” I held up one goo-coated arm.

“Dude, you about gave me a heart attack.”

“What the hell is this?” I shook my arms and some of the stuff splattered onto the sheets. We were probably going to have to burn them later.

“Don’t worry. Gretchen checked on you when she was done working on Julie. After she saw your injuries, she made that paste in the kitchen, came up here and smeared it on you. I’m guessing it’s supposed to be some sort of salve or something.”

“I didn’t hear a thing,” I stated suspiciously. I could not believe that I had slept through that. And certainly not while sober.

“If you haven’t noticed, she moves kinda quiet.”

“What’s in it? It smells terrible.”

“If I tell you, you’re either going to puke or straight up shoot her. So I’m not saying anything. Just remember, she’s supposed to be the healer . . . But according to my knowledge of chemistry, I can’t think of a thing that it is supposed to do other than reek.”

“I’m gonna shower. If you see ninja doctor tell her thanks for the slime.” I grabbed my bag and stormed down the hall. At least I had learned from previous mistakes and had packed some extra clothing along with my armor and weapons. A man should always have access to emergency pants.

I found a bathroom, eagerly stripped out of my torn clothes, and jumped into the scalding shower. I had not thought that anything could be grosser than the wight and vampire fluids I had been sprayed with on the freighter, but I had been very wrong.

Under closer examination the stuff appeared to be vegetable-based, except for the particles that I hesitantly identified as ground bones or teeth. Skippy’s wife was one weird chick, not that he was exactly a bastion of normalcy himself. As I was scrubbing the filth off under the stream of hot water I realized a few things. First, I should have been in intense pain from the water striking my injuries. Second, I wasn’t in any pain at all.

As the stuff was sluiced away, I discovered that rather than being inflamed and scabbed like my arms should have been on the day after such an accident, they were mostly clear, with only smaller spots of scabbing where the very worst of the injuries had been. The gashes that Holly had sewn shut looked like they had been stitched a week ago instead of last night.

Stepping out of the shower I held my arms above my head in amazement. Other than the discoloration and missing hair, the formerly destroyed patches were well on their way toward healing. I turned my arms over, disbelieving what was directly in front of my eyes. It was a miracle. I quickly dried off and dressed.

I found the others in the kitchen. The smell of coffee was strong, and Holly was frying some eggs over the stove. Trip was leaning against a counter, subgun still casually slung and steaming mug in his hands. Gretchen was nowhere to be seen. Skippy’s people did not seem particularly social. Surprisingly, Julie was out of bed and sitting at the improvised table, laughing and talking with the others. She had a small bandage on the side of her head, and there was a larger bandage peeking out from under the edges of her shirt. She smiled when she saw me enter, and she looked a thousand times better than when I had brought her here only twelve hours ago. Other than the fact that everybody was armed, and there was a flamethrower sitting in the corner, it looked like a breakfast commercial.

“Good morning, Owen,” Julie called happily.

“Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes,” Holly added. “’Bout time you rolled your carcass out of bed. Thanks for all the help with cooking. Both of you.”

“Hey, I’m on guard duty,” Trip said as he patted his H&K.

“Whatever. I was wandering around the halls with night vision watching for gargoyles until three A.M. so forgive me if I don’t cry you a river. Make yourself useful and grab some plates.”

“Sorry to interrupt the breakfast club here, guys”—I held up my relatively healthy arms—“but what the hell is going on?”

“Holy shit!” exclaimed Holly. She flung her spatula aside and ran over to look. Trip gasped and dropped a stack of disposable plates on the ground. “This is way better than it should be. The ones I stitched are about closed.”

“I told you guys. Gretchen knows her stuff,” Julie said.

“No way, man,” Trip said as he examined me. “I saw what she boiled up in that pot. It was just a bunch of weeds, dirt and some teeth. She even put a dead raccoon in it. There’s no way. Just no way.”

“Screw Monster Hunting. Let’s sell this and get rich,” Holly said.

“We’ve been trying to talk her into bottling her tribal cures for years. She won’t do it. Says that they have to be specifically prepared for each person. On the spot,” Julie answered as she sipped her orange juice.

“How’s your shoulder?” I asked.

“Much better. I’m sore, and I can’t lift my arm above my head yet, but give me a few days and I’ll be fine.” She reached into her pocket and pulled something out. She dropped it onto the center of the plywood. It was a jagged three-inch piece of stone. “Souvenir. Gretchen pulled this out.”

“Damn,” all three Newbies said in unison. She was lucky to be alive, let alone walking around in a pleasant mood.

“Seriously. She works magic. All of Skippy’s people have gifts. He can do things with that chopper that aren’t possible according to the laws of physics. Wait until you meet the rest of his family. They will probably introduce themselves to you when they’re comfortable.”

I pulled up a chair. “They aren’t normal people. What are they?”

“It really isn’t my place to say. That’s up to them.” She changed the subject. “Eggs are burning.”

Holly cursed and returned to the stove. Trip put the plates and some forks on the table. “What about your dad?” he asked.

“As far as I care he can eat spiders. Old house has plenty of them,” she said coldly.

“I’ll take him a plate,” I answered.

“Suit yourself,” Julie stated as she returned to her juice. I did not know what had transpired between father and daughter while I was taking my tour of the asylum, but obviously it had not been pleasant.

“He didn’t run off when you two were unconscious. Do we really need to leave him locked up?” Trip asked.

“My dad may seem fine sometimes, but don’t let him fool you. He saw some things that the human brain isn’t wired to deal with. His reality is all screwed up. He’s dangerous. Doctor Joan told me that he’s tried to escape a bunch of times, and he damn near beat one of their orderlies to death. We let him loose and he’ll be trying to raise the dead or something stupid in no time flat.” She shook her head. “I sure as hell am not going to let that man loose on the world. I fight monsters, I don’t help them.”

“So what’s the plan?” I said. My stomach grumbled loudly. The food smelled great. “After we eat, of course.”

“Sit tight. Heal up. Stay low,” Holly said. “That’s what Harbinger told us at least. We’re supposed to keep Ray safe and away from the bad guys. He’s going to call us as soon as they work out the problems with the Feds.”

“And he’s mad at you,” Trip added helpfully.

“What about me?” I asked. I had gone along with her after all.

“I think they think you’re just a big protective dupe is all,” Holly said. “At least that’s the impression I got when he said that you were just a big protective dupe following Julie around like a dumb puppy.”

“Oh good.”

“Then the Feds were crawling all over us. They want Ray and they want him bad. There had to be like fifty of them at the compound.”

“I wonder why Earl didn’t just turn Dad over?” Julie mused. “It isn’t like there’s any love lost there. If the Feds just want to keep his knowledge out of the hands of the Cursed One, then they are way better equipped to baby-sit him than we are.”

“He didn’t say, but I’ve come up with a theory,” Trip said. We waited. “Well, who all knows about Ray Shackleford and his research? Just MHI and the Feds. It isn’t exactly public knowledge, I’m guessing, what with all of this being secret and all. The professors who got attacked in Georgia were both well known for their knowledge on esoteric anthropology; vampires can read books too. Ray was just another inmate in an asylum. How did they know what he had in his head? How did they know that he was so important?”

“You think one of the Monster Control Bureau agents is talking to the CO,” Holly said.

“CO?” I asked.

“Beats saying Cursed One over and over again.”

“Yeah,” Trip answered. “If it’s only us and them that know about Ray, somebody must have told the bad guys. How else did they know who he was or even where he was?”

Julie thought about it for a moment. “Good point. Humans have worked for evil forces before. Especially vampires—they have a way of enthralling the weak-willed.”

“And there is something else. While you were gone yesterday, Lee found some stuff in one of the old journals. Some Monster Hunter who died back during World War Two. We think it was about the Cursed One. I didn’t get to see it, but the experienced Hunters were all freaked out. I mean really scared. Harbinger, Milo, even Sam. They were freaked. They wanted to show you, and that’s when they found out that you had taken off.”

“Those three don’t scare easy,” Julie stated.

“This journal scared them. Harbinger was talking about the apocalypse,” Holly said as she dished out the scrambled eggs.

“So that’s why I think Harbinger is having us hide your dad. Something he knows is the key that unlocks the gate for the Cursed One, and it’s very bad news. Like the-end-of-life-as-we-know-it kind of stuff. And he thinks some Fed is working for the bad guys. He’s scared to death that they’re going to get their hands on your dad.” He finished his theory and dug into his breakfast.

Holly sat down, looking slightly uneasy. She hesitated before speaking. “There is one other thing . . . Trip? You want to tell them?”

My friend did not reply. He contemplated his food. Holly did not appear eager to tell us either. Julie broke the silence.

“Let me guess.” She leaned back in her folding chair. “If the bad guys find us, we’re supposed to kill my dad ourselves rather than let him fall into their hands? Correct?”

The two Newbies nodded. Finally Holly spoke. “I’m sorry. That’s what Harbinger told us. He wanted to make sure that we could do it if we needed to. He really accentuated how serious this is.”

Julie nodded. “Yeah. I suppose so . . .” She trailed off.

“I’m sorry,” Trip said.

“It might be a moot point. How likely is it that the Cursed One’s minions are going to find us here?” I asked. I was not particularly surprised at Harbinger’s direction to kill Ray if necessary, having already decided the same thing myself. At least now the others were beginning to understand just how serious the Cursed One was.

“This is the old family place. My great-grandfather bought it way back when. It has always kind of been isolated. Legally speaking, nobody lives here. As far as the outside world is concerned, this place is pretty much a forgotten relic. It was sold a long time ago to the Heart of Dixie Historical Preservation Society.”

“Who are they?” I asked. The mansion was obviously a landmark of some kind, and somebody had been working at restoring the building.

Julie raised her hand. “I’m the Heart of Dixie Historical Preservation Society.” She smiled wickedly. “Since it’s a non-profit organization, all a perfectly legal front, and I technically don’t live here, it sure does save me a bunch of money in property taxes.”

“So you’re a tax evader too?” I mumbled around a mouthful of eggs. “Groovy.”

“There are only a handful of people who know about this house, and most of them wear a green smiley face on their armor or their last name is Shackleford.” She went back to eating. Julie appeared to be starved, and she should be considering how much blood she had lost yesterday. She paused, swallowed and continued, “And I’ve got this place rigged with one hell of a security system. If anything drives, walks, slithers or lands on this property, we’ll know. There’s also a hidden armory in the basement stocked with stuff that would have been confiscated when we got shut down last time, and the compound is only about fifteen minutes away. If we get attacked, we’ll just need to hold out that long.”

“Will your security system detect vampires?” I asked.

“Probably. As far as we know they still need to walk like anything else. There has never been any actual documented case of them turning into bats or mist like in Dracula, only superstitions say that they can shape-shift. But remember, they can’t come into a home unless they’re invited. That’s the rule.”

“Why is that anyway?” I asked. “I mean, I’ve seen it in the movies, but that doesn’t really make any sense.”

“Nobody knows. But it seems to be a rule with vampires. Other undead don’t seem to care, but it does affect vamps,” she said. “Unless you let them in, they can’t enter.”

“But they came into Dr. Turley’s house and killed him and his wife. And he was still in bed. They couldn’t have been invited. Or what about the attack in Atlanta?”

“Atlanta was a party. All it would take is a single invited guest to let one in. You guys have only seen newly created vamps. The old ones can be pretty darn charming, and they look just like humans unless they’re about to feed. As for the Turleys, who knows? Any indication of invitation would probably do.” She forked another piece of egg and dipped it in ketchup. “Did they have a doormat or any signs that may have said welcome, or something like that?”

I nodded as I remembered the Turley home’s open rear door, along with the mud-stained welcome mat. I swore that I would never own one of those things again.

“Gargoyles?” Trip asked.

“I’ve got a Barrett .50, a 20mm Lahti, and some grenade launchers in the armory. Also an RPG and for the worst-case scenario, a Spig 9. After we eat, I’ll break those out and dust them off. I’m going to need help getting the Spig up the stairs,” Julie said. I did not know what a Spig 9 was, but if it was in fact a gun that she needed help to even move, I was very excited.

“What about the CO?” Holly asked. I did not like the abbreviated name. After having seen him, and feeling a taste of his power, calling the evil creature something so innocuous seemed a little silly. The residents of Tokyo didn’t call Godzilla “Big G.”

“Unknown quantity,” Julie stated. “We have no idea what would work on him. It could be something as simple as just shooting him full of holes, or lighting him on fire, or blowing him up, I don’t know. Some monsters are hard to kill.” She looked at me for help.

I shrugged. “Beats me. The Old Man won’t or can’t tell me that. I’ll say this though. I don’t expect him to go easy. I’ve got a feeling that he’s going to be one mean son of a bitch.”

Julie finished her breakfast and pushed the plate away. I dished myself a second helping. Trip sipped his coffee. Holly made sure her sidearm was still there.

“One last thing,” Julie said. She was fully confident, and back in command mode. “If they find us. If we get attacked. And we can’t beat them or hold them off until help arrives. If and only if the bad guys are about to take Dad away, then we have no choice. Kill him. And do it in a way that they can’t bring him back. Shoot him in the head, and burn him.” She said this casually, as if she was telling us about the weather. “It’s one thing to kill monsters, but it’s another to have human blood on your hands . . .  If we have to do it, if possible I’ll do it myself. My family, my business . . .  Everybody okay with that?”

The rest of us nodded dumbly.

Julie scooped up a plate of rapidly cooling eggs and sausage and passed it over to me. “You had best take him some food. He’s probably starved. Tell him I send my regards.”

Ray Shackleford was sitting on his bed, one wrist handcuffed to the wrought-iron headboard. He regarded me sullenly as I entered. His gray hair was wild, and he had a black eye and bruises from where I had hit him. At least he seemed coherent now.

“I brought you some food,” I said. I did not add that I had only supplied him with a plastic fork.

“Let me loose, kid,” he ordered.

“Can’t do that. This is for your own protection.”

“Fine, then I’ll take a dump on the floor.”

I had not thought about that, but then again I had never kidnapped a crazy person before either. I set the food down on a dresser and removed the handcuff key from my pocket. There was an attached bathroom, there was only one way in, and the window over the shower was too small to squeeze out of. I checked the bathroom for any hidden weapons (this was Julie’s house after all), but found nothing.

“Okay, fine. But if you try anything stupid, I will beat you down. I’m just itching for a reason to get my violence on. Got it?”

“Fine. Just hurry up.” I unlocked the cuffs and waited patiently as he made his way to the bathroom. He closed the door behind him. I opened it.

“Nope. I don’t trust you.”

“Fine. Suit yourself . . . freak.”

I waited while he took care of business. Once he had washed his hands and pulled back his hair, I escorted him back to the bed and put the cuffs back on. He gave me no trouble. I passed the food over and he gobbled it down messily.

“You knocked me out,” he said between bites. “If I was in the shape I used to be, I would have kicked your ass.”

“Whatever you have to tell yourself,” I said.

“Don’t get cocky. I’ve been around guys like you. I know your type. You’re hired muscle. Just a trigger puller. I bet Earl brought you on because you’re good at hurting things. You know what? That don’t make you special. Hurting things is easy. Understanding them is hard.”

“I don’t like to complicate things. I see the monster. I shoot the monster. There. Nice and simple,” I said.

“Let me let you in on a little secret, kid. Guys like you are a dime a dozen. A real Hunter understands his prey. He knows how they think. He succeeds where others fail because he knows the monster better than he knows himself. I was the best Hunter we’ve ever had because of that.”

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster . . .” I said.

“And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you. Ahh . . . an educated man. Well, you’re not as stupid as you look. Don’t quote Nietzsche at me, kid. That German crackpot wouldn’t know a real monster if it bit him on the ass.”

Actually I hated philosophy. I had memorized the quote from the intro of a video game. “You about done?” I asked.

“Julie told me a little about you. You’re the dreamer. You’ve been having visions. You want what I’ve got up here.” He tapped the side of his head with his fork, leaving ketchup in his hair. “You want me to help you find Lord Machado.”

“Pretty much.”

“I can do it, you know. The other Hunters can read those old books forever, but they ain’t gonna answer your questions. It isn’t what you read, it’s putting the information together in your head like a puzzle. Only when you’re all done can you really see the picture. I’ve had lots of time on my hands for the last six years. I’ve sat in a padded cell all day long with nothing to do but put those puzzles together. I can see the whole picture now. You fools are still trying to find your corner pieces and sorting them out by color.”

“Is there a point to this, or are you just trying to get me to punch you in the head some more?”

“Here’s the point: I can help you. I can tell you where and when Lord Machado is going to use his artifact. I can tell you what to do. I can tell you how to stop him. I can even tell you how to kill him. The dead guy in your head can’t answer those questions, but I can.”

“So why don’t you just tell me what I need to know?”

“Because, kid, what’s in it for me?”

“The world doesn’t get destroyed. That sounds kind of beneficial, don’t you think?”

“I tell you. You tell Earl. You guys kill Lord Machado and the seven. You save the world, cash big fat checks. You get to be heroes. I go back to Appleton and rot in a cell until the day I die. You want my help, you let me go and I’ll tell you everything I know.”

“And I’m just supposed to let somebody who opened a gate to hell in the middle of Alabama walk free.”

“I learned from my mistakes. I won’t do that again. I’m not as crazy as everybody thinks I am. I know the score. Let me loose, I promise not to meddle in that business again; I’ll just disappear off the radar and nobody needs to know where I went. I’ve got money, fake IDs, passports, all stashed. You let me go, and nobody ever hears from me again. I’ll go down to Mexico and sip margaritas on the beach with pretty senoritas.”

“I’ll run that past your daughter.”

“Julie’s squeamish. She’s a goody two-shoes like her mother. Believe me. I’ve learned from my mistakes. I’m done. Earl will tell you no. My dad will say no. They don’t trust me. My offer is to you, kid. Think about it.” He smiled hopefully. I did not trust him as far as I could throw him.

“How about you give me a little information up front? Let me see if what you know is worth it.”

“I give you enough pieces of the puzzle, you’ll figure it out yourself. You won’t need me and I go back to Appleton. On good days maybe I get to play Ping-Pong in leg irons with Dr. Nelson. Look out the window while crazy people whine about what monsters did to them. Like those pussies know jack squat about real torment. Whoopee. No way, kid. I talk. I walk. That’s the deal.”

“Screw you, Ray.” I took his empty plate and walked away.

“Wait!” he cried. I paused with my hand on the doorknob. “You have to understand. I can’t go back there.” I opened the door. “Stop. Listen. I tried to bring my wife back. Is that so wrong? I loved her. I know I made a mistake. I was desperate. You would do the same. I loved her too much to let her go. I know not to try again. I saw things in that rift. Things you can’t even begin to understand. I know what’s out there. My mind is scarred worse than your face. Believe me. I promise that it won’t happen again.”

“Good-bye, Ray. I’ll send somebody up around lunch for a bathroom break.” I stepped out the door into the hall.

“Wait! Don’t leave me alone! You want some information. Fine,” he shouted. I paused. “There is no real Place of Power. It isn’t a fixed piece of geography. There’s a nexus of magical energy. The place is where those lines intersect. They are always moving. They are always changing. But I know where and when they are. Those professors that got killed, it’s because some of the dead cultures they studied had their fingers on the puzzle. They maybe had bits and pieces. I can see the whole puzzle. I can see the picture. I can even see the box the pieces came in. It’s going to happen at the full moon.”

“Tell me more, Ray.”

“You have three days before the concept of linear time becomes obsolete. Lord Machado thinks he knows what he’s doing, but he’s wrong. The world you know is going to cease to exist. Billions will die, and the handful that survive are going to be nothing more than cattle living in a blinded stupor. Mankind is going to be nothing but food and entertainment for the Old Ones. You had better think about my offer, kid. The clock is ticking. In three days it stops. Forever.”

“Your dad made me an offer,” I told Julie when I found her on the main floor. She must have gotten bored after cleaning and hauling up all of the interesting weapons from the basement, because she had busied herself by returning to her renovations.

“Make yourself useful and hold this.” She handed me the end of a tape measure. “Put it against that edge there.” She walked a few steps and lowered the tape to the floor. She took a pencil from behind an ear and marked a spot on the floor. “I need more flooring. I’ve got enough to finish the front hall, but not the main entryway.”

“You don’t want to hear his offer?” I asked. I think that I already knew the answer to that one.

“Let me guess. Let me go. I promise to be good. No more demon summoning. Blah, blah, blah. I’ll tell you what you need to know.” She let the tape measure snap closed in her hand and dropped it into a pocket.

“Pretty much. But he did say that the Cursed One is going to strike on the full moon. That gives us just three days.”

“Not much time. Figures. Bad stuff always goes down on the full moon. How did this get here?” She bent down to pick up a belt sander that was lying on the floor. Grunting in sudden pain, she paused, and slowly stood back up. “Forgot. Big hole in my shoulder. Would you grab that for me? I need to put it away.”

I picked up the sander. “You should take it easy.”

She shook her head. “I can’t. I’m a little tense. My insane dad is upstairs, in the home that I grew up in. It’s just a bit awkward is all. . . . I like working on the house. It keeps my mind off of things, you know?” I nodded. “It helps me to keep busy. I feel better when I’m improving something.”

The whole mansion was torn apart. Every room that I had been in so far had some project begun in it, but very few had been finished. Apparently Julie had a lot of things that she did not want to dwell on.

“You seem to be pretty good at it,” I said. That was true enough. The work that was finished appeared to be meticulous and professional. Which was not really a surprise considering what I knew about Julie Shackleford’s nature.

“Thanks.” She paused uncomfortably. “Enough about my dingbat father. I’m just glad he didn’t stab you with his plastic fork.”

“I did check the bathroom for guns before I let him go.”

“Beat you to it.” She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a .38 Detective Special. “Bathroom number three gun. I’ve got them stashed all over.”

“You really are my kind of girl.”

She smiled. “Thanks. Most regular people think I’m insane.”

“Screw regular people. They suck.” It was good to hear her laugh again. “Since you’re too injured to lay floor, how about a tour of the Heart of Dixie Historical Preservation Society headquarters?”

“That I can do. And by the way, I never said thanks for saving my life from that gargoyle. That was a little too close.” She absently touched the bandage on the side of her head.

“No big deal. That was some pretty good driving.”

“If that jackass in the truck would have just let us pass, I could have lost them.”

“Jerk,” I agreed.

“Tour?” she asked.

“Gladly.”

Chapter 18

The Shackleford ancestral home was an imposing structure. Once one of the finest of the great antebellum homes of the Old South, it was the crown jewel of a once-massive plantation. Ages ago it had been the center of thousands of acres of timber and farming cut out of the woods of Alabama. The original builder’s heirs had sold the home and the property to the first Raymond Shackleford nearly a hundred years before.

“You can see out this window where the slave quarters used to be, the kind of empty spot right there. You can still make out the foundations. They were pretty rickety and busted up by the time I was a kid.” Julie pointed out the back windows off of the main corridor. “I burned them down when I was twelve.”

“Why? Some sort of protest against the injustice? A young girl trying to right the wrongs of the past?” I asked.

“Nothing so noble. Me and my brothers were learning how to make homemade napalm. Styrofoam packing peanuts dissolved into a bottle of gasoline. They make the best Molotov cocktails. I let one of mine get away from me. I’m just lucky that it didn’t spread and burn the house down. . . . Those were the days.”

“I can understand. I did something similar once when I was a kid. My brother and I built a pipe bomb. Big thing. We smuggled powder out of my father’s reloading room for almost a year so he wouldn’t notice. Mixed it with a whole bunch of other ingredients. Detonated it in the backyard when my folks weren’t home. It was a little bit bigger boom than expected though, dug a four-foot trench in the yard, cut the gas main and forced the neighborhood to evacuate.”

“No wonder the ATF has your name on file,” she said. “I wonder if all future Monster Hunters blow stuff up as kids?”

“Probably. The ones that live that long at least.” I shrugged. “Hey, I was an upstanding citizen until I met you guys.”

“I bet. . . . Anyway, I was sad when the old slave quarters burned down. I was just a little girl. I hadn’t really understood what they stood for. I mean, I knew what they were, but not why they were important.”

“Lot of history in the South,” I stated.

“Don’t go getting high and mighty because of slavery. You grew up out West, you have no clue about the South. My family might own this house, but that doesn’t mean that we approve of the kinds of things that happened here. I had ancestors who fought for the Confederacy, but I would be real surprised if any of them had two nickels to rub together, let alone owned a slave. People think that the South is racist, and it was, and some parts still are, but for the most part, we’ve dealt with our history. The biggest racists I’ve ever met aren’t here, they’re in politics, and they are smug bastards. They’re the ones that are quick to play the race card, the ones that pimp poverty. Those are the real bigots.”

“Touchy subject.”

“I guess. But Bubba Shackleford employed black Hunters in his very first group of Professional Monster Killers. Remember ‘Flexible Minds.’ He made that little credo up. That’s not just about the unnatural, it’s about how you look at the world. He only cared if they could fight, and that they kept it together when strange stuff started. They were some pretty tough Hunters too. You don’t want to know what happened to the Klan boys that messed with them.”

“I can guess.” I could only imagine that after dealing with werewolves and vampires, yokels hiding under white sheets were not that big of a deal.

“Rumor has it that a bunch of night riders ended up buried in the back forty. Great-great-grandpa never had much trouble from those folks after that.” She changed the subject. “Let me show you the ballroom. This is probably my favorite room in the whole house.” She pushed open some double doors and led the way into a huge space. The floor was vast and open, ornate antique chairs lined the walls, and an opulent crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. Most of the walls were mirrored, with old-fashioned and slightly distorted glass. A large stage filled the back corner of the room, complete with carved pillars capped in brass. Staircases spiraled around and upward to the second floor, perfect for the Southern belles of old to descend for their grand entrances.

I walked into the room. My boots echoed on the worn, smooth wood, stirring up small clouds of dust. I could imagine the parties of bejeweled women and men in Confederate gray, royalty of a forgotten time and kingdom. “Impressive.”

“I haven’t done any work in here. I don’t really want to. I’m just going to leave this one alone. We never used this room growing up. If this old place has a soul, it would be in this room. So I leave it closed.” I watched her reflection in one of the many mirrors. She awkwardly placed her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “I know it sounds silly, but that’s how it is.”

“I understand,” I said, not really, but it seemed like the correct answer. Even though there had not been any music played in this room for generations, I had to resist the urge to ask her to dance.

“Um . . . Through here is the formal living room. Now this one, we used a little, for guests and that kind of thing.” I followed her through another set of double doors into a much less lavish room. This one was under drastic construction. Tarps had been thrown over the furniture, and sawdust covered almost everything. Only one wall was not in the process of being stripped and repainted. It was covered in painted portraits of Julie’s ancestors.

“Five generations of Monster Hunters,” she proclaimed, “and a few who decided to stay out of the family business, but we still love them too. Even if they are strange.” There were dozens of paintings. Most done in a classically formal style, kind of stuffy, and not really befitting the homespun, slightly insane, good nature of the family as I knew them. The first painting was of Raymond “Bubba” Shackleford, followed by a picture of his wife and children, and then each of the succeeding generations after that. There was a single blank spot on the wall where Raymond II was missing, but other than that there were a lot of pictures up there. In totality it created a beast of a family tree. The last of the pictures were of people I recognized. The Ray Shackleford IV that I knew as a wild-eyed lunatic was captured on canvas as a handsome, square-jawed man. His wife, Susan, had looked almost exactly like Julie did today. My tour guide’s portrait must have been taken when she was younger. I did not feel that the painting had done her justice. She looked slightly artificial. I felt for the painter, capturing something like Julie’s beauty had to be difficult. You could get the technical details correct, but how did you convey the spirit?

“Lot of Raymonds. Must be kind of hard to keep track of them.”

“It’s a bit of a tradition. Oldest son got the name. I’m the oldest in my family, so it went to my younger brother.” She pointed at one of the last of the portraits. He resembled his father.

“Where’s he now?”

“Dead,” she said sadly. “It’s been a few years.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No. He died well. You can’t be sorry for somebody that brave. You can be sad, but not sorry. He earned his plaque at the compound. Even the best of us get it eventually.”

“What happened?” I don’t know why I asked her, but I did. She hesitated only briefly before speaking.

“1995. At the Christmas party, Monster Hunter International’s one-hundredth anniversary. He was one of the ninety-seven Hunters killed that night. He was just a Newbie, but he fought like a champion. You should have seen him. He sure was something.”

“I’ve never heard the whole story.”

She gestured at one of the tarp-covered couches. I sat, and she sat next to me, under the watchful painted eyes of her ancestors. We sunk into the deep cushions with a rustle of plastic. I could taste the sawdust in the air.

“It was a great party. Hunters know how to throw a great party—you know, live fast, party hard, die young. That kind of philosophy tends to grow amongst people with such a dangerous job. Everybody who wasn’t in the middle of a case was there, so most of us at least. Well anyway, it was at a resort near Gulf Shores, right on the beach. Beautiful spot, Dad had picked it out, reserved it for us. At the time I was just glad that he seemed to be coming out of his mourning, coming out of the archives, and participating with the living again. I had been worried about him for so long. Little did I know that he had picked that spot because it was the right place and the right time for his damned summoning.” She brushed aside some dust. “I should have seen it coming.”

“You couldn’t have known. Nobody could have.”

“I know, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was my job to know. I’m the historian. I’m the researcher. I’m supposed to be the one with the answers. That’s my job, and this one was right under my nose. I knew Dad was sad about Mom’s death, but I never expected him to do something like this. The resort was his Place of Power. We didn’t know until later that it was built on top of what used to be some tribe’s sacred ground. It was his chance to bring her back. While the rest of us were gathering down at the resort, he planted a bomb in the archives. None of us ever learned the real logic behind that. He had the information he needed stored in his head, so he probably wanted to destroy the books that had the information on how to stop him, just in case. That’s my guess anyway. Burned a big chunk of it down.”

She sighed, apparently studying her father’s portrait, trying to discern reason behind the painted mask. She continued, “Every Hunter that could be there, was there. Even the retired ones. Lots of wives, husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends, dates, it was a great big party. Even the caterers and the bartenders had been picked from people who knew what was up. People who knew about monsters and who and what we were. We could let our hair down. There weren’t any secrets being kept in that room. I don’t know why Dad wanted such an audience, but he had it.

“At midnight, Dad went to the center of the dance floor, splashed some blood in a circle, and said a few words. I think most of the folks near him thought that he was just drunk or something. I saw him doing it, I didn’t understand, but I knew that it was wrong. I knew that something bad was about to happen. His voice became louder, almost like he was talking with a megaphone. I’ve heard about every language there is, but not this one. Whatever it was, it wasn’t meant to be pronounced with a human tongue. The blood caught on fire and the floor under him disappeared, it just kind of opened right up. I was far enough away that I didn’t get to see where it opened to, but some of the others did. They died first.”

“What was it?” I asked.

Julie appeared shaken as she recalled the memory. “A rift. To someplace else, we don’t really know where. We say hell, but that isn’t really right, that’s just our way of explaining something that we don’t understand, but it was not on Earth, that’s for sure. Things came out of that rift, bad things. I can’t even begin to describe them. They tore through the party like the Hunters were made out of tissue paper. Dad’s plan had gone wrong. Bad wrong.”

She unconsciously clenched her fists, the muscles in her jaw contracted, and her eyes narrowed angrily at the memory.

“We fought. We fought hard. But we had been caught unaware, and these things were tough. More and more of them kept pouring through the hole every second, and they weren’t going to stop. We held them, we killed them until their husks were piled waist-deep. We couldn’t retreat, because they just kept flooding out the rift. If we gave up at the gate then these things would have filled the country, don’t ask me how I know that, but somehow we all did. Every inch we gave up was one more inch that would no longer belong to our world, it would belong to them. Everybody stood and fought. No Hunter ran.”

I reached over and grasped her hand. She was shaking.

“We didn’t have armor—hell, all I had was a cute little black dress. All we had were handguns, of course everybody was packing, I mean, think about the crowd that we’re talking about here. Some Hunters made it to their vehicles and grabbed heavier weapons and came back, others had been thoughtful enough to have some already stashed at the resort. After the first few minutes I was out of ammo and down to using a table leg as a club. My brother Ray stood with me, all he had was a broken beer bottle. I watched . . . watched as something pulled his intestines out and painted the ceiling with them. I killed it, but I was too late. I didn’t even have time to see him die. I was too busy fighting.”

Silent moments passed as she regained her composure. She lifted her glasses and wiped under her eyes. “Sorry.”

“No . . . no, that’s okay,” I said.

“Right after my brother was hit, something big bumped against the rift. Unbelievably big. It’s hard to explain, but all I saw was its pupil, but that was bigger than this house. The rift was growing. It was coming through into this world. Grenades and rockets just made it blink. If it came through, then this world was gone. We all knew it. Earl saved us. He made his way into the rift. He killed anything that came near him. He came out a second later with my dad slung over his shoulder. When Dad was pulled through, the rift collapsed. We had beaten them. Whatever they were.

“Then we had to run. The resort had caught on fire, the building was coming down. I carried one of my wounded friends out, and by the time I made it outside she had already started to convulse . . . Poor Piper. Apparently the monsters from the rift were poisonous. She died in my arms. The building burned. It was still burning when the Feds arrived. It burned for three straight days. Nothing could put it out. When it was done there was nothing but ash, and charred bones that weren’t human.”

She stared off into space, reunited once more with the memories of her fallen family and comrades. I did not speak.

“Three-quarters of us were dead. And some who had been too close to that rift just walked away and never came back. Ninety-seven dead Hunters and forty dead guests and resort staff. Within a few days an executive order was issued and we were shut down. The Feds took my dad away. The news reported that an oil tanker had run aground and caught fire. I went to a lot of funerals.”

“Julie. I don’t know what to say.”

She put her head down and cried softly. I put my arm around her and waited for her to stop. She sobbed a few times as she was temporarily overcome with emotion.

“I’m okay.” She raised her head, sniffed, but then pushed away and stood proudly. “And now you know about us. You know the whole story. And you know why I don’t give a shit if that son of a bitch who claims to be my father lives or dies. It would be better for a whole lot of people if his damned black heart quit beating, but if he lives, I think that Appleton is far too nice a place to hold him. If I had my way I would have left him in that rift. He’s caused too much pain. He isn’t my father. He’s nothing but a monster. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him be taken to help some other monster unleash that kind of terror on my world again.”

“I know.”

“Good.” She stopped. “I loved my brother. I miss him still. And I lost friends, people I’ve known since I was a kid. I hold him responsible for this. So that’s why I’ve been acting the way I have. I’m sorry if I’ve been harsh, but I’ll kill him before I let him go free.”

“If anything, I think you’ve shown remarkable restraint. Thanks for telling me the story.” She was an interesting woman to say the least. I was still curious. “What did you do next?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“After the company was shut down, until we started back up. What did you do?”

“Well . . .” She sat back down next to me with a creak of plastic. I don’t think that she had expected to continue her story. “I went back to school. Finished up my degrees. I tried to be normal for a while.”

“Normal?” I had been struggling with the concept myself, doubting myself, my choices, and my abilities. It was strange to hear Julie, super Monster Hunter Julie Shackleford, say the same thing. Strange, but comforting.

“You know. Not a crazed monster killer. I didn’t fight evil. I didn’t do anything like that. I went to college. I went on dates. I got a job. I didn’t really need the money, but I wanted to be like everybody else. I started working on this house as a hobby. I painted.”

“You paint?”

“A little,” she answered sheepishly.

“Can I see them?” I asked.

“They’re not very good. Maybe another time.”

“I bet they’re fine,” I assured her. “Another time then.”

“Earl kept hunting. Only now he had to work out of the country and had to compete against established companies, with more assets and the backing of their respective governments. Milo and Sam and the others like them kept hunting freelance overseas. They would contact me, invite me to come work with them, but I always turned them down. I wanted to pretend that world never existed.”

“I can see why.”

“Grandpa got sick. The shock of what his son had done almost killed him. He actually came and lived here for a while with a nurse. You can imagine how well he did without Hunters to boss around. I tried to help him, but even he encouraged me to go work with Earl and the other survivors. I turned him down too, and I think it made him even sicker. I vowed that the family legacy was going to die with me. No more Shacklefords were going to hunt monsters ever again.”

“So what happened?” I asked. I could not imagine having gone through the things that she had. It made me put my own family relationships in perspective. Nobody in my family had ever summoned any demons. At least as far as I was aware.

“I was in school. Students started disappearing on campus. Young girls. The police said that it was a serial killer. The whole community was scared to death. But I knew what it really was. I could recognize the signs. I ignored it at first. It was somebody else’s problem. That world didn’t exist for me anymore. I was just a grad student working on my thesis. I pretended that it was just a normal human killer, and that the authorities would handle it.”

“It didn’t work out, did it?”

“It never does. . . . A friend of mine was next. Got nailed while coming out of the library late one night. They never found her head. She was a nice kid. Freshman, from a little town in Illinois if I remember right. That one was my fault, don’t try to disagree, you of all people understand, Owen. I tracked the vampires down. I found their lair. They were sloppy new creations. Weak, stupid and hungry. I went in alone, first time I’ve ever hunted solo. I spent the whole day staking and chopping. Going from one coffin or hole to the next. Finally I thought that I was going to run out of daylight before I had found them all, so I used some of those homemade Molotovs and burned the science building down. The killings stopped and the cops figured that their imaginary serial killer had moved on. Police never caught the arsonist.” She smiled weakly. “I finished my dissertation the next week, boarded up this house, and joined Earl and the others on a case in Uruguay. A few years later, we’re back in business. I’ve never looked back.”

“Are you glad?”

“What do you think?” She snorted. “I was deluding myself in school. Normal is an illusion. Normalcy doesn’t exist.” She gestured at the wall of paintings. “That is normal. These people are real. All that stuff I told you back at your apartment, when we were trying to recruit you. Yes. I do actually believe that. I believe in what we do. It’s more than just the job. It’s more than the PUFF check.”

“It’s a calling,” I said.

We sat in silence beneath the pictures. We had an understanding.

“You have another brother?” I asked, pointing at the last picture. He looked more like Julie.

“Nate,” she laughed. “He wants to kill monsters so bad he can taste it.”

“Where’s he at now?”

“Seattle. He went through the last class of Newbies. He’s doing okay from what I hear. I made sure that he’s with a great team who’ll keep him alive long enough that his enthusiasm gets tempered with experience. He’s nineteen. You’ll like him. He’s just insane enough to be entertaining . . .” She put her hand on my knee. I could not tell if she had done it on purpose or if she had done it without thinking. Either one was fine with me. “Well, that’s pretty much the tour. Sorry I got all blubbery and emotional on you.”

“Julie. If you didn’t get emotional about that, then you wouldn’t be human. Thanks for the tour. I can tell you love this house.”

“I can’t say why, but I do. One of these days I’m going to get it all fixed up. I could probably hire professionals to do it and just get it over with, but that doesn’t seem right. There are a lot of memories here . . .” She suddenly snapped her fingers. “Wait a second, I’ve got something for you.” She jumped up, and walked quickly to the door. “I’ll be back in a minute, I’ve just got to find it.”

I sat on the plastic covered couch and waited. After a few minutes I grew restless and decided to check out the portraits more closely. The Shacklefords were one interesting group—heroes, villains and everything in between. I stood close to the wall and examined the intricate paintings. Julie’s grandfather had been a handsome man before he had lost his eye and been so disfigured. I could see the resemblance to his son, and they both looked slightly like Earl Harbinger. I was not exactly sure how he was related, but there was no picture of him on the wall, and there were no Harbingers listed at all. Looking at the other pictures, I decided that Julie was very lucky that she took after her mother. Besides the lack of glasses and the slightly outdated hairstyle, they could have been the same person. I would imagine that a historian would be able to compile quite the entertaining book about this family. Of course the government would probably end up sending somebody like Agent Franks to the author’s home to shoot him in the brain.

The one blank spot on the wall was interesting, but I did not dwell on it for long. Even an auditor’s curiosity only runs so deep when there are other matters at hand.

Julie returned with a dust-covered wooden case. “Found it.” She sat it on the tarped-over table and opened the metal clasps. “Now you are going to appreciate this, Mr. Gun Nut.” She opened the box with a flourish. Inside the molded case were two pistols. One was big, and the other small, a matched pair, down to the finishes. “Go ahead. Check them out.”

The guns were custom. STI frames, the full-size had an extended, threaded barrel, and was complete with a rail for a mounted light. The smaller one was a custom-chopped version, cut down in every possible dimension for concealment. For a competition nut like myself, these pistols were the kind of thing that I dreamed about. Normal men had pornography. I had gun magazines. They were beautiful.

“Twenty-eleven frame, fourteen rounds of .45 in the big one, twenty with the extended mags. Ten in the little one, but it can take the full-size mags, they just hang out a bit. I worked them over so they’re reliable with our silver bullets. Match barrels, these are scary accurate. But clearances are loose enough that these should be able to get really gunked up and still work fine,” she told me proudly. I pulled back the slide to check the chamber, and it glided as smoothly as silk. I checked the trigger. The hammer fell with a snap. It was possibly the nicest trigger I had ever felt on any weapon, ever.

“These were made for somebody with mutant hands, notice even the long trigger. Extended safeties for shooting high thumb; beaver tail, small mag release so big-handed shooters don’t release them by accident; you guys don’t need to shift your grip to change mags anyway.”

“Sweet. Did you do these yourself?”

“They were an old project.”

I gently put the guns back in the box. “They’re beautiful. Much nicer than my old one. I’ve gone through quite a few guns this week.”

She closed the box, snapped the clasps closed, and shoved it over toward me. I looked at it in confusion for a moment.

“You’d better be more careful with these then. Lose them and I’ll kill you.”

“But, but . . . you’re just giving these to me?” I asked. “Why?”

“I have these lying around the house. They don’t fit me at all. Some Hunter with ham fists needs to put them to good use, and you currently don’t have a pistol at all. My little brother won’t use them. He’s a Glock nut. The poor deluded bastard. Plus the way these things shoot, they need to be in the hands of a real pistolero. You’ll have to do.” She smiled. “Consider it my way of saying thank you for saving my life.”

“Thanks,” I said. It was the nicest gift that anyone had ever given me.

“Look, I’ve got to go,” she said, sounding almost sheepish. “I need to take care of some things.”

“Thanks,” was all that I could think of to say.

“Don’t mention it.” She winked at me and walked away.

I watched her leave the room before opening the case and examining the fine weapons again. I did not want to look like a total dweeb in front of her, but for me, Christmas had come real early. Grinning like an idiot, I field-stripped and checked the guns. The case even came with a cleaning kit. I lubed the guns, and did several practice draws, adjusting my grip each time, until the sights snapped unconsciously into place. Finally I forced myself to put them down. I needed to take over for Trip on the perimeter. It was my turn to stand guard.

I noticed something as I started to shut the case. The foam in the top half had come slightly undone. Between the foam and the wood was an envelope. The envelope was blank, but it contained a small handwritten note.

Dear Ray,

I hope you like these. After that luska ate your other guns, I thought I would do something nice for you. I built these up just the way you like them. Milo’s been teaching me everything he knows about gunsmithing, and I think that these have come out really good.

Dad’s doing better. He’s been really excited, looking forward to the 100th anniversary party. Should be a blast. Nate’s bummed he can’t come. Earl is doing good. Piper Cavanaugh has been dying to talk to you. I think she has a crush on you. She’s cute. You two should hook up. See you at the party.

I love you, Bro. Hope you like the guns.

Julie

12/2/95

I carefully refolded the note, placed it in its envelope, and put it back in the case.

Trip was waiting for me on the porch. We were not taking any chances, and were taking turns with one heavily armed and armored Hunter outside to watch the skies for more gargoyles. Of course all of us were wearing our radios, and the person patrolling the outside checked in constantly. If there had been more of us available, we would have worked in pairs and had a better rotation, but as it was, there were only the four of us on our little baby-sitting detail.

“Holly is watching the video feeds. Julie has one heck of a system installed here. Don’t go more than twenty yards from the building or you’ll probably activate a sensor. Check in with her every few minutes.” He handed me the RPG. If anything suspicious landed on the property, we weren’t going to screw around. The huge rocket-propelled grenade would take out an armored vehicle, so a gargoyle would not be a significant problem. “You learned how to use one of these, right?”

“Dude . . . please.” I patted the lethal tube gently. If third-world goat herders could figure out an RPG, I wasn’t worried. Even though I had not shot one yet, Milo had trained us in their basic use. I was looking forward to firing one. And if the target happened to be a ten-foot-tall, animated chunk of rock, that was fine by me.

“Never mind. I forgot I was talking to the combat accountant. I haven’t seen anything except for bugs and a cottonmouth.”

“Like the killer snake cottonmouth?” I asked, glancing nervously at the ground.

“Yeah, but it was just a baby. You should have seen the ones we grow in Florida. They climb trees, and drop on you. When you’re on the river fishing, they will swim out to your boat and climb in. Mean little bastards,” he told me this with a straight enough face that I was not quite sure if he was making it up or not. “Anyway, if you need me, I’ll be on the radio.”

“Okay.” He started to walk away. I stopped him. “Hey, Trip, one last thing . . . Thanks for coming out here to help me and Julie,” I told him. “I appreciate it.”

“Dude, don’t worry about it. Harbinger needed somebody not very important to the Feds, is all.”

“Still. Thanks,” I said. He shrugged and went back into the house. The screen door clattered behind him. I shifted the RPG to one shoulder and started my patrol.

The afternoon air was thick with humidity, and moisture gleamed on the surrounding foliage. The once-cleared farmland that had surrounded the plantation had been retaken by swift-growing plants, including the evil nemesis of all that was good in the plant world—kudzu. It was stiflingly hot in my armor, and sweat ran freely down my back. I had left my hockey helmet behind in favor of a simple ball cap to keep the sun out of my eyes. I sipped constantly from my CamelBak. Big guys dehydrate fast in the summer.

I did not see anything of note as I passed the time. Holly checked in every few minutes to make sure that nothing was trying to kill me, besides the bloodthirsty clouds of gnats of course. So far I liked the South. I liked the people and their attitude, but I sure could do without all of the damned gnats, mosquitoes, chiggers, ticks and other things interested in eating me.

As I approached the remains of the old slave quarters, I noticed one solid piece of construction not destroyed down to its foundations. It was a tiny building, slightly lopsided from settling over time, probably only ten feet across, but constructed out of thick-mortared stones. There was a very heavy door, but it was hanging open on massive rusty hinges. I debated it briefly, but decided to take a look inside the old relic.

It must have been some sort of prison cell for the slaves so long ago. The interior of the room was empty, but the few small windows were blocked with thick steel bars set deep into the stones. Thin shafts of light pierced the gloom, but not nearly enough to see by. The inside of the door was banded with iron slats, and the door itself was constructed of ancient pieces of wood, almost big enough to serve as railroad ties. It was a construction far heavier than possibly needed to keep anyone from escaping. There was a latch on the doorframe where a big crossbeam could be set to keep the door closed, probably held in place by a long-since-missing chain and padlock. The air was stale and damp with mildew.

I entered the cell. It was dark. I blinked a few times, but my eyes were adjusted to the summer sunlight outside. Raising Abomination slightly from its tac sling, I activated the powerful weapon-mounted flashlight. The room was instantly flooded in brightness. Much better. The texture of the stone walls was strange. It took me a moment to understand exactly what it was that I was looking at.

Scratches. Tens of thousands of scratches. Some sort of hard and sharp implement had scratched every reachable surface. The only clear spots on the walls were more than ten feet high, but even then there were a few marks above that where the creator must have gotten a running start. I looked down. Even the floor was torn with a patchwork of deep marks. The marks were deep, as if struck into the rock with great force.

An involuntary shudder passed down my now-cold spine. I did not understand what had made the marks, but someone had spent a whole lot of time tearing at the tiny prison. It had to be hundreds of hours’ worth of either methodical work, or perhaps savage frenzy. Now uncomfortable, I left the flashlight on until I was back out in the sunlight.

Holly relieved me on guard duty a few hours later. I took a turn watching the security cameras. It was a monotonous job, but somebody had to do it.

At least the little room with the monitors had a ceiling fan. The central air had died, and none of us had been able to fix it. The security system was impressive: motion detectors, pressure sensors, and video in regular and thermal images. The most paranoid recluse would be proud to own this system. Very fitting for the home of a Monster Hunter.

Holly appeared on one of the screens. I was glad to see that she had paid attention to her lessons in tactics and was varying her route to keep any tunneling creatures from being able to set up an ambush. My earpiece crackled as she checked in.

“Nada. I almost wish that something would attack. This is boring,” she told me. On the monitor she moved the RPG to her other hand. “I would love to blast something. These things are awesome.”

“It worked pretty good for you back on that boat.”

“Yeah, you missed it since you were busy drowning. Turned those wights into chum. RPGs rock.” She went back to her patrol. I went back to my monitors.

An alarm sounded and a red light on the control panel started to flash. “We have company,” I said into the radio as I checked the appropriate camera. “A car is coming up the lane.”

Julie’s voice came over the radio. “Can you tell who it is?”

“Negative.”

There was a brief pause as she digested the information. “Everybody assemble toward the front. Except for Gretchen, stay back in case one of us is wounded. Holly, use the corner of the house as cover. Trip, you and me, front porch. Owen, second-floor balcony. Be ready for anything.”

“It’s daylight. At least it can’t be vampires,” I said as I left the control room and headed for my assigned area. I swung Abomination around my back, and grabbed the flattop AR-15 that was mounted over the doorway. If I needed to engage targets off the second floor, the .223 rifle would be better suited for that task than my relatively short-range shotgun. I chambered a round. I loved Julie’s idea of home decor. She had a weapon stashed every ten feet.

“It could be anything. We didn’t know the CO had gargoyles either,” Julie said. Now even she was using the abbreviated form.

“What if it’s the Feds?” asked Holly. “I’ve got an RPG,” she added helpfully.

“Hold your fire,” Julie ordered.

Somehow, I did not find that comforting. I found a spot on the balcony overlooking the front approach. I left the window closed. If I needed to shoot, I could do so through the glass, and there was no need to give away my position beforehand. I grabbed a nearby dresser and pulled it into position to use as a rest. I gazed through the 4X magnification of the Trijicon scope. The car was a new, black Mercedes, and it was approaching rapidly, spinning up a cloud of dust behind it. I put the illuminated reticle on the car’s windshield.

“I only see the driver . . . No visible passengers. But the windows are tinted. Hard to tell.”

“Roger that,” Julie responded. “Everybody get ready. I’ll walk out to meet them. It might just be somebody lost, or a salesman, or the Jehovah’s Witnesses or something.”

“J-Dubs, huh? Like I said, I’ve got a perfectly good RPG . . .” Holly offered.

“Mercedes is at two hundred yards and closing.”

“Mercedes?” she responded hopefully.

“Yes. A new black one,” I replied through my mike.

It was quiet. I watched the car pull into the courtyard and stop next to the dry fountain. The scope vibrated slightly as I waited for the driver to exit. We waited as the driver took his sweet time putting his sunglasses away and checking his hair in the interior mirror.

Finally the door opened and the driver’s expensive Italian shoes touched down on the gravel. I exhaled slowly, perfectly balanced, ready to shoot. Julie’s back appeared in my field of vision, quickly approaching the Mercedes. The man unfolded himself gracefully out of the vehicle. He was tall, handsome and wearing a finely tailored suit. Julie hugged the driver, and I watched her kiss him through 4X magnification.

Shit.

It was Grant Jefferson. The insufferable little ass-clown.

I put the safety back on the rifle, and moved the muzzle into an upward direction. I swore and violently kicked the helpless antique dresser. Grant Jefferson. Monster hunting legend . . . in his own mind at least. Brave hero who didn’t think twice about leaving me to die. Perhaps the most stuck-up prick I had ever met, and worst of all . . . Julie’s boyfriend.

I would have preferred vampires.

“Hello, Pitt.” Grant greeted me as I stomped down the stairs. “I’m glad to see you were able to escape those gargoyles.” He lied easily enough. I knew that if I had been pasted all over rural Alabama he wouldn’t have shed many tears. I resisted the urge to snap-shoot the scumbag right between the eyes.

“I bet you are,” I grunted.

“Owen saved my life,” Julie told him. “If it hadn’t been for him I’d be dead. He beat one of them to bits. Saved my dad too.”

“Really? Good job . . . Newbie,” Grant said. Trip entered behind them and rolled his eyes when he saw Grant.

“We had a little help.” I thought of the farmer with the NRA hat and elephant rifle. “Some folks aren’t too chicken-shit to risk their lives for somebody else.”

“Owen!” Julie snapped. “We don’t have time for that right now.”

Grant surprised me then. I had not known that the man had any humility in him at all. “No. That’s okay. I’ll admit, I made a tactical error. I didn’t think I could save you, so I retreated to a more advantageous position. It seemed like the prudent thing to do at the time.” He draped one arm casually over Julie’s shoulders.

I figured that was probably as close to an apology as he had ever mustered. I bit my tongue to keep from saying anything further. Holly entered from the back and Gretchen glided silently in from the kitchen. Julie shrugged out from under Grant’s arm and sat down. She was back to business.

“So what’s going on back at the compound?” Julie demanded. “And more important, how’s Doctor Nelson?”

Grant adjusted his silk tie as he spoke. He did not like being ordered around, but he knew his place. “The doctor’s going to be okay. He suffered a coronary, but he’s stable.” I breathed a sigh of relief.

“As for the compound, Myers and the Monster Control Bureau agents are still there. They want your father, badly. APBs have been issued for him, you and Pitt. They’re making life difficult. All of our personnel have been grounded until Ray Shackleford is found.”

“That sucks,” Julie said.

“There is good news, though. There have been undead attacks all over Georgia, Alabama and Eastern Mississippi. Looks like the seven split up to cause trouble. Over the last two days, newly created vampires, wights and zombies have wreaked havoc.”

“That’s good news?” Trip said incredulously.

“Sure is. The Feds are jumping, trying to contain the outbreaks and still watch the spots they think are Places of Power. Local law enforcement doesn’t have any idea what’s going on because the Feds are keeping them in the dark. Every National Guardsman and Reservist in the South has been called up on emergency duty. Local officials are panicking. The news is reporting it all as terrorist attacks and Homeland Security has moved most of the Southeast to condition red.”

“I’m still not grasping the ‘good’ part of that,” Trip replied.

Grant sighed in exasperation, as if baffled by the ignorance of Newbies. “Harbinger’s put the word out to all of the local officials who are on our side. The Governor’s office, state legislatures, even Congress and the Senate, pretty much every pro-Hunting politician.” I imagined that some of our bounty from the Antoine-Henri job had been used to grease a few palms as well. “They’re putting pressure on Myers to let us go so we can do our jobs. We have contracts with these states that we can’t currently fulfill because of the Feds. Lots of people are getting ticked off, and the worse the crisis gets, the more their complaints get heard by Myers’ bosses in Washington. The last thing that they want is for it to get so bad that the truth can’t be contained from the general populace.”

“So you think they’re going to let us go?” asked Holly. “The Feds are just going to back off?”

“I think so,” Grant said smugly. Which I took to mean that Harbinger thought so, and Grant liked to be right. “If there are more attacks tonight like there were last night, then they aren’t going to have much choice.”

“I’m surprised they’re doing this. It isn’t like vampires to provoke confrontation with humans. They’re powerful, but there are lots more of us than there are of them. Direct confrontation with the living usually gets them staked and chopped in short order. Why all of these attacks?” Julie mused.

“Because in three days, it isn’t going to matter,” I told them. “The seven are only here to help the Cursed One. They know that we’re onto them. They have nothing to lose. They attack. They create more undead. They cause confusion and spread human forces thin. That’s what they want.”

“Three days?” Grant asked in confusion.

“That’s when my dad says that they will use their artifact,” Julie said. “Come on, what else?”

He continued, “Harbinger doesn’t want to turn your dad over. He thinks the Feds have a leak. How else could the CO have known about Ray? The only people who know about him are us and them.” Grant seemed saddened that this news did not shock us.

“I told you so,” Trip said. I golf-clapped for him. He flipped me the bird. All in good fun of course.

Our visitor ignored our antics. “We learned some more things while you’ve been away.” He nodded in my general direction, not quite willing to actually mention any contributions I have made, but needing to emphasize the source of their intel. “We found the name Byreika. We think we know who he is, or maybe I should say, was.”

“The Old Man?” I was shocked.

He pulled a piece of paper out of his suit pocket. He carefully unfolded it and read. “Mordechai Byreika. Born in Lodz, Poland, in 1874. Freelance Monster Hunter. Did rather well for someone who worked solo, mostly in Eastern Europe. Last whereabouts were when he was arrested by Nazis in 1941, he was sent to a concentration camp, escaped, was recaptured, sent to another camp in 1943, and never heard from again.” Grant handed the paper over to me. There was a single grainy black-and-white photograph photocopied under the information.

It was him all right. Slightly younger, not quite as worn down by age and time, but still with the same hard eyes behind small glasses. I was sure of it. In the picture he was standing, with a rifle in hand, in front of the corpse of some sort of massive scaled monster. It was a trophy shot, the kind that you took as proof to collect on a bounty.

“Is that the man, Owen?” Julie asked, standing up and crowding next to me to see the picture. Trip and Holly followed closely, also curious to see. Gretchen was inscrutable under her burkha and shades. She wandered off toward the kitchen, probably bored and looking for something to eat.

“This is him. I’m sure of it. How did you find him?”

“His journal is in the archives. It was found on a contract mission to Prague back in the ’80s.”

“We collect information from old Hunters every chance we get. We aren’t any smarter than the old-timers, we’ve just learned from their experience,” Julie explained.

“Lee found it. He was cross-referencing everything in the archives, and the name stuck out. He remembered Pitt saying that name from his dreams.”

“Remind me to give Albert a fat bonus when we get back,” Julie said. “What’s in the journal?”

“Years and years of hunting, but if you skip to the end, he was after the CO. It was kind of like a quest for him. Killing that particular monster was his Holy Grail,” Grant told us. I found that a slightly ironic turn of phrase to use about a Jew. “Byreika studied him for years. He was sure that the creature’s physical body was someplace in Europe. His search led him to believe that the Nazis were in league with Lord Machado.”

“In league for what?” Holly asked.

“Complete and total control over time.”

“Sounds familiar,” I said.

“It’s worse. Byreika studied this for years. He was convinced that the CO had the ability, and the insanity, to do it. The only thing holding him back was that he needed a certain artifact that was protected by some sort of ancient guardian. Once it was taken from the guardian, it had to be taken to a certain place, at a certain time, and activated with a special blood sacrifice. The journal went into a lot of details about what he thought would happen if the CO was successful.”

“How bad?” all of us asked in unison.

“I don’t know, haven’t read it yet. But Harbinger absolutely freaked out. Said that we should shoot your dad rather than let anything come near him, including the Feds. Milo read it, and then he had to call the general authorities of his church. Even Sam didn’t look so good, and I didn’t even know that man’s brain was wired to understand fear. I mean, I’ve never seen those three scared of anything before, ever.”

“I’ve only seen them scared once,” Julie stated. I thought of her story, with the giant pupil looking through the rift into our universe.

“Literally the end of the world,” Grant told us as he adjusted the lapels of his expensive suit. “I mean, seriously, I’m a little nervous about the whole thing myself.”

Holly cleared her throat. “This might sound bad . . . and I’m sorry to be the one to bring it up, but if it’s that serious, why don’t we just kill Ray right now?”

“Holly!” Trip sputtered. “That would be murder.”

“Hey, I’m trying to be practical here,” Holly retorted. “Whole world dies, or one nutcase buys it, no offense, Julie . . .”

“None taken,” she said.

“Then I’m siding with the whole world. It’s a pretty sucky place, but I like it not destroyed. Let’s just plug Ray and bury him in the backyard,” Holly said. I reminded myself to stay on her good side. Trip looked disgusted. Grant seemed impressed by her logic. I was morally ambivalent, but it was too damn hot to have to dig a deep enough hole to hide a body.

“I’ve thought of that myself,” Julie told us. “But there’s one problem. Dad is probably not the only way for them to find their Place of Power. I mean, Dad found a way, so that information is out there somewhere. And on the other hand, he is our only way to find out where the Cursed One is going to be . . .”

“So we can be waiting for the son of a bitch,” I finished for her. My hand instinctively moved to the grip of my shotgun. “We need to make Ray talk.”

“Stick Holly in with him for ten minutes,” Trip said in disgust.

“Can I borrow your car battery and some jumper cables?” Holly batted her eyelashes innocently. “I’ve got fifty bucks says he talks.”

“Damn, woman, you have serious issues,” Trip said.

“Anything else, Grant?” Julie asked.

“Just one thing. The blood sacrifice to turn on this evil artifact . . . Byreika said that it had to come from a hero, a protector, a mystic champion.”

Apparently none of us had a clue what that meant. I shrugged. Personally I had had about enough with the mystic garbage.

“The blood has to come from the heart of a Monster Hunter.”

Chapter 19

The paper plate of ham and cheese grits was slightly heavy and oily in my hands. Needlessly polite, I knocked on the door.

“Ray, I brought you some dinner.”

He snarled at me from his bed, and jerked on the handcuff, but the heavy railing snapped his arm back. He was not having a good moment. His hair was wild, his skin was pale, and his eyes were unfocused. He looked as if he was listening to something far away.

“Ray? Are you with me, buddy? Hello . . . anybody home?” I set the plate of grits next to him. Once again, all I gave him was a plastic utensil, and if he could take me out with a spoon, he deserved to escape.

Gradually his face returned to normal. His eyes focused on the food, and then he looked up at me.

“Sorry. I was having an episode.” He sounded slightly confused.

“Not a problem.” I had no idea what medications he had been on at the asylum, but we had nothing to help him with here. “I brought you dinner.”

“Thanks.” He took the plate and dived into the food with gusto.

“Have you given any thought to telling us some more information, Ray?” I asked politely.

“Have you given any more thought to letting me go?”

“We’re talking about it,” I lied. “If you gave us a little more to go on, a little something to show good faith effort, we would probably be more inclined to just turn you loose.”

“I’ll tell you everything I know as soon as I’m free. I’ll call you from a payphone or something,” he answered as he swallowed his food without chewing. Bits of grits ran into his facial hair. “Honest.”

“Sure. I believe that.”

“No, really. Look, once I’m free, having the world destroyed doesn’t exactly fit my plans. I can’t hang out with the pretty senoritas if the clock for the universe isn’t ticking. I’m talking about a win-win situation.”

I tried a different tack. “We found Byreika’s journal. We know all about the Cursed One. We’re going to figure it out without you, Ray. We’ll figure it out soon enough. You help us now, you get on our good side, and then we can try to help you out.”

He laughed at me. “Do you think I’m stupid? Jeez, kid. I may be a little crazy but I still have an IQ of 160. I’ve read that book too. All you know now is how serious your problem is. That old Jew had a lot more questions than answers. Besides, he’s stuck in your head anyway, so you should already know all of this stuff.”

“Why is he stuck in my head? How can he communicate with me?” I pressed for any information that I could, hoping that he would slip.

“You can’t be serious? Really? Damn. My first impression was right, you are stupid. Earl must be hiring strictly by the benchpress now. If you haven’t figured out how that Old Man is trying to help you, then you really are up a creek. Even if I told you where to meet the Cursed One, you wouldn’t know what to do when you caught him.”

“What do you mean?”

“No mystery here, kid. I’m not Hannibal Lecter. I’m not trying to play mind games with you. I’m just surprised is all. You don’t even know who you are, do you?”

“I know exactly who I am.”

“If you did, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” He laughed at me again. “Oh shit. The world is screwed. Good night, kid. Shut the lights on your way out. Talk to me when you have a clue.”

I was heading to bed when I heard the raised voices. I hurried toward the noise, thinking that it might be some sort of emergency, but slowed down when I realized it was Grant arguing with Julie in her room. She sounded rather calm, but he sounded upset.

Probably should have kept walking, but showing a real lack of character, I decided to eavesdrop through the door.

“—could have at least tried.”

“Darné and his wights were right there. I swear, there was nothing I could have done except die along with him,” Grant pleaded. “I don’t like him, but you know I would never abandon another Hunter if there was a chance to save them, but there was no chance!”

“Well, he made it, so apparently you were wrong.”

I suddenly felt very smug.

There was an awkward pause on the other side of the door.

“I know . . .” Grant sounded tired. It was the first time I had heard genuine emotion in his voice. “I’ve been dwelling on it every minute since it happened. I misjudged, and that mistake left a man to die. I left a fellow Hunter to die alone . . .”

Was he crying?

“Grant, it’s okay, everyone makes mistakes.”

“I don’t . . . Sorry. I’ve got to go. See you in the morning,” Grant said. I moved away from the door as fast as I could remain silent, and made it about ten feet before the door opened. I spun around, as if I had been coming from the other direction.

Grant was in fact wiping his eyes as he closed Julie’s door behind him.

“Evening, Grant.”

“Pitt.” He nodded, then walked quickly in the other direction, his pride not able to show weakness to a rival. Especially a rival whom he had accidentally condemned to a horrible death, but I could tell by looking at him that it wasn’t an act. He really was torn up by his failure. Torn up, and hurting.

I didn’t feel so smug anymore.

Grant stayed the night. I still didn’t like the man one iota, but it was rather nice to have one more person to pull guard duty. While it was dark, it did not do us much good to have somebody on patrol outside, so instead, we all clustered in one suite of rooms centered around Ray Shackleford’s little prison. One person was awake at all times to walk the hall. The sensors had been rigged to alert us if anything bigger than a rabbit came within twenty feet of the house. We could have moved that perimeter back, but the number of deer in the woods would have been setting off alarms all night long.

Julie had taken extra precautions with Ray’s room. She had put motion detectors all around his bed. If he even thought about making an escape we would all know.

Personally, I didn’t think we had anything to really worry about. Nobody outside of Julie’s immediate circle of friends and family knew about the home. The Heart of Dixie Historical Preservation Society was an effective front, so even if the Feds did have somebody leaking information to Lord Machado, they didn’t know about this place.

I turned in for the evening. I put my armor on the ground next to the bed, weapons sitting on top. If I needed to find them quickly in the dark, it would not be a problem. I even left my pants on in case I needed to move in a hurry. My watch wasn’t until 2:00 a.m. I heard Holly’s boots echo in the hall. All of us were close enough that if anything bad happened, we would all know. The only people who slept far apart in a situation like this were the suckers in the horror movies.

Before I drifted off to sleep, I comforted myself that at least Grant was sleeping in a different room than Julie. I had no idea if that meant they weren’t as close as I feared, or if their relationship was currently on the rocks, like I hoped, or—worst-case scenario—Julie was just trying to be polite to the rest of us. I did not really know why or how I had fallen so hard for Julie Shackleford, but I had. She was by far the most interesting, smart and attractive woman I had ever known. I cringed when I remembered seeing her kissing Grant through the rifle scope. Now that was an unpleasant thought to fall asleep on.

“Hello again, Boy,” called the Old Man. He was still sitting on the stone steps of the crumbled and partially burned church. “Watch this as it goes now.” He spun his little carved toy on the steps. This time it stayed upright for nearly two whole seconds before it fell over. “See, is much better this time,” he said with obvious pride.

“Bravo,” I said as I walked through the snow toward him. Once again I was barefoot, but the cold was not uncomfortable beneath my soles. “And I always thought ghosts floated around in white sheets and rattled chains.”

“Ha. Boy thinks he is funny man now.”

“You are, or were, Mordechai Byreika. Born in Lodz, Poland. Monster Hunter.” He did not betray any noticeable reaction when I said that.

“Is good name. I not hear whole name in long time.”

“I guess. If you were alive you would be almost a hundred and thirty.”

“Is all? Time pass so slow when is stuck.”

“So you’re not alive, but you’re stuck. Just what are you?”

“I say before. Is no important. I just friend.” The Old Man scooped up his little makeshift dreidel and placed it in my hand. “Here, you take. Give to your childrens some day. Maybe they play with, and say, oy, is fun.”

I held the little toy in my palm. It really did look awful, but I did not have the heart to tell him since he seemed so proud. In his defense, he had been dead for sixty years. I imagined that would make a man’s carving skills a little rusty. “Thanks.” I tucked it into my pocket.

“Welcome. Now for me, you not worry. You stop Cursed One, you help me just fine. Maybe I get not stuck.” He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Who knows?”

“That was your mission in life. Stopping the Cursed One.”

“Is hard to remember.” He tapped one bony finger against his cranium. “Few things I know. Some I only think I know. But I know for sure one thing that is true. Time is short.”

“Ray Shackleford says three days. I suppose two now.”

“Yes. Sounds right. You must learn much very fast. Is up to you, no one else, Boy.”

“I know,” I answered. At this point, arguing about my purpose in life seemed rather silly, especially against the ghost in my head. “If you don’t mind me asking, how did you die? Last anybody heard, the Nazis had taken you.”

He hawked and spat a wad of phlegm into the snow. “Bastards. Some monsters are just men. Sometimes, worst kind of all is men. How I die? Is hard to say, is not important now.”

“Did it hurt?” It seemed a stupid question.

“Is stupid question. Of course hurt. Hurt when you died, yes?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Even in my dream state, the scar tissue that coated so much of my body was still thick and coarse. I thought that I had understood what pain was, until that day in my office showed me that I still had a lot to learn.

“You no guess. You know. Hurts to get cut open . . . Fine, I tell story, but is hard to remember. Nazis thought they could use Cursed One. Helped him . . . tried to do then, what he trying to do again now. Cursed One was weaker then, his body was not solid yet. He was like you, want to hurry, not want to learn. He could not get artifact himself, made deal with Nazi bastards. They stole artifact, hurt the Guardian, thought they kill, but not realize he not can die. Took to Place of Power. Here, this place, in my time.” He gestured around the church.

“What happened?”

“Cursed One was fool. Time was wrong. Artifact not work. Tattooed Man came, fought here in the snow, destroyed them, took back artifact.” That explained the strange dream that I had had in the hospital while I was waiting for Myers’ phone call.

“He hid the artifact again. This time vampires help Cursed One. They steal artifact. Bury Guardian under mountain, but even that not kill him.”

I shook my head. I had dreamed that. “No, I mean you. What happened to you?”

He shrugged. “I not important, Boy. Important thing is beat them now.”

“We will,” I promised.

“Only before, they wrong. They fail, and they die. Guardian kill them. Now Cursed One is smarter and stronger. He not mess up again this time. . . . Enough. I must show you more of his memories.”

“I hate seeing through his eyes. It’s like I’m not myself. It’s like I’m actually in his head. I don’t like it at all.”

“Is . . . how you say . . . necessary. I understand, Boy. Is shitty feeling to be stuck in some other body’s head. Now shush. You must learn.”

At this point I knew the drill. I bowed down so he could place his hands on my head.

“If any consolation, inside your head is much nicer than his.”

“Thanks.”

Lord Machado’s memories.

A giant pyramid, deep in the jungle. The midnight moon fat and heavy over us. The climb to the top of the huge, ancient thing, covered in strange, faded carvings, leaving us sweat-soaked and exhausted beneath our armor. Far removed from the conquered city, nearly two weeks deep into the trackless wilderness, and this lone edifice was the only thing to be seen.

This was the Place of Power.

The sacrifice was prepared.

Tonight was the night. Tonight the ceremony would be comp—

The vision suddenly ended. I was sitting on the steps of the church. The Old Man jerked his hands back in surprise. His eyes widened behind his glasses.

“What happened? Why did the memory stop?” I felt as if I had been on the verge of learning something. I did not know what, but something important about stopping the Cursed One.

“Boy. You must go. Great danger comes!” He grabbed his cane, holding it in his frail hands like it was a weapon. The reaction seemed purely instinctual.

“What?” I jumped to my feet, but the imaginary world of the battle-damaged village was still as unnaturally quiet as ever. “What comes?”

“Go!” he shouted.

I woke with a start and flung the sheets aside. It was dark inside the little guest room, but I knew right where I had left my weapons. I reached down and grabbed Abomination, my finger flipped the selector down to semiauto, and I waited. The room was quiet except for my breathing and the pounding of blood in my head. I listened. The house itself was eerily silent.

“Owen.”

I pointed the shotgun at the voice but froze before my finger moved to the trigger. Julie’s form was silhouetted in the faint light coming from the window. I gasped and moved the muzzle aside.

“Julie? I almost shot you.” I was surprised. I had not sensed her until she had spoken. She glided across the room toward me. In the dark, I could barely make out that she was wearing nothing but a small nightgown that stirred slightly in the breeze.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. It was a stupid question.

“Shh.” She climbed onto the bed. She brushed the shotgun aside as she crawled over my legs, hiking up the flimsy nightgown as she went. Julie’s lips sought mine, found them. She pushed me down, kissing me, running her face down my neck. Her hands pulled at my shirt, caressing the lines of scar tissue across my chest.

I responded. Clumsily I rubbed my hands over her body, feeling the silky gown slide about over her skin. I forgot about my dream, I forgot about the warning. Ever since I had met her I had wanted to be with her, but I had doubted that it would ever happen. I doubted, but apparently I had been wrong.

I was in love with Julie Shackleford, and she had come to me in the night. I did not care about anything other than that.

The breeze stung the sweat on my arms.

Breeze?

Why was my window open?

I froze. She did not stop moving against me. She licked my neck hungrily, excitedly. My throat was damp. I could not feel her breath.

She was not breathing.

Realization hit me like a ton of bricks. “NO!” I shouted as I twisted away.

Seemingly surprised at the interruption, she fought me, pushing herself down against my throat. I took my hands from her body and grabbed her by the hair. I tried to pull her head away from my neck. She was stronger than I was, impossibly strong. Using my weight and a whole lot of desperation, I rolled off of the bed and took her with me. We crashed to the floor.

Razor-white teeth flashed in the moonlight. She was still trying to bite me. I struggled, shouting for help, and she swatted me in the face. My cranium bounced off of the floorboards.

In the last minute, I had been asleep, surprised, confused, then horny, followed by terrified, but now I was just pissed off.

I hit her again and again. She jumped off of me with unnatural speed, landing on her feet. I kicked at her, but she caught my bare ankle, picked me up as if I was a child, and swung me violently into the wall. I impacted sideways, broke several boards and fell painfully to the floor.

She grabbed me by the back of my neck and jerked me to my feet. I grasped her much smaller hands and tried to pry them away; it was a futile effort. I might as well have been bending steel bars. The voice was definitely not Julie’s.

“Quit fighting. You belong to me now.”

The lights came on. She twisted me around so that I faced the door.

The real Julie Shackleford stood in the doorway, pistol in hand. I looked directly down the .45 caliber hole in the barrel as I heard the safety snick off. This Julie was dressed, armed, and she looked really mad.

“Stinking vamps. You heard him. No means no.” She braced herself against the doorjamb, looking for a clear shot. The clamplike grip around my neck moved me into position as a human shield. I felt another hand grab onto my shoulder as the vampire peered around me. The pain was incredible, and the threat was unspoken. If Julie shot, then the undead would snap my neck.

The grip on my neck intensified, cutting off some of the blood flow to my brain. The vampire spoke. The voice sounded almost like Julie with a more pronounced accent, but somehow dusty with age, as if not used to speaking often.

“Hi, honey . . . I’m home.”

Julie’s jaw dropped open in surprise. She blinked several times, and shook her head. It looked like she was about to pass out from shock. The muzzle of her 1911 dipped slightly as her shooting stance fell apart.

“Mom?”

Not good, I thought to myself.

“Julie. You’re all grown up. Look at you.”

“Mom?” Julie refocused, the gun moved back into position. “But, but you’re dead.”

The vampire moved me slightly as she conversed with her daughter. “I’m not dead, honey. I’m right here. Everything is going to be just fine.”

Holly appeared in the doorway, she raised her rifle and pointed it at my head as well. Now that made me real nervous. Though she was training hard and getting better, she was still a pretty lousy shot. If I had to choose between the emotionally stunned sharpshooter or the Newbie, I knew which one I wanted to take the shot. I managed to grunt out one request.

“Hol . . . let . . . Julie . . . shoot . . . ugh.” The vampire shook me like a rag doll.

“Shut it, blood bag,” the creature hissed. “I’m having a conversation here.”

“Let him go, bitch,” Holly commanded. She tucked her face down tight against the stock and peered through the sights. “Or I’ll blow your brains out.”

“You can’t be here. You haven’t been invited,” Julie said. She sounded rather confused.

“This is my home,” she replied. “I don’t need an invitation.”

“Mom. Please. This can’t be happening. You disappeared. We thought you were dead.”

“Come on, honey. You had to have suspected this. You knew what I was working on when I left. You never found my body.” I could hear the gentle smile creep into the creature’s voice, trying to once again be the loving parent. “I’m just here for your daddy,” the vampire said soothingly.

“Julie, you have one fucked up family,” Holly stated.

“Ack . . . Ugh . . .” I agreed.

I heard rapid speaking in the hallway, a desperate call for help. Trip stepped quickly into the room behind Holly. He still had his cell phone in one hand. He moved off to the side as he raised his subgun. Now I had three weapons pointed at my head, and the triangulation of fire was giving the vampire less room to hide. She backed up, dragging my heavy bulk along easily. We were backed into a corner.

“Mom. How could you become . . . become one of them?” Julie asked plaintively.

“I didn’t have much choice, dear. But once you get used to it, it is wonderful. I can do things that you can’t even imagine. I can feel things that would stop your heart if you experienced them. I have eternal youth and beauty. Come with me. . . . We can take your daddy. The change will be good for him. It will fix his mind. We can be a family again.”

“Never,” Julie said with determination. Her brown eyes narrowed as she concentrated on her front sight.

“Suit yourself, dear. But it beats being a rotting piece of meat . . . like your boyfriend here is going to be if you don’t back the hell off of me.” She picked me up off of the ground. I cringed as my vertebrae popped. All pretenses of motherly love vanished. “I didn’t want to kill you, honey, but if you push me, then I don’t have a choice. I’m taking your daddy back no matter what.”

“You got three guns on you. Kind of stupid to be making demands,” Holly said. The vampire hissed at her. “I hate vampires, sister, give me a reason.”

“I’m a Master now. I’m a queen in my world. You can’t even begin to understand what I can do. This is your last chance.”

“You’re too young to be a Master,” Julie stated calmly. She stayed framed in the doorway. The other two slowly began to spread out even further. Holly looked angry. Trip looked scared but determined. Fingers moved onto triggers. Somebody was going to shoot at any second. I could feel it. I tried to make myself as small a target as possible. That is very difficult if you happen to look like me.

“Too young? Am I now? Poor kid. Just like your dad. Nose always in a book, thinking that you understand what’s really going on. I was a Hunter once myself. I know what you know. And let me tell you, you’re wrong. It isn’t about time, honey, it’s about the blood. The power is in the blood that makes you, and in the blood that you take. I was made by the strongest of them all, and I’ve taken so much blood and so many lives that you can’t even begin to understand. I have swum in rivers of it. I’ve torn the life out of ten thousand beating hearts, and you will be next. Now give me your FATHER!” She shouted so loudly that dust shook from the ceiling and all of the humans in the room flinched.

Gretchen appeared in the hallway, short and cloaked in her burkha, armed only with what looked like a stick. She pointed at me and said a single word in a rumble almost as deep as her husband’s. “Pocket.”

I reached down, cringing against the pressure on my neck, trying hard to focus and maintain consciousness, my hand touched my pants pocket. There was something inside. I reached in. My fingers felt the lumpy texture of poorly whittled wood. The Old Man’s handmade toy.

It could not be there, but it was.

Without thinking, I pulled the impossible little carving out, and stuck it firmly against the hard fingers pressing into my neck. The toy disintegrated in a flash. The undead thing that used to be Susan Shackleford screamed when it touched her, an unbearable howl of burning agony. I was dropped to the ground as her hand burst into blue flames. I hit the floor and rolled away as the other three Hunters reacted and started pulling triggers.

It was the first time that I had seen more than a darkened silhouette of my midnight visitor. She really did look like Julie, but possibly even more hauntingly beautiful, ethereal, even stunning. Pale skin, dark hair, eyes that you could drown in, but then the resemblance stopped. For vampires were unnatural creatures, and right now this one was distracted by a burning hand, long fangs revealed in a frozen scream. A split-second snapshot of confusion and pain, and then the bullets hit.

Impact after impact tore into the creature, spraying black fluids across the room. Holes appeared in the wall behind as bullets passed through tissues and shattered bones. I scrambled for my shotgun as the uninhibited blasts assaulted and damaged my hearing. I grabbed Abomination, swung it around, and still sitting on the floor, fired a nine-round magazine of buckshot into the creature. One hundred and eight silver pellets struck her body in less than a second and a half, and at that limited range, most of them were still impacting as a solid penetrating mass.

The room was filled with drifting smoke from burning flesh and gunpowder. Brass tinkled, steel and plastic thumped on the floor as the four of us simultaneously dropped our spent magazines. I fumbled toward my armor and ammo pouches. Susan Shackleford was pressed solidly into the riddled corner, torn asunder, leaking black fluids, and broken by the carnage that we had unleashed. The flame on her hand gradually died down as she studied it through her shattered visage, seemingly in fascination. The creature stood upright. Her flesh had been pulverized and stripped from her bones.

She laughed at us. A long hard laugh, as if we had provided some serious entertainment. “Hunters are even more pathetic than I remember. I’m a Master now. Don’t you understand what that means?” Almost instantly her flesh was whole and white. I blinked, trying to understand how exactly that worked according to the laws of physics. She smiled widely, fangs gleaming. “You can’t kill me.”

“But we can try,” Julie answered as she dropped the slide on a fresh magazine. She snapped the pistol up and shot her mother right between the eyes. The creature’s smiling face rocked back briefly. I locked in a fresh magazine of buckshot, but before I could fire, the vampire moved in a blur of speed, crossing the room in a split second, almost too fast to track. Holly was knocked easily aside. Julie’s hands were jerked over her head as the vampire grabbed her.

“I offered you immortality, honey. That was not a choice. I’m going to give it to you whether you want it or not,” the vampire said in her sweet Southern belle voice. I snapped my shotgun up, but stopped, fearful of striking Julie. Trip’s UMP was reloaded, and he had a clean angle. He lifted the gun to fire, but it was torn out of his surprised hands. The vampire had moved so quickly that I had not even seen it strike. “You can either come back as a dimwitted slave, or you can partake of my blood and taste of my power.”

Julie struggled to release herself. “Never!” she shouted.

A small black flash charged in from the hallway. Gretchen screamed some sort of battle cry. She shook a narrow stick above her head, complete with feathers, leather braids, and what looked like a shrunken head. The vampire hissed, let go of Julie, and retreated back into the room. Gretchen pursued, still shaking her totem and shouting in her strange gravel-voiced language. The vampire fell back, cringing and recoiling, until it struck the wall.

“Holy symbol!” Holly shouted as she aimed her Vepr and pulled the trigger. The roar of the .308 was tremendous in the enclosed space. If I lived through this I was probably going to be deaf. The bullet tore into the vampire’s side. The rest of us followed suit, firing over and around Gretchen, who continued to wave the stick and hold the vampire back. I emptied my second magazine in a heartbeat, and grabbed another one. My hands were a blur as I reloaded. Our lives depended on putting some hurt into the evil thing, and I moved faster than I ever had before. Abomination barked again and again as I put solid silver slugs into the monster.

Susan Shackleford disappeared. More holes were torn into the already damaged wall before we realized and stopped shooting. One moment she had been there, the next she was gone. The shredded nightgown fell to the floor and lay in a puddle of black ooze. A thick gray mist spiraled slowly out of the open window.

“Did she just turn into fog?” Trip asked.

“I didn’t know they could really do that,” Holly said.

“We didn’t think they could,” Julie answered. “Hey, that was my nightie.”

“What?” I shouted. I was the only poor fool who had not been wearing their electronic earplugs.

“Reload. She’s going to go for my dad.”

That I understood. I did not have time to put on my whole suit of armor, so I threw the chest webbing on and buckled the pistol belt over that. At least I was going to have lots of ammo and a big honking knife. Gretchen pulled a leather pouch from under her burkha, dipped her gloved finger in and pulled out a blob of purple goo. She stuck it into my ears. It was cold and disgusting. After seeing what she had done with the road rash, however, I wasn’t going to protest.

“I called Earl. Help is on the way.” Trip kicked his broken UMP. “We’re gonna need bigger guns.”

“My room’s on the way. Let’s go.” Julie led the way into the hall, gun outstretched. “Where’s Grant?” she shouted back over her shoulder.

“Haven’t seen him,” Holly answered.

“His turn to be on guard. She probably killed him already. Bitch. Damn it!” Julie raged. “Come on.” I had thought that I had seen her angry before, but I had been wrong. “Trip, grab some hardware out of my room. Hurry.”

“What should I get?”

“Use your imagination! Now go!” She sprinted down the hall. I was right behind her. I was barefoot. The hardwood was cold under my soles. I pushed past Julie as we approached the door to her father’s room. There was no time for subtlety. I lowered one shoulder and with a roar I smashed into the heavy portal. It flew open as the frame broke under the impact.

Some thing was waiting for us, standing on the bed over the still form of Ray Shackleford.

Julie’s mother had changed into something horrible, something out of a bad nightmare. Her false cloak of humanity had been shed and now we could look upon the true face of a Master vampire. Her body had twisted and elongated, gray skin stretched tight over twitching muscles as she swiveled her long neck toward us, her eyes were solid red, and her mouth opened to reveal incisors as long as fingers and sharper than knives. Her beautiful features had contorted back, ears lengthened and swept up. I could see how the vampire legends had come to include bats.

She had Ray by the wrist, she tugged and the handcuff chain snapped. She snarled at us as we entered. “You don’t learn, do you?” Her voice had changed, becoming deeper and more animalistic. I raised my shotgun and fired. The slug struck her in the chest and exploded out the other side. I fired again as she hopped off of the bed, dragging Ray with her. The vampire grabbed the heavy wrought-iron frame and effortlessly hurled it toward us, several hundred pounds of furniture turned into a missile. The bed struck and I was hurled backwards into the hall. I crashed into Julie, and we both sprawled to the floor.

I opened my eyes. Julie was lying inches away, profile crushed painfully against the floor. “We have to shoot my dad,” she cried as she tried to rise. “Don’t let her take him.”

“Got it,” Holly stated as she stepped over us. The bed was lying sideways, blocking the doorway. She raised her Vepr over the obstacle and fired wildly into the room, emptying the twenty-round magazine in an instant. I surged to my feet and pushed the bed out of the way, Abomination held in one hand, ready to shoot as soon as I had a target.

There was nothing but a hole in the floor. Boards had been pulverized into sawdust, and the creature had dropped through, taking Ray with her.

“Aw hell,” I said. If Ray fell into the hands of the Cursed One, the world was pretty much screwed. I could see no movement down the dark hole.

“Don’t let her take him. Do whatever you have to do,” Julie ordered. She stepped to the edge of the ragged hole, knelt down, and without hesitation began to descend. Tactically it was a stupid move to crawl blindly after a superpowerful undead, but we did not have any choice other than pursuit. She looked up at me before she dropped into the opening. I could not tell if her features were betraying fear or sadness. She disappeared into the dark hole.

“Clear!” she shouted.

I followed. My torso barely fit through the jagged opening, I leveraged myself down as best as possible, dangled from my fingertips, and then bent my knees and dropped the last four feet. I landed with a thud. Julie flipped the lights on. We were in the guest bedroom that had served as Gretchen’s hospital. We were alone.

“Split up. Find them,” she shouted up through the hole. “You three take the stairs.”

“But if we split up, we’re easy targets.”

“Doesn’t matter, we just need to stay alive long enough to kill Dad.” She sounded desperate. “I’ll head for the kitchen, you take the family room. Hurry.”

“All right.” I wanted to tell her to be careful. I wanted to tell her to stay alive. I wanted to tell her to be reasonable, and let me stay with her. But there was just no time. I fled the room, turning the lights on as I went. The mansion was huge, and the impossibly fast creature could be anywhere, or she could have already have fled.

No. She was going to stay and finish her work tonight. She had said that she was going to take Julie, and give her the gift of twisted immortality. Somehow I knew that Susan was still here in her ancestral home. She was here. I could feel it, and she had the one person who could help the Cursed One. I had to kill Ray before he could talk.

The doors to the family room crashed open when I kicked them with my bare foot. I swept in fast, shotgun at the ready. I activated the flashlight. I had no idea where the light switch was in the large room. Dozens of Shackleford faces stared down at me from their portraits. I stabbed the beam quickly into each corner, across furniture and construction in progress, and remembering my lessons from the Antoine-Henri, I shined the light on the ceiling as well. Nothing.

I ran for the next set of doors. The ballroom. I did not really know what I was going to do if I stumbled across the enemy. She had moved so quickly that I could scarcely believe my own eyes. Hopefully I would have time to blow Ray’s brains out before Susan tore my head off. I really wished that I had Gretchen and her faith right about then. I knew that I did not have time to gain religion in the next few seconds, but it sure would have been nice.

The doors opened. I stepped quickly into the ancient ballroom. I heard a noise, something wet and slurping. I shined the Surefire light across the walls. The old-fashioned mirrors reflected the brilliant beam, over and over, refracting seemingly without end from all of the reflective surfaces. Even the chandelier was briefly lit. My reflection stared back at me from twenty mirrors, but there was another reflection as well. Ray Shackle-ford was in the center of the room, legs sprawled on the floor, head tilted back and mouth lifelessly open, torso slowly rocking, unsupported at an impossible angle as if he were held up with wires. I turned to face the center of the dance floor.

He was not unsupported at all. Vampires just didn’t cast reflections. His wife held him, cradled in her arms. She was in human form again, squatting, with her naked back toward me. She was feeding from Ray’s neck. She stopped drinking when the beam struck her. Susan lifted her dripping face and kissed her husband tenderly on the forehead, leaving a crimson lip imprint, before letting him drop limply to the ground. She looked at me and smiled. Her eyes reflected the light like a cat. She licked the blood from her lips.

“We have some unfinished business, you and I.” She wiped her forearm across her face, and smeared blood down her bare chest. She strode wantonly toward me. I was terrified. I snapped Abomination to my shoulder, aimed at Ray’s brain cage, and squeezed the trigger. It might have been murder, but the fate of the world was at stake.

Nothing happened.

I could feel the texture of the metal beneath the joint of my finger, but it wouldn’t respond. I concentrated, but I could not force myself to pull the trigger. My hand would not respond to my brain. I could feel her presence, boring into me, her iron will testing itself against mine. She walked right into the gun, putting the muzzle directly between her breasts and over her heart. I could not fire. My body was frozen. I could not even move.

“You are a strong one,” she told me, “but your human will is no match for mine.” She dragged one fingernail under my eye, opening the skin and spilling blood down my cheek. A black presence pushed against my conscious mind, probing it violently, relentlessly. “Tell me, how did you hurt me? How did you burn me? Nothing can inflict pain upon a Master, but that did.”

I tried to speak through rigidly clenched jaws. I fought a battle inside my skull, a fiercer fight than anything I had ever experienced before, a struggle for the very control of my body. The black weight pressed down hard, and unfortunately for me, this was an unfamiliar battleground.

“Tell me your secret, Hunter. Tell me and I will give you a gift. I can see it in your mind, the very thing you desire most.” She smiled seductively. “Let go of your secrets, join me, and I will give you my daughter. She can be yours forever.”

The blackness encroached into my vision, I could feel the tendrils of her power crawling deep into my mind, and I was powerless to stop it. I did not know how to defeat something with no physical body. Pain began to emanate from my skull, rippling down my paralyzed spine, and searing every nerve in agony. I fought on, I did not know how, but I knew that I fought.

“I just have to say, Hunter, you have the strongest will of any mortal I have ever encountered. You’ll make a good servant for Lord Machado.” I watched in horror as her razor fangs extended. I knew what was going to come next. She would rip me open and drain my blood. Either she would let me just die to rise again as a near-mindless undead, or she would open her own veins and force me to partake of her blood, and I would become a horrible beast in her image. I despaired, but I fought on.

Boy. Let me help.

I heard the comforting voice of the Old Man. Suddenly I had hope. Something else joined my internal struggle, another presence took up the fight, the blackness paused, and was then overwhelmed and pushed aside. I gasped in relief as my muscles unlocked.

Susan stopped, her teeth hovering centimeters from my throat. “How—”

Abomination cut her off as a solid ounce of silver exploded through her black heart. She stumbled in surprise. I felt the Old Man’s presence leave my body to continue his assault against her mind.

“You want my secrets?” BOOM. BOOM. I shot her twice through the face. “You really want to know?” BOOM. BOOM. I shot her in the throat and chin. “There is no secret . . .” BOOM. A slug pierced through her brain, rocking her back. “I just hate monsters!” CLICK. I released the silver bayonet. It locked into place with a snap. “So go to hell . . .” I slammed the broad blade through her torso and released the shotgun as I reached for my knife. “And die . . .” THWACK. The ganga ram’s blade embedded halfway through her throat, lodging against her hardened spine. Black fluids and fresh red blood geysered forth. “You evil bitch!” I wrenched the big blade violently free.

She grabbed my shotgun and pulled the blade out. Abomination was still slung to my body. She swung it around and I was dragged along. I was launched hard across the dance floor. I crashed and skidded, coming to a stop next to Ray Shackleford. The big, red lip prints on his forehead would have looked silly if our situation had not been so deadly serious.

Susan twisted her head around as her wounds closed. I had not even slowed her down. She changed right before my eyes, lengthening, thickening, twisting into the gray killing machine that we had seen upstairs. Her brown eyes, so like Julie’s, filled with blood and turned into red pools of hate. I could feel the Old Man’s presence in the room with us, but after his initial surprise, he had nothing to offer against this creature.

I got to my knees as I pulled my STI and placed the .45 against Ray’s temple. He looked up at me weakly, and nodded. The vampire paused, pulsing and seething in its killing rage.

“Stop or I’ll waste him. Even you aren’t that fast.” I had about two and a half pounds of pressure on the three-pound trigger. I felt her will intrude against my own, but this time I was ready. I knew what was coming. I cannot explain the mechanism of it, but her attack was thwarted. This time my will was mine and mine alone.

“Mom!” Julie called from the entrance. An ominous hum emanated from the lit flamethrower in her hands. “Your invitation has been revoked. Get the hell out of my house!” She depressed the trigger.

The vampire was engulfed in a spray of pressurized napalm. The stream of jellified gasoline exploded in a wall of intense heat, setting the floor afire, and shattering several of the antique mirrors under the assault. I grabbed Ray by the collar and pulled him away as burning fuel splashed in every direction.

Trip appeared on the balcony above. “Run, Z!” he shouted as he leveled the grenade launcher at the inferno. He at least waited long enough for me to be out of the blast radius before launching a high-explosive round into the floor at the monster’s feet. The concussion was horrendous. The priceless chandelier fell from its mounting and crashed to earth, flying into millions of separate shards.

Susan’s burning body was flung against the far wall, shattering the glass doors to the veranda. Julie kept up a constant spray of napalm. Even the mightiest queen of the undead could not regenerate under that onslaught. The vampire smashed through the glass. I picked up Abomination and fired a grenade after her. My aim was off, but it was close enough to shred the burning flesh from her bones.

I heard Trip shouting. “Backblast! Backblast!” I looked up in time to see Holly steadying her RPG over her shoulder. Firing that with her back against a wall would probably be immediately fatal.

“Oh yeah,” she said, “damn it!” She threw the rocket-propelled grenade aside and retrieved her rifle. And she had been so looking forward to blasting something with it.

Julie followed her mother, keeping up the onslaught of fire and burning fuel. The ballroom was burning now, and it was spreading up the walls and toward the ceiling. The house was going up. She finally stopped, and the flamethrower’s stream died off to a small flame.

Her mother was on the burning veranda, a charred and curled skeleton, flesh turned to ash. The creature crumbled as it tried to move, revealing blackened and twisted bones. She slowly stood, ash falling away, new flesh and tissues already pulsing underneath.

“Won’t you just die already?” Julie screamed. She was crying. My heart went out to her. Her home was burning down, and her undead mother was intent on drinking her blood. It was a really crappy evening by any standard.

Then something strange happened. One second the room was burning, fire licking around us, scalding us with intense heat, and the next second it just stopped. The flames were extinguished, leaving only smoking embers. The temperature dropped at least seventy degrees almost instantly, as if we had just stepped into a walk-in freezer. My breath came out in a cloud of ice vapor. The remaining mirrors fogged up and cracked.

“What the hell is happening?” Holly asked quietly, her voice trembling.

I did not know. But I took the opportunity to reload a fresh grenade into Abomination’s underslung launcher. My fingers fumbled clumsily, suddenly nerve-deadened by the cold. I shivered, and my teeth began to clatter together. A horrible feeling of dread traveled down my spine.

“Who’s that?” Trip asked. His tone betrayed his fear.

I looked up in time to see a second figure appear on the veranda. This one was a gaunt man, with greasily slicked-back hair and a narrow hatchet face. He was wearing a full-length trench coat. His bearing was ramrod straight, his movements were unnaturally sharp and crisp. The tall man paused beside the scorched vampire. He stood at parade rest. It was the lead vampire from my dream. Lord Machado’s lieutenant. Susan’s blackened form bowed before him. He placed one gloved hand on her head.

“You have failed me, Susan. I am most displeased.” His voice was deep and had a precise German or Austrian accent.

I could still feel the Old Man’s presence in the ballroom. The ghost surged with anger toward the new intruder.

“Forgive me, Jaeger,” she rasped. Her vocal cords had been burned seconds before, and she could barely speak. “I didn’t kill them. But I have learned of the Place. My husband told me.”

“Excellent.” He patted Susan on the head, scattering ashes from her skull. Then he turned his attention on us. “You are in luck that I do not have an invitation. Be warned. Do not trifle in our affairs. Or it will be your death.” The Master vampire looked upwards as he heard something. The perimeter alarm sounded. Helicopter blades beat in the distance. Company was on the way.

He glared at me in particular. “If it isn’t Byreika and his oafish friend.” I could feel the hate emanating from the Old Man toward the vampire. It was almost a physical thing. “You are out of your league, Juden. I am surprised at your resourcefulness. None of the others that have been used have been able to come back to this world. You ever surprise me, but in the end, you are nothing.”

We will see, Nazi bastard son of bitch.

The hatchet-faced vampire smiled, showing us his razor teeth. “You amuse me, Old Man. Your kind always has. . . . Come, Susan. We have much work to do.” He faded into the darkness and was gone. The temperature slowly began to climb to normal levels.

Susan Shackleford was whole once again. She brushed back her hair, knocking the remaining ashes free. The beautiful vampire was savagely angry.

“You will be mine again, honey. Just you wait.”

“Don’t call me honey. You’re not really my mom.”

“Whatever you have to tell yourself to keep the nightmares away, honey. I love you.” She slowly backed into the shadows, fading away until only her eyes were visible. She blinked and they too were gone into the night.

Chapter 20

I knelt at Ray Shackleford’s side. He had been savagely bitten and torn open. I pressed my hands against his neck to try to staunch the flow of blood, but it just kept pouring out.

“I’m sorry,” he rasped.

“Just relax. You’re going to be okay,” I lied. His pulse was very weak. “Gretchen!” I screamed.

“Susan. She took it from my mind. I couldn’t stop her.” He groaned in pain.

“Dad.” Julie fell to her knees, the super-hot flamethrower clattering to the floor next to her.

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.” He coughed, and blood bubbled from his lips. “I never wanted to hurt anyone. I just loved her so much. I couldn’t let her go.”

“It’s okay, Dad,” she gasped, grabbing his hands. Tears cut a path down her soot-blackened face.

“I didn’t know . . . vampire . . . that’s why the spell failed.” He was growing weaker. “Forgive me.”

“I forgive you,” she cried. “I forgive you. Just hang on.”

Gretchen appeared. She pushed me aside and pressed a cloth against Ray’s savaged throat. She wiped away enough blood to get a good look and then she immediately went to work with a small kit of primitive tools. I backed away, so as not to disturb the healer in her work. Trip and Holly were standing back, watching the veranda, weapons at the ready. The helicopters were louder now.

“We have company,” Holly said. “Feds.”

“Listen . . . the Place . . . Natchy Bottom.”

“Mississippi?” I asked. Milo had warned us briefly about it during our trip to visit the Elves.

“Yes . . . Deep down . . . Hidden . . . Talk to the Wendigo.” He closed his eyes. Gretchen looked up at Julie and shook her head slowly. “Julie . . . I love you.” His voice was barely audible. “I’m so sorry.”

“I love you too, Dad,” she whispered. Only minutes before, she had been prepared to kill him, but now at the moment of his incipient death, she had to confront her feelings for her father. My heart ached for her.

The helicopters were overhead. Searchlights stabbed down onto the property as federal agents fast-roped onto the grounds. A loudspeaker boomed as directions were shouted at us. “Drop your weapons. Do not move.” An Apache hovered low, beating the air, causing the broken remains of the veranda doors to rock closed. The 30mm chain gun was aimed directly at us.

We had no choice but to comply. I removed Abomination and pushed it away, then unbuckled the pistol belt and set it aside as well. Trip and Holly did as they were told. Julie was still holding her father’s hand.

“Julie. Toss your gun.” I did not know if the Feds would just blast the whole house, but I didn’t want to provoke them. “Hey. Julie. Listen to me.” She snapped out of it and angrily slid her pistol away. Black-clad troopers were approaching rapidly, guns leveled at us, flashlights pointing into our eyes.

“What do we do?” Trip asked. Julie did not answer. She just looked sullenly down at her dying father. I did not know what was going through her mind.

“Do what they say.”

I had a feeling it was about to get ugly.

The Feds hit the house hard and fast. Windows shattered as flash-bang grenades were thrown in. Doors were smashed open with handheld battering rams or blown off their hinges with shotgun breaching rounds. The Monster Control agents swarmed over us, shouting orders, and forcing us to the ground. I fared a bit better than the last time I had encountered them. The boot placed on my neck was not nearly as heavy as the last one.

“We have an injured man,” shouted one of the troopers. “It’s Shackleford. Send the medic.”

Gretchen howled in pain as one of the Feds booted her aside.

“Hey! She’s a doctor!” Trip shouted. He pushed against the Feds that were trying to handcuff him. The first blow landed directly behind his ear, sending him sprawling back to his knees. He was clubbed to the ground in a flurry of rifle butts, and then stomped and kicked into submission. Assholes.

A trooper who must have been a medic dealt with Ray. From my position on the ground I could make eye contact with Julie. She was sobbing, looking at her father’s still form, years of pent-up emotion all let free in a horrible moment of violence.

“Building secured,” stated one of the troopers. “Opening up the perimeter.” The noise level died off as the helicopters banked hard and away, covering more area, searching for vampires. I knew that they weren’t going to find anything.

“We have another Hunter in the house. He’s probably dead or injured,” Julie shouted at the Feds, thinking of the missing Grant.

“Lieutenant, medevac Shackleford out of here. Get this one up,” ordered a familiar voice. I was pulled up so that I could look into the stern face of Special Agent Myers. His personal attack dog, Agent Franks, stood behind him. Once again Myers was dressed in his cheap suit. The other agents were geared up in all of their body armor. “Pitt, what’s going on here?”

“Vampires. They came for Ray,” I answered truthfully, as Ray’s limp form was carried out on a stretcher to a waiting Blackhawk. He did not look good, and if he was not already dead, I knew that he soon would be. If his injuries didn’t kill him, standard operating procedure that I was well familiar with meant the Feds would take care of him.

“Where is the Place? Did you learn about the Place?” Myers shouted at me.

I did not know if I should mention it. I had been mistreated at their hands enough times that I had real doubts about how much I could trust them at all. On the other hand, somebody had to stop the Cursed One, and they were probably better equipped to do it than us.

“Talk,” he ordered. “This is serious business.”

“I know, Myers. Damn it. It’s in . . .”

“Owen. Don’t tell them!” Julie shouted. One of the troopers kicked her in the ribs. She cried out in pain.

“Stop that!” I shouted. Franks brushed past Myers and slugged me in the side of the face. It was brutally hard. My head snapped back on my neck, and I was only kept from falling by the Feds that held my arms.

“Tell us where, Mr. Pitt!” Myers shouted. “We’re at condition red. None of you have any civil rights at this moment, so we will beat it out of you if necessary. The clock is ticking.” Franks punched me in the stomach. My abdominal muscles seized up in agony and I wheezed for air. The man could certainly throw a punch. I swear that he had to beat on sides of beef like Rocky or something to develop a punch like that. I did not know why Julie did not want me to tell them about Natchy Bottom, but if she said not to, I trusted her. I knew this was going to hurt.

“Kiss off, Myers. I ain’t telling you shit,” I gasped. WHAM. That hit compressed my stomach back into my spine. He hit me hard enough to make my dog bleed. And I don’t even own a dog.

“Myers. You were MHI once. You can’t do this,” Julie pleaded.

“Why not, Julie?” he retorted. “Don’t you understand what is at stake here?”

“The fate of the world,” she answered. “Yes, we know.”

“So just tell us where to go and we’ll be waiting for him.” He sounded very reasonable. I couldn’t breathe.

“Sanctuary,” she answered.

Myers scowled. Franks’ dark features drew up in confusion, obviously an emotion he didn’t like so he hit me again just to be on the safe side. I wheezed in agony.

Franks pulled back and cracked his knuckles one-handed. At least I had succeeded in making his hands sore. “What’s sanctuary?”

“They cut deals with some monsters,” Myers answered. “Sometimes they find something they decide isn’t really bad, even though it’s on the PUFF list. They let it go. They even hide them from us. Grant them sanctuary if you will. Like this thing here.” He gestured rudely toward Gretchen. “Her kind are fair game.”

“If you hurt her, I swear I’ll kill you,” I told Myers.

Franks raised an eyebrow, ready to make good on the organ donor sticker on my driver’s license. Myers put one small hand on the other agent’s thick arm. Franks looked disappointed.

“No need, Mr. Pitt. I’m no monster. She isn’t any threat.” He sounded sincere. “I’m just a man trying to serve my country. Right now you people are standing in my way of doing that.” He addressed Julie. “Listen, I’ll give you my word. Whatever you have living at the Place, we’ll leave it alone. We’re just after Lord Machado.”

Julie appeared to think about it. She winced under the weight of the Feds pushing down on her and put aside the pain of her new knowledge about her mother’s fate and her father’s apparent death. Finally she spoke, and when she did she was utterly calm. “I’ll tell you everything I know. But you have to leave MHI alone. Get out of the compound. Let us do our jobs. You can have the Place, you can be ready for the Cursed One. Give me your word that you’ll leave the sanctuary alone and you’re welcome to the rest.” I could see why she was the one that took care of the company’s contract negotiations.

“No,” Myers stated flatly. “Your gang of misfits is done as far as I’m concerned. Aiding and abetting a fugitive. Nope. MHI is finished. Once again, Monster Hunting is a government responsibility, just like it should be.”

“You bastard,” she spat. “We didn’t turn my dad over because we thought you had a leak to the Cursed One.”

“That’s absurd,” he replied. Which was true enough. The bad guys did not need information from us or the Feds to know about Ray, not when his own wife was working for the other team. Fat lot of good that knowledge did us now. “Look. I don’t like this at all. I’m not a violent person, but we don’t have time for your games.” He nodded toward his subordinate with obvious distaste. “Agent Franks. Do what you have to do. We need to know where the Place is.”

“Yes, sir.” The dark man looked at me emotionlessly. It was going to be a long night. Just then Myers’ radio crackled.

“Delta team. This is Bravo. There’s a car approaching, high rate of speed. Should we fire on it? Over.”

“Negative. Intercept at the gate,” he replied. “Expecting company?” he asked Julie.

“No. Just the vampire that ransacked my home and killed my dad,” she stated flatly.

The radio again: “Sir, it appears to be some of the Hunters from the MHI compound.”

“Who?” Myers asked.

“Earl Harbinger and a few others. He’s out of the vehicle and approaching the entrance. Moving to intercept.”

“Arrest them,” Myers responded. “Be careful; Harbinger is extremely dangerous.”

Julie made eye contact with me. She mouthed the words, “Get ready.” I nodded slightly. I did not know what was coming, but I was not going to let her down. I was not cuffed, but I had a Fed on each arm. So far I had not resisted, and they were merely holding me up to be Franks’ punching bag. There was another trooper by Julie, one by Gretchen, and as far as I could tell, three on Trip and Holly. All of them were well trained, heavily armed, and looking for an excuse to shoot us.

Everyone was startled as automatic gunfire erupted from the front of the house. Franks looked in that direction as his hand moved toward his holstered Glock. He did not see my bare foot sailing towards his crotch. I kicked him hard. Too bad he was wearing armor. I brought my foot down, and used my leverage and brute strength to swing the two Feds holding my arms into each other. They collided in an armored mass. I smashed an elbow into the first one’s jaw, and broke the second Fed’s nose with a left jab. They both went down.

The room exploded into confusion. The agent kneeling on Julie screamed in pain and fell over. Franks recovered with a small grimace and charged me. The other Feds went for their guns. We were about to get killed.

The door exploded inward and two agents were hurled through, landing and rolling painfully across the floor. Harbinger came in fast, charging directly into the agents standing over Trip and Holly. He went swiftly into the path of their rising muzzles. He attacked, dodged between the guns, struck the agents down with his bare hands, batted aside a rifle, grasped the final Fed by his web gear and slung him back into the wall with a horrible crash.

I had never seen a man move that quickly.

Distracted by Harbinger’s superhuman display, I did not see Franks’ movement. He forced his palm into my face, pushing me off balance. He bladed off, protecting his right side, going for his pistol. I struggled forward, trying to reach his gun hand. Time slowed down. The pistol came up and out of the holster.

“Stop! Stop!” screamed Myers.

Franks froze. His Glock held in a tight, low retention position. Finger on the trigger. Indexed directly at my sternum. His eyes were locked on mine. If I moved at all, I was dead.

Julie was still lying on the floor, but had rolled far enough to reach the flamethrower. It was humming, pointed at Myers’ legs. The agent that she had knocked over had pressed his pistol into her back. Harbinger stood over the stunned forms of the other downed Feds. The Fed by Gretchen was holding his leg where her totem stick had stabbed him. Unfortunately he had raised his G36 and it was pointed at Gretchen’s head. I could not see most of the Feds’ expressions behind their black balaclavas, but I imagined that they were about as tense as I was. If one person twitched wrong, a whole bunch of us were going to get shot or immolated. It was the most screwed-up Mexican stand-off I had ever seen.

Another Fed entered the room, hands held above his head, Sam Haven pushing close behind with the muzzle of his pistol screwed into the back of the agent’s neck just under the helmet.

“Nobody move or I’ll waste this punk!” Sam shouted. He paused as he studied the complicated situation, before shrugging and spitting some tobacco juices. “Oh . . . never mind. Y’all are ahead of me.” He sounded rather disappointed.

“Don’t spit on the floor, you ape!” Julie ordered. It may have been scorched and blasted with shrapnel, but it was still her house.

Harbinger’s hands were empty of weapons, but after the display of physical prowess I had just seen, nobody was in a hurry to mess with him. Five Feds lay on the ground moaning or whimpering. He shouted down the hallway he had entered from, “Milo! How you doing?”

“Hurry up. There’s like a hundred Feds coming this way. And they looked pissed!”

“Myers. Turn on your damn phone,” Harbinger commanded. “Do it now.”

The Fed complied. He slowly reached into the pocket of his suit, pulled out the phone and turned it on. Immediately we all heard that annoying “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

“I hate that ring,” I said, as I looked over Franks’ Glock.

“Me too,” he agreed, not letting the gun waver at all.

“I shut it off when we landed. It’s kind of distracting on a raid,” Myers said defensively as he pushed the button to answer it. “This is Agent Myers.”

“Yes, I will hold for . . .” The senior agent sounded surprised. “Oh . . . Hello, sir . . . Sorry . . . I apologize . . . Yes, sir . . . Yes, sir . . . But this is outside the regular chain of command . . .” We heard half of the conversation. Myers seemed remarkably collected considering Julie had the flamethrower pointed at him. The agent pointing the rifle at Gretchen looked a little shaky. I hoped this did not take long. “But, sir . . . But . . . But . . . We can . . . But . . . Yes, sir . . . I understand . . .” We waited for the conversation to end. “Understood . . . Good-bye, sir.”

He refolded the phone and dropped it back into this pocket.

“Stand down,” he shouted. “Everybody stand down.” The guns in the ballroom slowly began to lower. Sam pulled his Sig 220 out of the back of the agent’s neck. Julie set the flamethrower down.

“Tell the guys outside that too!” Milo blurted from down the hall. “There’s a big black helicopter looking at me!”

Myers spoke into the radio. “Stand down. All units stand down. That is an order.”

Tense moments passed as everyone complied. Franks was the last to do so. With the Glock still pointing at my heart he told me simply, “I’ll get to kill you one of these days.” He slowly lowered the weapon and reholstered.

“Take a number,” I replied.

“Well, Harbinger. I’m surprised,” Myers said. He looked flustered and angry. He still reminded me of a professor, only now he looked like one who had just found out his tenure had been denied. “That’s outside the chain of command, but you know I’m not going to go against a cabinet-level appointee.”

“You heard him,” Harbinger stated shortly. “We have a truce. Y’all can get the hell out of here.”

“For now. As soon as I get orders from the Director, he’s going to be overridden, and then I’m going to arrest every single one of you for assaulting federal agents and aiding and abetting a fugitive.”

“I figure that will probably take more than forty-eight hours. So by then either the world is going to be destroyed or this is all a moot point. Until then you have your orders,” Harbinger said coldly. “You can take the Place. We clean up the local infestations. We tell you what we know. You leave us alone.”

The senior agent appeared to mull that over. The idea seemed to leave a bad taste in his mouth. “Fine. For now . . .” Myers said coldly. “We’ll see about that in the long term, Earl.”

I moved to help Julie stand. She looked shaky. Her wound had reopened, but there was not too much blood. She pushed me away. “I’m okay,” she said.

“Bull,” I stated. “Let me help you.” I took her by the arm.

“All units. We’re clear. Hold your fire. Prepare to pull out,” Myers ordered into the radio. The Feds attended to their injured. The five men that Harbinger had attacked were all stirring, though some looked to be nursing broken bones. “You better not have seriously hurt any of my men,” he told Harbinger. “I don’t care how important some people think you are, Earl, I’ll personally make sure your special status is revoked, and I’ll see to it you rot in prison forever.”

“I didn’t hurt them too bad,” Harbinger said simply. He spread his hands innocently, though he could not mask his predatory confidence. Somehow he had moved, weaponless, through a crowd of ready and armed men, and beaten down any of them that stood in his way. “They shouldn’t have tried to stop me.”

I remembered how Harbinger had saved me from Darné. At the time I had assumed that it had just been some sort of pro Monster Hunting trick, but after watching him dispatch the Feds with relative ease, I knew that something else was going on. “Just what the hell is he?” I said softly into Julie’s ear. Somehow Harbinger heard me from across the room. He winked.

“It’s a long story,” she replied brusquely. “Earl, Grant’s missing. Dad’s dead.”

“No,” Harbinger said. His face fell. “Aw hell.”

“My men have not reported any other Hunters on the premises,” Myers said. “They probably took your man.”

“Milo?” Harbinger shouted.

“I’m not getting Grant’s signal on GPS. It’s either broke or disabled. . . . He was wearing his armor, right?”

“Yes. He was on guard duty,” she shouted back down the hall.

“Sorry, Julie. I’ve got nothing.”

“He will be avenged,” Sam told her. The big cowboy was solemn. “I promise.”

“If it’s any consolation, I’m sorry. But we’re wasting time,” Myers stated. “I need a Place, and I need it now. You have my word. Whatever thing you have hiding out there, we won’t bother it.”

“Deal,” Harbinger said. “Julie?”

“Somewhere inside Natchy Bottom, Mississippi,” she told the room after an instant of hesitation. She would have to grieve later. “You know about it?”

“Yes. We know it,” the senior agent replied. “Bad place. Where though? That’s a lot of swamp to cover.”

“Dad said that it was hidden. You need to talk to the Wendigo to find out where.”

“Impossible,” Myers said. “Those are just Indian fairy tales.”

“Nope,” Harbinger said. “The Bottoms belong to him. We have an understanding.”

“Fine. We’ll handle it. You and your thugs can clean up the local undead outbreaks,” Myers snapped. “We’ll set up on the Place and blow the Cursed One to kingdom come.”

“One problem,” Julie said. “The Wendigo isn’t going to talk to you. You’re going to be wandering around the woods for weeks. You know what the Bottoms are like. The rules don’t apply there.”

“Let me guess,” Myers said. He exhaled slowly, apparently trying to control his anger. “This thing will talk to you people though.”

“He’ll only talk to me,” Harbinger said, before adding with a note of barely concealed disgust, “looks like we’re going with you.”

Myers cursed. The man had a remarkable gift for creative profanity.

“Looks like we get to work together,” I told Franks cheerfully.

The silent brute just nodded as he patted his Glock, doubtlessly contemplating the moment he would finally get to use it on me.

“This is it,” I said. “We know where the Cursed One is going to be. We finish this tomorrow—one way or the other.”

“About time,” Sam said. “Grant was one of us. That slimy bastard is gonna pay.” The big cowboy kicked at the gravel.

“Yeah,” Milo added with what was, for him, unusual somberness. He wore his night-vision monocular and scanned back and forth across the property.

The three of us were standing in the darkened driveway of the Shackleford ancestral home near the vehicles. We were waiting for the others. Gretchen was applying some first aid to Trip after the little bit of “stick time” he had received. Holly was grabbing some gear. Harbinger and Julie were standing about a hundred yards away, talking quietly between themselves. Apparently Julie had a few things that she needed to speak with him about privately. The Feds had left, quite a bit worse for wear after the beating that some of them had received from Harbinger.

“What do you think they did with him?” I asked. I did not like the way that we were talking about our companion as if he were already dead, but I could not realistically see much hope for the alternative.

“The Old Man’s journal said that they needed to sacrifice a Hunter to use their device,” Milo said. “I’m guessing that poor Grant is going to get himself sacrificed.”

“Sucky way to die,” Sam agreed.

“Do they need to keep him alive until the full moon? There is a possibility he could be alive still.”

“Maybe,” Milo said. “We can hope.” He sounded doubtful. Most of the seasoned Hunters’ missions involved search and destroy, rather than rescue.

Having eavesdropped on Grant’s contrition earlier made him somehow more human now, and made his being taken that much more difficult to stomach. But a tiny, ugly part of me hated him even more now, because I could see that Julie was taking his disappearance hard, and I found myself somehow jealous of someone who was probably already dead. We sat in silence for a few moments. In the distance I could see that Julie and Harbinger were arguing. She looked rather angry and animated as the senior Hunter tried to explain something.

“What do you think they’re fighting about?” I asked.

“I’m guessing she wants to know if Earl knew that Susan was a vampire,” Milo answered as he looked upward through the night vision. “I can never get over how many stars you can see through one of these things.”

“Did he know?”

“Beats me,” Sam answered. “We had our suspicions, of course. We had never found her body, and they had been hunting a vampire. I mean, I guess we all kind of thought about it, but none of us wanted to think it was a real possibility. You gotta understand, we loved Susan. The idea of having any of us turned to the other side . . . well, that . . . That just ain’t no good.”

“I’ve got a chainsaw with my name on it in my workshop,” Milo told us happily. “If I’m ever killed by undead, I want you guys to chop me up with it. It’s a good chainsaw.”

“I reckon it is, Milo. I would be honored to chop your head off,” Sam said. I worked with some interesting folks.

The lights in the house were extinguished. Trip, Holly and Gretchen joined us a moment later. Since we had blown holes in the ballroom, and the Feds had kicked in all of the doors and many of the windows, we could not even lock up anything other than the vault. I just hoped that nobody came up here and looted the place while we were gone.

Trip was limping and did not look very good. “Now I know how Rodney King felt,” he said through swollen gums. One eye was matted shut, and Gretchen had smeared him with some sort of foul-smelling cream.

“Yeah, but you ain’t gonna get no million-dollar settlement to blow on hookers and crack like he did,” Sam said wryly. “We’re just waiting for the boss and we can get out of here. We got us some monsters to kill.”

Julie and Harbinger continued fighting for another minute, before finally coming to some sort of terms. He hugged her as she sobbed on his shoulder.

“She’s had a tough night,” Milo said simply. Estranged father dead. Boyfriend missing. Mother revealed to be undead. Milo Anderson was a master of understatement. None of us disagreed.

“I’ve got a question,” Trip asked. “How come Grant didn’t sound the alarm? I woke up when I heard Owen shouting.”

“Probably snuck up on him,” I lied. In truth I had a pretty good idea of what had happened. Probably something similar to what Susan had tried on me, only Grant had probably not realized what was going on until it was too late.

Holly knew the truth. “Vampires can be seductive. You saw what she was wearing. She probably floated in as mist, put on some of Julie’s things, and bit Grant when he thought he was going to get lucky. Then she tried the same thing on Z here . . .” She pointed at me. “So did you score with your friend’s dead mom?”

“It sounds gross when you put it that way.” It didn’t do me much good to lie at that point. “I got to second base before I realized she wasn’t breathing,” I stammered with no small amount of embarrassment. “Hey, I thought she was Julie.” And then I felt really stupid for saying that. Luckily she was still standing far enough away to have not heard.

“Way to go, Big Guy.” Sam punched me in the shoulder. “If you had been a little dumber, you could have put a whole new meaning to ‘staking’ vampires.”

“That’s horrible,” Trip said as he pressed a bag of ice against the side of his head.

“Whatever. She would’ve bit you next,” Holly said.

“Probably not. I would have sounded the alarm,” he answered.

“Sure you would have . . . church boy.”

“No really, I’ve never . . .” He caught himself. “Uh . . . never mind.”

“No way.” Holly sounded stunned. “Are you saying . . .  No way. You’re what? Twenty-seven?”

Trip looked very uncomfortable.

“Saving it for marriage?” Milo interjected, looking alien with his massive beard poking out from under his night vision. “Good for you, Trip.” At least he had the Mormon contingent’s approval.

“I didn’t know you Rastafarians did that kind of thing,” Sam said. “I figured you all partied.”

“Baptist,” Trip said quickly.

“Oh, I just figured with the funky hair and whatnot. You should shave that thing then. You would look good.” Sam spat into the gravel. I made a mental note never to listen to the fashion advice of a man with a mullet and a puffy trucker hat.

“Yeah, you would look like Shaft,” I added helpfully. “Not the old one, the new one.”

“Chicks dig that on a black dude. Be sure to get yourself laid then, kid,” Sam told him with great confidence.

“But . . .  Wait . . . It’s a personal choice, damn it,” Trip sputtered.

“Okay guys. Here’s the plan.” Thankfully Harbinger interrupted. He lit a cigarette as he approached. It was back to business. Julie looked sad, but resolute and determined. The director just looked angry. “Back to base. Gear up. We will form an assault element. We’re going to meet the Feds in Natchy Bottom in the morning. Milo, load up everything you can think of. Julie, Sam, you two contact every other team in the country. Have them drop whatever they’re working on and get back here now. Our team hits the Bottoms, everybody else hits the local outbreaks.” He pointed at me. “Newbie squad, take a car. Take Gretchen back to her people.”

I had almost forgotten about the small woman. She was so quiet, and cloaked in her shapeless robes she nearly disappeared in the shadows. Harbinger bowed toward her in a sign of sincere respect, and said something in her language. It sounded like gurgles and clicks to me. She replied, gravelly and deep.

“Thank you, Gretchen. You bring great honor to your clan,” he said and turned back to me. “Get her home. She isn’t a warrior, but she performed like one tonight. MHI will always be in her clan’s debt. There is a little road just north of the compound. Follow it. She’ll show you the way. Don’t get jumpy if they get weird on you, remember they’re our friends.”

The group dispersed to their tasks. I grabbed Julie by the arm. “Wait.” I didn’t know what to say, but I needed to say something.

She turned around, great dark circles under her eyes. “What? What is it, Owen?”

“I’m sorry about your parents, and I’m sorry about Grant . . .”

She raised her hand and cut me off. “No. No you’re not.”

“No, I . . .” I stammered.

“You wanted Grant dead, didn’t you?” she snapped. “Well, looks like you got your wish.” She spun and walked away.

The compound was not that far away from the Shackleford home. We took Grant’s car. The interior was immaculate and the XM stations were all preprogrammed for classical music. At least I could hear again; Gretchen’s purple goo had worked well. Trip and Holly were in the back seat, and Gretchen rode up front. I passed the lane leading to the compound, and slowed down as Gretchen pointed out a tiny path cloaked in trees and moss. The narrow road was so overgrown with vegetation that the headlights only cut a small swath before us.

“This is it?” I asked her. She nodded, a movement barely perceptible beneath her robes. It was just after 3:00 a.m. but she was still wearing her mirrored shades. The Mercedes bumped through the foliage, and the undercarriage scraped as we dipped into the deep ruts. I rolled down the window. The chirping of insects was rhythmic and strong. A trio of cow skulls had been tied around a tree with leather cord. I knew that it was a sign that we were on Skippy’s property. “I love what you’ve done with the place.”

Gretchen clicked approvingly. We continued down the lane, deeper and deeper into the dark woods. Though the compound was only a few miles away, we seemed totally isolated from the world. The trees here were tall and the forest primeval. Glowing eyes reflected back at us as raccoons scurried away.

“This is kind of creepy,” Trip said.

“It isn’t so bad,” I answered. Then something huge sprinted across the road through the headlights. It was massive and covered in black fur, and it was gone in an instant. “What the hell was that?” I shouted as I stomped on the brakes. The Mercedes halted on the packed dirt, leaving us in a cloud of red dust. I rolled up the window without thinking.

“Deer?” asked Holly.

“That wasn’t no damn deer,” I said. It had looked more like a scurvy bear crossed with a lion. Maybe I had not been getting enough sleep. Gretchen said something unintelligible and made shooing motions for me to continue onward. Apparently, whatever the animal had been, it was of no serious concern to her.

Flickering lights appeared in the distance. Campfires. Big ones. We slowly rolled forward until we saw the structures of a tiny community. Perhaps village would be the best word. The little houses were clustered tightly together into a rough semicircle. Surprisingly enough the homes looked nice and well cared for, despite the strange decorations of skins, bones, hides, antlers and feathers that decorated all of them. The fires emanated from large basins that had been set at the compass points around the village. There was a central area between the homes, with what appeared to be some sort of shrine or religious stage.

A black-clad figure appeared in the headlights and waved as we approached. I recognized Skippy from his gait. Other figures appeared from the homes, all of them shorter than average, and several squat ones that must have been children. Many of them were hurriedly pulling on their masks or hoods. I parked the car next to some older-model pickup trucks. Before I had even shut the engine off Gretchen had bailed out of the vehicle and went running toward her husband. He picked her up and swung her around as they joyfully embraced. Several of the others joined them in a massive group hug.

I stepped out of the car. The air smelled of delicious roasting meat. The sounds that I first thought were angry noises actually were laughter coming from the reunited tribe. Some of the children began to play a game, running and chasing after each other. Skippy left the group when he saw me. Many of them studied us curiously from behind their tinted goggles or mirrored shades.

“Noble One . . . Thank . . . you . . . bringing . . . Grtxschnns . . . Gret chen . . . home.” He bowed down until his balaclava touched the ground. I bowed back.

“Thank you, Skippy. Gretchen saved our lives tonight. She healed our many wounds. And her faith and bravery turned away a Master vampire. If it wasn’t for her, many Hunters would have died.”

“She . . . brings honor . . . to clan?” He rose and spoke loudly in his language. There were some gasps of astonishment as they stepped away from Gretchen, and then bowed to her. I could not see her features, but by her mannerisms, I was guessing that she was slightly embarrassed by the display. After a few seconds they rose and went back to their merry greetings. Finally Gretchen was able to break away and approach us, the rest of the tribe following closely behind her, until finally the whole group was assembled quietly in front of the three of us.

Gretchen pointed at Trip, and said something to the others. There was much oohing and ahhing, and then they bowed toward him. Skippy’s people were big on the bowing.

“Uh . . . what’s going on?” he asked, running one hand through his dreads nervously.

“Dark Hunter . . . you fought . . . gub mint . . . agents . . . to protect Gret chen?” When he said government, the tribe booed.

“I guess,” he answered.

“Agents beat you . . .” He pointed at Trip’s face. “For protect her?”

“Yes. Really, it was no big deal . . . I—”

Skippy cut him off. He turned back to the tribe and loudly proclaimed: “Smrslal! Smrslal Aiee!” then to us, “Dark skin Hunter, Brother of War Chief, and . . . girl. Bring great honor. My clan . . . you one with . . . us. With honor . . . no need for hide.”

Skippy reached up and removed his glasses, revealing bright yellow eyes sunk deep into grayish-green tissue. He carefully folded and put the shades in a pocket, and began to remove his balaclava. One by one, the others did so as well. Even the little children removed their hoods, some needing the help of their mothers.

We had gained the trust and respect of the tribe. Honoring us as equals, they revealed their true selves. Their skin was bumpy, mottled, mostly green, some gray and some brown. They were either bald, or some with wispy white hair. Their lower jaws protruded, and tusklike teeth stuck past their lips. Most of their noses were squat, though some were raised up more like snouts. The eyes were yellow or pale blue, set under thick bone ridges and short foreheads. Their ears were long and pointy, and most if not all of them had facial piercings of bone or gold.

“Holy shit,” Holly mumbled.

“Orcs,” Trip said in awe. “I don’t believe it.”

Skippy’s pointed teeth ground together above his wide jaw, in what I believed was a smile. His yellow eyes twinkled as he clapped his hands above his head. “Urks! Yes. Clan of Gnrlwz, fist of North. Spear of . . . doom. Now clan of . . . M H I. Harb Anger . . . give us home. Give us work. Now are family. Join us . . . eat meat . . . dance.” He pointed at one of the others, who immediately turned and ran for what I thought was a shrine. The younger orc knelt and fiddled with something on the backside of the edifice, and massive hidden speakers started blaring. Metal. The orcs were playing heavy metal.

“JBL. Kick ass . . . sound system,” Skippy grunted at us. “Come! Party!” The entire tribe began to either bang their heads, dance wildly, or jump up and down with their hands extended above their heads, pointer and pinky fingers extended in the devil horns of classic rock. The children formed a mosh pit and began to slam each other about. The mothers looked on approvingly.

“Skippy, I wish that we could,” I shouted back over the sounds of Static X. “But we have a mission. We need to fly to Natchy Bottom in the morning.” The orcs danced. Giant wolves howled in the nearby forest. Of course, that explained the thing that had crossed the headlights. You can’t have orcs without wargs.

Skippy nodded. “Skip understand. I be there . . . Together . . . crush foes. Must take . . . care of clan . . . Then come. To fly into battle.” He bowed again. I returned the honor. “Thank you . . . Noble One.”

“Great honor, Skippy. Thank you.” We parted. I returned to the car.

Holly climbed into the front seat. Trip stood transfixed at the rear door, staring at the clan in wonder, as some of the giant wolves wandered out of the tree line and into the light of the fires. Little green children ran to crawl up on the horse-sized animals, playing with what to them were basically family pets. Pets with jaws that could snap a deer in half, but pets nonetheless. Skippy returned to Gretchen and they knocked their tusks together in what was probably the orcish equivalent of a kiss. I started the car. Finally Trip broke away from the sights and got in.

We drove down the lane. The raucous music died away as the distance increased. We did not speak. Trip stared out the window in silence. The Mercedes bumped and scraped as we bottomed out. It would take a pretty dedicated explorer to bother with this back road and now I could see that that was by design. It was a strange and secret community, but obviously one built upon strong family bonds of love. My spirits were lifted from my brief visit to Skippy’s people.

Finally Holly spoke. “Well, Trip. Satisfied now?”

“Huh?”

“Remember when we met the elves?”

He did not answer. But none of us could forget his disappointment on that day.

“Remember when you said that since there was so much secret evil, there had to be some sort of secret good to balance it out?”

“Yeah,” he answered slowly. I could not see him in the darkened car, but from his voice I could tell he was smiling. “I guess there is . . . I guess there really is.”

“See, I told you so,” Holly said in smug satisfaction.

We assembled in the meeting room. Harbinger was preparing to brief us. We would be taking off within the next half hour. It was 4:00 a.m. Every available Hunter was assembled, including the untested Newbies, all of Harbinger’s team, Dorcas and the senior Shackleford. The conference room was crowded. Every other member of MHI in the country was currently en route.

I sat down at the conference table next to Milo. He grinned when he saw me. The man was always in a good mood.

“So did you get to meet Skippy’s people?”

“Orcs,” I answered. “That was pretty cool.”

“Yeah, they’re good folks. Homo-Ogrillion. We were hired to go into Uzbekistan and eradicate them. Turned out that they weren’t so evil after all, so we brought them all home. I’m glad we did.”

Harbinger called the briefing to order. It took a few moments for the group to quiet down. Apparently word of the attack and all the gory details had spread quickly. Julie was sitting next to her grandfather, and his burned face was drawn into a tight grimace of pain and anger. I could not imagine how the man felt. Even if you had distanced yourself from a child who committed horrible crimes, he was still your child. And now he had lost that son.

Harbinger cut right to the chase. “Everybody knows about what’s going on, and you’ve already heard about what happened earlier tonight. One former Hunter is dead. One current Hunter is missing. Turns out that one of our own is a Master vampire in the service of the Cursed One. We have a deal with the Feds. One team is going to go with them to Natchy Bottom to deal with the main bad guys. Every available Hunter is on the way. As they arrive, the rest of us will break into groups and handle the following undead outbreaks.” He pointed at the map of the Southeast that had been taped to the wall. It was dotted with red tacks.

“Auburn, Gadsden, and Forestdale, Alabama; Columbus, Georgia; Pulaski, Tennessee; and Pensacola, Florida. Those are all confirmed vampires or wights. Boone’s team just cleared out some new creations in Atlanta. I felt bad calling them up since some of his men are still hurting from the freighter, but they rose to the occasion. And we have unconfirmed reports in Florence, Tupelo, Dothan, Fayetteville, Russellville and Demopolis, though those might just be regular missing persons, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”

He paused long enough to take a drag off his cigarette. I had not seen him smoke indoors around the other Hunters before, but I was guessing that he was under more stress than normal.

“As other teams arrive they will be diverted to those trouble spots. This is our turf, so local law enforcement knows us and is helping out. National Guard, same thing. Mostly they can be used as perimeter security, but if you think you can trust them, press them into service as well. We don’t have time to screw around, so if you find where the vamps are sleeping, just blow it straight to hell. We don’t have time to stake and chop and all that. If they’re in a mine, collapse it. If they’re in a building, burn it down. If you need to, borrow a tank from the National Guard. If they’re inside something that you can’t justify blowing up, then do what you have to do.”

“How many threats are we talking about?” Sam asked.

“Potentially hundreds.” There was some murmuring and swearing at that, from everybody except the untested Newbies who had not yet seen a real undead. “We always thought that vampires were limited in the number of new creations they could make. That was always our theory on how come they didn’t just bite everybody and overrun us. Looks like we were wrong, at least when it comes to Masters. We’re looking at a few different threats here, so let me break it down. Somehow the CO is able to bring people back as wights. Then we have two kinds of vamps, the regular new creations, where somebody is just killed and comes back as one, and apparently a stronger, smarter type, made by biting the victim, and then giving them some of the Master vampire’s own blood and power.”

“Like Darné?” I asked. The former French Hunter had been amazingly fast and seemed to be in full control of his faculties, unlike the more animalistic creatures that had been the other vampires.

“Most likely. So we’re talking about some serious bad asses. Plus we know that he can animate gargoyles as well, though there have not been any sightings of those since the ones that Pitt and Julie killed. Nobody knows how long it takes to create one of those, or even how many he brought over to start with.”

“What do we have?” Milo asked.

“Counting us and the Newbies, we have about twelve teams of Hunters. Six people in the hospital or on medical leave. Seventy total personnel available,” Julie answered.

“Seventy-one,” her grandfather said from the head of the table. He pulled a well-oiled S&W 1917 from under his sweater and put it on the table with a clunk. “I ain’t sitting this one out.”

“But, Grandpa . . .” Julie said.

“Whoever thought I would get to live this long anyway, kid? This old man is looking for a fight. These bastards killed my boy, even if he was a crazy son of a bitch himself. Monsters don’t get to kill a Shackleford and get away with it. It sets bad precedent.”

“Seventy-two,” Dorcas added, her grandmotherly looks not quite matching the steel in her voice. “Try to stop me, you’ll be tasting my plastic foot. I can still run a machine gun with the best of them.”

“We help,” said a gravelly voice from the doorway. I had not heard Skippy approach. “Ten warriors . . . Five who heal . . . Ride to battle . . . Slay many foes.”

“Skippy, you don’t have to. Your people are so few in number as it is,” Harbinger said.

“Harb Anger deny us . . . honor . . . of battle?” Skippy asked. His voice sounded extra distorted through his flight helmet’s face shield.

“No. Of course not.” The Director bowed his head. “My clan thanks you for your brave warriors.”

“Eighty-seven total staff then,” Julie said. “Against probably double that number of powerful undead and who knows what, spread from one corner of the South to the other.”

Eighty-eight, said the voice of the Old Man in my head. I wished he would stop doing that. It freaked me out. I may have a weird job, but that doesn’t mean that I liked hearing voices in my head.

“Who’s going to Natchy Bottom?” Sam asked.

“Feds are going to be the ones doing all of the fighting, and we can let them be the muscle. So we’ll just take the Hind. Skippy flies of course, and one can ride co-pilot. Then we can fit eight plus gear.”

“I’m going,” Julie said.

“No. You’re injured, and I need you here to coordinate the arriving teams.”

“Bullshit,” she snapped. “This is personal.”

“I know, and that’s why you ain’t going,” Harbinger stated.

“Wrong. I’m on that helicopter or you can have my resignation right now, and I’ll drive up there myself.” Julie stood up from the table. “Don’t push me, Earl. She’s going to be there, and she isn’t going to rest until she gets me too.”

Harbinger slowly nodded, his cigarette dangling from his lips. “Fine,” he said. “Julie, Sam, Milo, so my whole team. Pitt, he knows the bad guys better than anybody. That leaves four volunteers. Keep in mind, this is probably going to be real dangerous. Most likely all seven of the Masters plus whatever powers that the Cursed One himself has.”

“I’m going,” Trip said, surprising no one.

“You feel up to it?”

“What, this?” He pointed at his battered face. “Just a scratch.”

“I’m in,” Holly stated. “Any excuse to kill something.”

“Me too,” Albert Lee offered.

“Nope. Your ribs are still jacked up. No offense, Lee, but if anything, you’re going to run support for a local team. Sorry. Two more.” He pointed at Dorcas. “Oh hell no. Don’t even think about it. If Julie’s going, I definitely need you here to coordinate. Once that’s done then you can go get yourself killed all you want.”

The older woman slowly lowered her hand.

Lee raised his hand again. “Mr. Harbinger, sir. I can do it. I feel a lot better. I won’t slow us down, plus I’ve been doing nothing but studying the archives for the last week. Maybe something I learned can help.” You had to admire our demolitionist librarian. It took some guts to stand up to Harbinger’s overwhelming presence. “It wasn’t even a real break, just a minor fracture, and Gretchen gave me some stuff, said that I’m good to go.”

Harbinger scowled and thought about it for a moment. “Fine, Lee. You’re on.”

“I could go,” stated Julie’s grandfather. She gasped. “But I’m afraid I would just slow you down.” There were a few relieved sighs at that. I could not imagine that Harbinger could order around the president of the company.

“Brother . . .” Skippy said. “Exszrsd, Edward, Ed . . . great warrior. Much honor clan to go . . .”

“The dude with the swords?” Milo asked. He mimicked swinging swords around his head.

“Yes. Ed with swords. He go too.”

“Hell yeah,” Sam said. “He’s one bad dude.”

“That’s a full chopper,” Harbinger said. He glanced down at his watch. “Hurley’s team is due to hit Pensacola shortly. Boone’s en route to Gadsden. Scramble the others as needed. Boss, Dorcas, shuffle the Newbies off to any teams that are shorthanded. It’s all yours. This is it. For you Newbies who have not fought yet. Don’t worry, you’ve been trained. You know what to do. Stick with your team leads, and do what they tell you. You’ll be fine. Now let’s go to work. The world is counting on us.”

“Good luck, everyone,” Julie said. “You know what to do.”

“I taught you guys how to fight. Don’t screw up,” Sam ordered the Newbies. Everyone stood up from the table and began to disperse. He shouted one last set of instructions for his parting charges. “And if the going gets tough, and you get the urge to quit, just remember that we get paid real good for this shit!”

“We finish this today,” Harbinger stated to no one in particular.

I hoped so. It was Thursday morning. Friday night was the full moon and the end of the world. I wondered if I would still be alive to see it.

I waited for Julie in the hallway, standing nervously in front of the wall of memorial plaques. A bright new one had been set on the wall for Jerry Roberts. I was wearing my full armor, festooned with weapons and ammunition. I was ready for war.

But I was not ready for what I needed to do next.

Julie strode down the hall, also fully armed for battle. Her M14 was slung over one shoulder, and a row of sharpened stakes was lashed to her webbing. Her long hair had been tied up beneath her hockey helmet, and she had replaced her glasses with shatterproof prescription goggles. She was angry and determined, and no vampires or cursed conquistadors were going to stand in her way.

She saw me, and attempted to smile. She failed miserably.

“Hey, Owen. Look, I’m sorry you had to see me freak out back there at the house, and I’m sorry I snapped at you. That was just a lot of emotion for me, you know. Grant’s probably dead, or worse. Dad is dead, and I didn’t think that I would mind that, but I do, and Mom . . .” She shrugged.

“I know,” I said simply. “If Grant’s alive, we’ll find him. And I’ll help you deal with Susan.”

She changed the subject. “How are your ribs? Franks beat the hell out of you.”

“Fine,” I lied. It hurt to move. Plus I had huge bruises on my neck from her mother. “How’s your shoulder?”

“Fine,” she lied. I grinned. That got her to smile.

“Look, Julie . . . I just want to say . . . you know . . . in case I don’t make it . . .”

“I know,” she answered sheepishly. “Don’t talk like that.”

I reached down and touched her hand. I very gradually took it into my own. “I . . . I . . .”

She squeezed back. “I know. I really do. But I can’t deal with that right now. Too much other stuff going on. Besides, we’re going to live through this. Right?”

I looked down. I was not so sure. The others had not felt the power of the Cursed One like I had. They did not really understand the evil that he contained. I had a bad feeling that we were not going to win.

She leaned in close and kissed me on the cheek. “Thanks,” she said.

My heart skipped a beat. “Okay,” I said. Not being a very eloquent man, that was the best that I could manage. She must have realized what she had done, but she did not move away. Instead she came a little closer. We stayed like that for a few seconds, neither of us knowing what to say.

“See that?” She nodded at the sign above the memorial wall. “Do you know Latin?”

“No.” I had seen the plaque my first day here, but I had not understood what it meant.

“Sic transit gloria mundi.” She explained, “When Caesar would address his people, in all his glory, in his splendor, with his armies, and his riches, there would always be a functionary standing by his side, whispering that saying in his ear. It’s a reminder. It means: The glory of man is fleeting. Do you know why we have that carved here?”

“Because we can get killed anytime?” I answered. “It keeps us humble?”

“Pretty much.”

“That’s a hell of a philosophy.”

“It really is. It means that all of our glory, all of the good we accomplish, we had better enjoy them now, because we are one heartbeat away from losing it. We live fast, and we usually die young, but it sure is glorious while it lasts. Monster Hunters don’t have time to waste.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“You’re not real bright for a genius, are you?” Julie stood close to me, armor against armor. She turned her head slightly and closed her eyes. “Shut up and kiss me.”

I did.

It was glorious.

I took her in my arms, weapons clanking into each other. Time ceased to exist. The whole universe consisted of just her and me. Life was good. The kiss seemed to last forever.

“Ahem.” I was jolted away from her soft lips. “Time to go, kids,” Harbinger stated as he walked past us. “Helicopter is prepped. Feds are already en route.”

“Yes, sir!” I shouted, very embarrassed.

“Be right there, Earl,” Julie said, looking flushed. She waited for him to disappear. “I need to sit down.”

“I don’t want to feel like I’m taking advantage of you with all of the stuff going on and, and your parents, and Grant, and . . .” I stammered. She kissed me again, quicker this time.

“This isn’t about any of them. Don’t talk about it. . . . We had better get out of here.”

“Sure.” I didn’t want to let go of her.

“Go, I’ve got to grab something. I’ll be right there.” We parted. She smiled. I grinned like an idiot. I walked away, looking back over my shoulder the whole time. She did the same. I finally had to quit when I walked painfully into the drinking fountain. I waved stupidly. She disappeared around the corner. I started to run. It turned into a sprint. I could not help myself.

I passed Harbinger through the double doors, ran the few hundred yards to the runway without slowing, vaulted through the open door of the Hind and took a seat. Milo and Sam were sitting across from me, already strapped in. I gave them a big thumbs-up.

“Let’s kill us some monsters!” I shouted over the already turning rotors. The two seasoned Hunters just looked at each other and shrugged.

The distant sky in the east was beginning to turn orange. Dawn would be here soon. It was going to be a great day. I could tell.

Chapter 21

We lifted off from the compound and headed northwest at over a hundred and twenty miles an hour. Even at that speed, we had about two hours of flight time. I sat next to Julie. She had winked at me when she had strapped in, but did not say anything that the others could hear. Harbinger studied us stonily, but after a few minutes of uneventful flight, he used the opportunity to get some sleep. Trip and Holly stared out of opposite windows, apparently lost in thought. Milo and Sam argued about what Sam’s new team logo should be, either a frog or a walrus. Either way it was going to have a cowboy hat. Lee read a book until he became violently airsick, then he too went to sleep. Skippy left the music off of the intercom, probably in deference to the early morning hour, not that the internal engine noises of the chopper weren’t already deafeningly loud. His brother Ed took the co-pilot’s seat. He was dressed like a ninja, except for the tinted Bolle goggles.

When nobody was looking, Julie reached over and took my hand. She held it for most of the flight.

I did not know if she felt the same way about me as I felt about her. Looking at it logically, she barely knew me, and in the last twenty-four hours her world had been turned upside down. Was this sudden affection for me the result of feelings that she already held, or were they instead caused by her need to have some sort of anchor?

Either way, I was fine. I could deal with being an anchor. I was certainly heavy enough. Screw logic. It had no place in relationships anyway. I just enjoyed holding her hand.

The rhythmic strumming of the helicopter made me tired. I could understand why, since I had only had a few hours of sleep that night. And it had been a stressful night to say the least—check that, it had been a stressful week. On Saturday I had been drowned, beaten and shot. Sunday I had been slapped around and had some teeth knocked out. On Monday I got to go to the dentist and, sadly, that had been the most relaxing time of the whole week. Tuesday had resulted in a van wreck and road rash, and I had gotten my ass kicked last night by, first, a vampire, and then used by Franks as a punching bag. Who knew what today would bring? Interestingly enough, the full moon was going to be Friday night. Exactly one week from when this all started. It had an interesting sort of symmetry to it, or it probably would if I lived to enjoy it.

A week ago I had been ready to quit. Scared that I was doing the wrong thing. Scared by the violence that I kept leashed up inside. But those things, that darkness, it was what had kept many of us alive over the last few days. My pursuit of a regular life was a lie. I could see that now.

My place was here. I was a Monster Hunter.

By the time we flew over Hayneville, I was asleep.

I saw the mysterious Tattooed Man. He was driving a car down the nearly empty freeway. The person sitting next to him had been the vehicle’s previous owner, neck snapped like a twig when the Tattooed Man had decided he needed transportation. His bare foot was on the gas, and he kept it just under the speed limit to avoid attention.

Black eyes stared straight ahead, fixed in the direction of his target. He drummed his fingers absently on the wheel. He was close. Very close. The anticipation of regaining his charge was great, and the excitement of approaching battle was building in his ancient soul.

He knew I was watching him. He was close enough now for that. The tattoos on his face withered as he spoke, knowing all too well that I could hear him despite the barriers of space and time. His archaic form of speech was thick and accented.

“I care not about thy war. The artifact is mine to protect, and do so I shall.”

Who are you? I thought.

“Look upon me and see thy doom, cursed man. Thou shalt die by my hand.”

Why?

He paused, the unnatural ink swirling around his blunt features. He seemed surprised by my question.

“Thou knowest not?”

No.

“Thou knowest not of thy fate? Of thy place in this world?”

Nope.

He laughed at me. A booming, hearty laugh. It was without real emotion, as any human feelings that had once inhabited this hardened creature had passed a long time ago. Rather, the laughter was an ingrained reflex at hearing something so seemingly preposterous.

“Surely thou hast some knowledge?”

No. I’m getting pretty sick of this myself.

“Then I shall be saddened to take the life of a warrior whose heart is without guile. Alas, it must be. For that I am sorry, but thou must surely die by my hand. I shall do my best to make it swift and glorious.”

I don’t want to fight you.

“Thou hast no choice,” he stated flatly. “’Tis my duty.”

I had my fill of people and monsters threatening to kill me.

Bring it on, bitch.

His face cracked into a wide grin, the swirling markings formed a sympathetic jaw around his lips. “Ahh, there be the spirit. We shall wage us a fine battle.”

He continued driving as my spirit lifted from the moving vehicle. The sun was rising on the freeway behind us. I recognized the city in the background.

Montgomery.

The dream world.

“Hello, Boy.” The Old Man greeted me as I approached the destroyed church. “Hurry, hurry. Time is much short. Cut off last time.” He looked agitated, limping toward me, using his cane as support in the light but slick snow.

“Mordechai, who the hell was that joker?” I asked as I stepped over some rubble and scattered bricks. Either I had not noticed before, or perhaps the Old Man had not put them there before, but there were thousands of shell casings scattered on the ground or pocked into the snow.

“Who?” he asked, perplexed.

“That big tattoo-faced guy. The Guardian of the artifact or whatever.”

He hurried over, his face drawn into a look of concern. “You spoke to this man?”

“Yeah, just now. Didn’t you see?”

“No.” He shook his head, his Star of David bouncing wildly off of his thin chest. “He is here? Now?” The Old Man sounded very worried.

“I think so. I think he’s in Montgomery.”

“Is bad. Much much bad.”

“He said he has to kill me.”

“Afraid of this I was. Listen to me, Boy. You are brave and strong, but no match for him. If he comes, run.”

“So let me get this straight, you’ve got no problem with me taking on the Cursed One and seven Master vampires, and gargoyles, and wights, and who knows what else, but you want me to turn and run if I see this tattoo-faced, funny-talking freak?”

“Yes.” He shook his head happily. “Glad you understand, Boy. Now come, time is short, and still much you have to see. I will do what can, but not know if have time enough.”

“Why is he so dangerous? How can he be any more dangerous than Lord Machado?”

The Old Man put his hands alongside my head. “Not him who is dangerous. I worry about you who is dangerous.”

“Huh?”

He squeezed my head and looked me in the eyes. I think he was trying to convey the seriousness of his advice. “Never mind. See him. Run away. Not strong enough to face. Bad things happen. Now shush. Much memory to show before fight.”

The dream world faded away.

Lord Machado’s memory was sharp and refined for this night, etched deeply into his mind.

This pyramid was much larger than the others, but had been partially buried by earthquakes and mudslides in the distant past, and then mostly reclaimed by the jungle. The stones were crumbling with age, and the once-intricate carvings were weathered to the point that they were no longer clearly recognizable. Now the pictures looked more like squid and crab things going about their business than the pictorial people that they must have been at one time. The remaining architecture seemed unfamiliar and somehow alien.

Many months had passed while the priestess had instructed me in her dark arts. I had learned much, and seen things not meant for human eyes. I had communed with dark forces, and my education had continued until finally I felt ready to unleash the power. The time had come for me to reclaim my birthright and fulfill the prophecy. I was ready. The priestess Koriniha was at my side. A small contingent of her selected priests led the way up the steps. A squadron of my most trusted and loyal soldiers remained to guard the base of the pyramid.

The priestess leaned in close and spoke softly into my ear. “Your men are scared, Lord Machado.”

“They do not understand what we do. But they are loyal. They will do as they are told. They would follow me into the very pit itself if ordered, for I am their general. And they know their place.”

“That is good. But not all of your soldiers are so loyal. There has been no word of your chief captain.” She sounded mildly worried. “We cannot afford an interruption during the sacrifice. The Old Ones would be offended.”

She was right to be concerned. A small group of men, led by one of my best captains, had disappeared, most likely deserted. The giant of a man, called Thrall, had hired onto the expedition as a mercenary. He was from some small country to the northeast, and had barely even spoken our language at the time of our embarkation, but he had proven himself to be a fierce warrior, whom the men would follow without hesitation. I had been reluctant to promote him, but he was far too capable to have been wasted as a mere musketeer.

Unfortunately, his primitive upbringing had made my own superstitious men seem like philosophers in comparison. He had been against my initial conscription of the native forces, and he had been adamantly opposed to staying in the city, rather than sacking and burning it to the ground. I had my suspicions that he had been in league with the now-departed Friar de Sousa as well. The divinations of the priestess had confirmed his treachery and the fact that he had been a holy man amongst his forgotten people. Doubtless my consorting with dark forces had driven him away.

It would not matter, even if the captain had fled for the sea. By the time he would be able to send a message of my treachery back to agents of the crown, it would be too late. My powers would be granted tonight. “No need to worry, my love. The good captain is no threat to us.” I had dispatched a force of soldiers and conscripts to chase the deserters down and execute them. “It is under control.”

“Excellent, my lord, but should it prove necessary, I summoned some protectors for our ceremony tonight.”

The top of the ancient structure was flat except for a single raised dais. The altar had a funnel protruding from its base, giving some clue to its dark history. Giant braziers of flaming coals had been placed on the corners, illuminating us with flickering light. The pagan priests went immediately to their respective stations. Large stone demons squatted around the altar. One of the carved statues turned its head and regarded us with blank stone eyes. Dust shook from it as unnaturally long arms flexed nonexistent muscles. It was a mighty beast.

“What manner of creature is that?” I hissed.

“They are here to protect you, Lord Machado. Once you unlock the power of the Old Ones, you will be able to create these animations as you see fit.” The stone creature turned away, satisfied that I was its new master. I could only imagine the army that I could command with creatures constructed from the rocks of the earth itself.

A small group of the feather-robed men were already waiting before the altar. They stood aside and kneeled as we approached. One of the priests said something in his language to the priestess.

“The sacrifice is ready, lord,” she told me. A young man was stretched upon the altar, his wrists and ankles bound with heavy cords. Rather than fearful, the man appeared defiant. He said something in their strange language. I could tell he was cursing me.

“He is a hunter of the Ewaipanoma of the jungle and the Ahuzoitl of the rivers, a protector of the innocent, and a great warrior. The Old Ones demand such a sacrifice.”

“What do I need to do?” I ran my finger down the worn wood shaft of my ax. I would show this hunter of monsters what I thought of his curses.

“Are you ready, my Lord of the Ax? Are you prepared to be a vessel for the very power of the ancients?”

“I am ready to take my rightful place as ruler of this world.”

She looked deep into my eyes. The world condensed down to just the two of us, shutting out the chanting priests, the cursing and spitting Hunter, and the screaming of the jungle. “You are he who has been prophesied. Warrior, son of a great warrior, your very name taken from the weapons that have shed the blood of your family’s enemies. Sent by a king on an impossible quest . . . A leader, a visionary, an ally of darkness . . .” She stroked my cheek as I recalled the prophecy of the black obelisk. “And of monsters . . .” She gestured at the hulking demon figure standing guard over us. “Truly you are the one, five hundred years since the last, five hundred years until the next, the only one amongst a thousand generations of man with the key to unlock the power over time . . . There is but one more thing.”

“What is that?”

“The Old Ones said you must have love.” She pulled herself tight against my armor, like a parasite, or a barnacle upon the hull of a ship. She needed me more than I needed her now. “Tell me, my lord, is it so?”

“Of course,” I answered truthfully. I loved her as much as a practical man such as myself could love anything. I had found in the dark priestess an equal in ambition, desire and lust for control. If the Old Ones required a weak emotion to unlock the secrets of ultimate power, I could think of worse choices than the wanton, evil creature before me.

“If I were to die, would you return for me? Would you bring me back from the other side?” she implored. “You alone will have the power, but you will need my guidance to use it.”

Of course, that was her key to staying in my graces. The Old Ones had not revealed their secrets to me like they had to her. They only saw fit to give me a glimpse into the darkness and a taste of their unimaginable dominations. I needed her guidance. “I give you my word, Koriniha. I shall not allow you to perish so long as I live. And with this”—I pulled the bag from my waist—“should you die, I shall bring you back.”

The priestess laughed again; it was the shrill cry of a harpy. “Then let us begin the ceremony, my lord.”

The priests and sorcerers formed a chain around the altar, leaving Koriniha, the bound Hunter, and myself in the center. I was directed to remove the artifact from its bag and place it upon the stones. A burst of cold traveled up my arm as my gauntlet closed around the small rectangular box. It did not reflect the moonlight, rather it seemed to absorb it hungrily, leaving a greater darkness than was possible. For the first time, markings could be seen on the black surface. They began to glow and gain in strength, withering tendrils, seemingly alive and searching.

I placed the box near the head of the trapped Hunter. He shouted and spat at me, but his words were drowned out by the increasing hum of the chanting priests. The coldness in my arm did not dissipate, but began to travel deeper into my core, chilling my blood, and forming crystals of ice vapor in my lungs.

The priestess studied the moon. “The time is upon us. I must call upon the Old Ones in their speech. When I am done, remove the heart of the sacrifice. Drink some of his blood and pour the rest upon the artifact.”

I pulled my battle-ax from my back, released the leather cover from the ancient sharpened head, and cast it aside. The shaft was smooth and polished with use, strengthened with bands of iron, and had been replaced countless times over generations. The blade itself was ancient, made of an unknown metal that cut like the finest steel, yet had somehow survived in the possession of my family since the time of Alexander. It had taken many lives, and the sacrifice tonight would be but another, though it had never been used in so dark a pagan ritual.

For me there would be no reconciliation. There would be no forgiveness. After tonight there was no looking back or turning away from the dark path I trod. My people, my country and my God would all forsake me for the acts I was about to commit.

So be it.

I twisted the deadly weapon in my gauntleted fists. “I am ready.”

The priestess began to speak, her voice low and guttural, descending somehow into tones not produced by human beings, and in pitches never meant to be heard by mortal ears. Swirling black clouds drew over the pyramid, moving at speeds greater than the greatest storms of the seas. Lightning cracked down into the surrounding jungle. Thunder boomed and echoed off of the mountains, deafening in its fury. Raindrops the size of babies’ fists pelted down upon us in an intense deluge. Within moments the pyramid was drenched, and torrents of water spilled down the causeways and stairs. The memory became disjointed and the foundations of the world cracked.

You not listen to this, the Old Man whispered.

Why?

Is for best. Not to have such things in head. Drive you mad.

The memory flashed by impossibly fast. The ceremony continued. The priests gave dark signs. The priestess continued her impossible litany.

Time returned to normal.

Better. Now worms not eat your brain when wake up.

“Now take his heart and feast upon his blood!” The priestess screamed over the roar of the wind and rain. The artifact was floating now, inches above the stone. It was absorbing all of the available light, seeming to surge and gorge itself with every continuous lightning strike. The etchings on the artifact had detached themselves and were swirling in the air, growing and spinning, crackling with black energy.

The Hunter met my eyes. He was beyond fear and prepared for his death. I brought the weapon down on the center of his chest, severing the muscles, and cracking the sternum. I stopped before it pierced his heart. I could use my ax with surgical precision. He screamed in agony. I twisted and levered the blade in, using the handle as a pry bar. I shattered the ribs, and pulled the ax free.

He was still alive as I reached into the cavity, pushed through the remaining flesh and welling fluids and grasped his beating heart with my gauntlet. It pulsed as I curled my fist around the organ and tugged. The Hunter screamed and spasmed as I tore the heart free.

“Drink.” The priestess commanded.

No. I tore myself free of the vision.

You must watch, the Old Man insisted. You must learn.

Not that part. Hell no.

Good, Boy. Hope for you yet.

I tossed the still-warm heart aside. My mouth tasted coppery and my stomach roiled against the unfamiliar sensations. The fluids that I had poured into the artifact had seemingly disappeared, swallowed up and taken to another, darker place. The artifact was spinning now, the black lines of power twirling around like streamers, twisting with the physical presence of snakes.

“There is only one thing left, my lord,” the priestess said, “and the power over time itself is yours.”

“Tell me what I must do!” I raged into the storm. I was so close.

The booming of the thunder continued, but my battle-hardened senses picked up another sound—the explosions of gunpowder.

“You must take the final—” She stopped, glancing down in surprise. Koriniha reached one delicate hand between her breasts and probed with her fingers. Her hand came away from the hole as a trickle of blood ran down her rain-soaked robes.

I turned in time to see the armored figures appearing over the lip of the pyramid. Most of their matchlocks misfired as the fierce rain soaked their powder or extinguished their smoking cords, so they used them as clubs. Captain Thrall led the charge. His sword cleaved downward and tore one of the priests in half. Behind him were all of his men, and I was surprised to see many of the men that I had sent in pursuit of the deserters. Even my most loyal troops that I had left to guard the pyramid had turned against me.

The demons rose and lumbered into the fray, swatting aside the conquistadors with heavy stone limbs. The scene degenerated into a mob of confusion as rain fell and lightning flashed. The artifact still spun in its web of black tendrils.

“Koriniha!” I shouted as the priestess fell to her knees, vomiting blood from her open mouth. I knelt at her side, and caught her before she went facedown to the stone. I shook her. “What now? Tell me!”

“My love . . . Bring me back . . .” She foamed at the mouth, and died. Her eyes rolled sightlessly back into her head.

“No! No! Damn you! Damn you all!” I screamed as I dropped her soulless form into the rushing water. My plans were ruined. Without the priestess I did not know how to commune with the Old Ones. All of my treachery, throwing away my command, throwing away my generalship, all for naught. I howled in rage and hatred.

I had to reach the artifact.

Now the memory shifts, flailing forward in jerks and spurts.

“Stop him! Kill the general!” bellowed Captain Thrall. He was locked in battle against one of the fearsome demons. With his great strength he sent it tumbling backward over the pyramid’s edge. “Kill him!” the brute screamed in a berserk rage.

Soldiers moved to block me. I killed one of Koriniha’s priests that stumbled blindly into my path. I waded into the troops, ax humming through the giant water droplets. The troops fell back under the fury of my onslaught. My skin was like ice and my blade moved as quickly as the lightning. I could feel the power of the artifact. So close, so very close.

I crushed a soldier’s skull and batted him aside. A sword tip streaked across my armor as I stepped clear and hammered the man to the earth. I wrenched out my ax blade, dripping with blood. Rage cascaded over me. How dare these men betray me after all that I had done for them? I swung my ax, killing or dismembering with each blow. I used the blade, spike and butt of my weapon to bring down my troops. Flailing limbs and blurred sword blades surrounded me as I poured death into my newfound enemies.

Pain flashed through my thigh as a blade pierced me. I broke free and spiked the soldier through the face. The water running off the top of the pyramid was running red with blood. The backdrop of the light-sucking altar and its spinning black tendrils were so close. I had to reach it. Razorlike steel cut through my back, breaking the coat of mail, and splattering my blood into the rain.

“NO!” I bellowed, turning and striking down the soldier who had dared to touch me. “YOU CAN NOT KILL ME!” The power of the artifact was thick upon me. I killed two others in one mighty swing. More wounds were inflicted on my flesh. I fell to my knees, but continued fighting. I cut a soldier’s leg off, and finished him when he hit the ground.

That was all.

I pushed myself up. Slowly. Shakily. Bleeding from many punctures and lacerations. Dozens of bodies sprawled upon the pyramid top or across the stairs. My soldiers, my countrymen, all of them dead or dying. A few feet away, the final stone demon crumbled and flaked away into the rivers of blood and rain. Captain Thrall knelt upon its back, broken sword still clenched in one hand. His massive chest heaved with the exertion, and blood drizzled down his face from his lacerated scalp.

“Lord Machado,” he said.

“Captain Thrall,” I nodded.

We both looked at the darkness of the artifact, and then back at each other.

“’Tis not meant to be, my General. ’Tis not meant for men to use such a black thing.” His skull was visible through missing parts of his face.

“With it I can rule the world.”

“Thou art lost without thy witch,” the giant stated simply. The priestess’ body lay nearby, partially submerged.

“I will bring her back,” I hissed.

“My ancestors came to my dreams and told me of thy plans. Thou was destined to fail and to open the way for the return of the dark forces of the ancients through thy failure. My people are gone. I am the last. Yet I have not forgotten our sagas.” The giant captain gradually heaved himself to his feet, shaking from the many grievous wounds on his body. A lesser man would have just lain down and died. “Ye shall not pass.”

“Never.” I used my ax to lever myself forward. “It is mine.”

“I have made a vow to the spirits. I will protect this artifact until the end of time. No man will look upon its evil and live.” The captain turned and stumbled toward the altar.

“It’s mine!” I screamed as I hurled my heavy ax across the distance. The blade sunk deeply into his back. It was a lethal blow.

The captain fell forward into the swirling bands of crackling black energy. He bellowed in pain as the evil tore into his flesh. Searing him. Burning him. He was turned over and spun in the maelstrom of darkness. The bands sunk and bonded into his very skin, like a twisted inking, an evil living tattoo.

“I . . . vow . . . to . . . keep . . . it . . . from . . . you . . .” He was engulfed by the power. The whites of his eyes disappeared, to be replaced by solid inky blackness. He screamed in agony.

There was an explosion of color and energy as lightning struck the top of the pyramid. Pain and heat surged up through my armor, burning me and hurling me aside. I fell upon the stairs, rolling and tumbling, through the torrents of water, down, down into the darkness.

I gasped as the Old Man removed his hands from my head. I was once again myself. The jungle pyramid and its unholy storm were gone, replaced by the eerily silent 1940s Polish town.

“Holy shit!” I said. I felt terribly weak. “What happened?”

“In his mind too long,” the Old Man said softly, “is great strain.”

“The captain. Thrall. He is the Tattooed Man.”

“Yes. Cursed like the rest of us. Always there is a catch with these things. How you say—I think . . . He got screwed.”

Indeed. Cursed to guard an evil artifact for the last five hundred years. I could think of lots better ways to pass the time.

“But there is more?” I asked. There were still questions to be answered. “Lord Machado failed. That evil priestess chick got shot before they could finish the ceremony. Yet somehow he’s still alive today. How did he become the Cursed One?”

“There is small bit of memory left. Only short time while he is still human, I think. Still that I must show you.”

“You have to show me now, Mordechai,” I pleaded. “If I can know how he became what he is, then I can know how to defeat him.”

“Not yet. Too much strain. And rest I must.”

“I can do it,” I answered. “I have to be ready.”

“No, Boy. Not ready. You wake up. Be ready for fight. Big fight for you today.”

“Big fight?”

“Yes. Much big.” He pointed his fingers and made shooting noises. “Much fight.”

“You got any more little wooden carvings you want to send back with me?” I asked hopefully. “In case I need to roast any vampires?”

“Sorry, Boy. I surprised that work my own self.”

“How could it anyway? I’m no expert of physics, but how can I take an immaterial thing into the material world?”

“Boy, much you have to learn. Even spirit is matter. Just much finer . . .  Much simpler time when I used to hunt monsters. Shoot them with gun. Bang. Dead monster. Nice and simple. Monsters nowadays all complicated and hard to make dead.”

“So any chance you might be able to scrounge up some toys then?”

He shrugged his thin shoulders. “I try. When time comes, I have something for help. Now go.” He shooed me away. I turned to leave. “One last thing.”

“Yeah?” I stood barefooted in the snow while I waited for him. He seemed to be trying to find the words. “Spit it out, Mordechai. Apparently I’ve got monsters to kill.”

“Boy.” He regarded me solemnly. “On this day. Try very hard not to get dead.”

“I will try,” I promised.

The Hind tore across the sky at rapid speed and dangerously low altitude. I awoke to the thrumming of the blades, the deafening roar of the engines, and the piped-in music from the Doors, “Riders on the Storm.” Julie’s head was resting on my shoulder. A lock of her hair had strayed from under her helmet and draped down her face. I brushed it back. She woke up and smiled tiredly.

She was still holding my hand.

Harbinger signaled for all of us to put in our earpieces so that we could communicate and do a radio check.

“Wake up, sleepyheads. We’re only ten minutes out. Skippy is swinging wide around Corinth. His people have an agreement with the elves. No orcs on elf land. No elves on his. We’ll be coming in from the south and will be setting down in a designated clearing. Feds have already gotten us on radio, and are even tracking us for surface- to air-missiles. Seedy bastards.”

“I hope they don’t get twitchy,” Milo said.

“I hate the government,” Sam stated coldly. “Remind me again why we’re working with them?”

“They need us. We need them,” Harbinger said.

“Not to be a jerk about it, but how exactly do we get paid for this?” Holly asked. “Saving the world don’t pay the bills.”

“Government representatives don’t get to claim PUFF. By being here we will get at least an assist. Even that is worth a small fortune on a Master.” Harbinger pulled his revolver, checked the rounds, spun the cylinder and reholstered. “Only I talk to the Wendigo. Everybody else stay way the hell back. He ain’t friendly. When we go after the Cursed One, let the Feds go in first. At that point we’re just observers. Let them do the bleeding. Pitt?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Damn it. Call me Earl. ‘Sir’ is the Boss. Have you learned anything new? Is Mordechai Byreika still in your dreams?”

“No and yes. I’ve seen things. But I don’t know what’s going to be able to help us.”

“Give us the short version,” he ordered.

I quickly told the others about the human Lord Machado and his army, about the ancient city, about the evil priestess Koriniha and her dark priests, about the artifact, the ceremony, the sacrifice and, finally, the Tattooed Man.

“I’ve spoken with him,” I said, “just now, in my dream. It was real. He was heading toward Montgomery. He’s coming for the artifact, and he swears he’s going to kill me.”

“I don’t care how bad everybody thinks this guy is, MHI don’t roll over and take it from no five-hundred-year-old pukes,” Sam said. “If he shows up, we cap his trash. That simple. Fricking magic tattoo bullshit. I’ve got a magic tattoo. It’s a frog with a banjo and it’s on my ass. I got it in Singapore.”

“Classy,” Holly said.

“Wanna see it sometime?” he asked as he removed his can of Copenhagen from his armor and snapped his wrist repeatedly.

“I’ll pass, thanks.”

“There was something else. The Old Man warned me. He said we’re going to have a big fight today. He didn’t say what, but I got the impression it was going to be bad.”

“Figures. Anything else?”

“Nope.”

“Lee? Give everybody the rundown on what we’ve gotten from the archives,” Harbinger ordered, “anything that might prove useful.”

“Sure.” The diminutive Hunter cleared his throat. “There were no records of a conquistador general named Lord Machado anywhere. There were, however, some signs pointing to what was called the lost expedition. Early in the 1500s, the very first group dispatched into the interior, same basic area where Orellano would later discover the Amazon, but this group was never heard from again. All of the records about this expedition were destroyed by the military governor at Isle of the Cross, which is what they called Brazil back then. Even Sir Walter Raleigh mentioned this lost expedition in his writings about El Dorado. Looking at what Owen has told us, I’m betting that was Lord Machado’s group.”

“What about the artifact or the Old Ones?”

“Just vague references to great and terrible evil. Lots of old Hunters have mentioned it in their writings, but I get the impression that none of them really knew what they were. Byreika’s journal had the most about them.”

“And?”

“Eldritch horrors, to paraphrase some Lovecraft. Horrible things that date back to before mankind, real serious, evil, bad stuff. About the artifact itself? Byreika thought that it predated this world and was from somewhere else. I was kind of lost on that part. The journal was in Polish and I had to use a computer translator. It can be kind of hard to understand.”

“He isn’t much better in person,” I mumbled.

“The first people recorded to have had it were the ancient Midianites, followed by the Assyrians. How it wound up in South America is anybody’s guess. Supposedly it grants the user the power of the Old Ones. Control of time, space, energy, matter, that kind of thing. Anybody who tries to use it dies, unless you are one of the special people.”

“Special?” Holly asked. “Like they ride the little bus to school?”

“No, I can’t think of a better word for it. Once in a while someone comes along who has the ability to actually use this thing. Since the world is still here, we can assume that none of them have been successfully united with it yet. Except, of course, Lord Machado.”

“The prophecy from my dream,” I thought out loud. Just thinking about the black obelisk in the unnatural cavern made my skin crawl.

“Anything else?” Harbinger asked.

“Just that if this thing is activated by the right person, which we’ve got, and the right time, which is apparently tomorrow night, at the right place, which according to Ray Shackleford is right here, then we’re pretty much boned. Stop them, and we save the world.”

“Good thing,” Milo said as he spit some sunflower seeds into a paper cup. “I like the world. It would suck to blow it up. Especially since I’m engaged now.”

“What? Get out of here!” Harbinger said. “No way.” Most of their team had a similar reaction.

“Who?” Julie asked. “I didn’t even know you were dating.”

“I bet I know,” said Sam. “I bet it’s that hot little scientist chick we rescued when we killed that mutant shrieker lizard in Guatemala. What was she again? A crip-to-whatsist?”

“Cryptozoologist,” Milo said. He looked slightly embarrassed at the attention. “Shawna studies undiscovered animals. It’s been a long-distance relationship. I kind of popped the question. She said yeah. You know . . .”

“Why didn’t you tell us, man? That’s great news,” Harbinger said.

“I was a little distracted, what with the forces of evil, and the freighter, and the undead, and the elves, and the gargoyles, and the Feds, and stuff.”

“Land . . . Gub Mint below. Land now.” Skippy’s gravelly voice came over the radio. “Good Milo. Find wife . . . Now should get . . . more wifes . . . only one wife . . . make for . . . lonely warrior.”

“I’ll take it under consideration, Skip,” he said cheerfully.

“Take her down,” Harbinger ordered. “Okay, team. This is it. Stay frosty. Keep your cool around the Feds.”

“Look who’s talking,” Sam murmured.

The Feds had set up a command post that could best be described as a tent city. And they had done it all this morning. In the distance, dozens of Mississippi state troopers blocked off the road. The members of MHI were greeted by uniformed National Guardsmen and led toward an enormous green tent.

The inside of the command tent was climate-controlled and sealed against chemical, biological and radioactive agents. It smelled faintly of new rubber and was bigger than most middle-class homes. An entire wall was covered in giant flat-screen televisions. Rows of computers were manned by military personnel or armored federal agents. Some of the screens showed real-time satellite imagery of the area in normal and thermal views. I could make out our helicopter parked on the grass. It was glowing bright yellow and red. Dozens of cameras must have been dropped over the Bottoms, showing several different shots of the swamp. Agent Myers was directing the circus, and for the first time since I had met him, he had ditched the suit and dressed for battle.

“Check the feed from the Predator drones. Send another one to parallel the Hatchie River. Have the AWACs divert all air traffic out of this area. I want those bombers in the air now. I want some with napalm, and some with penetrators if they’re underground. Where are those Abrams?”

“They are on Seventy-Two, ETA fifteen minutes, sir,” answered one of the Feds as he tapped away on one of the many computers. “They’re passing through the town of Walnut.”

“Good. We may need to steamroll something,” Myers said as he nervously tugged at the straps on his armor.

“Sir? What about ‘final option’?” asked one of the agents at a computer.

“Tell the Pentagon to scramble the B1. Have it ready. What’s the payload on that?”

“We are cleared for low tactical yield. Five kilotons. Minimal radiation.”

“Civilian casualties?” he asked.

“Within an acceptable level. This area is sparsely populated.”

“Excellent,” he said slowly.

“Holy shit. They’re going to nuke Mississippi,” Holly said.

Myers turned around. The National Guard lieutenant that had led us in saluted.

“Sir. Here are the guests you were expecting.”

“About damned time, Earl. Where the hell have you been?”

“If you wanted us sooner, Myers, you should have sent a jet,” he explained casually. “Are you really authorized to go nuclear?”

“I’m authorized to tow the moon down here and crash it into Earth if I think it would help,” Myers answered sharply. “If you haven’t noticed, somebody is planning on destroying all life on this planet. The President is willing to do what it takes to solve this problem, so as a last resort, yes, I’m ready to go nuclear.”

“Say . . . when did they put you in charge of the Monster Control Bureau anyway?” Harbinger asked. “When I saw you in Texas you were still just an assistant director.”

Myers fixed my boss with a look that would have killed most people. I didn’t know what it was, but there was certainly some bad history between these two men. “Last Friday,” he answered sullenly. “I’m just interim director until the President appoints somebody else. I received the call, and a few hours later I hear from you that seven Master vampires just touched down. It’s been a hell of a week.”

“So that’s why you’ve been cranky,” Harbinger answered wryly.

The senior agent sighed. “Look. Are you going to take us to this Wendigo thing or not?”

“I’ll do it. No vehicles, though. He isn’t going to come out if there are vehicles, and you’ll need to pull the air cover back.”

“I guess I don’t have much choice.” Myers gestured toward one of the screens, a real-time satellite feed of the Natchy Bottom area. Most of the picture, including the area that we were currently in, was perfectly and surprisingly clear. The center of the screen, however, was fogged. “A billion dollars in equipment, and I can’t get a clear picture of the interior of the Bottoms. No cameras will work more than thirty feet into the swamp. I’m reduced to talking to Indian fairy tales.”

“You know how Natchy Bottom is. It don’t obey the same rules as the rest of the world.”

“I know. All right then, let’s get this over with.”

The roof of the tent began to rattle as the rain started.

“It was clear five minutes ago,” Lee said to me anxiously.

“Welcome to Mississippi,” I answered.

The Monster Control Bureau men were honed and ready. Picked from elite military units and trained to a standard far surpassing our own, every one of them appeared to be chiseled from solid muscle and rock-hard bone. They made my team look a little dumpy.

“Agent Franks, ready the men,” Myers ordered as we approached the waiting group.

Franks gave me a slight nod of recognition when he saw me. He emotionlessly returned to his men. “Listen up!” Franks shouted. The thirty black-armored men snapped to attention, weapons bouncing in their slings, magazines and explosives clanking. They regarded us with steely eyes. Some were bruised from their brief encounter with MHI the day before. Harbinger ducked under an overhanging tarp and nonchalantly lit a cigarette. The cold, drizzling rain quickly soaked us all to the bone.

“Pay attention, men.” Myers spoke loudly, but rather than resembling a military leader rallying the troops, he still made me think of a college professor giving a lecture. “We are going into Natchy Bottom. This is possibly one of the most dangerous places in the world. Once we get into the swamp, you will need to keep your wits about you. Things are not always what they seem in the Bottoms. It is an intersection of all that is wrong in the universe. Do not fire until I or Agent Franks order you to do so. We are searching for the Cursed One and seven Master vampires.”

Some of the men began to mutter and shift nervously. I was glad to see that. They may have been hard-charging warriors, but at least they weren’t stupid about it.

“Don’t worry, men. We are not going in looking for a fight. Right now we are going in to speak with one of the creatures in the swamp. It will provide us with the location of the enemy, and they will be dealt with using overwhelming force,” Myers assured them. “Even Masters are not so tough when you carpet-bomb them.”

“We might have a man in there, Myers,” Harbinger said coldly.

“Then you are more than welcome to go in and rescue him before the air strike,” Myers answered. “Nothing personal, but I’m not risking thirty good men for one of yours.” The agent continued, “The ten individuals standing behind me, some of you already may have made their acquaintance—” A few of the bruised Feds nodded sullenly. One of the men that had beat down Trip made a thumping motion with his fist. “—are from MHI. They are here to make contact with the swamp creature and extract information. After that, they get out of the way. Earl, if you would tell us about this creature, please?”

Harbinger tossed his cigarette to the ground, giving up because of the soaking rain. “It’s a Wendigo. If you see something ten feet tall and real scary looking, don’t shoot at it. You’ll make him angry.”

“Any questions?” Myers asked.

“Sir, how are we supposed to work with these people? We’ve got three men in the hospital because of them.” The agent who asked that had a bandage over his nose. He glared at me when he spoke. It wasn’t my fault he didn’t know how to block.

“You will do as you’re told,” Myers said coldly.

One of the agents raised his hand. “What about sensor arrays?”

“They don’t seem to work in the Bottoms. We will take our portable gear, and hopefully we will get some reception the deeper we get, but I would not count on it.”

Another agent asked, “How about the robots?”

“Same thing. We can’t count on electronics in the Bottoms. The last thing we need is for one of their sensors to mistake some of us for undead and blast us. The recognition software only runs ninety-eight percent in optimal conditions.”

“Air support?”

“Not until after we speak with this Wendigo thing. We can call them in if we have an emergency.”

“Armor backup?”

“Abrams are en route, and will arrive shortly. However, they will not be able to operate in most of the terrain. Ground is too soft.”

“What a bunch of babies,” Sam whispered to me. “We don’t ever got none of that cool stuff.”

“Jeez, Milo, how come we don’t have killer robots?” Julie asked.

“You write the check,” he answered.

“Attention, team. Form up. Franks has operational command. I will remain at the command center in radio contact.” Myers signaled toward his second in command. “Which way, Earl?”

Harbinger pointed towards the heart of the swamp.

Natchy Bottom was a still and unnatural place. The small amounts of ground were soft and treacherous. Long patches were covered in dank, fetid water, thick and overgrown with gnarled trees and thorned vines that grabbed and clutched at you. Roots and other unknown items were always underfoot, waiting to cause the unwary to stumble. The rain dripped down through the thick canopy of trees. It was early in the morning, but it was dark inside the Bottoms.

“Welcome to Dagobah,” Trip joked.

“You are such a geek,” Holly retorted.

I swatted a mosquito that landed on my cheek. It splattered bloodily. It was as big around as a dime. I swore under my breath.

“Just wait until we get done and you check for leeches,” Sam said. “You can have hundreds of those suckers on you and not know it.”

“And ticks. Don’t forget the ticks,” Milo added.

“Don’t pay them any attention,” Julie said. “The leeches and ticks here are big enough that you’ll feel them when they latch on.”

“Good,” I answered. “I don’t want to waste my time with wussy insects.” I adjusted Abomination and forded on into the waist-deep muck.

The agents had broken into three teams, with MHI bringing up the rear in a rough diamond pattern. The agents moved like ghosts through the trees. They communicated totally with hand signals, and had drilled to the point that each team was a seamless blending of skill. I had to admit, they were impressive in action.

Then there was us.

“Wow. Did you see the size of that snake?”

“That wasn’t a snake. It was a log.”

“Hey, are there crocodiles here?”

“Alligators, moron. Crocodiles are in Africa.”

“No, they aren’t. Those are in Australia.”

“Well, actually they’re in both.”

“You can tell the difference by the snout. I saw that on Animal Planet.”

I idly wondered if the Monster Control Bureau were hiring.

Harbinger tapped me on the shoulder. “Do you sense anything?”

“No. It’s just creepy. Why?”

“You’ve felt the Cursed One. You know him better than the rest of us. I just hoped you would know when he’s near.”

“Oh . . . Hey, Earl,” I whispered. “I’ve got a question for you. How come we don’t move like the Feds? All quiet and fast. We’re just kind of clumped up and shooting the bull.”

“Seems kind of unprofessional in comparison, don’t it?” he asked. I nodded. “Well, let’s look at this for a moment. I’ve been doing this kind of thing for a real long time, so I’m going to let you in on my philosophy.” He lowered his Tommy gun and ducked under some puncture vines. “See how those guys are all intense? Real quiet like?”

“Yeah.”

“All of them learned how to fight against human beings. Monsters are different. I bet most of those guys are multiple-combat vets. Were we to fight them, we would get our asses kicked, because they know how to fight people.”

“You got them pretty good last night.”

“Element of surprise, Owen. If I were to try that again they would pump my guts full of lead. Now here’s the thing. They’re moving like they’re up against things with the same senses as them. I’ve got bad news, if the Masters are in this swamp, they already know we’re here. And as far as being quiet so they can’t sneak up on you, if a Master wants to sneak up on you, they are going to do it. Doesn’t matter who you are. Well, with a few exceptions.” He nodded toward Skippy and his brother Edward.

They were slightly apart from the group, heads cocked as they listened intently and sniffed the air. The two orcs were dressed in black and wearing their balaclavas, though they had ditched their glasses. Their yellow eyes studied the trees and the murky water with great interest. Skippy cradled an old AK47, adorned with feathers and small animal bones, while Edward’s hands were empty, but with a pair of short swords strapped over his back. He looked like a ninja.

“How come Ed doesn’t have a gun?”

“He’s a lousy shot. . . . Anyways, now those boys. They’re our early warning system. Ed goes for his sword. Get ready. Orcs sense things different than us.”

“And what about you?” I asked seriously. Obviously Harbinger had some gifts that were not normal.

“Me? I’ve just got more experience is all . . . Don’t dwell on it.” He chuckled. “Back to your question, now here’s the real difference between us and the Feds. They always act like that. We’re not creatures of habit. We can tailor our behavior for the situation. If we need to be quiet, we can be quiet. If we need to be fast, we can be fast. But have you noticed the biggest difference between us and them?”

“They’re jerk-offs?”

“Besides that.”

I thought about it for a moment. I watched as one of the Feds scurried behind a patch of stunted trees. He scanned around him nervously, the barrel of his stubby F2000 poking around quickly as he heard the splash of a small swamp animal. Relieved, he quickly moved on.

“Some of them are terrified,” I answered.

“Bingo. They’re quiet. But that means they can’t talk to their team. That means that their minds are totally on their surroundings. And if you ain’t noticed, we’re strolling through one of the most evil places in the world. A place like this gnaws at your mind. You start to see things out the corner of your eye. Pretty soon you’re seeing ghosts, and I ain’t talking about the friendly kind like you’ve got riding around in your head. I mean the bad kind that are jealous of the living, and want you to be just as miserable as they are. While those Feds are getting nervous and jumpy, their minds playing tricks on them, when it comes time to throw down, we’re going to be just fine. That’s why you see my team shooting the bull.”

“It keeps their minds off of all this.” I gestured at the drizzly blackness. As I concentrated on the swamp, I could feel the chill, the cold, the eons of hate, and the ancient evil that lay under the murky water. I looked away and turned back to my team. “I’m with you.”

We continued on, drenched by the splashing mud and the drizzling rain. It was summer, but it was probably only forty degrees inside Natchy Bottom. I was shivering beneath my heavy armor. I did not envy the smaller Hunters who lacked my insulating body fat. Who’s laughing now, skinny people?

The deeper we got into the swamp, the darker and more sinister it grew. After an hour of walking, the radio finally crackled. We had previously tuned into the Feds’ secure frequency. “This is Alpha team. We have a contact. There are some huts on a little island. One hundred yards south of us. They appear to be inhabited. Huts have some sort of light source, and there are some cooking fires. Over.” Our team halted, waiting for more information. I used the opportunity to spray more bug repellent onto my exposed skin.

“This is Delta,” replied Myers. “Investigate. Proceed with caution. Over.”

Harbinger scowled and his nostrils flared as he sniffed the air. Our leader looked uneasy as he studied the surrounding swamp. He looked to Skippy and Edward. The orcs studied the air. Skippy shook his head in the negative. Harbinger got on the radio.

“Belay that order, Alpha team. Do not make contact.”

“MHI, get off my radio net,” Myers snapped.

“What color are the lights in those shacks?” Harbinger asked. “I bet they’re green.”

“Uh . . . This is Alpha. The lights are green. I repeat green. Over.”

“Fall back, Alpha. Fall back unless you want to get the marrow sucked out of your bones.”

“This is Delta. Alpha, ignore that order and check out those structures. Over.”

“Myers, you dumb ass. Pull your men back or you’re going to lose a whole team. And then we’re going to have to waste a day messing with the things on that island, and they don’t have anything to do with what we’re after. Alpha team, listen up. If you step foot on that island, you’re dead men. By the time we get over there, they’ll have skinned you and eaten your eyeballs right out of your heads.” He let go of the mike, and then thought better of it. “Over,” he added.

“What are they, Earl?” Julie asked with some concern. He just held up a hand and waited for Myers’ response. A minute passed.

“This is Alpha. What should we do, sir? Over.”

Finally Myers responded. “Fall back, Alpha. Ignore the structures for now. Mark them on your GPS for future investigation. Over.”

“It’s your funeral,” Harbinger said into the radio.

“What are they?” Trip asked nervously.

“Humboldt Folk,” he explained. Most of the Hunters looked at each other in confusion. Only the senior Hunters nodded in understanding. “They just want to be left alone is all. Alpha team is lucky they didn’t set foot on that island. The Folk don’t let trespassers leave. Ever.”

“No, Earl. You forget something. We’re real lucky our team isn’t the one that happened across it,” Julie corrected him. “They wouldn’t leave their circle to attack Alpha. They’re all male. For us they might have made an exception.”

“What do you mean?” Trip asked quietly.

“The Folk tend to run real short on fertile females,” Julie answered. She quickly checked her weapons. “Holly, if you get attacked by some strange-looking people with a green glow about them . . . save your last bullet for yourself.” She was not joking.

“What are they?” Holly asked. She held her .308 Vepr and scanned the surrounding trees.

“What were they is a better question,” Harbinger responded, “and that’s a story that I’m going to save for when we’re standing in a warm, sunshiny place. Come on, team, we’re wasting daylight.”

Somewhere in the distance strange animals cried.

Chapter 22

Hours passed as we trudged deeper into the heart of the evil swamp, yet we had not gone very far. The going was slow in Natchy Bottom. It was afternoon, and the rain had not let up. The water level had risen, and walkable land was becoming scarcer. All too often we were forced to wade through the murk, unseen things grasping at our boots, mud sucking us down. At this point we were all so coated in filth that it was becoming difficult to tell who was who.

The shorter Hunters had it particularly bad, often having to wade through water that came up over their chests, and being forced to hold their weapons above their heads. At one point Lee slipped and disappeared beneath the water, and did not come up immediately. Sam dived under and retrieved him, bringing the other Hunter up sputtering and choking. Lee swore that the roots had not wanted to let him go.

I noticed that the mood of the group had become darker and more somber. The further we went into Natchy Bottom, the more it seemed to suck at a person’s happiness and will to live. It really was a bad place. I could feel that something was watching us. Unknown insects crawled or slithered inside my clothing.

“Stop,” Harbinger ordered. The team complied, weapons at the ready. “This is it.”

I looked around. It looked just like every other patch of gray-and-black muck and mutant trees that I had been looking at all morning. I would certainly hate to get lost in here.

“Yes. Everybody stay quiet. No sudden moves. Don’t point your weapons at the Wendigo.” He got on the radio. “Franks. Call a halt. This is the place. I’m going to make contact.”

“This is Delta. I want my men there with you. Over.” Myers’ voice was distorted, and hard to hear through the static.

“Alpha, Bravo, set up a perimeter. Charlie with me. Hold up, MHI. Over,” Franks stated over the radio.

“All right. My favorite person in the whole world,” I muttered. “My good buddy Agent Franks gets to hang out with us.” My tongue unconsciously probed the gaps in my gums from where he had smashed out my teeth.

“He ain’t so bad for a bureaucratic killing machine,” Trip said.

“I heard he once burned a busload of nuns ’cause he thought there was a zombie on board,” Sam added.

“No, those were orphans,” Milo corrected.

“He’s actually kind of cute in a psychopathic way,” Holly said.

“Eww,” I responded. “That’s sick.”

“Hey, some girls go for that side-of-beef thug look.” She winked at Julie. I could tell our sharpshooter’s cheeks turned red beneath the coating of grime. Personally, besides the muscles, I did not think that I looked like Franks at all. I was, after all, much better looking. Well, in my opinion at least.

“I said quiet,” Harbinger admonished. The team settled down. Charlie team materialized out of the mist a few minutes later, moving like ghosts. Franks looked like Swamp Thing, coated in mud and moss. He made a few rapid hand signals and his team disappeared into the trees.

“Okay,” he grunted as he knelt in the mud amongst my team.

“Y’all sit tight. I’m going over there.” Harbinger pointed out a small clump of land, almost tall enough to be dry. “I’ll be right back. Franks, you’d best keep your men under control.”

“Don’t worry,” the quiet man stated. Harbinger nodded and moved quickly away, sloshing through the mud, stepping on roots and semisolid land whenever possible.

“How’s your stomach?” Franks asked as he studied the terrain.

“Sore. How’re your nuts?” I whispered back.

“Fine.” He shifted his gun in his big hands. “I killed the last guy who tried to kick me like that.”

“Hey, asshole, if we’re comparing notes, I think you’ve hit me a lot more times than I’ve hit you.”

“Will you two shut up?” Julie hissed.

Harbinger had reached the island. He hung his Tommy gun in the branches of a tree, set down his revolver and grenades, and finally stabbed his bowie knife into the trunk, leaving it there vibrating slightly. He left his weapons behind and walked slowly up the mud hill. At the summit he sat down cross-legged, back toward us, and waited.

“Probably a stupid question at this point . . .” Trip whispered. “But what’s a Wendigo exactly?”

“A shaman who was cursed for committing an unforgivable act, usually something cannibalistic. Doomed to walk the Earth forever, guardian of the land and its original inhabitants,” Julie answered softly. “It’s a horrible fate.”

The swamp grew still. The rain stopped. The constant croaking and chittering of amphibians and insects abruptly died. The tiny bit of light that we had been getting through the canopy went away, leaving us in near darkness. A shiver ran down my spine. It felt almost sterile and impossibly lifeless.

An eerie illumination slowly rose from the other side of the hill, highlighting Harbinger as he sat perfectly still. Something moved in the unnatural light. Something huge. Impossibly tall, but startlingly lean. All we could see was a silhouette of billowing skins, ten feet tall, with antlers like a deer rising from the center of its elongated head. An alien figure out of nightmares. It was not of this world.

The thing stopped before Harbinger. Our team leader did not move. I realized I was holding my breath.

The antlered being was motionless. Its long limbs folded tight against its body, giving us no clue as to its unnatural structure. I could not see the Wendigo’s facial features, and for that I was thankful. If they were conversing we could not tell. Other shapes moved on the island, giant hulking things, bristling with hair and mud, just outside of the circle of pale light. A horrible smell drifted across the water. I gagged involuntarily.

After a few minutes of silence the Wendigo turned and drifted off of the island. The hairy beasts ambled away, disappearing into the swamp. The gray light died. The rain began to pelt us again. Gradually the light returned to its natural levels and frogs began to croak. The swamp returned to normal, or at least as normal as a place like Natchy Bottom could be.

“That was the Wendigo,” Julie told us. “The other things were skunk-apes. Swamp Sasquatches. It protects them, keeps them away from our world. They are why I didn’t want your people”—she nodded at Franks—“to just come in here and blow the whole place up.”

“Just big monkeys,” the Fed grunted.

Julie started to reply, but then bit her tongue. Arguing with Franks would be like beating your head against a block of granite.

“Uh-oh,” I said, “that don’t look good.” Once the mysterious being had gone, Harbinger leapt to his feet and slid down the hill, grabbed his weapons, and came leaping across the water, splashing toward us as fast as he could.

“It’s a trap!” he shouted in our direction.

“Alpha, Bravo. Go hot,” Franks ordered.

Harbinger skidded into us, breathing heavy. He looked like he had seen a ghost. I suppose in a way he had.

“The Cursed One ain’t here. The vampires ain’t here. But they summoned something else. Something is waiting for us. It was a trick.” He turned to Franks. “We need immediate extraction and air cover.”

The silent Fed did not argue. “Delta, this is Charlie. We need immediate evac. Over.”

Nothing.

Franks repeated his request. Still no response. A regular man would have looked concerned at being stuck near the crossroads of all badness, in the middle of an ambush set by creatures of unspeakable evil. He shrugged, apparently unperturbed.

“The signal isn’t getting out,” Julie said. “How could it be a trap? My dad told us . . .” She trailed off. “Oh no.”

“He told us what Susan wanted him to,” Harbinger snapped. He kicked a tree stump. “Damn it! I should have thought of that. We have to get out of here.”

“Alpha, Bravo. Come in,” Franks said. “Nothing.” He stood up and pointed at some of his men. He made several rapid hand signals and pumped his fist in the air. They nodded, leapt to their feet, and sloshed in the direction of the other teams. “We fall back to the extraction zone.”

“Can you call in air cover with flares?” Sam asked.

“Already done,” he answered as something boomed from the direction of Charlie team. A few seconds later, red flares erupted high above us and slowly drifted toward the thick canopy of trees.

“I just hope they see them in the bad visibility,” Milo said, looking up at the rain and the roiling clouds.

From the distance came a sound like the blowing of a horn, a deep rumbling that we all felt in the pits of our stomachs. The low note continued for several seconds and then trailed off. Another horn blew to our south, and then another to the east.

“Earl, what did they summon?” I asked. All I knew was that if they had been brought here by Lord Machado, they were not going to be friendly.

“I don’t know.” His face was streaked with mud and his eyes narrowed dangerously. “But the Wendigo said to get out. He said it’s beyond his power. So it’s bad. Real bad. I told him to get his people out of here. So if you see something that ain’t human, shoot it.”

More horns sounded. Now they were all around us. Several rang out between us and the way that we had come from. “Sounds like they’re not going to let us retreat.” Julie snapped her M14 to her shoulder and scanned through the scope. The MHI staff began to fan out, weapons at the ready, looking for defensive positions.

Deprived of his radio, Franks started to bellow orders to his men. “Dig in. Claymores. Hit them when they come for us. At my signal, push through to the south.” That was our end of the diamond. “Your men up to being the tip of the spear?” he asked Harbinger.

“Of course,” our team leader answered with far more confidence than I felt. Ed’s swords flashed silver in the low light as he pulled them smoothly from their sheaths. The blades were short and thick and wickedly sharp. He cracked his neck and vertebrae. The rest of us were armed with a variety of firearms, plus each person was packing along some form of heavier ordnance: RPGs, grenade launchers, and Milo had some sort of homemade lightweight flamethrower. It hummed ominously when he switched it on, heavily pressurized with napalm.

“Find cover,” Harbinger ordered. “We don’t know what they are, so hit them with everything.” The squad complied. To our left, Charlie team dug down. To our right was Alpha. Bravo was behind us. Franks moved amongst his men, giving orders. Pointing out problems. Assigning areas of responsibility. Offering reassurance while the rumble of unnatural horns sounded in the distance. He may have been a violent, bloodthirsty scumbag, but he was a good leader.

“Get lower, Trip,” Harbinger suggested as he paced amongst us. “Holly, you have a clear area behind you, so you can use the RPG if we need it. Lee, don’t hug right against that tree, it limits your mobility. Step back a bit and you still have cover.” We had a great leader as well. “Looking good, Hunters. It ain’t gonna be nothing we can’t handle.”

“I hate the part when you don’t know what the bad guys are,” Sam said quietly as he pressed his bulk behind a mound of tree roots. The low rumbling horns stopped. The rain slapped against the water.

“Harb Anger,” Skippy grunted. The orc swiveled his head from side to side as he sniffed the air. “They come.”

“What are they, Skip?” Julie asked.

“Not know,” he answered. “Smell . . . smells not from . . . here.”

The ten of us were spread out over a forty-foot area, holding low behind trees, roots, logs and mud. Each of us was scanning the swamp for threats. The rain and mist made it difficult to see very far. My area of responsibility was a confused mass of light and shadows, vines and trees, moss and mud. Nothing moved. The swamp was quiet except for the noises of small animals and the occasional bubble of mysterious organic gasses creeping to the surface.

Gunfire and explosions erupted to the north. Bravo team had made contact. Some of the Newbies jumped at the sounds and began to turn.

“Hold!” Harbinger shouted. “Watch your area! That’s their problem. Deal with yours!”

I forced myself back into position as the supersonic cracks of rifle bullets and the duller whumps of high explosive filled the air. Bravo team was unleashing hell upon something. After several seconds the initial salvo died down until there was only a sporadic firing of weapons. Then nothing.

Franks’ deep voice drifted through the trees, shouting orders and commands to his men.

“Bah. Whatever they are, they ain’t so tough,” Sam said as he spit into the water.

Harbinger held up his hand for quiet. He closed his eyes and listened intently, almost as if he was meditating. Suddenly he stiffened and swore quietly.

There was a whistling noise from the direction of Bravo. Then another, and another, until the swamp echoed with dozens of the strange sounds, and then the damp thuds of hundreds of separate impacts. Wails of pain and human agony followed.

“What was that?” Lee blurted, a hint of terror in his voice.

He did not get an answer. Harbinger snapped his Tommy gun into position and squeezed off a long controlled burst into a patch of black water. The .45 slugs tore into the muck and geysered upwards. The surface exploded under the impacts as something sprang upward through the mist.

I got a brief glimpse of the first creature before it was torn to pieces in the storm of hot lead and silver, orange fluids spraying into the surrounding foliage. It was about the size of a man, only hunched and misshapen. Insectile in its joints and extra limbs, the creature seemed all unnatural angles and claws, with two sets of interlocked jaws, and dozens of red eyes set into a blunted skull of a face. It ruptured open as the bullets pierced its carapace, almost as if its internal contents had been under great pressure. The torn thing thrashed about, falling backwards into the muck, finally lying still.

It was only because of my hearing protection, and its electronic amplification of sound, that I was able to hear Julie talking to herself. She sounded terrified and shaken. Julie Shackleford did not scare easily.

“Not them. Not again.”

“What was that thing?” Holly shouted. None of the experienced Hunters answered. I lifted my cheek from my stock, looking over at the others. Milo blinked slowly, as if in disbelief. Sam stared silently into the distance. Julie had begun to shake uncontrollably. Harbinger changed magazines, looking down at his weapon instead of us. In the background more screams and random gunfire erupted from Bravo. Finally Harbinger pulled the bolt back, regarded it solemnly, and finally answered us.

“It’s the things from the Christmas party.”

“God help us,” Milo said.

“This time we’re armed, though,” Sam answered. “It was hand-to-hand then, now we got guns.”

“So do they,” Harbinger replied sadly. “So do they.”

“Incoming!” Julie shouted as she fired into the swamp. Orange-and-red shapes appeared from the murk or came charging out of the fog. Once again I heard the whistling noise, only this time it was closer, much closer. Something impacted the mud inches from my face, spraying my goggles. It appeared to be a long bone spine, dripping in dense orange fluid. I aimed at the source, a hunched insectoid demon thing, and stroked the trigger, blasting a slug through its thorax. More spines flew into our position, thudding into our cover like a volley of medieval arrows. The creature I shot stumbled, righted itself, hunkered down, pointed its crest in our direction, and launched another spine, cracking it deep through the bark of the tree I was hiding behind. I hit the creature with two more rapid shots, bursting some sort of internal fluid sack, and sent it back into the mud.

Spines landed all around me, each one impacting like a spear. The demons bobbed and crawled through the trees, closing the distance for their primitive weapons. They appeared to have no concept of fear, charging straight into our position, bodies exploding and breaking, limbs tearing off and being left behind, alien eyes pushing onward.

“Milo! Light ’em!” Harbinger ordered. Milo dropped his rifle onto its sling and scooped up the flamethrower. He fired a ten-second burst through the swamp, igniting the creatures, engulfing them in flames, sending them crackling back into the water. Some of the creatures reappeared, still burning, the water not being able to extinguish the lethal chemical mixture. They thrashed about, launching spines randomly until they expired.

Then it was still. There were no more moving orange shapes, only exploded and burned husks, charred and opened like overmicrowaved hot dogs. In the distance horns sounded as the demons regrouped, preparing to attack again.

“Everybody okay?” Harbinger shouted. One by one we shouted back in the affirmative. Somehow our team had gotten through the skirmish uninjured. Judging by the cries coming from Bravo’s position, they had not been as lucky.

“They ain’t so tough,” Sam bellowed angrily as he shoved more massive shells into his .45-70.

“Sorry, Cowboy. Those were just scouts,” Harbinger answered. “They were just probing us.”

“How do you know?” I asked. “You don’t even know what these things are.”

“I can just tell. The ones we fought in ’95 were just workers or drones. Mindless things with just claws and teeth. These things are the soldiers. They’re gonna come again. That was just a test.”

Explosions rocked from the direction of Alpha team as their position was attacked. We waited in anxious silence as the battle raged on without us. Sure enough, after a few minutes of fighting, Charlie team was attacked in turn. A stray bullet pulped a tree branch above my head. Other bullets whipped around us, sounding like angry bees.

“Watch your field of fire, you derelicts!” Sam shouted uselessly.

“MHI! I’m coming in,” Franks shouted as he splashed toward us. He pushed his way to Harbinger’s position and squatted in the mud.

“How’s it going?” our leader asked.

“Two dead. Two wounded. One critical,” the stoic man answered. He did not bother to ask about us. “We need to push out. Head for extraction.”

“Negative. They can breathe under water. We could walk right into an ambush. If they get in close, those spear chuckers are gonna own us,” Harbinger stated flatly. “We need to hold here.”

“They are feeling us out for a rush.”

“You saw how fast they move. We can’t ditch them through the swamp, and with no cover, they’re gonna tear us up.”

“We have to fire and maneuver,” Franks insisted.

“Listen, we’re not fighting people. This ain’t the army,” Harbinger insisted. “We move out and we’re dead.”

“We’re moving with or without you,” Franks said. “Two minutes. We’ll send up flares.” The federal agent swiveled and moved away. “You can stay if you want.”

Harbinger watched him go. “Shit.”

“Earl? What do you wanna do?” Sam asked.

“We ain’t got much choice. Without them, we get flanked and we’re dead. We have to stick together.” He changed the tone of his voice so that we could all hear. “Okay, team. When we see the flares, we move back the way we came. Lay down fire on anything that looks suspicious.” He tried to rally us. “We can do this. We are the best. We’ve beaten these orange bastards before. I’m on point, then Skippy and Ed. We have the best senses. If we fire on a position, follow suit, it means we saw something.” He switched magazines. “I’m loading tracers. I’ll mark it, you kill it. Everybody get ready.”

Flares rose into the rain-drenched sky. A cold weight shifted in my gut. The swamp before us was vast with shadowed hiding places.

“Move out!” Harbinger ordered.

We set out toward safety, moving as fast as possible in the unforgiving terrain. Mud sucked at us, clung to us, increased our weight and tried to drag us down. The muscles in my calves burned at the exertion of double-timing it through the syrupy surface. To our sides and slightly behind us, the Feds moved through the trees. Even with their impressive physicality and despite their intense training, they could move no faster. The rain increased in intensity, hammering us, bouncing from the water below until it seemed as if it was raining from two directions.

It was still bone-numbingly cold, but we were all overheated and labored with the exertion of trying to move quickly through the muck. I did not take the time to brush the mammoth mosquitoes from my face. They were not the only things after our blood.

We crossed through the steaming carcasses of the destroyed demons. A closer look showed that the internal workings of the creatures were totally different than anything from this world. Their insides appeared to be a complicated series of bags and tubes, all orange, yellow or bright red. I stepped quickly over one creature, its two mouths open in a final death snarl, rows of jagged teeth and extra tongues hanging out haphazardly, a dozen dead eyes open and collecting rain.

I could feel a dark presence in the air. Not just the alien, skin-crawling sensation inherent in the haunted swamp, but rather an oppressive heaviness that seemed to further burden us. I recognized it.

The Cursed One was watching us.

His physical body was not here, of that I was certain, for surely I would have known it. But, rather, he watched us from afar. Somehow his presence was here amongst us, watching the trap which he had set encircling his enemies. Son of a bitch was enjoying this.

The evil signature of the accursed ancient artifact was on this endeavor. I did not know what the demon things were, but I knew that they had been ripped from their home world and brought here through its power. The artifact was the key.

We had made it less than three hundred yards before we made contact again.

Harbinger moved quickly, faster than the rest of us, somehow able to find traction where none of those following could. He froze in place, snapped his archaic subgun to his shoulder and fired a burst of tracers into the water below a fallen tree, splashing up gouts of water. Before the rest of us could react, he had aimed at another spot and fired more bright streaks into it.

The line of Hunters erupted. I lifted Abomination, aiming at the first spot. The hidden demon leapt upwards, intersecting with my buckshot, tearing its body asunder and taking its life. Other creatures rose beside and behind it, and I struck them down as well, Abomination merely a flawless extension of my killing will.

Then all hell broke loose.

Orange shapes tore through the pounding rain, scurrying at us from every direction. Insectoid horrors were coming out of the gnarled tree branches, erupting from the mud, launching their deadly missiles at us, trying to close the distance to use their claws and dripping teeth. Our advance stopped, the federal agents bearing down around us into the streaming horde of orange and red. The scene was utter chaos.

I emptied my shotgun, learning quickly to aim for the point where the creatures’ heads intersected with their hardened bodies. It was a weak point, and beneath was some sort of fluid bag that would burst like a water balloon, putting the demons down hard. I dropped the spent magazine and instantly slammed a new one home. A spine whistled through the air, missing my face by inches. A Fed stumbled in the muck beside me, firing his FN into a charging monster. The .223 bullets punctured the body, but did not drop the creature.

“Aim for the neck!” I shouted as I chambered another round. He aimed higher and the creature exploded in a shower of gore. The body splashed into the water only a dozen feet away.

“Thanks!” the nameless man shouted. He raised his gun to engage another target, but stopped, looking down curiously at the alien spine embedded through the armor of his chest. “Shit!” he shouted before another spine nailed him squarely in the face, killing him instantly.

I caught the falling body and knelt behind him. It would be a lie to say that I did so to help, but rather it was an instinctive need to find cover as more spines sailed toward us. The limp form fell against me, heavy with sodden murk and spilling blood. I found the demon hunched down, launching spines at us. I aimed over the dead agent’s shoulder and fired at the creature until it was dead. More creatures took its place, swarming over the fresh carcass and charging toward me. I fired my grenade, striking a tree and tearing three of the creatures asunder in the blast of hot shrapnel.

More spines struck the agent’s twitching body. Abomination clicked dry. I dropped it onto its sling and grabbed the Fed’s unfamiliar bullpup carbine. I raised it one-handed and sprayed the rest of the magazine in the direction of the creatures, the empty cases flying out the front of the weapon. When it was empty, I dropped it, sprang to my feet, and ran, searching desperately for cover, reloading my shotgun as I went.

Julie was kneeling behind a log. I dived over the top and splashed facedown in the mud next to her. I came up choking and spitting out the fetid taste. I rolled over and joined her. With each supersonic crack of her rifle, another demon went down. She hunched behind the log. “Reload!” she shouted as she searched for a fresh magazine. Spines impacted into our cover with wet thuds. I went over the top, spotted the demon hurling bits of itself toward us and swiftly killed it. More and more of them were pouring through the gray trees, a garish swarm of Mardi Gras color.

The tableau disappeared in a wall of brilliant flame as Milo ignited the swamp. “Clear out! Keep going!” he yelled at us as he put down a blanket of destruction. I knew that his portable weapon only had so much fuel, and demons were already closing from other directions, flashes of bright color betraying their positions all through the swamp.

Something shifted behind Milo. A single point opened in the rainy air, almost as if a giant hand had pulled back an invisible zipper. The sky on the other side was a dusty red, and flames licked the air when the alien atmosphere touched our own. A single demon dropped through the rift and splashed down. The opening snapped closed, leaving only pale sky. The creature raised a multijointed limb over its head.

“Milo!” Julie screamed as she fired at the creature. The bubble under its lower jaw exploded, sending it sprawling, but too late as its claws came down. Milo Anderson grimaced in pain as the sharpened bones pierced and shredded his arm. He went to his knees in a shower of crimson droplets.

Julie and I leapt to our feet, struggling forward. I grabbed Milo and hoisted him up. He kept the flames spraying into the swamp, beating back our foes. The intense heat washed over me and scalded my eyes. I could see flashes all across the terrain as other portals opened briefly and more creatures dropped into our world.

We were in a running battle against an endless foe, and there was only one possible outcome.

I pulled the bleeding and shaking Hunter across the water. The flamethrower sputtered and died. Julie was by my side, firing at the onrushing horde. She reached to her webbing, pulled a grenade and tossed it into the trees. The resulting blast shook me to my teeth. I made my way toward the rest of my team as fast as I could.

“Duck!” Harbinger shouted as I approached. I did so without thought, pushing Milo and myself down. He fired over our heads, cutting down the creature that had gated in beside us. The heavy husk fell on my back, a pointed, superheated, squishy weight. Pushing myself up, I kicked the segmented body aside.

Other types of demons were appearing now, smaller, swifter things, without any sort of distance weapon. They moved effortlessly across the terrain, faster than a human athlete could on dry ground. I watched as one leapt onto the back of a Fed, tearing at the man with its bone claws. Instantly, three other creatures were on him, pulling and biting. He disappeared in a shower of blood and limbs. A third kind of creature appeared, heavier, with platelike bones covering its vulnerable joints. These beasts lumbered slowly through the swamp, pausing to spit balls of green material from their upper mouths. A ball impacted at the feet of another Fed, exploding in a shower of horrible acid. He dropped his weapon and clawed at his Kevlar-covered legs, screaming in pain as it burned through to his bones.

They were everywhere.

We struggled toward a patch of higher ground. It was only a clump of mud, but it was the most defensive position we had. Milo began to shake horribly, as if he were having a seizure. “Poison,” he said through gritted teeth. “Drop me.”

“No, you can make it!” I shouted.

“O-O-wen. D-d-drop me,” he ordered. His beard was running red with the blood coming from his mouth and staining his teeth. The powerful poison was tearing him apart. I did as I was instructed. Milo fell against a tree, and slid to the ground, pulling up his rifle. “Tell Shawna I I-I-love her,” he gasped.

Julie tried to turn back for him, holding out a hand, pleading for her friend. I grabbed her by the arm and continued toward the high ground. There was nothing that we could do. Milo raised his carbine one-handed and fired, keeping the monsters at bay so we could escape. His AR emptied, he tossed it aside, shakily drawing his 1911. We kept moving as the shots echoed behind us. Several fast-moving demons descended upon the red-bearded man, and the last I heard was a thunderous chain of explosions as he detonated the grenades on his vest.

“Bastards!” Julie screamed as she stroked a demon to the ground with the stock of her rifle. I put my boot on its carapace and forced it down, as she put a finishing shot into the struggling thing’s throat. We were both sprayed with yellow bile.

I passed Albert Lee’s dismembered body, killing the distracted monster that was tearing at his flesh with a single shot to its pulpy brainstem. I loaded a fresh grenade and launched it into the horde following us. It killed four of them and barely made a dent.

I saw Skippy disappear under a pile of the creatures. His brother Edward jumped in to save him, blades singing through the raindrops. I had never seen any living being move with such fluid grace and deadly speed. Claws and heads were severed away in a remarkable dance of destruction, spraying orange fluids high into the air. Edward screamed an unearthly battle cry as he hacked through the beasts, spinning, ducking, always swinging and killing. The severed limbs and twitching corpses began to pile up.

Finally a spine appeared in Edward’s back, and then another in his thigh. The orc began to falter. I fired a magazine into the fray, killing a demon with each shot, but it was too little, too late. Edward kicked a monster off of Skippy’s body, and stood over his brother protectively. Shouting at the onrushing creatures, he slashed at them until finally he was washed away in a tide of crimson bodies.

The brothers died with great honor.

We reached the high ground. Our Alamo. Our Thermopylae. A twenty-foot pile of mud and sticks. There were only a handful of humans left. I could actually hear Lord Machado’s laughter.

But the damned die hard.

CRACK. BOOM! A pile of the thick-set armored demons exploded as Holly’s RPG struck amongst them, throwing heavy limbs and bone plates high into the sky. “Take that, you miserable sons a bitches!” she shouted as she tossed the spent launcher aside and pulled a grenade from her vest. She pulled the pin and hurled it into the swamp. At this point the enemy was so thick that we did not need to aim. It erupted in a shower of sparks and fragments.

A nearby Fed was pulled from his desperate hiding place in the crack of a tree trunk. He was dragged screaming into the horde, and violently pulled apart. He spasmodically jerked the trigger of his rifle. The stray bullet struck Holly Newcastle in the forehead, yawed and tumbled violently through her brain tissue, and exited at the base of her skull. She fell to the ground in an instant lifeless heap.

I crawled up onto the mud, shooting the closest demons, blasting a fast mover as it leapt toward us. Julie was still by my side as she struggled to her feet and tossed another frag. I instinctively shot an incoming acid bomb out of the air as if it were a clay pigeon. The remains showered down amongst the creatures. Julie began to pull and toss grenades from my webbing as I kept shooting.

As I reloaded, I saw Trip curled up near the summit. Torn and bloodied from dozens of claw marks, he jerked violently as the poison in his body finally stopped his great heart. I screamed in vain, flipped my shotgun to full-auto and sprayed the onrushing horde. Out of 12-gauge shells, I dropped Abomination and pulled my STI.

Sam Haven stood at the top of the hill, roaring like a berserker, a Fed rifle in each hand, pointing in opposite directions and firing downward into the throng. He was surrounded by a cloud of spent brass and a stream of profanity so creative and vile that it was destined to travel up to the heavens and pervert whole other worlds. The brave cowboy was silenced in the flash of an acid grenade.

Harbinger appeared out of nowhere. He flung his empty Tommy gun aside, hard enough to shatter the head of an armored demon. “Julie!” His eyes flashed yellow. Multiple spines had been driven deep into his back and sides. “Julie!” He drew his revolver, dropped six monsters in less than a second, and reloaded another moon clip in a blur of motion. He fought his way toward us, batting aside a leaping demon with a bare fist. “I’m sorry!” he shouted as he reached us, a veritable wall of monsters at his heels.

“Don’t worry about it, Earl,” she answered with a slight smile as she tossed our last grenade into the alien horde. “I always figured it would be something like this.”

Harbinger only nodded. He dodged under a swinging talon, grabbed the demon by its lower jaw and wrenched its head until the twin spinal columns snapped. Hurling the dead thing back into the crowd, he roared for more.

Franks pulled himself up to the top. Blood was streaming down his lacerated face, and his armor was smoking and burning with acid. A spine pierced his bicep. With no display of emotion he grabbed the shard and wrenched it free in a splash of red. The injured arm hung limply at his side. He drew his Glock and nodded at me. “Die with dignity,” he stated simply. Behind him the last of his men looked around in panicked bewilderment, put his pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Franks cringed as his last charge died. “Not like that.” The dark Fed fired into the masses, dropping onrushing demons with unflinching accuracy.

There were only the four of us left.

Lord Machado laughed. His physical body was hundreds of miles away, but his spirit, his presence, his consciousness was there with us. He laughed in triumph. He gloated. His pride swelled at the defeat of his greatest enemies.

We drew back to back at the top of the little mud hill, stepping over the lifeless bodies of our friends. Franks’ slide locked back on his Glock. He calmly dropped the magazine, placed it in the crook of his lifeless arm to hold it, grabbed another mag, inserted it, snapped the slide closed, and went back to shooting. A launched spine struck him in the wrist, traveled up his arm, and exploded out his elbow, opening his forearm like a gutted fish. The gun dropped from his deadened hand.

“Oh well,” he said, both arms hanging limp, drizzling blood, at his sides. With no hesitation he charged downward into the horde, kicking a monster back with his heavy boot, then shattered another’s mandibles with his forehead. He kicked another in its package of eyes, but a lashing claw opened up his inner thigh and femoral artery. He fell on his back and was dragged under the orange horde.

I emptied the STI into the demon wall, sending a beast back to hell with each shot. But for every one that I dispatched, another flaming hole would open in the sky, dropping another creature into the back of the throng.

I am sorry, Boy. This is end.

I speed-reloaded and continued shooting. I felt Julie by my side. She was also down to just her handgun. Time was running out. Acid exploded nearby, and scalding droplets scorched us. I heard an inhuman scream of rage from behind me as Harbinger ripped into the demons with his bare hands, crushing their alien bones, and flinging their husks back into the mass.

“I love you, Julie,” I shouted as my slide locked back empty and I went for another mag.

“I love you, Owen,” she answered.

Too bad I was about to die.

A demon hunched down directly before us, a subcutaneous membrane opening on its back, spines aligning to launch at Julie’s chest. I stepped in front of her.

The alien spear pierced through my armor just above my sternum, shearing through the top of my heart and piercing out the muscles of my back. Incomprehensible pain slammed me, heat and pressure beyond all imagining. I fell to my knees, and rocked backwards in the mud.

I looked upwards at Julie as my life blood flooded out of me and onto the ground. Rain poured down into my unblinking eyes.

Chapter 23

My body lay lifeless on the ground, legs bent, arms spread wide, an alien spear protruding from my chest, and a puddle of blood spreading under gravity’s power.

I stood above myself. Above the battlefield. Demon horde rampaging against the final two Hunters. My spirit moved between the sluggish raindrops. Time had slowed down, and I watched as the last few seconds of the battle stretched into eternity. Julie was only a few heartbeats from certain death. Earl Harbinger stood at her back, torn asunder with wounds, bristling with spines like a mutant porcupine, bleeding from countless injuries, but still fighting beyond any human capability.

Mordechai Byreika stood by my side. I could feel the Old Man’s sorrow.

I am sorry, Boy. You fought much hard. Braver Hunters the world never has seen.

What now?

Is over. Battle is lost. Tomorrow Cursed One destroy world.

Above the battlefield was the presence of Lord Machado. I could see it now. A sprawling evil blackness, roiling in the clouds. His laughter continued.

No.

Is not possible, Boy. You are not stuck. Move on you can. Not like me.

No.

The Cursed One was visible to me now. Of course, I was not bound by the limitations of my human sight. The gash that he had torn into the world was visible. The tear that went to the other place, the rift to the other world. The world that served as a temporary repository for the minions of the Old Ones. The ancient artifact of evil stood above all. It was the key. It was the bridge.

No.

The power was not ready. It was not time yet. Lord Machado would not be able to unlock the full power of the artifact until tomorrow at the zenith of the full moon. The demon army standing below was just a partial example of what the artifact could do.

You can go on. There is good place waiting for you. Move on, Boy. Is over.

No.

I watched in slow motion as Earl Harbinger tore the head from one of the demons. In the view that I had now, I could see the demon’s contorted spirit disappear from that animated physical body, denied access from this plane of existence. At that exact moment, a rift appeared to the other world, and the same spirit dropped through, cloaked again in a new physical body.

The Cursed One could only control a limited number of spirits.

His powers were still limited.

No.

I headed directly toward the evil blackness, passing into the realm of the dark one. I aimed my spirit at the artifact. The artifact was the key. The artifact was the key to control the power of time and space.

Boy! Wait. Do not face Cursed One like this. You will become stuck like me!

No.

Lord Machado regarded me idly. I could see the link back to his physical body. His slime-coated form knelt in a dark cavern, surrounded by his sleeping vampire minions and a fresh host of undead servants.

YOU HAVE FAILED, HUNTER.

No.

THIS WORLD IS MINE NOW.

I willed myself to approach the artifact. With the veil removed from my eyes I could see the true evil of the ancient thing. It dwarfed Lord Machado. It dwarfed us all. Its power was incredible. Incredible and dark and old and unspeakably evil. I could see the legions of dark forces waiting to move hungrily into this world should its power be unleashed. Black glistening octopus things, bigger than skyscrapers. Ancient triangular crustaceans the size of freighters, floating weightless through the void. Pale saucer eyes searching for a fresh world to plunder and intelligent souls to enslave.

No.

And I looked upon the glory of the legions of goodness and light that stood ready to do battle against them. A vast host of the noble and great ones. I could have given up and moved on and joined them. They urged me silently onward.

YOU HAVE THE STRONGEST MORTAL SPIRIT I HAVE EVER BEHELD.

I ignored him. I continued toward the artifact. I had to reach it.

YOU SHALL BE A FINE SLAVE.

No.

TOMORROW I SHALL RAISE MY QUEEN. YOU WILL BE HER SERVANT.

My consciousness strained against the evil barrier, pushing onwards toward the horrid power. Far below my surviving friends battled onward. More spines and claws pierced Harbinger, but still he fought on, rolling and splashing down into the ranks of the evil minions, smashing them, tearing them with his teeth and claws, more holes opening in the sky as the spirits of the alien warriors were recycled. Julie stood alone, blade in one hand, alien spine wielded as a club in the other. They fought on.

I reached the artifact. It glowed before me like a black sun, epic and deadly. Finally Lord Machado realized what I was doing.

YOU ARE MAD. YOU CANNOT CONTROL THE POWER OF THE OLD ONES. ONLY I MAY DO SO. YOU WILL BE UTTERLY DESTROYED.

I knew that he spoke the truth. He was not just talking about losing my life, but losing what I really was. The artifact was that powerful. Below me, my love fell to the claws of the alien army.

No.

I touched the artifact. Stretching across a thousand billion years of space and reality, time, matter, imagination, power. I put my will against the meager hold the Cursed One had upon it.

NO.

He rose to battle me, but he had been unprepared for a challenge. I focused my will upon the dark object as it assaulted my mind and my sanity, bombarding me with strange images and alien memories of a thousand dead worlds. I wrested it from the tentacles of the Cursed One.

The tenuous link across the rift was severed. The tunnel from the world of the Old Ones to an obscure swamp in Mississippi was destroyed. The alien army disappeared in a flash of light and fire.

NO!

The Cursed One screamed at me. We drew face to face for the first time, or as much as was possible since neither one of us currently had a face. His power surged against me, forcing me away, striving to ensnare my spirit and destroy me forever.

The carnage of the epic battle was strewn below. The remains of dead Hunters were spread across the fetid swamp. The dark spirits of the blighted region wandered amongst the bodies, celebrating the victory. My brave friends had been scattered and killed, the life ripped from their bodies. Only the changed Harbinger remained alive, and only barely, and even he would succumb to the lethal poisons shortly.

Trip, Holly, Milo, Sam, Lee, Skippy, Edward, even Franks and his men.

And Julie.

Her body lay still, and from my vantage I could see that her time was up.

I wished that I could turn back time.

Yes.

Lord Machado screamed in rage. Wrath crackled across the universe as his will was subverted.

NOOOOOOO . . .

The power of the Old Ones was tapped. Ancient wells of evil were utilized, and for the first time in eons, the true power of their ancient artifact was unleashed. Incomprehensible energies were set free, battering the foundations of time and space, subverting natural order, and crackling across the universe.

For five minutes, linear time was broken.

My spirit was reunited violently with my body and the breath of life filled my lungs. I gasped in pain and confusion. The horrible cleaving pain in my chest was gone. I choked, and the sour swamp gas smell of Natchy Bottom was in my mouth. I watched as concentric rings of water moved backward upon the surface, formed globules of water, and reversed themselves against gravity and rose into the air. As time stabilized, the raindrops froze, and then fell like normal.

I was lying in the mud, shotgun readied before me. The others were spread out over the same patch of ground that we had been defending five minutes before.

“Aarrrgghhh!” Sam shouted, continuing the noise that he had been making when the acid bomb had killed him. Holly aimed at the spot of ground that the first alien had jumped from and wildly emptied her rifle into the water, splashing mud, wood bits and water, but no monster. She dropped the rifle and grabbed her forehead, finding no hole. She then probed under the back of her helmet looking for the exit wound.

Harbinger stood up and looked around in confusion. Gradually the others did the same thing until the whole group was standing, bewildered and confused. Except for me, of course. I lay in the mud and wept, my cheek pressed into the stock of my weapon.

In the distance some of the Feds panicked and detonated their claymore mines against the empty swamp. Shouts of confusion echoed through the trees.

The Hunters checked themselves for extra holes, and found none. Milo walked a few feet away, set the flamethrower down, and then fell to his knees and folded his arms to pray silently. Trip did the same, crying while he did so. Skippy and Edward removed their hoods, revealing their tusked faces to everyone. They both took small, dried-lizard necklaces from inside their clothing and began to bat them with their foreheads and gesture toward the sky.

Julie flopped down next to me. She grabbed the drag strap on the back of my armor and tugged hard. I pushed myself up. She grabbed my face in her hands and kissed me passionately. I responded. She tasted like swamp mud, but it was still great. It was good to be alive.

“I would be mighty appreciative if somebody could tell me what in the hell just happened?” Sam said.

“I died,” Lee stated quietly. “I got bit in the neck.” He pulled his glove off and ran one hand over his throat. “I left my body.”

“Me too,” Holly added. “I don’t know what got me.”

“Fed shot you in the head,” I answered.

“Stupid bastard,” she said coldly.

“It was an accident. He was getting eaten.”

“Still . . .”

“All of us died.” I slowly stood up, searching for the words to explain what I had seen, what I had done. “I . . . When I got killed . . .” I stabbed my thumb to my chest. “I saw the Cursed One. I fought him for control of the artifact. I made a wish . . .”

“You did this?” Julie asked, stunned. She ran one hand down my filthy face. “How?”

“I just don’t know.” I was way out of my league on this one.

Harbinger had not said anything yet. He slowly sat down on a stump and scowled, deep in thought.

“You seriously made a wish? Like Aladdin and the magic lamp or whatever? And brought us back from the dead? And made all of those things go away?” Sam said.

“I guess.”

“Bullshit,” he spat, “just ain’t no way.”

“He didn’t bring us back from the dead,” Milo said, still kneeling, his back toward us. “We never died.”

“I don’t know about you, Milo, but I got my damned brains blown out,” Holly said.

Milo stood and faced us. “Not what I mean. Yes, we died, but that was erased. That has not happened yet. It would be happening shortly, but it got reversed. Turned back to right now. What we just went through never happened.”

“Sure it did,” Sam said. “It just happened.”

“When?” Milo held up his watch.

“Uh . . . in the future?”

“Right. So it has not happened.”

Sam thought about it for a moment, head cocked sideways as he stroked his walrus mustache. “Screw it. I need a drink.”

Franks drifted into our area, his crack federal agents following slowly behind him. They were not moving swiftly now. Rather, they looked as shell-shocked and confused as we did. None of them even reacted at the sight of the unmasked orcs. Compared to what they had just gone through, what were a couple of tusk-faced humanoids?

“Hey, guys,” Milo said cheerfully. “Let me guess, you all got killed by orange monster insect demon things too?”

“Yep,” Franks answered.

“Oh good, at least we’re all on the same page.”

The dark Fed just held up his thick arms, looking down at where they had been pierced and shredded by whistling spines. He made a fist and cracked his knuckles, then slowly lowered them.

Harbinger finally spoke. “See, Franks, I told you we should have stayed put.”

Franks shrugged. He keyed his radio. No longer disrupted by the unnatural rift in the area, we made immediate radio contact. Myers’ voice sounded shaken.

“What’s going on out there?” the radio shrieked.

Franks scowled as his straightforward brain tried to figure out how to explain our situation. Harbinger keyed his mike and interrupted.

“It was a trap. Ray Shackleford set us up. We were ambushed by a horde of transdimensional demons. We all got killed. Then time ran backwards. We all woke up alive. And the monsters are gone. Request immediate evac. . . .” He let that hang for a moment. “Over.”

“Uh, yeah,” Franks concurred.

“Air evac is on the way. What caused the time effect?”

Harbinger looked at me through squinted eyes, but did not betray my secret to the Feds. “Unknown. Suspect it was caused by the Cursed One’s artifact. We went back in time approximately five minutes.”

“I know,” Myers responded. “It wasn’t just you. We felt it too. It was 2:39, and then it was 2:34.”

“How widespread was the effect?”

“Hold on . . .” The radio went dead.

Forty quiet Hunters stood packed together in the pounding rain, taking no small amount of comfort from the nearness of other real people. The emotions displayed ran the gamut from confused, to terrified, to shaken, to ecstatic, but mostly to blank thousand-yard stares while our human brains tried to process the impossible. And we were Monster Hunters, either governmental or private, and every one of us was no stranger to the weird or the unexplainable. Shivering from the cold, I put my arm over Julie’s shoulder and pulled her close. Slow minutes ticked by. We all waited for Myers’ response.

“Sorry . . . I was told to turn on the news.”

“How widespread was the effect?” Harbinger asked again.

The radio crackled.

“Um . . . Reports are coming in now . . . the whole world.”

“Say again?”

“Earth. Every person on Earth felt it.”

We stood in the Monster Control Bureau’s giant tent command center, dripping from our showers, stinging from the leech removal process, and aching from the bevy of antibiotic shots given to us to combat the rancid waters of Natchy Bottom. The flat-screen televisions had been changed from satellite imagery to several different cable news channels.

“—continue to drift in. We can now confirm that India, Australia, Bangladesh and Finland also experienced the phenomenon and—”

“Large-scale rioting has broken out in Los Angeles, New York, and in several other cities in the continental—”

“Yes, Diane, the President will be addressing us live from Air Force One in a matter of minutes—”

“—the Prime Minister’s office has issued a statement for all to remain calm until—”

“—repent, sinners! The hour of judgment is at hand! I’m sorry I cheated on my wife, I’m adulterous slime. It’s all April the weather girl’s fault. Evil slut. Wait . . . you can’t take me off the air . . . damn you, Harry! Repent, you heathen bastard! It’s the end of the world! The end I say—”

Some of the media people were holding it together better than others. The same could be said for us.

“Maybe it wasn’t caused by this artifact,” Myers contended.

“Yeah, and maybe I’m Elvis,” Harbinger shouted back.

“It could have been a coincidence,” the senior agent pleaded.

“Sure, a rift in time just happens to occur as we’re fighting the minions of something that we were warned was going to try to control time? Give me a break, Myers.”

“I’m the one that has to talk to the President, damn it. I need to give him more than conjecture. I need proof! This is the biggest thing that has ever happened.”

“Hell, I’ll talk to the Prez,” Sam added helpfully. “He’s a Texan. He’ll understand.”

Harbinger ignored his teammate. “Myers, there hasn’t been an attack of transdimensional forces since ’95. That’s a rare enough occurrence as it is. It has to be connected.”

“There was the Vanni Fucci incident in Dothan a while back,” Julie offered.

“Isolated case,” Harbinger said.

“I know that, and you know that. But I need to explain this all to people who don’t know a damn thing about monsters. They were already prepared to go all the way to ‘final option’ to stop Lord Machado; what are they going to do now? Preemptively nuke the whole state into a sheet of glass?”

“That’ll alienate the Southern vote for sure,” Milo said.

I started to speak. I could tell them exactly what had happened. Julie kicked me in the shin. She shook her head in the negative.

The news continued to babble:

“—UN General Secretary has just called for a unilateral ban on time travel—”

“—I’m telling you, Ken, space aliens are behind this. I talked about it in my book, The Coming Gray Invasion, this is just phase one of their colonization—”

“—does not appear to be as much widespread panic on the other side of the world, since many people appeared to have slept through the disturbance—”

“—just in, there are reports of . . . this can’t be right . . . vampire attacks in Alabama and Georgia? Vampires? Uh . . . eyewitnesses are reporting that the dead are walking? What is this shit?” The screen went blank, and then to a static display that said they were experiencing technical difficulties.

Myers smashed the screen with his boot. Sparks flew from the sides of the TV. “Enough! Get out of here! Go take care of your local outbreaks! Just get out of my headquarters!” he shrieked at us. His phone rang. “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” His face blanched. Looking like a deer in the headlights, standing in the path of a truck with no brakes, he slowly answered it and listened, his eyes rolling back into his head. “Yes. I will hold for the President . . .” He covered the mouthpiece. “Lieutenant, get these civilians out of here!”

The National Guard soldiers herded us out of the tent. We stopped outside. The rain had thankfully stopped, leaving us with a pale, overcast sky. Harbinger sighed in relief and pulled out a cigarette. He offered one to the soldiers, who gladly took him up on the offer.

“So, Mr. Harbinger, is it . . . ? Is this really the end of the world? Demons and all that?” one of them asked.

“Not if we can help it,” he answered as he walked away, Monster Hunters trailing behind. Our group headed for the parked chopper. Skippy and Edward were busy “liberating” fuel and prepping for takeoff. Our mud-soaked gear was already stowed, and we were ready to go. Harbinger stopped before the hulking chopper, taking a long drag from his cancer stick. “Mount up, crew. Let’s get out of here. It’s been a strange day.”

“We got company.” Holly nodded back toward the command tent. Agent Franks was following us, as stoic and impassive as ever. He trudged through the damp grass, hard eyes fixed on our group. He had been busy caring for his men, and had not yet had a chance to change out of his mud-drenched, and surely leech-and-tick-infested armor. He stopped, hands awkwardly at his side.

We waited while the emotionless soldier found the words.

“Thanks.”

He snapped a hard salute, ramrod straight, and parade-ground perfect. Harbinger, Sam and Lee instinctively returned the gesture. The rest of us stood there stupidly. Franks made eye contact with each of us, squinty and cold, held his arm rigid for a long moment, and then let it fall. He spun on his bootheel and stalked back toward the tent.

“So does that mean we’re friends now?” I asked.

“Hell if I know,” Julie answered. “At least he didn’t slap you around again.”

The others moved for the chopper. Harbinger grabbed me. “Not so fast. Me and you need to talk for a second.” He gestured over his shoulder and we walked away from the others. I saw Julie watching after me, looking concerned, and then she was gone into the vehicle’s interior. Skippy fired up the turbines, and the powerful engines began to whine.

“What’s going on?”

“I really don’t know.”

“You don’t need to keep secrets from me. We’re a team.”

“You should talk.”

He shrugged. “No big deal. I have some issues, sure, but I don’t have the ability to twist the laws of physics like you seem to do. Care to explain?”

“Damn it. I told you what I know, Earl.” I flushed with anger. “If I knew how to put an end to this, I would tell you. If I knew how to kill that slimy son of a bitch, I would do it.”

“Can you find him?”

“I haven’t been able to so far. The Old Man doesn’t seem to be able to tell me.”

“What about when you saw the vision? The road sign? When he got here?”

“The one that almost killed me? You want me to try that again?” I asked incredulously. Not that I had not already thought of it myself. It was a desperate ploy, but we were running low on time.

“If we can’t find him, then we’re all dead tomorrow anyway. You saw those things. Imagine them crawling over the whole world. Billions of them. Hundreds of billions of them. Orange shells as far as your eye can see, and squid things that look like blimps floating overhead. And that will just be the first wave. Then the big things will come.”

“You’ve seen them too?” I asked in surprise.

“Yes, I have. I might not have magic powers or whatever the hell it is you’ve got going on up there.” He poked me in the forehead. I was too stunned to react. “But I’ve been on the other side. I’ve seen that place.”

“In ’95. You went into the rift to pull out Julie’s dad . . .”

He nodded slowly, the memories of the red-skied alien world eternally burned into the dark corners of his mind. I had at least one person who understood what was at stake.

“They’re coming, Earl. I don’t even know if the Cursed One realizes it or can see it. I don’t know if he knows what’s waiting for him to use that box, that thing . . . I’m scared,” I admitted.

“I am too. And at this point, I’ll be honest, I didn’t think there was much out there that could scare me anymore.” Harbinger was not lying or trying to appear tougher than he was. He was telling the truth. He had moved past the concept of fear, operating instead upon animal cunning and self-preservation instincts. Until now.

“We have to stop him,” I stated. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

“Find the Place. Find out where he’s hiding. I don’t care if you have to beat it out of that ghost. Get me a name, a town, something, anything. And we’ll teach this clown not to mess with MHI.”

“I will.” I had no idea how I was going to do it, but I knew that the responsibility fell on my shoulders, on me alone, and perhaps on an old Jewish Hunter who had been dead for half a century.

“Let’s get out of here then.” He started toward the chopper. “I would wish you sweet dreams, but honestly, I hope you have horrible ones. I hope you see this evil thing and get his address, ’cause I’m personally gonna kick his ass.”

I sat by Julie for the chopper ride back to the compound.

“How are you doing?” I struggled to communicate over the internal engine noises.

“Not real good.” She patted my hand. “Just when I thought that maybe my dad wasn’t as evil as I thought, he sets us up. He sent us all to die. He covered for that evil bitch.” She spat. “I believed him.”

“Well, he’s gone now,” I assured her. I suppose that we should not have been so surprised at his treachery. He had been willing to risk everything to bring his beloved back. Of course he would be willing to merely lie for her.

“At least we know he’s dead. The Feds must have cut his head off and burned the body by now.”

“Most likely.”

“One down. One to go,” she said angrily.

I tried to change the subject from her death vendetta against her parents. Almost any subject was lighter than that. “So, can we technically consider today a first date?”

“I guess. Next time, how about we do dinner and a movie?” She laughed as the tension broke.

“Ha. What girl wouldn’t want to crawl through a haunted swamp, get killed, and travel through time? That’s one heck of a date.”

“You must have dated some strange women.”

“Actually I haven’t dated very many women at all. I haven’t had much luck.”

“Why?”

“They usually think I’m weird.” That much was true. Slightly strange, kind of big, awkward, and ugly—I was no charmer.

“Me too.”

“You think I’m weird?” I shouted over the noise.

“No, I mean that people have always thought that about me. You know, crazy girl, always talking about monsters. Spends all her time shooting, building bombs, or practicing how to chop things up. Hangs out with a bunch of crazy people. Paranoid, delusional, lives in a compound, that kind of thing. It takes a real toll on relationships.”

“See, I think that sounds perfect.”

“You would.” She leaned against me.

Across the troop compartment, Holly made gagging motions. Julie and I both flipped her the bird. She winked at us and went back to harassing Trip.

“Sorry to interrupt you lovebirds,” Harbinger said over the radio, “but we’ve got business. Julie, see what other teams you can contact and find out their status. Owen has something he needs to do too.”

“I need to get some sleep,” I told her.

“I know, it’s been a tough day.”

“That’s not what I mean. I need to make contact with the Old Man. I need to find the Cursed One. Tomorrow night is it.”

“Are you going to try to see through his eyes again?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “I’ve got to do something.”

She looked out the window and sighed, shuddering slightly.

“Be careful.”

“I will.”

“Come back to me. I can’t lose anybody else.”

“I promise.”

“Boy! Much has happened,” the Old Man exclaimed. “What have you done?”

“I turned on the artifact, I guess,” I answered.

“Is as I feared. This is terrible. Much terrible.” He shuffled toward me, hobbling on his cane.

“Hey, we’re all still alive. It sure beats the alternative.”

“No,” he answered. “Not better at all. Not for you.”

“Hey, I’m the one that had a spine sticking out my aorta.”

“Better to be dead than be cursed tool of the ancient evil.”

“I’m nobody’s tool,” I said angrily. I was getting really tired of everybody treating me as if I was stupid. “I did the best that I could.”

“No, Boy. Now is much worse than before.” His bony hand grabbed me by the arm. “Come, hurry. One last memory to show.”

I stopped him, pulling away. “No, Mordechai. I don’t have time to screw around. Just give me a straight answer for once. Where is he, and how do I kill him?”

“You not are ready for such things.” He looked at me, his hard eyes drooped in sadness. “Boy, to do such a thing would make you dead for sure. Not just dead. But maybe worse. Much worse. Cursed like he is even.”

“But I’m not evil,” I said defensively.

“No. Surprised I have been by you being so good.” He lifted his cane and thumped me in the chest. “Good, but sometimes stupid. Brave, but proud. Too proud for own good. If not more careful, pride will kill you and blow up world. Think you can solve problems, but no patience to learn. Want to rush. Do things now.” He puffed himself up and did a very poor imitation of me. “I am Boy. Now, now, now. Hurry, hurry. I can do everything. No need to learn first!”

“You would need about two more of you to do a good impersonation of me, you old midget,” I told him. “Plus I don’t sound like that at all.”

“Bah. You are good boy. But no longer can you worry about what you are. You are Monster Hunter. Your father, he made you warrior. Do not—how you say?—pretend to be something else. No time for doubt. No time for ‘normal.’” He spat the word.

“You know about that?”

“I live in your head. What? I not pay attention? Now I ask one thing. Just one. Do this for me. I promise before time run out I show you new vision. At that time, what do have to lose? Your brain probably pop, serve you right. But world is destroyed right after anyway.”

“Fair enough. What do you need?”

He thumped me over the head with his cane. Hard. “Shut up your big mouth and pay attention!” he snapped. “Last memories while Cursed One was still just man.” He put his hands on my head. “We leave quick before he makes change. To be in his head at time, surely you die.”

I rubbed the bump on my head. I just did not get much respect around here.

“Let’s do this,” I said.

Lord Machado’s memories.

Were of dirt. Brown dirt.

I woke up. Facedown in the mud. Lying crumpled in my armor at the base of the mighty pyramid. I must have tumbled the entire way. The rain had stopped, and the jungle sun burned down upon me. I staggered up, heaving against the weight of my plate. Crusted blood coated my body, and wept from my many wounds.

My artifact.

I crawled up the stairs, pulling myself forward on my hands and knees, so very weak, and the pyramid was so very tall. I pulled, gasped and kicked, raggedly crawling my way ever higher.

I blacked out repeatedly, only to find that I had climbed higher without knowing it. My skin burned in the sun and my delirium and thirst increased. I began to crawl past bodies, past the torn remains of my soldiers who had so bravely fought the stone guardians. I cursed them for their betrayal. I cursed Captain Thrall.

Finally at the top, I kicked away the giant feasting buzzards. My ax was embedded through the back of the captain’s now-empty suit of mail. His body was gone.

The artifact was gone.

I screamed at the sky. Cursing everything, swearing vengeance upon all, I tore my blade free, shaking it overhead. I vowed to regain that which was mine.

The body of the priestess Koriniha was facedown in a puddle. The carrion birds had pulled her open and eaten freely. Her fine robes were crusted with dried red, stained with her spilled organs. The buzzards reluctantly hopped away as I approached.

She was the key.

I had to bring her back.

We were two weeks from the city, a hard trek through dark jungle paths. I could not carry her weight all that way, especially alone, wounded, and without provisions. I knelt beside her, and with my ax, carefully stripped the flesh from her bones, breaking joints as necessary to reduce her to her component parts. When I was done, I bundled the broken skeleton into a soldier’s cloak, and tied it tight with a belt. I slung it over my back and stumbled down the pyramid, in the direction of the city. Surely one of the remaining dark priests would know what to do. If I could bring back my concubine, she could reunite me with the artifact. Nothing was going to stop me.

Days passed.

Delirium increased.

I ate bugs and small animals raw, crawling, dragging myself ever onward. Fever rushed through my body. Eating away at me. Burning me. Killing me. I did not sleep. I pushed onward, through the darkness, strange beings and spirits watching me along the jungle paths, urging me onward toward my destiny. I did not abandon my armor, nor my ax. They were symbols of my authority, and I would not give my enemies the satisfaction of abandoning part of my birthright to rust in the never-ending rain of the hated jungle.

My first sign of the city was the towers of black smoke and the clouds of milling vultures.

It was a city of the dead.

A month had now passed since my expedition had left. The bodies of the people were mostly in their homes, on their sleeping mats, pustules open on their decaying forms, taken by a fever.

I walked down the empty streets. The brilliant songbirds had starved in their cages. The only movement I saw was the carrion animals inside the doors and openings as if they were the new owners. In a way they were. Stray dogs, brought here by my men, prowled the streets, fattened by the vast stores of available meat.

Fires had caught, and now burned out of control, with no one left to fight the blaze. The air was thick with smoke and ash. I did not know if any of the people of the city had survived, but if they had, then they had fled this cursed place.

I made my way to the temple. The priestess had taken me deep beneath it, far down into the bowels of the earth, where strange things lived, and the very walls were alive. She had shown me the ancient obelisk and its prophecy. Surely there I would find my answers.

Infection had set into my wounds, dripping green pus and leaving a trail upon the paved road. My body stank like the corpses in the surrounding buildings. I was aflame with fever, yet shivered because I was so starkly cold. I could not remember my trek to the temple, nor the long, deep descent to the ancient, unnatural cavern. I do not know how much time passed on my journey down the endless stairs and tunnels.

I found myself in the cavern, reduced to crawling like some pathetic forest beast. The damp bones of Koriniha rattled on my back. I pulled my ax along, dragging a trail through the soft, living floor. Now, so close to death, I pushed myself along by willpower alone. I had no torch, so I moved through the dark. Strange things skittered over my body, or slithered over my hands. I crawled, hopelessly lost, pushing onwards toward where I felt the obelisk to be. The air rushed and changed direction overhead, as if the cavern itself was breathing. It stank of rotting fish, but I could barely smell it over the stench of decay coming from my own flesh.

At last my quest ended.

The black obelisk was there—still impossibly thin, and disappearing into the darkness above. The ancient writings of the prophecy gave off a faint light of their own. My swollen fingers struggled to uncinch the remains of the priestess from my body, and after much effort I was able to spill her bones upon the patch of floor where I had taken her to consummate our pact.

“Old Ones. I have come,” I croaked through my parched throat, barely able to produce any sound. “I demand you return your Priestess Koriniha to life.”

Nothing happened.

I lay gasping and heaving on the floor. I forced myself upwards, knees buckling, I fell against the obelisk, barely holding on.

“Old Ones. I am he whom you prophesied.” The writing was there before me, glowing, providing scant illumination. It was still in Latin. I read the words again. Surely it was I.

“I have done what you asked. I have fulfilled my part,” I demanded. “Give her back to me. Give me my power.”

The giant breathing continued, each exhalation brought a greater stink of rotten ocean. Nothing responded. I grew angry. I found the strength to push myself away from the obelisk, standing shakily on my own feet. I pulled my ax into my hands.

“It is mine! Give me my power!”

The breathing continued.

“Damn you then.” I found the strength to lift my ax. I swung it into the narrow obelisk. Obsidian chips flew as I struck. “Damn you!” I struck again, finding strength in my fury. Lines of the prophecy winked out of existence. “I do not need you!” Bits of the obelisk embedded themselves in my skin as I hammered it. “I am the one!” The narrow thing cracked and shifted from the roof. More lines disappeared. “The power is mine!” A final blow turned the center into powder. “I curse you, Old Ones!” I spit on their prophecy.

The obelisk toppled, the lower part shattered, and the top hung suspended for a long moment before detaching from the unseen ceiling of the cavern and falling, exploding like glass on impact. I was left alone in the dark, gasping, heaving. Dying.

We must go now, Boy. Hurry.

The cavern shifted. I had drawn the attention of the Old Ones. Shapes dropped down around me, somehow visible as darker than the shadows.

Come. Must leave his mind.

What’s happening?

He has—how you say?—pissed them off.

Ten thousand glowing eyes opened on the cavern walls as the giant tentacles encircled me, suckers piercing and ripping into my rotten flesh, lifting me upwards through the cavern, into the gaping gelatinous maw of an Old One. I screamed, but acid filled my mouth and poured down my throat, burning, tearing.

Darkness . . .

Pain . . .

I was once again my self. Owen Z. Pitt.

Thank goodness.

The memory was fading away as the Old Man pulled me back toward light and sanity.

I saw Lord Machado as he was cruelly twisted into the Cursed One. His human form was stripped away, replaced with the foul organic materials of the ancient alien trespassers. His mind was probed and tortured, shattered and pulped against incomprehensible forces, pushed beyond the breaking point of any mortal being. The torment lasted for a hundred years.

Finally satisfied at the punishment, or perhaps growing bored and tiring of it, the Old One dropped the pulsing mass of black tissue back to the floor where it landed with a wet splattering.

Somehow his spirit survived the unspeakable torture, driven by hate, anger and lust for power. Those things were his anchor, keeping him from being absorbed completely into the ancient beast. The inky mass slithered away into the darkness, husbanding its strength.

Planning for its return.

The Polish village was silent. I shuffled through the snow, making my way through the rubble of homes and businesses, looking for the church, what I knew now to be the chosen Place of Power from the winter of 1944. My feet were bare, but the jagged stone, shell casings, and broken glass did not harm me.

“Mordechai!” I shouted. “We need to talk!”

I found the church. The steps were barren. I hurried up them and through the entrance.

“Byreika!” I bellowed, cupping my hands over my mouth. The Old Man was nowhere to be seen. I kicked over a damaged pew. I did not have time for this. “Where are you?”

“Greetings,” called a voice. I turned to see a man, a stranger, approaching down the aisle. He was short, dressed in an archaic steel breastplate and plumed, rounded helmet. A yellow-and-brown family crest was emblazoned upon his chest. His goatee was black and grease-slicked down to a point. His eyes were small and dark, set deep into a face tanned like leather. He glared at me from under bushy eyebrows. “Your friend will be along shortly.” One arm hung at his side, lazily holding the handle of his battle-ax, the blade dragging a furrow through the ash and snow on the church floor.

I realized he was speaking archaic Portuguese. The language of Lord Machado’s memories.

Not good.

“Lord Machado,” I said over the lump in my throat.

“We have never been properly introduced. You have plundered through my memories. My precious things. You have delved into my power and tried to take that which is mine. You have ruined my plans and stolen the glory of the ancients, an honor which is rightfully mine. And yet, I do not even know who you are.” He stopped, only a few feet away. The artificial construct of the Old Man’s world shifted violently as the Cursed One intruded. The fabric of the surrounding town rippled as if it were fluid. “Who are you?” he hissed.

I somehow found the courage to respond. “I’m the man that’s going to kill you once and for all.”

Snapping his head back, he laughed—the same evil laugh from the memories. “How naïve. I cannot die. I am eternal. Far greater things than you have tried to take my life. I refuse to die.”

“We’ll see about that.”

He raised the ax slowly, taking it in both hands, balancing it, feeling the weight. He inspected the blade, carefully running one thumb over the edge.

“I’ve killed thousands of men. I could kill your body now as you sleep. I could take your spirit and chain it to the artifact like your guide. Do not be insolent with me,” he threatened. “It would bring me much joy to rip the heart from your chest.”

“Try it.”

He did not move, merely stood, cradling his ax, smiling slightly, as if my bravado amused him.

“Are you going to sit there, or are we going to do this?” I asked, preparing to fight. How did you battle an immortal being in your own dreams? I was about to find out.

“Nay,” he answered. “For in this place you are safe. I am but a shadow, a message, a warning. I am here but as a friend. I come to offer you a pact of peace and cooperation.”

“Fuck off.”

“My young friend, you have much to learn.” He planted the ax head solidly into the floor and leaned upon the shaft. “Tomorrow I will rule. That much is already determined. Those who stand with me will be greatly rewarded. Whatever you so desire, power, riches . . . You wish to have the vampire’s daughter. I can see to it that the two of you shall live together for eternity . . . in return for your allegiance. It is within my power to give you whatsoever you wish. I will need captains for my army, great men such as yourself. Think of the glory.”

“Real tempting,” I answered. “But how about I just find you and shove that stupid ax up your ass?”

“Those who stand against me will be crushed. I shall kill you for eons. I will wear your skin as my cloak, I will grind your bones into powder, I will drink your blood, and I shall chain your soul to the artifact forever. A token trophy of my victory.” As he spoke he began to change, features becoming blurry and darkening, as if he was cloaked in smoke. He grew, widened, black-glistening tissue protruding through the seams of his clothing and creases of armor. The ax thumped to the floor, no longer fitting in the fleshless hands. “I shall take every one that you have ever loved. I shall turn them to me, or I shall swallow their souls. I shall make them suffer as you do, and they shall know, as their flesh burns and their skin is peeled away, that it was you who caused this suffering. That it was you, through your foolishness, which caused them such pain. And they will curse your name through eternity.”

The Cursed One’s voice changed, as if the sound was traveling through water. The flesh of his face sloughed away, leaving a skull, and then black tendrils sprang from under his helmet and out of his mouth, coating his face in a withering mask. “I shall take your family, your father, your mother and your children who are not yet born. They shall feel my wrath and know of my eternal rage. I shall take this woman you love, the vampire’s daughter, and I shall inflict savagery upon her such that your pathetic mind cannot comprehend. Once she is broken I shall give her to her mother, and she too shall join my legions.”

The transformation was complete, and the true form of Lord Machado towered above me, bones cloaked in a slime-coated mass of moving tentacles: pure black hatred made manifest into a physical presence. The armor remained, only now dented and rusted, bracketed in filth and ooze. The mass slapped wetly against the wooden floor, black fluids dripping through to eat away at the ground below. The helmet dipped down, burning eyes gleaming in my face.

“Choose now. Choose your fate. Serve me or serve eternal pain.”

Incomprehensible fear grasped claws around my heart. I knelt down before the billowing wall of evil. The Cursed One began to laugh, echoing through the shattered church, secure in his power and greatness.

“I choose neither.”

The pulsating mass that was the Cursed One’s head tilted slightly, betraying the still-human reaction of disbelief. My hand closed upon the polished handle of the ancient ax as I heaved myself upwards. I swung the massive blade into the black flesh, slicing through the flailing darkness.

The Cursed One roared and struck.

Chapter 24

Light.

Confusion.

Pressure on my chest. Hands restraining me, holding me down.

I lashed out, knuckles colliding with something soft. Strong fingers landed on my throat. I reached upwards, grabbed the person and flung them aside. Something struck me, grabbed me, lifted me through the air and slammed me painfully into a rock-hard surface.

“Wake up, damn it!” Harbinger shouted into my ear.

I gasped. I was alive.

And being crushed painfully into a cinderblock wall. Harbinger held me up by the straps of my armor, feet dangling several inches from the ground. He shook me violently, took one hand away and slapped me silly.

“Hey!” I shouted. “Cut that out.”

“Okay. He’s back.” Harbinger released me and I dropped to the ground. The much smaller man had flung me around as if I weighed nothing. “Sam. You okay?”

Sam Haven stood to one side, rubbing the side of his head. A slight trickle of blood leaked out of his nose and strained through his enormous mustache. “Kid’s got a punch all right. Like getting kicked by a horse.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“Jeez, I was only trying to help. You were flopping around like a fish,” the big cowboy said.

I looked around in bewilderment. We were by the hangar, back at the compound. The Hind sat nearby, blades still slowly turning. The team stood around me, looking concerned. I felt nauseous and weak. I slid down the wall and sat. Julie squatted down beside me.

“You were having a seizure again. You started as we came in for a landing.” She pressed her fingers to my neck and took my pulse. She glanced at her watch. “Your heart rate is crazy.”

“The Cursed One was in my dreams,” I gasped.

“Did you get us a location?” Harbinger asked.

I shook my head sadly. “Sorry.”

“Shit,” he sputtered. “Nothing?”

“He made me a job offer,” I added. “Great benefits package. Eternal life, that kind of thing. All I’ve got to do is help him conquer the world. Or he’s going to boil my soul for eternity or something.” I did not say what he had said about Julie. I was going to make the slimy son of a bitch pay for that.

“Okay, let’s get inside,” Harbinger said. I tried to wobble back to my feet. Julie gave me a hand up, and Trip silently put my arm over his shoulder and helped me to walk. Holly picked up my shotgun. “I’ve summoned every team back to the compound for the night. Pitt, you’re going to need to debrief all of us. Maybe somewhere in there is a clue that we need to track him down.”

“Aren’t the others taking care of local infestations?” Holly asked.

“It’s suicide to hunt vampires in the dark. I’ve got a few team leads who’re brave enough to try though, so I ordered them back. So now we regroup, check our gear, and tomorrow we head out again. We have one day left to find the Place.”

“I can try again, Earl,” I said shakily. “I can do it. Byreika promised he would show me before time runs out.”

“You looked like you were going to die back there,” Trip said, with concern in his voice. “You sure you want to do that again?”

“You got a better idea?”

He thought about it. “Nope . . . The Lord helps those who help themselves.”

“I wish he would send a miracle our way then, ’cause we sure could use one,” I said.

“Maybe he has,” Trip suggested. “Maybe you’re our miracle.”

“If that’s the case, we’re screwed,” Holly said. “No offense.”

“None taken. Hell, I agree.”

“No, serious. Think about it,” he told the group as we approached the main building. I never thought that I could be so glad to see the ugly old fortress, but I was. With the sun setting in the distance, the compound looked almost heavenly. “You talk with ghosts. You see visions. You even managed to turn back the clock. Explain that if it isn’t a miracle.”

“Trust me on this. If you had seen the evil crustacean monsters that this artifact comes from, then you wouldn’t be talking about the backwards-in-time experience as if it was a good thing.” I shuddered when I thought about their giant saucer eyes floating through space. “You had best put your faith in something other than me.”

“I don’t know, man. I think you’ve got a job to do. I think when that werewolf killed you, you got sent back with a mission, and Byreika is your guide.”

“Whatever, dude.”

“Actually, there might be something to that,” Harbinger said. “I’ll have to ask Milo, since he’s our religious expert, and see if anything like that has happened before. But right now I’ve got him and Skippy putting the guns and rocket pods back on the Hind.”

“What about the Feds?” Julie asked. “They specifically told us not to arm it.”

“Screw ’em. World’s probably going to end tomorrow anyway. What are they going to do? Prosecute us? It’s the least I can do for Skip. The guy has been itching to blow something up for a long time.”

Several different vehicles were parked in front of the building. Mostly they were plain Suburbans or large passenger vans. We were not the first team to return. The reception desk was empty. There was a brief note from Dorcas saying that she had gone, in her words, up to Forestdale with some of the kids “to do some killin’” and that there were some pudding cups in the fridge. The chocolate ones were hers, and she promised painful death upon anyone who ate them.

The other Hunters were gathered in the cafeteria. I had never seen most of them before. They were an interesting crew. Most of the heavy suits of armor had been ditched as soon as was possible, and the Hunters were trying to get in the small bit of relaxation that they could. A few had not taken theirs off yet, mostly the ones who had been lucky enough not to be splattered with undead juices during the day’s activity. In addition to the infamous horned happy face there were several other team logos present. Some were cartoonish: a fire-breathing warthog, Scud the Disposable Assassin, Samurai Jack, and one that appeared to be a cross between a shark and an octopus. Others logos were more serious: a skull with vampire teeth and a knife through it, a highly stylized dragon, crossed Kalashnikovs, and a version of Munch’s “The Scream.” All of the patches were black and olive drab green.

Some Hunters were eating, scarfing down whatever calories were available. A large group were clustered around the TV watching the news as more reports trickled in about the worldwide panic caused by the missing five minutes, but the majority of the Hunters were cleaning their guns or sharpening edged weapons. Someone had plugged in a CD player and was playing classic rock.

“Earl!” a ponytailed man in a Harley Davidson tank top shouted. “Hey, everybody! Harbinger’s here!” The Hunters dropped what they were doing, jumped up and crowded around us, many of them asking questions.

“Calm down,” Harbinger boomed. “As soon as everybody’s here, we’ll have a full debriefing. Status? Who’re we missing?”

The biker-looking fellow started to tick off names on his fingers. Apparently he at least knew everybody. “Nobody called in any casualties today. Most of these vamps never knew what hit them. We stacked up piles of the bastards. Boone is here, but his guys volunteered to be perimeter security for now. VanZant, Paxton, and Mayorga’s teams called in and are on the way. Eddings just crawled out of some mine, said he didn’t get the message to pull out before dark. So they should be last ones in.”

“Didn’t get the message, my butt,” Julie said angrily. “You don’t stay in a vampire hole after dark.”

“Crazy bastard,” Sam said with admiration.

“Where’s my . . . the Boss?” Harbinger asked.

“Called about fifteen minutes ago. Him and the Newbies kicked some serious ass up in Forestdale. They’re coming. The Boss sounded really happy on the phone.”

“No surprise. He hasn’t got to kill anything in years. Thanks, Phillips.” Harbinger slapped the man on the back. He raised his voice so that all of the assembled Hunters could hear. “You scumbags best not have eaten everything. I’m starved.”

“Fred’s making up some dinner—he used to be a chef, you know—but right now there’s pudding cups in the fridge,” said one, as he spooned Dorcas’ precious chocolate into his mouth.

“You poor condemned fool,” muttered Sam under his breath. For that Hunter’s sake, I hoped that Dorcas had had a chance to use up her daily quotient of violence against vampires.

“Whoa there, chief. We’re dying here,” the man named Phillips interjected. “Rumor has it that you had something to do with that five minutes. What was up with that?”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“It was all over the Feds’ encrypted channels. Something about a demon massacre in Natchy Bottom,” a female Hunter said. I loved the fact that breaking into the government’s secure communications did not cause anyone to bat an eye.

“Yeah, man, that was some freaky shit,” said a short man. “Whole world is going crazy out there.”

Most of the others nodded in agreement. In the background the news video was showing huge crowds of demonstrators gathered in front of the White House. The scrolling information across the bottom warned of the condition-red terror warning, and the declaration of martial law across the Southeastern U.S.

“Well, I’ll address that. But I’m going to wait until everybody’s here. I’m tired and I ain’t telling that story more than once.” He pulled out a cigarette. Three other Hunters whipped out lighters. Every person in the room respected or admired Harbinger far too much to argue. “Somebody scare me up something hot and made out of cow. And that’s an order.” He leaned in, lit the end of the cigarette from one of the proffered lighters and inhaled greedily. “It’s been a hell of a day.”

I agreed fully with that sentiment. Harbinger’s team dispersed, greeting and conversing with old friends. I dropped my bag of gear on the floor and went to scrounge up something to eat. I was starving, exhausted, sore, aching, and missing a considerable amount of blood from the leeches and thumbnail-sized ticks. However, I was still a gentleman.

“Julie, can I get you something from the kitchen?”

“Hang on. I’ll come with you.” She set her equipment next to mine, and hurriedly made her way through the double doors. I followed, stomach rumbling, already salivating at the smell of something being fried. I stumbled zombielike in the direction of precious food. But Julie grabbed my hand, led me off to the side, waved quickly at the few Hunters cooking and scrounging, and pulled me through a small side door into the hallway.

“What’s up?” I asked, glancing back longingly toward the kitchen. At my size and level of physical activity, I had to eat 4,500 calories a day to keep from getting cranky. She led me quickly up the stairs to the top level. I had not been up here much. I followed stupidly.

“We died today.”

“Yeah, I’ve done that a couple of times. It don’t get any easier.”

She stopped, glanced down the hall to make sure we were alone. Satisfied, she turned and looked me in the eyes. “It really makes you think. Coming that close. Doesn’t it?”

“I suppose,” I answered, slightly embarrassed.

“You saved us. I don’t know how you did, but you’re something special. I can’t explain it.”

“You’re the special one. I’ve known that since I first met you,” I told her sincerely.

“I had the same reaction. I just couldn’t explain it at the time.”

“Really?” That took me by surprise.

“Yes. Really. Look, I know this is sudden, but what you said back there . . . in the swamp . . . right before you . . . you stepped in front of me . . .” I thought of the alien spear that I took for her piercing my heart. “Did you mean that?”

“I . . . uh . . . well . . .” I stammered, afraid to answer truthfully.

She responded quickly. “Because if you didn’t, I totally understand. It was a really intense moment . . . and I don’t want to move too fast . . . or anything like that. And there has just been so much going on . . . with my family . . . and . . .” She did not mention the missing Grant, but the look of guilt was obvious on her face. “It’s just happened so fast, and I wasn’t expecting anything like this. There has been something about you, ever since we met. And then when Grant abandoned you on the freighter . . . We fought about that. I couldn’t believe he did that to you. And then he disappeared, and I know how I feel about you, and I should feel guilty because he’s probably dead or worse, and so much has happened, but you’re here, and I just don’t know—”

I cut her off. “I meant it.” I screwed up all of my courage. Compared to this moment, vampires, werewolves, undead, gargoyles, demons, giant sky squids—they were nothing. I would rather face legions of monsters than have her reject what I was about to say.

I held both of her hands as gently as a brute like me could manage. Her expression was unreadable. “I love you,” I stated simply.

She did not respond immediately. I felt a nervous weight form in my stomach, threatening to drag me through the floor. I swallowed involuntarily as all of the moisture left my mouth. Finally she smiled, a little smile at first, and then gradually it spread into a wide grin.

“Me too.”

“Really?” The weight lifted. Lightning crashed. The heavens opened and choirs of angels sang.

“Yes. Now quit squeezing my hands, you’re gonna break them.”

I hurriedly let go. “Sorry.”

“No problem.” She leaned in close and we kissed. Her lips were warm and soft. She broke away and nodded her head toward one of the doors off to the side. “That’s the room that I use when I work late and end up sleeping at the compound.” Julie sounded slightly short of breath. “I figure that we have a little while before the other teams get here and anybody notices we’re gone.”

Dinner could wait.

I had not thought that anyone had seen us slip quietly back into the cafeteria. I had been as stealthy and nonchalant as was possible. Julie had winked at me one last time and moved off to coordinate with the other teams and take care of business. The room had almost filled with Hunters, and only one team was still missing, but was due at any moment. My gear had been pushed to the side. I picked up my bag, spotted my friends sitting at a table in the back of the room, and made my way over. The cafeteria had taken on an almost party atmosphere as Hunters who had not seen each other in months or years were reunited.

“Hey, dude. What you been doing?” Trip said, sliding over so I could have room to sit.

“Uh . . . nothing.”

“Whatever,” Holly said as she pushed a plate of now lukewarm pasta toward me. “We saved you some food . . . stud.” She winked evilly. “Best eat. Keep your strength up.” Very few things slipped past Holly Newcastle.

“Thanks,” I mumbled and immediately began to eat. The meal was delicious. “Wow, they sure did use a ton of garlic.”

“The guy that cooked it, Fred, said that it might help when we fight vampires tomorrow,” Trip explained. “Maybe they won’t want to bite us if we stink like garlic.”

Holly snorted. “That’s just an old wives’ tale. Vamps aren’t scared of garlic.”

“Hey, up until yesterday night we thought them turning into fog was just a myth too,” I answered. “So until then, load me up, baby.”

The final team arrived with a flourish. They were beleaguered and their armor was still splashed with undead fluids. Their logo was Smoking Elvis. Their leader waved to the crowd.

“Sorry we’re late, but we killed twenty bloodsuckers. Let’s get this party started.” Shouts of “Showoff!” and “About time!” rose from the Hunters. But it was all in good fun.

“Will somebody hose these guys off? Damn, Eddings, your crew smells like vampire shit!” Sam bellowed.

“Love you too, Sam,” he shouted back.

Harbinger cleared his throat. “Get your guys cleaned up, and grab some grub. We need to have a meeting.” At that, the newcomers immediately complied. The rest of the room went back to its heated conversations and raucous laughter. Holly watched them go. After a moment’s hesitation, she sprang to her feet and ran after them, grabbing the team lead by the arm.

“Excuse me?” she asked as he turned around. I was close enough to hear the exchange over the noise of the room. “Are you the team out of Las Vegas?”

“At your service.” Eddings bowed slightly. “I don’t think we’ve met, miss?”

“Newcastle, Holly Newcastle. Yes. Yes, we have met.” She surprised all of us by embracing the filth-coated Hunter, hugging him tight, and holding him there. He looked bewildered. Finally she let go of him. He studied her curiously for a minute.

“Ahh . . . I remember now. Wow. Good to see you. You look a lot better. You’ve gained a bunch of weight,” he said that as a compliment. “You must have put on thirty pounds.”

“Thanks,” she answered proudly. I looked at Trip and shrugged. That was not something I was under the impression you could say to Holly, or any woman for that matter, without getting shot.

“Earl told me he was going to try and recruit you. I’m glad to see you took him up on it. How do you like Monster Hunting?”

“Honestly, I hated it at first, but I felt like it was something I just had to do. Face my fears, you know . . .”

“Yeah. I understand that, after what you went through.”

“Now, though?” Holly laughed. “I love it.”

“I told Earl you would be perfect . . . Look, I’ve got to clean up before he skins me for being late.”

She hugged him again. This time I could tell she was crying. I did a double-take at that. I was not aware that Holly was capable of producing tears. He whispered something in her ear, and patted her gently on the back. Eddings finally broke away and hurried after his men. Holly wiped her eyes and returned to our table.

“What was that about?” I asked.

“Uh . . . nothing.” She mimicked me perfectly. “Now shut up and eat your spaghetti.” She sighed and watched them leave, gradually returned to her food and ignored the rest of us.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m glad that you’re all here. We have a bit of a situation on our hands.”

That was an understatement.

Harbinger paced back and forth at the front of the cafeteria. The conference room was too small to fit the assembled humans and orcs, so the large maps of the South had been brought downstairs and leaned against the wall. Many of the red tacks had been replaced with yellow tacks, but there were many new red ones dotting the map. It looked like Alabama had the measles.

Every single member of MHI was present. The ones that I knew were a small minority. Julie sat by her grandfather and a young man who must have been her little brother. Boone’s guys had come in from the perimeter and were standing toward the back. Mead had waved happily at me when he had entered. The orcs stood by themselves, slightly separated from the rest of us, packed tightly together, hooded heads kept down, shoulders slumped, not used to being surrounded by so many humans.

“The team leads were sent a brief synopsis as to where we stood a few days ago. But we have had some new developments. At 2:39 today, time backed up for five minutes. This was felt by every single person on Earth.”

From the brief snitches of news that I had caught, billions were caught up in hysteria over the event. Some were in a panic, others in a religious fervor, and some were in denial. Thousands of babies had been born twice. Hundreds of people had died of natural causes twice.

“Yes. Those five minutes were in fact related to this case, and it goes to show how serious this one is. This is it, folks, this is the big one. Our real enemy is one General Joao Silva de Machado. We like to call him the Cursed One. He’s five hundred years old, and in case you’re wondering how you’ll recognize him, he’s the one that’s a blob of black slime wearing conquistador armor. He’s armed with some sort of ancient artifact that will be activated at the zenith of the full moon tomorrow night, giving us”—Harbinger glanced down at his watch—“approximately twenty-two hours. This artifact was the cause of the . . . glitch. And that was just a sample of the freak show to come. When this thing really goes off, it’s the end of the world.”

“What do you mean by ‘end of the world’?” a Hunter asked.

“Literally. End of the world as in kiss your ass goodbye.” The crowd murmured. MHI had faced some strange things before, but never anything like this. “The artifact must be used at a specific Place of Power, but we don’t know where that Place is.”

“Like the Christmas party in ’95?” the man named Eddings asked.

“Correct,” Harbinger stated. “Speaking of that, the Cursed One has killed Ray Shackleford.” He stopped, counted on his fingers, and then added for clarity, “The fourth.”

The Hunters erupted in confusion.

“Settle down. It gets worse. They tracked him down looking for information. They got him because Susan Shackleford, who is now a Master vampire, knew right where to find him.”

If the news of Ray’s death had upset the Hunters, the idea of his wife being a vampire stunned them into silence. You could have heard a shell casing hit the floor across that cafeteria. I glanced over at the Shacklefords. The Boss was as stoic as ever, arthritic hands steepled in front of his emotionless face. Nathan Shackleford resembled his sister and mother, but had the hulking build of his father. He was a handsome young man, but at the moment he looked tired and forlorn. Julie put her arm over her brother’s shoulders as he hung his head down and stared at the linoleum.

“Yes, people. One of our own is one of the seven. Every trick we know, she knows. She helped make them up. Apparently she ‘persuaded’ Ray to lie to us. Ray told us where to go, and we went there blindly, in order to intercept the Cursed One.” Earl paused to light a cigarette. I noticed his hand was shaking slightly as the flame of his Zippo wavered. He noticed the tremor as well, and snapped the lighter violently shut.

“Working alongside the Monster Control Bureau agents,”—most of the Hunters and all of the orcs started to grumble—“we went deep into the swamp, right into an ambush. It was the creatures from the Christmas party.” Harbinger waited for the shouts and swearing to die down. Probably half of the people in the room had been survivors of that night. “The ones we fought at the rift were just drones. These were soldiers. My team and all of the Feds were killed, but when the artifact was activated, we started right before the ambush, only the creatures had been sent away.”

“You can’t die, Earl!” someone shouted. “That’s impossible!”

“Nothing can kill Earl Harbinger!”

“Quiet down,” Harbinger ordered. “Y’all know that isn’t true.”

“But—”

“Shut up!” the director roared. The Hunters instantly complied. “It’s possible, because it happened today.” He waited a moment before continuing. I did not know what had caused that outburst. Harbinger was a legend amongst the Hunters, but as I had seen back in the swamp, even he had his physical limits. “The artifact was the key. It summoned the creatures. It has power over time and who knows what else. It’s a little stone box about the size of a deck of cards. And you’ll know it when you see it because it holds a world of hurt, and we’re probably going to have to pry it out of the claws of something really bad.

“On this case we have already lost two good Hunters. Jerry Roberts is dead, and Grant Jefferson is missing—either dead, turned or being held captive to be used as a sacrifice tomorrow night. If he’s still alive, we’re his only hope. So now we’re going to listen to a story. It ain’t over yet, we still have us a secret weapon . . . Owen.”

The room was still. I gulped. “Yeah?”

“Tell us all your story. Don’t leave anything out. Hurry up.”

I stood awkwardly and walked to the front of the room.

“He’s only a Newb,” somebody said. “How does he know what to do?”

Harbinger held up his hand. “Listen up. This is Owen Pitt. His team calls him Z. He killed a werewolf with his bare hands. In the last week he has saved the lives of my team members on multiple occasions. He’s killed vampires, wights, gargoyles and demons. He went head-to-head against Jean Darné. He alone has seen the Cursed One. And for those of you still doubting, he has fought Agent Franks. Twice. And even managed to kick him in the balls once.”

“I would rather fight the demons!” someone shouted.

“Me too,” I answered.

“Hunters—treat this man like you would treat any member of my team. Some of the things which you are about to hear are going to sound weird, but I personally believe them, so take that for what it is worth. Some of the things which you are going to be told can never leave this room. If this story was to get back to the Monster Control Bureau, then there is no telling what they would do to him. And know this, if anyone here ever speaks to the Feds about what Owen has seen, I will find out. You can know that of a surety, and I swear upon all that I hold holy, I will track you down to the ends of the world, reach down your throat, and pull your spine out your mouth.” Nobody in the room said anything. They knew that he was deadly serious. My secrets were safe with this crew. “Owen, tell us everything.”

I stood before the room of brave souls. Men and women who in the eyes of some were no better than mercenaries, but whom I knew to be heroes. I was one of them, and I was proud to have their respect, but humbled at the same time.

I shared my story. I told them about the Old Man, from the first encounter with him after my near death at the claws of Mr. Huffman. I told of the dreams. I spoke of Lord Machado and his failed expedition. I tried to convey his greed, his insane ambitions, his hate, and the inhuman desire that kept him alive when any other mortal man would have just been broken and consumed. I spoke of the Old Ones, slime-coated evil from beyond time, and I spoke of their prophecy and of their search for the unwitting fool with the power to unlock the gate and let them in. I warned of the Tattooed Man, the ancient captain, cursed to protect an artifact of unyielding darkness, and his solemn promise to take my life.

Haltingly, I told the Hunters about our deaths in Natchy Bottom. About my battle against the Cursed One’s incorporeal self, and my blind luck in triggering the power of the artifact, surprising him, and temporarily wresting it from his control. Finally I spoke of his offer, my loyalty in exchange for a place in his kingdom, and I spoke for the first time about his threats against the others, especially Julie. I searched her out, making eye contact. She nodded slightly, understanding my fear, but her will was like iron, and she was not afraid of his curse.

Nathan Shackleford interrupted my speech. “This Machado asshole is going down!” The young man rose to his feet, fire in his eyes, fully prepared to defend his family from any further attacks. “I’ll stake the son of a bitch myself!”

“Shut up, Nate,” the senior Shackleford calmly ordered. “And watch your language around the womenfolk. That ain’t polite.”

“Sorry, Grandpa.” He sat back down. Julie smiled in sisterly pride.

“Thank you, Mr. Pitt,” the Boss said. “Is that all?”

“I’m afraid so, sir.” I spread my hands in apology. The Hunters began to speak amongst themselves, team leads turning around and telling their troops to quiet down. “I’m sorry.”

“No need for an apology, son. You’ve done your best.” He pointed his hook at me. “That is all that any man can do.”

“Yes, sir.”

Harbinger stood back up. I started to return to my seat. “Stay right there, Owen. This is question-and-answer time. We have about five hundred years of collective monster-killing experience in this room, and I want to take advantage of it. We may be able to cobble together a couple semifunctioning brain cells out of this crew and figure out this puzzle.”

Questions came from the crowd as the assembled Hunters picked my brain looking for a clue, something that we had missed. Something—anything—that could point us in the direction of the bad guys, and allow us to exercise our gifts for violence. Monster Hunters by nature tended to be a direct and straightforward bunch, similar to human claymore mines with big signs that warned “front toward enemy.” I uncomfortably tried to answer the questions as best as I could, but it was hard to recall every little thing from the heavily fragmented dreams. I could feel myself growing light-headed. It had been a long day.

Harbinger summed up our scant information. He stood in front of the map, back to the crowd. “So we know he’s in Alabama, or at least he was a couple of days ago. Owen saw him underground, but we don’t know if he’s in a cave, a mine, or even a basement.”

“The Elf Queen said that she saw him near water,” Milo added.

“Now if we lived in the desert that might help,” Sam said sardonically.

I leaned against the wall. I was not feeling very good. It was probably the stress. I closed my eyes. The pulse in my head was pounding, my heartbeat was elevating. My lungs constricted. I felt like I was going to be sick.

“Owen saw the Tattooed Man with Montgomery in the background. He’s going to be looking for the Cursed One as well.” Harbinger waved his hand over the area representing central Alabama. “But by now he could be anywhere . . . Owen, was he coming or going? And could you tell what direction? Owen?”

I could not answer. My mouth had suddenly dried up, leaving me unable to speak. My legs had gone numb, and I slid down the wall, flopping to the floor. My vision was fading.

“Owen!” Julie shouted.

“Aw hell.” Harbinger hurried to my side. Squatting down, he grabbed my head. “Hey! Stay with me. That’s an order.” He shook me. “Owen!” Behind him I could see the blurry forms of the other Hunters rising to their feet in alarm.

I tried to apologize, but I was fast slipping into unconsciousness. I felt Julie’s hands on my neck as she took my weakening pulse.

Chapter 25

“Sorry. Is best can do,” the Old Man whispered.

“Where are we?” I looked around, but our surroundings were pitch-black and revealed nothing. I could feel his presence standing besides me.

“Shhh.” His frail hand landed on my shoulder. “You want him to hear us?”

“Okay.” Since I was not actually here, I could not really understand how whispering was supposed to help anything. “I think I’m dying.”

“No, you be fine. Unless mess up I do. Then get dead for sure.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” It was discomforting to be in the darkness. There was an absence of sensation not limited to just vision. I could not hear anything other than my companion. There were no scents, not even the feeling of the air on my skin. I missed the battle-damaged village. In comparison to the sensory deprivation, the shelled-out bunch of rubble might as well have been a plush resort.

“Where are we?”

“Same as before, town was just last thing I see, so is what have to show in your head. Takes effort to make like real. And Cursed One found it. So now we sneak in for look. I promise to show Cursed One’s place. Other way not work now. Cursed One has shielded his mind. Blocked his memory. We try this way. I think might work perhaps . . . maybe.”

“Mordechai, I swear that if you screw up and kill me, I’m going to be pissed. If I end up a ghost, I’m gonna be kicking your ghost ass for eternity.”

“Ooh. Tough talk for alive person. Haunting is much hard work. Kids today not work hard enough to do such things. Now be ready. Is much danger . . . I try to show. Then we go away before catches us he does. He knows about me now. He is ready to stop me. Ready to fight you.”

“What happens if he catches us?”

“You get stuck like me.”

“And what if he catches you?”

The Old Man did not answer. I felt his hand tighten on my shoulder.

“What happens if the Cursed One catches you?”

“Not know. But must try.” There was a slight trembling in his raspy voice.

“What are you going to do?”

“Like first time I show. You leave body. Go quick so nothing comes and lives in you. We take look. We get out. Hard to explain. If something bad happens, you go. Go away fast. Go back to self. Just wake up. Should be safe when wake.”

“We don’t need to get so close. Can’t we just float overhead or something? That’s all I need. No need to get all up in his face, or tentacles, or whatever.”

“Not work like that again. Shielded. No. We go right in. Take you right to artifact I can. Then out. Out fast. No try to fight. Without body, you not have chance this time.”

“I did okay last time,” I lied. Even though I could not see him, I knew that he was shaking his head disapprovingly. Luckily he did not whack me with his cane.

“No, Boy. Not like that. You still not understand what you have done.” He sighed. “Here, take these things.” I felt something bump against my arm. I fumbled around in the dark until I found his waiting hand. He placed several small objects into my palm and then squeezed my fingers shut. “Maybe you can use.”

“What are they?”

“I promised more toys to you. I keep promise. If we not die in next few minutes, still very strong vampires to face you have. Sorry I not can give more, is best can do.”

“Thanks.” I put the little objects away. “I don’t know how they work, but they do a number on vampires.” I remembered the look of shock on Susan Shackleford’s undead face after she had burst into flames. I would be glad to have more of the little killer toys.

“I not know really, but think maybe have idea. Long time ago, before I got calling, like you got short straw . . . before I hunt monsters. I was—how you say?—craftsman. I build . . . I build things with hands.” He sighed again, sounding very sad. “I think now, the memory I have left, is all I have. I make things again. I know are rough, but has been long time for me. I send you back with them. I send back to real world with these things I create. Back you go to the world, with these little bits of me. Bits of who I was. Maybe even who I am still now.”

“I don’t know if I understand.”

“Holy things when used by faithful person is much powerful. Why? Not because of little metal star or little wooden cross. No, because of belief. Belief that good beats evil, because of strength that is inside people. For me, not believe—know. These little things, they are all I have left to give.”

“Thank you,” I said, and I meant it. The toys were physical manifestations of the Old Man, created from his memory and translated into the real world through unknown means. The little objects were like bottled faith.

“Boy . . . glad I have been to be stuck in your head last little while. Gives me hope for future . . . if world not get destroyed of course. Then short future that would be. You are good boy. Proud. Stubborn. Sometimes stupid. But always try to be good. Heart means to be good. Makes me glad that other one chosen is good man. No matter what happens. Promise . . . promise you finish this. Even if I not there to help.”

“Of course. But don’t talk like that. You aren’t going anywhere.”

“Bah . . . is much danger in this thing. Promise me.”

“I promise I’ll finish this.”

“Good. Now remember things you have seen. Remember things I have show you. Is up to you, many things which I not could tell, I have show you. Remember them, and all will be fine.” He patted me on the shoulder.

A grim feeling of dread hovered around us. I tried to steel myself in preparation for our raid. The odds were not in our favor.

“It’s been an honor,” I stated solemnly.

“Me too, Boy. Me too. . . . Now let us go and look. Make no sound. Try not to think so loud. As you say, let’s do this thing.”

A sensation of sudden movement. An abrupt stop.

Dark. Cool. Damp. Musty.

I could sense the spirit that was the Old Man near at hand. There were other things in the dark as well. Not quite living, but refusing to be dead. The presence of the ancient and powerful vampires was thick in the cavern, as well as the oily taint of the Cursed One.

There was no light, but since I was not seeing through eyes, it did not matter. We were in a cave. A mammoth opening in the earth. Pillars of rock stretched from floor and ceiling, most of the stalactites and stalagmites far longer than I was tall. Banks of harsh artificial lights had been smashed and kicked over, leaving only shadow and broken glass.

I could feel the seven Masters. Not all were in the cave itself, but rather they were hunting or feeding in the night above. A few remained on guard, hanging suspended, invisible in the tangled rock overhead. The sense of their power was overwhelming. Susan Shackleford was there. Far younger than the others, but in my current state I could perceive just how dangerous she was—strong beyond all expectations for a vampire so young. The others were older, and some had even been alive when my ancestors were living in mud huts or paddling canoes across the oceans.

For a moment I was able to glimpse into their twisted minds. Their leader, Lord Machado’s lieutenant, was the one known as Jaeger. He was also young. Not even undead for six decades, hated and feared by the others, he led them through his unnatural strength, granted not in the traditional manner of the vampire, but rather by the power of the ancient artifact—a tortured gift placed upon him at the moment of his human death, bound to the artifact, and sealed into the service of the Cursed One.

There were humans present as well. Several were being kept in a hole, too steep and slick to crawl out of. They were snacks. Grant Jefferson had been bound and tossed in a corner. Judging from his appearance he had been savagely beaten, but he was still alive. The Cursed One had his sacrifice.

The vampire leader, Jaeger, knelt at the rear of the chamber, a fearsome thing of awe-inspiring strength, now relegated to a mundane chore. He held an ancient conquistador’s helmet and polished it, his narrow hands moving like a belt sander. The breastplate and ax that I had gotten to know so well sat on a cloth before him. He was a squire, preparing the colors of his knight before the final tournament. The feathered plume had long since turned to dust.

Something moved at the rear of the great chamber. A tear appeared in the solid rock and light seeped through the crack. It was similar to the rifts that the demons had used in Natchy Bottom, a hidden passage carved through space to someplace else, unnaturally grafted onto the walls of this cave long ago. I could see and understand the portal clearly in my disembodied state. The rift gradually widened as a glistening shape pushed its way through and slapped wetly onto the floor. The temperature dropped from chilly to freezing in seconds. The helpless humans whimpered in fear.

Lord Machado had returned.

I had a brief glimpse into the portal as it disappeared back into the rock. Dark sky flickered in the distance. It was the Place of Power.

The vampire bowed his head and presented the helmet to the waiting master. The withering mass reached down and plucked the antique from his servant’s hands. The tentacles gently lifted the steel pot and set it on the skull-shaped protuberance, a crown upon a blighted brow.

The thing that was Lord Machado towered above the tall vampire. Still vaguely man-shaped, twisted and hardened bones formed the supports for the black pulsating tissues. Several tentacles dangled from where the arms would have been, and legs had been replaced with a veritable platform of withering limbs. Every inch of black flesh moved like a bucket of worms.

The creature paused. Then slowly rotated toward us.

I tried to shrink back, an impossible feat in my current condition. The helmet cocked to the side as the burning eyes zoomed in on us. I heard the Old Man’s thoughts.

Run.

I willed my spirit away from the Cursed One, back through the huge cavern. Jaeger screamed and leapt at us, his movement too fast to discern. It felt as if a wall of evil slammed into me, pinning me down, capturing me and holding me. I fought against it, but I was not strong enough. Lord Machado oozed across the stone, compressing his body between narrow paths, tentacles reaching forward, driving his will like a spear.

I could not flee. I could not escape. Master vampires detached themselves from the ceiling and dropped around me. The Cursed One was closing. As hard as I pushed, I could not break away from the will of the evil thing. I could feel him pulling me toward him, sinking hooks into me and reeling me in.

I was doomed.

Flee, Boy!

The spirit of Mordechai Byreika did not pull away. Instead he hurled himself against the onrushing vampires. An explosion of blue sparks lighted the cavern as his presence collided with Jaeger, smashing the vampire backwards across the cave in a brilliant display that blinded all of the undead. The vampire struck a stalactite with a resounding crack.

Take that, Nazi bastard! Payback is bitch!

The will of the Cursed One bore down upon Mordechai. The Old Man faced his adversary in a futile but noble gesture. For a brief instant the ghost became visible, holding his cane in his arthritic hands like a weapon, narrow shoulders hunched, eyes hard and jaws clenched. He swung at the onrushing blackness.

And was swept away.

Mordechai! No!

The will of the Cursed One was temporarily diverted. The snares that held me snapped. I remembered the Old Man’s admonition. Every instinct told me to fight, but I fled. A sense of pain engulfed me, but it was not mine. It was Mordechai’s. It filled the cavern, drowning out all other sensations.

I saw his death.

The Polish winter. 1944. The rubble of the shelled-out town. The burned and blackened church. The Old Man tied to the altar. The incorporeal presence of the Cursed One hovering nearby, hungrily waiting, but already knowing that his calculations had been in error. Jaeger, then merely a human in the black uniform of the SS, holding a gleaming blade high. Bitten by a vampire far earlier in his forgotten youth, the curse of the undead waited in his veins for his suicide and inevitable return.

Sounds of gunfire coming from the village. Multitudes of German soldiers cut down by the immortal Thrall.

The artifact, black energy swirling, sitting by the Old Man’s head. He did not fight, for he knew this battle was over. The blade flashed down, cutting sluggishly through Mordechai’s narrow chest. Blood splattering over the church, over the ancient Place of Power.

The heart held high, pumping blood down the Nazi’s arm. The ritual failed. The time had not been right. The black energy of the artifact dying. The light in the Old Man’s eyes dying at the same time.

The sacrifice bound to the artifact. Mordechai’s spirit was chained and enslaved to the ancient box, decades passing, as he was trapped, helplessly bound to this world.

Until he found me.

He screamed as he experienced the pain of death all over again.

I knew I had to wake up. I fought my way forward, pushing away from the Cursed One, like a swimmer with lungs burning for air struggling toward the sky. There was a large tunnel out of the great cave. It was round corrugated metal. It was angled toward the surface.

Behind me the ghostly scream was cut short. The Cursed One returned his attention toward my fleeing spirit, searching, grasping. Energy slung past me like cracking whips. I knew that if I could reach the surface, if I could reach the air, I could return to my body and wake up.

It was close—the surface. I raced onward.

Then suddenly a silent conquistador stood in my path. Blocking my way.

No. Mordechai’s sacrifice would not be in vain. I pushed forward.

The conquistador did not move.

It wore a silly cartoon grin. It had a big, stuffed, fake head.

What in the hell?

I broke through, the Cursed One raging below. My spirit soared into the night sky and tore across the horizon at impossible speeds. I was free.

“Owen!” Julie shouted in my ear. “Are you with us?”

“Ack,” I coughed, choking off my shout of freedom. “I’m back,” I gasped.

“Are you okay?” All of the Monster Hunters were clustered around me.

“Mordechai is dead.”

“We know. He died in 1944,” Julie explained soothingly as she ran her hand over my face. “You’re going to be okay now.”

I struggled to form words. “No . . . Just now. He’s gone. He gave himself up to save me from Lord Machado.” I lay still. I could feel my heart hammering in my chest. It had to be at least a hundred and fifty beats a minute. I could feel sweat pouring out of my body, and every inch of me tingled in pins-and-needles discomfort. My hands were clenched into shaking fists. I forced them to open.

Several small wooden toys fell from my hands onto the floor.

Holy shit.

Harbinger was still squatting at my side. “What did you see?”

“Grant’s alive. He’s the sacrifice.” Several of the Hunters began to murmur. It was one thing to have one of our own killed in action. It was another thing entirely to have one of our own in the hands of the bad guys.

“Where are they?” Harbinger pounded his fist into his palm. “Where?”

“A big cave.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.”

Harbinger gestured at some of the others. “I want to know every cave in the South. Now! What else?”

“It was huge. Lots of rock formations. Kind of pretty. Real tall. Taller than this building. The interior had to be at least a hundred yards wide.” It was hard to guess scale when you were not in your physical body for reference. “You had to take a big metal tunnel to get into it.”

“Big caves!” Harbinger shouted. “What else?”

“Uh . . .” I thought back to the final thing that I had seen. “There was a conquistador. At first I thought it was something to do with Lord Machado, but it wasn’t. It was stuffed. Like one of those big fake heads people wear at amusement parks.”

“What the hell?” Harbinger said. “Get me caves with conquistadors.”

“Friendly Fernando?” Milo interrupted.

“Who the fuck is Friendly Fernando?” Harbinger snapped.

“Oh my . . .” Milo said, “Earl, some of us went there last year. Friendly Fernando is like the mascot. It’s a tourist place. Biggest cave in the state. I can’t believe you haven’t been there, since you’re from here and all. They even have a little theme park with some rides, and a water balloon tower, and a maze, kids love it, and a gift shop, and . . .”

Earl stood and grabbed the red-bearded Hunter by the shoulders. “Focus, man!”

Instead Julie answered, almost as if a light bulb had gone off over her head. “DeSoya Caverns. Lord Machado is in DeSoya Caverns.”

*   *   *

We broke to prepare for our assault. Teams formed up. Weapons were readied. Intelligence was gathered.

“DeSoya Caverns Park is in Childersburg. Near Sylacauga. About seventy-five miles from here up the 231.” Julie pointed at the map. The team leads were gathered while the rest of the Hunters were busy preparing for the mission.

Harbinger looked at his watch. “If we leave in three hours, we can arrive about the time the sun comes up. Gives everybody a chance to catch a little sleep, and some of our teams have been up for twenty-four hard hours straight. Tired Hunters make stupid decisions. And the last thing I want to do is land on this place when the Masters are awake and prowling.”

“Can we just drop a bomb on it? Bury those bastards?” Boone asked.

“I don’t think so,” I answered. “The Cursed One was in something else. There’s a hidden rift to somewhere else in the back of the cave. The cave itself isn’t the Place of Power. It’s just the entrance. If we blow the cave, we’re probably doing him a favor, and he’s going to be sitting fat and happy wherever that rift goes to.”

“It could be a pocket dimension,” Julie explained. “There have been cases of them in monster hunting history. Basically a bubble outside of the regular world, but attached to a fixed point. So if it is a pocket dimension, even if we smash the cavern, it won’t touch the dimension, other than to bury the entrance.”

“Then we go in after him,” Harbinger ordered. “What do we know about this place? What makes it so special?”

Julie started to list off factoids. “Twelve stories tall. Football field-wide inside. Lots of onyx and marble. First major cavern discovered in this country. During the Civil War, the Confederacy used it to mine saltpeter for gunpowder. During prohibition it was a speakeasy called the Bucket of Blood.”

“So I’m guessing we won’t be the first people to put some bullet holes in it,” Eddings said.

“Nope. Plenty of people have been plugged in that cave. Before the Europeans showed up it was an Indian burial ground for at least two thousand years.”

“So now we have a theme park and tourist attraction on top of it. Makes perfect sense,” Mayorga pointed out. “The-two-thousand-year-old holy site explains why this is the target.”

“I’m telling you, it’s just the gateway,” I insisted. “The Place is on the other side of the gate.”

“Can you find the hidden gate and open it?” Harbinger asked pointedly.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, if you can’t, plan B is to blow the whole place to hell.”

“Do we have the munitions to do something like that?” a Hunter named Cody asked. “I know we have evil genius Milo and whatnot, but even he can only do so much.”

“Actually, I was thinking that if we don’t stop the CO before the moon is up, we call the Feds. They’ll just nuke the place.”

“Good plan. Just give us time to get out from under the mushroom cloud first,” Cody said. He was a big grizzled man. Other than the Boss and Dorcas, he was probably the oldest Hunter present. He turned to me, expressing some curiosity. “Hey, kid, is your dad Auhangamea Pitt?”

“Yeah,” I answered, surprised. “You know him?”

“One of the baddest Green Berets to ever walk the face of the earth. He kept me alive when I was just a scared kid stuck on a firebase in the middle of nowhere. You look like him. Big and ugly.”

“Thanks.”

“And from what I’ve heard tonight, you take after him too. So when we get in there, I’ve got no doubt you’re going to get that rift or gate or whatever open. Right?”

“I’ll try,” I answered, not knowing if I could live up to my father’s legend.

“Trying isn’t going to cut it. Because if we have to fight our way through seven Masters, I can guarantee we won’t all live through it. And if some of us get killed, only to get in there and not be able to open the gate, then that is just stupid. I say we just blow the whole thing and bury them,” Mayorga said, “Calculated risk.”

“No,” Julie snapped, “you’re forgetting Grant. He’s captive. We have to get him out of there.”

“I don’t want to lose my whole team for one person,” he retorted. “I vote we blow the cavern from a distance.”

“Come on, May, nobody lives forever.” Eddings grinned crazily.

“This ain’t a democracy,” Harbinger said. “I decide. . . .” Mayorga looked at him sullenly. Harbinger turned back to me. “Owen, for the last time. Can you open this rift?”

I thought back to the vision. I was still shaking from it. Finding the spot would be easy. I did not see how it was opened, but somehow I felt that I could. But if I was wrong, a whole bunch of Hunters might die in vain. I answered carefully, “Yes. I can do it.”

“Okay, we go in,” Harbinger decided. “Julie, gather all the intel you can on this place.”

“Speaking of which,” a female team lead, who’s name tag read Paxton, interjected, “this place had to have come up on the Feds’ radar for potential sites. They’ve got to have guards stationed there.”

“I know folks in the National Guard here,” Boone said. “I’ll make some calls and find out what’s stationed there.”

“We can assume they’re dead or turned. Probably at least bitten, and enthralled so they can still check in on the radio. We’ll just have to assess when we come to it.”

“Should we contact the Feds first? I know they’re a bunch of dicks, but we’re talking about the fate of the world here,” VanZant asked.

The Boss spoke up for the first time. “No. We hit it at dawn. If we fail, then we call them. I would really prefer to see this handled without an atomic bomb used on my home state.” He poked a hole in the map with his hook.

“If we pull this off we are going to be rich,” Hurley said.

“Or dead,” Mayorga muttered.

“Tell your teams what’s up. Grab some rest. We hit DeSoya Caverns at dawn,” Harbinger ordered. The team leaders quickly dispersed, excited or nervous at the thought of another mission. Julie gave me a little smile before picking up her laptop and leaving. Harbinger looked at me. Steel-blue eyes unblinking. “Well, this is it.”

“I guess so.”

“Sorry about your friend.”

“You would have liked him, Earl. He was a good man.” I thought of Mordechai throwing himself at the Cursed One to give me a chance to escape. I remembered my promise to finish this business. I intended to keep it.

“Well, what’re you waiting for?” Harbinger asked as he removed a cigarette from the pack in his pocket.

“Huh?”

He flicked his Zippo and ignited the flame, taking his time in responding. “Brief your team.”

“But . . .”

He took a long drag. “I’ve got three Newbies that seem to think you’re their leader. Trip, Holly and Albert would follow you anywhere. Whether you know it or not, you’re a leader. That’s good enough for me. Consider this a promotion.”

“But . . . I’m no leader.”

“Yes, you are. I know none of you have a damn clue, so I still want y’all attached with my team. But they answer to you, and they stick with you. No matter what. Do what I tell you and you should be fine.” He held out his hand. I shook it. He almost broke my fingers. “Don’t screw up.”

“I won’t let you down, Earl.”

He only nodded. Gave my hand one final bone-crushing squeeze, and then moved on, leaving me alone in front of the map. Alone, except for my doubts and uncertainty. I hurried to find my team.

Milo Anderson crashed into me. He excitedly pushed a loaded five-round Saiga magazine into my hand. He had an insane gleam in his eye, as he seemingly did whenever he had the opportunity to harness whole new forms of destruction.

“Think this is going to work?” I asked.

“Not a bad idea. They were oversize, so I had to trim them a smidgen. Hope that don’t mess up the mojo. Lucky for you I had the reloading bench already set up for 12 gauge,” he answered as he tugged absently on his beard. “If this works, it should be awesome. If not?” He shrugged.

“If not, at least my death should be relatively spectacular.”

“That’s the spirit.” Milo grinned. “Lightweight projectiles. Low-powder charge. This is short range only, like conversational-distance short range. Accuracy is going to suck. Penetration is going to be negligible. Probably won’t have enough pressure to cycle Abomination’s action. So plan on going manual.”

“Can do. Thanks, Milo.”

“Good luck, Owen. I’ve got to go grab some spears and my garlic wreath. Catch you on the flip side.” The strange Hunter ran to take care of his team’s supplies.

I contemplated the magazine. I sure hoped this worked.

The convoy of mismatched vehicles tore northward at dangerous speeds, dawn fast approaching. I sat in the passenger seat of one of the MHI Suburbans. My armor was still damp and cold from Natchy Bottom. You can’t just drop twenty pounds of Kevlar and Cordura into the drier. I had my shotgun clenched between my knees. Over a dozen magazines of assorted 12-gauge ammunition and 40mm grenades rode in pouches on my chest and sides. I was wearing both of the STI .45s that Julie had given me, along with several magazines of silver bullets. My ganga ram was strapped across my chest, and several sharpened white-oak stakes rode in a pouch on my back. I had smoke, frag and incendiary hand grenades. And just for luck, on my ankle I was wearing the little .357 which I had used against Mr. Huffman.

I had used our last few hours to get some much-needed sleep. I had not dreamt, and I felt a chill loneliness. I was certain now: The Old Man was gone.

The wipers beat rhythmically. The rain was increasing, running almost like rivers down the road. The wind was howling and the big vehicle rocked as strong gusts hit us. Being the only one of us who had lived through any hurricanes, Trip assured us that this storm was not far behind in intensity. The sheets of falling water were so thick that I could barely see the taillights of the vehicle ahead of us.

The storm had come out of nowhere. It had the mark of the Cursed One on it. I worried about Julie, buckled into the Hind with the rest of her team. Surely Skippy would get them through.

The Newbie team had been crammed into the overloaded Suburban for the trip. Holly had taken to calling us the rainbow coalition team, since we had one white female, and males of the Black, Asian, and Other categories. All we needed was a lesbian and a guy in a wheelchair and we were ready to salve even the biggest liberal’s angst. The others were sharing the second row of seats, and the driver was a talkative little Hunter named Gus, out of Hurley’s team in Miami.

“Yeah, you guys should have seen it. Little town outside of Pensacola. Vampires nested all over the city works building. We’re ready to go in and hit them fast and hard. We get stopped by the mayor for—guess what? You guys ain’t gonna believe it . . .”

“What, Gus?” Lee asked in exasperation, not wanting to egg him on, but seeing no other way out. Gus had talked nearly nonstop since leaving the compound. Everybody dealt with the stress of an upcoming mission in their own strange ways, I supposed.

“She was a big Anne Rice fan. She wanted to ‘reason’ with them. She just thought that they were misunderstood. She wanted to open a ‘dialogue.’” He took his hands from the wheel long enough to make quote motions with his fingers. I started to instinctively reach for the wheel as we began to hydroplane.

“I hate that sensitive romantic vampire bullshit,” Holly said.

“Yeah, exactly. You wouldn’t believe how hard killing undead got after those damn books came out. Every love-starved housewife out there started thinking of them as tragic homoerotic Fabio-looking things. Morons. Well, anyway, so the mayor goes and gets eaten and Hurley says to us—”

The radio cut him off.

“This is Harbinger. We’ve got to land the chopper. Storm is getting too bad to fly—even for Skip. We’re putting down before Sylacauga.” The radio went out.

“So, anyway, Hurley says to us—” Gus was cut off again.

“Pick us up. Clearing at the end of the road right before town. Skip will stay with the Hind. Hopefully the weather will clear enough that he can take off and provide some air support later.”

I saw brake lights ahead. Gus swore and slowed down.

“What’s the problem?” Holly asked.

“Shh,” Trip hissed. He rolled down his window, letting rain in.

“What are you doing?” Holly asked.

“Hear that?” he asked.

“No,” I answered. But it was no secret I had the worst hearing of the bunch.

“What is that?” Lee asked nervously.

“Tornado sirens.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means we have a tornado warning. Weather is weird for them so it probably isn’t just a warning on conditions. Means some have been seen in the area.”

“How will we know if one is nearby?” Lee asked.

“It’ll sound like a million freight trains. You’ll know,” Trip warned.

I noted with some concern that the clouds had turned green, a sick, deadly color.

Other noises could be heard over the rain, thumping against the roof of the Suburban. Small round things were smacking wetly against the window.

“Now, that’s different,” Gus said as the wipers knocked away the blood and meat on the windshield.

“Dude, roll the window up!” I shouted.

“Oh, gross!” Trip exclaimed as something hit him.

It was raining frogs. Thousands of tiny amphibians were striking us, bouncing off of the hood or road. Some were falling faster than others, hitting hard enough to explode in little red puffs.

“Isn’t this from like The Ten Commandments? Let’s get out of here before the plague of locusts shows up,” Lee suggested nervously.

“Well, actually, it’s not an unknown phenomenon to have it rain frogs,” I said. “Tornadoes or water spouts can pick them up and drop them someplace else. Fish too.”

“Not the time for trivia, Z,” Holly said.

I bit my tongue. My attempt at explaining the phenomenon was rather lame. We all knew what this meant. This was the day. One of the frogs examined me through the glass before the wiper batted it aside, leaving only a red smear.

*   *   *

MHI assembled in the parking lot of a small grocery store. We were only a few miles from the caverns, and Harbinger did not want us to hit the site until the sun was fully up. Not that I thought it would do much good; the clouds and rain were thick enough that it might as well have been night.

“How much light can a vampire stand?” I asked.

“Very little can cause them pain. A direct hit and they catch on fire. And maybe we’ll get lucky and get a little sunshine,” Julie answered.

“At least it quit raining frogs,” Sam grunted.

A large contingent of us had assembled under the store awning, making last-minute preparations, asking questions, or just stretching our legs before the final fight. Some extremely curious locals had ventured out of their homes, trying to figure out what the large group of paramilitary-looking folks were doing in their small town. Considering the things that had happened over the last few days, we were not that weird in the grand scheme of things, but we still must have been a sight.

Sam nudged me and pointed across the lot. A local teenager in a yellow rain slicker approached one of our parked vehicles, a three-quarter-ton pickup hooked to a gooseneck horse trailer. It belonged to our orc contingent. Overcome by curiosity, the kid peered over the side door, only to stumble backwards and fall into a mud puddle when something large slammed into the sheet metal and growled.

“Hey, kid! It ain’t polite to poke your nose in other folks’ business. You trying to lose a hand?” Sam shouted.

“What was that? Who are you guys?” the kid shouted, suddenly afraid.

“It’s your momma. And we’re the circus. Now scram!” Sam let his duster jacket open to reveal his armor and .45-70.

The kid pulled himself up and ran back toward his home, probably trying to figure out what exactly it was that he had seen in that horse trailer.

“Sam! Quit scaring the children.”

“Sorry, Julie,” Sam said as he grinned at me from under his mustache.

“Boone? You got anything about who’s on guard?” Harbinger demanded.

“This one was high priority. Word is at least a squad of actual Feds on the cavern. Local guardsmen blocking the road. They’ve been checking in on a regular basis, so they’re still alive,” he answered. “We’ve got authority to deal with local infestations, so the soldiers should let us through. The Feds, on the other hand . . .”

“If they are on site, figure that they’ve been turned,” Julie said.

“You mean I might get to stake a Fed?” Sam asked with far too much eagerness. “Oh, that would be fricking awesome.”

“Easy there, big fella. Only if they’re dead,” Harbinger warned. “This is it, folks. Any questions?”

The group was silent. Our radio channel was open so the Hunters still sitting in the running vehicles could hear. No one asked anything.

“Fine then.” Harbinger cleared his throat before continuing. “Whatever happens, I want y’all to know that I’m proud. Most of you know how long I’ve been doing this, and you know I won’t lie. This is the finest group of Hunters MHI has ever assembled. I mean that. You know what to do. You’re the best of the best. I would take this crew against the gates of hell themselves if God would give us the contract. With these teams we could collect PUFF on the four horsemen of the apocalypse. It’s an honor to have led you into battle, the greatest honor I’ve ever had. Like the memorial wall says, Sic transit gloria mundi. We’re mortals, but the deeds we do are the stuff of legend, and your courage will live forever. Know that, and be sure. You’re the modern versions of Beowulf, of St. George, of Odysseus. You’re Van Helsing with firepower. You’re Jack and the Beanstalk with automatic weapons. We’re walking in the valley of the shadow of death, but we shall fear no evil! Because evil is about to get a stake put through its black heart because we are the baddest mother-fuckers to ever set foot in the valley!” he finished in a roar.

A cheer rose from the Hunters. I pumped my fist into the air and shouted. All of the horns were honked. The wargs in the trailer began to howl. I was surprised that nobody started shooting into the air. That was probably just because they wanted to save ammunition.

Harbinger paused, looking out into the rain. A malicious grin split his face. He finally continued. “Good hunting. Move out.”

Chapter 26

The lead Suburban braked before the National Guard checkpoint. An old M113 armored personnel carrier, basically a bulletproof box on treads, blocked the road. The soldiers had been driven under cover, sitting in their vehicles trying to stay out of the horrible rain, lashing wind, and scattered frog showers. They regarded us warily as our convoy approached. One of the soldiers manned the big .50 mounted on the armored personnel carrier and swiveled it in our general direction.

Boone and Harbinger exited the lead vehicle and approached the soldiers, hands held wide, indicating that they were no danger. After the events of the last few days, the soldiers weren’t going to take any chances. I noted that having the APC parked in the center of the road was kind of redundant, since the storm had blown several large trees down, forming a very effective roadblock right behind their position. Some smart NCO had some of his men spread out into the trees.

“Poor guys. Stuck out in this weather. What are they supposed to do if a tornado hits? Hide under that tank?” Trip asked.

“It’s their job. They’re doing what they have to do,” Lee said. I felt his hands pull on the back of my seat as he tried to get a better view. “I hope they let us through.”

The radio crackled, “Pitt. Come up here. Just you.”

“Roger that,” I answered. “Be right back, guys.” I pulled my black raincoat tight and stepped out of the warm vehicle into the screaming rain. The coat was bulky and long enough that it hid Abomination. I wasn’t about to go anywhere this close to the Cursed One without my gun. I struggled to hold my hood down as the wind tried to tear it away. Branches tumbled across the road. It was raining sideways. I splashed down the road, past several other vans and SUVs, Hunters inside looking out at me from their relative comfort. I reached the roadblock.

Boone was speaking with one of the Guard. They appeared to be arguing. “What’s going on?” I shouted to be heard over the wind.

“Boone’s trying to bluster his way through. He just barely got out of the Guard himself and these are his people. They still won’t let us through without permission from the Feds stationed at the cavern itself, and they ain’t responding on the radio.”

“Figure they’re dead?”

“Something like that,” he answered. “Do you sense anything?”

“I’m not psychic, Earl.”

“Do me a favor and try,” he ordered. “You have a connection with this thing. We need to exploit every advantage. It’s worth a shot.”

I pulled my hood low, trying to block the rain. I closed my eyes. Balancing in the road as the wind rocked me, coat billowing, I listened. Cold moisture leaked around the openings of my protection and down my armor. How was I supposed to sense them? I concentrated, remembering how I felt at those times when I had viewed Lord Machado’s memories.

Then I felt it. A growing presence. Darkness. Age. Power. Masters. I could feel the alien thoughts—the confidence in their strength and their combined ability to crush any number of humans. I could hear their voices, their communications, almost as if they were shouting;

Fools. You have slept so long. You do not know the power of the Hunters’ modern weapons. Return and protect our Lord.

We fear no human, Jaeger. I have seen their puny “cannon.”

We shall crush them and feast. Calm thyself, young one.

I was one of them. Y’all don’t know what you’re getting into. Things have changed since your day, you old bastards.

Silence. I have no time for your cowardice. Hide in your cave, female, for we walk in the daytime. Now is our time to reign.

Fine. Underestimate them and see what happens.

As Trip was so fond of pointing out, pride comes before the fall. Most of the vampires ignored the admonitions of Jaeger and Susan warning them of the dire power of our modern weapons. These Masters had slept through the last few centuries, and they held no fear of man. They were coming up the road, heading right toward us, no subtlety, not even rushing, taking their time and savoring their assured victory. We only had a few minutes.

I opened my eyes and the sensation vanished. Heck, maybe I was psychic.

“Earl, we’ve got company coming.” I pointed down the road. “I think it’s the Masters. At least a few of them. But they don’t understand what they’re up against. They’re old and cocky.”

“Okay. Better to fight them in the open than underground . . .  Suckers.” He looked plaintively at the sky, but there was no sunlight to be seen. Harbinger approached Boone and tapped him on the shoulder. I drew closer so I could listen. The soldier on the .50 tracked me. “Excuse me!” Harbinger butted in. “Gentlemen, we’re about to be attacked.”

“My name isn’t ‘Gentlemen,’ it’s Lieutenant McNab. And you need to back this convoy the hell up and turn around. This here is a secure area, and no civilians are allowed on this site. Move back or I’ll order my men to open fire.”

“Lieutenant McNab, sir, we have authorization from the Federal Government to access this area. There’s an undead outbreak inside the cavern complex. It’s imperative that we get in there,” Boone said.

“Undead? Like Dawn of the Dead, booga-booga zombies?” The lieutenant laughed. He was very young, and could not have been doing this for very long. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Back this convoy up now or I’m authorizing the use of force.” The nearby soldiers looked around nervously. An older soldier in a camouflage rain poncho stepped behind the lieutenant.

“How much time?” Harbinger hissed at me.

“Maybe a minute or two,” I responded.

He shook his head slightly, and cracked his knuckles under the sleeves of his raincoat. “We’re gonna have to fall back and let the vampires slaughter these poor saps.”

“Excuse me, sir?” the other soldier said. He tapped the lieutenant on the shoulder.

“Yes, Sergeant?” the young man responded.

“I know this man.” He nodded at Boone. “This is Sergeant Jay Boone. Nineteenth Special Forces. I worked with him in Afghanistan. He’s one of us.”

“How’s it hanging, Gregorius?” Boone asked.

“Pretty good. Did you get a medal for Kandahar?”

“Yep, and a purple heart, and my medical discharge. Now I’m back to monster hunting.”

“Sergeant, what is this nonsense?” shouted the lieutenant.

“Sir, if this man says that we are about to come under attack, I believe him. We’d best let these folks through to do their job.”

“I’m under orders, damn it!” he shouted. “Nobody goes through here unless the FBI says so, and they aren’t responding!”

“They ain’t responding because they’re dead,” Harbinger answered. “Boone, Pitt, let’s fall back while these guys get killed. Good luck, Sergeant. Have your men save their last bullets for themselves.”

“Wait,” said Gregorius, “Boone, you said undead. Like that thing we found buried in Bagram? The one that ate Chris?”

“No, sorry, dude. Way worse. Master vampires. That thing we found was just a pussy ghoul.”

“Dang. Hold on.” He chewed on his bottom lip for a moment, deep in thought, before turning toward his men. “Defend against the park, enemy is incoming. Prepare to fire on my command.” The soldiers complied instantly to their seasoned NCO. Harbinger immediately clicked our radio twice. Doors opened and Hunters spread out, many sloshing across into the trees. Sunroofs were rolled back and belt-fed machine guns or MK19 grenade launchers were lifted into their mounting brackets. The armed Suburbans rolled forward, and pulled off to the sides, forming a front.

“What are you doing? There’s no such thing as vampires.”

“Shut up and grab your rifle, sir. If we live you can put me in for a court-martial. Boone, what should we do?”

“What do you have?”

“Two squads, the track here, and a 60 on one of the Humvees. But these guys are admin pogues. I’m lucky they gave us live ammo.”

Harbinger stepped in. “Hold this center position. Control their fields of fire. We’ve got a lot more hardware than you. And with these things there ain’t no shame in running, so retreat if you need to.”

“Sergeant, I order you to arrest these men! That is a direct order. Oh my . . .” He stopped speaking when he saw the door of the trailer drop and the first of the wargs jump free. The giant wolves, as big as horses, limbs squat and heavy with muscle, snarling and nipping at each other, really were an impressive sight. The black-masked orcs quickly found their mounts, slung themselves bareback onto the creatures and readied themselves for battle. “Oh my.” He started to draw his pistol, but I placed my hand firmly on his.

“Those are on our side. The bad guys are coming from the other direction.” I pointed.

“Oh my,” he said again as the pack of wolves and riders wheeled about and headed for the treeline, ready to flank into the enemy. The lieutenant looked like he was about to vomit.

“And that’s what we alcoholics like to call a moment of clarity,” Boone quipped.

I noted that the orcs had taken the time to put white handprints on their masks and helmets. It was a nice touch. They must have loved the Lord of the Rings movies too.

“Edward, this is Harbinger. Hold your wargs in reserve. You’re our cavalry.”

“Unter . . . stand . . . Harb Anger.”

The road stretched ahead almost three hundred yards before disappearing over the top of a lush hill. The Hunters had spread into the forest on both sides. Strange that Harbinger had spoken of a valley of death, and now we found ourselves in one. I turned and found my team waiting, loaded down with heavy weapons, looking to me for guidance. I looked to Harbinger, he nodded to one side, and I went. The others followed. He continued to bark orders into the radio, giving each team lead an area of responsibility, and most notably telling VanZant’s team to “Dig in the big guns.”

We set up in a small ditch off of the road, with a good view of the approach and a small amount of cover. Once again I was waist-deep in water, this time from the flash floods. Just once I would like to hunt monsters someplace dry, but as a good rule of thumb, if you could get lower, you do it. Lee threw down the tripod, and Trip dropped the FN MAG machine gun onto it. I was pleased to see that they did it exactly how Sam had taught us, quickly and surely opening the feed cover and sliding in the belt of silver .308. Lee hunkered down behind the big weapon. Holly handed me an RPG. The heavy tube was reassuring in my hands. Everyone dug down into the ditch, prepared to fight. Nervous but competent. Scared but professional. We were ready to put some smack down. Not bad for an accountant, a librarian, a schoolteacher, and a stripper. Not bad at all.

“Ready, guys?” I asked.

“We got a choice?” Lee asked over the stock of the Belgian machine gun.

“Not really.”

The rain ceased. The wind died. The clouds turned an even brighter green. It was eerily still and the energy could be felt in the humid sky. Many Hunters glanced hopefully upward. Unfortunately there was no sunlight. The ancient evil approached.

“They’re here,” I said, my voice echoing in the now silent valley.

Four figures appeared over the hill, walking purposefully down the road. They had to know that we were there, but they did not care. They were Masters.

Two clicks came over the radio—the signal to get ready. Harbinger would wait for them to close into the most efficient kill box before unleashing our fury.

The four vampires continued to approach. They looked like regular people, out for a nice bit of exercise. Three males and a female. They were dressed in normal attire, nothing fancy, nothing archaic, just regular everyday clothing. Most likely taken off of some of their recent victims. They were graceful and beautiful even from here, but they could not hide what they were from me. I could almost taste the evil.

I wasn’t the only one. “Man . . . I would give my left nut for some sunshine right about now,” Trip whispered.

“It isn’t like you’re using it for anything anyway,” Holly retorted.

“Will you shut up?”

“The Cursed One isn’t going to let it happen.” I glanced up at the unnaturally moving clouds. This was his storm. “The sun won’t shine until he’s finished.”

“We get in that cave, I’m going to put a grenade where the sun don’t shine on him,” Lee promised.

Banter was good. It kept the mind off of the palpable terror that was at two hundred yards and closing. I raised the RPG, sat it on my shoulder, pushed off the button safety, and checked that the hammer was back. I had not shot one of these before, but the sighting arrangement was very straightforward. I centered the vampires in the aperture marked 200.

The radio crackled: One click, two clicks, three clicks.

Fire.

The Hunters opened up. Hundreds of bullets struck first, followed almost instantly by rockets and grenades, and only a few seconds later by the massive explosions generated by our 81mm mortar team’s nine-pound shells. Weapons ignited all across the valley. I squeezed the trigger of the RPG. It was a simple tube that directed a rocket-propelled chunk of high explosive. The concussion was amazing. If this hadn’t been so deadly serious it might possibly have been the coolest thing I had ever gotten to shoot. I found that I was smiling as the area around the vampires disappeared into a cloud of smoke and dust, with gouts of flames leaping into the air and chunks of dirt and asphalt raining down for hundreds of feet.

It was beautiful.

The ancient ones had underestimated their human foes. They were unprepared for the power of our modern weapons. Pound after pound of high explosive ignited in their midst. Multiple belt-fed MK19 launchers dropped a stream of grenades onto their heads. Walls of shrapnel tore them asunder and their bones and flesh were charred by phosphorus, thermite, napalm and towering pillars of flame.

“Yee-haw!” Trip shouted, watching the clouds of smoke rise, and the almost slow-motion falling of debris. It had been a spectacular display of firepower.

Harbinger came over the radio. “They ain’t done until you cut off their heads. Watch out. VanZant, keep that mortar on them. Pile it on!”

I tossed the empty tube down. Behind us the mortars continued to thump. I could not see anything moving besides the smoke. “Trip, Holly, grab some more rockets. Go.”

“Movement. Vamp on the right,” the radio said. Gunfire and rockets flew from the treeline on that side. A burning figure emerged into view, only to disappear again as the dirt around it exploded upwards into a volcano of flame. The shells continued to pepper the area, each one flattening a massive space. There wasn’t going to be anything bigger than a microbe that was going to survive the punishment we were putting into that area.

“How much damage can these things take?” Lee asked.

“Beats me,” I replied. I saw something emerge from the front. “Vamp in the center. On the road.” Lee let loose with a burst of .308, stitching a path of impacts and tracers up the road and into the jerking creature. The flaming vampire ran toward us at impossible speeds, seemingly twisting between the bullets, then disappearing as an RPG landed in its path. The smoking body landed a moment later, crashing down to the pavement, and instantly popped back up out of the crater. They healed too fast.

The vampire was engulfed in a thunderous explosion as something roared from the center. The blast from the Spig recoilless rifle shook us all. It made me glad that I had taken the time to help Julie haul it up from her basement. The smoke cleared long enough to see that the vampire was gone. Holly jumped back into the ditch with arms full of rockets. She thumped me in the shoulder and pointed upwards.

I tracked in on the movement. The torn remains of the vampire were just reaching the apex of their arc, and began descending rapidly toward the earth. The biggest piece of the creature splattered onto the road not fifty feet from our position. The supernatural was no match for the laws of physics and some well-directed artillery.

“Yes!” I shouted. They were killable.

I choked off my triumphant shout when I realized that it was still moving. The head, one claw, and the torso was trying to pull itself toward us, twitching and splurting fluids from its burned flesh. If it regenerated enough to regain its faculties, it would be able to shape-shift and live to fight another day.

“No way, man!” Lee shouted as he directed a stream of tracers into the body. The heavier rounds from the National Guard Browning .50 began to pepper the carcass as well, kicking up gouts of dirt and vampire bits.

“Edward. Go! All teams hold fire along the front,” Harbinger ordered. He was still standing by the National Guard, and he personally made sure that they ceased fire.

A dark shape exploded from the trees, leaping in huge bounds across the burning grass and rain-swollen ditches, claws tearing up plumes of mud and vegetation. Edward hugged low to the mane of the mighty warg as it moved with predatory speed toward the downed Master. Edward drew a sword from his back as he leaned low, hanging barely above the ground as they approached their target. The orc’s arm flew upward, like a scythe ready to harvest wheat. It swung down, pushed not just by the power of the orc, but by the speed of the seven-hundred-pound beast driving him forward.

Edward’s masterful aim was true. The ancient blade sang through the air. It met little resistance from the charred and ashen flesh, and it crashed against the hardened vertebra with a clang that every Hunter could hear. Did he make it through?

The warg passed by, screeching to a mud-soaked halt, before spinning around, red tongue rolling like a giant dog, tearing at the earth and charging back at the vampire. Edward sheathed his sword, hung low, and dragged his fingers through the grass. He swung up, returning to the back of his stead, a trophy held triumphantly above his head.

It was a blackened skull.

Lightning crossed the sky from every direction. Thunder crashed. A gust of wind tore through us, pushing to the north. The skies protested as the ancient vampire’s spirit was finally forced from this world. The Hunters began to cheer. The warg bounced back into the trees, Edward still holding the vampire’s severed head extended for all to see. The mortars began to fire and drop more explosives into the valley. Only I could hear the mental screams from the other Masters.

Fools. I warned you of the humans’ modern weapons. Flee. Protect our Lord.

The burning. It will not stop burning.

No time . . . to heal . . . too much damage . . . so weak . . . need blood.

They have destroyed Gurgo. Sythak is dying. I shall avenge them.

See, I told you so. Assholes.

My lord, use the artifact. Place me into their midst so that I may tear the life from their hearts. Their weapons require distance to work against us.

IT SHALL BE DONE.

“Oh, shit!” I exclaimed, turning from the battlefield, looking over my shoulder back the way that we had come. I keyed the radio. “Earl, vampires are going to gate in close, too close for bombs.”

“Where?”

I concentrated, but the moment was past. The voices were gone. I narrowed my eyes on a point to the side of our parked convoy of vehicles. For some reason it drew my attention. It was almost as if I could see the invisible energy forming, swirling in preparation.

“Behind us, thirty yards off the road. South side!” I shouted as I surged out of the ditch, sprinting toward the spot as fast as I could. Abomination slammed back and forth against my chest. My boots were sodden with water and seemed to weigh hundreds of pounds. My breath came in gasps as I closed the distance. I was never a good sprinter. If the vampires could appear in our midst, we were as good as dead. They moved far too quickly to be stopped with the weapons that we could use at close range.

There was a crackling noise as the rift opened. A red line appeared out of thin air, and then spread wide. I reached under my raincoat and pulled one of the sharpened white-oak stakes from my load-bearing gear. I held it low at my side as I ran forward. It was going to be close and ugly.

The creature appeared through the rift, stepping lightly onto the grass. Blood-colored eyes blinked, adjusting to what was, for it, brilliant light. It had already shed its human appearance, ready for battle, looking like a twisted, gray, hulking bat-thing, all fangs, muscles and claws. It saw me.

Too late to do it any good. I jerked the stake upwards, bellowing, my weight and momentum carrying me forward. Crashing into the vampire was like hitting a brick wall. I pushed the stake with all of my might, coming under the rib cage and stabbing into the pulsing black heart. The vampire shrieked so painfully loud that my hearing protection momentarily shorted out. It grasped my hand, trying to pull out the stake. Its jaws opened wide enough to fit my head inside the maw. I continued to push the sharpened wood deeper into the creature’s black heart.

A stake through the heart would kill any living thing. It would instantly paralyze any regular vampire. On a Master, it seemed to merely weaken it. At its normal strength, the creature would have been able to break me in half, now it was almost as if I were fighting someone only twice as strong as a normal person.

The creature swatted me across the chest. I flew back, airborne for what seemed an impossible time, landing hard on the hood of one of the SUVs, shattering the windshield, and sliding down until I fell on my hands and knees onto the pavement. The vampire struggled to pull the stake free. Trip and Lee barreled into the creature, hacking wildly at it with their blades, trying desperately to take its head off. The monster shoved them away, but not before Trip fiercely planted his tomahawk into the base of its skull.

With a wrenching squeal, the stake was torn free. The creature roared in triumph, but only for a moment. Its eyes widened as the grill of a Suburban smashed into it at thirty miles an hour. The tires bumped as Holly gunned it over the fallen vampire, crushing it beneath. She slammed it into park, with the thing still trapped, opened the door and hopped out.

“Keys were in it!” she shouted as she turned and pulled a grenade from her armor. “Run!” She pulled the pin, the spoon popped off with a clang, and she tossed it into the front seat of the vehicle. I pushed myself up and ran for my life, trying to get as far away as I could before the five-second fuse went off. If that vehicle had been as loaded down with munitions as ours had been, this wasn’t going to be pretty. The vampire bench-pressed the SUV off of itself and rolled the vehicle onto its side. It stood, broken bones quickly knitting, looking for prey.

I dove behind one of the vans and tried to get as low to the ground as possible. The initial detonation of the grenade was relatively mild. The pressurized napalm tank it ignited was not. The crate of 81mm mortar rounds that went off next was downright amazing. The van I was using as a shield rocked up onto two wheels and every window shattered under the pressure.

Once the thunder had died, I slowly lifted my head. I peered around the edge of my scorched cover. The Suburban was reduced to a burning pile of distorted scrap lying sideways in a freshly dug crater. A chunk of metal landed in the grass a few feet away. I realized that it was a door. A burning tire rolled past.

“Wow” was the most articulate thing that I could think of to say.

“Think we got it?” Holly shouted from under the warg trailer.

“I hope so.” I lifted the rifle and approached the wreckage. “Trip! Lee! You guys okay?” In the distance the mortars continued to fire.

“Pitt! Status?” Harbinger’s voice sounded in my ear.

“I think we got the vampire. I can’t find two of my guys.”

“This is Mayorga. One of them has broken through. It’s in the trees on the left. Puta got Abe.”

“This is Cody. Got one on the right too.”

“Earl,” I said into the radio. I kept my gun up, pointed toward the burning vehicle. “There’s only one left in the valley. And it’s badly hurt. It can’t regenerate until it gets blood.” Holly extricated herself from under the trailer, and I tossed her rifle back.

“How do you know?” he asked. “Shit, never mind. VanZant, stop the barrage. Edward, clean up in the center. Phillips, roll right. Paxton, reinforce left. Now they’re up close, but we’ve hurt them, so they’re gonna be weaker and slower. We can take them. Pitt, my team is coming your way.”

I did not respond. I scanned the surroundings. No sign of the vampire. No sign of Lee or Trip either. “Hey guys? Anybody hear me?” I shouted.

“I’m okay,” answered Lee. He approached from the other side of the wreckage. His armor was smoking. He struggled with the FN MAG in his hands. It was almost as big as he was, and the exposed belt of ammo hung to the ground. “That was one big-ass fireball.”

“Have you seen Trip?” He shook his head in the negative.

“Oh no . . .” Holly trailed off. “I killed him.”

“You don’t know that!” I shouted. “Trip! Can you hear me!”

Nothing.

“Look.” Lee gestured with the machine-gun barrel. I turned quickly, hoping to see my friend. Instead I saw that the flickering rift into the cavern was still open. It floated a few feet above the ground, a door out of nothing, but I could clearly see that there was something on the other side. I lifted Abomination warily, clicked on the flashlight and shined it into the shimmering gap. The powerful light pierced the darkness and illuminated a rock wall.

“Grant!” I exclaimed. Grant Jefferson was lying bound and gagged on the cavern floor, seemingly only forty feet away. “Earl! Earl! We found Grant. We’ve got a back door into the cavern!”

“On the way,” he responded.

“We better hurry before it closes,” Lee said.

“How do we know it isn’t a trap?” Holly asked. “What if it closes while we’re halfway through?”

“I don’t know.” Wild gunfire crackled through the forest as the other Hunters battled the two Masters. “We’ve got to try.” I reached into a pocket and pulled out a handful of glow sticks. “I’m going in. I’ll try to grab him and bring him out. Cover me.” I cracked the sticks, shook them, and tossed them through the rift. They landed and scattered across the cavern floor, providing a soft green glow. I couldn’t see anything else moving.

“Good luck,” Holly said, “you big brave idiot.”

I ran toward the rift, no use screwing around. I closed my eyes right before I hit it, only to open them to find myself barreling into the cavern. I had not felt a thing. I gulped in the moist cave air. I turned around, and the rift was still there, only now it showed the valley and the ominous green storm clouds overhead. My remaining teammates were waiting for me.

“Hurry up!” Holly shouted.

That was good advice. I swung my shotgun around, letting the light shine on the damp walls and the slick stalagmites. I did not see any threats. I shined the light on Grant. He moaned softly when the brilliant light hit him.

“Come on, buddy, let’s get out of here.” I knelt at his side and pulled the gag away.

“Pitt?” he gasped. I heard something shuffle in the darkness. I spun the light around. Wights. Lots of them.

“Yeah. Time to boogie.” I grabbed him by the straps of his armor and, with a grunt, hoisted him over my shoulder. I sprinted for the rift, ignoring the two hundred pounds of extra weight. The wights began to scramble over the rocks toward me. One stepped into my path, only to be nearly decapitated by a burst of Lee’s machine-gun fire. Apparently bullets went through the rift just fine. I passed the falling creature and jumped through the portal.

I was back outside.

And the wights were right behind. Lee ripped off the rest of the belt into the portal. Holly stood at his side, blasting any undead that came too close.

“We could use a hand, chief!” Lee said as he dropped the huge gun, pulled his pistol and fired at an approaching wight.

I roughly tossed Grant on the ground, tugged a pair of grenades off of my webbing, pulled the pins and chucked them through the portal. “Off to the side!” The others responded, moving out of the path of the shrapnel. They exploded at the feet of the wights, blasting them into bits of pulsing tissue. A cloud of gravel fell from the cavern ceiling.

“Owen!” Julie called. Her team and several other Hunters were approaching quickly. “I don’t believe it. You found Grant!”

Harbinger nodded in approval. “Sam, Milo, cover that rift.”

“My pleasure,” Milo answered, pushing past Lee, and shooting a rising wight through the spine with his AR10 carbine. “Wow, cool magic portal thingy!”

I drew my knife and cut the cords binding Grant’s wrists. His eyes looked wild and frightened. “It’s okay, dude. We got you. You’re safe.”

“Die!” Grant screamed. He grabbed me by the throat, trying to crush my windpipe. I grabbed his hands and tried to pry them away.

“Grant! What are you doing?” Julie cried. “Stop that!”

“Acckkkkk . . .” I said, trying in vain to get some oxygen.

“Die, interloper!” Grant shouted, crazed eyes bulging, spraying spittle into my face. Either he knew that I had moved in on Julie or he was insane. Either way, it totally hurt.

“He’s enthralled,” Holly said simply. “Susan must have bitten him.”

Julie stood over him, calmly raised the butt of her M14 and cracked him sharply alongside his head. He was out like a light. “Grant, honey . . . I think we need to start seeing other people.”

I rubbed my throat. “Damn, that hurt.” On the bright side, it was strangely satisfying to not only rescue my competition, but have the woman we were competing for give him a concussion.

“Is he going to be okay?” Lee asked.

“The enthrallment will wear off pretty quick. But when he eventually dies, no matter how long it takes, he’s going to have to get his head cut off, or he’s going to come back as one of them. The undead curse is in his blood now,” Holly explained. She knelt and pulled Grant’s armor open at the neck. There was a ghastly wound on the top of his chest, now caked in dried blood.

“That sucks.”

“Yeah, pretty much. But you get used to it,” she answered.

“The rift is holding,” Harbinger said. “Let’s go get the CO.” The gunfire continued in the distance. “Now that the vampires have closed the range, we’ve got a hell of a fight on our hands. Maybe if we kill him, this cloud cover will disperse.”

“Roast them bastards good.” Sam spat, noticed something moving in the cavern, aimed his rifle and fired. “Let’s get some.” He levered another mammoth shell into the action.

“Okay, I’m on point. You guys stick behind me . . .” He paused, his nose twitching. Harbinger began to spin, but the Master vampire rising behind him was too fast. It grabbed him by the straps of his armor and hurled him through the air at an insane velocity. Harbinger struck one of the SUVs, crumpling the frame around him as if it had been in a high-speed collision and shoving the massive vehicle several feet across the road.

Nobody could have lived through that.

“Earl!” Julie cried as the Hunters opened fire.

It was the Master from the rift, the one that Holly had blown up. It was fully healed now, and no longer encumbered by a stake in the heart. Bullets struck to no effect. It lofted something in one gray claw, and launched it toward us in a blinding flash. Lee’s leg exploded in a shower of blood as Trip’s tomahawk head pierced his thigh. He screamed as he toppled to the ground.

The Master moved too quickly to track, dodging and weaving toward us as silver bullets dug divots into its muscled flesh. It swooped onto Gus. One claw stabbed out and impaled the Hunter through the throat, unleashing a spray of arterial blood. The vampire held him there as it licked its lips. I aimed around Gus’s twitching form and shot the vampire in the mouth. The slug exploded out the back of the creature’s skull. The wound closed instantly. Enraged, the vampire pulled its bloody talon free, leaving Gus staggering, gagging and choking, hands at his throat, trying to stop the bleeding. The Master lashed out with one arm, and I instinctively dodged aside as Gus’s head flew past.

The vampire had moved ten feet before the headless body had even begun to fall. It charged the next Hunter in line. Sam was struck in the arm, and the sound of bones snapping could be heard across the valley. The big cowboy roared in pain, somehow dodged under another swing and fell to the ground. He worked the action of his lever-gun with one hand, letting the weight of the barrel carry the weapon down, and then flicking the action closed with his wrist. Sam extended the muzzle and launched a silver bullet up through the vampire’s head. It did not even slow the thing down.

I fired as fast as I could, putting shell after shell of silver buckshot into the thing to no avail. It kicked at Sam as he rolled away, claws tearing a hole in the pavement. Milo stabbed his now-empty rifle forward like a spear. The vampire tore it from his hands and batted him backwards through the rift into the waiting wights. Milo disappeared with a cry of panic.

I grasped for the special magazine that Milo had given me and slammed it home, dropped the bolt, and looked up in time to see the Master bearing down on me, blood-red eyes filled with rage. I pulled the trigger.

The vampire stopped, confused. Pain was an unfamiliar sensation for the ancient creature. It looked down at the hole in its chest, then opened its jaws and screamed. It tore at itself, trying to somehow pull the burning agony from out of its insides. Thrashing, screaming, falling to its knees, claws tearing into the ground. Blue flames erupted from the hole, spilling through the vampire’s ribs, igniting internal gasses, spitting and crackling. The vampire let out an unearthly wail as it tried to tear open its own belly.

“Take that!” I shouted as I pulled the trigger again. Nothing. Of course. Milo had warned me that the specialty rounds would lack the power to cycle the action.

When I had woken up after Mordechai’s death, I had been able to get a good look at his little carvings for the first time. They were simple little tops, or dreidels as he called them. Traditional little Jewish toys, each side carved with a Hebrew letter that I had no idea how to read. They were rather small. And fortunately for us, with a little judicious carving, Milo was able to cram them into a 12-gauge shell.

I cleared the malfunction, and chambered another round. I put the glowing holographic sight on the vampire. “Mordechai says hi!” It was a stupid thing to say, but I’m not really eloquent at times like this.

Blue flame flashed on the vampire’s head as the toy splintered across its skull. The vampire screamed again, rolling across the ground, driving its head into the mud, trying to put out the flames.

The toys seemed to hurt them, but they weren’t strong enough to kill them, and I only had three left. Gradually the blue flames died, and the shaking vampire stood, snarling at me, baring its teeth. The distended mouth struggled to form English words. “You shall pay for that, mortal,” it hissed as smoking tissues sealed together.

“Vampire!” someone roared. “Pick on somebody your own size!” The vampire turned, looking for the challenger. Harbinger slowly pulled himself from the wreckage of the SUV, blood streaming from dozens of cuts. He gingerly reached over his back and yanked out a blood-stained chunk of steel, which he then casually tossed to the ground with a clatter. “If you think you’re tough enough.” He stretched, and bones audibly cracked back into place. “Well, come on then, you stupid thing.” He unfastened the armor from his torso and arms and took it off. In the flickering light of the burning Suburban, many holes and injuries could be seen on his wiry body. They gradually puckered closed. “Come on, vampire! I’m giving you a challenge!”

The vampire stopped, flexing its long limbs. “Loup-Garou,” it hissed. “Yesss. I accept your challenge. Your kind are nothing to the vampire.”

Harbinger looked past the creature, locking eyes with me. It was the look of a desperate man. “Go! Kill the Cursed One!”

Harbinger began to change, throwing his head back as if he were in great pain, and then twisting it from side to side. He fell to his knees, hands scraping along the pavement. Bones twisted, flowed, and re-formed. His spine pushed up and out along the top of his back. Skin stretched and ripped as pale hair exploded from every pore.

The others did not wait to watch the transformation. Instead they sprang into action. Sam jumped into the rift after Milo. Holly threw a tourniquet around Lee’s leg, and Julie ordered the other Hunters to drag Lee and Grant to safety. I stood transfixed like an idiot.

The transformation continued as the vampire waited, patiently readying itself for a great battle. Harbinger opened his mouth and razor-sharp teeth thrust out of his extending jaw. His pants ripped as his knees reversed direction. Claws exploded through the ends of his boots and he kicked the useless things away. When his eyes opened, they were a predatory gold. He fixated on the vampire, and howled, the sound echoing for miles. Harbinger surged to his feet, clawed arms thrown wide, the last vestiges of humanity disappearing to be replaced with pure animal power. The howl continued, growing in intensity and bristling rage.

If Mr. Huffman had been a normal werewolf, Harbinger had to be some sort of mutant super werewolf. I could sense the power, every ounce of his human form turned into a perfect killing machine. Coiled strength, steel masquerading as muscle. I slowly reached up and felt the scar on my face. It was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen.

Harbinger launched himself forward, leaping into the air. The Master did so as well. The two titans collided in midair with a crash like thunder, nearly twenty feet above the ground. They plummeted to earth in a spray of mud, claws and fangs flying, impossibly fast, shadows spinning and lashing out, backlit by the fire. Red blood and black ichor sprayed as they tore into each other’s flesh. It was a contest of wills, immortal speed and primal strength.

“Owen!” Julie shouted. “We’ve got to move!” The others had already jumped through the rift. A moaning Lee was being fireman-carried back toward the National Guard. I hurried after her, turning one last time to watch the magnificent battle: Harbinger suspended in air, tearing down at the vampire, and the Master driving its claws upwards into its foe. It was an astounding display. Julie grabbed me by my armor and pulled me through the rift.

DeSoya Caverns were quiet. The last of the wights were twitching on the ground—shot, chopped or pulverized into nondangerous pieces. Sam extended his good arm and hauled Milo to his feet. Holly was splattered with Lee’s blood, and there was far too much of it.

The rift closed behind us. I swore and jumped aside, just barely missing being caught as it scissored shut. I did not want to dwell on what would have happened if part of me had still been on the other side.

“Well, we’re committed now,” Sam grunted, holding his broken arm tenderly.

“Earl’s a werewolf?” I blurted.

“Well, yeah, I’ll explain later. What’s our status?” Julie ordered, settling subconsciously into command mode. She scanned her flashlight across the vast interior chamber, illuminating the huge area beyond the pale glow of the light sticks. The stone glimmered wetly.

“Heck if I know,” Milo wheezed.

“Lee was hurt pretty bad. I tried to stop the bleeding, but he’s going to need a real doctor real fast,” Holly said. “Poor Gus. His head just came off . . .”

“I know . . . but we can’t do anything for either of them now. Holly, are you okay?”

“Fine. I’m fine.”

“Sam, how’s that arm?”

“Done broke it,” he said. “Stupid vampire. I ain’t broke a bone since I gave up bull-riding.”

“Can you fight?”

He snorted. “I got a spare.” His forearm dangled in such a crooked direction that it made me slightly ill just looking at it. Sam had to have been in horrible pain, but he ignored it.

“Let’s sling it up at least so it isn’t banging on things. Milo?”

“Sore, but otherwise all right. Lost my carbine though,” he answered as he wiped the blood from a cut on his shaved head.

Sam tossed over his .45-70. “Not gonna do me much good with one arm anyhow. Careful, that there’s a man’s gun. Got recoil that’ll put hair on your chest. I still got my pistol.”

“Owen?”

“Good to go,” I answered. I saw from the still-twitching remains that the wights had once been federal agents. I picked up an FN SCAR off of the floor and checked the chamber. The government guys got all the cool new gear. It was loaded. Full mag in the gun, 20 rounds of their composite silver .308 on tap. The mounted flashlight worked as well. I kept the Fed gun in hand and let Abomination hang. I only had a few of Mordechai’s magic shells left and I wasn’t about to waste them on a wight. If we were to run into one of the Masters, I wanted to have some of the good stuff available.

“Where’s Grant?” Milo asked as he quickly shoved extra shells into Sam’s gun.

“Still on top with the others,” Julie said. “Probably safer up there . . . unless Earl eats him . . . Where’s Trip?”

“We lost track of him when we had that big explosion,” I answered. I hoped that he was still alive, but I was starting to have my doubts.

“I think I killed him.” Holly spoke quietly.

“It isn’t your fault,” I snapped. “You did what you had to do, otherwise that thing would have done to all of us what it did to Gus.”

“I just wish that I hadn’t been so mean to him. . . . He was such a sweet guy,” she muttered. “Damn it. He deserved better.”

“No time for that.” When the chips were down, Julie was all business. “We need to hurry. Owen, which way to this secret portal?”

I glanced around, getting my bearings. Everything looks different when you have eyeballs. “That way.” I gestured. “I’ll take point,” I said as I started between the rock formations.

She hesitated, probably thinking about having somebody else do it. Being the tip of the spear was the most dangerous position. “Just don’t get killed,” Julie admonished. “I would miss your charming personality.”

“Why thanks,” I replied.

“Plus we need you to open the door.”

I went forward, stabbing the light ahead and also occasionally upwards, looking for any suspended vampires. There were millions of spots in the cavern where danger could lurk. Visions of Gus’s tottering, headless corpse flashed unbidden into my mind. I stepped over the smashed remains of a historical display and kicked the severed guide ropes out of the way. The five of us moved quickly but cautiously. Every pass of the flashlight illuminated new formations, age-old deposits, twisted clumps of rock and sediment. Every strange shape that revealed itself caused me to jump. The walls shone as our lights struck smooth surfaces.

There was something ahead, a darker shadow on the already dark floor. I held up my fist, the signal to freeze. The rustling of armor let me know that the others had responded. I gestured ahead with my flashlight. There was a hole in the ground, a pit. It was a natural formation, and the guide ropes that had surrounded it to keep the tourists from falling in had been torn and tossed aside. I leaned forward, letting the Surefire illuminate the gash in the rock. I was struck with a sense of foreboding.

“Oh no . . .” I gagged as the smell of torn open bodies hit my nostrils. “Oh no.”

Julie drew alongside and shined her flashlight into the hole. She grimaced. “Vampire pen.” A look of disgust crossed her face as she stared into the pile of corpses. “Poor things.”

I recalled the patients of Appleton Asylum. One of the survivors in their sharing circle had spoken of such a thing. Human captives held in a hole, serving as a vampire larder. Fed upon until they were almost dead, but then being left barely alive, as the undead rotated through their food. Allowed to regain their strength just enough to be bled again. There had to be ten people crammed in the hole, though they were all obviously dead now. The vampires must have feasted in preparation for this day.

Holly shoved her way past me, looking downward, biting her lip.

“Are you okay?” Julie asked her softly.

She held her glove under her nose to block the smell, then stayed focused on the bodies as she slowly spoke. “You have no idea what it’s like.”

“No, I don’t.”

“The weakness, the fear, the pain, the humiliation. You just want to die. Most folks do after the first couple feedings. They just give up. Then the fuckers pull the body out and chop it up and send it back down to you, and the thing is by then you’re so hungry you don’t care. You can’t see. You don’t know how long you’ve been in. No light. No air. Strangers pushing on you.” There was a small crack in her hard emotional shield, but instead of sadness, there was only anger. “Trying to hide when they come down to feed. All of them scared, just cattle, stupid meat. And when they bite you, it hurts so bad. But at the same time you can feel them, and part of you wants to join them, you want to be them, and that’s the worst part of all.”

“But you’re okay now,” Julie assured her. “You made it out.”

Holly removed an incendiary grenade from a pouch on her armor. “Damn right I did.” She pulled the pin and tossed it into the pit. “And when I eventually die—” The grenade exploded with a puff of flames, spreading out over the corpses, igniting their clothing and hair, burning skin and crackling fat, destroying them beyond the point of return. “—I’ll need you guys to do this for me.”

So that was Holly Newcastle’s story.

“Good luck, friends,” she whispered.

I patted her gently on the shoulder. She grimly hoisted her rifle and stepped away from the edge as oily smoke began to fill the cavern.

We pushed forward, away from the smell of burning hair and bone, deeper into the cavern, moving faster as nothing appeared to attack us. The portal was near. I could feel it. The section that we were entering had been roped off from the public, and it looked as if some sort of excavation had taken place. I illuminated a small information plaque.

I scanned the words. Some of them caught my eye. “Well, I’ll be damned,” I exclaimed. “Check this out.” The others drew close.

Sam read the inscription aloud: “This section of the cavern is believed to have been a burial ground for the ancient peoples of the region . . . Blah, blah, blah, over two thousand years old, yada yada, great significance, evidence of ancient writing that may be an indication of an even older civilization . . . excavated in 1984 by, no shit . . . Dr. Jonas Turley and a team from the University of Alabama.”

“That’s what the seven were looking for. That’s why they attacked his home,” Julie said. “Of course . . . Dr. Turley probably found the portal, but didn’t know what it was or how to open it. The Cursed One must have known about this place all along . . . but then why did they need my dad?”

“Hello there, honey.” A sweet voice sang from the darkness.

I spun around and shined the flashlight on the spot. Nothing.

“Mom,” Julie hissed. She swung her M14 around in an arc, searching for a target. Milo, Sam and Holly did likewise. Five sets of lights crisscrossed the cave. I could not hear anything over our nervous breathing. “Come out and fight!” she shouted into the dark, her voice echoing over and over.

“No. I don’t want to fight you.” The voice came from one side. I thought that perhaps I had caught a tiny bit of movement as the light flickered past. “You’re my daughter. We don’t need to be enemies.” Now from the other side. I swung back around. Damn Masters are fast.

“What do you want, then?” Julie demanded. Milo cracked more glow sticks and tossed them into the dark, giving us a little bit larger circle of illumination.

“I want us to be a family again, me and you and little Nate. I know he’s up there, too.” Her voice came from the ceiling above our heads. Holly cranked off a shot into the rocks, it ricocheted across the cavern, and Susan’s laughter rose behind us.

“Wait until you’ve got a target,” Sam ordered.

“All of us, even your daddy. One big happy family,” Susan said pleasantly. I began to shiver as I felt her probing our minds.

“Too late for that. You killed him. The Feds have probably already burned the body.” Julie’s eyes narrowed as she searched the shadows, cheek resting on the stock of her rifle.

“Oh, honey. Once again, you think you know what’s going on. You always thought you had everything figured out. Do you really think somebody like good old Myers would cut your daddy’s head off if he thought that there might be some information in there of use? I’ve known Myers since he was a Newbie. He was always a cold-hearted son of a gun. Always practical. You know your daddy trained him, right? You would think he would be sentimental just once and would have done his old mentor a favor and finished him off.”

“What are you saying?”

“Your daddy’s alive.” She put the accent on alive, almost as if she was singing it. “Well, not really alive, as you know, but something so much better.”

“Lying bitch!” Julie shouted.

“Wait, there’s more,” Susan laughed. “The Feds were expecting some easy-to-handle, wimpy, new creation . . . A weak new vampire. You had your daddy for two nights. I visited him the first night and you never even knew. He was so happy to see me. He would have done anything I asked of him. He even partook of my blood. You know what that means, don’t you?”

“I’m going to stake you if it’s the last thing I do,” Julie vowed.

“You didn’t answer my question, but of course you know. As soon as he died, he rose again, far stronger than they expected. He’s already escaped. He’s returning to me as we speak. His mind will heal. He’ll be whole again. Isn’t that wonderful, honey? One big happy family.” There was a whoosh of air, and then Susan’s laughter sounded from back the way that we had come.

“Owen . . . find that gate,” Sam whispered. I turned back to the wall, desperately running my hands over the cool rock, looking for some indication of the Place of Power.

“Oh, my darling Sam. I can hear you. No need to whisper. That’s impolite amongst friends. I always loved you for your heart and your courage. You can come with us too. Join my family.”

He scowled and spit tobacco juice on the ground. “Susan, you were a mighty fine woman when you were alive and all, but personally I’d rather be gang-raped by giant, rabid, syphilitic porcupines, than join your shithead, hippie-commune, undead family, you scrawny-ass vampire skank whore.” He wiped his good arm across his mustache. “It’s gonna be a cold day in hell before you’ve got the balls to come down here and take an ounce of red American blood out of Sam Roger Haven, you slack-jawed, hare-lip, monkey-humping pus bag.”

“So be it. Still stubborn as ever. And Milo. Faithful Milo. So loyal. So creative. I have a place of honor set aside for you.”

“Uh . . . what Sam said, and stuff,” Milo answered bravely. “Leave us alone. We aren’t here for you. We just want Lord Machado. You don’t want the world destroyed.”

“Honey, my world is going to be just fine.” She sounded closer now, right outside our circle of glow sticks, somehow evading the beams of our flashlights. She was coming for us, and soon.

I continued to rub my hands over the rock. I needed a seam, a crack, some carvings, anything. The portal had to be here somewhere. I could feel it. In my dream it had just opened right up for the Cursed One. Julie glanced at me anxiously. They were counting on me.

“Last chance, kids.” Susan sang. “I’m getting tired of screwing around.”

“Z! Hurry!” Holly pleaded. “We need to go!”

“Working on it,” I answered.

“Here she comes,” Sam said, raising his Sig and aiming it into the dark. Mist swirled around the beam from his pistol-mounted M3 light. The mist coalesced into the form of a woman. She was too close. We wouldn’t be able to put her down in time. Other shapes began to emerge from behind her, shuffling slowly toward us, red eyes coming into focus. Wights. At least a dozen of them at first, and then more, lots more. Red eyes seemingly winking into existence all across the cavern. They were bristling and snarling, held at bay only by the Master vampire’s command.

“Susan! Don’t make me hurt you!” Milo said as he stepped in front of the others. “I know the real you has to be in there somewhere. You can still repent of your evil ways. It’s never too late. Don’t make it come to this!”

“Milo? Get out of the way!” Julie ordered as she pushed around me, looking for a good angle.

“You want to test your faith against me? What, do you think this is a Dracula movie or something?” Susan’s dark silhouette laughed as she batted her glowing eyes. “I’m way out of your league, honey.”

Milo Anderson closed his eyes and bowed his head, the lower half of his face disappearing into his bushy beard. He appeared to be praying. He did not move as Susan slowly walked toward him. Not even a tremble of fear, nothing.

“Open the gate! Hurry!” Julie pleaded. “Milo, run!”

“Dude! Get down!” Sam shouted. “Move, you idiot!”

The faithful Hunter raised his head, smiled at us and winked. “Don’t worry, guys. It’s going to be okay. You had better get that portal opened, ’cause it’s going to get real exciting up in here.” He raised one arm as if to wave good-bye.

Susan charged forward, her black shape disappearing in a blur as she surged toward Milo. He said something quickly as the vampire reached for him. There was an explosion of bright light, blinding all of us, searing right through our eyes and into our brains. I saw Milo’s skeleton through the flash. Good versus evil. Light versus dark. The cavern shook and dust and rock fell from the roof. Cracks appeared in the columns. The earth shook and I was thrown backward into Julie. Susan screamed, a great and terrible wail of pure hatred and evil. Lightning crackled across the chamber, tearing up chunks of rock.

I swear that I heard Milo’s voice say; “Ooh . . . Pretty colors.”

The wights, released from their psychic bonds, charged. The ones that ran too close to the clashing powers exploded in showers of sparks and flying meat. The others were going to be on us in seconds. Julie, Sam and Holly started to shoot. Our backs were against the wall. We had nowhere to go. I kept scrambling, looking for the exit. A wight leapt over a rock formation and landed directly in front of us. Sam shot it between the eyes and then kicked it backwards, impaling the creature on a sharp rock. He holstered his now-empty pistol, unable to load fast enough with one hand, and drew his massive knife. With a roar he tore into the undead, slashing and hacking, cursing and swearing. He was an amazing fighter, somehow dodging the claws and fangs, while stabbing and cutting furiously at the horde. There seemed to be hundreds of undead, black teeth extended, claws raised. They kept coming.

The black cyclone that was Susan Shackleford crashed back under the curtain of light. Milo’s faith had been far more powerful than she had expected. More wights burst into flames. Julie screamed in pain as a wight reached her, slashing across her side with its paralyzing claws. She fell limply to her knees as her limbs went dead. I reached out and grabbed her by the drag strap on her armor and pulled her away from the creature. Shielding her with my body, I lashed out and kicked the beast in the chest, crushing its ribs and sending it flailing back. We had to get out of here fast.

Damn stupid door. I wish it were here.

A thin crack of red light moved down the rock in front of me. The portal gradually widened. All I had done was desire it to be there and it had worked.

That wasn’t so bad, I thought to myself.

The cold tentacles of the Cursed One exploded through the rift, encircled Julie and me, and jerked us violently through the gate.

Chapter 27

The writhing tentacles were wet and oily. They pinned my arms to my side. I struggled against them, but it was like being ensnared by a giant boa constrictor. I was momentarily blind inside the portal itself. There was no light in the tunnel to some other dimension. The air was thick and damp, and between that and the pressure on my lungs, I could barely breathe.

We were dragged through the other side and it slammed shut behind us, leaving only blank white sky. Julie’s paralyzed form was roughly thrown onto the snow-covered ground. She rolled a few feet before stopping, seemingly unconscious, at the base of a tree.

I was spun around violently, only to come face to face with the Cursed One.

I had seen him in my dreams. I had seen him in visions. I had seen the world through the eye of his memory. I had felt his pain, fear, anger, lust and pride. I knew him better than he knew himself.

But none of that prepared me for actually meeting him in person.

I was frozen in terror. Rivulets of sweat turned into ice crystals. Every fiber of my being ached. My joints hurt to move. My eyes grated in their sockets. My teeth chattered compulsively as my body began to have involuntary convulsions. Here was pure evil. Hate beyond all human comprehension. I dangled above the ground, held by a thick tentacle that extended from under his robe where an arm should have been. I struggled helplessly in his grasp. The ancient helmet slowly lifted, and the crimson eyes bored into me.

YOU.

The word pounded inside my skull like a sledgehammer. His face was like a skull coated with cords of moving muscles that seemed to be made out of dirty congealed oil. He had no mouth.

I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN IT WOULD BE YOU.

He swung me through the air. The tentacle relaxed, releasing me, sending me flying. I had time to scream before impact. I rolled painfully through the thick underbrush, scattering snow, crackling roots, and breaking branches. We were on some sort of hilltop, and I slid and crashed violently as momentum and gravity took me down. I finally slid to a stop, lying in a pile of wet slush. I was in terrible pain. I rolled over onto my back, staring up at the trees of the winter wonderland.

JAEGER. TAKE HIM. WE ARE IN NEED OF A NEW SACRIFICE.

“Yes, my Lord Machado.”

The final Master approached. He still wore the leather trench coat as if it were a uniform. I flashed back to the image of him in his Nazi regalia, cleaving open Mordechai Byreika’s chest to pull out his beating heart.

I wasn’t going down like that.

There was a branch dangling overhead. I grabbed it and used it to pull myself to my feet, showering cold snow down on me. All of my weapons were still strapped into place. It was time to drop the hammer. The Fed prototype ENSCAR .308 was the most convenient. I flicked the safety off and brought it to my shoulder.

“Freeze, asshat. That’s a nice coat. I’d hate to put some holes in it.”

Jaeger stopped and ran his long fingers down the seam of his coat. “Yes, it is made out of children. Very supple leather, and such a lovely fragrance.” He smiled slightly, revealing his fangs. His hatchet face began to blur and shift into his true form.

I NEED A LIVE SACRIFICE. DO NOT KILL HIM.

Jaeger’s transformation stopped, and he once again appeared human. “Pity.” He moved toward me.

I put the sight at his groin and pulled the trigger. I leaned into the weapon, controlling the recoil, driving the gun, stitching the vampire in one continuous twenty-round burst. The Feds’ composite silver ammunition penetrated a few inches of flesh before exploding in a violent cloud of powdered metal. The bolt locked back empty.

Jaeger stumbled in the snow. His flesh was ripped asunder, his clothing hung in tatters, and black fluids spilled onto the white ground. Almost instantly he was whole again and striding my way. His hatchet face was a mask of fury.

I dropped the smoking hot FN and lifted Abomination. Jaeger appeared before me, having covered the distance in an impossible amount of time. The Saiga barked as I fired the special shell into his open mouth. The wooden projectile shattered and splintered in his throat, every bit of it instantly transforming into burning energy as it touched undead flesh. Blue fire burst from his face, coming out of his eyes, his ears, his nostrils and mouth.

I worked the bolt and shot him again, piercing his abdomen. I grasped the charging handle, pulled it back, ejecting the smoking plastic hull into the snow. The last of Mordechai’s shells entered the chamber, and I immediately launched it into Jaeger’s chest. His screams echoed through the trees as his entire body turned into a blue torch.

I released the silver bayonet, lifted the shotgun like an awkward spear and slammed it through his throat, twisting and sawing against his ironlike spine. I had to take his head off. It was my only hope. He punched me in the chest. Distracted from the fire burning inside his brain, it was a weak hit for a Master, but still threw me back into a pine tree.

I lay with my back against the cold bark, gasping for breath. The snowy branches settled around me, giving me the illusion of a quiet shelter. I reloaded Abomination just as Jaeger’s burning skull face appeared through the branches. His eyeballs had melted, and were dripping down his cheeks. I flipped the selector to full-auto and let him have it. Abomination emptied itself in a split second, pumping his chest full of silver. Undeterred, Jaeger grabbed me by my shoulders and pulled me from my shelter.

I drove Abomination forward, slamming the silver blade between his ribs and through his heart. Jaeger screamed as fluids erupted like a split hydrant. He lifted one fist overhead, ready to crush my brain. I could see my death looming in his burning sockets.

ALIVE, JAEGER. I WILL NOT WARN YOU AGAIN.

The vampire threw me away. The snow broke my fall as I tumbled further down the hill. I slid on my back, almost like I was sledding, until I toppled over the edge of a small crevasse and landed in a pile of fluffy white. I was up in an instant, lifting my feet, and trying to move through the heavy substance. Jaeger was above me, still disoriented, but coming around as the painful fire died. I lifted Abomination and aimed at him. At some point in the struggle my holographic sight had been broken. I estimated instead and fired the 40mm grenade.

It impacted in the snow behind his feet. The concussion tore through him, sending him sprawling forward. I started to reload the grenade launcher when Abomination violently jerked from my hands. The Cursed One stood at the top of the hill, looking down. Just my luck, Lord Machado was telekinetic. He moved imperceptibly and my weapon was yanked away, the sling tearing into my neck, slicing into my skin, before ripping away and disappearing into the trees.

Jaeger was up and moving. I drew the STI, falling instinctively into my regular isosceles stance, and opened fire. Jaeger leapt toward me, soaking up round after round. He knocked the gun into the snow, but I immediately drew the backup .45 and shot him some more. I was struck in the head. My helmet was torn off and sent flipping into the trees. He hit me again, lightly, just trying to capture me. I felt the muscles inside my chest tear and I gasped in agony. I fell back into the snow, still firing. He swatted the pistol away, and my left wrist snapped. I screamed as pain like an electric current moved down my arm. I kicked him in the knee. I might as well have kicked a brick wall. He caught my foot, and twisted it casually to the side. I almost passed out as my ankle broke.

“I’ve obtained the sacrifice, my lord,” the vampire proclaimed loudly. Lying flat on my back, I brought my knee back to my chest, lifted my pant leg and pulled the .357 from my ankle holster. Jaeger looked down at the little muzzle in wonderment.

“How many guns do you have?” he asked in exasperation.

“Lots.” CRACK.

I stroked the trigger, five times fast. He ignored the impacts, the wound channels were knitting closed before the bullets had even left his skull. He grabbed the little Smith and wrenched it from my hand. I cried out in pain as my trigger finger broke. He clapped his hands together and smashed the snubby into pieces.

I tried to move. The vampire kicked me. For him it was a light blow; for me, agony. He pummeled me, smashing me in the stomach, in the ribs, in the arms and legs, and finally in the face. His limbs moved in a blur. He pounded me down into the snow. I felt other bones break. Tendons tore, muscles ripped, blood vessels ruptured. I tried to defend myself, but he was too quick. He could hear my heart and my internal workings. The hammer blows continued to rain down. He knew exactly how much punishment he could dish out before I would die. He took me to that edge and left me there.

The beating finally stopped. Jaeger pulled back and smiled, satisfied that his work was done. His sacrifice was secure. I coughed up a gout of blood, rolled my head to the side, and watched the red spreading on white. I passed out.

“Owen? Owen? Can you hear me? Please don’t die.”

Agony. The worst pain ever.

Julie was whispering. At least it sounded like Julie, but it was hard to tell over the ringing in my ear. The other ear did not seem to be working. I don’t know if that was because it was clogged with a blood clot, or if the eardrum had ruptured. I lay on my side, facing away from her. I tried to move, but my body was too tired and broken to respond. I forced myself anyway.

It hurt so bad that I almost passed back out.

“Oh no. Owen.” Julie sounded horrified. I had to look like shit. “Can you hear me?”

I grunted, blowing red frothy bubbles from my lips. “I’m . . . fine . . .” I lied. The words hurt over my broken teeth and swollen tongue. I could not see her. My eyelids were matted closed with blood, and I could not force them open. I tried to reach a hand up to rub them, but my arms did not want to respond. All I could feel was horrible nerve-racking fire coming from my limbs.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

“Can’t move,” I replied. I wished that I could see her.

“No. Hold still. You’re hurt bad.”

I figured that had to be pretty obvious.

“I would try to help you, but I’m tied up.” I heard the clanking of iron as she tugged on her bonds.

“How long?” I gasped.

“Hours. You’ve been out for hours. I don’t know how long. My watch doesn’t seem to work here. The moon has got to be nearing its zenith.” We were running out of time. And I was not in any shape to do anything about it.

“Others?”

“I don’t know. Nobody else has come here.”

“Where?”

“We’re still in the pocket dimension.”

“Bad guys?” I mumbled, and then coughed up blood. That was better. Breathing seemed a little easier.

“Oh, Owen . . . I wish I could help you. Bad guys, they’re over there on the pyramid. They’ve been ignoring us.” She sounded distraught. I concentrated on her beautiful voice. I needed something pleasant to keep my mind on. “I’m chained to some ruins. Um . . . Looks like there used to be some sort of ancient temple in this pocket, it almost looks Assyrian.”

“Did they . . . hurt you?”

“A little. Nothing like you.”

“How bad?”

She hesitated, before finally deciding to give me the truth. “You look awful. I think he broke just about everything on you. There’s so much blood. They didn’t even bother to chain you. And your face . . .” I could tell that she was crying. “I’m so sorry.”

“Not me.” I breathed in, trying to will myself to keep speaking. “I was worried about you.”

“Oh, Owen,” she sobbed. “I’m fine. By the time the paralysis wore off, he had me wrapped up good. Really, I’m okay.”

“Keep talking. . . . I’ll rest.” I was so very tired and confused.

“Okay. Uh . . . the Cursed One and that Nazi are a couple hundred yards away. They’re preparing some sort of altar. They’re at the top of a small pyramid, hard to tell what it looks like since it has so much snow on it. They have that little box. I don’t know how this dimension thing works, but the sky above is our sky. I can see our stars, and that’s our regular old moon rising. So I think that we’re still in Alabama, in the cave, only in someplace that’s not really in our world. Maybe just kind of outside of it, but still connected. It must have taken some serious magic to build this thing. I wonder who did it? It has got to be at least two thousand years old.” Her historical curiosity started to come out. “Sorry, I’m rambling.”

“No . . . Your voice . . . is pretty.”

“Will you quit trying to be so nice? You’re about to get sacrificed. We’ve got to think of a way out of here. We need to disrupt the ceremony, or escape, or something. If we can open the gate from this side, maybe the other Hunters are waiting to charge in. We have to think.” Julie was desperate. She did not give up easily.

“Hurts to think,” I answered. My body was wracked with so much pain that all I wanted to do was lay still and die. “Sleep now.”

“Owen, stay with me. Just hang in there. I’ll think of something.”

She kept talking, but I was fading fast. My body had simply taken too much punishment to stay awake for long. My thoughts began to drift. This was it. My befuddled brain could not see any way out of this. The journey was almost over. The Cursed One was going to win.

Julie tried her best to keep me engaged, to keep me focused; but I continued to drift. If only I could open my eyes to look at her one last time. I had never been the kind of man to fall for someone, but I had fallen hard for her. I loved her. I’m not by nature a romantic, nor am I very eloquent when it comes to things like feelings or emotion. A few months ago if someone had told me there was such a thing as true love at first sight, I would have laughed at them, and probably taken their lunch money. But if I ever knew anything, it was that Julie Shackleford was my soul mate. If only I could do something to save her . . .

Why was Julie chained here anyway? Why did they keep her alive? They had their sacrifice. But I knew the answer, and to deny it was to lie to myself. I remembered the Cursed One’s promise when he had invaded Mordechai’s dream world. I remembered his offer in the ashen rows of the blasted church. He was going to hurt her as punishment against me, and after he destroyed her, he was going to give her to her mother to be turned and enslaved. She was doomed. My Julie was doomed to a fate literally worse than death.

But it wasn’t just her. If the Cursed One completed his ceremony tonight, then everyone was doomed. Every person that I had ever loved. Every person that I had ever met. Every person in the world. That might not be what Lord Machado’s goals were, but I had seen the ugly truth. The real evil was out there, just waiting for the beachhead to be established. In the world of the Old Ones, there would be no room for puny, sentient mammals, other than entertainment or, if they were lucky, food.

They were out there waiting. And once and for all, it was going to be finished tonight.

“Julie . . .” I interrupted her desperate scheming. “I promise that I’ll stop them.”

“He must have hit you harder than I thought. Is your brain swelling?”

“Don’t worry. It’ll be okay.”

IT IS TIME.

“He’s coming,” I said. “Whatever happens . . . I love you, Julie.”

“I know,” she replied. “Owen, it’s the vampire. Get away from him, you son of a bitch! Leave him alone!”

I could sense the presence of the Master vampire. The already winter temperature dropped a few degrees. I hated that precise German accent. “Such flame. Lord Machado will enjoy breaking you. Now silence, Fraulein Shackleford. You will get your turn.” I felt cold hands encircle my neck and pull me painfully to my feet. If I had been able to, I would have screamed.

“Herr Pitt. Your time has come. It is a great honor to serve in such a fashion.”

I tried to spit in his face. I failed miserably, it was more of a sputtering noise through my swollen lips, and the bloody saliva dripped uselessly down my broken face. He laughed and dragged me away from Julie. She shouted after me.

“Don’t give up, Owen! Don’t give up!”

I felt the cold snow drifting over my legs as the vampire pulled me along. I began to feel a humming in the air. It was the artifact. I had never been so physically close before. It was a tangible thing, the power. It called to me.

We stopped. I could no longer hear Julie. “I’ve waited so long for this,” the vampire said with obvious pride. “I ended my mortal life in shame when the ceremony failed last time. Little did I realize the blessings I would receive for my dedication . . . the opportunity to live and serve once more. I took great pleasure in cutting the heart out of your Juden friend, and I will greatly enjoy seeing Lord Machado take yours. Such a remarkable time, indeed . . . Look upon your end, Hunter,” the vampire crowed.

“Can’t see . . . dumb ass,” I croaked.

“That just won’t do.” I felt something cold and wet drag across my eyes, moistening the blood. Then Jaeger brutally cracked my eyelids open with his long thumbnails. “Hmm . . . your blood is delicious. I will feast on your corpse once the ritual has been completed. I need to regain my strength. I will admit, you put up a good fight. You should be commended.”

It even hurt to blink. I was able to see again, out of one eye at least. My right eye must have been blinded, put out in the beating. We stood at the base of a small pyramidal structure. Snow was thick in every direction, coating what appeared to be an alpine forest. The entire world seemed to be small. The horizon visibly lifted only a short distance away, as if we were in a small valley, and the sky seemed bowed. When I had first been tugged into the pocket dimension, I had fallen down what I had thought was a hill; rather, it was just the curved boundary of this small place. It was almost as if we were the occupants of a snow globe.

The ruins were in the center of the dimension—obviously the focal point. Jaeger dragged me up the stairs, my legs thumping up each stone step. I left a small trail of blood in the snow.

I tried to move my arms. Nothing. They were too badly broken to do anything other than quiver and hurt. One of my legs responded a bit. I was still wearing my armor, but I could not tell if I still had any of my weapons. I had lost all of my firearms, but maybe I still had a grenade on me. If I could get the pin out of a frag, that might put a kink in their ceremony. From what I had seen, it might not work if they had to scrape up the sacrifice with a spatula.

“My Lord Machado. I present the sacrifice.”

PREPARE HIM FOR HIS FATE.

I was hoisted up and tossed violently onto the frozen block of stone. I lay on my back, looking up at the shallow gray sky. Jaeger broke the buckles on my armor and ripped through the Kevlar covering my chest. I heard a clatter as the vampire tossed aside the tool that he had used. I looked over. Bastard had used my own knife. My wrists were shackled and chained to the stone. Not that I could have done anything anyway.

The Cursed One stood hulking a few feet away. He was a massive shambling thing. The helmet and armor had been polished to a mirror shine. The flowing robes were opulent red silks, but under them the flesh was a twisting mass of oily darkness. He just oozed evil.

“You will fail,” I said calmly. “Just like you failed sixty years ago.”

NOT NOW, BRAVE HUNTER. FOR THIS IS THE TIME.

His thoughts stabbed into my brain, causing mental pain equal to the physical. What had Mordechai said? He had told me to remember the things that he had shown me. I had to think of something. I tried to recall the hazy memories. I was grasping at straws. The Old Man surely couldn’t have foreseen a way for me to get out of this.

“You don’t know how to finish the ceremony. Thrall killed your priestess. You don’t know what to do. You’ll fail again.”

The black thing shook. Trembling beneath his robes, bubbles rising through the space that should have been his face, splattering congealed fluids onto the snow—he was laughing at me. I had amused him.

BUT IN THIS PLACE, MY LOVE RETURNS TO ME TONIGHT.

The helmet dipped, nodding toward Jaeger. The vampire bowed, always subservient, and placed a rolled-up bundle of cloth on the ground at the base of the altar. The vampire untied the rope that encircled the package, and unrolled it on the snow.

It was a skeleton. An ancient, dried and brittle heap of broken bones, still chipped from where an ax blade had been used to peel the flesh away to ease Lord Machado’s burden.

“Koriniha,” I gasped. “No freaking way.”

DO NOT TAINT HER NAME WITH YOUR FOUL MORTAL LIPS. IN THIS PLACE, WITH MY POWER, WITH THE ARTIFACT OF KUMARESH YAR, SHE SHALL RETURN TO ME.

The artifact was removed from under his robes, coated in black goo. He kept it inside his body for safekeeping. As it was revealed, a jolt of power surged through the pocket dimension. I felt it down to the core of my being. I had seen the artifact in my visions. When I had died in Natchy Bottom, I had touched it with my spirit. It had shown me things, things which no human should have seen. It was not of this world. It did not belong here, in our time, in our space, in our plane. It was a token of the evil of the others. The Old Ones. The forgotten trespassers.

The artifact called to me.

The Cursed One gently set the box down amongst the bones. The pyramid began to shake. The stone beneath started to radiate heat. Water formed as the edges of the snow started to recede, revealing the structure’s construction. Within seconds, rivulets of water were running off, snow swept away. The pyramid was not made of stone at all, but blocks of organic ivory. Each stone was larger than a man, carved from the tusks or horns of some impossibly ancient thing. Truly this was the Place of Power.

The bones started to shake by themselves. One by one, they rotated and moved, pulling into position, organizing the bits from chaos, taking form. The skull rolled a few times, righting itself as individual vertebrae formed a chain beneath. The jaw opened and closed. The finger bones curled together, clenched spasmodically, and scratched tears in the fabric of the ancient cloth.

“And the knee bone’s connected to the leg bone, and the leg bone’s connected to the hip bone,” I sang stupidly. Jaeger cracked me alongside my face for interrupting their sacred moment.

The skeleton was whole. Lying on its back, twitching and rattling. Everything in place, but without ligament or tissue to hold it together. The Cursed One glided until he stood over the skeleton.

MY BELOVED, I GIVE TO YOU OF MYSELF. SURELY MY LOVE WILL SATISFY THE PROPHECY OF YOUR MASTERS.

His back was toward me. Almost gingerly, the withering base of tentacles covered the bones. The red cloak was flared wide, covering them as the Cursed One slowly lowered his form to the floor. The cloak settled, concealing the huge lump of oily tissue. There was a horrible squelching noise, like a plunger dislodging a clog. There was a heavy smell of sulfur. The vampire looked on in rapture. The winter air hummed with the power of the artifact. Finally the shape was still.

Man, what I would have given right about then for the use of my arms and a hundred pounds of C4.

Two separate shapes moved under the robe. Jaeger fell to his knees and prostrated himself on the floor, crying out to his master in joy. The Cursed One rose. He did not seem as massive as before. The red cloak was loose, and he was now not much larger than a man. One tentacle reached downward, almost gently, to be offered to another thing. It sat up from the puddle of gore, one arm extended. The tentacle encircled it and pulled upwards. The priestess had returned.

She stood shakily, wobbling slightly, not used to having a physical form. The bones had been coated in the black ichor of the Cursed One, flesh, tendon, and organs replaced by the unnatural mass. She was a human female in shape and structure, but not in texture or material. I could even almost recognize her from the visions, the memory of her flesh had been so perfectly replaced. The cloth that had held her bones stuck to her back, splattered and stained. She tore it away with one hand, then realizing what she had done, brought the hand up in front of her face, slowly opening and closing the fingers, turning it at the wrist to examine herself. Her eyes were crimson pits. She ran her hands over her body, the gelatinous mass twitching and moving.

The Cursed One encircled her in a horrible embrace, their faces melding together in what had to be their version of an impassioned reunion. Tentacles withered and slapped wetly against the ground, splattering me with oily droplets. He pulled away, her arms leaving black stains on his robe, his armor no longer gleaming, but now coated in slime. She stroked her fingers through the front of his face, his tissues parting as she touched the teeth of his yellow skull.

The dead flirt ugly.

MY PRIESTESS. I HAVE DONE AS YOU ASKED. I HAVE CROSSED THE IMPOSSIBLE GAP TO RETURN YOU TO THIS WORLD.

Surprisingly the priestess spoke aloud. Her voice was horrific, bubbling up from fluid-filled sacks, sounding like pouring tar. “My lord, you have done the impossible. Truly the prophecy has been fulfilled.”

The conquistador helmet dipped toward Jaeger. The vampire moved in a blur and appeared before its Lord, presenting the ancient battle-ax. The monster took it, wrapping it tightly in its tentacles, and glided closer to me. The artifact was placed on the altar near my head. This was the closest I had been to the device, and I could hear it whispering. Deep inside I could sense the trapped souls, the Old Man, and hundreds—no, thousands—of other trapped sacrifices.

A sound came from the priestess, a horrible noise. It turned into a gurgling chant. The words were familiar and I recognized them from the memory. The concave hills began to quake and the curved sky began to shimmer. The moon was fat and bright overhead. The device rose until it was floating above the altar. It began to slowly rotate. Ancient runes could now be seen on the simple stone as they took on a black light of their own, detaching and floating in air. They formed a sphere of energy that began to grow, approaching my head. I could feel the electricity licking my scalp as the priestess continued her chant. The words made my remaining ear burn, and it felt like somebody was pushing an ice pick into my skull and twisting it.

“Machado. They’re using you. You’re just a pawn. The Old Ones are just waiting for you to open the path,” I shouted. His crimson eyes looked down upon me, but he ignored my feeble attempts to prevent my death.

Koriniha stuttered briefly in her chant, but continued.

“They’re going to come through and take over.”

The Cursed One readied himself, the blade was lifted, held awkwardly in the tentacles. I screamed in pain as the black energy of the artifact crackled over my skull.

Now remember things you have seen. Remember things I have show you. Is up to you, many things which I not could tell, I have show you. Remember them, and all will be fine.

The words of the Old Man. I focused on them, trying to blot out the pain, the visions, the flashing cruel energy, the upraised blade.

Yet every five hundred years, a man will be born, a mortal with the power to use this device and bend it to his will. You are this man, you are the one who has been prophesied by the Old Ones. The words of Koriniha. In the vision she had looked into Lord Machado’s eyes as she had spoken, but had she been speaking to him, or was it a message for me five hundred years later? The thought disappeared as a black whip of energy wracked across my body.

Control of time, space, energy, matter, that kind of thing. Anybody who tries to use it dies, unless you are one of the special people. Albert Lee had spoken about some of the things in the Old Man’s journal. But I had used the artifact. I had unleashed a tiny bit of its power in Natchy Bottom. I had destroyed the flow of time, taken five minutes of history and made it as if it had never existed. And though I had been dead at the time, I had lived.

Thou knowest not of thy fate? Of thy place in this world? The question from the Tattooed Man, Thrall. What was my place? Why was I special? Why had he vowed to kill me?

The memory of Lord Machado, enraged, dying, body wracked by wound and fever, attacking the black obelisk, destroying the lines of the prophecy with his fearsome ax. Each glowing line appearing, only to be swept away in a crash of ax blade against obsidian.

He will come

Son of a great warrior

Auhangamea Pitt. The Green Beret legend. To his children he was just a normal man. A stern and distant father. Yet a display case over the family hearth held his Congressional Medal of Honor.

Taught in the skills of the world

The very first time I had met Julie, she had read from my file. Top of your class, passed the CPA exam the first time. I was an accountant. A man of numbers and spreadsheets. Facts and figures. Audits and accruals.

Yet drawn to the sword

But I was far more comfortable with a gun in my hand than a calculator. I would rather be in a brutal full-contact fight than fill out a 1040. The glowing line of the prophecy exploded as the ax hammered home.

His very name taken from

The weapon of his fathers

Owen. An obsolete piece of Australian scrap. A cheap stamped sheet-metal 9mm bullet hose. But it had kept my father alive while he had stayed one step ahead of the communist patrols.

Given a quest by the crown

To defeat an impossible foe

The Elf Queen had spoken to me. Dreamer. One last thing. Ya’ll got a mission. Don’t screw up. Or we all git dead. This here is serious, and I ain’t just funnin ya . . . As Queen of the Enchanted Forest, I order ya’ll not to fail. Kill the bad ’un, or it’s all over. I had accepted her quest. It was my quest to stop the Cursed One that had landed me half-dead on this altar.

Possessor of visions

My brave friend Trip, now probably dead. You talk with ghosts. You see visions. You even managed to turn back the clock. Explain that if it isn’t a miracle.

Leader of men

Earl Harbinger, smoking, trying to hide a slight smile, confident in his wisdom as the most experienced Monster Hunter in the world. I’ve got three Newbies that seem to think you’re their leader. Trip, Holly and Albert would follow you anywhere. Whether you know it or not, you’re a leader. That’s good enough for me.

Ally of dark forces

The Wendigo loomed in my mind. Billowing skins under an antlered skull. Special Agent Franks, still in mud-covered armor, snapping his hand to his forehead in a salute of honor.

Friend of monsters

Skippy and his tribe dancing and rejoicing. A mighty werewolf tearing with fang and claw as he battled the undead.

The line of text shattered in the darkness.

I knew now.

The artifact spun, shrieking, casting off insane energies, piercing screams inside my head from the trapped souls within its prison. It was not just a key. It was a manifestation of all that was bad. It had been forged by a being of unnatural law. Placed here as a tool of invasion. Held in place, waiting for that one mortal with the will to use it. The Old Ones were patient. They were smart. They had steered their pawns into place, taking thousands of years, and generations of human toil to bring this meeting about. It recognized me. It welcomed me. It called out to me.

I called back.

The priestess shrieked out an alien command. I was fully engulfed now in the whipping black energy. Lord Machado swung the weapon. The ax blade descended, screaming down toward my unprotected chest.

“No.”

Time jerked spasmodically. There was a thunderous explosion and the ax was blasted spinning into the air. The Cursed One was flung across the top of the pyramid, slamming wetly against the ivory blocks.

I was in control now. I felt the power of the Old Ones coursing through my body. I could move again. Strength surged through my limbs. With one tug, the chains binding my wrists were shattered. I rose, forcing my way through the walls of black energy, a taste for violence in my mouth. I had been pushed too far, and now I was pushing back.

The Master vampire screamed in rage. Somehow I had harmed his lord, and now he descended on me in its full wrath. Jaeger twisted into his killing form, surging toward me at hundreds of feet per second. Claws descended in a flash of speed sufficient to turn rock into powder.

I blocked the claw, smashing the hardened bones of his arm into splinters. The vampire halted in shock. I wrapped my hands around his neck, spun him around and shoved him into the altar. Cracks rippled across the structure as I forced him down. He hit me like a freight train, hammering me with unbelievable force. I tried to tear him apart, but he was the strongest of all vampires. I could not destroy him.

There was a presence. I could sense it coming from the artifact. One of the prisoners, desperately calling my name. I stuck one hand back into the energy and felt something heavy and solid land in my palm.

It was Mordechai’s cane.

I roared as I slammed it through Jaeger’s chest. It served as a mighty stake, piercing the black heart. He screamed in impossible pain as the cane began to burn in blue fire. For six decades this thing had reigned nearly supreme in his world of undeath. Cursed with powers beyond comprehension, yet bound in servitude to another. Before that he had been just as evil, just as brutal, only in human form he had been a mere cog in the machine of death that had been his calling. He was a murderer, a tyrant, a king of evil. We stood face to face as the vampire tried to pull me into the conflagration. I slammed him back into the altar, again and again, gaining in strength and velocity. I crushed his form into the ivory, pulverizing it into bits.

He tried to crawl away, withering and burning. The flames of the cane would not allow him to change form. There was no escape. I snatched up my ganga ram, lifted the mighty weapon, and brought it down on the vampire’s neck. The heavy blade struck true, and driven by my new strength, the hardened spine shattered on impact. His head landed at my feet. Black lifeblood streamed down the pyramid. His eyes looked up at me in confusion as his mouth tried to form words.

I kicked his head into the woods.

The energy release from the artifact was growing in intensity, far greater now than it had been during my vision. I walked through it, unfazed by the lightning. Stepping over the smoldering body of the vampire, I headed toward the Cursed One. The artifact lifted into the air, higher and higher, until it was suspended at the midpoint of the tiny little world. The roar of the unleashed power was deafening. The winds picked up the snowfall and spun it like we were in a blizzard.

“Machado!” I roared. I was whole again. I could hear. I could see. I could move. “Machado! Face me!” I tore off the remaining scraps of my armor and threw them aside. I strode toward the fallen form of the Cursed One. It ended now.

Boy. Wait. You must stop.

Freed from the bondage of the Cursed One, his murderer destroyed, the Old Man reached out for me, trying to help. I ignored him. I was filled with rage. Lord Machado had attacked me again and again. He had threatened my loved ones. He had threatened my world. He had tried to take our lives. My blood thundered and I demanded vengeance. His death was inevitable. I demanded it.

The energy grew in power relative to my anger. It spun high above, now a solid globe of black, so thick and great that the trees were bending, breaking and being sucked upwards. I walked through the fury.

Stop. They use you. Use you like pawn.

Lord Machado appeared out of the whirling snow. He bombarded me with his power. Telekinetic forces striking against me, trying to invade my body, rupture blood vessels in my brain, clamp down the valves of my heart, or pop my lungs like a balloon. He had the power to kill with his very mind.

Nothing.

His powers could not touch me. He belonged to me now. I lost control, washed away in a river of fury.

“Die!” I shouted as I slashed my blade through his neck, spraying oil high. He lashed out with a tentacle. It struck me like a whip, burning me. I swung as it withdrew, taking the end off and leaving a trail of black. He encircled me, whipping and tearing, trying to ensnare me. I snarled and cursed, swinging the heavy blade, chopping through the flesh of the Old Ones. The armored bulk crashed into me, knocking me backwards. A tentacle lashed around my wrist and yanked my blade away as I fell.

I landed next to something—Lord Machado’s ax. It was embedded in the ivory. Surging to my feet, I dodged as tentacles crashed into the ground, and wrenched the blade free. The polished wood felt natural in my hands, as if it belonged there. I twirled it overhead, and brought it down on his limbs, severing them in a smear of ichor. The black flesh tore at me, trying to pull through my ribs and into my heart. If I had not had the power of the Old Ones coursing through me, I would have died instantly. I grabbed the slippery tentacle with one hand, and tugged the Cursed One toward me. I slammed the spike of the ax forward, driving it between the crimson eyes. The scream echoed inside my skull. He may have been immune to all normal weapons, but there was nothing normal about his family’s battle-ax.

He pulled away, knowing fear for the first time in centuries. I followed him, driven forward in a berserk frenzy. I brought the ax down, chopping, hacking and stabbing against the withering mass. Overhead the black sphere was growing, now filling the whole center space of the world. I drove the Cursed One back, until he balanced precariously at the edge of the pyramid. I swung the blade up, tearing through the face, striking the ancient bone beneath, and launching the helmet into the air. It disappeared upwards, engulfed in the maelstrom of the artifact.

The Cursed One was defeated. Limbs severed, fluids pouring out, shattered skull dangling, he stood on the edge. In the distance the walls of the world were shaking. The created dimension had come loose from its anchor, and we floated just above the surface of Alabama. The ground behind the Cursed One faded away, trees and rocks dropping toward the earth below as the created world began to disintegrate.

The armored breastplate was a target. It beckoned me. I was sure in my knowledge that the organ keeping the unnatural thing alive was beneath. I could feel it beating.

HOW CAN THIS BE? IT WAS MINE. MINE TO CONTROL. YOU HAVE TAKEN IT FROM ME. I HAVE BEEN BETRAYED.

Boy, stop please. Control your anger. You know now who you are. This is not way to finish this. This is what she wants. This is what Old Ones want.

SPARE ME. PLEASE.

The blade impacted the ancient armor and easily pierced through. The pump that served as Lord Machado’s heart was cleaved in two. I tore the ax free. An explosion of gas and liquid erupted out of the hole in the armor, spraying me in the face. I gagged as some of the stuff entered my mouth. Lord Machado toppled, and rolled down a level, landing in an oily clump. Some of his blood drifted upward, caught in the pull of the artifact. The droplets disappeared into the mighty sphere.

No. What have you done? Mordechai cried. You doom us all!

The words of Earl Harbinger, Hunters can’t lose control. Got that? You never lose control.

I had said it to Trip myself the night he had talked me out of quitting. When I get mad, when I lose control, people get hurt.

I was the one. I tasted the foul blood in my mouth just as Lord Machado had tasted the copper in his own five hundred years before . . .  What had I done?

“The sacrifice is complete,” Koriniha said, her voice now clear.

I spun around, ax in hand. The priestess stood at the opposite end of the pyramid. One black arm encircled Julie’s neck. A ceremonial dagger was pressed into her throat, unleashing a thin trickle of blood. I began to move forward, but the priestess pressed the knife harder and Julie cried out.

“That will be enough, Hunter,” she said. The power of the Old Ones evaporated from my body. Suddenly I was dizzy and weak. Stumbling, I went to my knees, feeling empty without the power. “You’ve had your taste.”

“Let her go,” I ordered. Julie was frightened but angry. She fought against the priestess. Her chains had been broken, but she could not break free of Koriniha’s steel grasp. The priestess was still a patch of oily darkness, but her features had changed to the point that she looked almost exactly like she had in the memory. The red eyes had been replaced with the cunning human eyes that I remembered. She was looking at something behind me.

There was a bellow, sounding even over the hurricane above, the battle cry of an unstoppable force. I turned just in time to see Abomination’s blade tearing toward my throat. There was no way I would be able to move in time.

Koriniha’s eyes fixed on the bayonet.

It stopped instantly, the edge pressed into the flesh above my jugular. Abomination vibrated, the silver blade dissipated friction heat from the sudden stop into my skin. The Tattooed Man looked at me, pitch-black eyes wide in surprise, then down at the shotgun in his thick fists, then at the priestess. She glared at him, and suddenly he was slammed backwards as if hit by a truck. He rolled across the pyramid, instantly springing to his feet near the vampire’s now skeletal corpse. Thrall lifted my shotgun, the skull image on his face twisting into grim determination. The black lines on his body moved in unison with the crackling energy above. He began to walk toward me.

“What took you so long?” the priestess asked nonchalantly.

“T’was a mighty werewolf about. There was a great battle to gain entrance to this foul place. Who art thou?”

She laughed. Julie cringed as the knife twisted against her neck. “Do you not remember me, Captain Thrall? It was I who led your general to his fate.”

“Thou evil thing. I took thy life once. I shall do so again.” Thrall’s voice raised in volume and intensity. He changed direction away from me, now heading toward the priestess. “Thou stole the artifact from my hands. Thy minions left me buried beneath a mountain, but I will not die. I have vowed to keep the power from all. I have vowed upon the spirits of my Jarl ancestors. I have—” Koriniha’s eyes narrowed and the Tattooed Man was again hurled through the air.

“Fool. I tire of you. Your use to us has ended,” she hissed. He landed with a sickening thump. Abomination bounced out of his hands. “We needed you then. We needed a protector for the Kumaresh Yar, but no longer. Lord Machado had to work for it. He needed a nemesis. We could not just give him the artifact before the time was right. Thank you for your services, good Captain.”

Thrall surged to his feet. He must have retrieved all of my weapons from the snow. He drew both of my .45s from behind his back and pointed them at the priestess, fingers seeking triggers. The priestess pushed them aside with a thought. Bullets struck the pyramid and ricocheted harmlessly into the distance. The STIs were torn from his massive hands and sent spinning away.

The unkillable man charged her with a roar. For five hundred years he had protected the device from any mortal who would dare to unlock its powers. He had sacrificed his life, always in hiding, constantly in battle, always struggling to protect the object from the minions of the Cursed One. It had been stolen once before with the help of the Nazis, and he had regained it. It had been stolen from him again by the hands of seven Masters. He was here to get it back, and destroy any who thought to use it. He was the Guardian.

But the Old Ones no longer required his services.

He stumbled to a halt, clutching at his face in alarm. “What foul sorcery is this?” he bellowed, and then roared in pain as the twisting magic tattoos were ripped from his body, taking parts of his flesh with them. “No! ARRGGHH!” He gnashed his teeth together in agony as his skin was torn off. The black curling lines snaked upwards, crackling into the black sphere, returning to their home. His clothing rustled as the blood-stained lines searched for an escape, poured through the fabric, leaving it clinging to the now blood-soaked form. He went to his knees, twisting and convulsing as he was peeled like a piece of fruit. I had to look away. I had never seen anything so horrible.

He fell onto his face, now all visible sinew and twitching muscle, barely conscious in a spreading pool of red.

“It must hurt. To be a mortal, and to be branded with such glory. Immune from age, sickness, death—” Koriniha appeared to be enjoying his suffering. “—only to have it all stripped away.”

“What art thou?” Thrall gasped through his gash of a mouth, white teeth glistening in the pulped mass. The black had been torn from his eyes, and the things were now huge, milky orbs, quickly covered in blood. Eyelids gone, he could no longer blink it away.

“I have been known by many names. You knew me as Koriniha, but that was just a part to play. Oh, how I tired of that act, fawning over your Lord Machado. He should have been the one, but he lacked the will. I have lived a thousand lives. I have trespassed upon this world since the beginning. I am Unwelcome, Uninvited. O mighty Captain, your people knew me as Azgeroth. The tribes that conquered your people thought of me as Hel.” She turned to glare at me, her oil-slick face dripping onto Julie’s hair. “I am a thing of legend. To your mentor, the ghost, to his people I was Lilith, though they have the story all wrong. To the nation that carried them away into captivity I was Zaltu, daughter of Tiamat. Temples have been built in my honor across this world, all forgotten now. I am a false god in your pathetic mortal pantheon. You sad apes have made idols of me for ten thousand years. I have waited patiently while you fools were sacrificing slaves and forming cults in my name. But who I am is not important. All you must know is that I am the one who prepares the way for the return of the Great . . .” she hissed an impossible sound that hit my brain like a sledgehammer. Julie cried out in pain and tried to lift her hands to cover her ears. The name of her master left me nauseous and stupefied.

“Do you understand now? In your visions, I was not speaking with that fool Machado. I was speaking to you. You are the one. Infinite power is at your fingertips. You are the rightful ruler of this world. You are destined to be a prince of . . .”

The impossible sound again. I clamped my hands over my ears. Julie screamed.

“Use your will to unlock it. All you have to do is wish for it.” She glanced upwards at the roaring sphere. “Do it now or I will kill your love.” She pressed the tip of the knife in deeper. Julie cringed.

I understood now, understood more than the priestess thought I did. I knew what was waiting on the other side of that gate. They could not exist in a plane like ours. They were outside time. They needed the fabric of the universe twisted into their image, and that was something that they were not able to do on their own. If I were but to will the sphere to open, then the Old Ones would descend on this world to rule. It was a trick. It was all a trick. Lord Machado had just been a pawn, a man used and broken by them to lead events to this moment. A pawn like me.

“Don’t do it, Owen. Let her kill me,” Julie shouted. Koriniha tightened her arm around her hostage’s throat. Julie was undeterred. “Do it, you whore. I dare you!”

“I won’t open that gate.”

“That is up to you. You are the one. The one prophesied by the great ruler itself. You can control time and matter. You have been tested before and you have proven yourself ready. Now all that remains is for you to satisfy the rest of the prophecy.”

The last lines appeared glowing in my mind, obsidian chips flying, ax madly descending.

Only he will have the will

And the power

Through his love of another

To break time and the world

The final part of the prophecy disappeared in a shower of shards and dust.

Koriniha drove the knife home. Julie’s eyes widened in shock. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. Her eyes met mine, conveying pain, pleading for help that I could not give.

“Noooo!” I screamed, charging forward, ax held high.

The priestess relaxed her grip and let Julie fall. She went slowly to her knees, her hands rising to her neck, futilely trying to stem the tide of blood. It slipped through her fingers, showering down her arms. Her life was pumping out.

My world died. I hurled the ax, sending it hurtling end over end. Koriniha did not move as it sped toward her face. The ax froze in midair, and then fell uselessly down. She glared at me and the power of her mind knocked me to the ground. I rose, only to be smacked down again, and then a third time. This time she put me into the pyramid hard enough to crack the ivory blocks. I clawed my way forward, trying to reach Julie.

The priestess let me. She stood, waiting impatiently, her sleek black form still dripping. She glanced up at the rift like a human would glance at a wristwatch. “Hurry this up, Hunter.”

I pulled Julie into my arms. I sobbed. Her hands fell away from her neck as she slipped into unconsciousness. The wound was still spurting, but it was weak now. I pressed my fingers into the gash and tried to clamp the artery shut. It was too slippery. I could not lose her. Not like this.

“For love, human. The last piece of the puzzle. Your pathetic weak little instinct. It is the one thing that your kind can experience sufficient to power the Kumaresh Yar. Your hate is almost enough, but not quite.” The black sphere crackled above her. I could see things moving inside, pushing, anxious to begin the invasion. “You can save her. You have the power. All you have to do is call upon it. You have the will. All you have to do is wish for your birthright, and it will be yours. Your female will live. You can serve the Old Ones. She will be given to you. They will show mercy upon you. Those that you . . . love”—she spit the word out in distaste—“will be spared, and allowed to live forever. You and yours will prosper for eternity. Your every desire will be granted. All you have to do is wish for it.”

I held Julie in my arms and rocked back and forth. I knew that she was telling the truth. All I had to do to save her was to will it to happen. She would live. I would be granted power beyond my wildest dreams. Julie would live forever at my side.

“Make your choice quickly. It does not matter to me. Know this, our coming is inevitable. If we fail tonight, we will return and try again, as we have tried before. Eventually one of you mammals will make the right choice. It might as well be you. If you make the wrong choice, then I will bind your soul to the Kumaresh Yar so that you can suffer for eternity. Let me give you a little idea of what that will hold.”

Pain so exquisite that I cannot explain. Suffering stretching on for infinity. Black icy solitude racked forever with hurt so great that there were not words for it in any language. The split second that she exposed me gave me a window into the unfathomable horror of it.

“And not just for you. Your love will share your fate.” Julie convulsed as her unconscious mind was exposed to the horror. “Make your choice. Free her, or condemn her.”

I held Julie and cried. I could not fight Koriniha. She could kill me with her thoughts. There were two paths before me. If I refused her, then Julie and I would be banished to an eternity of pain. If I did as she said, if I made the selfish choice, then everything I had ever wanted would be given to me. No more pain. No more suffering. The incredible feeling that I had possessed moments before would be mine forever.

I could see myself doing it, Julie by my side. The Old Ones coming seemed inevitable anyway. Why not? Julie’s life was draining out while I hesitated. I would be king, and she would be my queen.

I would be king.

Of a dead world.

“I’ve made my choice.”

Koriniha sighed, slowly shaking her head. “You fool, human. I can see it in your eyes. Five hundred more years on this stinking rock, having peasants sacrifice chickens to little statues of me. Damn you. Your punishment will be the stuff of legends.” She focused in on Julie and me, drawing together the energy to cast us both into the black sphere. “Insolent little air breather.”

I had to try something. I could not just let her condemn us without a fight. If only I could access the power just enough to fight her and save Julie. I had controlled time once before. Maybe I was strong enough to hold back the Old Ones.

“Yes. You are the strongest one yet . . . you can control it,” Koriniha whispered. “I feel your mighty will. Surely you can do it.”

Maybe I could . . . Maybe I had a third option . . . I had defeated every other monster that this world had thrown at me. I could defeat these as well. Koriniha licked her oily lips in anticipation. The sphere above her roared, huge now, a world of its own, blotting out the storm-drenched Alabama sky. We stood at the intersection point between two spheres. When they connected, a new world would be born.

I stopped, realizing what I was about to do. The Old Man had warned me about this, only I had been too ignorant to understand. Good, but sometimes stupid. Brave, but proud. Too proud for own good. If not more careful, pride will kill you and blow up world. Think you can solve problems, but no patience to learn. Want to rush. Do things now.

That was what she wanted. She wanted me to fight. The Old Ones would eat my soul for breakfast. She waited for my move, so intent on subverting my will and destroying me the instant that I unlocked the gate that she did not see the tentacle slither past her feet and slowly wrap around the battle-ax and drag it away.

“I can beat you,” I lied.

“We shall see.”

BETRAYER.

The ax blade exploded from out of Koriniha’s chest. She shrieked in rage. The broken Lord Machado rose behind her, encircling his tentacles around her form, lifting her upward, and tearing the blade free. He slammed it into her again.

I lifted Julie in my arms and carried her away as they battled. Lord Machado hoisted Koriniha over his shattered skull, the black tissues of both creatures separating and tearing up into the sphere, drawn irresistibly home. The energy pulsed and surged. Growing larger by the second, the wall approached us, shapes twisting and clawing at the other side.

My boots slipped in the puddle of blood from Thrall. We landed next to him. He was still and his lidless orbs stared into the distance. I began to lift Julie. We were too close to the whipping tentacles, and without the power of the Old Ones upon me, one furious strike would be certain death. I heaved her up into my arms.

Suddenly a red hand grasped my wrist.

“Wait—” Thrall croaked through his lipless mouth. I struggled to hear him over the storm. “—was wrong. Thou truly art a warrior without guile.” His grasp was still amazingly powerful and he pulled me closer. “So much death . . . I give thee back one life . . .” He held up his other fist. Squirming between the muscle of his clenched fingers was a tiny bit of black energy, the last vestige of his unnatural immortality. It struggled to escape. He opened his hand and pushed it against Julie’s neck. She gasped, her eyes suddenly flared open, then she passed back out. The ancient captain uttered one last thing, “Until Ragnarok . . . my friend.”

The hand fell limply away. The last bit of power flew home like a bolt. I turned Julie’s head. It was a blood-soaked mess, but I could no longer see the entrance wound. Thrall’s lungs rattled as he gave up the ghost.

“See you in Valhalla,” I whispered.

The sphere was only a few feet over the pyramid now. It blotted out the sky in its terrible majesty. Lord Machado and Koriniha still battled, more and more of their ichor being stripped away by the second, leaving only filthy bones and angry souls.

“Machado! I curse you!” Koriniha’s skull screamed as her face was torn off. “Curse you!” She struggled in his tentacles as he forced her toward the sphere.

TOO LATE FOR CURSES . . . MY LOVE.

He thrust her body upwards. She broke the surface of the rift. The last bits of alien tissue were stripped away. Her skeleton quivered, and then exploded, the winds whipping bones about like missiles, snapping out into the forest and embedding into the trees. A jagged femur pierced the ivory next to my head.

Lord Machado’s voice screamed inside my brain. His limbs were extended into the rift. It was a fatal connection. His flesh was stripped, withering, disappearing into the maelstrom. I covered my eyes as the black light began to sear my retinas.

There was a roar, followed by a wet explosion, a concussion of sound and fury. Bits of the Cursed One splattered across the pyramid, showering us in gore, and then all was quiet.

I opened my eyes. The sphere was gone. The night sky was bright and clear, and I was lying on a pyramid, in the middle of a little forest valley, which appeared to be floating unsupported several hundred feet above rural Alabama.

Julie was breathing, though it was shallow and her pulse was weak. Her wound was closed, sealed by Thrall in a final act of mercy. I stood up. Amazingly enough, I felt fine, no broken bones, no blindness, no shattered eardrum. The breeze was natural and clean. The moon was descending over millions of stars. It was beautiful.

Something moved from where the Cursed One had last stood.

“Oh, give me a break,” I muttered. I looked around for weapons. I found both of my pistols, put the thumb safeties on, and shoved them in my waistband. Abomination was still where Thrall had dropped it. Empty, but it still had a good bayonet. I walked toward the shape that was moaning in the pile of burnt garbage that had been my enemy.

I held the shotgun like a spear, silver blade extended. Kicking aside the charred mess, I searched for the movement. The remainder of Lord Machado’s body had turned to ash, and was slowly blowing away in the wind. I saw small glints of the armored breastplate sticking out from under the cinders. It rocked slightly. I readied myself.

Slowly, shakily, a person emerged from the remains. He was a short man, and his features were hard to distinguish beneath the soot. He was naked except for the remaining armor, and a few tatters of the once opulent robe. He struggled weakly to his hands and knees, a tiny creature amongst the ruins of his former body.

I waited.

He spoke slowly, not used to forming words. The medieval Portuguese was still very familiar in my mind.

“The curse is lifted. I am a man again. Human at last.”

“Yup.”

He looked at his hands in wonder, and brushed the ash away from his skin. He began to cry, tears rolling down the soot. “Five hundred years of torment. I am free. You have freed me from my curse . . . Somehow it is broken.”

I tied Abomination’s tattered strap over one shoulder and drew the full-size .45 from my waistband. The click of the safety was eerily loud. I carefully put the front sight in place and placed my finger on the face of the trigger. He looked up at me warily. “But . . . but I have been redeemed.”

“I’m not in the redemption business.”

BOOM.

A hole appeared in his forehead. The silver bullet mushroomed perfectly through his brain tissue and ruptured out the back of his skull in a spray of red and white. The single brass case bounced on the ground. A thin line of blood fell from the entrance wound. Lord Machado’s eyes rolled slowly back into his head and he flopped into the ash.

I kept the gun on him. His leg kicked spasmodically a few times. There was no magic. He was not coming back.

Lord Machado was dead.

I slowly lowered the gun to my side. It was over.

The pyramid shook violently. I stumbled, but somehow managed to stay upright. In the distance the edges of the little valley began to disintegrate, collapsing as the unnatural force that sustained the pocket dimension began to dissipate. Trees dropped through the ground, disappearing in showers of dirt and snow. Gravity was a jealous bitch.

I sprinted for Julie. I lifted her into my arms and looked around. The spot where we had entered the little world was gone. The portal was no longer there. The rocks that had supported it were now plummeting hundreds of feet to the earth below. It was shrinking fast, and the ground was falling away, forming a boundary that was heading quickly for the ivory pyramid.

If only I had a parachute.

Hell, I didn’t even have a shirt. I might as well have wished for a rocket pack. I wasn’t exactly James Bond here.

We were going to die. The artificial ground was gone now. Only the ruins remained. My footing slipped as the pyramid began to shift wildly, the last vestiges of ancient magic fleeing. The structure dropped for what seemed an eternity, only to slam to a halt, shiver and quake, and then drop again. This halt was especially violent, and I knew that it was our last.

Blocks of ivory broke away, cracking and slipping into the darkness. We only had seconds left before this whole thing fell apart and we were dumped into the air.

Something clanged against the ivory, bounced a few times, and then stopped. The artifact! The pyramid jolted again and it slid toward the edge.

I started after it. If I could reach it, I could use it to get us out of here. I surged forward, one hand holding Julie’s limp form tight, the other grasping for the little stone box.

My fingers stopped an inch from the artifact. I froze. “Nice try, you evil bitch.”

Koriniha’s voice echoed through the night air. “Pity. Now I have to put up with five more centuries on this shitty planet.” Her spirit drifted away on the winds and was gone.

With a groan the pyramid began its final disintegration. A seam split open between my feet. The artifact slid over the edge and disappeared. The corpses fell away. The last blocks began to plummet, hurtling toward the ground. The top tier was all that remained, and we began to fall. It was a sickening feeling. Air rushed past my ears, deafening me. This was it.

Blinding light. What the hell? The spotlight veered away, and something metallic clanged against the ivory. In the split second before the block beneath my feet dropped, I realized it was a chain ladder. I extended one hand and grabbed it. My foothold was gone. I held onto the rung with all of my strength. Julie and I fell. My arm wrenched painfully in its socket. My fingers popped. I cried out in pain as I struggled to hold on. I kicked my legs wildly, panicking, trying to get one foot on the rung. The Hind jerked wildly above as Skippy tried to get us safely to the ground.

It had been an amazing feat of piloting. The clumsy Russian chopper was not known for its precise handling, yet he had managed to match speed with the dropping pyramid long enough to snag us.

I clamped Julie’s unconscious body tight against my chest. She threatened to slip away. I could feel the rung trying to pull out of my hand. Instinct told me to drop her and use my other hand to hold on. Screw instinct. My hand was on fire, but I held on. We were losing altitude quickly. I tried to get a foot through another rung, but the ladder was whipping wildly in the wind. Finally, by some miracle, I was able to get the toes of my boot through the chain to brace myself. I held on for dear life.

Ground. Blessed ground. It came up frighteningly fast. Skippy flared the chopper upward, slowing us at the last possible instant. Almost gently he lowered us until the ladder was dragging in the grass. I hopped off, covering my eyes as the blades tore up a mighty cloud of debris. Hunters moved quickly from the woods, swarming toward us. I waved happily. I had no idea what was going on down here, but the Cursed One was dead. The Old Ones’ plan had been foiled. No matter what, we had won. I was briefly illuminated in the spotlight of the Hind as it quickly banked up and away. I grinned like an idiot and gave everybody a thumbs-up.

The final rung of the ladder struck me violently in the back of the head. The last thing I remembered was a bunch of flashlights shining in my eyes and somebody hollering for a medic.

Chapter 29

I had to be dreaming. Either that or I was dead.

The field stretched as far as the eye could see. It was the same unnaturally beautiful place where I had first met the Old Man. Only now, the sky was clear. The storm had passed. The crops that had resisted the winds had survived. Their roots had been anchored deep. Now watered and tested, they would be much stronger than before. I felt the moisture under my bare feet. It was a peaceful place.

“Hello, Boy!”

I turned around. The accent was familiar, but the voice was wrong. It was far too young and happy. “Mordechai?”

“You look surprised to be seeing me, you do.” He grinned. I suppose I couldn’t call him the Old Man anymore. I still recognized him, but instead of being arthritic and frail, he was in the prime of his life. Young, handsome, and strong. Probably what he looked like when he had first started Hunting. He was not even wearing glasses.

“You’re alive?”

“No. Am still dead of course. But no longer stuck. You killed the Cursed One. Prison was opened. Now free I am to go.”

“Go where?”

“I not know. Have not been to next place before. Have been stuck for long time.”

“What do you know about it?” It could not hurt to ask.

“My friend. You find out that for your own self some day.” He held out his hand to shake. I pushed his hand aside and engulfed him in a bear hug. I easily picked him up and squeezed. “Ugh . . . Easy, Boy. Respect your elders!”

I put him down. “Thanks for everything,” I said. “Sorry about your cane.”

“I not need it any more now.” He quickly stomped his feet to demonstrate. “Is better used up killing Nazi bastard son of bitch. No, I thank you. Free because you did good, though for second, I thought we were, how you say . . . screwed. But heart was good, and made right choice. I thank you. In fact, many others want also to thank.”

“What do you mean?”

He nodded his head off to the side. There was a crowd of people assembled who had not been there before. Men and women, all of them young and fit and strong, much like Mordechai. They were all of different races, and were dressed in many styles of clothing. Robes, furs, silks, even mail armor. A tall man with a curled Babylonian beard saluted me with his bow. The others followed suit, one by one, raising their spears, swords, axes, a musket. I recognized one of the men. He had been the Brazilian Hunter sacrificed by Lord Machado in the memory. He raised his obsidian-tipped club overhead and gave me a nod of approval. There have always been monsters. And as long as there are monsters, there will be some who dare to hunt them. These were my people. I bowed to the ancient Hunters.

One by one they began to walk away. Slowly they became transparent, and began to fade. Within a moment they were all gone. The sacrifices were free.

“Prison is broken, so now they go. Only one of us could break away to contact the one from prophecy. I got to be one to teach you, because mine was the best English speaker.” He sighed contentedly. “Sorry I could just not tell who you were, but it was not allowed. Only some things I could see, others I could say. Rules were different. But it is all good now. For me, work is done.” Mordechai patted me tenderly on the shoulder. “You probably should be waking up now.” He turned and began to walk quickly through the crop, running his hands through the rain droplets clinging to the leaves.

“Wait. What do I do now? Is it over?”

He paused, and looked up as if he was enjoying the sun. “My friend, you still have much work to do. You still have calling. Short straw you have drawn, and you not done until you end up like us. What to do now? Hunt monsters of course. For you, is never over.”

I raised my hand and waved. “Thanks, Mordechai. Without you we would have lost. The whole world would have lost. Thanks.”

“Silly Boy. Wake up now. Pretty girl is waiting for you. Be nice to her. Is brave and shoots very good.” He winked. “Not find girl like that very often. Good-bye, friend.”

He walked away with a spring in his step, ready to embark on his final adventure. Mordechai Byreika had been one of the greatest Hunters of his day. He had risked all to stop the storm. He had been my mentor and my friend. He turned one final time to grin at me, eyes twinkling, excited to continue on. He faded from sight and disappeared.

*   *   *

“Hey, guys, Z’s awake,” said a voice. “Dude, you’ve got to be the clumsiest, most accident-prone oaf I’ve ever known. I’m amazed you’ve lived this long.”

“Trip?” I asked, trying to rise up so I could look around. My head ached, and I did not need to touch the back of my skull to know that there was a huge lump. “You’re alive?”

“Can’t kill a brother that easy.” He laughed, and began to cough. His armor had been cut away and bandages encircled his chest and most of his head. One leg was propped up and had been tied to a splint. We were lying on blankets, set under the shade of a tree. The morning sun was rising in the distance. Several other wounded Hunters were also resting here. “No thanks to Holly,” he joked.

“Shut up, dick,” Holly said from the other side. “It was a good idea at the time.” She was kneeling next to an unconscious Hunter that I did not know and applying a clean bandage to his arm. She appeared to be fine. “Besides, one little hit on the head and you sleep through the whole battle, while me, Sam and Milo get to kill like half a million wights.”

“I’m just lucky that kudzu broke my fall,” he mumbled.

“Sam and Milo are okay?” I asked. I slowly sat up. I was awfully woozy.

“Yeah, but the worst injured have been evacuated to the nearest hospital. We’ll be trucking everybody else there in a few minutes. Sam got busted up. At the end, he was killing wights with his teeth since everything else was paralyzed. And Milo? After his little light show against Julie’s mom, they’re calling him Saint Milo now.”

“Told you not to make fun of religious folks,” Trip said.

“Julie?”

“Fine, she’s wandering around here somewhere.”

“Lee?” The last I had seen he had been hit pretty bad.

“He’s going to live. But he’s probably going to lose his leg. Gretchen did her best, but she wasn’t sure.” She sounded sad. “He was one of the lucky ones.”

“Who else?” I asked. The others grew somber.

“We lost fifteen Hunters. We have another couple that are critical and might not make it. And then we have about twenty wounded. Once the Masters closed the distance, it got ugly. I guess they finally used the wargs to quickly evacuate everybody out of one side of the valley, so they could bomb the hell out of it. Then they concentrated on the last vamp.”

“Are they all destroyed?”

“According to Julie, you killed the German, so we got six out of the seven,” Trip answered.

“Let me guess.” It was too much to hope. “Susan?”

“Yep. My mom got away,” Julie said. She appeared in front of me, hands on her hips. Surprisingly, she looked fine, a little pale, but fine nonetheless. Not bad considering that I had watched her throat get cut only a few hours before. She extended her hand to me, I took it, and she did her best to pull me up, but failed miserably. I pulled her down with me. Despite the news of her mother, she laughed when she hit the ground.

“I’m glad to see you’re okay,” I said.

“Yeah, and you have some explaining to do. How the hell am I even alive? The last thing I remember is the pain, and then I started losing blood, and I was out. I woke up down here.”

“Thrall saved your life. The last little bit of evil magic he had on his body, he gave to you. He held it on your neck and then it flew away.”

“That would explain this.” She brushed her hair aside. The side of her throat was still red and tender, but there was now a thick black line across the side, almost like a tattoo. “I’m not really into the whole body art thing, you know.”

“Does it hurt?” I asked.

“Not really.”

“Does it feel . . . evil?”

“Not that I can tell. If I get the sudden urge to drown a bag of kittens, I’ll let you know.”

“Well, let’s not knock it then.” I moved in for a kiss.

“Slow down. You’ve got Cursed One and vampire blood all over your face. No offense, but I’m not kissing that.”

“Holly! Canteen.” I snapped my fingers. “This is a medical emergency.”

“Going to have a medical emergency when I shoot your ass,” she answered as she tossed me a canteen. I unscrewed the lid and poured the cool water down my face. It felt good to scrub off the disgusting dried mess. I wiped my face on my arm.

“Okay, now I’m kissable.”

“Whoa.” Julie’s eyes betrayed her shock.

Holly leaned over to see. “Holy shit!”

I raised my hands to my face. What was so surprising?

“What? Let me see!” Trip said.

My skin was smooth. It felt normal. Too normal. My scars were gone. The thick ridge of tissue that had stretched from the top of my head to the side of my nose was gone. I poured some of the water on my chest. All of the scars from my battle with the werewolf Huffman had disappeared. The still-healing road rash on my arms was gone. I probed my molars with my tongue. The missing teeth had returned. My body had been totally repaired.

“The Old Ones . . . When they fixed me so that I could fight and sacrifice Lord Machado . . .” I did not know what to say. I had grown used to the scars and injuries. They were all fixed. It was amazing.

“Wow . . . It’s like ancient evil ultimate makeover,” Holly said.

Julie caressed the side of my face, then she leaned in and kissed me passionately. Her lips were soft, and it felt good to be alive. Thankfully the others refrained from any snide comments.

When we had come up for air, I had to ask. “I thought chicks dig scars?”

“Right now, I could care less. I’m just glad we’re still alive.”

“Me too.”

We cleared out the rest of the wounded. Between the chaos of the mighty storm and the undead-inflicted carnage across the state, most of the hospitals from here to Birmingham were working around the clock. We still had a lot of cleaning up to do, but for today, MHI was done.

Gretchen had ridden up on the back of a mighty warg. She had taken one look at the back of my head and pronounced me something incomprehensible. I did not know if it was good or bad, but the other orcs had laughed at me, so I took that to be a good thing.

Harbinger was still missing, so Julie and her grandfather had effectively taken control of the chaos. Her brother Nate stood protectively nearby. I barely knew the kid, but he was not going to let any of his remaining family out of his sight. I could respect that. Once the wounded were safely gone, the rest of the gear was packed into the surviving vehicles, and then finally the dead. It was a somber duty, but we were not going to leave our dead in the hands of the local authorities.

I helped to lift one of the shrouded bodies into the back of a van. It was Chuck Mead. He had fought hard, and died bravely. But in the end, even the bravest of us would eventually buy it. We had trained together, and I was going to miss the big, simple Ranger. He had been a good man.

Priest said prayers over the bodies of our fallen. He stepped around the corpses, one arm coated in dried blood and slung to his chest. He ignored it. He had work to do. Our comrades would be taken back to the compound where we could perform a proper Hunter’s funeral. It was grisly business, but in our line of work, having your friends cut your head off was the final sign of respect.

“It seems bad, but considering what we were up against,” the senior Shackleford stated, “we did good. We did very good.”

“Grandpa, has anyone seen Earl since last night?” Julie asked.

“’Fraid not, dear,” he answered quietly. “Some of VanZant’s boys saw him go past the mortar emplacement after he killed that Master. They said he looked mighty tore up. He was heading into the woods.”

“I hope he’s okay,” she said softly.

“Um . . .” I was sorry to intrude on the family moment, but I had to know. “So Earl’s a werewolf. I mean, I’m cool with that. It isn’t the first time I’ve had a werewolf boss, you know.”

“Yes. He’s a werewolf,” the Boss answered, using his hook to tap me on the chest for emphasis, “and that information doesn’t go outside of MHI. When that bastard Myers quit and joined the Feds, they found out about him, and he had all manner of trouble. The Feds wanted to kill him.”

“And it was only through a whole lot of legal wrangling that he was given a special status,” Julie said. “Earl is the only non-PUFF applicable lycanthrope in the world. And even then he is kind of on probation.”

“But I thought werewolves were crazy, and violent, and just killed people at the drop of a hat,” I said. I unconsciously rubbed my hand on my face, only to realize that my scar was no longer there. I lowered my hand, feeling stupid. “But he seems so in control.” It all made sense though. The way he had defeated Darné so easily on the freighter. The way that he had fought in Natchy Bottom.

“Well . . . he’s had a lot of time to work on it,” the Boss said. “He has more control over his abilities than any other one that we know about. On the full moon, he still has to lock himself up, because he ain’t got no choice but to change then. On the full moon, he just loses it, and it’s all animal. He tears the hell out of things, but by morning he’s fine. We got us a concrete room with a steel door in the basement of the compound. Built just for him.”

“On holidays Milo throws a cow in the cell with him,” Nate added helpfully, “kind of like a special Christmas dinner. In the morning we just hose it down.”

“He used to lock himself up at the family estate. We had a little building out by the old slave quarters,” the Boss said. “Had to build the new cell when he started to wear it out. He didn’t want to get loose and hurt somebody when he wasn’t in full control.”

I knew exactly which little building he was talking about. It had given me the creeps at the time. All of those marks that I had thought had been made by a tool, they had been frustrated claw marks. “But there were millions of scratches in there,” I blurted. “It had to have taken hundreds of hours to do all of that.”

The three Shacklefords looked at each other, trying to decide what exactly to say. Finally Julie started to speak.

“Not hundreds of hours, but almost that many years.”

“Huh?”

“Julie!” Nate said, looking over his shoulder to make sure the other Hunters were not in earshot. “You can’t tell him about . . . that.”

“Sorry, bro. In the last few days Owen has almost destroyed the universe twice to save me. I’m guessing that he can know about the family secret,” she said politely. The Boss nodded for her to proceed.

“Earl isn’t just a special case. He is the special case. As far as we know, he is the oldest living lycanthrope in the world. He is, quite literally, the king of werewolves. He was bitten back in the 1920s. Over the last eighty years, he has aged maybe twenty years. It took him a real long time to get the hang of it, and to keep from flipping out and killing people like a regular werewolf. That’s probably why he smokes so much. When he doesn’t get his cigarettes, he gets cranky. When he gets cranky, people get eaten.”

“Gives a whole new meaning to nicotine fit,” Nate quipped. His grandfather groaned. It probably wasn’t the first time that joke had been made in the family.

“He changes his name every generation, always trying to keep his secret safe. Only a handful of us know who he really is. My family has protected him the whole time.”

I thought back to the Shackleford family estate, and more importantly, the wall of family portraits. There had been only one missing, conspicuous by its absence.

“Raymond Shackleford the Second,” I said slowly.

“Yep. You’re pretty quick for a bean counter. I like this young man, Julie, much better than your last boyfriend, but I digress. I was only a young man when he was bit, but we stood by my daddy,” the Boss said. “Shacklefords take care of their own.” The other two nodded. He pointed toward the road where some other vehicles were arriving. “Well, looks like we got some company. Come on, Nate, let’s give these two a moment.” He shuffled away, grandson in tow.

“So let me get this straight.” I took Julie by the hand. “You hang out with your great-grandfather, who’s some sort of mutant super werewolf. Your mother is a vampire. Your father was a mad genius who almost destroyed the world. Your grandfather is a half-crazed Monster Hunter with one eye and a stainless steel hook for a hand, and he’s the normal one of the bunch.” I took a deep breath. “Is that about it? Is there any other family weirdness that I need to know about?”

“No. That’s pretty much it,” she answered, looking a little sheepish. “Can you deal with that?”

I pulled her close. “Julie, at this point you could tell me that you sprout butterfly wings and a third eye on every second Tuesday, and I would still be in love with you.”

“Good,” she said with a grin. “Well, there’s still my Uncle Leroy, but that’s complicated . . . so that story is going to have to wait.” She pointed at the horizon. There were several black shapes approaching. Helicopters. The Feds had finally arrived.

The Blackhawks set down in the blasted valley. The Apaches circled over the area. The Feds did not speak as they fanned out into the forest to stake out the fallen blocks of ivory debris. There were only a handful of MHI staff left at the scene, as almost everybody else had packed up and left. We found the Boss arguing with Agent Myers near the original National Guard position. The Guardsmen were mostly still there, though their lieutenant had locked himself inside the APC and refused to come out. Agent Franks stood off to the side, listening intently to the radio traffic as his men scoured the forest for anything of interest.

“It’s over, Myers. We done killed the damn thing. Biggest PUFF bounty ever!” the senior Shackleford shouted. “See, we didn’t need no stinking government help.”

“Whatever, you old coot,” Myers retorted. “This is our scene now. Turn in your paperwork to the PUFF office for approval. I don’t care.” He saw me approaching. “Mr. Pitt. What happened to your face?” Agent Franks looked up and scowled at me. Once again he was the ugliest man in our line of work. Haha, sucker.

I ignored the comment. “It’s over, Myers. The Cursed One is dead. His body’s out there with the rubble. Along with that artifact.” I pointed in the direction I thought most of the pocket dimension had landed in. “If you find it, I suggest you don’t play with it. Just put it some safe place, and leave it the hell alone.”

“That’s our business now. Don’t you worry. It’ll be in good hands. Now get out,” he ordered. “This scene is our jurisdiction.”

“Fine, but I’m warning you. That box is a lot more than you can handle.” I nodded at Franks. “A bunch of your men were killed in that cavern. Turned into wights. You had best see to them.”

Franks nodded in understanding. I think that we had come to terms.

“Earl!” Julie shouted. She pointed toward the trees. “He’s alive.”

Sure enough, Harbinger came walking through the trees. Dirty, caked in mud, grass and leaves, dried blood matted over most of his body—he was totally naked, but did not seem to care. He walked past the Feds, most of whom stepped away from him, slightly fearful. He strode directly up to us, stopping only a few feet from Myers.

“Hey, Myers.”

“Earl.”

“Got a smoke?”

Myers nodded nervously, took out a pack, and handed over a cigarette. The senior agent handed over his lighter as well. Harbinger took a drag, and sighed contentedly. He looked like a nightmare wild man of the forest, but he did not care in the slightest.

“It’s good to have lungs that regenerate,” he said. “So, Myers, we’ve done your job. The threat’s dead. The vampires are dead. I suppose right about now MHI is on your bosses’ good side. I’m guessing we’re square.”

The Fed hesitated, not really wanting to answer. “I suppose so.”

“Full access to fulfill our contracts?”

“Agreed.”

“My teams can move freely?”

“Fine.”

“Call off OSHA, the EPA? Fish and Game? ATF?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“IRS?” Harbinger removed the cigarette and blew smoke out his nose. He absently scratched himself. “I bet some certain committee heads are loving us right about now. Probably even the senators who need to approve the appointment of the next head of the Monster Control Bureau.”

Myers looked like he had a foul taste in his mouth. “Fine. I’ll call off the heat. You’re golden for now. But when your people screw up again, your asses are mine.”

“Buddy, you should never tell a naked man that his ass is yours,” Harbinger said, totally deadpan. Franks snorted. I think it was almost a human laugh. Myers whirled around and glared at his subordinate. “I’ve just got one question for you.”

“What?” Myers snapped, visibly agitated.

“Once the battle started, and everything went down here, how come you guys didn’t just nuke the place to be sure?”

“Who says we didn’t try?” Myers answered cryptically. He turned his back on Harbinger and stomped away.

“Hey, Franks,” Julie called out to the silent Fed.

“Yeah?” he grunted.

“I heard that you guys didn’t cut my dad’s head off. I heard that you let him turn, and that he escaped.” Julie asked. There was a current of anger in her voice. “Because if that was true, I would be . . . disappointed. So, is he still alive?”

Franks took his time composing an answer. His cold eyes studied us.

“No.” He nodded grimly, and then followed after his boss.

We watched him go.

“Think he’s lying?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Julie answered. “I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.”

“I know one thing for sure,” I said slowly. The others waited. “I know we need to get Earl some pants.” The king of the werewolves laughed.

We stopped by the National Guard soldiers to thank them for their help in the battle. Sergeant Gregorius was offered a business card and invited to come see us if he was interested in a lucrative career in beating down evil. Turns out that Boone had already done the sales pitch, and the big soldier had already volunteered for the next Newbie class. I was not surprised. For people like us, Monster Hunting was a calling.

The compound was somber that day as we held fifteen funerals. The fallen were decapitated, cremated, and their remains sent back to their families along with whatever the made-up excuse was for that particular Hunter. Sometimes having a job that had to be kept secret from most of the world was a real bummer. The team leads had to make the phone calls, and I did not envy them at all. The next few days were quiet ones. There were far too many new plaques on the wall.

We watched the news anxiously, just like everybody else in the world. Gradually the panic over the missing five minutes died down, and people, being people, moved past it. Cults were formed, wars were started, nut cases blew stuff up, books were written, theories published, and everyone came away with their own interpretation of the events. As for MHI, we just kept our big mouths shut.

Milo’s wedding reception had mutated into one heck of a party. The compound had been decorated and looked pretty festive for a paramilitary fortress hidden in the backwoods. It was good to have many of the MHI staff united again, this time under much happier circumstances.

The Amazing Newbie Squad sat around a table off to one side in the boisterous cafeteria. Holly was in the process of getting wasted. Trip was frowning in disapproval. Lee was tapping his cane on the floor in time with the music. The dance floor was crowded, and Milo and his new bride appeared to be dancing a cross between the hokey pokey and the funky chicken.

“So are you going to take Earl’s offer?” I asked Lee, shouting over the noise.

He sighed, distracted from the spectacle. “I suppose. I’ve been on exactly three missions and been injured on all of them. Doctor Nelson says my leg is going to have permanent nerve damage.” He held up his cane and shook it. “I can’t be out there beating monster ass with you guys anymore, so I would be a sucker not to take it.”

“Good. You’re the best man for the job. The archives will be in good hands,” Trip stated. He looked strange with the shaved head, but the dreads had to go to make room for bandages after the battle at DeSoya Caverns. Personally, I thought Trip looked better. Apparently Holly thought so as well.

“Trip, you sexy geek. Damn it, let’s dance.” She stood up and grabbed his hand. He began to protest weakly, but he was no match for a determined Holly. I had to laugh as she dragged him out on the dance floor. They made a weird couple.

“Hey.” I felt a hand fall on my shoulder. It was Harbinger, looking slightly inebriated and unusually happy. He tossed a small object on the table. “Here.”

“What’s up, Earl?” I asked as I picked it up.

“It’s official. Grant’s turned in his resignation. Moving to Hollywood to consult on a big horror movie or some nonsense.” He snorted. Grant had not been his usual cocky self since his kidnapping, and he had never spoken about what he had seen or experienced while in the vampires’ clutches. I was not surprised to see him go, but I was surprised to discover I might actually miss him. Almost. “Sam’s heading out to set up the new team in Denver. So I’m really shorthanded.”

I studied the little flat object. “And this way you can keep an eye on me?”

“Promise not to destroy the world or anything and we shouldn’t have a problem.” He winked at me and left. I twirled the patch between my fingers.

I would wear the green happy face with pride.

It was a few months later, right after Harbinger’s team had returned from a difficult contract in the Philippines. Julie and I were at the Shackleford ancestral home. I had volunteered to help her work on the renovations to the old house. I was not particularly skilled at home repair, but I could do manual labor with the best of them. Mostly I loved the opportunity it gave me to spend time with her. I had bought an engagement ring, but so far I had not worked up the courage to actually ask her. Wrestle with ancient evil, fight aswangs, blow up lindwyrms, or fish for luskas? No problem. Ask the woman I love to marry me? Terrifying.

We were sitting in the formal living room. The paint was drying, and I had to admit that it was going to look great. We had returned the missing portrait of Raymond Shackleford Jr. to its spot on the wall. We weren’t expecting guests, and having the blank spot kind of ruined the symmetry. I had joked that we should just paint a beard and glasses on Earl’s picture so that we wouldn’t have to worry about taking it down when company came over. I could tell that Julie had been tempted.

It was about 11:00 p.m. when there was a loud knock on the door.

“Somebody’s here,” I said stupidly.

Julie was startled from the couch. She reached above the mantle and took down the hidden shotgun, tossed it over to me, and without thinking, I caught it. She took down a carbine and checked the chamber. “Perimeter alarm didn’t sound,” she said quickly.

“Aw, hell.” I pumped the 870 and started for the front door. “What now?”

The front entryway smelled of wood glue and sawdust. I approached the door and signaled silently for her to cover me. Julie moved to the side, and took up a position behind one of the interior columns.

I unlocked the five heavy deadbolts. The ornate doorknob was unusually cold under my fingertips. I kept my right hand on the grip of the shotgun and kept it ready. I turned the knob and yanked the door open. I stepped back, ready to fire.

Nothing.

I sliced the pie, slowly cornering around the opening. The porch was clear. I shined the weapon-mounted light into the darkness. I could not see anything in the yard or in the parking area.

“Did we just get doorbell ditched?” I asked.

“Wait, there’s a note.” Julie approached cautiously. A small white envelope had been shoved under the door. She cradled the carbine in her arms as she tore it open.

“Careful,” I cautioned.

“Don’t be such a wuss.”

She unfolded the note, adjusted her glasses, and read silently. Julie frowned, her pretty features drew into an anxious knot, and she absently rubbed the unnatural black line on the side of her neck, a habit that she had picked up when she was nervous.

“What is it, honey?” I asked. She passed the note over.

The letter was handwritten. There were two separate messages on the single sheet of paper, with two very different writing styles. The first was almost perfect calligraphy.

Dear Julie,

We just wanted to drop you a note to let you know that we are doing fine. Your daddy is adjusting to his new lifestyle rather well. He has a real flair for it. We have been traveling, and seeing the world, just like we always talked about doing, but never found the time. Now we have all of the time in the world.

We want to offer a truce. I hope there are no hard feelings about the little incident we had. As a mom I just want what is best for all of my children. Now I see that you need to live your life on your own and make your own decisions, no matter how foolish they may be. You need to learn from your own mistakes.

I wish that I could be at the wedding. I like this Owen. He is a good man. He will be a good husband. If you are wondering what wedding, silly me, I have to realize that you can’t read minds. Your poor boyfriend broadcasts his thoughts so loudly that I could pick them up from Mexico. The ring is in the armory. It is rather pretty. Congratulations.

One last offer, as you grow old and approach your mortal end, or if your health is fleeing and creeping sickness overtakes your body, if you choose not the cold embrace of death, call upon me, and I will come. You are my daughter and my offer of immortality still stands. Until that time, if you avoid us, we will avoid you. Search for me and I will kill you and destroy everything that you hold dear with a vengeance terrible beyond your imagination.

Love,

Mom

P.S. I love what you’ve done with the old place.

The second message was shorter. The writing was blocky and erratic.

Hey Kids,

How’s everything going? I hope y’all are well. I’m doing good. Susan is doing good. We are having lots of fun. I’m still real sorry about the whole thing with the lying and sending you to your deaths in Natchy Bottom, but I had to do it. I hope you understand. No hard feelings. See you around.

Love,

Dad

P.S. Kid, treat my girl good or I’ll rip out your heart.

I folded the note, stuck it in the envelope and passed it back. Julie crumpled it into a ball and threw it out the door. I slammed it closed.

“And to think that regular people bitch about their in-laws,” I said. “I figure I’ve got to hold some sort of record on this one.”

Julie set her gun against the wall. She fell into my arms with a sigh. I held her tight. “Do you still think normal people suck?” she asked me.

I thought about it for a moment. “Yes. Yes, I do. Normal people suck. Monster Hunting is where it’s at.”

“Good. I agree.” We kissed, vampire mother-in-law be damned. “So where exactly is this ring?”

“Downstairs,” I replied nervously. I had had it for weeks. The thought of her saying no was terrifying.

“Owen . . .”

“What, Julie?”

“Yes.”

Epilogue

Special Agent Dwayne Myers, interim head of the Monster Control Bureau, had in fact called in his “final option” when they had discovered through the actions of MHI that the Place of Power was just outside of Childersburg, Alabama.

As the moon had approached its zenith, the B1 bomber on station over Alabama had been ordered to release its payload of a single low-yield tactical nuclear device. It was only a five-kiloton weapon, but it would have been of sufficient strength to slag the area immediately around the DeSoya Caverns Park. Had “final option” gone according to plan, it would not have stopped the Old One’s plot, since the pocket dimension was separated from the normal world until the final close of the ceremony.

When released, the bomb had a clear path to impact. It was programmable to air burst for maximum surface devastation, or to strike the ground first, for more penetration. Since Special Agent Myers believed the target to be inside the underground cave, he had ordered the bomb to strike as deeply as possible before detonation.

By the time the bomb had traveled its course, the rift between worlds had been prepared. The sphere of evil energy had grown to mammoth size. The Old Ones could not cross the rift into our world, but matter from our world could enter into theirs. The five-kiloton nuclear weapon passed cleanly through the rift and entered the plane of the Old Ones.

The resulting explosion split the individual atoms of a legion of the Old Ones’ elite troops, and the edge of the blast singed the carapace of the Overlord itself. This was a grave offense.

It called upon its minions to sally forth and destroy the human world utterly, but in those final moments, the rift closed, cutting off entrance for another five hundred years.

Greatly offended by this slight, it called upon its many servants, demanding an explanation of how the feeble mammals had been able to actually cause a small bit of harm to an Old One. The 10,000-foot-tall crustacean commanded them to discern the cause of the explosion.

The minions searched, trying to discover what foul creature could do such a thing. Though their contact with the human world was limited, they were able to piece together a few clues. They were mostly incorrect and confused, but they were happy to give their Dread Overlord an answer, hoping to keep from being flayed alive for eons. It did not take kindly to failure.

They reported back that the attack must have come from a lone human. It was a single mammal who had dared to launch a feeble atom weapon into their plane of existence. The Dread Overlord was joyous to hear that the perpetrator had been identified, so it only devoured a few dozen of its minions. They were digested painfully for an eternity. It ordered a message sent to the world of the humans. There were still ways to send information, and there were a handful of servants on the human world able to listen and obey.

The message was sent across space and time:

To all minions of the Overlord. Find and utterly destroy the human Hunter known as Owen Zastava Pitt.

Monster

Hunter

Vendetta

Chapter 1

It was less than a year ago that the illusion shattered and I got my welcome to the real world. Up until that point I considered myself perfectly average, living a normal life, with a regular career. That all changed the night my accounting supervisor turned into a werewolf and tried to eat me. Now there are basically two ways to deal with such a problem. Most people confronted with something so hideously impossible tend to curl up into the fetal position and die. On the other hand, those of us destined to become Monster Hunters simply take care of business. He almost ended my life but I tossed him out a fourteenth-story window. He died, I didn’t. That makes me the winner.

After that initial encounter I was approached with a job offer. Apparently survivors like me aren’t that common, and as a result killing a monster is a real résumé builder. I was recruited by Monster Hunter International, the premier eradication company in the business. We protect mankind from the unnatural forces that come crawling out from our darkest nightmares, and in return, we get paid the big bucks.

It wasn’t that long after I started my new job that MHI came up against an unfathomable evil from the past. It took everything we had to survive, but in the end, the Cursed One was defeated and I literally saved the world.

I was employee of the month.

The biggest chupacabra in the pack was only four feet tall, but what they lacked in mass, they made up for in sheer ferocity. Being unable to get to their dinner was making them even surlier than usual. The peasant girl had been futilely tinkering with the engine of her broken-down Chevy Vega when the first chupacabra had come sniffing onto the jungle road. Her screams at seeing the little demon-lizard-insect thing hop down the dirt lane like a demented miniature kangaroo had driven it into a frenzy, and she had barely managed to dive into the car ahead of its snapping jaws. Her continued cries from behind the locked doors of the old rust bucket had attracted the rest of the pack, and now there were a dozen of the creatures clambering on the car.

Chupacabras do not normally attack people. The puncture tubes that jut from their mouths could pierce a human skull like a screwdriver through a milk jug, but instinctively they stick to preying on small animals. Once a chupacabra pack has tasted human blood, however, they absolutely will not stop, and killings become more and more frequent. From what I have seen in this business, people must be either extremely tasty, or addictive, like monster crack.

The creatures were scratching and clawing at the car’s windows and roof. The girl just kept on screaming. She had a remarkably good set of lungs for this kind of thing, which is why we’d picked her. Her cries spurred the monsters on, and they all began to shriek as well, echoing across the dark jungle canopy for miles.

The four-footer jumping up and down on the hood of the Vega was pissed. It had to be the pack’s alpha male, and it couldn’t figure out why the glass wasn’t breaking. I watched it carefully through the night-vision monocular.

“I think he suspects something,” Trip Jones whispered.

I nodded. They might be clever for creatures with brains the size of tangerines, but the goat-suckers had never run into bulletproof glass before. Finally the alpha hopped off the car and scurried over to the side of the road. I almost keyed my radio, but he hesitated there, looking for something, and came up with a rock. He crawled back on the hood, raised the rock, and started banging away at the windshield. The others cheered and hooted him on.

“Hey, I didn’t know suckers knew how to use tools,” Milo Anderson said over the radio. He was positioned on the other side of the road. All of us were wearing ghillie suits over our body armor and had been lying in the underbrush being eaten by insects for hours. The foul-smelling grease that we had rubbed on ourselves earlier to hide our smell from the chupacabras’ sensitive noses also served as seasoning for the region’s bugs.

My radio crackled. “We’ll have to update the database,” Julie Shackleford replied, the roar of the chopper’s engine could be heard behind her. “Tool use . . . That’s fascinating.”

Apparently our fake peasant, Holly Newcastle, didn’t think it was nearly as fascinating from her position as bait in the front seat of the Vega. The theatrical screaming stopped for a moment. “Uh, guys . . .” The rest of us could hear the glass cracking in the background. “Guys?”

We had three members of Monster Hunter International hiding in the brush, one in the decoy car, two more on the rapidly approaching attack helicopter, carefully positioned claymores along the roadside, piles of guns, thousands of rounds of ammo, state-of-the-art night-vision and thermal-imaging equipment, a lot of attitude, and a general dislike of evil beasties.

I keyed my microphone.

“Execute.”

My name is Owen Zastava Pitt and I kill monsters for a living.

“This is Harbinger,” the familiar voice said through the phone, sounding a little groggy. I must have woken him. “What time is it?”

“It’s almost midnight here,” I answered, which meant that it was like one or two in the morning in Alabama. I was never very good at remembering time zones.

There was a brief pause. “So somebody’s either got eaten, or you completed the contract.”

“Mission accomplished, chief. Julie’s dropping the evidence off at the mayor’s office and arranging the funds transfer.” The evidence consisted of a burlap sack full of severed chupacabra heads. “It was a big pack. Smoked them all.”

“Nice.” This had been a lucrative job. The Mexican resort depended on tourism, so when people started getting their organs liquefied and drained, it was bad for business, especially since it was happening during their busy season. It was spring break, after all. “Everybody okay?”

“They’re good.” Loud music drifted in through the open window of my hotel room. There was a wild party going on around the Olympic-sized pool, populated mostly by American college students engaged in all manner of drunken debauchery. “Looking forward to payday I bet.”

“Rush jobs always pay well. How’d the team do?” Earl asked. I knew what he really wanted to ask was how his team did without him. The timing of the mission had just not worked out, as there were very few places that were safe for him during the full moon.

“They were awesome. It was beautiful.” Exploding chupacabras were not what most people would find artistic, but I knew Earl would understand. He was after all, the Director of Operations for a company whose mission statement actually read: Evil looms. Cowboy up. Kill it. Get paid.

“Wish I could’ve been there, but you know how it is. Good work, Z.”

That comment made me swell with pride. My boss wasn’t known for giving compliments. This had been the first operation that I had been allowed to plan entirely, and it had been a success. Well, I had the very experienced Julie and Milo there to make sure I didn’t screw it up, but I had still done pretty damn good. “Thanks, Earl. See you tomorrow.”

“ ’Night, kid. Tell Julie I love her, and next time, call me in the morning.”

I tossed the sat-phone on the bed next to my body armor and weapons. I still needed to clean my guns before I packed them up for the return flight. It had been humid out in the forest, and rust was my enemy. But right now I didn’t feel like doing the work, I just wanted to gloat. Picking up my heavy Kevlar suit, I paused to brush some chupacabra juice off the patch stuck on the arm. It was a little green Happy Face with devil horns. Just a simple logo, but for me it represented a lot of hard work. It was MHI’s unofficial logo, and the only Hunters who got to wear it were the ones chosen for Harbinger’s personal team. I grinned and dropped the armor back on the bed. I’d earned that patch a few times over.

The complimentary hotel room was extremely nice, way nicer than the roach motels that MHI usually seemed to stay in, but I was still too charged up from today’s mission to relax. I opened the glass doors and stepped onto the balcony. The hip-hop music was louder now, and the cloud that drifted up from the pool area was strong enough to give a DEA dog a seizure. My room was on the second floor. There had to be a couple hundred people down there, most of them young Americans. An obnoxious crowd had gathered around the DJ table, and a film crew was doing an interview with some rapper who was about to host a wet tee-shirt contest or something. An inebriated young woman screamed, lifted her shirt, and flashed me. I waved stupidly. Good old spring break.

Life was good. Monster Hunter International was the best private monster hunting company on the planet. I had not even been doing this for a year, but already I was planning and executing operations in foreign countries, and I had just been complimented by the most experienced Hunter in the world. Not bad for a guy who was basically just an accountant who happened to be handy with a gun.

The wood deck was cool under my bare feet. I leaned on the balcony, directly above the stenciled sign that stated in both English and Spanish that it was not safe to lean on the balcony, and did a quick search of the swim-suited, dancing throng. I could not see any of my team. That wasn’t really a surprise though.

Milo and Skippy were probably checking the chopper for the trip home tomorrow. Neither one would be into this scene, especially Skippy, because he wasn’t human and was very uncomfortable around crowds. Milo’s wife was pregnant and due any time now, so he just wanted to get home as fast as he could. Trip was definitely not the party type. He had picked up the only fantasy novel available in the hotel gift shop, some ridiculous L.H. Franzibald thing, and was probably squirreled away in his room reading like usual. He is such a nerd—and that’s coming from an accountant. Holly definitely gave the impression of being a party girl, but with her, who knew? You could tell me that Holly was helping the nuns at the local orphanage or you could tell me that she was dancing on the bar for tips, and either story would be equally plausible.

Julie would be coming straight back here when she finished harassing the local officials for our money. I had planned on going with her, but since I had been the one to saw off the goat-suckers’ heads, Julie had ordered me to return here and take a shower. Chupacabras are rather nasty little buggers. My girlfriend—correction, fiancée—would be back soon enough. I was still getting used to the idea of being engaged. We’d skip the party scene. For me personally, I had spent too many years bouncing rowdy drunks to ever want to be a rowdy drunk.

It was satisfying to know that it had been me and my friends who had kept any of the tourists below from being killed. Certainly some of them were going to be dead from alcohol poisoning by tomorrow morning, but that sounded like a personal problem to me. As long as none of them were eaten by chupacabras, it was out of my hands.

My back-patting was interrupted by a hard knock on the door. Julie had probably finished collecting our paycheck and returned. I was looking forward to having some alone time with her. If I had been thinking, I would have lit some candles and put on some romantic music or something to take advantage of our free pseudo-vacation, but I was never very good at thinking of those kinds of things beforehand. I left the balcony, closed the double doors, drew the thick curtains mostly shut, and started across the suite. The bass continued to thump through the glass. “Who is it?” I shouted.

“Is that Owen Zastava Pitt?” came the muffled response.

Shoot. Not Julie. The voice was unfamiliar. Frowning, I paused by the bed, picked up one of my STI pistols, the long-slide .45, and held it down by my leg. I was paranoid back when I was an accountant. As a Monster Hunter I took paranoia to whole new levels. We were registered here under the Shackleford name, and Julie was the one who had done the negotiating with the resort. I couldn’t think of anyone other than my teammates here who would know my name. “Yeah? What do you want?”

“Mr. Pitt, I’ve traveled a long way to meet you.” The voice had an English accent, not one of those prim and proper Masterpiece Theater ones, but more like someone who had grown up on the tough side of town. “May I come in?”

One thing that I had learned in this job, you never give an invitation to the unknown. “Look, dude, whatever you’re selling, I don’t want any.” Moving as quietly as possible, I went to the peephole. The mystery man’s face was distorted through the bubble glass. The hall lights must have gone out, and he was cloaked in shadow. I could only see eyes and the outline of a face. He did not look like the friendly type, but then again, neither was I.

He must have caught the darkening of the peephole, and automatically glanced up, scowling as if he was thinking really hard about something. There was no way he could see me, but I felt shivers go down my spine as I just knew he was staring me down. “Ah, yes. You are the one.”

The door shook in its frame.

Startled, I jumped back and raised my pistol. The shaking increased in intensity, threatening to vibrate the door to pieces. There was a crack as wood broke. I snapped the STI into position. “Back off. I’m warning you!”

Every light bulb in the room popped. Sparks flew from the wall sconces, plunging the room into darkness. There was a splintering noise as the doorframe cracked. Truly freaked out at this point, I jerked the trigger and fired two quick rounds through the center of the door. I knew that the sturdy hotel door would barely slow the 230-grain silver/lead bullets, and whoever was pulling my door off the hinges surely must have been hit. The door quit shaking.

Instinctively, I moved back. I had dealt with enough supernatural bullshit by this point of my life that it just seemed like the reasonable thing to do. Hunching down behind the bed, I wished that I was wearing my armor instead of a pair of shorts and a tee shirt. The music from the pool area continued, cranked so absurdly loud that the other guests had probably not even heard the gunshots.

Blinking rapidly as my eyes adjusted to the sudden gloom, my pistol pointed at the door, I waited. There was an M3 flashlight mounted on the dust cover of my .45. I put my finger on the activation switch. Anything that came through that door was going to get lit up, both with blinding light and bullets, maybe even in that order. “Come on . . .” I muttered under my breath.

There was a terrible boom and the door flew from its hinges and crashed to the floor. A giant shape flowed into the room, so vast and tall that it gave the impression of having to duck to clear the frame. It straightened up, towering above me, formless and terrifying, with the consistency of smoke, a blob of pitch-black intimidation. I had never seen anything like it before.

I activated the flashlight, flooding the room with brilliant white light. I blinked in surprise. The giant shadow was gone, and a normal man stood glaring at me. He was skinny, tough-looking, probably in his mid-thirties, with a nearly shaved head, and a mean scowl. He was dressed in black jeans and a gray hooded sweatshirt, casual enough to fit in with the crowd outside. He held up one hand to protect his eyes.

“Don’t move,” I ordered, hunkered low behind the bed, my glowing tritium front sight centered in the middle of his chest.

“So this is the great Hunter,” he said calmly. “For somebody who’s supposed to be so extraordinarily important, you seem rather unimpressive.” He swept his hand downward sharply. The bulb in my flashlight exploded.

“Neat trick,” I said as I pulled the trigger.

But he was already gone. Giant hands wrapped around my biceps, jerked me to my feet and slung me into the wall. A brutal chill flowed up my arm as he yanked the gun from my hand, almost taking my trigger finger with it. I threw an elbow but touched nothing. He hit me again, low in my side, and it rocked me. The blow was cold as ice and hard as a hammer. I gasped in pain.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that I am a mean son of a bitch when it comes to fighting. I can throw down against the best of them, and I had done it in the dark before. There was no time for thought, only action. I came back quick, lashing out at where my opponent should have been. I stumbled into the bed. There was a swish of air as he moved around me. I threw a back fist and missed, and was rewarded with a mighty blow to my shoulders. I kicked out, only to have something cold and impossibly big latch onto my leg. He pulled hard. Off balance, I fell, grunting on impact. This hotel had some solid floors.

He grabbed me by the front of my shirt and lifted me with ease. I tried to grasp his hands to apply a wristlock, but there was nothing there. He crushed me against the wall with brute force, pushing me through a layer of drywall.

“I’m taking you with me, Hunter, whether you like it or not.” The Englishman’s voice seemed to radiate from all around me. There was a frigid weight pushing against my chest as I swung my forearm through it in vain. The darkness swirled around my arm like smoke, and the pressure increased on my lungs, making it impossible to breathe. My back slid up the wall and I left the ground. I panicked, lashed out with my feet, my knees, my elbows, my fists, but it was like moving through water. Whatever had me trapped was incorporeal, and I was blacking out.

“It’s useless,” he chuckled through my futile strikes. “I can’t believe you’re the one. This is pathetic. I was at least expecting a fight. Can you truly be the one who defeated Lord Machado?”

That name. Not again. No, not again. The bad chemical taste of fear was suddenly in my mouth.

My body was hoisted effortlessly into the air, and tossed casually across the room. I slammed into the wall near the bathroom and crumpled to the carpet. My head was swimming but I immediately began to crawl toward my stash of weapons on the bed. Now that I was a few feet away, I could see the giant shadow shape moving across the room, almost as if it were pacing, agitated. My assailant continued to speak. “You must be important though. It took some time for the message to reach me. I was shocked to receive something from the other side. You have no idea how rare it is for the Old Ones to take the time to communicate with this world. Oh, the Dread Overlord is going to be happy when I deliver you. I don’t know how you managed to get on his bad books, but you’re bloody well fucked.”

As the big shadow moved, it passed in front of the sliver of light emanating from the balcony curtains. The shape was gone, and it was just the man again, but as he left the light, his body seemed to drift into smoke and the shadow returned.

Light. I need light. Whatever he was, he only seemed to have a body in the light. “The Old Ones can kiss my ass . . . Stupid mollusks.” I reached the bed, but the shadow was on me in an instant, freezing tendrils clamped around my wrist. He jerked me around and dragged me across the floor toward the exit.

“Time to go. The Overlord awaits.”

I thrashed, fought, but only managed to give myself a nasty carpet burn.

There was a flicker of green light across the room. The black force around my wrist coalesced into normal human fingers. He was flesh again. The shadow man frowned.

Fireworks. They were setting off fireworks at the party.

My bare foot collided with his ribs. He stumbled back from the brutal kick, falling through the bathroom door. With no time to spare, I leapt up, reached the bed, and searched through the dark for a weapon. My hand closed around the leather-wrapped handle of my Ganga Ram, a Himalayan kukri. I jerked the massive knife from the scabbard.

A metallic screeching noise came from the shadows of the bathroom as something was torn free. The next firework blossomed red. The illumination was just enough for me to see the flash of a large white object hurtling at me. Flinging myself down, I could feel the wind as the toilet barely missed my head. It shattered the balcony door, tore through the curtains, and flew into the night.

More light from the party flooded into the room. The black shape glided out of the bathroom toward me, but it shrunk into the form of the Englishman as he left the shadows. He charged with a roar. “Oh, it’s on now,” I grunted as I got back to my feet and drove my knife forward. His face registered the shock as the curved blade of the Ganga Ram slammed through his ribs and out his back. He looked down in surprise. I twisted the blade with all my might, cutting upward through his torso.

I’ve managed to hack a few things to death with this knife over the last year. I should have been splattered with blood, but there was nothing, no liquid at all; it was like I was sawing through a bone-in ham. He glared back up, eyebrows creasing together in rage as more fireworks exploded outside, and clamped a brutal hand around my throat. The air to my brain was choked off as he hoisted me off the floor.

With a foot of steel driven through his guts, he shouted in my face. “I tried to be polite, and now you have to make me do this the hard way. I wanted to deliver you to the Old Ones with your mind in one piece, but nooo, you have to be difficult . . .” I continued to saw the blade back and forth, searching for his heart, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Fine then. We’ll just devour your brain and give the Old Ones a vegetable. They don’t respect humans enough to know the difference anyway.” He paused as his neck suddenly ballooned up like a puffer fish. “Snack time, little friend . . .” He opened his mouth wide, tilting his head back, and some thing came up his throat, black claws pushing past his lips, tiny red eyes blinking into existence over a circular mouth filled with fishhook teeth, crawling, struggling upward, heading right for my face, and strangely enough, I somehow could tell it was hungry.

Screw that!

I yanked the kukri out of his chest, lifted it high overhead, and swung down, chopping his hand off at the wrist. I fell to the floor, gasping for air as the pressure was released from my throat. His running shoe collided with my stomach as he punted me across the room. I rolled painfully to a stop by the balcony, realized that his severed hand was still clawing at my neck, and tore it away. The little shadow monster crawling out of the Englishman’s mouth shrieked in an insanely high pitch as he seemed to choke it back down, and with a hard swallow, it was gone. He raised the stump of his ruined arm. Writhing shadow leapt from the end, instantly twisting and re-forming into a new hand. He balled the fresh hand into a fist, lowered his head, and started toward me.

A man has to know his limitations, and I was way out of my league on this one. Instantly back to my feet, I ran for the balcony, bare feet crunching on a piece of broken glass. “Ouch! Ouch!” Heedless of the danger, I vaulted over the railing and plummeted into the party below.

Landing brutally hard, lightning cascading up my legs, I crashed through a rosebush and onto the porcelain shards of the broken toilet. I lay there, gasping for a moment. As a very large man, gymnastic feats were not really my specialty. I struggled through the plants and tumbled onto the tile by the pool, scattering college students like bowling pins. My left ankle throbbed from the impact, but I stood, hobbling, and raised my kukri, which I had somehow managed not to impale myself on.

I roared up at my room, “Come and get me!” The shadow man was leaning on the railing, glowering down at me, fireworks exploding overhead. There was enough light down here that I somehow knew he wasn’t going to follow. Several partygoers shrieked, spilled their beers, and ran as I shook my kukri with one hand and extended my middle finger with the other. “Yeah, I thought so, you pansy!”

“This isn’t over,” the Englishman shouted over the music. He turned his attention away from me for a moment, and nodded at someone on the far side of the party. I had no idea who or what he was signaling, but it probably wasn’t the wet tee-shirt contest. He returned his attention to me and smiled. “Well done. For now . . . but, dead or alive, I’ll deliver you to the Dread Overlord eventually.”

“Better things than you have tried.”

“Farewell, Hunter. We will meet again . . . assuming you live through the next few minutes, that is.” He faded back into the shadows and was gone.

If I could get to my radio, I could rouse the team and chase this puke down. I took a step forward, flinching violently as the pressure hit a piece of broken glass impaled in my heel. Swearing, I paused to yank the tiny shard out and toss it into the bushes.

“Oh, man, dude, are you okay?” one of the bystanders asked stupidly. “You totally like fell out the window!”

I snarled. He cringed back. The partiers gave me a wide berth. I glared at them angrily and anyone who was even vaguely contemplating saying anything retreated a few more feet. Turning my attention to gathering reinforcements, I started limping for the entrance, but there was a commotion on the far side of the pool. Some of the partygoers were screaming now, real cries of terror that could be heard even above the din of the dance music. I turned back toward them, dripping blood, holding a giant knife, and bellowed, “What now?”

Zombies. Lots of zombies.

The party was officially over.

Someone had backed a package truck up to the entrance of the pool area. The rear doors were open and corpses were tumbling out. These undead were in an advanced state of decomposition. Their flesh was rotten and sloughing off. Many of them were missing eyes, noses, and ears. There were so many that they must have been literally stacked on top of each other inside the truck’s hold.

There are many different variations of undead, with your basic zombie being the simplest of all. A zombie is just an animated corpse, wandering around in search of one thing: flesh. The big problem with zombies is that they multiply like rabbits. Their bites are always eventually fatal, and the bitten always rise as zombies themselves. Their poison travels instantly through the nervous system, and not even amputation of the bitten limb can stop the transformation. Basically, they’re a major pain in the ass, the Monster Hunter’s equivalent to cockroaches. Usually stupid, and normally slow, zombies are not much of a challenge for an experienced Hunter, provided that said Hunter has a decent gun and friends with guns. I was pretty much alone, had just gotten the crap kicked out of me, and was armed with only a knife. The kukri was a great big freaking knife, mind you, but still it was only a knife. Not a good recipe for success.

I could have run away. Even with one ankle already swelling, there was no way they could have caught me. I could rally my team and come back to the pool with some real armament. That would be the safe thing to do. But as I watched, one of the tourists, a guy just barely out of his teens, was pulled down by some of the corpses. They descended on him like a pack of dogs, and his screaming and kicking stopped in an instant. The zombies were falling out the back of the truck into a pile, but spurred on by the nearness of meat, they were driving themselves to their feet and lumbering into the mob. The tourists panicked as they saw their friends getting disemboweled right in front of them. Hundreds of people began to crash into each other, trying to shove their way to safety. The small and the weak were smashed underfoot, just more zombie fodder.

The smell of decay hit my nostrils.

MHI was a private company. We weren’t cops. We weren’t the Fed’s Monster Control Bureau. We were contractors, mercenaries. We had no obligation to protect the innocent unless they were paying us to do it. To jump in was suicide.

“Aw . . . damn it.” I raised my Ganga Ram and charged the truck of undead. I pushed past the fleeing partiers. There were lots of them, but I’m a big man, and when I pick a direction, I’m hard to stop. My bare feet slipped on the water that splashed onto the tile as the crowd knocked people into the pool. The patio was packed. You could feel the panic of the herd.

The mostly sober were able to flee, but those that had been in the water were sitting ducks. A young woman was trying to climb out, but one of the zombies had grabbed her by the hair and was tugging her toward its jagged mouth, maggots wriggling in its face. I lopped the creature’s arm off at the elbow. The girl flew back with a splash. The zombie turned automatically toward me and I removed the top of its head right above the eye sockets. It went limp. It pays to know your monsters. With zombies, destroy the brain, and they go right down.

Another zombie saw me, locked on, and charged. This one had been an old woman once. “Whoa!” I jumped back as it swiped at me. These zombies were fast. I had dealt with regular zombies before, but I’d only heard rumors of faster ones. It kept coming, head bent, lipless mouth open and snapping. If those teeth broke my skin, I was worse than dead. I shattered one of its knees in a cloud of dust with my bloody heel and it toppled into the pool.

Hacking and slashing, zombies to the front, zombies to the side. Have to protect these kids. An ironic thought considering most of them were about my age. A man went down with one of the undead on his back, biting at his neck. They were too far away; I wouldn’t make it in time. I spied a half-empty beer bottle lying on its side, scooped it up and threw it at the creature. The bottle shattered over the thing’s skull, but it was far too distracted by food. The man screamed as the zombie latched onto his throat. The scream bubbled off into a gurgle.

I lowered my shoulder and dived, crashing into the undead, feeling its bones snap beneath papery skin. I rolled to my knees much faster than it did, and with a brutal chop sent the zombie’s head spinning away from its neck. My blade came away coated in spiderwebs and blackened ooze with the consistency of mud. These zombies were far from fresh. I gagged on the stink.

The creatures were everywhere. There must have been fifty in that truck, and already they were multiplying, as some of the tourists’ bodies began to convulse. The music was still playing. Fireworks were still erupting. The scene was utter chaos. If we didn’t stop these things now, we were going to have a full-fledged outbreak, right in a population center, and that’s a nightmare. A nearby girl, obviously stoned out of her mind, began to giggle and point at the sillier-looking zombies, oblivious to the other one that was heading right for her. Friggin’ stoners. I started toward her.

A hand locked around my injured ankle with a grip like iron. Looking down, I saw the man who had been bitten. He pulled at me, his mouth open, hungry, his brain already dead, his system now overcome with only one impulse . . . food . . . me. That was near instantaneous reanimation after death, the sign of a bad strain. “Sorry, dude.” I bent over and smashed open the top of his head. I was instantly splattered with brains. After two swings he quit moving. The fresh ones are harder to shut down. The distraction distracted me long enough that by the time I was done, stoner chick was missing her nose. “Damn it!”

There was a gunshot. A security guard had come out from the hotel to see what the commotion was. His eyes were wide, staring as the creatures soaked up bullets and kept coming. One of the shots missed and, thankfully, put the bleating stereo out of commission. The patio was now quiet except for the moaning of the recently deceased and the screams of the fleeing.

“Shoot them in the head! Cabeza!” I shouted, leaping over dead and twitching bodies, running for the hapless guard. “Despidalos en las cabezas!” I took the nearest zombie from behind, driving my blade through its dusty throat and wrenching the head aside. The security guard fell to his knees, his hands stretched in front of him as a zombie in a yellowed wedding dress bore down on him. Too far. My Ganga Ram was not balanced for throwing, but I hurled it end over end to strike the zombie in the head.

Unfortunately it hit handle first. That got the creature’s attention long enough. I reached it as it turned its attention back to the guard, grabbed it by the bottom of its rotting jaw and the top of its head and wrenched the skull until the spine broke and its open eye sockets were staring at me. The zombie flopped to the ground. Apparently that works too.

Breathing hard, I picked up my knife. The pool, which now had a definite pink tint to it, was cleared out except for a few zombies wandering around the bottom and a couple of torn bodies bobbing on the surface. Everything that was still alive had run. The remaining original zombies were venturing into the resort, chasing after the scattering crowds, spreading their curse. The recently dead were just starting to rise and would be following shortly. The resort was right on the edge of town, and there were fifty thousand people sleeping down there. This could get real ugly, real fast.

The guard crossed himself as he surveyed the blood-soaked patio. “Madre de Dios!” I had to remind myself that regular people were always shocked by how fast the carnage happened. I guess I’d kind of gotten used to it.

“Yeah, okay, if you aren’t going to use that . . .” I retrieved his gun. It was an ancient Smith Military & Police revolver, in obviously neglected condition. I opened the rusty cylinder and ejected the empties. “Um . . . cartuchos?” The guard reached into his pocket with one shaking hand, and dropped six tarnished .38 special cartridges onto the ground. He got up and ran for the exit. I can’t say I blamed him. I knelt down and gathered up the cartridges.

“Z! Look out!” There was a sharp crack of a gunshot and something warm splattered all over my back. The fresh corpse fell onto the patio, skull smashed wide open. “Zombies? How the hell are there zombies?”

“Holly. I’m glad to see you,” I answered as I snapped the cylinder shut on the old revolver. Holly Newcastle was running across the tile, rifle in hand, and about half of her armor flapping unbuckled around her torso. “We got a problem.”

“Ya think?” she exclaimed, as she turned and mercilessly blasted the rising undead tourists. Holly had certainly become a better shot over the last year. I stuck my fingers in my ears to block out the deafening noise. She had put in her electronic earpieces, but mine were still up in my room. Her .308 Vepr was a loud rifle. “I was down on the beach, saw a bunch of people come out screaming, so I grabbed my stuff. What the hell’s going on? Where are the others?” I realized she was wearing nothing but a yellow bikini and flip-flops under her hastily donned vest.

“I don’t know.” I heard a chattering noise from the street on the other side of the parked truck, a suppressed subgun. “Well, there’s Trip. Looks like he’s got that end covered.” I surveyed the area. There were two other paths out of the pool area between the buildings. “You follow those, I’ll go this way. I don’t have my radio, so try to raise the others. We’ve got to take them all before it spreads out of control.”

“Got it,” she said as she rocked a fresh magazine into her gun. “So how would you tell the locals ‘Go inside, lock your doors, there are zombies out.’ . . . I knew I should have taken Spanish.”

“Vaya adentro. Cierren sus puertas. Um . . . didn’t exactly cover this in high school . . .” I speak five languages fluently—Spanish isn’t one of them. “Hay muertos andandos afuera. And one more thing, watch out for an Englishman, blond guy, short hair, mean-looking, dark clothing,” I ordered. “If you see him, shoot him a lot. And use your flashlight.”

“Huh?” I knew that Holly had no moral compunctions about killing anybody, but even she usually needed a reason.

“I’ll explain later, but these are his zombies.”

“Got it.” She turned and ran toward the latest screams.

I went in the other direction, up the stairs, and back into the hotel. The building was nice, new, modern, and up until a few minutes ago, very clean. There was a splattering of fluids, fresh blood, and discarded tissue from the undead staining the carpet. I held the Smith in my right and my kukri in my left as I followed the obvious trail. I kicked myself for not asking Holly if she had a spare gun. My pulse pounded in my head, and I tried to keep scanning every corner, waiting for something to pop out.

I heard a series of loud booms ahead of me, coming from the direction of the front desk. Somebody had a shotgun. I ran faster, pain throbbing in my twisted ankle with each step. I could hear the hungry moaning. They were right ahead of me.

The undead were clustered together, trying to force their way through the main doors and out into the crowded streets. There were at least a dozen of them, some old, some new, all ugly. A lone uniformed Federale stood in their way, blasting them with a pump shotgun. Their bodies were falling, creating a choke point at the entrance. His shotgun clicked empty, and too terrified to notice, he kept on pumping and dry-firing.

I charged the undead from behind. I had no idea how off the sights on the Smith were, so I used it as a contact weapon. Press muzzle into zombie’s head. Pull trigger. Repeat. One of the six corroded cartridges failed to fire, but another pull of the trigger put my last bullet through the lucky monster’s sinuses. Flinging the empty revolver at the head of another zombie, I stepped over the fallen bodies and started swinging away with my knife.

The rearmost creatures moved against me, reaching, chomping, eyes wide. They were new, and only minutes before had been guests of the resort, happy, carefree, normal kids, with normal lives. I shoved those thoughts aside and went about my gruesome business. My knife was heavy, curved. It was designed for taking off limbs, and I put it to work.

Teeth. Snapping closed inches from my arms. I reversed my blade and cleaved the jaw off of a zombie with a Chico State tee-shirt. I realized I was screaming, bellowing something incomprehensible. The cop had regained his senses enough to reload his shotgun. He fired and I was concussively sprayed with brains. I stepped aside, hoping not to catch a stray piece of buckshot, and the final zombies followed me, having zeroed in on the scent of my flesh.

There were three of them, and they were piling on top of each other to reach me. I backed away, swinging at anything that presented itself, leaving fingers and the occasional hand on the ground. The zombies didn’t seem to notice. My feet slipped on the now sodden carpet and I slid against the check-in desk. Lunging forward, I slammed the tip of my knife through a nasal cavity, and then jumped back as the final two grabbed at me. My knife handle, slick with gore, slipped from my fingers, still lodged in the falling zombie’s skull. Now I was really hosed.

I grabbed the desk and vaulted over it, landing painfully on the other side. The zombies flung themselves at the counter and started to wiggle over, their fingers and stumps flailing at me. Lying on my back, I kicked one of the things in the face hard enough to put bone fragments through its brain, launching it back over the counter. I leaned forward, swatted aside the last zombie’s arm, avoided the snapping teeth, grabbed it by the side of the head and twisted. The blood-soaked mess was too slippery for a solid grasp, so I shoved my thumbs through the squishy eye sockets for leverage and twisted violently to the side. There was a brutal crunch and the final undead flopped down, twitching.

“I . . . hate . . . zombies . . .” I lay on the floor in a rapidly spreading pool of blood as the last corpse was drained by gravity. The lobby was quiet. The clock on the wall read 12:21. I gradually pushed myself up and glanced over the counter. It looked clear. There was a pile of bodies heaped in the entryway, but none of them had made it to the street. Gunfire could be heard in multiple directions now, so hopefully my team had gotten on the outbreak quick enough to keep it contained. The sucky part now was going to be isolating the bitten survivors. I had to get to my radio.

The Mexican cop stepped gingerly through the shattered window. His Mossberg was shaking and he was hyperventilating. I recognized the feeling, the feeling that a regular person gets when they find out that the world they live in was not really as it was supposed to be. It could be a real bummer. I walked slowly around the counter, my dripping hands open in front of me. I knew that I had to look terrible, covered in all manner of disgusting stuff, and I didn’t want him to mistake me for another zombie.

“Hey, amigo. I’m a friend,” I said calmly.

He looked at me in shock, leveled the muzzle at my chest and pulled the trigger. The click of the firing pin landing on the empty chamber was extremely loud. I jumped about two feet straight up.

“Whoa! I’m human! Easy!” I shouted, raising my hands high. “I’m one of the good guys. Soy un hombre bueno.”

He nodded slowly, some comprehension dawning in his shocked eyes. I nodded back. Sirens approached. A green truck with Policia on the side screeched to a halt in front of the hotel and men with M-16s jumped out of the back. I looked back to the cop, ready to congratulate him on a job well done, but the last thing I saw was the butt of his shotgun sailing toward my forehead.

Chapter 2

“Do you know what the penalty for having illegal firearms in Mexico is, Señor Pitt?”

“Like a million years per bullet?” I responded. The police interrogator shook his head sadly, nodded at his subordinate, and my head snapped back as the junior policeman hit me. He was wearing some sort of weighted leather glove, and it hurt pretty bad. I leaned my head forward and spit blood on the plastic table. Somehow I had managed to cultivate a hobby of being beaten up by law enforcement officers. On the bright side, this guy was a featherweight compared to my old buddy Special Agent Franks. Now that guy knew how to beat a confession out of somebody.

“You are being held on suspicion of murder, Señor Pitt. I have over seventy bodies to explain, and somebody will be held accountable. I assure you that our justice system is not as lenient as your own.” I didn’t think that that many tourists had been bitten, so they must be charging me for the original zombies too. I suppose the fact that they had obviously been dead for months wasn’t going to help me.

I had no idea where I was, or how long I had been out, having woken up in the back of a truck with a sack tied over my head. Since the air tasted like burning tires, I was guessing that I had been taken inland, and if I had been unconscious long enough, I might even be in Mexico City. The interrogator’s English was excellent. He was short, pudgy, with a bad comb-over, but his manner indicated that he was not a man to be trifled with. “Now why did you have multiple firearms and illegal military equipment in your room?”

“About that, any chance I can get some of those guns back? The shotgun and the matching set of .45s? Those have sentimental value . . .” I went back to the question before he had the chance to signal the other cop to hit me again. “Really, like I already said, contact the consulate. We have written permission from your government. I’m here as an independent security consultant. Our weapons were allowed per the terms of the contract.”

“And what exactly was your duty in Mexico?”

“I already told you I’m not at liberty to disclose that.” The Mexican government had a policy similar to the United States’ official position: Monsters Do Not Exist. The rules are idiotic, but for those of us who made our living cashing in on these governments’ bounties for unnatural creatures, we always had to be careful to tiptoe around the truth with the general public. It may have been evil, it may have been stupid, but it was policy. And the people who enforced that policy had no problem shooting people like me if we talked too much. “Just call your superiors. This is all a misunderstanding.”

He nodded at the other police officer, and I braced myself for the impact. This time he hit me above the kidney. I grunted. It hurt, but he didn’t really drive the fist in there. When you’re hitting somebody in the body, you need to punch through the target, not at it. Amateur.

“We already contacted them.” The interrogator took out a pack of cigarettes, shook one out, and lit it with a gold-plated Zippo. “Sadly, they said that they had no knowledge of you, your organization, or why you are here.”

It sounded like MHI had just been disavowed. Not good. “Well . . . there’s been a mistake then.”

“Certainly, merely just a, how would you say? Clerical error.” He nodded, and this time I was pelted across the back of my head. At least the guy hitting me was getting some variety. This was bad, very bad. There was no way that the Mexican government had just forgotten about a team of American Monster Hunters. They were going to deny that they had ever contacted us. Better that than to admit there were supernatural creatures on their soil. They were probably already spinning some story to cover up the zombie outbreak and I was willing to bet that my team wasn’t going to fit in with the official version of events.

“I can show you our copies of the contract, signed by your state governor. All I need is one phone call.”

“I think not. My superiors and the governor’s office have already confirmed that they have signed nothing. You are a liar and I’m tiring of this game.”

Options were starting to run thin and I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in a Mexican jail. So I guess that meant it was time to see if the interrogator could handle the truth. “Okay, I’ll talk.”

“I’m waiting.”

I gestured with my head at the other cop. It was the best I could do since my forearms and ankles had been zip-tied to the sturdy chair. “Does this guy speak English?”

The interrogator held up his thumb and forefinger. “Un poco, a little.”

My whole body ached. At least if I could get rid of Cop #2 they’d quit hitting me for a while. “You might want him to wait outside. You don’t want what I’m about to tell you to get out, if you know what I mean.”

The interrogator slowly exhaled a thick cloud of smoke. The three of us were in a small, plain room. The only furniture was my chair, his chair, and a cheap plastic table. There was a bloody phone book, a pair of needle-nose pliers, and a five-gallon bucket of water sitting in the corner. I didn’t want to guess what those were for. Finally he gestured for the younger cop to leave. I heard the snap of a crisp salute, and then the opening and closing of the door behind me.

“Any chance we can settle this with some good old-fashioned bribery?” I asked. “My company’s very generous.”

“Mordida? Maybe if I only had one or two bodies. But this many? And half of them Americans? I’m afraid not. You see, someone must be executed for this. Tell me what I want to know, and it might not be you.”

“Gotcha. Figured as much, but you never know until you ask. I didn’t think you had the death penalty here.”

He shrugged. “There is the unofficial death penalty. So let us continue, Señor Pitt. Who are you?”

“I work for a company called Monster Hunter International. We’re based out of Alabama. We specialize in discreetly handling monster-related problems.” He stared at me blankly. “Monsters . . . For example, we were paid to come here to deal with a pack of goat-suckers.”

“Chupacabras?” he asked slowly.

“Yes. A few weeks ago, some hikers were killed at the resort, and once those things taste people, they don’t go back. We were hired because it was thought more deaths would be detrimental to tourism.” I suppose a massive zombie attack rendered that a moot point. “The company I work for is considered the best in the world when it comes to dealing with things like this.”

“I see . . . and the reason that I have never heard of this is . . .” His voice betrayed no emotion.

“Government-mandated secrecy. Those of us who have monster experience are usually warned by the authorities to keep our mouths shut. That has been the policy for forever. If the regular population were to know that all of the stuff from the myths, and the fairy tales, and the bad movies was real, well, you can imagine the panic and the trouble it would cause.”

“And you believe this?”

I paused. I didn’t know if he asked if I believed in the government’s policies, or if I believed in what I was just telling him. I decided to run with the first option. “No, I think the policy is stupid. People should know the truth. Instead, to keep the problem in check, most governments have some sort of system to keep the unnatural populations down. In my country there is a bounty system administered by the Treasury Department. It’s called PUFF.”

“Puff?”

“Perpetual Unearthly Forces Fund. It pays money to any private citizen who kills a monster on the PUFF list. My company specializes in working the PUFF list, and also in private contracts from municipalities, companies, and private individuals, like your wealthy resort owners. See, lots of important people know about monsters, but they have to keep it on the down low, if you know what I mean. So they call people like us. Let’s see, PUFF was started by Teddy Roosevelt, uh . . . he was our president back in—”

“I know who Theodore Roosevelt was. I attended UCLA.”

“Go Trojans,” I said.

“You’re thinking of the wrong school.” He sighed and rubbed his temple with his fingers. “Please continue . . .”

“I guess you don’t want to hear the history of professional Monster Hunting . . .”

He casually examined the end of his burning cigarette. “No, I really want to know about last night.” He glanced absently at his watch. “Fourteen hours ago. What happened at the hotel. There were many deaths, and I wish to know why.”

“That was not our doing.”

“I have witnesses who saw you chopping people up with a machete.”

“Those weren’t people. Those were zombies.”

“Zombies . . .”

“Yes. The walking dead. The man who created them, the man you are looking for is an Englishman.” I proceeded to give him a rough description of the real villain. I didn’t know what the Englishman was, but he’d been there for me, which meant that the carnage at the hotel was partially my fault. “Bastard works for the Old Ones,” I muttered under my breath.

“What is an Old One, Señor Pitt?” The interrogator casually reached under his chair and pulled out a manila file folder.

Screw it. It was obvious he thought I was nuts, might as well give him a good reason. I just needed to stay in one piece long enough for my team to find me. “They’re a race of ancient creatures. Evil and ugly.”

He pulled an ornate pen from his pocket and began to make notes in the folder. “And how will we know when we find these Old Ones?”

My father had always warned me that I didn’t know when to shut up. “The real thing? They’re hard to miss. The ones you have to worry about are their servants. Last summer . . .” I caught myself.

“Last summer what?”

I shrugged. He already thought I was a complete whackadoo, so what did I have to lose? Crazy prisoners probably got their own cells. I was guessing that you wouldn’t stick them out with the regular population. “Remember last summer, with the missing five minutes?”

“Yes,” he replied. Of course he did. Everybody on Earth had experienced it. Five minutes of time had been erased as if they had never existed. It had caused a global panic. People had instantly found themselves where they had been five minutes before, but with the memory of what had transpired during that missing time still intact. Pandemonium ensued. Thousands had been born twice, others had died twice, and others still, like myself, had died, only to have those moments erased to be given another chance.

“That was caused by the Old Ones. Last summer, one of their minions arranged for them to break into this world.”

“And did these . . . Old Ones . . . succeed?”

I snorted. “Of course not. If they had, you would have known it. But that rift in time, the missing five minutes, was caused by somebody screwing around with one of their ancient artifacts.” I didn’t mention that that had been me, or that apparently I was the only human in the world with the ability to do so. They had manipulated me in the hopes that I would open the door for them, and they had almost succeeded.

The interrogator leaned back heavily in his chair. “Scientists are now saying that it had something to do with solar radiation. Increased activity causing a distortion in the atmosphere, along with psychological delusions of missing time caused by imbalances in our brain chemistry.”

“Yeah, I saw that on the Discovery Channel too, but I’m telling you, it was the Old Ones. That was no delusion. Those things are out there, and they are some bad mothers. This guy with the zombies, he works for them, and if he works for them, then we’ve got a serious problem on our hands.”

“Do we?” He continued writing. From my zip-tied vantage point, I couldn’t see what his notes said, but I was sure that it was something to the effect that I was totally screwed and was going to be enjoying a long stay in the Mexican penal system.

“Yes. They’ll stop at nothing to get what they want. Those undead you had crawling all over that resort were a joke compared to what these things can whip up.” He cocked his head to the side and studied me intently. I could tell that I had lost him, but at least they weren’t hitting me with that phonebook. “Talk to a doctor, take a look at those bodies. They’ve been dead for a lot longer than a day, but they were moving around. I’m sure you have plenty of witnesses to that. You do a little looking, and you can probably find the cemetery where all those bodies were stolen from.”

He clicked his pen and dropped it back in his pocket. “I don’t know how you dug up all of those corpses and spread them out like you did, but let me assure you, Señor Pitt, pretending to be insane will not get you off in this country. I have had enough of your nonsense. You disgust me, and your fairy tales will not save you. You are nothing but a filthy murderer, and you think that you can come here and spin these ridiculous lies? Do you think we are stupid?” He stood, adjusted his tie, and spit in my face. I could not move my arm to wipe it away, and I could feel it slowly drip down my forehead and into my eyes. The beating was one thing, but that was too much. If I hadn’t been tied to the chair, I would have broken the interrogator in half. The door opened behind me and other policemen entered the room. The interrogator switched back to Spanish, but I could understand him relatively well.

“I’ve had enough for today. We’ll work on him again in the morning. Put this piece of shit in Section Six with the other animals. Let them teach him some humility.”

Section Six was one large room, subdivided into a bunch of ten-foot-square pens, each enclosed with thick iron bars and chain-link fencing. There was a path between the pens where the guards patrolled with truncheons ready. Small naked bulbs dangled in each alley. There were two sets of cots in each cell, with anywhere from five to seven prisoners shoved into each. My cell had all of the comforts of home, including a bucket, and not much else. You can guess what the bucket was for.

It was dark, and it stunk of sweat, and fear, and violence. I don’t think that Amnesty International ever spent much time in this place. I sat cross-legged in the corner of one of the cells. The four other men who shared my tiny space sat across from me, glaring sullenly. Section Six seemed to be where they kept all of the badasses, lunatics, and that general selection of humanity that you just didn’t invite to the church picnic. There were incoherent cries and shouts all across the large space. It was not exactly pleasant.

A stocky man with one milky eye, and missing an ear, whispered to his buddy in Spanish. “You think he understands us?”

“I don’t know . . . he don’t look too smart,” answered the prettier of the two, an obese man with a spiderweb tattooed across his face. “Look at him. He’s got to be messed up in the head. He just keeps staring at us.”

The reason I was staring at them was because I had to really concentrate to understand what they were saying. I had practiced up on my Spanish before taking this trip. I have a gift for languages, but the gutter slang these guys spoke was terrible by any standard. I could keep up, barely. Strangely enough, having magically learned archaic Portuguese last summer was really helping.

“They said he was an American.”

“He ain’t one of us, so I don’t care,” said the third, a skinny guy who sounded like he had tuberculosis. “Soon as he goes to sleep, I’m gonna shiv him good.”

“Jorge, now why are you gonna go and do that?”

Jorge shrugged. “I like stabbing people.”

“I don’t know, man. He’s one big dude. Look at him. That ain’t no regular American who got drunk in some whorehouse and wound up here. That dude is gonna tear you up, man. He’s got muscles like a luchador.”

I just kept glaring. I figured my best bet was to appear as mean as possible. A wise old gunfighter had once told me that if you looked like food, you were going to get eaten, and I really didn’t want to end up as prison food.

My body ached, and I was in a really foul mood. They had not even treated my cuts from when I had jumped off the balcony, and they were now big grisly scabs that I was sure were going to end up infected. My left ankle was badly swollen, the little puncture in my heel was driving me nuts, and most embarrassingly, after I had been squirted down with a fire hose and had lice poison dumped on me, the biggest set of prison clothes they had for me were about two sizes too small. Not a lot of 4X convicts in Mexico, apparently. The last thing you want to do when you are already in a bad mood is try to wear pants that are too tight.

“I’m telling you, man, I think he understands us. Look at those eyes. He’s crazy pissed.”

“See, that’s why I need to hurry up and shiv him.”

“Jorge, he’s gonna rip your balls off.”

“Shut up, Mateo, quit being such a wimp.”

My options were rather limited. I was in jail. The Mexican government was denying that they had given me permission to be here with enough munitions to arm a small rebellion. I had no idea where my team was, or what shape they were in, or even if they had all survived the outbreak. There was some sort of crazy shadow freak out looking to snag me for the Old Ones. I hadn’t been offered a lawyer or a phone call, so I doubted that MHI knew where I was either. And the lice powder really itched.

“What do you think, Esteban?” asked Spiderweb Face.

The last man looked up from his bunk. He was older, and had obviously been through some rough times. He had scars all along his face and arms, his hair was gray and long, and his skin had the texture of leather. I knew that he had to be somebody special, since he got his own bunk, and none of this band of thugs messed with him. He studied me silently, and the others waited for him to pass judgment.

Finally he spoke, not to them, but rather to me, loud enough that everyone could hear. “I heard from one of the guards, you hacked up like a hundred people with a machete, arms and legs and heads everywhere, even ate some of them. Killed some cops too. Burned a hotel down. Took twenty Federales to take you out . . . You speak Spanish?”

“Un poco.”

“I figured you did.” He put his head back down.

“Oh shit, man,” said Jorge. “I was just kidding about the shiv thing. You know, mess with the new guy and all that.”

I gave Jorge my most menacing look. He cowered back into the corner. Now, most people would not react well to being put into the ultraviolent, dog-eat-dog world that was a prison full of murderers and psychopaths, but hey, I’d killed a werewolf with my bare hands. I figured that I would fit in just fine here.

“Say, Esteban,” I asked over the shouting from the next cell. “Where are we?”

“You don’t know?” His eyes peeked out from under his mane of hair. I could tell he was a sharp one.

“Nah . . . I was pretty worn out from chopping up all those people. You know how it is.” If you have a rep, you might as well run with it.

“You’re in Tijira Prison. This, my friend, is a very bad place.”

“I’ve seen worse,” I lied.

“I’m sure you have. Me personally, I’m here because I avenged my wife’s honor against the filthy tyrants, but alas, I failed. May God rest her soul,” he said solemnly. Some of the thugs crossed themselves.

“Sorry to hear that.”

Without skipping a beat he switched to English. “Naw, just pulling your leg. I’m from San Diego. I was flying coke across the border, got back to TJ, didn’t have enough to pay the right people, and they stuck me in here rather than just shooting me. Some days I wish they would have just killed me and got it over with. These morons here think I’m Zorro or something so they leave me alone. If a Yankee wants to survive in here, you need a reputation, so I’ll back you up, you back me up.”

“Good deal.” I held out my hand. He reached over and shook it with a firm grip. “Owen Zastava Pitt.”

“Zapato? Like a shoe?”

“No, Zastava. It’s Serbian.”

“You don’t look Serbian.”

In other words, I was way too brown. “I’m a little bit of everything.” That much was true. I always checked the Other box on any official type forms. “Look, Esteban . . .”

“You can call me Steve, the Esteban thing is for these guys.” He nodded his head at the other criminals. “The story is that I shot it out with the cops and the army to avenge them burning my village or something. If you don’t get respect in here, you don’t last long.”

“Okay, Steve, my company will get me out of here. We’re worth a lot of money, and can get the best lawyers. I just need to survive long enough for that to happen, so I appreciate the help. You scratch my back, I scratch yours, know what I mean?”

“That’s cool. I’m still waiting for trial myself. I haven’t even been arraigned yet. I’m hoping I get my turn in front of the judge before too long.”

“How long have you been here?”

He looked up at the ceiling as he gave it some thought.

“Three years come June.”

A cold weight settled into the bottom of my stomach. “No kidding?”

“No kidding. Welcome to Tijira.”

They had taken my watch, but I guessed that it was about 9 p.m. when the guards killed most of the lights in Section Six. Steve, or Esteban, as the local fauna knew him, and I were still talking quietly, me to pass the nervous time, and him because I was the first other American he had seen in a year. The previous guy had lasted all of thirty minutes before somebody had decided they didn’t particularly like gringos in their jail. Steve said that it had taken weeks for the bloodstains to fade. He was a nice enough guy for a prison-hardened drug smuggler, and talking to him sure beat talking to One Ear, Jorge, or Spiderweb.

“So, Owen, you got a wife?”

“Nope, but I’m engaged.”

“That’s great. What’s she like?”

I tried to make myself more comfortable on the bug-ridden cot. Since I was now the new boss of this cell, I got the luxury accommodations. Sometimes being a muscle-bound behemoth paid dividends. Poor One Ear had to sleep on the floor now. “She’s awesome. Smart, funny, tough, brave. Her name’s Julie. Julie Shackleford.”

“Is she hot?”

“Dude . . . please.”

“Sorry, but I’ve kind of been in jail for a while,” he explained. “It’s been so damn long since I’ve seen a woman . . .” He trailed off. I just hoped that MHI hurried up and found me soon. I did not sign on to this gig to end up spending my golden years in a place like this. “So what’s she look like?” he asked as he lay back on his bunk and closed his eyes. I admit, I could have been offended, but more than anything, I just felt pity.

“Well, she’s pretty,” I answered. That was an understatement. I had been infatuated with her since the day that we had met. Julie was the best thing that had ever happened to me, and almost losing her had been the worst. “Real tall for a girl, actually. Kind of buff; she works out a lot. Long brown hair, has the prettiest brown eyes I’ve ever seen, wears glasses . . .”

“Chicks with glasses are hot.”

“I’m with you there, bro, I’m with you there. In fact, she’s probably out there looking for me right now.”

“Here? In Mexico?”

“Of course. She’s a Monster Hunter too.”

“Look, I already said that I would back you on the whole crazy-machete-killer thing. You don’t need to keep up the monster movie shtick.”

I laughed out loud. Tubercular Jorge grumbled at me from his corner. “I wasn’t joking. She’s a Hunter, and she’s good, real good. On the business end, she does most of our contract negations, and she’s a real expert when it comes to monster lore. On the operational side she’s our team sharpshooter. I’ve seen her plug a lindwyrm through the eyestalk from a moving helicopter. And tell you what, she can run a pistol like you wouldn’t believe. Anyways, I’m a lucky guy. Somehow I’ve got a Southern belle, sniper, art babe to fall in love with me. I don’t know how I pulled that off.” That much was true. I still couldn’t figure out exactly how a blundering schlub like me had managed to impress somebody like her.

Julie had been one of the first Hunters that I had met. She had come to my home to recruit me while I was still recovering from my initial monster encounter. It had been love at first sight. For me at least. Thankfully, she had come around eventually. All I had had to do was take on all the armies of evil and save the world to impress her.

“Sounds like you guys make a . . . interesting couple.” Steve sounded slightly nervous.

“In fact she’s been doing this way longer than I have. The company is a family business, her grandpa is the CEO. They’ve been into this for over a hundred years now. She was born for it. Killing monsters is what the Shacklefords eat, sleep, live and breathe.”

“Sounds like you have some psycho in-laws.”

There was a long uncomfortable pause as I thought about what to say. I rubbed the huge welt on my forehead from the shotgun butt. How would I describe my soon-to-be relatives?

“Oh, touched a nerve, I see.”

“You have no idea,” I muttered. If there was an international award for who had the worst mother-in-law, I would be a sure winner. “Her parents used to be Hunters too, really good people from what I understand, but . . . ah hell, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Oh come on, like I believe any of your crap anyway.”

“Never mind them. Let’s just say that they’re pure evil now.”

“They can’t be that bad. I’m sure over time you guys will be able to work out your differences.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” I responded. I rolled over on my side as something that felt suspiciously like a centipede crawled between my shoulder blades.

The few remaining light bulbs flickered a few times then died. A murmur rose from the prisoners. “Power’s out again,” Steve stated the obvious. There was an electric wailing sound in the distance, high-pitched and whiny. It sounded three times and then died abruptly. “Guess not. That’s the alarm.” Steve rose from his cot and went to the bars. All the other men were moving as well. Anything that broke the monotony of Section Six was a major deal for them. “Something’s up.”

I sat up. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know, man.” He turned to rapid-fire Spanish and ordered the thugs to quiet down. They sullenly obeyed.

The room was very dark. I felt a tinge of fear. Maybe the shadow man had come back for me. There were only a few small windows set high in the walls of the large space, but the moon was fat and bright tonight, so some pale light was spilling down in beams. I scanned the bars. I could see the movement of men in the other cages, stalking, curious, nervous.

Gunfire.

I stood. If I knew anything in this world, I knew guns, and that was the sharp crack of a high-powered rifle. Then another, and another, then the gun was silent.

“Somebody trying to break out?” Jorge asked as he absently scratched himself. “Don’t sound like he made it too far.”

It was quiet. Even the crazies who had been blubbering constantly had shut up.

“Man, nobody makes it over the wall here. Poor fool,” One Ear said.

More gunfire. Now there were other rifles, some of them crackling through long bursts of full-auto, and the thumping of shotguns. A flashlight briefly illuminated the cell and then swung wildly away as a guard sprinted past us. The prisoners began to yell at him, but he just kept running until the flashlight disappeared as he left the room.

Could it be Julie and my team, come to rescue me? No way. Not like this. We killed monsters. We tried real hard not to hurt people. If they knew I was here, the rescue would involve lawyers and bribery, not guns. Something else was going on. It had to be the guy from the hotel.

“Anybody got a light?” I shouted. “A lighter, a flashlight, anything.”

“Huh?”

“Something that can make light. Sparks, fire, I don’t care. Anything.”

Jorge held up a lighter. “It’ll cost you.” He smiled maliciously.

I was across the cell in an instant. He tried to move his hand back, but I locked onto his wrist. He tried to struggle so I wrapped my other hand around the precious lighter. I broke his thumb as I yanked it free. He squealed.

“Shut it!” I shouted. I turned to Steve. His eyes were very wide in the moonlight. “Whatever happens, stay calm. If you see some freaky shit, stay calm. If a great big shadow comes to get me, use this.” I pressed the lighter into his hand. “Wait ’til he comes in our cell. His attention will be on me. Just flick it on. Then I can hit him. Understand?”

“What are you talking about?” The gunfire was becoming more sporadic, as if there were fewer guards left able to shoot. There were several pops from a small-caliber pistol, seemingly just outside in the hallway leading into Section Six. Somebody in the hall began to scream. I snapped my head in that direction. The scream tapered off into a gurgle and then nothing.

“Just do it.” I stepped back from Steve and oriented myself toward the entrance, preparing for battle. There was no way I was getting taken to the Old Ones. I rotated my head and cracked the vertebrae in my neck. My adrenaline was beginning to flow, my breathing unconsciously quickening, filling my blood with extra oxygen. My vision tunneled in on the gray shape of the door, and the sounds of the room seemed to become muted. Outwardly I was calm. Inside I was terrified. If the shadow man came for me here, I had nowhere to run.

The others were worried now. They knew that something was horribly amiss. I heard prayers coming from men who looked like they had not spoken to God in a very long time. The temperature began to drop. Section Six had been warm and humid. It came so suddenly that it took precious seconds for my mind to recognize the brutal, unnatural cold. My breath hissed out as steam in the moonlight. The other men in my cell began to unconsciously crowd in the corner away from the entrance.

The heavy iron door that secured Section Six creaked open on rusted hinges. A hush fell over the room. A lone figure stepped into the blue moonlight. High heels clicked on the concrete floor. I could make out a familiar feminine shape silhouetted in the faint light, and for a split second I thought it was Julie. Tall, perfectly proportioned, shapely, but the supernatural cold told me I was wrong. A larger figure entered the room behind the woman. A broad-shouldered man, almost as tall as me.

“Oh no,” I said with much greater volume than I intended.

“Owen, what the hell’s going on?” Steve was terrified, and he was hard to understand over the chattering of his teeth. The temperature had dropped to near freezing.

Approaching, they passed directly under one of the windows. I was right. It was them. The woman started toward my cell, walking delicately down the path between the cages. She was achingly beautiful, perfect. But sex appeal to a vampire was like one of those deep-ocean fish with the bioluminescent light bulbs dangling over their jaws, just an efficient way to catch their prey. The heels continued to click. The brute glided silently behind her. I didn’t take my eyes off of the approaching pair. “Remember when I told you about my in-laws?”

Steve nodded quickly in the dark.

“They’re here.”

Some poor idiot who hadn’t seen a woman in decades made a horrible mistake. Unable to control himself with the ethereal beauty passing before him, he opened his big, stupid mouth. The language was such profane slang that I couldn’t have translated it even if I had been able to understand the lowest level of gutter Spanish.

Susan Shackleford paused before answering the man. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Her Southern accent was obvious, her voice perfect. When she smiled I could see the white of her teeth. Chills ran down my spine.

“Yeah, puta, I show you good time!” Some of his buddies whooped for him. These guys must have already forgotten the hundreds of rounds of gunfire that had just been expended. Well, it wasn’t the cream of the intellectual crop that ended up in places like this.

The big figure stopped. “That’s my wife you’re talkin’ about, asshole.” In the poor light, it was hard to tell what happened next. The prisoner was standing in the center of his cell, well out of reach from the bars. Yet somehow Ray Shackleford reached through the tight barrier, grabbed him by the neck, and pulled the prisoner through the bars. Iron bent and bones shattered. The man screamed in agony before his heart exploded as it was jerked through the two-inch gap. He ended up dangling a few feet above the ground, mangled top half in the alleyway, pelvis and kicking legs still inside the cell. A puddle began to widen under the twitching corpse.

“Thank you, honey. That was downright chivalrous.”

“You’re welcome, dear.”

The population of Section Six exploded. Everyone surged against the far corners of their cells, pushing against bars or chain link. Dozens of voices rose into the night air, panic, confusion, terror.

“Y’all be QUIET!” Ray bellowed. I involuntarily covered my ears as the shockwave hit. His voice shook the building. Dust fell from the ceiling.

Now there was only whimpering and crying. The prisoners knew that something terribly inhuman was in their presence. The vampires approached slowly. “Owen. Good to see you again.” Susan smiled at me. Her eyes seemed to glow pale in the dark.

“Heya, kid. How’s it hanging?” Ray waved.

“Susan . . . Ray . . .” I nodded at them. Every joint in my body ached with fear. I was a dead man, or worse. Much worse.

I had fought Susan twice before. Both times I had been lucky to escape with my life. She was a Master vampire, strongest of all the undead. The first time we had squared off she had taken a twenty-second burst from a flamethrower and a direct hit with a grenade, and had walked away. The second time she had only been turned aside by the faith of Milo Anderson. Compared to Milo, my faith sucked. She could move faster than the human eye could track, tear a man’s head off with her pinky finger, and I had personally put half a dozen silver shotgun slugs through her skull with no effect. If Susan wanted to kill me, there wasn’t a damn thing that I could do about it.

Steve began to flick the lighter.

“What, you want an encore or something?” Ray laughed. “‘Freebird’! Whoo!”

“If you’ve come for me, I’m not going down without a fight,” I snarled.

“You’ve got cojones, kid,” Ray said. “I’ll give you that. See, dear, I told you he was a good match for Julie. She always had the best killer instinct of our kids.” He gestured at me. I had only known Ray for a brief time, and that had been after I had sprung him from an insane asylum. The last time that I had seen Ray he had still been human, barely alive, and rapidly bleeding to death from the savage wound Susan had inflicted on him, so I had to admit that he looked a lot better now. “If we wanted to off you, we would’ve done it already.”

“Wrong. You can’t come into a home if you aren’t invited. And this is currently my home,” I said as I gestured around my cell. Though many of their limitations were a mystery, I knew that at least some of the vampire legends were true. “So back off!” I ordered with a lot more confidence than I felt.

Susan sighed. She approached the bars and leaned against them. It was shocking how much she looked like her daughter, only Susan was inhumanly perfect. Her fingernails were painted bright red and showed up like beacons in the dark. I took an involuntary step back. “Owen, honey, don’t lawyer up on me now.” She absently flicked one finger towards Jorge. Her piercing eyes didn’t waver from mine. “Can I come in?”

The prisoner gasped as she invaded his mind with all the subtlety of a battering ram. His eyes rolled back into his head and he began to convulse violently. I started toward him, but I was too late. “Si!” he sputtered, then toppled over, dead.

“See? If you weren’t so damn obstinate he’d still be alive. No great loss, weak mind, easily controlled, and so disease-ridden I wouldn’t have drunk him if I was starving.” She drew her long fingers away from the bars, and then slowly pushed her face against the iron. She seemed to compress into the space. The gap was only a few inches across, but Susan slid through easily. She stepped into the cell and then casually brushed the dust from her skin-tight dress.

One Ear screamed like a little girl.

I waited for her to make her move, though realistically if I even saw her coming it was only because she wanted to play with her food. Susan looked down at one of the cots in disgust, shrugged, then sat on it. She crossed her legs, briefly showing off entirely too much thigh, and placed her hands on her knees. Ray frowned.

“Sit. We need to talk.”

I looked at her stupidly.

She gestured at the other cot. “I ain’t here to hurt you. I’m here with a business proposition.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. . . .” I said.

Susan’s gaze did not waver. “Ray, you told me he was smarter than he looks.” She began to absently drum her fingers on her knee, impatient.

“He is, but it takes him a minute to warm up.” Ray folded his arms and leaned against one of the other cells. The hardened prisoners huddled in the far corner. Ray assessed them like I would size up steaks in the meat department. “Hey, honey, how about Mexican for dinner?”

“Sure, just pick a good one. . . . Look, Owen, I promised a truce, and I’m good for it. You didn’t come looking for me, and I can respect that. I’m prepared to leave you and my precious daughter alone, just like I said before. That isn’t why I’m here. Please sit. We don’t have much time before their reinforcements arrive and you don’t want to force me to kill a bunch more innocents. Do you?”

I backed up and slowly sat, careful to keep my eyes on her the whole time. Susan Shackleford emanated predatory danger. Every instinct in my body screamed for me to fight or flee. I tried to steady my voice. “Okay. . . .”

“So how’ve you been?” she asked, trying to sound casual. Was it possible that this was awkward for her too? I never really wondered if the undead had societal niceties. Apparently Southern politeness really did die hard. “Wedding still on for August?”

“Yep. We’re fine. So how are you guys? Still dead and evil? Ray still insane?”

“No, he’s much better now.” She uncrossed her long legs and leaned forward, pouting. “So much for being pleasant.”

“Pleasant would be you doing us all a favor and going for a long walk on a sunny day.”

“Kid,” Ray growled. “Your terminal smart-assitude is starting to piss me off. You better show a little more respect.”

He had a point. “It isn’t anything personal. We don’t want anything to do with you. Leave me alone.”

Susan sighed. “Fine. Let’s cut to the chase. I want to hire MHI. I’ve got a job for you to do.”

My mouth dropped open. “Serious?”

“Duh. You think I came to this shithole for fun? I’m serious. Not hiring MHI as much as hiring you in particular. And this is a mutually beneficial arrangement. The man, or used-to-be-a-man, that attacked you yesterday, I want to help you destroy him.”

That didn’t make sense. “Why?”

“He’s your enemy. He’s trying to suck up to the Old Ones, so he means to deliver you to the Dread Overlord itself.”

I licked my lips. “Susan, last time we met, you were a servant of the Old Ones.”

“Wrong. I owe no loyalty to those things. Jaeger forced me to serve Lord Machado. I was as much of a pawn as you were. When you killed Jaeger and his boss, I was freed from their servitude. I serve only myself now. I hated those crusty, ancient bastards.”

“Right. . . . You’re no ordinary vamp, Susan. We both know that. You’re too young to be a Master, but you are. Somehow you became way stronger than you should be, and I think I know how.” From my own experience with the Old Ones’ magic, I knew the kind of gifts and curses that they could bestow.

“Owen, you’re an idiot. Don’t strain yourself thinking so hard.” Just for a moment, the turn of her head, the sound of her voice, it was almost as if I was speaking with Julie, but with a hiss, it was gone. She waved her hands dismissively. “Sure, I’m powerful, more powerful than the dusty old vampires that came before me. The decrepit coots should never have turned a Monster Hunter into a vampire. The source of my power is my business, but I give you my word that I’m not with the Old Ones. My offer is to help you . . . and in so doing, help myself.”

“Why? What’s in it for you?”

“That guy after you? He’s a necromancer, a wizard with powers over the undead,” Susan said.

“Even you?”

“Perhaps, but I’m not in a particular hurry to find out. I’ve been a slave before, and I don’t intend to let that happen again. He’s building an army, and I don’t feel like getting drafted. Basically, this necromancer is a threat to me, to all the independent dead.”

I snorted. “Even more than MHI? If I recall correctly, we kicked your ass pretty good last time.”

“Wrong again. Goody-two-shoes Milo banished me last time. If we tangle again, I’m taking him out first, and he won’t see me coming. So don’t push it unless you want his blood on your hands too.”

That made me furious. I clenched my teeth. Nobody threatens my friends.

“Just so you know, when you get angry, you broadcast your thoughts like you had a loudspeaker. Try anything stupid and I’ll just kill you and save the necromancer the trouble. Relax, Ray,” Susan said soothingly to her husband. Ray must have heard my thoughts, as he had silently moved up to the bars. He moved just on the other side, like a lion at the zoo. He didn’t look as disheveled and crazy as when he was human, but now his square face was drawn, angry, and extremely dangerous. He was as protective of his wife in death as he had been in life. Whereas Susan was cold and calculating, the newly undead and far-less-powerful Ray was barely-restrained crazy bottled in room-temperature flesh. I forced myself to calm down before Ray pulled me through the bars like the earlier prisoner.

“That’s better. Now listen close,” Susan ordered. “After our little altercation last summer, you drew the attention of the boss king of the Old Ones itself. That’s quite a feat for a mere blood bag. You’re a marked man now. This guy trying to kill you? He thinks popping you will score him big points. If he brings you in, he’ll be rewarded with all sorts of power. And that’s bad news.”

She’s scared of him. “For you and me both.”

“As much as it pains me to admit it, yeah.”

This whole thing was unsettling. Only a fool would trust a vampire. Ray was still glowering at me. The other prisoners were whimpering and trying to hide. What she was saying made sense in a way. If she was working with the shadow man, it wasn’t like she needed any elaborate hoax to catch me. “How about you tell me who he is and where to find him?”

Susan shook her head. “I’m still working on that. I’ve got some suspicions, and you’ll be the first to know if I’m right. But you ain’t ready to face him yet. His magic makes him untouchable.”

“So how do I beat him? I’m all about killing stuff.”

“What? I’m supposed to do all the work?” Susan’s sultry laugh was creepy. “I don’t know exactly. You’ll need to figure that out yourself.”

“Well, fat lot of good you vampires are.”

“Stuff it.” She reached into the fold of her dress and produced a small white handkerchief. “As you surely know by now, since you survived Koriniha’s little test, you’re a very special man, Owen. Only one human born every five hundred years has the gifts you do. I know more about you than you do about yourself. Ray has been doing research again . . .”

“Last time he did that he almost sucked Alabama into another dimension. You sure you want to let him do that?”

“Hey, I’m a pro,” Ray said, in mock embarrassment. “I was still learning then.”

Susan ignored us. “He thinks you’ll be able to destroy the necromancer. You have abilities beyond your understanding.” She unwrapped the small package and dropped a tiny object into her palm. Her bright red nails curled around it like a Venus flytrap. “I’m going to give you a present, a little something to unlock your true potential. That way when you face the Old Ones’ pet magician again, you’ll be able to finish him and do us both a favor. Understand?”

“What is it?” I asked hesitantly. I knew a little bit about my abilities, and though I didn’t understand them, I knew enough to be deathly afraid of them.

She opened her hand. There was a tiny sliver in her palm, a rock chip. It began to emit a faint glow, reflecting on her pale skin. Then it seemed to pulse as a bit of living darkness flashed across it. Recoiling, I fell off the bed and crashed into the bars. I pushed against one of the prisoners and whoever it was scurried away from me.

“Keep it away!” I shouted. I don’t know how she got a piece of Koriniha’s artifact, but I recognized it immediately for what it was. I felt it. The Kumaresh Yar. It existed before our world. It exists to destroy our world, but to be used to its full potential, it needs to be activated by someone like me. And now a piece of it was here, dangerously close.

I was shaking. “You don’t know how dangerous it is, to everybody, everything. I can’t use that thing. I’ll kill us all.”

“Don’t worry. This is only a small fragment. Ray’s worked some spells on it, so it should be safe . . . mostly. I’m gonna use this to help you,” Susan said. I blinked and she was standing, hovering over me, the tiny shard of the dreaded artifact of the Old Ones held out like a talisman only inches away. “Ray’s research says that this probably won’t kill you, but it will put you in touch with a little bit of that power you experienced before. The last thing I want to do is make a Hunter stronger, but you’re my best bet to get rid of this necromancer.”

Ray suddenly twitched, looking at the ceiling. “Better hurry, dear. We’ve got company coming. Sounds like the Feds.”

“I hear them,” she answered. She pushed the shard toward my forehead. I tried to swat her arm away. I might as well have been hitting the bars of the cell. I shoved as hard as I could, but she was far stronger than I was. She ignored the flying fists, intent on her mission. “Don’t worry, honey, this won’t hurt a bit.”

“No!” The tiny chunk of the Kumaresh Yar touched my skin. The world exploded in pain. Black lightning crackled across Section Six and sparked across the chain link. It was as if someone had driven a glowing-hot ice pick through my brain, and then twisted until it pierced out the base of my skull. I screamed as a cascade of strange visions tore through my mind, pummeling me with disjointed alien memories.

Something inside of me woke up.

Fueled by the artifact, I struck Susan. This time it had the desired effect. She flew back and crashed into the bars. The pain and pressure subsided. I rolled onto my side, limp, eyelids heavy, barely able to breathe.

“Hot damn!” Susan exclaimed. She had left a human-shaped impression in the iron. Most of the prisoners were openly crying for their mothers now. The last of the rampant black electricity dissipated, but left a smell in the air like a chemical fire. Susan rotated her neck and arms as the bones knit back together. “That was unexpected.”

“Told you it would work,” Ray said smugly. “Now let’s go. Feds are almost here, and I ain’t up to taking on somebody like Agent Franks.”

Susan held up one hand to silence her husband. She rewrapped the shard and put it away. I no longer had the strength to hold up my head, and it slowly flopped to the concrete. I watched as her high heels clicked toward me. She stopped and squatted down. I felt her nails caress the back of my neck. She bent down and her cold lips pressed against my ear. Her voice was barely a whisper. “One last thing. The thing that saved Julie, the Guardian’s mark on her neck. You know that it’ll eventually kill her, don’t you? It’s from the other side, where everything comes with a price. When that time comes, my earlier offer stands. When either of you is ready for immortality, call my name and I’ll be there. That’s what family is for.”

I struggled to keep my eyes open. So weak . . . so very cold. I could barely move. Susan kissed me gently on the top of my head.

“So what about dinner?” Ray sounded petulant.

“This one here smells disease-free. Grab him. Let’s go.”

The last thing I heard before the darkness came was Steve screaming for somebody to help him.

My strength gradually returned. Feeling tingled back into my limbs. Fighting back waves of nausea and dizziness, I pushed myself to my hands and knees. What had Susan done to me? The bars of my cell had been bent wide open so Ray could extract Steve alive. Perhaps if I hurried, a part of me thought, maybe I could save him. The logical part of my brain already knew the truth. He was long gone. The temperature was already returning to normal.

One Ear grabbed me by the arm. “The devil took him! Poor Esteban. You brought this on us!” He cocked one meaty fist back to pummel me. I was too weak to defend myself. The prisoner flinched as a shot rang out. Plaster dust rained down from the ceiling. One Ear raised his open hands over his head as multiple flashlight beams converged on us.

“I may not speak the language, but I’m assuming a 10mm into the ceiling is pretty universal for cut it out.” The voice spoke in clearly enunciated English.

Squinting into the super-bright weapon-mounted lights, I could make out several dark shapes. “Myers? Is that you?”

“I’m afraid so. You’re coming with us, Pitt. Consider yourself extradited. Okay, men, fall back. Watch out, vampires on premises.”

Gloved hands grabbed me by each arm and dragged me out of the cell. Flashlight beams stabbed in every direction as more armed men formed a perimeter around me. Their uniforms consisted of black body armor and every bit of high-tech tactical gear known to man. Feds. Not Federales, but rather United States federal agents, specifically the men of the Monster Control Bureau of the U.S. Department of Justice. Deadly professionals, every last one, and you would be hard pressed to find a bigger bunch of assholes.

“Pitt, what’s your status?” Special Agent Myers snapped. Unlike the other Feds, Myers was wearing his standard uniform of a cheap suit and skinny tie. No matter how important a lawman he was, and last I had heard, he was the interim director of the whole top-secret agency, he would always look like a junior college English professor to me.

“Susan and Ray Shackleford are here,” I gasped. Myers and I had a bit of history. He and his partner, Agent Franks, had been the representatives of the government who had visited me in the hospital after my very first monster encounter. They had threatened my life if I didn’t keep quiet that day, and they had come very close to fulfilling that promise on a few other occasions. I suppose you could say that I did not have a very good working relationship with the government.

Myers spoke into his radio. “We’ve recovered the target, all teams return to extract. We have at least two vampires. One Master. Repeat, one Master. The dark-haired female Caucasian is the Master. The large white-haired male is the lesser, but is still very dangerous. If you see her, do not hesitate, because she sure won’t.” He stepped past the corpse that Ray had pulled through the bars. There was still some residual twitching. The agents pulling me along slipped as their boots lost traction in the spreading puddle of blood.

I never thought that I would think of these guys as a sight for sore eyes. “Glad to see you too, Myers,” I said cheerfully.

“Shut up. You have no idea how much trouble you’ve caused me.” Myers sounded frustrated. My legs were starting to wobble less, so I tried to walk rather than be baggage. The Feds just kept on pulling. “I was sent to find you at the resort, but when I arrived, there had been a zombie outbreak. I found your team, but they had no idea where you were. It took a lot of diplomatic work to track you here. And then we roll up to find this mess. You’re not an easy man to find.”

Why had Myers been looking for me?

The hallway outside Section Six was splattered with the bodies of dead guards. Even as jaded as I am to this kind of thing, I had to look away. These people had done nothing to deserve the vampires’ wrath. The Feds kept Myers and me in the center of a protective diamond formation as we hurried outward. The Fed on point led us quickly through the maze of winding passages. There were many confused survivors, guards, loose prisoners, and staff all wandering around in the dark, but nobody challenged the squadron of well-armed Americans. Good thing, too, because I had seen how trigger-happy the Monster Control Bureau was.

The courtyard was engulfed in chaos. One guard tower was on fire. The main truck gate was wide open, with one of the heavy gates lying broken and splintered in the road. Denim-clad prisoners were running out the opening and fleeing into the dark. Torn shapes sat in the moonlight or dangled from the razor-wire fence. Those must have been the men who had tried to stop Susan.

Three black Suburbans were parked directly in front of the exit, engines running. A large man in drab black armor was waiting for us, a stubby F2000 rifle looking tiny in his massive arms. The man was broad and muscled like an NFL linebacker. He was a frightening apparition. Something about this particular Fed emanated a nonchalant capacity to deliver unbelievable pain. His dark face scowled from under a pair of night-vision goggles when he saw me being dragged out of the building.

“Franks, my brother, what’s up?” I shouted. Special Agent Franks of the Monster Control Bureau particularly seemed to hate my guts. On the day that it becomes expedient for the government to end my life, I somehow know that it will be Agent Franks who’ll get the job.

“Too bad,” he muttered.

“What’s too bad?” I asked as the Feds shoved me through the open door of the waiting Suburban.

“We got here in time.” He slammed the door after me.

Chapter 3

“Owen!”

I blinked my bleary eyes as they tried to adjust to the lighted interior of the Suburban. Suddenly I was squished against the door as someone hugged me tight.

“Julie?” She was as beautiful as ever. I hadn’t been exaggerating when I had described her to my poor dead cellmate. Tall, brunette, gorgeous, way smarter than I am, talented, and tough as nails. Julie is the spitting image of her mother, only alive and not filled with soul-crushing evil. “Oh, man! I’m sure glad to see you.” I hugged her and ran a filthy hand across her cheek. Being a tough guy, I tried not to cry like a sissy in front of the federal agents. She held me tight. She must have thought that she had lost me. I sure did hate that feeling.

She tilted her head back and kissed me. Man, I’m glad to be out of jail. Finally she broke away, removed her glasses and wiped a tiny bit of moisture from her eyes. “You taste like chemicals.”

“Lice powder. What’s going on?”

“I should ask you that. What happened at the resort? There were zombies, and then you disappeared, and then the Feds showed up looking for you.”

“It’s complicated, I’ll try to explain, but is the team okay? And what are you doing with these guys?”

“Everybody’s fine. I made Myers bring me when I found out he was looking for you. Oh, Owen, I’m just glad you’re safe.”

The driver’s side door opened and Agent Franks squeezed his bulk behind the wheel. Myers slid into the passenger side. The interior light died when he closed the door. Myers turned to face us over the seat.

“You didn’t make me do anything. I let you come,” he snapped.

“I hoped we could use her to ID your body,” Franks said emotionlessly. That made two complete sentences in one night, which was pretty good for Franks. Sadly, both of them had something to do with wishing for my death. I suppose I just have that effect on some people. Franks slammed the big vehicle into gear and gunned it out through the gate in a spray of gravel. Prisoners caught in the headlights had to jump out of the way to avoid being run down. Myers turned back around and spoke into his radio, ordering the other two vehicles to watch for an ambush. The gates of Tijira Prison faded into the background.

“And the zombie outbreak? Did we get it contained in time?” I had to know. It was stupid, but I felt like it was my fault.

“There were only a few more casualties after you were arrested. A Girls Gone Wild video crew had their brains eaten . . . so no significant losses,” Myers stated.

“What happened? How did you end up here?” Julie asked. “And what happened to your head? That lump is huge.”

“Shotgun butt.” I dismissed it with a wave. Unfortunately for me, traumatic brain injuries were a relatively common occurrence. “I’ll explain later. I saw your mom and dad.”

“What?” Julie’s voice rose an octave. “Here? Now?” She turned and watched out the window. “Not again . . .” Normally Julie’s Alabama accent was very faint, except for when she got excited, or in this case, scared. Susan and Ray would be a dark spot in our life until they finally got staked and chopped.

“I think they’re gone for now.” I put my arm over her shoulder and pulled her close and whispered in her ear. “I’ll fill you in on what they said, but I don’t want these pricks to hear.” She nodded and her hand moved to the black mark on the side of her neck, an unconscious habit that she had picked up when she was under a great deal of stress. To most people, the mark looked like a thick, black line tattoo. In actuality it was something entirely different. Susan’s parting words had been about how the mark that had saved Julie was going to eventually kill her. Not if I can help it.

“Pitt, at the resort, did you see him?” Myers queried, back to business.

“Him who?” I decided to play stupid. I knew that the Feds had not rescued me out of the goodness of their hearts and I wanted to know why.

“The leader of the Condition. The necromancer.”

“English guy, turns into a giant shadow when the lights go out, throws toilets at people, that one?”

Myers got excited. “Did you see his face?”

“A little, but it was dark.”

“I’ll have you talk to a sketch artist on the flight home. You’re now the only person we know of who has seen him in person.”

“What’s the Condition?” Julie asked.

“The Sanctified Church of the Temporary Mortal Condition. They’re a death cult. A real bunch of nut-job whackos. They’ve been around forever, but only over the last year have they really shown up on our radar. The man who attacked you, he’s their leader.”

“A church? Why don’t you just go burn their compound down? You guys are Feds after all.”

Myers either didn’t get the jab, or he chose to ignore it. “We would if we could. But the Condition is good. They work in cells. Their higher-level operatives are known as the Exalted Order of the Shadows. We can’t isolate their leaders, or even most of their ranking members. As far as we can tell they’re dabbling in some real hard-core black magic. And they’re connected . . . businessmen, politicians, the media, even movie stars. This cult is now our number one priority.”

“Let me guess. They worship the Old Ones?”

“Yes. And they’re out to get you specifically,” he said, pausing briefly in thought. “How did you know that they were connected to those things?”

I didn’t say anything.

Myers turned around and glared at me. “Look, Pitt, if you have information, you need to share it. These guys are bad news, their leader is secret enemy number one, and right now I’m your best chance to survive them.” He tried to look friendly, and mostly failed. “I know that we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot, but I’m trying to help you here.”

“Why?”

“That’s our job. We’re supposed to protect and defend the taxpayers.” He smiled, and in the dark I wasn’t sure if the government man or Susan had been more intimidating, but for totally different reasons. One because it represented a soulless entity with the power to suck the very blood from the innocent, and the other because it was a vampire. The Suburban continued to accelerate down the rutted road.

“Bullshit.”

Myers shrugged. He was smart enough not to waste his time. “All right, let me level with you. You are currently our only in against this cult. Just about everybody we’ve tried to infiltrate has ended up zombified or worse. I’ve finally got a man inside, but he’s low on their totem pole and they won’t reveal anything to him. We can’t get any of the known members to turn snitch, and if they seem to think about it, they’re never seen again. But the Condition’s fixated on you, and through you, it gives us a way to capture some of them for questioning.”

I put my face in my palm. “Oh, come on. Why does everything seem to have it in for me personally?” I figured I knew why I was the target of the Old Ones. I had been responsible for thwarting their invasion, but the Feds did not know that. I was sure of that much, because if the Feds knew what I had pulled off, up to and including time travel, then I had no doubt that my brain would be sitting in a glass jar in some government lab being poked with electrodes to see how it worked.

“About that . . .” Myers looked away, a little sheepish. “Sorry.”

I’d screwed up their invasion plans by not falling in line. I had no idea what Myers had to be sorry about. “Huh?”

“It was a misunderstanding,” he said. I waited for the explanation. Myers took his time, actually seeming a bit embarrassed. “See, when MHI was fighting Lord Machado’s minions, we decided to play it safe . . . So we . . . kind of . . . dropped a nuke on the area.”

“You did what?” Julie shouted. “You tried to nuke Alabama?”

“Only a little one. It was for the best,” he said defensively. “We didn’t think you were going to succeed. I was certain that the bad guys were going to win, and I couldn’t allow that. You know what would have happened then.”

“Gee whiz, thanks, Myers. I was right there, and I didn’t see a mushroom cloud, so I’m assuming you screwed up.”

He shrugged. “When the bomb struck, the rift had already been opened. It passed through cleanly and detonated on the other side, inside the Old Ones’ reality. It must have made them angry and from what our intel is telling us, it even hurt the big cheese of Old Ones. For some reason they think that you’re the one that sent the weapon . . . Hence, the interdimensional hit out for you. Sorry.”

“I don’t think sorry covers the indiscriminate use of nuclear weapons, jackass.” No wonder the Old Ones were blaming me. Not only had I wrecked their invasion, they also thought that I had attacked them in their own world as well. I’ve made a lot of people angry throughout the course of my life, but I’d never hit a 10,000-foot-tall crustacean with an atom bomb before.

“So, what now?” Julie snapped. “We just wait for this cult to come and kill my fiancé? I don’t think so.”

Myers shook his head. “We’re going to fly you home. I want you to go about your business, and wait for the cult to make their move. I’ll provide a protective detail to guard you, and when the cult strikes, we’ll be ready.”

“Why don’t I just go hide out somewhere? Lay low for a while?” It was a rhetorical question. I was not the running type.

“They’ll find you. The Condition aren’t normal nut jobs. Unfortunately the stuff they believe in actually works. No. I want you in the open. And they are going to have to crawl out from under their rock to get you, and when they do . . .” Myers slammed his fist into his palm. It was actually not a very intimidating mannerism from a person who looked like a junior-college English professor.

“So after they kill me, you swoop in and arrest them?”

Franks finally spoke. “They won’t kill you.”

“And why not?”

Franks didn’t answer. Myers patted the terse man on the shoulder. “You’ll be safe because you’ll be under the personal protection of my best men, led by Agent Franks himself. His primary mission is to keep you alive.”

The very idea was preposterous. Franks? Protecting me? “Screw that,” I sputtered. “I’ll take my chance with the zombies.”

“I’ve never failed a mission,” Franks said simply.

“And what about the Natchy Bottom?”

“Doesn’t count,” Franks replied. I saw his cold eyes flick to the rearview mirror. He watched me for a moment before returning his attention to the road. Franks had gotten just as dead as the rest of us before I had managed to erase five minutes of time. He had put up an amazing fight and had taken inhuman amounts of damage before going down, but he had still lost.

“I can protect myself,” I stated.

“MHI can protect him,” Julie added. “We’re better at this than you federal guys anyway.”

“Civilians,” Franks muttered as he swung the wheel hard and took a sharp right onto a less traveled road. I didn’t know if he meant us or the other drivers.

“You don’t have a choice. Your country needs you, Pitt,” Myers said.

“Needs me as bait! I’m not down with that. Get yourself a different worm for that hook, Myers. I don’t trust your people at all. And it’ll be a cold day in hell before I put my life in the hands of that jackbooted thug.” I gestured angrily at Franks. The big agent ignored me.

“You’re going to let us protect you from the Condition, or we will make life very difficult for MHI. If you think you had it bad last time around, just push me and see what happens this time,” Myers threatened. “You’ve used up your political goodwill from last summer, Harbinger isn’t Congress’ golden boy anymore, and my agency has been moved from Justice to Homeland Security.”

“Didn’t know that . . .” Julie said. Top-secret, shadow-government reorganizations didn’t usually end up in the papers.

“Which means I’m now authorized to screw with your company more than ever before.” Myers had once been a member of Monster Hunter International before he had left and joined the government. I did not know what had caused him to leave, but he certainly packed a bitter hate for us ever since. MHI had been shut down once before by executive order and I knew that some factions of the government were just itching for us to give them an excuse to do it again. “I’m prepared to take this all the way. Are you? Think on it.”

Julie muttered something profane about Myers’ ancestry under her breath. We both knew the senior Fed wasn’t bluffing. The dark Mexican countryside flashed by outside the window as I glared at my reflection. This certainly sucked. In the previous twenty-four hours I had been attacked by a shadow necromancer and his zombies, beaten by Federales, deloused, visited by vampires, reunited with a shard of the most evil artifact in the known world, been targeted by a death cult, and had it topped off by being placed under the protection of a man who could best be described as not a member of the Owen Z. Pitt fan club.

No one spoke for a long time. Finally Myers turned back around to watch the road, knowing in his little black bureaucrat’s heart that he had us beat. Julie rested her head on my shoulder. I grabbed her hand and squeezed. We had faced worse together.

Or so I thought.

“What’s on your mind?” I asked quietly.

Julie had pulled me aside once we had disembarked at the small airport. A U.S. Air Force C-130 Hercules was refueling nearby, and soon we would be on our way back to the States. The night sky was bright under the nearly full moon and I could make out the shape of Agent Franks shadowing us thirty feet away. He was scanning the chain-link fence, looking for anything moving in the desert scrub. The man certainly took his job seriously. They were running some sort of loud compressor near the aircraft, so I wasn’t worried about him overhearing us. Julie and I stood in the darkness behind a diminutive aircraft hangar while we talked about the day’s events.

“This is crap,” she hissed. “I’m so sick and tired of the Feds.” She was obviously upset, and her pretty features were drawn into a hard scowl.

“And . . .” I prompted. I knew her too well. There was obviously something else.

She grimaced. “And what the hell were my parents doing here? I hate to say it, but when they offered a truce, I actually believed it. If they ever did anything against us, Earl would make it his life’s work to track them down. I at least thought they had the sense of self-preservation to avoid that.”

“Believe it or not, I think the truce is still in effect . . .” I briefly explained the nature of Susan’s visit, but I’m ashamed to say that I held something back. I did not mention Susan’s promise that Julie was going to die from the mark. I felt bad for withholding information, and I would tell her, but just not yet. For all I knew, Susan was lying, scheming, trying to find some way to unite more of her family into her dark world, the evil bitch.

“A shard of the artifact? How? It disappeared in Childersburg. I always assumed that the Feds got it when they cordoned off the area. How did my mom end up with part of it?”

I shrugged. “Beats me. All I know is that it hurt like hell when she touched me with it. I’m scared to death of that thing.”

“Do you think . . .” She searched for the words. “Could it be starting again?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. I hugged her tight. I was terrified of the things that artifact had done, and could do, and more especially, what it allowed me to do. I’d rather kill myself than risk turning those things loose. “I just don’t know.”

“Oh, Owen . . . I’ve got a bad feeling about this. I thought I’d lost you.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I promise.” Saying that made me think of another promise. “I lost my gear. The pistols you gave me . . . your brother’s pistols. They meant a lot—”

She stopped me flat. “We can replace the guns. I can’t replace you.”

Franks shouted at us, “It’s time.” As if to accentuate his words, the big engines turned over and the props began to roar.

“He’s such an asshole.” Julie mumbled into my shoulder. She pushed slowly away, and we started toward the waiting plane. “Speaking of which . . .” She raised her voice, “Agent Franks!”

The Fed nodded in her direction.

“At DeSoya Caverns, last summer, I asked if you had taken care of my father, I asked if you had let him turn into a vampire, and if you had let him escape. Since Owen just saw him, I’m assuming that you lied to me.” Julie was intimidating when she was angry.

I don’t think Franks’ brain was wired with the capability of being intimidated. Franks shrugged. “Classified,” he said simply, turned and walked toward the plane.

“Oh, hanging out with him is just going to be a blast, won’t it?” she asked.

“And for a while there I thought that me and Franks had come to terms. . . .” We walked under the runway lights. The C-130 was drastically loud. The other Feds were carrying their gear up the loading ramp.

“Mr. Pitt? Ms. Shackleford?” A black-clad agent approached us. He had removed his helmet and balaclava and had tucked them under one arm. This one was young, and seemed friendly enough. His skin was deeply tanned, his neatly buzzed hair black, and his eyes twinkled when he smiled. There was a squat but heavy-looking duffle bag slung over one shoulder. He shouted to be heard over the engines. “I’m Agent Torres. I’m on your protective detail. It’s an honor to meet you.” He held out one gloved hand, and, surprised, I shook it. It was not normal for the Feds to be nice to MHI personnel.

“You must be new,” I shouted.

“Yes. Just assigned to the Bureau. I came over from Border Patrol.” He shook Julie’s hand as well, and his face betrayed his surprise at the impressive strength in her handshake. I had had that reaction the first time I met her as well. “Ms. Shackleford, I read up on your family in the Monster Control academy. Wow, all I can say is, wow . . . You guys are amazing. Your great-grandfather was one of the pioneers of Monster Hunting. This is a real honor.”

“Well, thanks,” Julie stammered. Apparently I wasn’t the only one surprised at meeting a friendly agent. My usual encounters with them involved bullying, threats, intimidation, and the occasional fistfight.

He unslung the duffle bag and handed it to me. “I think this belongs to you.”

The bag was as heavy as it looked. I unzipped it, peered inside, and was greeted with a wonderful sight. “Abomination!” I shouted. I put the bag down and pulled out my customized Saiga shotgun. I pulled back the charging handle to check the chamber and the bolt was as slick as ever. It was a brutal weapon, a shortened, full-auto, magazine-fed 12-gauge, complete with underslung 40mm grenade launcher, EO-Tech holographic optic, and—the pièce de résistance—a side-folding, silver-inlaid bayonet. Abomination and I had been through some serious things together. It wasn’t just my gun, it was damn near my friend.

“And my STIs . . . And my armor!” I was really geeking out now. My two .45s, built originally for Julie’s brother Ray, had been put back in their holsters. The only thing missing was my Ganga Ram, last seen lodged in a zombie’s skull. “No freaking way. This is awesome.” In my defense, you don’t get very far in my line of work unless you really get to know and love your equipment. “I thought these babies were gone forever . . . how did you find them?”

Torres seemed rather proud of himself. “My team secured the perimeter at the prison. I found this bag in the hands of a fat Federale, dead in the parking lot. Looked like he was planning on taking these home, but he’d been ripped apart, you know, and the bag was open, and when I shined my light on it, I saw this.” He pointed at the Happy Face patch. “And I’ve heard how hard it is to earn one of those! I figured if you were still alive, you were going to want your gear back.” He shrugged. “No biggie.”

I had to resist the urge to hug him. “Thanks, Agent Torres. I appreciate it.”

“Consider it a professional courtesy. Hey, I’m going to help guard you for awhile. Just call me Anthony.” He shook my hand again. “Really nice to meet you guys. I’ve got to go.” He smiled, waved, looking almost like an embarrassed teenager, and ran to rejoin his team on the ramp.

I turned to look at Julie. She was as perplexed as I was. She mouthed the word “damn.” I put Abomination back in the bag and zipped it shut. When I picked up the duffle, the weight seemed familiar and reassuring.

“Maybe this won’t be as bad as we thought,” I said. “I didn’t know the Monster Control Bureau employed anybody nice.”

“He must have slipped past Human Resources.”

Cazador, Alabama. Population 682. A pretty much run-of-the-mill little village nestled deep in the woods south of Montgomery. A quick drive through town—and there was no such thing as a long drive through Cazador—wouldn’t reveal much except the catfish plant, a few stores, and a pair of churches. But a few miles out of town was the headquarters compound of Monster Hunter International. The main office building was two stories on the surface, and built like a medieval fortress. From the air it looked like a wide, squat bullfrog. The other buildings were spread out—a hangar for our plane and chopper, the sunk-in bunker that was the armory, Milo’s prefab workshop, the body shack, and a handful of small buildings that served as the barracks for the Newbie training classes. A tall chain-link fence, which was topped with razor wire and coated with kudzu, enclosed an area largely made up of bulldozer-pushed berms of red clay soil. MHI’s shooting range facilities were top notch.

The Air Force plane came in low over the thick forest surrounding the compound. For a brief instant I saw Skippy’s village flash by underneath, then the mostly hidden homes were gone. Seconds later the tires chirped as we hit runway.

“Hey!” the Fed shouted. His voice sounded nasal through the intercom headset. “Mr. Pitt. Pay attention.”

“Huh?” I glanced away from the window. The sun was rising, and the view had been nice. The Fed showed me his laptop screen with a picture of the man who had attacked me at the resort: a lean face, square jaw, intense eyes, short hair. “Yep, that’s pretty close.”

The agent swiveled the laptop back so he could look at the screen. “What about it isn’t right?”

“I don’t know. It was dark, and he was beating the living hell out of me.” Plus it was hard to explain that I had not seen a soul inside when I had looked through the man’s eyes. How exactly do you convey that to a sketch artist? “Besides the little demon-leech monster thingy that crawled out his mouth, that’s good enough.”

The C-130 rolled to a stop near our hangar. I removed the ice pack from my swollen forehead and unbuckled my harness. The Monster Control Bureau had been nice enough to clean my cuts, wrap my ankle, and provide some painkillers. I was in a pretty happy place. Yep, the government issues good painkillers. The drugs had even made the uncomfortable web seats, temperature swings, and noise bearable.

The hydraulics that powered the loading ramp made a truly impressive amount of noise as it was lowered to the ground. Most of the agents were already standing, preparing to exit the plane. Many of them looked slightly nervous. The last time they had been here had been to secure the compound and arrest Julie and me. In the aftermath many of them had gotten royally beaten by a slightly perturbed Earl Harbinger. I recognized a few of them, including one agent who had a slightly crooked nose. If I recalled correctly, I think that I might have given him that nose. He scowled at me, then flipped me the bird, low enough that I would see, but that it wouldn’t come to Myers’ or Franks’ attention. Yep. That would be the guy. Grabbing my bag, I stood and headed for the ramp. Julie was right behind me. We would be damned if we waited for the government men.

A few Hunters were already waiting for us on the tarmac. Earl Harbinger still appeared to be in his forties, and I knew that if I died of old age, by that time he might look fifty. Wearing that same old leather bomber jacket that was like an MHI fixture, Earl stood stiffly, his arms folded in front of his chest, his cold blue eyes examining the plane and its occupants. He was really just an average-looking guy, not big, not particularly intimidating in any physical way, but he emanated a certain old-school toughness, a wily competence that smelled of tobacco smoke and pure animal cunning. Earl Harbinger was not a man to trifle with, and that was only taking into account his human side.

Trip Jones stared grimly at the descending ramp, his dark features drawn into an intense frown. Normally Trip was probably the happiest, most easygoing and likable person whom I had ever known, but his last encounter with Feds had involved a massive beatdown, with him being on the receiving end of the beating, so he was understandably distrusting. Trip was from Florida, Jamaican by ethnicity, devout Baptist by belief, and MHI moral compass by default. Trip was our Samaritan, our good guy, if you will. He was a Hunter because he was innately a hero. Comparing myself to my friend always made me feel guilty because I knew that I could never be the kind of man that he was.

Holly Newcastle could best be described as hot, both in looks and temperament. Fiery by nature, always looking something like a villainess from a Bond movie. Only a fool would underestimate her. Our former stripper liked to play up the dumb blonde angle whenever it was convenient, but she was sharp as a tack, mean as hell, and probably the most merciless Hunter I knew. She regarded the plane with a mischievous grin. If Trip was a Hunter because he was a hero, Holly was a Hunter because it was the best legal avenue she had to inflict violence on the forces of evil, and she was damn good at it.

Earl’s face lit up when he saw Julie and me coming down the ramp. After Susan had disappeared and Ray had gone into seclusion, Earl had been like a father to Julie and her brothers. The man looked relieved, yet exhausted, but he always looked tired the next few days after a full moon. Being locked in a concrete cell while you attack the walls in a psychotic rage all night will do that to you. He gave Julie a quick hug.

“Jules, Owen, welcome back . . .” He stuck out his hand and shook mine with his standard eye-watering and bone-crushing grip. Trip and Holly descended on me, clapping me on the back and demanding to know what had happened. The three of us had started out in the same class of Newbies, so we had been through some crazy things together. It was good to be among friends again. Other Hunters approached in the distance, drawn to the commotion and the sight of the massive plane. A lone figure, dressed from head to toe in black, watched from near the hangar. He waved awkwardly when he saw me, then slunk back into the building as the Feds disembarked. Skippy did not like crowds, or most people for that matter, but especially hated anyone from the government. The Feds clustered around the ramp, bunched up, checking out the compound, a few of the experienced ones no doubt taking stock for the day when the political winds changed and they finally got the order to shut us down by any means necessary.

The plane’s engines died and the runway was suddenly very quiet. The two groups stood separated, like the freshman boys and girls at a high school dance. Finally Myers and Franks broke away and crossed the divide. Myers’ imitation-silk tie flapped over his shoulder in the wind. The two stopped in front of Earl. Nobody offered to shake hands.

“Earl . . .” Myers said.

“Well, if it isn’t Special Agent Dwayne Myers,” Earl responded, just oozing contempt. Myers’ first name was Dwayne? I learned something new every day. “And his faithful sidekick, Mongo.” The quiet brute nodded slightly. I did not think Franks actually liked anyone, but he did seem to slightly respect those who might present a challenge in a physical confrontation. Now, Harbinger versus Franks? I would pay serious money to watch that one because I didn’t care how tough the Fed was, I’m pretty sure if he caught Earl in a bad mood, they would have to scrape Franks up and carry him out in a couple trash bags.

“I’m guessing you got the call?” the senior agent queried. Myers’ voice and attitude was cold. I knew that he despised Harbinger, as Myers used to work for him, and though I did not know the specifics, I certainly knew that there was some bad history between the two.

“I did. And I don’t like it one bit. Are all these”—Harbinger gestured contemptuously toward the Feds—“the ‘protective detail’? Because if you’re going for subtle, that ain’t it.”

“No. I’m leaving four handpicked agents. They’ll shadow Pitt and try to look like your people . . . so sloppy . . . and unprofessional. The rest of us will be on standby. We’ll be staging out of Montgomery until this is resolved. I’m expecting MHI’s full assistance. The legality of continued private Monster Hunting is coming under congressional review next session and you wouldn’t want me to testify that you didn’t want to cooperate.”

“Oh, we’re the spirit of cooperation . . . So now why don’t you take your goons and get the hell off my land?”

“Believe me, I can’t wait. But take this. You should at least know what you’re up against.” Myers held out a manila folder. “I don’t think you realize the magnitude of the threat that’s coming for you.”

It was hard to believe that Myers had once been one of us. The very thought made me cringe. I reached for the folder, and as I did so my fingertips touched the agent’s thumb. Black lightning crashed behind my eyes.

I was sitting on a wooden bench. The delicious smell of sizzling beef drifted from the nearby barbeque. It was nearing sundown, and the heat had broken under the soft Alabama breeze. Fireflies danced in the nearby forest.

“Dwayne, how do you want your burger?”

“Medium,” I answered without hesitation.

“Gotcha . . .” Big Ray Shackleford answered as he squished the patties with a spatula. “Honey?” The flames hissed as the grease dripped through the grill.

“Rare. No, super rare.” Susan Shackleford was sitting on a lawn chair to my right. She sighed as she tried to get comfortable. She was eight months pregnant and having a hard time. I tried not to stare at Susan. Even heavy with child, she was still the best-looking woman I had ever known, but she was also my best friend’s wife. “On second thought . . . How about you just kind of warm up the outside?”

“Can do.” Ray took a second to wipe his meaty hands on his apron and then took a long pull from his beer. He set it down with a satisfied grunt. Ray cut an imposing figure, big, muscular, confident, pretty much everything that I wasn’t. “Earl? Dorcas?”

“Rare.” Harbinger was sitting at the picnic table. I was still intimidated by my boss, but now that he had picked me to be on his team and had let me in on the family secret, I felt much more comfortable in his presence.

“Medium, Ray. And I mean medium. Not all black and crispy. Don’t screw it up again. Damn boy, but I ain’t never known nobody to burn up a good piece of meat like you.”

Dorcas was also at the picnic table, busy cleaning her .45 Long Colt on top of a piece of newspaper. She was kind of like our mother figure. A bitter crone of a mother figure for sure, but I knew that she loved us in her own demented redneck way. “Damn, idiot. Should have let me cook.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ray responded automatically. I don’t think that I will ever get used to these Southerners and their incessant politeness to their elders. “Hood?”

“Well done, please.” The voice came from behind me. Hood was the youngest member of the team, and supposedly I was his trainer. In actuality he was so on the ball that sometimes it was like he was teaching me. I had even overheard Harbinger talking about how he had never met somebody with a better gift for Monster Hunting. Not bad for a fat kid from Birmingham.

“Since you’re the Newbie, you’re lucky if you get grill scrapings.” Ray laughed hard and drained the rest of his beer. “Julie! Get daddy another beer!”

“Okay!” the little girl shouted. She leapt gracefully off the nearby tire swing and ran for the house, her ponytail whipping behind her. She was only eight, but already I could tell that she was going to be the spitting image of her mom and sharp as her dad. That one was going to be a heartbreaker. She disappeared into the massive old plantation house with a slam of the screen door.

I glanced around at the other Monster Hunters. Grandpa Shackleford was engaged in an animated conversation with some other Hunters about how Ronald Reagan was the most pro-Monster Hunting president we’d had since Eisenhower. He kept swinging his hook for emphasis. That red-headed teenager that Earl had saved in Idaho recently, Milo, was doodling on some scrap of paper, probably about some other weird invention that he had come up with. A few others were drifting up, summoned by the smell of the barbeque, and Ray began to shout questions at each of them. The MHI staff were in a good mood, and rightly so. The case that we had just cracked had been a tough one, and we were feeling invincible.

“Yo, Myers,” Ray said.

“Yeah, buddy?”

“We kicked some ass today, didn’t we?”

I leaned back on the bench and stretched my bad arm. A vampire had wrecked my rotator cuff and ruined my shot at ever pitching in the majors, but if I hadn’t had that encounter all those years ago, then I would never have gotten to become a part of this. I looked at the patch sewn on my sleeve as I turned my arm, just a little green happy face with horns. It wasn’t much, but it meant a lot to me.

“We sure did, Ray. We sure did.”

These people were my family.

“What are you staring at?” Myers asked me belligerently.

Reality came crashing back. Glancing around, runway, big airplane, my friends, and a bunch of scowling Feds, I was at the compound, out on the tarmac, but I had just been at a barbeque . . . at Julie’s house, only it had been a long time ago . . . and I had been . . . Agent Myers? What the hell? “Nothing . . .”

Myers shook his head and released the folder, probably thinking that I was a complete moron. I must have been out of it for just a few seconds. “Like I was saying, you need to know what you’re up against. Do you have someplace where we could talk in private?”

Harbinger nodded. “Let’s go.” He motioned to the main building. All of the Feds began to follow and he raised his hand. “No, just the protective detail. The rest of you assholes can stay on the plane.” My boss didn’t wait for any sort of disagreement, he just spun on his heel and led the way. I did note, however, that he was grinding his teeth together rather violently.

Still reeling from what had just happened, I reached out and grabbed Julie’s hand. Nothing happened. No flash of black lightning, no visions. She looked at me strangely.

“Z, are you okay?” Holly asked me. “You look kind of flushed.”

I shook my head. I couldn’t say anything in front of the Feds, but the last time I had lived someone else’s memories, Lord Machado’s to be precise, it had been powered by the same artifact that Susan had just exposed me to again. “No, I’m fine. Must have been the flight . . . Let’s get this over with.”

Franks regarded me suspiciously as I walked after Harbinger and Myers. Finally, he nodded at three other agents. They picked up their gear and followed.

The group entered the main building, passing quickly through the entryway, as Earl was walking at a pace that indicated he wanted to get this done with. Agent Franks made note of the portcullis chained above us, almost approvingly.

“Welcome home, Z. Milo told me you’d killed yourself a mess of zombies,” Dorcas, our secretary, receptionist, and semi-retired Hunter, said from behind her massive desk. She looked like a typical matronly Southern grandma, except for the Ruger Redhawk bulging from the shoulder holster underneath her knit sweater. “I can always count on you for a good killin’ story or two, about the only entertainment I get around here nowadays.”

“Yes, ma’am, I’ll tell you all about it after this meeting.”

When she spied the Feds coming up behind me, her smile vanished, and her eyes narrowed so dangerously that they turned into little slits. For a second it looked like she thought about going for that magnum. “Myers . . .” she spat.

“Dorcas,” the senior Fed responded slowly.

“How’s the traitor business treating you?”

Myers was unperturbed. “Good, good . . . How’s your leg?”

“It’s made of plastic. How’d you think it’s doing?”

“Yes, of course . . . Forgot. See you around.” Myers nodded smugly and followed Earl down the hallway. The hate-filled look that Dorcas cast after us almost peeled the paint off the walls. I paused for a moment. Our receptionist was usually cranky—hell, she was prepared to commit murder if any of the other employees messed with her lunch in the cafeteria fridge—but I had never seen her like that before.

I waited until the Feds were out of earshot. “What’s that about?”

She sneered. “Old times . . . me and Judas there have a score to settle.”

“What’d he do?”

“He saved my life . . .” Dorcas shook her head and went back to answering the phones. “Now get. I’ve got work to do.”

I caught up with the others as they were entering the smaller conference room we had set aside on the first floor. It was going to be a tight fit, but apparently Harbinger didn’t want to give the Feds access to the nicer room on the second floor. Myers had stopped Earl in the hallway right in front of the wall of silver memorial plaques and was speaking. “Just you, Shackleford, and Pitt. I have some very sensitive information, and it’s on a need-to-know basis. My men will stay out here.”

“Negative.” My boss gestured at Trip and Holly. “They’re on my personal team. Anything you can say to me, you can say to them.”

“Your team?” Myers grew furious. His face turned red and he raised his voice. “The great Earl Harbinger? Not keeping secrets from his team? That’s new.” It was a surprising change in demeanor. The small man went to the memorial wall and started scanning back through the names, obviously looking for one in particular. He finally found the one he wanted, chronologically over a dozen deaths before the large number from the Christmas Party of ’95, and stabbed his finger into it. “No secrets? So, you’ve told your team about Marty then?”

Earl did not respond for several seconds. All the Feds except for Franks appeared surprised at their commander’s sudden emotional outburst. Franks looked bored. The Hunters were confused. Finally my boss sighed, apparently not prepared to debate the point. It was shocking to see him back down on his own turf. “You two, wait outside. Don’t let these guys touch anything,” He pointed at the rest of the protective detail. Trip and Holly knew not to argue. They stepped aside.

I stopped to read the indicated plaque as the others entered the conference room. The plaque had a small picture of a young man with a sly grin on his chubby face.

A. MARTIN HOOD

1/14/1960-10/17/1986

Nothing really set it apart from the other four hundred and some-odd other plaques on the wall. I went into the meeting.

Chapter 4

Franks and Myers sat on one side of the table, Earl, Julie, and I on the other. The senior Fed still seemed uncharacteristically angry. He gestured to the folder that he had given me. “Open it.”

“Why the secrecy?” Julie asked.

“Open it,” Myers repeated. I dropped it on the table between us and flipped through the thick stack of papers. The top sheet was a sketch artist’s interpretation of the shadow man from the flight home. “The Sanctified Church of the Temporary Mortal Condition, or Condition for short, was founded ten years ago,” Myers stated, as if he had given this briefing a few times. “They didn’t come up on our radar for a while. We thought they were just another bunch of scam artists taking money from gullible morons, until they released this . . .” He pulled out a sheet of paper and handed it to Harbinger.

“A proclamation heralding the return of the Old Ones . . .” Earl frowned, “It’s a bunch of crap about welcoming our new overlords back to Earth.” He held up the paper, “And a really bad drawing of some sort of sky squid.” I had seen that particular shape once before, while my disembodied spirit slugged it out with Lord Machado for control of space and time, only the picture didn’t do it justice. In real life the Dread Overlord was as big across as ten aircraft carriers parked in a line.

“Check the date.” Franks spoke for the first time.

Julie leaned in to see. “That was printed two days before Lord Machado tried to use the artifact in Childersburg, one day before we got killed in Natchy Bottom . . . So, they knew beforehand?”

“Yes, and once the whole world got to travel through time for five minutes, it really helped the Condition’s recruiting,” Myers said. I was still really glad that the government didn’t know that was my fault. “They’re growing, and the word is out that their leader, this guy”—Myers tapped the artist’s rendition of the shadow man—“is building an army to help prepare the Earth for the Old Ones’ return. Monster Control Bureau agents were sent to investigate, but we’ve had almost no luck and I’ve lost some good men. The Condition is brutal, devious, and their magic actually works, so our intel is extremely limited.”

“Who are they?” Julie asked.

Myers picked out another sheet. “These are some of the members we know about, but they’re just useful idiots, celebrities and suckers they’re scamming money off of to fund their operations. We’ve investigated them thoroughly. As usual, they don’t have a clue what they’re into. Publically, the Condition is just another oddball religion. They preach about ending the greedy tyranny of man and building a perfect utopia on Earth, under the wise leadership of the benevolent Old Ones, of course.”

My side of the table gave a collective snort. We’d all dealt with those things before.

“I take it you can understand why my superiors are so concerned. This church has been recruiting monsters, various types of undead, and they even found a shoggoth somewhere.”

Earl picked up the picture of the Englishman. “So I take it you can’t find this asshole?”

“They call him their Shadow Lord. He’s an enigma. All of their leadership is cloaked in secrecy. Finding him is where Pitt comes in. They’ll be forced to send some of their operatives to get him, and when they do, we’ll take them. My orders are to shut this church down, no matter what. I just need an in.”

“What? Worshipping giant space mollusks that want to enslave humanity isn’t cool? What’s next, you guys going to pick on the Scientologists?” I asked sarcastically.

“I’m sensing some serious First Amendment issues on this one,” Julie offered.

“ACLU’s gonna be pissed,” Harbinger responded.

I laughed. Franks leaned forward, flipped through the stack, and pulled out a glossy crime-scene photo. He shoved it at me. It was, or had been, a woman. She had been brutally torn to bits. The laughter died off.

“Oh . . . That’s terrible,” Julie said.

“That was our last undercover agent to infiltrate the inner circle of the Condition, Special Agent Ashley Patterson. They left her on the front steps of her kids’ day care like that,” Myers said. “She was still living at the time this picture was taken. They used necromancy so she could suffer longer than was humanly possible.”

Ouch. I had seen a lot of terrible things in the last year, but that made even my stomach lurch. That was a whole new level of cruel.

“Friend of mine . . .” Franks stated.

It was a somber moment, but that idea just struck me as odd. “You have friends?” I blurted.

Franks scowled at me but Myers continued. “Agent Patterson did find this.” The next picture appeared to be of a large piece of pink skin that had been engraved with a knife or something to leave very crude writing. “Apparently you can’t just send a message from the other side. They had to slice the note onto one of their living minions and then launch it through a portal. It can be very messy.”

“Gross.” Julie adjusted her glasses and tried to make out the words carved on the piece of meat. “To all minions of . . . I can’t make out the next word . . . Overlord? Find and utterly destroy the human Hunter known as . . . Owen Zastava Pitt . . .”

“What!” I exclaimed. “Let me see that . . .” Sure enough, there was my name, etched onto some sacrifice. This was too much. The Dread Overlord had declared jihad. This thing was terrifying. It was huge. “An alien god has a vendetta against me? Oh, that’s just awesome.”

“Yeah,” Franks said. “Awesome.” I swear the bastard almost smiled. Almost.

“So now we wait for the Condition to come to us,” Myers said proudly. “It turns out the Old Ones never bother to communicate with their followers here, so this message was a big deal. Capturing Pitt is now the cultists’ primary goal. They’ll do anything to get him. Any attack they launch gives us one more lead that we don’t currently have.”

I turned back to the picture of the MCB agent. She was in five pieces and still alive. I did not want to end up as a crime-scene photo. “Your plan sucks.”

“This file contains everything we know about the Condition, their assets, their methods. We’ll be ready for them to make their move. In the meantime, you just go about your business and pretend we’re not here.”

“Okay, so why the secrecy?” Earl asked sharply. “Or was your little tantrum out in the hallway just to prove a point?”

The senior Fed shook his head. “Marty was my friend.”

“Mine too . . .”

“Then maybe you should have thought of that before you murdered him,” Myers snapped.

Earl flashed with anger, shoved his chair away from the table and stood, glaring down at Myers. His fist hit the table hard enough to crack the wood. “It was an accident!”

I’ve got to hand it to him, Myers didn’t so much as flinch, and since I knew he also knew what Earl was capable of when he was angry, that was especially impressive. “What, are you going to accidentally kill me too?” Franks’ hand inched toward his holstered Glock, surely loaded with silver bullets, ready to plug Earl if he should so much as twitch, and for a moment the little conference room teetered on the edge of violence. “Do it. And it’ll be the end of MHI once and for all.” The college professor was locked in a staring contest with the werewolf and the killing machine got ready to shoot everybody.

“Enough.” Julie was calm as she spoke. “Earl, sit, please. Agent Myers, we’re cooperating fully. You two can murder each other over personal business later. We’ve got work to do.” Harbinger pulled his chair back to the table. He was really ticked. Franks put his big hands back on the table. Since I was sitting next to her, I was the only one who saw Julie discreetly return her compact .45 to her lap. She had been prepared to shoot Franks under the table, Han Solo style. My God, I love this woman.

It took a moment for everyone to calm down. I don’t know what had transpired between the two men, but Earl was still flushed as Myers pulled out a final piece of paper. “As for the secrecy, we’ve been eavesdropping on the Condition’s communications—wiretaps, reading their mail, the usual.”

“Shocking,” I muttered.

Myers dropped the bomb. “The Condition has a spy inside of MHI.”

The three of us glanced at each other. The idea was absurd. “Horse shit,” Earl snapped. “I know my men.”

“We have several messages in here that reference a mole. You’ve been infiltrated. How many people have you hired since the battle with Lord Machado?”

We looked to Julie. She was the one who kept track of logistics. “Two training classes, twenty-six Newbies in total, made it through to hiring, with another fifty currently going through.” And the three of us knew that of those fifty, we would be lucky if half of them made it through training, and this current class had been the biggest that we had ever had. MHI had been drastically shorthanded since we had been allowed to reopen. We had been cranking through classes as quickly as possible. “You honestly think one of our new employees is working for the Condition?”

“In their mind, your company is what stopped the second coming. What do you think? You can’t trust your senior people either. Keep in mind what kind of things you’re dealing with. The Old Ones are powerful, and it wouldn’t take much to flip someone you’ve known for a long time.”

“Yeah, you know all about betraying people, don’t you, Dwayne?” Earl said. Myers’ nostrils flared, but he didn’t respond. Earl continued, “I think you’re full of it. You hate MHI, and you just want to spread doubt and get us mistrusting each other. I know how you operate. This is all about getting us shut down, but the people you answer to said we’re sticking around, and that just pisses you off no end, don’t it?”

“For now.” Before Myers could say more, his phone rang. It was still set on that annoying version of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” Glaring at Earl, he answered, listened for a moment, then stood, cupping the phone so the caller wouldn’t hear. “We’re done here,” Myers did his best to act unruffled and professional. “All I require is your full cooperation against the Condition. Go about your regular business and Agent Franks will stay close to Pitt at all times. The Congressional Subcommittee on Unearthly Forces expects MHI to be willing to work with the government. Go against them, I dare you, because then I’ll get my wish and MHI will be finished.”

“Prick,” Earl sullenly murmured under his breath.

“You’ve got the file. Do whatever you want with it. I don’t care. Either way, I win. I can show myself out.” Myers adjusted his tie and buttoned his cheap suit. “I’ll be in touch.”

“So that’s it. Just keep doing our job like nothing special is happening?” I asked in exasperation. I was still having a difficult time liking this plan. If you could call being a sitting duck a plan.

“As for your job, I wouldn’t worry too much about hunting monsters,” Myers said, “because the monsters will be hunting you.” The senior agent left the room without looking back.

I glanced at Earl. He was grinding his teeth again. Julie was baffled and tired. She closed the file. We had a strange symbiotic relationship with the government. We lived off their bounties, chafed at their rules, and had to put up with a lot of their crap, but this was something entirely new.

It was uncomfortably silent for a solid minute. Franks looked across the table at three scowling Monster Hunters and asked nonchalantly, “So, what you got to eat around here?”

“Julie, could you show our guest to the cafeteria?” Harbinger asked. “Owen and I need to talk . . . alone.” Julie stood. Franks hesitated, his mind probably running through the potential of me being assassinated should he walk twenty feet down the hallway. Finally, he relented, shoved his bulk back from the table and followed Julie.

I waited until the door had closed. “Well . . . this sucks.”

“It’s a load of crap, is what it is,” he spat. “I got the call this morning. Cooperate or else. So, I guess we ain’t got much choice. Stupid government . . . Now what exactly happened in Mexico?” Earl Harbinger was the most experienced Hunter in the world. If anyone would know what to do, it was him. I told him everything I could think of, having learned last summer that even the seemingly irrelevant details counted. He rubbed his face wearily when I told him about being exposed to the artifact. He stopped me after the part about how Susan had told me that the mark was going to kill Julie.

“Did you tell Julie about that?” He ran his thumb down the outside of his neck. I shook my head in the negative. “Good. Don’t. Susan’s a liar, and I wouldn’t put it past her trying to manipulate you two into doing something stupid. It probably ain’t as bad as she’s making it out.”

“I’m still worried about her.”

“Understandable. But Julie will be fine. I know a thing or two about curses, and no matter what happens, she’s a survivor. She gets that from me . . . If you were to die, she’d get by fine. She’s a Shackleford. On the other hand, if you lost her, you’d fall apart, and for some reason, she’s taken a shine to you. So that alone will keep her around. She’s stubborn like that.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. It was odd having the ultimate badass, Earl Harbinger, trying to reassure me that everything was going to be okay. Yet, I could tell that he was as nervous as I was. He loved Julie like she was his own child, but then Earl was back to business. “What else?”

“Well . . . I don’t know how to explain it, but I had a vision, or something, just a few minutes ago.”

Harbinger cringed. “Not this shit again . . .” I couldn’t blame him. Last time I had visions, I had almost destroyed the world.

“Well, this one was different than before, but kind of the same. I think it was some sort of flash because of the artifact. Last time I had visions, I lived through parts of the Cursed One’s life. But this time, it was just some weird little thing from Myers, of all people, when I touched his hand outside, and it wasn’t even any big deal. It was just some random memory, where you guys were all eating burgers or something, but it was real . . . I think.” My boss reached over and poked me hard in the arm with one finger. “Ouch! Hey, quit it.”

“Anything?” he asked. I looked at him strangely. “What? I don’t know how all this weirdo magic stuff works either. What else happened?”

“That’s about it, and now you know what I do. No, I take that back. You know more than I do. What’s the deal with you two anyway?”

Earl paused for a long time, trying to think of what to say. “It don’t matter.”

That pissed me off. I had put it on the line for this company. “Oh, Myers seems to think that it does, and it looks like I’m stuck in the middle of your feud. I’ve bled, killed, and even died with this company. I think I’ve earned the right to know a few of MHI’s deep dark secrets at this point.”

He just looked defeated now. “It’s no big secret, just not something I’m proud of. There was a Hunter named Hood once, good buddy of Myers and your father-in-law to be. They were real tight, like you, Trip, and Holly are now. Until I . . . I killed him by accident.”

“On a mission?” It wasn’t unheard of. We made our living off the judicious use of firearms, high explosives, and pointy things in a real dynamic environment. Bad things happened occasionally. Hell, Holly had nearly blown up Trip once.

Earl shook his head. “No . . . look, it don’t matter. It was my fault and I made sure that it could never happen again. It was just a stupid mistake. But that’s when Myers left us, and he’s hated my guts ever since. He held me responsible, and by extension, all of MHI. I just . . . just don’t want to talk about it.”

I believed him. I could honestly say that I had never actually seen him look remorseful before. The look was gone in an instant, and replaced with his usual gruff exterior. He coughed. “No need to worry about that. What’s done is done. Myers can kiss off. First priority, we need to keep you from getting capped by some death cult. If I let you get killed, Julie would never shut up about it.” He held up his hand and tapped his thumb and fingers together for the universal sign for nagging.

“Gee, thanks.”

“Aw, just messing with you. We’re down to the last few days of this training class, and they’re looking remarkably good. I’ve got some experienced Hunters running it, but they could probably use some help.” None of the senior Hunters liked taking time off paying jobs to pull training duty, especially since training didn’t involve collecting any bounties, and seldom involved any killing, which were the two main reasons most of us got into this business to start with. “As of right now, you’re off active duty. You’re going to stay at the compound and help with training.”

“What?” I shouted. Harbinger’s personal team was kind of like MHI’s mobile strike force. We mostly bounced around, assisting local teams as they needed it. It was considered the sweetest gig in the company by many, and with the level of monster activity around the country being what it was, we were almost always busy. “No way. I should be out there working cases. Our team’s due to get called up anytime now.”

“The rest of us are. You ain’t. Not until this blows over. Look, Owen, it’s not anything personal. I would do the same thing for any of my men, and you would too, should you get your own team someday.” I had noticed that since I was planning on marrying his great-granddaughter and heiress-apparent, Harbinger had taken an interest in my leadership skills. “Provided you live that long.”

“That’s not fair,” I muttered.

“Fair? Boy, you’re in the wrong business if you want fair. What’s not fair is all of us getting killed walking into an ambush meant for you. The compound is the safest place for you to be, surrounded by firepower. No monster has had the guts to attack the compound in fifty years.”

“I can take care of myself, Earl.” I insisted. “This is bull—”

He cut me off. “Decision’s final, Hunter.” His tone suggested that he was not about to listen to me. Earl had been running this gang of type-A personality mercenary killers since my grandfather was in diapers. Nothing I said here was going to sway him once he had picked a course of action.

“What’s to keep them from sending an army of zombies against the compound? He did it in Mexico.”

“This place has been warded,” he explained. It was obvious that I didn’t get it. He sighed and backed up. “You know how vampires can’t come into a place unless they’ve been invited? Well, we’ve got something even better than that covering the compound. No undead can enter here, period. And if this guy’s main weapon is bossing around undead, this is the safest place you can be. No transdimensional creatures either, which rules out anything sent directly from the Old Ones.”

“How’s that work?” I asked.

“Beats me, but it does. We found a ward stone a long time ago, and set it up here. Any undead that cross the threshold of this property just explode. It’s really kind of neat. Don’t go spreading that around, though, because once in a while some undead come by with a bone to pick, and it’s fun to watch them blow up when they cross the gate.”

“I don’t like it . . .” I muttered.

Harbinger pulled out a pack of Marlboros and shook one into his hand. “I didn’t say that I’m going to make you sit here forever, did I? Don’t worry. We’ll figure out a way to deal with this cult. The Feds might not be able to handle it, but they’re a bunch of bureaucratic twits. I’ll call in some favors and we’ll start working our sources out on the dark side. We’ll find them ourselves, then take care of this problem, MHI style . . .”

“Which usually involves chainsaws,” I said happily.

“Yes. Yes, it does.” He flipped open his MHI logo Zippo and lit his cigarette, indicating that this was bothering him more than he was letting on. He usually didn’t smoke inside the main building unless he was under a lot of stress. “In the meantime, you lay low here at home base.”

“If the compound’s so safe then what about this spy?”

“I think Myers is a liar,” Harbinger answered, a little too quickly. “But . . . I didn’t get this old by not being paranoid. Look, you think getting stuck on training duty is a joke, fine. Congratulations, you’re now responsible for rooting out this mole if there is one.”

Now I figured he was just humoring me. “And just how am I supposed to do that?”

Harbinger shoved the Feds’ file folder toward me. “I don’t know yet. Use your imagination. I’ll gather the others that I know we can trust, and you can meet me in the main conference room at six. Ditch the federal weasels on the way. In the meantime, don’t let Franks screw around with any of our stuff. I don’t trust that guy.”

“Okay, first off, we need to set some ground rules,” I spoke slowly and avoided using big words so Franks wouldn’t be confused. Past history indicated that when he got confused, he tended to hit me. He and the three other Feds were sitting across from me in the MHI cafeteria. Franks was on his fourth sandwich and apparently had a metabolism like a blast furnace. The other agents—Torres, Herzog, and Archer—listened intently. The one thing I could say for the Feds, they did take their jobs really seriously. “You don’t need to be so close. Here at the compound, I’m safe.”

Franks snorted. Agent Torres actually raised his hand, which made me feel a little silly. I pointed at him.

“Owen. May I call you that?” I nodded. My friends around here usually just called me Z, but it would be a cold day in hell before I ranked anybody from the MCB as a friend. “I know this is awkward, but we’re just here to help.” Torres was the youngest, and seemed sincere. He did seem to really respect MHI, which was abnormal. After the meeting, Holly had told me that she thought he was the cutest too, which had caused me to roll my eyes so hard that I had actually hurt myself. He had given me back my precious guns though, so I was inclined to not totally hate him.

“When people from the government tell me they’re just here to help, I get nervous. You’re supposed to blend in, right? We’ve got a giant Newbie class going on now, the compound’s crowded, and always having four of you walking in formation around me looking like a bunch of storm troopers isn’t going to help.”

Archer spoke. “So what do you expect us to do? Just sit back and wait for the Condition to murder you?” Archer was tall, but unlike most of the overly buffed MCB, he was skinny. The average Fed made your average Hunter look pretty dumpy. But Archer was thin, with an angular nose and a large Adam’s apple. He had one of those haircuts that worked if you were a Marine, but otherwise just made you look kind of silly, with the buzzed sides, and the perfectly straight flattop, so symmetrical that it had to have been done with surveying gear.

“Look, Pitt, we don’t want to be here any more than you want us to be,” Herzog said. She was the first female MCB agent I had met, all of five feet tall, and built like a bulldog, complete with jowls. She also had the worst attitude. “We all know this is a bullshit assignment, and I don’t know what we did to piss Myers off to get stuck doing this scut work, no offense, sir,” she nodded at Franks, who stopped chewing long enough to grunt an affirmation. “We should be out killing monsters, and taking down the Condition the old-fashioned way. Beating the ever-livin’ hell out of everyone in it until somebody squeals where the bosses are, and then putting a bullet in the brain of every last one of the squid-worshipping fanatics. We kneecap enough of these assholes and cut off enough thumbs, somebody will talk. They always do. We need to be out there putting the fear of God into these freaks, not babysitting . . . you.”

Torres had mentioned Border Patrol at the airstrip. Archer had an 82nd Airborne tat on his forearm. All the MCB types apparently started out in regular government jobs, so I had to know. “Herzog, who were you with before being recruited by the Monster Control Bureau?”

“Internal Revenue Service.”

God help us. “Oh . . . well . . . okay then.” That made sense. I had a sneaking suspicion that she had once audited my old job. Somebody from the IRS had actually taken the time to draw frowny faces in red ink on a depreciation schedule that I had filled out. She seemed like the type. “Look, personally I agree. I would much rather have you out there doing your thing, cutting thumbs off and whatnot, and not following me around. Like this, you’re going to stick out. This just isn’t going to work.”

“The only Hunters who know who we really are are Harbinger and his immediate people,” Torres suggested to Franks. “We can blend in with the new recruits. Nobody, including the Condition’s spy, will ever even know we’re on site unless Owen needs us.”

“You three, maybe . . . but everybody knows of Franks,” I pointed out. I didn’t add that his reputation for brutality had an almost urban legend quality to it in Monster Hunting circles. “He’ll have to go, I don’t know, live in the forest or something.”

Torres was undeterred. “Okay, then the cover story can be that Agent Franks is a liaison, assigned here to build camaraderie between private sector and governmental Hunters.” The man was just chock full of helpful suggestions, though I still liked my live-in-the-forest idea better. Franks nodded slowly, as if the idea of him being an ambassador of goodwill made any sense whatsoever. “We stay out of your way, we’re still accomplishing our mission, everybody’s happy.”

“Everybody saw your great big airplane land today.”

“Nobody was close except for your friends. We can say it was for Agent Franks. The rest of us are late additions to the class.”

I bit my lip. Torres had a point. “That’ll work, but there’s one more thing.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, is putting our lives on the line to protect you from the forces of evil inconvenient?” Herzog asked, just oozing sympathy.

“Yeah, it is.” I had no patience for this nonsense. I didn’t ask for their help. “Inside this, the main building, you’re not allowed past the first floor. When I’m working here at the compound, my room is upstairs. Upstairs is off limits. The basement is off limits.” Really, I didn’t care, but I knew that MHI had a lot of things stashed around here that they really didn’t want the government to know about. Hell, I still didn’t now what was in half of the basement. Plus it was one more way for me to be a pain in the ass to Franks’ Goon Squad. I can’t help it. I really do have an antiauthoritarian streak.

“That’s not going to make our mission any easier,” Torres suggested gently.

“You want to blend in with the Newbies? They aren’t allowed past the first floor either until they’ve graduated training. Deal with it.”

“Myers warned us that you’d be difficult,” Archer said, raising his voice slightly. “So that’s how it’s going to be then. Who the hell are you to—”

I raised my hand and cut him off. “You want to go upstairs, get a warrant. Otherwise, shut it, Buzz Cut. We all know why you’re here, and that’s to capture some assassins. You couldn’t care less what happens to me. So worst-case scenario, I get killed, then you can mop up and your boss is happy. This whole damn thing is his fault anyway, and I don’t have to have you all crowding my personal space.” That seemed to really piss off Herzog and Archer. Torres looked like it hurt his feelings that I would question his honest intentions. He was almost like a governmental version of Trip.

Surprisingly enough, Franks didn’t argue, he just kept chewing, taking the time to savor the Wonder Bread and bologna. Finally he swallowed and wiped his mouth with the back of one massive hand. “Whatever . . . It’s your funeral.” He glanced across his team and nonchalantly ordered, “It’s settled. Hang back until someone tries to kidnap Pitt. Interrogate the survivors.”

Somehow that didn’t give me a real good feeling.

The file on the Sanctified Church of the Temporary Mortal Condition was fat with color photos, weird intel, and disturbing reports. I had spent the last three hours poring over the notes, and the more I read, the more worried I got. It had grown dark outside and stuffy inside the second-floor conference room.

“Man, what a bunch of jerks,” Milo Anderson said as he leaned back in his chair, holding a sheet of paper in front of his bushy red beard, eyes darting back and forth behind thick, round glasses as he read through the list of the various atrocities. “I never knew there were this many ways to sacrifice a virgin!”

“Better watch out, Trip,” Holly muttered under her breath as she flipped through the pages, her shoes up on the conference table, absently chewing a pencil between her teeth. “They’re coming to get you.”

Trip studiously ignored her and kept on reading factoids about the people who wanted to bundle me up and ship me across the universe to be devoured by a giant mollusk. Harbinger had said that he was going to bring in the people he trusted, and apparently, that was pretty much everybody who would normally be here anyway, which wasn’t exactly surprising. When you spend this much time risking life and limb with people, they aren’t just coworkers, they’re family. And apparently, having one of that family personally threatened gets taken pretty damn seriously.

“So which of y’all’s got a plan on how we kill all these folks on here?” Dorcas asked, holding up the list of the suspected cultists. She slurped noisily from her coffee mug. Normally our senior-citizen receptionist wouldn’t be in a team planning meeting, but she had taken an almost grandmotherly liking to me over the last year. Either that or she was just itching to shoot somebody.

“We’re Monster Hunter International, not Doofus Hunter International,” Julie said soothingly. “We’re not interested in these chumps. Most of them probably don’t even know what they’re involved in. Besides, knowing the government, their intel is probably wrong on half these names anyway. Sorry, Dorcas.”

“Tempting though . . .” Holly said, glancing at the list. “I hate that guy’s movies.”

“Terrible actor,” Trip agreed.

Albert Lee was the last to arrive. He limped into the room carrying a stack of books hastily gathered from the archives under one arm and balancing his cane in the other. Lee had worked as our archivist ever since his leg had been severely injured at DeSoya Caverns. Though mighty handy on demolitions, his real calling was in research. He put the heavy books down and then thumped me hard on the back. “Good to see you made it home, man,” he said with a grin.

I shook his offered hand. “Good to be home, Al.”

“Wait ’til you see what I found. Dude, you are so screwed,” he said as he sat down next to me, his metal leg brace creaking audibly. I felt bad whenever it seemed to cause him discomfort, which was often. I had been serving as his team leader when he had taken that hit and I still held myself responsible. Realistically, there was nothing that I could have done differently, but that’s still how I felt. Lee, a tough former Marine, had never uttered a single word about it, except to joke about how it had finally given him an excuse to buy a badass sword cane.

The room was relatively full. Earl Harbinger, Julie Shackleford, Milo Anderson, Trip Jones, and Holly Newcastle were normal fixtures, as they made up the backbone of my team. In addition, Skippy, our pilot, and leader of our orc contingent, was standing quietly at the back of the room, still wearing his hood and goggles, unwilling to take a seat at the table, even among his friends. It wasn’t that Skippy was unsociable, it was just that being around humans was always painfully awkward for him. And compared to most of his people, he was the life of the party.

The only other active Hunter present was someone I only knew in passing, and had never personally worked with, other than briefly last year when all of MHI was gathered for DeSoya Caverns. Her name was Esmeralda Paxton, Seattle team lead, and she was the one who had drawn the duty of training this Newbie class. Paxton was probably only a little over five feet tall, in her early forties, with auburn hair tied up in a bun, and wearing wire-rimmed glasses. She had on a folksy patchwork vest, a fashion that really didn’t seem to fit in with all the hardened killers. She looked more likely to bake up a plate of chocolate-chip cookies than to stake a vampire, but Earl trusted her enough to lead a team in one of the most active parts of the country, and Julie’s very own younger brother had been assigned to her care, so apparently she was a lot more dangerous than her motherly looks indicated. She had not spoken much yet, but continued to study the material intently.

Raymond Shackleford the Third, semi-retired super Hunter, whom Julie referred to as Grandpa, and the rest of us normally just called Boss, was sitting at his customary seat at the head of the table. He had aged quite a bit during the time I had known him. His white hair was getting wispier, the scarred side of his face around his eye patch was beginning to droop, and I was sad to notice that his nagging cough had gotten worse since we had left for Mexico. He was more of a symbolic leader. Earl Harbinger, real name Raymond Shackleford the Second, ran the day-to-day operations of the company, but there was no way that the Boss was going to sit out on a death threat against one of his Hunters. Missing his right hand, he banged his stainless-steel hook on the table to get everyone’s attention.

He cleared his throat. “All right, people. What’s the consensus?”

“Z’s hosed,” Trip suggested.

“Thank you, Mr. Jones. All in favor?”

The entire table said “Aye,” then laughed at my expense. “Thanks, guys,” I muttered. Julie patted my hand under the table.

“All right, enough of that tomfoolery,” the Boss ordered. “Threat assessment?”

“Very bad, sir,” Lee hoisted the first book. “Nobody knows who this necromancer is. I’ve been reading up on them today, and that title can be used for anybody who dabbles in death magic, animating the dead, all the way up to some really bad men who’ve done some terrible things.”

“What kind of terrible?”

“Pretty much anything you can think of. The last MHI case I can find involving one was in Haiti, 1978. There was a high body count on that one,” Lee replied.

“I remember that,” the Boss said. “That was the man who had all those doppelgangers working for him, replaced all the city authorities, and then held himself a big old massacre.” We’d learned a bit about doppelgangers in training, but hadn’t spent much time on them since nobody had seen one for decades. They were perfect mimics, and historically, the mysterious creatures had caused all sorts of trouble. “Good thing we haven’t had to deal with those cursed shapeshifters since.”

“No, you’re thinking of Cuba in ’53,” Harbinger corrected his son. “Haiti was the one where the necromancer sewed all those bodies together into that giant flesh golem.”

“My memory ain’t what it used to be,” the Boss replied simply. I noted that Harbinger looked a little sad at that. It had to be difficult to see your loved ones age a decade for every one of yours.

“Either way you get the point. This could be potentially really ugly. Historically they’ve raised the dead, invented totally new kinds of undead, opened portals to other dimensions, that kind of thing,” Lee said. “And I’m assuming it gets worse.” Our archivist pulled on a pair of surgical gloves before opening the largest, dustiest, and oldest book. The cover was bound in ornate leather and the pages were hand-inked on yellowed parchment. Lee was very careful, almost delicate, in order to not damage the ancient tome. “The Feds’ notes mentioned that the Condition has a pet shoggoth, so I figured I would see what one of those could do . . .” The drawing was of a horrible, bulbous, lumpy, asymmetrical thing, with far too many mouths and eyes. I was really hoping that the artist had been exaggerating. “There are passing references to them in different places. This one is in Arabic, but it had the most info on them.”

“Nasty . . . What’s it do?” Holly asked.

The Boss and Harbinger exchanged a quick glance. The Boss spoke first. “They’re a pain in the rear, is what they are. My brother Leroy and I fought one once, right here in Cazador. It moved into the forest years back. Stinky, messy beast, started eating townsfolk and livestock. I tried to kill it, but it got away.”

“You never told me you’d hunted a shoggoth, Grandpa.” Julie leaned across me to see the book. “I didn’t know those still existed.” Julie frowned as she studied the picture. “Wait a second . . . Mr. Trash Bags?”

“Who’s Mr. Trash Bags?” I asked.

Her mouth fell open as she recognized it. Julie pointed at the old book. “Right there! That’s Mr. Trash Bags! He was my imaginary friend when I was a little girl. We used to play games together in the forest. He was big and cuddly and sweet. You know how imaginary friends are. But that’s totally him, Mr. Trash Bags. I was like six years old, but I still remember.”

She had to be pulling my leg. “Your imaginary friend was a blob?”

“Sorry, Jules. He wasn’t imaginary,” Earl said apologetically. “And you were four. We never could figure out why it didn’t just eat you. You cried for days after we chased it off.”

Julie leaned back, looking flustered. “Wow . . . that . . . that really sucks,” my fiancée said slowly. “He was such a nice . . . thing.”

“Yes, and that’s why I didn’t tell you,” her Grandpa said. “I figured you didn’t need to know that your best friend was a soul-sucking creature from the great beyond. I hope you understand, my dear. Please, carry on, Mr. Lee.”

Lee appeared a little surprised that one of his managers had been friends with a horrific blob. “Uh . . . yeah. Shoggoths are basically servants, manual laborers to the Old Ones. They do their bidding, run errands, eat people, dig tunnels, that kind of thing. To quote the original author, who’s only referred to as the Mad Arab, ‘To look upon their hideous thousand eyes is to invite horror and the suffering of infinite madness, within tombs of blackness where the innocent are devoured for eternity.’ And so on.”

“He seemed really nice . . .” Julie said hesitantly. “This is a major bummer . . .”

“They’re amorphous. They can change shape quickly, but they’re about fifteen feet across and weigh around two tons,” Earl said. “They can communicate, but they’re relatively stupid. Just brute force, steamrollers, made out of tar and eyeballs. And they eat everything.” Except for a four-year-old girl, luckily. Julie seemed to be taking it well, but she came from a long line of Hunters who were proud of their flexible minds. Harbinger continued. “Fire chased it off last time. Milo, I want all the flamethrowers checked out and ready to go.”

Julie rubbed her neck. “Well, that just makes me sad.”

Now it was my turn to pat her hand under the table.

Esmeralda Paxton raised her hand politely to cut in. “You have more problems than just a shoggoth, not that those aren’t terrible enough, mind you. One of these intercepted e-mail messages mentions, and I quote, ‘The High Priest is prepared to use Force and Violence to satisfy the requests of the great Old Ones, no matter what the cost.’”

“Well, he did hit me with a toilet,” I pointed out. “That’s pretty damn violent.”

She shook her head. “Force and Violence are capitalized.”

I looked at her stupidly. “Cultists are bad at grammar?”

“They’re proper nouns?” Trip asked. “Those are names.”

Esmeralda smiled and pointed at Trip. “Bingo. And if this is who I’m thinking of, the Los Alamos team fought them once before, back when I was a Newbie.”

Harbinger thought about it for a moment, scowling. “Cratos and Bia? It can’t be. That was twenty years ago.”

“Seventeen years. Please don’t try and age me prematurely, Earl,” the petite woman scolded him. “I’m not a little old lady yet, though I do eventually plan on being a surprisingly aggressive little old lady. They use the old Greek names for Force and Violence. They’ve been around for a really long time. Some say they’re immortals.”

“Everything’s immortal,” Earl stated, “until you figure out how to kill it.”

“My team tracked them across southern Europe. They were easy to follow, since they made a mess wherever they went. We even managed to ambush them once, only to discover that they were virtually indestructible. Then they vanished into thin air. We never did get to collect those bounties.”

“So, what are Force and Violence?” Julie asked. “I don’t remember this kind.”

“We’re not sure what they are,” Esmeralda explained. “Physically, they seemed similar to ogres, but they’re smarter, or at least the female, Bia, is rather clever. The male, Cratos, is dumb as a rock, but unbelievably strong. They’re either ancient or they took their names from minor gods in the Greek pantheon to give that impression.”

“Ancient Greece, like Zeus comes down from Olympus and turns into a giant horny swan, kind of stuff?” I asked. “Because, you know, this stuff wasn’t weird enough already.”

Earl leaned back in his chair, deep in thought. “Don’t mock ancient Greek monsters. A minotaur near cost me my life, once. There’s nothing tougher than a giant bull-man with bulletproof hide . . . I made a coat out of him.”

“Well, we don’t really know what they are. But they’re monsters that show up every so often and go on a killing spree. The weirdest thing was that they didn’t just kill people, they killed other monsters too. Their behavior was a mystery. This message might not even refer to the same creatures, but I just thought I should point it out,” Esmeralda said. “If we run into two humanoids, and one’s twelve feet tall and bright red, and the other’s about eight feet tall, and purple—”

“Stop.” Skippy suddenly cut her off. His gravelly voice made me jump. He had been so quiet that I had forgotten he was even in the room. The orc walked up to the table awkwardly and stared at Esmeralda, goggles tilting to the side. “Skippy . . . knows. Knows these . . .” He said some unpronounceable word in his own language. “Like you, Harb Anger, like MHI . . . they hunt. But bad. They bad things. No honor . . . Not hunt to protect . . . hunt for kill. Hunt for make suffer. Hunt my people. Many Urks die.” Skippy bowed his hooded head toward us, his shielded eyes inscrutable as ever. Speaking English always seemed painful to him. “Enemies . . . pay to kill many Urks.” He said that same word again.

“What’s that mean?” Trip asked. My friend had spent a lot of time at Skippy’s village over the last few months, fascinated by the tribe, and had been picking up a lot of the orcish language.

Skippy stood awkwardly, tilting his head to one side, trying to find the words in English. “Think you call . . . Hit Men.”

“Assassins . . .” Esmeralda nodded thoughtfully. “That makes sense. We never did know why they attacked where they did, but there did seem to be a definite pattern. Then when their work was done, they just disappeared.”

“This just keeps getting better and better. Ogre hit men . . .” I muttered. This Condition was just full of fun. “So, they’re like the monster version of us?”

“No!” the orc responded with surprising intensity. Skippy shook his head vehemently. “Not like MHI. No honor!”

“How are they different, Skippy?” Trip asked calmly.

The orc continued to shake his head, agitated. Skippy seemed really offended by the idea that his adopted clan was anything at all like these things. “You, Hunters, paid money . . . for kill monster. These two . . . They kill, but paid . . . paid in souls. Eat the soul, live forever.” Skippy finished talking and then retreated quietly back into the corner, seemingly embarrassed by saying so much. The others continued to talk back and forth in excited tones. Hunters tend to get pumped at the prospect of taking down something new.

My attention was diverted from the conversation as the conference room door swung open and another person walked in. I recognized him immediately, but was taken completely by surprise. The others didn’t seem to notice.

The newcomer was about as tall as I was, but where I was hulking, he was lean, and where I was ugly, he was movie-star handsome. He was wearing standard-issue MHI body armor only his was in black, had been tailored to fit better, and it still apparently had that magic ability to never get dirty. The spot where the green Happy Face with horns patch had been on his arm was blank Velcro now, but other than that, he looked exactly the same as the day he’d resigned.

“Hey, everyone, sorry I’m late. We had to wrap up today’s training first. We started the Newbies on long-range rifle.” Grant Jefferson, former Hunter, apologized as he walked up to the table. “I came as soon as I could, Earl. Why is Agent Franks guarding the staircase?”

I hadn’t seen him since last summer. I glanced at Julie and she was as surprised to see her ex-boyfriend here as I was.

“Have a seat, Grant, I’ll catch you up later,” Earl said, gesturing at an open spot across the table from me.

He wasn’t the only one who needed some catching up. “Hey, Grant. Why are you here, exactly?” I asked, probably a little louder than I needed to. The bad acoustics of the conference room were probably what made me sound a little more perturbed that I should have been. Acoustics. Yeah.

“Oh, hi, Julie,” Grant said, easily ignoring me as he smoothly slid into the chair. He casually put his armored elbows on the table. “When did you get back from Mexico?” His tone was friendly.

“This afternoon . . .” she said slowly. I didn’t know which was more of a surprise for her, Grant or Mr. Trash Bags. “MCB flew us back.”

“Sorry I missed you earlier. Your brother is still out on the line. He said to tell you he’ll catch up soon.” Grant pretended to notice me for the first time. “Pitt, good to see you,” he lied politely.

I grunted something noncommittal.

He turned his attention right back to Julie. “And congratulations to you two on getting engaged. That’s just great.” His fake smile was very convincing.

“Thanks.” Julie was not deterred by small talk. “What are you doing here?”

Grant raised his eyebrows. “No one told you?”

“Aw, crap. Forgot,” Earl said quickly. “It’s been a busy few days. While you were in Mexico, Grant came by, asked for his old job back.” I glared at Trip and Holly. They’d gotten back yesterday. Apparently they had forgotten to mention Grant’s rehiring during all the excitement. They knew how well the two of us got along. Trip made eye contact and shrugged, as if to say whoops. “We’re so shorthanded, I was glad to have the help.”

“I guess the whole Hollywood thing didn’t work out for you, huh?” I asked suspiciously.

He just smiled. His perfectly capped white teeth looked almost like Tic-Tacs. “No. It was fun, but Hunting is my true calling. I’m glad to be home.”

I bit my tongue. Home? Sure, he had seen some horrible things while in the clutches of the Cursed One’s seven Master vampires, but everybody had been as nice as possible to him in the aftermath, and he had still walked away, a quitter.

“Well . . . it’s good to have you back,” Julie said civilly. Their breakup had been a bit on the icy side. I hadn’t been there for the actual “discussion” part, though I had been there when she’d knocked him out with the butt of an M14. Julie had never wanted to talk about it, so I had left it alone. With Grant gone, it had been one topic of conversation that we’d just mutually avoided.

“Where’s your team patch?” I asked, being a complete jackass. Grant’s hand subconsciously flicked to his arm, and just briefly he let slip a scowl. The golden boy never could handle failure.

Earl, sensing tension, spoke again, “I’ve assigned Grant to help Esmeralda with training for now. When the other team leads come in at graduation in a few days, we’ll find a spot for him on one of the teams. We need all the experienced Hunters we can get out there in the field.”

“Glad to help,” Grant replied, still glaring at me. I smiled, noting that his once-perfect nose had healed with a slight bend from when I had broken it.

“Yes, yes, back to business,” said the Boss, who apparently could not care less about our petty personal dramas. “Anything else we need to know about this Condition?” Nobody had mentioned the potential spy. Earl caught my eye and shook his head slightly so the others wouldn’t notice. Apparently we were keeping that part a secret.

“We’re dealing with an organization that has a couple hundred human members, tops,” Earl said. “And most of them are going to be fanatics rather than professionals in this exalted order of assholes. Their leader’s powers are useless here, so we should be relatively safe from a direct assault. Unless he sends his other non-undead monsters against us, and if that happens, we’ll just button up and deal with them. In the meantime we need to prepare for any other threats he comes up with. None of you will breathe a word of this to anyone outside of this room. We’ll come up with a plan for this Condition.” He began to rattle off duties. “Everyone, keep an eye on Franks. I don’t trust him. Lee, see what you can find out about these ogre things from the archives. Julie, Dorcas, I want you to contact all the team leads, give them a brief rundown about this cult and see if any of them can scare up any local intel. Milo, Trip, Holly, go see the elves, check if they’ve had any dealings with them.”

Holly groaned out loud.

“I really do know them better than anybody, I guess.” Milo squinted toward me. “My wife’s about to have a baby, and if I’m off talking to trailer park elves about you when she goes into labor with my first child, I’m holding you personally responsible.”

I nodded slowly, not really sure how I was going to help with that.

Earl continued. “Esmeralda, Owen will be helping you with training. Don’t let his goofiness fool you. He’s actually a decent firearms instructor.”

“I certainly could use another hand,” she said.

“And you’ll be adding three undercover federal agents to your class,” Earl added. I believe that Esmeralda actually groaned louder than Holly had about the elves. Apparently the Seattle team leader got along with the government as well as everyone else at MHI. “Yeah, I know. Just pretend they aren’t here.”

“Damn Feds, on my property,” the Boss murmured. I swear that if he wasn’t such a gentleman, he would have spit on the floor. The government paid a large portion of the bills through PUFF, but that didn’t mean we had to enjoy working with their Hunters.

“Can I at least be extra mean to them?” Esmeralda asked.

Harbinger smiled that predatory way only werewolves can. “But of course.”

“I’ve got just the thing.” Esmeralda grinned back. “Milo, we’ll need some more cow entrails for another Gut Crawl tomorrow. It wouldn’t be fair if our late arrivals missed out on that.”

“I don’t have anything fresh,” Milo stated.

“Even better . . .”

Chapter 5

I settled into a routine over the next few days. Whenever I was working at the compound, I slept in a small room on the top floor directly across from Julie’s temporary room. Some of Harbinger’s team had their own homes off site, mostly in nearby Cazador, but I had been living at the old Shackleford family estate, or at least I had until Earl had decreed it was safer for me to stay here. The routine started early; Esmeralda and her Hunters had the Newbies up and running by six. I’d shower and head downstairs for breakfast where, inevitably, Agent Franks was sitting in a chair at the base of the stairs waiting for me. We had assigned him a private room, but as of yet, I was unaware if he had actually used it. The giant apparently never slept, and if he did, I was willing to bet it was with one eye open. Each morning since we’d gotten back he had been in the exact same spot, in a folding chair stolen from the cafeteria, back against the wall, waiting. And each morning, he would just nod at me when I would appear, as if he had heard me long before I had come down, and had been waiting patiently.

Franks had gone incognito. After the first day, I had pointed out that if he was supposedly some sort of liaison, he probably wouldn’t be wandering around wearing his full suit of armor, with his assault rifle slung on his back, and what looked like about fifty pounds of ancillary gear. Apparently, he had agreed. So now Franks was in his other uniform, a cheap black suit, with a black clip-on tie, and a white dress shirt that had never been intended to be buttoned around a neck as thick as his. I had spotted him carrying at least two full-size Glocks, and I was guessing he had a grenade in each coat pocket, but for Franks, that was real low profile.

“Mornin’, Sunshine,” I said sarcastically, inwardly wishing that he would just go away.

He glowered for a moment, apparently impatient that nothing had tried to murder me yet. He adjusted the grenades in his pockets, checked his clip-on, and stood. As usual, Franks didn’t have much to say. I started for the cafeteria, Franks trailing sullenly a few feet behind.

Today was going to be much like yesterday. After breakfast, I needed to catch up on paperwork, then I was supposed to run the range and teach the Newbies how to shoot better—hopefully at the targets and not at each other by accident, which got harder to do as the exercises got more complicated. Esmeralda had me doing that for most of the day.

“Any new intel from your people?” I asked Agent Franks over breakfast. We were alone in the large cafeteria. The Newbie class was out on their run, and Harbinger’s team were mostly still working on the jobs he had assigned to them. I knew that Trip, Holly, and Milo had road-tripped it to Corinth yesterday to shake down the elves at the Enchanted Forest Trailer Park. Lucky them.

“No,” he said sullenly over a mouthful of bacon. Franks chewed with his mouth open. Loudly.

“Any idea when this cult might make their move?”

“No.”

“Think they’re scared because I’m here?”

He shrugged.

“Anything interesting happen last night?”

“No.”

Being by nature the kind of person who is uncomfortable with long silences, I kept trying. “If we’re going to be hanging out, we might as well get to know each other some. I’ve known you for a while now.” I didn’t need to mention that our first meeting had been with him pointing a gun at my head, and our second had involved him beating the ever-living hell out of me. “And I don’t even know what your first name is.”

He didn’t respond for a long time. “Agent.”

So much for being friendly. “So, Agent, got any hobbies? Chia Pet farm? Collect Pokemon cards?”

I could feel the disdain. The power-lifter veins in his forehead bulged slightly as I annoyed him. “No.”

That was pretty much the same as every other conversation I’d had with Franks. Apparently the government had not issued him a personality. The man was a hulking, violent, silent enigma. I sighed, and went back to the routine.

My office was on the top floor. I suppose that it was technically the Monster Hunter International Finance Department, but that seemed a bit pretentious a title for just me and a computer with Quickbooks Pro installed on it. I guess that I was the interim finance department, since I’d finally talked Earl into hiring a full-time bookkeeper, but I’d been too busy to follow up on it, so in the meantime, it was all me.

The accounting for MHI wasn’t nearly as complicated as my old job. I managed to mostly keep everything up to date between missions. Before I’d come on it had been a real mess. Apparently killing and math were mutually exclusive skill sets for most people, but I’d gotten the books cleaned up. I’d steered us through an IRS audit a few months ago and that had been almost as hard as defeating Lord Machado.

The books were rough. I wasn’t exactly proud of the General Ledger, but that was the beauty of being a privately held company. There were no shareholders to make happy and none of that awful SarbOx nonsense that big corporations had to deal with. Most of our money came from PUFF and they always paid on time. The hardest part was trying to track the expenses, since the various teams threw bags of money around in the course of completing their missions, and all of them were better at destruction than reliably e-mailing me their expense reports.

The stack of invoices had grown fat since I’d left for Mexico. As usual, the other Hunters couldn’t be bothered to file anything correctly, and it all tended to just get dumped into one big pile right in the middle of my desk. This was going to take forever to book. The top sheet was labeled Project Leviathan in red Sharpie. “Crap, Milo, ten thousand dollars for custom-machined harpoons? How many of those things do you need?” I muttered as I tossed the invoice aside. I had one expense account titled “Milo.” It was filled with weird items.

Groaning, I flipped through the stack. My heart just wasn’t in it today. I was too preoccupied with a death cult to get any work done. In my heart, I knew I should be out there, doing something useful. There were some framed pictures on my desk: me and Julie after hiking to the top of Mt. Cheaha together, the Amazing Newbie Squad posed with Friendly Fernando when we’d gone back to visit DeSoya Caverns as tourists rather than exterminators, and the only picture I had of Mordechai Byreika.

It was the black-and-white photo that Lee had found last summer from Mordechai’s old journal, with the Hunter posed in front of something giant, scaled, and dead. I picked it up and sighed. It wasn’t that I missed having a cryptic ghost hanging out inside my brain, but Mordechai would have known what to do. He’d always had the right answers, even when he was keeping them from me for my own protection. He couldn’t have told me what to do, because I would’ve rushed to do it, and inadvertently opened the gate in the process. It had been a fine line to walk, but he’d been wise, careful, and thoughtful, all things that I sucked at. Mordechai died decades before I had been born, but he would always be my mentor.

“I wish you were around, Old Man,” I said. “I could use some good advice right about now. . . .” I didn’t want to be special, but as Mordechai had said, I’d drawn the universe’s short straw and been the one to decide the fate of worlds. Now I was paying for it.

I put the picture down and glared at the stack of invoices.

Screw it. The paperwork could wait.

At least I got paid to shoot, which, as a lifelong gun nut, is kind of a dream come true. From ten until noon I worked on marksmanship and manipulation with the Newbies. At this point they had already been here for two months, and this was the final week of training, so the dumb and dangerous had long since been rooted out and sent home with fat severance checks.

The remaining Newbies were pretty sharp. As usual, all of them were themselves survivors of brutal supernatural attacks. This particular class had a soldier who’d taken out an Akkadian storm beast in Iraq; a cabby who’d given a ride to a vampire (not only had it tried to eat him, it had been a lousy tipper); two brothers whose foundation business, Haight Brothers Construction, had unearthed a skinwalker; an archeologist who discovered that some things were best left undiscovered; and even a kid just out of high school who’d had a blood fiend climb in the drive-through window at the Arby’s he’d been working at. And yes, it turns out that you can actually kill a blood fiend by shoving its face into the fry cooker and holding it there until it quits kicking.

I’d been tasked with helping on the range, but I had to admit that most of the Newbies were already proficient shots. One of Esmeralda’s guys, a fellow hardcore shooter named Cooper, had done a good job getting them up to speed. But Cooper was primarily an explosives guy, a rifleman second, and I was able to contribute quite a bit of knowledge to teaching the Newbies how to improve with the shotguns and pistols. Not meaning to boast, but as far as I knew, nobody at MHI was as good as I was with a shotgun. Being good at something and being a good teacher were not necessarily the same thing, and I could only hope that I would do half as good a job as Sam Haven had done for my Newbie class. Now, he had been one hell of a great instructor.

Grant was working with those chosen to be the sharpshooters. I hated to admit it, but he did know more about long-range precision shooting than I did—though in my opinion, he was a perfect example of a knowledgeable but lousy teacher, but then again, I was biased.

This was the largest Newbie class that had ever gone through training, and under Esmeralda’s patient tutelage, it was also looking like it was going to have the highest graduation rate. She had better be careful. If she did too good a job, Earl would probably try to draft her to run every training class, and I doubted any of the experienced Hunters would want that as a full-time gig.

I walked back and forth behind the firing line of Hunters. I had approximately half of them today. Each Newbie was paired up, with one serving as coach and the other shooting. Today I was drilling them on transitions, running their primary long gun dry, then slinging it quickly to draw their pistols. Most of them were actually looking pretty damn good. Franks’ Goon Squad had integrated seamlessly into the class. I had to hand it to the MCB agents. They were professionals. As far as the other Newbies and Esmeralda’s team knew, they had been part of the last Newbie class but had pulled out early due to various training injuries. That also explained their above-average skills and knowledge. Watching them on the range, I learned that Torres was damn good, Archer was well-trained and methodical, and Herzog was decently proficient, but made up for it with maliciousness.

My protective detail hadn’t liked me walking around a bunch of potential Condition assassins with guns, but I still thought they were full of crap. The undercover agents kept glancing my way, waiting for something terrible to happen. Sadly for them, nothing did. After transitions, shooting on the move, and shooting from various cover positions, we took a break to hydrate, snack, and reload magazines before moving onto the next series of more complicated exercises. Grant immediately began to tell most of the willing-to-listen about some story where he was the hero. He had lots of those. There was a tin roof set up for shade over the firing line, and I plopped down onto a concrete bench to suck down a Gatorade, seeking solitude away from the Newbies for a moment. Even spring in Alabama is hot when you’re standing in the sun carrying a full combat load and wearing a Kevlar suit. My shadow, Franks, wandered off momentarily to answer a phone call.

One young woman broke away from the crowd and approached. She had to have been one of the youngest in the class, an attractive girl in a bouncy cheerleader kind of way, blonde and perky. “Mind if I sit here?”

“Sure,” I gestured at the bench across from me. She flopped down, armor pouches banging. I noted Torres, Archer, and Herzog scanning her for threats and assessing if they needed to come over and protect me. I shook my head slightly. The agents went back to their snacks.

The Newbie held out a granola bar. “Want one?”

“No thanks.” I mentally ran down the roll call of names. I had always sucked with remembering names. “Dawn, right?”

“Yeah,” she smiled, then looked around to see if anyone else was listening. “Do you mind if I pick your brain for a second?” She had a cute Texas accent. I knew that one well from having lived in Dallas. I’d struck out with a lot of girls who sounded like that.

“Brain-picking. That’s what I’m here for,” I answered. I was, after all, supposed to be the experienced role model. “What can I do for you?”

She looked around to see if anyone was listening. I noted that a couple of other Newbies were watching, like they had dared her to come over here. Dawn leaned in conspiratorially. “You’re the guy that destroyed Lord Machado last year, right?”

It wasn’t exactly a secret, but it wasn’t something I liked to talk about. Way too many things had occurred that night that I preferred to keep secret. “Where’d you hear about that?”

“Are you kidding?” She laughed. “Esmeralda told us about it during monster-lore class yesterday. That fight was the biggest bounty ever collected in MHI history! And you were the primary on the PUFF. One Master vamp by yourself, assists on a couple of others, and a solo takedown of a one-of-a-kind mega-bounty monster.”

That was all true, and I had made serious bank off that particular mission, but I hadn’t realized that it granted me celebrity status. “Yeah, that was me, but it was all a team effort. I was just in the right place at the right time.”

“I knew it. I bet you made millions.”

“Something like that.” It had been a considerable chunk of money. I had actually donated most of my personal earnings from DeSoya Caverns to the families of the Hunters who had died there, not that I spread that fact around. It had just seemed like the right thing to do. I’d still made a ton. “It was a tough case.”

“Wow,” she batted her big blue eyes at me. “That is so hot!”

I had been taking a swig of Gatorade and nearly choked on imitation grape. “Excuse me?” I coughed.

“Oh, sorry.” The way she looked at me said that she was anything but sorry. “I just love this stuff. You know, we should like totally hook up later and you could tell me all about it. I’d love to hear the story firsthand. Maybe over drinks or something.”

As a man who’d spent most of his life ignored by pretty girls, it took me a moment to realize that she was actually coming on to me. It took my higher brain functions a few seconds to compose a response. “Uh, sorry, Dawn. I’m going to be really busy for a while. See, Agent Franks is here as a . . . goodwill ambassador . . . and I’ve got to stay with him.” I casually pulled my shooting gloves off in the hopes that she would see my ring.

She saw it. “So, you’re married, huh?”

“Engaged.”

That didn’t deter her either. “No biggie. I was engaged once, but he got decapitated by fish-men. Long story, but that’s how I ended up here. You ever see what happens when you shove a humanoid fish monster into a propeller?” She gave me a smile that would best be described as flirty. “I’ll have to tell you about it sometime. Maybe we can talk again.” She got off the bench. Somehow females still managed to make body armor look good. “See ya later.”

Dawn went back to a knot of Newbies. One of the other women giggled at whatever she’d said. What the hell was this, MH Junior High? I shook my head and went back to my drink. Of course, when you’re single, pretty girls won’t talk to you, but when you’re in a relationship . . . bam, they come out of the woodwork. Fed business completed, Franks rejoined me. He looked down, saw the look of consternation on my face and shrugged.

After hours of yelling at Newbies and shooting cardboard targets shaped like various monsters, I grabbed lunch for two, ditched Franks at the agreed-upon base of the stairs, and met Julie in her office.

My fiancée’s office suited her personality. One part order, one part chaos, but the chaos was a work in progress. She had painted the walls a kind of seafoam color, had hung up several nice paintings, decorated everything else, and then promptly buried it all in paperwork and MHI-issue equipment. She had a couple potted plants with flowers that she could rattle off by their Latin names (they all looked the same to me, and bothered my allergies, but I would never tell her that). There was a bulletin board behind her full of photos of friends and family, including a couple of me mugging stupidly for the camera. Her desk was covered in papers, and there were a few piles of strategic paper on the floor, stacked on top of the filing cabinets and in the corners.

The problem is that this kind of work never really stops accumulating. Julie is in this for the love of Hunting, so when there’s a job to do, that comes first. But as the designated heir to the family business, she still has to pay attention to the day-to-day crap that all businessmen do. She also has a really difficult time delegating.

As an experienced financial-type professional, I managed to help her out quite a bit between missions, but MHI really needed more full-time office staff. The plan was to wait for some really smart Newbies that we didn’t trust enough to go on teams, but we were so short-handed in the field that our standards were low in that regard.

“What’s up, sexy,” I said as I entered.

Julie held up one hand to shush me. She was listening to someone on the phone. I set her lunch down on top of the pile of quotes, bids, invoices, reports, and a worn copy of a Jane Austen novel. Even Julie takes breaks now and then. She grabbed a pad of paper, pulled a pen out from behind one ear, and started making notes. “Yes . . . rubbery. Green . . . eight feet tall. Yes, sir. I know exactly what those are, and yes, we can handle them.”

I pulled up a chair and flopped into it, still smelling of gunpowder and oil. It sounded like we got another job. Sweet. Business was hopping, and even if this was in a different team’s area, the whole company still shared in the bounties. The last year had been record-breaking, but that had been due to the abnormally high rate of monster activity, not to mention the absurdly large PUFF bounties we had been paid after the Lord Machado case.

Julie was still talking. “No. No, sir. Do not, I repeat, do not approach them. . . . Why?” She rolled her eyes as the person on the other end of the line asked something incredibly stupid. “Because they will eat you. . . . Yes. Eat you.” She paused to cover the phone’s receiver and said to me, “What is it with these people who want to reason with monsters? Morons.”

“I blame it on Twilight.” In real life, vampires only sparkle when they’re on fire.

Julie went back to her call. “Okay, we’ll have a team there in . . .” She glanced at her watch, and since she didn’t have to call somewhere else to check on that team’s readiness, I had to assume that it was our team’s gig. “Three hours.”

The person on the other end of the line freaked out at that. Julie drummed her fingers on her desk while she waited for the tirade to end. I had seen the same mannerism recently from her mother, but where Susan’s nails were pointy and red, Julie’s nails were kept short so they wouldn’t interfere with her shooting. “Sir, listen. They’ll still be there. As long as you don’t approach them, or bother them, or look at them funny, they shouldn’t attack. We’ll expect the down payment to be in our account by the time we arrive on scene. Don’t let anyone near that property in the meantime. Yes, thank you. Have a nice day.” She hung up the phone. “Or as nice a day as you can have when you’ve got a troll infestation.”

“Oooh, trolls. What’s the plan?”

“We’re driving to Bessemer. Skippy’s off today for something, so no chopper. I’ll have Milo and the others come over from Mississippi and meet us; hopefully they’ll be there in time. That gives us most of the team. The trolls are holed up in a small abandoned building, so there shouldn’t be too many of them. Nothing we can’t handle. Bounty on a full grown one is”—she checked the PUFF table tacked to her wall—“fifty thousand a pop. Not bad.”

“Awesome,” I said, looking forward to grabbing Abomination and dispensing some monster justice. “I’ve never seen a troll before. Let me guess, cute little fellas with big hair?”

She smiled at me sweetly and batted her big brown eyes. “Bummer, you can’t see one now.”

“Aaahhhh, man,” I whined.

“I know, I know. Earl’s orders though. You’re safer here.”

“Can I stow away in your luggage?”

“You’re too big to fit. Look, honey, I know this makes you angry.” Julie tried to be soothing, but she already knew she was failing miserably. I just leaned back in the chair and palmed my face. It was still weird to touch it and not feel a mass of scar tissue. This wasn’t right. I should be there with my team. “But don’t worry. Once we take care of this cult, life will get back to normal.”

I snorted. “Normal?”

“Relatively normal. And speaking of which, in all the excitement, we forgot something,” she said with a grimace.

I hesitated. Had I forgotten another stupid wedding thing? I had just wanted to elope, go to Vegas or something, but the Shacklefords insisted on doing everything in a big way. She waited, prompting me to guess. “Pick out napkins?” It was a stab in the dark, but all of these things tended to run together to me.

“Already done. Yellow and lavender. How could you forget?”

“Uh . . . death cult?” I said in my defense. I didn’t even know what color lavender was. I think most men would consider it light blue, or something.

“No. I’m supposed to meet your family. You were going to call them, remember?”

I smacked my forehead. Of course. I didn’t really talk to my family very often. The last time I had seen them was when they had come out to visit after Mr. Huffman had torn me apart. I had called Mom and told her about the engagement, and she had gushed and cried on the phone for about an hour and a half, but because of various Hunting gigs, I’d kept postponing an actual visit. As far as my parents knew, I was still an accountant.

“And you were supposed to call your brother too.”

“He’s still on tour.” I had spoken to my brother, David, or Mosh, as the rest of the world called him, more recently, but that was to arrange VIP concert passes for some friends, and even that had been a real brief conversation. The Pitt family loved each other, in their own dysfunctional way, but it wasn’t like we communicated a lot. “He’s really busy.”

“He’s also coming through the state this week,” Julie pointed out.

“Too late. He’s already here, and playing Buzzard Island tonight. I got tickets for Skippy and his people. I was going to go too, but I guess that’s out of the question now,” I muttered.

Julie was perplexed. “You got tickets to a heavy metal concert, in public, for a tribe of orcs? How’s that supposed to work?”

“Private sky box,” I explained. “You know how they are with crowds. I told my brother I’m doing volunteer work with the local burn ward, so that explains all the masks and goggles. He was totally down with that.” He had also been very suspicious as to when I had become the volunteer-at-a-hospital type, but there was lots of stuff Mosh didn’t know about me.

“Well, I don’t know, as long as Skippy keeps everybody out of trouble . . .” Julie said, concern evident in her voice. Orcs were still PUFF-applicable so the ones living with us were, technically speaking, illegal aliens. “Thanks for lunch, but I have to find Earl. We’ve got to hunt some trolls and I need to draft some extra gunmen to fill in for you.”

“Esmeralda’s good, so are the guys that she brought along. Cooper’s hell on wheels with a FAL. I’m sure they’re just itching for an excuse to get out of training. I can handle the Newbies.”

“Okay, we’ll take Esmeralda’s team too. It’ll be fun for me to get to work with my little brother. That way if Milo’s held up, we can still move on those trolls as soon as we get there. This should be pretty straightforward. How’s the training going anyway?”

“Good, but I think one of the Newbies just tried to flirt with me,” I said. “You know, us ugly guys aren’t used to that kind of thing. Gets us all flusterpated.”

“Uh huh, sometimes young impressionable Newbies fixate on their more experienced instructors . . . oh wait. Why does that sound kind of familiar? How was it we met again?” Julie gave me her best playing-dumb look. “Which bimbo was it?”

“Dawn the Texan.”

She nodded. “Oh, she is pretty. She was like Miss Houston or something. Pity, I have to murder her now.”

“Don’t worry, you’re the only one for me,” I responded dryly. “Even if I am a dashing specimen of manhood and there’s plenty of Owen Pitt to go around. You guys take care of the trolls. Grant and I can hold down the fort here.”

“You promise to play nice with him?”

I raised my hands defensively. “You have my word, no assaulting Grant.” Unless he gives me a good reason, I added mentally. “Seriously, I think we’re cool. Seeing him was a surprise though, wasn’t it?”

Julie shrugged uncomfortably. “I didn’t expect to ever see him again, especially not here. Not after what happened to him and the way he left so suddenly.”

I turned serious. “You okay?” She and Grant had been pretty tight last year. It was still an awkward topic of conversation for us. I knew that there was still a part of her that felt guilty about the timing of our getting together so shortly after we’d assumed Grant was dead.

She stood, came around the desk, and kissed me lightly. “I’m fine . . . Now those trolls aren’t going to off themselves. I’ve got to go before the client calls back and screams some more. Love you.” That was code for I don’t want to talk about it right now.

“Love you too,” I responded. “Be careful.”

“I will. And don’t forget to call your parents.” Julie Shackleford smiled her perfect smile as she left the office. “Stay out of trouble!” she shouted from down the hallway.

“Always,” I responded, but she was already gone.

It was approaching sundown when I was finally able to break away from the routine. I had been out on the obstacle course assisting while Grant Jefferson yelled at the slower Newbies. Agent Franks stood just outside of bad breath distance the entire time. The trainees kept casting a fearful eye at the brute behind me. Even among brand-new Hunters, Franks was already a legend.

The compound seemed relatively quiet without Team Harbinger and Team Paxton. Skippy’s tribe was gone too, but they were virtually invisible even when they were here anyway. The Alabama spring air was thick with enough pollen to make my eyes water and fireflies were beginning to flicker through the chain-link-and-razor-wire fence surrounding the compound. Since it was relatively peaceful, I decided to call my folks while sitting on one of the benches outside the main building. I would need to think of another excuse as to why they couldn’t meet my bride-to-be yet, but with a bunch of psychos stalking me, it was pretty rotten timing.

The ever-present Franks sulked ten feet away. He crossed his arms and scowled as I pulled out my phone. “Can I have some privacy?” I asked in exasperation.

He looked around. We were alone. There were no possible threats in view. He looked back. “No.”

“You’re such a douche bag.” I sighed as I pulled up my folks’ number. Franks didn’t bother to respond. He was the immovable object.

It wasn’t that I didn’t love my parents. We just didn’t communicate well. My mom tended to talk a lot, but seldom about anything important, and my father talked at me, rather than to me. Speaking with him was always awkward, as I was more used to him giving orders and training me for the inevitable fiery apocalyptic end of the world than anything approaching a normal relationship. I had to admit though, if my war-hero father hadn’t spent all those hours teaching me to fight, then I wouldn’t be alive today. Thank goodness for paranoia.

It rang three times before someone picked up. The voice was raspy and unfamiliar. “Who’s this?”

“Who’s this?” I responded, glancing automatically at my BlackBerry’s display. Sure enough, it read Mom, so I hadn’t misdialed.

“Well, hello, Mr. Pitt,” replied the man with a chuckle. “That’s some good timing. Your parents have a nice little home here in the country. You really should visit more.”

A cold lump formed in my stomach. The look on my face must have telegraphed my distress, because Franks immediately perked up, one big hand unconsciously moving under his coat. “Who are you?” I demanded.

“No one important.” There was a hoarse laugh. “I am but a mere acolyte of the shadows, but I bear a message from the High Priest of the Dread Overlord. We have your parents. He is willing to offer a trade: your family, for you.” There was a shout in the background, an impact thud followed by a crash, and a woman cried out in fear. Somehow I knew it was my mom. “If you don’t do exactly as we say, we’ll feed them, bit by bit, to the mighty shoggoth.”

My stomach lurched. I was speechless. Franks realized what was going on, pulled out his radio and started barking commands, but that was just a gray background buzzing noise as my world spiraled out from under me. “I . . . I . . .”

“You will do exactly as I say, Mr. Pitt, for we are the spear of the Old Ones’ righteous fury. We— Hey, watch the old guy!” Glass shattered, there was some crashing, then something that could only have been a gunshot, and the phone went dead.

“NO!” I shouted, but the signal was gone, and I was only screaming at the silence. “Damn it! Franks! My parents! They’ve got my parents!”

“On it,” he said calmly as he listened to his radio. Apparently their vast files told them right where to go. “Local law enforcement has been dispatched.”

Panicked, I redialed. The phone just kept ringing, but nobody picked up.

I found myself pacing back and forth. This couldn’t be happening. They had nothing to do with this. This wasn’t their fight. They didn’t even know what I really did for a living. They were hundreds of miles away. The feeling of helplessness hit like a sledgehammer. A painful minute passed, and I honestly didn’t know what to do. I wanted to puke.

“Agent Myers,” Franks said, holding out his radio.

I snatched it from him and slammed down the transmit button. “Myers, you son of a bitch, you better go get them!”

“Calm down, Pitt. My men are on it. If they escape before we arrive, we’ll cordon off the area. My chopper is warming up now. I will personally oversee the search.”

“Damn right you will. This is your fault!” I raged.

“Just stay calm and stay at the compound,” Myers ordered.

I hurled the radio back to Franks. He effortlessly snatched it out of the air before it hit him in the face. I started running for the main building.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going after them,” I shouted back.

“It’ll take hours to get there,” the giant stated.

“Shit!” He was right, of course, but that didn’t change the fact that I had to do something. Who did MHI have in the area? Julie would know. I pulled out my phone and hit speed dial J. I walked in a circle as it rang repeatedly.

“Hi, you’ve reached Julie Shackleford, business coordinator for MHI. Please leave a detailed message at the beep.”

I swore. Of course she wasn’t answering her phone; she was hunting trolls. At the tone, I left what I was sure was an incoherent and panicked message about cultists kidnapping my folks.

My phone chirped. I switched to the incoming call. “Hello?” I said quickly.

“Son?” The gravely voice was winded.

“DAD!” I shouted. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” heavy breathing, “some assholes kicked the door in, started tying us up. Talking all kinds of craziness. Fucking amateurs.”

It was like I could breathe again. “Is Mom okay?”

“Sure, she’s fine.”

Oh, thank you God. “What about the cultists?”

“Cultists? These punks? Well, I got three of them. The last one’s crawling down the driveway, but he isn’t going very fast with all those holes in him, so I’ll mop him up in a second. What the hell’s going on?”

I let out a huge sigh of relief. He had survived everything assorted communists and terrorists had thrown at him in twenty-five years of warfare, both official and unofficial. He wasn’t the type to scare easily.

“Dad, listen carefully. Hang tight, cops are on the way. You’ve got more guns, right?” I asked. He grunted, almost like that was insulting. “Okay, good. Grab some big stuff, just in case.”

“How big?”

“Big as you’ve got.” And I knew that for Dad, that meant some serious firepower. The militant apple didn’t fall far from the militant tree.

Franks interrupted. “Cult survivors?” I held up one finger. “We need him.” I nodded.

“Dad, don’t shoot that last guy anymore. The cops want to question him.”

“Well, they best hurry up then. I’ll go toss him a towel and tell him to put some direct pressure on it and quit his crying. Now, you listen to me, boy. They were talking about you, that this is all about you. What kind of bullshit are you mixed up in? Is this some sort of mafia accountant thing?”

Of course he still thought I was a CPA. “I’ll explain everything later, I promise. I need you to get to Alabama as fast as you can. The Feds will escort you here.” I glared at Franks as I said that, but he nodded in consent. At some point he had summoned the Goon Squad, because Archer, Herzog, and Torres had come running, carrying all their equipment. “Did they say anything else?”

Dad gasped. “Damn, forgot. Yes. Your brother, they said that they were sending ‘violence and evil’ or something like that after him.”

“Force and Violence?”

“Yeah. But then I went for the kitchen gun.” Growing up, it had been Pitt family custom to stash at least one gun in every room of the house, so having a kitchen gun had finally paid off, “I shot the son of a bitch that said it in the face, so I was a touch distracted. We’ve got to get to David.”

“He’s near me. I’m on it, Dad. I’ll see you in Alabama. Just hang tight.” I hung up and scrolled through until I found my brother’s number. My hands were trembling so bad that it was hard to work the little trackball on my phone.

“Yo?” Somebody unfamiliar picked up and my heart lurched. Was I too late?

“I need to talk to Mosh right now!” I shouted.

“Dude, he’s going on stage in a minute. Call back later.”

“It’s a family emergency,” I said forcefully.

“Well, I’m his manager. I’ll pass it on when the show’s over.” The voice was very laid back, bordering on obnoxious mellowness.

“Mosh is in danger. You need to get him out of there, now!”

“Look, man, lay off the dope. It makes you paranoid. Call back in a couple hours.” He hung up.

Bellowing something profane and incoherent, I started for the main building. I needed my gear.

“Where are you going?” Torres asked.

“They’re coming for my brother. He’s in Montgomery tonight. I have to get to him. We can be there in half an hour.”

“Our strike team is camped at Maxwell,” Archer said quickly, referring to the Air Force base in Montgomery. “I’ll raise them.”

“Myers said you weren’t supposed to leave the compound,” Herzog snapped.

“Our team is already there. They can handle it. Driving up there will just put you in danger. This is probably just what the Condition wants you to do,” Torres suggested softly. “This could be a trap.”

“I’m going,” I spun around. “And I’ll kneecap the first one of you who tries to stop me.” I’m a physically intimidating specimen when I’m enraged. The three junior agents stepped back automatically. Franks didn’t flinch. None of them said another word as I stared them down. “You gonna help me or not?”

Franks mulled it over, probably weighing the pros and cons of endangering his charge versus being able to go kill something. The decision didn’t take long. “I’ll drive.”

Chapter 6

The G-Ride speedometer pegged at a hundred and forty miles an hour but we were going much faster as we entered Montgomery and headed west on the 85. The black-armored Suburban had been delivered to Franks sometime in the last few days by some of his minions and I was glad we had it. Although MHI had a lot of vehicles, none of them apparently had a friggin’ quarter-million-horsepower engine forged in the fires of Mordor like this thing apparently did. It normally took me forty-five minutes to hit the outskirts of town from Cazador, but Franks had done it in less than twenty, and I wasn’t exactly averse to speeding. The demonic roar of the engine was almost as loud as the banshee siren that warned everyone else to get out of the way or be flattened beneath our armored steel bumpers. Our tax dollars had equipped Agent Franks with the SUV from Hell.

Franks was emotionless in the reflected flashes of blue and red, still wearing his cheap suit. A pine-tree-shaped air freshener bounced around under the rearview mirror. I was in the passenger seat, hunched forward by the armor and pouches on my back. Abomination was muzzle down, balanced between my knees. It had been almost impossible to get dressed while we had slalomed around the corners of rural Keene County, but I had managed. The Goon Squad was in the next row of seats, also armed to the teeth, each one intense and ready to fight.

I had run into MHI headquarters long enough to grab my go-bag and give Dorcas a brief rundown. She had been trying to raise the others as we had left. I shoved my MHI-issued earpieces in, partially to protect my hearing from the siren, but also to check to see if any of my people were in range. I was alone. The radio mounted on the SUV’s dash was tuned to the Monster Control Bureau’s encrypted channel, so I knew that their strike force had mobilized and moved to the Buzzard Island Amphitheater, now only a few miles ahead of us.

“Alpha Team is in position outside the concert and holding,” said someone over the radio.

“Any suspicious activity?” Agent Myers asked over the airwaves.

There was a long pause of open air. “Uh, sir, most of the people here are suspicious looking.” Apparently they had never been to a Cabbage Point Killing Machine show before. Their tours were legendary. You could drop all sorts of weird supernatural creatures into one of their average gigs and nobody would notice.

My phone rang and I hurriedly pulled it from the small pouch on the front of my armor. “Yeah?”

“Z?” It was Albert Lee. “Dorcas just got ahold of me.”

“Where are you?”

“We’re a couple miles north of Cazador.”

“Who you got?”

“Me and Grant. Dorcas raised Harbinger. They turned back too.” Excellent. Lee was a good man, and Grant, say what you would about him, was a known quantity, more than I could say about my current carpool. “Listen, I’ve got to tell you something. Dorcas said it was Force and Violence. I’ve been reading up on them. Be really careful.”

Franks must have somehow, impossibly, heard that. “Put him on speaker.”

I complied so the Feds could hear. “First, what can they do? Second, how do we waste them?”

“Nobody really knows what they are. The descriptions sound kind of like an ogre and an ogress, but they’re too fast, too smart, and apparently indestructible. Esmeralda thought they were Greek, and they’ve been seen in that part of the world a lot, for at least three thousand years, but from the descriptions, I think they’re oni.”

“Three thousand years?” Herzog said incredulously. “Bull.”

Franks held up one hand to silence her.

“What’s an oni?” I asked.

“Far Eastern legends talk about them a lot. They’re evil spirits that have gained a physical body, usually really big and strong. They suck the life out of other things in order to power their own bodies indefinitely. That’s probably what Skippy meant by getting paid in souls. I don’t see why some of them couldn’t wander over to Europe and end up in that area’s folklore.”

Some Hunters just seemed to geek out at monster factoids. “That’s great. Now how do we kill them?”

“Beats me,” he answered. “MHI has never killed an oni that I can find record of. Esmeralda said that bullets bounced off of them.”

“Great . . .” I muttered. “We’ll improvise.”

“Electricity,” Archer chimed in. “Enough current will stun an oni. That’s what the field manual says.”

“There’s more. When MHI went up against them last time, they had a hard time tracking them, which is weird since witnesses say they’re huge. But they would suddenly appear, kill something, then poof, they were just gone. So I’m guessing they’re either able to fly or teleport. The Fed file said the necromancer can create shadow portals, so maybe they can too. They might even shape-shift, so who knows . . .”

“Well, that narrows it down. Thanks, Al. See you there. Go to the radio band when you reach Motown.” I dropped the phone back in its pouch. This wasn’t shaping up to be a fun night.

Updates continued to come in from the strike force as they surrounded the concert. They were all in position. “Stay low profile and hold your position for now,” Myers ordered his teams. “Wait for the Condition to make their move first. Our primary concern is capturing a Condition operative. Civilian casualties are secondary. Myers out.”

“What?” I shouted and slammed my fist into the glove box. Mosh was a sitting duck up there on stage. “Tell them to go in there and grab my brother now!”

Franks shook his head. “That’s not the mission.”

“Bullshit it’s not. You’re using him as bait, like you used me. He’s not part of this.” I reached over for the radio, but suddenly Franks’ ham fist clamped around my left hand, immobilizing it as easily as if I were a child.

“He is now,” Franks said, blank eyes never leaving the road as he steered with one hand between freeway traffic at absurd speeds.

“That’s my brother out there. Don’t you have any family, Franks?”

He scowled. “Yeah. Big family.”

“Would you just leave them to die?”

“Not my problem . . .”

Something broke. I’d had enough. Mosh wasn’t going to die if I could help it. Fury bubbled up from the pit of my stomach, as my STI .45 cleared its Kydex drop leg holster with a snap. I screwed the fat muzzle into Frank’s ear, hard, and snapped, “Order them to get Mosh, right now.”

It only took the Goon Squad a second to react. There was a click of a manual safety as Herzog put her HK .45 against the base of my skull. “Drop the gun, Pitt! Drop it!” she screamed. Archer was a split second slower but he slammed his Sig 229 into my head as well.

“Shut up!” I shouted. I wasn’t going to let my brother get killed for their stupid mission. My finger was on the trigger and blasting Franks at this speed would surely end us all. “Call Myers!” Spit flew from my lips. “Now!”

Franks didn’t take his eyes off the road, but he did unconsciously squeeze my left hand harder. Bones creaked and I grimaced. “Negative,” he said.

“Owen, put the gun down,” Torres urged softly. “Use your brain, man. We warned you about the Condition. They’ll just keep on attacking everyone you’ve ever loved until they get you. We have to capture some of them or this will go on forever. Please, put the gun down.”

Franks was utterly calm, even with a silver .45 slug aimed down his ear canal. “Do it.”

My brother was going to be killed and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it from here . . . Damn it. I couldn’t threaten Franks. Shooting him wouldn’t accomplish a thing. Deflated, I thumbed the safety back on and slowly lowered my gun. Franks let go of my aching hand and went back to 10 and 2 on the wheel. Archer and Herzog kept their guns trained on me.

“Hand your piece back, slowly!” she shouted, voice shrill in my ear. “Do it or I’ll blow your brains out! You’re under arrest.”

“Screw you,” I said. She pushed even harder with the muzzle. I knew that I’d gone way too far this time. “All right.” Slowly, I passed the custom long-slide, double-stack pistol, turning it back butt first. She thumped me again, and I handed Abomination over my head, the stubby and bulky shotgun and grenade launcher combo difficult to pass between the seats. Another thump and I sent back my secondary STI off my left hip, this one a compact, bobbed and chopped .45.

“Everything.” She whacked me again for good measure.

I slowly passed back the two Spyderco knives I kept on each hip pocket, then dragged out the 21” Chitilangi heavy kukri that replaced my lost Ganga Ram. MHI was one of Himalayan Imports’ best customers. “Careful, that one’s sharp,” I said as I passed it back. Hopefully one of them would cut their fingers off by accident. Another thump. I was going to be covered in lumps from that hag. “Damn it,” I muttered as I reached down to my ankle and pulled out the snub-nosed .357 Airweight Smith & Wesson that I kept stashed for worst-case scenarios. Now the three of them had a pile of weapons to contend with.

“How many guns do you have?” Torres asked in exasperation.

“It’s a Second Amendment thing. You wouldn’t understand.”

“You’re under arrest for threatening a federal agent, Pitt. Put your hands on your head,” Herzog snarled.

“Uh . . . he’s still got hand grenades,” Archer pointed out.

“Stand down,” Franks ordered his men, sounding exasperated. It took them a moment to respond. “I said STAND DOWN.” That time both metallic weights left my head. Franks turned and looked at me, not paying any attention to the freeway that was flying past. For once he actually showed some emotion, and unfortunately for me, it was anger. His black eyes burned a hole through my soul as he sedately said the most words I had ever heard from him at one time. “Primary mission. Keep Pitt alive. We need live bait, so I can’t twist your head off. But if you ever point a gun at me again, you’ll pray for the Old Ones to take you away, because compared to what I’ll do, the Elder Things will be a fucking picnic.” He veered us past a semitrailer without looking, and it zipped by so quickly that it was just a silver blur. Franks just kept staring, his black eyes containing nothing but barely controlled rage. The three agents tried to shrink back through the seats. “Got it?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Then he slugged me.

It was so unbelievably fast, so staggeringly hard, that I didn’t even see it coming. A big fist crashed into my cranium like a lightning bolt from a clear blue sky. A bomb went off inside my gray matter. My head rebounded against the bulletproof glass of the passenger side door hard enough to crack it. He didn’t just hit me in one place, but it was like he had somehow punched my entire face at once. My eyes automatically filled with tears and blood billowed out my nose in a froth of bubbles.

I was stunned, reeling, my brain trying to process what the hell had just happened as I came back to full consciousness either a minute or maybe a day later. “Ouch,” I croaked, with the ultimate of understatements.

Franks was back to driving insanely through the evening traffic. The bright lights of the state capitol and downtown Montgomery were off to our right. He took one hand off the wheel long enough to crack his knuckles. “Now we’re even.”

The Buzzard Island Amphitheater was a new facility, just across the Alabama river, north of Montgomery. It had been a narrow patch of damp, low dirt for most of recorded history, but they had built it up with oceans of concrete, and put in a top-of-the-line convention and concert facility. It was a large, oval building, with a bulging glass dome for a roof, and giant, stainless-steel spires that were probably supposed to be some sort of industrial-modern-art thing. Tonight there were several large spotlights staggered around the amphitheater, casting giant beams seemingly forever into the clear night sky in big circular patterns.

We tore into the parking lot at just under eighty miles an hour, leaving a thick parabolic curve of rubber as we left the main road and got serious air off a speed bump. Our sociopathic driver nearly ran down the orange-vested traffic directors, ignoring all rules of both safety and courtesy, as he searched the lines of vehicles for his target. Apparently Franks found it, because he gunned the engine, cut off another car, and hammered the SUV across the pavement, only to hit the brakes at the last possible second and slide in sideways behind a large, black, SWAT-style van at the far end of the lot. The giant unmarked van seemed appropriate, because that was Myers’ idea of low profile, after all.

We piled out of the SUV and around the back of the van, where several black-clad agents were clustered out of sight of the people walking around the lot. Still dizzy from the sucker punch, I stumbled around the vehicle, holding one arm up to my face to pinch off my bleeding nose. Agent Myers was sitting on the back steps of the van, listening to a radio with one ear and to his phone with the other. He was nodding, and it wasn’t in time with the music throbbing from the far end of the lot either. Franks put one massive hand on my chest and shoved me back against the passenger side door. “Stay here.”

He didn’t want to get in trouble for bringing me.

“Watch him,” Franks told the Goon Squad, then he turned and went to his superior’s side. Torres took the front of the vehicle, Herzog the rear, and Archer stayed right by me. The three agents folded their arms, rifles dangling from their tac-slings, as they waited for me to try something else stupid. I suppose at this point I should consider myself in custody, though the MCB weren’t the kind of cops who read people their rights . . . Last rites, maybe. Myers glanced up, obviously surprised to see his subordinate. They were far enough away that I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Myers appeared really ticked when he saw me. He began to shout and gesture wildly, but Franks said something that seemed to placate his boss momentarily.

I had to do something. We were just going to sit out here until the bad guys attacked. Mosh was toast. I could probably kick the crap out of some of them and make a run for it, but even if I were to somehow ditch them, my guns were sitting in the back seat, and I would have to run across a couple hundred yards of parking lot, only to arrive unarmed where Condition assassins were stalking Mosh. So scratch that plan. Maybe I could pull it off if I had some help. Torres seemed like the least obnoxious of the bunch, but he was further away. “Archer,” I whispered to the nearest agent. “Those hit-monsters are going to murder my brother. We’ve got to get in there and save him.”

“Shut up,” he said angrily, apparently still offended that I had threatened to shoot his commander. “We’re following orders.”

“Is that why you volunteered for this? Letting civilians get slaughtered right under your nose, so you could follow orders? Come on, man. Do the right thing.” We were at the far side of the parking lot, well away from the crowds, but I nodded toward the throngs on the steps of the amphitheater. “How many of those kids have to die tonight?”

Frustrated, he grabbed me by the straps of my armor, “As many as it takes, damn it! You don’t know what the Condition is capable of. They have to be stopped!” Then he tried to shove me against the SUV, but apparently he had forgotten that I was a giant brute of a man. I outweighed the thin agent by probably a hundred and thirty pounds. He barely succeeded in budging me.

“Yeah, Franks makes it look easy,” I said.

Feeling stupid, Archer let go. His Adam’s apple bobbed nervously, but his eyes were cold, angry, and he kept one hand on the pistol grip of his M4 carbine. “Just shut up, okay.” He jerked his head toward the improvised command center where his superiors were conferring. “Agent Myers knows what he’s doing. He’s a pro. Look . . . I don’t want your brother or anybody else to get hurt, but this is bigger than he is. This cult, they’re trying to awake something evil.” Archer realized he was talking too much. “Never mind. Just shut up.”

The Fed wasn’t going to budge. I had to think of something else, fast.

There was movement over Archer’s shoulder. Something small and black scurried low between the tightly packed rows of cars, then another shape, and another. How could I have been so stupid? I had forgotten all about them. A goggled head poked up over a Volkswagen’s hood, scanned the contingent of Feds and then glided back down, unseen by everyone but me.

I softened my tone. “Look, Agent Archer, I’m not trying to be a jerk, but can I get a Kleenex or something? I’m bleeding all over my armor.” I gestured at my swollen nose. It really hurt, so that part wasn’t an act.

“Serves you right . . .” He hesitated, scowling, but finally relented. “Okay, hang on a second.” He reached down and pulled open the Velcro tab on his first aid kit. He didn’t see the thing crawling out from under a nearby car, then rising silently behind him. The orc grabbed Archer by the strap on the back of his armor while simultaneously kicking both knees out from under him. The agent fell backward, pulled by the weight of his armor and equipment, crying out in surprise.

It was my old pal, Edward. I only recognized him because he moved so smoothly that he made Bruce Lee look rickety. The orc didn’t even slow. He covered the distance to Torres, leaping into the air at the last second as the younger agent turned to see what the commotion was about. Edward’s heel collided with the Fed’s chest, kicking him back. Torres collided with the hood of a car, tripped, and sprawled onto the pavement. There was a thud from the other direction as another black shape cracked Herzog over the head with a club. Gretchen didn’t have Edward’s moves, but she was mighty handy with her totem stick. The female agent went to the ground in a heap.

The passenger door of the SUV from Hell flew open. “Noble One, hurry fast,” Skippy ordered. Franks had left the keys in it. I jumped into the seat as Gretchen climbed into the back. Still on the ground, Torres pulled his pistol, but Edward was on him in an instant and kicked the HK across the lot. The orc bent over and slugged Torres in the face, knocked him silly, spun him on his back like a turtle, and dragged him effortlessly over to Archer. He kicked the first agent again as he was struggling to rise, snatched a pair of handcuffs off Torres’ vest, and locked one agent’s wrist to the other one’s ankle.

Skippy cranked it and the demon engine roared like a Tyrannosaurus Rex. He slammed it into reverse and the tires spun as we flew rearward, smashing the back armored bumper into a parked Corvette. The Corvette lost.

Thirty feet away, Franks’ head snapped up. His hand flew under his coat and came out with a fat Glock. Skippy put it in drive and the massive vehicle jumped forward, Gretchen holding the door open as Edward dove through to safety. Franks aimed at Skippy but hesitated, probably more worried about his truck than violating his primary mission. Then we were speeding past. “Big Fed. Look mad,” Skippy grunted as he put the hammer down.

I whipped around to see Franks sprinting after us, gun in hand. Skippy wasn’t kidding. He looked pissed.

All orcs have gifts. I don’t know how it works exactly, but each of them has a unique ability. Edward’s was kicking ass. Gretchen was a remarkable healer. And Skippy, leader of the MHI orcs, brother of Edward, and husband of Gretchen (wife one of five), was a helicopter pilot of almost supernatural skill. However, that ability apparently didn’t translate into driving ground vehicles, as Skippy smashed the SUV brutally right down a line of parked cars, flinging headlights, glass, and bits of plastic in every direction. Concertgoers were forced to dive for safety as Skippy high-speed crunched his way toward the amphitheater entrance.

“I’m glad to see you guys!” I shouted as Skippy drove over a parked Suzuki motorcycle. Our shocks absorbed the impact rather well. “We’ve got to get to my brother. Mosh is in danger.”

The orcs in back just started passing my confiscated weapons back to me. They never talked much anyway. Skippy piped up as I tucked various guns and knives—even a kukri!— back into their respective spots. “Yes. Joo-Lee call. Say, Great War Chief . . . in much danger. Twins come. Take soul.” His super-gravelly voice sounded angry. His people venerated metal and its musicians above all. A threat against my brother, whom they called the Great War Chief, was serious business. “Twins kill many Urks before . . . now Urks turn. We go find . . . Brother of War Chief. See gub mint.” He lifted the base of his hood, revealing his tusks, and spit on the steering wheel. Orcs were probably the only people I had ever encountered who had more issues with authority than Hunters. “Gub mint, take you prisoner. So we save.”

“Who do you have here?”

Skippy shook his head. “Only few . . . Grtxschnns, Exszrsd, and—” he grumbled his real, incomprehensible name, reminding me again of why we called him Skippy. “With gub mint here, send tribe away to village. Go home. Be safe. We . . . we stay for help.” He was right. Orcs, even the ones that stayed with MHI, were still on the PUFF list, and thereby fair game to the Feds. What these three were doing was incredibly brave.

“They’re heading for the front entrance,” said a voice on the radio. “Intercept! Intercept!”

“Belay that order,” Myers said. “All units hold position. Wait until we get a shot at those monsters. Pitt, you obstinate pain in the ass, I know you can hear me. Don’t you dare go in there.”

I grabbed the radio and pulled the mike over to me. “Myers, that’s my family we’re talking about.”

“They’ll kill you,” he said.

“Yeah, heard that before.” I ripped the cord out of the radio. It felt good. Skippy held up his pointer finger and pinky and threw the horns. Rock on. “You guys armed?”

“No. Security,” Skip’s hood dipped toward the rapidly approaching concert entrance’s row of metal detectors. Gretchen held up her totem stick, complete with feathers and small animal skulls, that she had somehow snuck in. There were two sudden clicks as Edward flicked open the ASP collapsible batons he must have lifted off of Torres and Archer. Edward was a lousy shot, but death incarnate up close. I pulled my big .45 and passed it over to Skippy. “Thanks,” he said. “Hold to something, now.”

We drove up the entrance stairs and slammed the radiator into a concrete wall right across from a giant bronze statue of Hank Williams, Sr. The armored Suburban was so heavy I barely felt the impact.

I leapt out, scanning the crowd. It was a diverse bunch watching the chaos of our car wreck. Most of them were pierced or tattooed, and there was a bewildering variety of hairstyles—everything from shaved heads all the way to long flowing hair and even a few old-school mohawks. They were pointing and laughing at the G-Ride, with its red and blue flashing wigwags perched lopsided on the stairs, which meant security would be here any second.

Skippy grunted to get my attention. “Disguise.” He tossed me a blue windbreaker that said department of homeland security in giant gold letters on the back. It was huge, big enough to fit over my armor even, so must have belonged to Agent Franks. I tugged it on and clumsily hid Abomination under one armpit. It was then that I noticed for the first time that all three orcs were wearing Cabbage Point Killing Machine shirts over their usual baggy, black clothing. Skippy’s boldly read hold the pig steady. So the orcs were in disguise too.

“Get inside,” I shouted, and the four of us ran for the entrance. The concert had been going on for a while, so there weren’t very many people standing in line, and we rudely shoved past those that were. “Out of the way. Homeland Security. Coming through!” I bellowed. Having already committed assault with a deadly weapon and grand theft auto in the last ten minutes, what was a little impersonating a federal agent?

Oh crap. The Law. “Who the hell are you?” asked the uniformed cop pushing his way through the sea of tattooed skin. He must have seen the G-Ride.

“Agent Franks. Homeland Security!” I shouted, still trying to get to the entrance. “We’ve got a terrorist incident.”

Apparently me and my bloody nose didn’t make the most convincing Fed. He held up one hand to stop me, his other hand came to a rest on his holstered sidearm. Alabama cops do not screw around. “Let’s see some creds.”

“Edward, my credentials please,” I requested. The orc smoothly melted through the crowd and batoned the cop to the pavement before anyone could react. The two figures went down and were lost in the churning mass. “Don’t hurt him,” I ordered, not slowing. We made it around the corner and away from the Suburban. I broke into a run.

There were four people wearing yellow security shirts taking tickets and manning the metal detectors at the gate. “No weapons, no drugs, only eight ounces of sealed bottled water, no flash photography . . .” the first guard droned automatically. “Ticket, please.” I ignored him and strode right through. The detector started beeping like crazy. “Hey, asshole.” One meaty hand fell on my shoulder. I instantly grabbed it and twisted, putting the man in a wristlock. He screamed and went to his knees. My jacket fell open, revealing my shotgun.

“Anybody else want my ticket?” I asked.

“Naw, that’s cool,” said the second guard slowly, hand unconsciously reaching for his radio. There wasn’t much I could do about that, short of shooting everybody, and being one of the self-proclaimed Good Guys, that wasn’t an option. I let go of the first guard, put my boot on his shoulder, and shoved him out of the way. “Enjoy the show . . .” said the calm one. The three orcs came next, each one taking the time to politely display their VIP wristbands to security people that weren’t really paying attention at that point.

Then we were inside the concourse. This place was huge, with lots of ground to cross, and I knew I didn’t have much time. Regular cops would be looking for a big dude in a blue jacket, and a show like this had to be crawling with cops. A giant row of vendors selling souvenirs, tee-shirts, beer, and food stretched for what looked like a quarter mile before the building opened up into the actual hall. There were probably a thousand people wandering around, clustered in talkative knots or buying various things between us and my brother. They would have to serve as cover.

“Walk fast, but try to look like we belong,” I said, realizing how stupid that sounded as soon as I said it. A man walked past wearing a Viking costume with lit sparklers on his helmet, and in the other direction went two young women whose only clothing on their upper halves was strategically placed black electrical tape. Yeah, it had been a long time since I had been to one of my brother’s shows. Edward suddenly bolted off to the side in the direction of the restrooms. Either he had seen something, or orcs had easily excitable bladders. I kept moving.

Damn, more cops. A few of them were running down the concourse back toward the entrance. I bowed my head so I wouldn’t appear so tall and got into a line that was either for funnel cakes or nose rings. The Montgomery PD went right past, but I knew that kind of luck wouldn’t last for long.

There was a tap on my shoulder. Edward shoved a giant leather trenchcoat at me. I saw my reflection in his goggled eyes as he nodded at the restrooms. His English was worse than Skippy’s. “Fat man. Go pee. No need coat.” Then he emitted a low-pitched noise, like shaking gravel in a bucket, that could only have been a hearty orcish laugh. I pulled the DHS jacket off and tossed it on the floor, exposing piles of guns for just an instant, before quickly donning the massive garment, which I discovered came with chains and a row of spikes down each shoulder.

“Sweet,” I said. Gretchen handed me a ridiculous cowboy hat, complete with a swath of what I assumed was real armadillo, that she had lifted off of somebody else. Orcs were damn sneaky when they put their minds to it. Living in the shadows of humanity for centuries had that effect. I pulled the hat down low, even though it was way too small, and headed for the show.

In the main hall, the music was deafening, driven by a giant wall of speakers behind the band. The place was packed. The floor was a sea of bouncing bodies, hands raised, moving in time with the music, a veritable sea of hands and heads throbbing up and down. It was muggy from the body heat, and I immediately began to sweat under the layers of Kevlar and the absurd coat. The air was thick from glycerin foggers, as strobes and lasers cut confusing patterns above us. The three orcs began to bob automatically, unable to resist the instinctive urge to headbang.

A giant shape loomed over me. Monster! I started to pull out Abomination, only to realize that the huge thing tottering past was some awkward demon costume, made by a girl sitting on a tall man’s shoulders, and draped in burlap and tarps. If it hadn’t been such a dangerous situation, I would have stopped to admire the fact that they even had red LED lights mounted for eyes. I really needed to get to more of Mosh’s shows.

My brother had always been musically gifted. Dad hadn’t really appreciated it since it was a skill that wasn’t directly useful for survival. But Mom had put her foot down and young David Uhersky Pitt had taken classical guitar lessons. Then one day as teenagers the two of us had snuck out to a Slayer concert and he had found his calling in life. The rest was history.

Brilliant spotlights beamed down on the stage as Cabbage Point Killing Machine played. The singer was moving back and forth, jumping up and down and screaming. Fireballs exploded and soared upward over the stage as the pyrotechicians earned their keep. Then I spotted my brother, the guitarist, just a silhouette standing out in front of a propane explosion, as he played his guitar like I shoot guns. He was one of most talented musicians in the world, in my humble opinion, and I felt pretty justified in that opinion as his fingers flew back and forth faster than the eye could track, coaxing chords out of his instrument not meant for the human ear. The boy could shred.

I tried to stick to the edge of the main floor, as the bodies were only tightly packed here, as opposed to absurdly packed into the center. I headed directly for the stage. There was probably a better way to go around, but I had never been here before and had no idea how the area behind the stage was laid out. Not to mention that there were bound to be more cops back there too.

It was deafening, but I heard a voice in my radio earpiece. I clamped one hand over it in order to hear. “—ing on the freeway. North side of Montgomery,” it was saying. It was somebody else from MHI.

My microphone was in a strap that rode around my neck, a military design used so soldiers riding in turrets could still be heard over wind noise. Hopefully, it would work in here. “This is Z. I’m inside the concert.”

“What is that noise?” I recognized that voice as belonging to Grant Jefferson. “Are the cultists attacking?”

“No, that’s just the music.” I had to remind myself that when I had driven Grant’s car last summer, all of the stations had been programmed to opera or something. “Stay outside the concert. Feds are crawling all over the parking lot, and they’re ticked. They’ll probably just arrest you on sight.”

“What? I can’t hear you over that horrible racket.” Some people just can’t appreciate good music.

I started to reply, but choked it off as I saw them. Two things were making their way toward the stage, parallel with me but on the opposite side of the floor. They towered over the jumping crowd, a pair of huge, slumped shapes, merely black outlines in the flashing lights. The first was much taller than everything around it, and the other was even larger, and unlike the flailing costumes I had seen so far, these were moving far too smoothly, cutting their way right through the unsuspecting masses.

Grabbing Skippy’s arm, I pointed at the monsters. His goggled head swiveled back and forth. Finally, he shrugged. He couldn’t see them. “Damn it, the two big things. They’re huge. Right there.” I pointed again. The other orcs looked as well, standing on their tiptoes to see, then glanced at each other, shaking their heads as thousands of sweaty bodies jostled around us. They couldn’t see them either.

There was no time to ponder that mystery. I doubled my efforts to get to the stage, pushing and shoving, a big man on a mission. Across the hall, the ogres, or oni, or whatever the hell they were, were moving at about the same speed. Somehow, the people being plowed out of their way didn’t even seem to notice.

An elbow caught my cheek and a heavy boot kicked me in the thigh. This was the kind of crowd that didn’t react well to rudeness. I just kept going. Edward clotheslined a large youth to the ground when said youth took issue with me cutting in front of him. The closer I got to the stage, the more violent it was going to get. Anybody who has been to a show like this knows that the front few rows were not for the faint of heart. It was a downright Darwinian environment. The floor narrowed as it got down to the stage, which was serving to funnel us closer to the approaching monsters.

Risking a quick glance to the side, I could see them clearly through the fog. The lead thing was at least a foot taller than my 6 feet 5 inches and even then, it seemed somehow hunched over. Its head was covered in some sort of gray shawl. It collided with the moshers, and they just parted before it, a few of them getting confused looks on their faces, but none of them seeing the creatures.

“See them now?” I shouted at Skippy.

“No,” he said, while looking right at them. “Smell. Smell monsters.”

I don’t know how Skippy could smell anything over the odor of thousands of bodies and various types of illegal smoke, but whatever worked. The first creature was almost to the stage as I reached the base. More yellow-shirted security were standing behind a row of aluminum rails separating the mob from the band. I climbed over the rail, only to have several pairs of strong hands shove me back. Only tough guys got this kind of job. It was the kind of thing that I probably would have done in the past and enjoyed. I had always been about gigs that allowed me to punch people and get paid for it.

So it wasn’t anything personal when I palm-struck the guard in the chest and launched him back into the concrete. I just needed to get on that stage. The other guard touching me went down with a flick of Edward’s stolen baton, crying out and holding his fingers. I was over the railing and pulling myself up to the stage in a second, losing my idiotic cowboy hat in the process.

The song finished in a flourish of guitars and drums, along with a propane explosion right over my head. The lights twirled and flickered as they spun the spotlights like a kaleidoscope. I was up and over, rolling onto the hardwood planking as the crowd went insane, asking for, no, demanding an encore. I got to my knees as the lead singer tossed his microphone and leapt past me into the waiting arms of the crowd. He was surfed back and forth on the sea of hands, and I had to admit that at any other time it looked like fun. Mosh better not do that, because I didn’t fight my way all the way up here just to have him go and jump the hell off. I headed for the guitarist. I sensed the orcs right behind me as one of them, Skippy, left us and sprinted toward the row of speakers.

My brother had pulled his instrument off, and was waving it over his head like some medieval weapon. People said that he looked a lot like me, but I never saw the resemblance. He was a few years younger, a few inches shorter, and a few pounds lighter. Personally, I thought he looked more like Mom, with me being darker, uglier, and more beady-eyed like Dad. He was wearing a tank top, showing off the typical Pitt family bulkiness and love of lifting heavy objects, and also demonstrating that three quarters of him was inked with various designs. You have no idea how angry that made my dad. Mosh had a long black goatee; his head was totally shaved and shiny under the lights. I was going prematurely bald, and my brother, blessed with a full head of hair, shaves his. Jerk.

For a second I thought Mosh was going to bring the guitar down and smash it on stage, but that would be like me smashing a perfectly good firearm. He was a rock star but we had been raised too cheaply to ever be wasteful. Finally, he lowered the guitar and shook his fist at the crowd, the wide grin of a man doing what he loves and knowing he’s the very best at it on his tanned face.

Then he saw me. His mouth formed my name as he tried to process what I was doing here. Security was coming from offstage to get me, but he waved them away as I got closer. Confused, he was starting to ask me a question when the first monster hit the stage. A body in a yellow tee shirt flew twenty feet in the air, screaming, before crashing into an overhanging speaker and taking the entire assembly crashing to the floor in a shower of sparks. The crowd loved it.

The guard’s impact caused a giant confetti dispenser to break open prematurely, spilling tons of reflective bits of white paper like snow. “What the hell, man?” Mosh shouted as a great gray mass vaulted effortlessly onto the stage, knocking over stands and crushing a huge bank of Digitech pedals. Through the wall of sparkling fake snow, the creature turned toward us. The face underneath the gray hood was human, mostly, but twisted, somehow too long, too pointy, with a mane of curly black hair framing bulging red eyes set in a purple hag’s face. The shroud fell open as the monster rose to its full height, towering over us, spreading wide long purple arms, six-fingered hands opening into a bank of nails the size of steak knives. The form was that of a human female, but far too enormous, with skin the texture of punching-bag leather.

The audience cheered.

I swear it actually smiled—gleaming white pointy teeth poking out in an evil grin—turned, and bowed to the crowd.

“That’s one big chick,” the drummer said stupidly.

Then it was back to business, as the thing crossed most of the huge stage in two steps, curled toe claws digging splinters out of the floor. A black, forked tongue licked past lips as it spoke, with a voice that sounded surprisingly normal and feminine. “Come along, little performer. Show’s over.”

“Shit!” Mosh shouted, stumbling back, knowing full well that this wasn’t part of the act. “What’s that?”

“Oh, now everybody can see them!” I shouted as I pushed past my brother, shrugged out of the stupid coat, raised Abomination and flipped the selector down to full auto. The EO-Tech holographic sight settled on the creature’s center of mass as I jerked the trigger. Abomination recoiled up and to the right as I stitched a line of buckshot impacts across the creature’s torso. The purple shape jerked under the steady impacts, raising claws to protect its face as I blasted it with a continuous roar of ten magnum rounds. No normal being could have lived.

“Mosh. Run,” I ordered as I dropped the spent magazine and pulled another one from my vest.

The clawed hand came down and belligerent red eyes focused on me through the swirling confetti. “You!”

New magazine rocked in, I jerked the charging handle to chamber another round, aimed and fired. The one-ounce silver slug could have blasted a hole through a medium-sized cow but it didn’t seem to phase the oni. The projectile actually made an audible buzzing ricochet noise and there was a clang as the drum set took the hit.

She turned to the pit and shrieked, “Cratos! He is here. The Hunter arrived, just as they said he would.”

The second monster lumbered up onto the stage, also cloaked in gray, but, holy shit, this one was huge. The arms bulging out the sides were bright red, big around as my waist, and rippling with veins as thick as garden hoses. The head rose, revealing a much more demonic visage, rhino-horn-sized tusks pointing up out of a jaw a foot across. Above that, tiny black eyes blinked stupidly. Squat, with thick legs and a stumpy torso, he was still twice as tall as I was, and every inch of him was coated in red hide and hard muscle. It was truly terrifying. “Master will pay many souls for this one, Bia,” he bellowed, his voice shaking the foundations of the building.

The audience went nuts. Now this was entertainment. As long as they thought this was part of the show, they wouldn’t kill each other trying to stampede out the exits. Edward swung his arms sharply downward, and the two batons extended with a snap. I pointed my shotgun at the big red monster. “Ready, Ed?” The orc spun both batons around him fast enough to make the air whistle, looked at me, and nodded.

One of the bouncers stared up at the giant in shock, backing away slowly, while the others had the sense to run like hell. “Yum . . . snack,” Big Red said. The brute reached down, effortlessly picked the man up and casually bit his head off. Twitching and fountaining blood, the decapitated body was tossed fifty feet out into the audience by the monster like it was discarding an empty beer can. The nonchalant crunching of the skull as he chewed was audible across the entire stage. The purple one laughed.

Edward glanced down at the batons in his hands, then back at me, as if to say, Screw this. We both ran.

My brother hadn’t listened to me, and he was watching the two giants, mouth agape, guitar dangling in one hand. “Come on, man!” I grabbed him by the arm and dragged him along as we sprinted for backstage. There was a massive roar and a harpy’s shriek as the creatures followed, each one of their strides equivalent to several of ours. The other people in this general area were close enough to know that these were not special effects and were fleeing in every direction. My eyes were dazzled from the spotlights as we ran under the overhang supporting most of the sound equipment and into an unadorned concrete hallway. I crashed and tripped over a cart, dragging Mosh with me. Gretchen and Edward were now far ahead, as were the fleeing roadies and stagehands.

Skippy was pushing the metal container cart that I’d run into toward the stage. It took me a second to realize what it was. The black stencil read danger: pyrotechnics. Skippy gestured at my vest. Knowing automatically what he wanted, I pulled out an incendiary grenade and handed it to him.

“Owen, what are those—wait, is that a grenade?” Mosh asked as he pulled himself to his feet, still trying to figure out what was happening. Welcome to the party, Bro.

“Yes, and when the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer our friend, so move your ass.”

“Bia, here they are,” the red oni said as he squatted on his haunches and peered down the hallway. “Filthy souls to eat . . . he-he-he.” His giggle was unnerving.

The hallway was clear of innocents. Not that Skippy probably would have worried about it anyway. He tugged the pin, dropped the grenade on top of the cart, and both of us shoved as hard as we could, sending the heavy load down the hall with a surprising bit of velocity. Five-second fuse on the white phosphorus ones. The cart rolled haphazardly toward the huge figure now waddling, crouched, down the hall. “RUN!” Cratos smashed the cart against the wall, pushing his way past it to get to us.

The three of us made it down the rest of the hall and around the corner before the WP detonated. Willie Petes don’t go off with a typical explosion—more of a pop-fizz, and then a layer of flame that sticks to everything and could melt steel goes shooting out in every direction. Cratos roared as phosphorus embedded itself in his hide. “Keep going!” I screamed. The pyro bundle detonated a moment later, not as massively as I hoped, but the shockwave traveled over us, raining dust down from the ceiling.

I hit the floor, sliding forward on my face, quickly rolling onto my back, and checking the way we had come. Smoke was billowing out of the hall.

“It burns me!” The idiot monster shouted as it blundered out of the inferno, still right behind us but now coated in living fire. Flames licked out around him; somehow they climbed the concrete walls and moved between the beams of the ceiling. An alarm began to wail as the fire sprinklers kicked on, pelting us with cold water. He blundered about, crashing into pieces of equipment and smashing the walls into powder, apparently blinded by the fire. The damn thing showed no indication of giving up.

This place was confusing, a maze of concrete halls. “How do we get out of here?” I shouted.

“This way.” Mosh pointed down another corridor, this one lined with green equipment lockers. He realized he was still holding his guitar by the neck and tossed it on the floor with a clatter. Too bad; that thing would probably be worth a bundle on eBay. We ran, leaving the burning oni behind, and raced past dressing rooms, equipment closets, and a table lined with all sorts of colorful food that was now drenched by the sprinklers. “Parking lot’s this way.” A bunch of people clustered ahead of us, mostly groupies hanging out for the afterparty judging by how trashy most of the girls were dressed. The groupies were every bit as soaked and terrified as everybody else and were all pointing down the intersecting hall.

“Why’s everybody screaming?” Mosh demanded as we slid through the water behind the women. He got his answer as a small, black object came flying back through the sprinklers. Edward hit the ground rolling, splashing instantly back to his feet. The female oni was right behind him, claws swinging wildly. Somehow she had gotten ahead and cut us off.

Edward dodged under the black claws. Long divots were ripped from concrete behind him. He spun, nailing the creature in the body with the batons: pop, pop, pop. The impacts sounded like solid hits and he was moving unbelievably fast, striking over and over, but she didn’t seem to notice. Bia lashed out with one taloned foot, raking a hole in the carpet where Ed had just been.

I pushed past the groupies. “Edward, down!”

“Everybody, this way,” shouted Mosh, grabbing some of the women, and physically propelling them through a door that he’d jerked open. Luckily it appeared that all Pitts adjusted quickly under stress. “Move!”

The purple creature ducked under the overhanging lights, which were flickering and shorting in the artificial rain. Orange emergency lighting suddenly kicked on along the floor. Edward dove aside, giving me a clean shot. Bia had protected her face earlier, so I put the holographic reticle on her skull and pulled the trigger. Her head snapped back under the impact as the slug bounced from her forehead. Skippy materialized at my side and my loaned .45 barked as he opened fire. Bia snarled and lifted her gray, tattered cloak as if to protect her face. I kept firing as she ducked her head and retreated back the way she had come. Skippy quit shooting. “Where she go?” he grumbled.

They could turn invisible. That’s how they were able to move through the audience. But how come I could still see them? Maybe this Chosen One business did have a few perks after all. “Her head is vulnerable,” I told Skippy.

“Garage is this way,” Mosh shouted from the door. Water was running in thick rivulets down his goatee. There was a mighty roar from the direction of the burning Cratos. He was on the move. “Let’s get out of here.”

I followed my brother, walking backward, waiting for that horrible purple screechy thing to charge back into view at any second. The innocent bystanders had used the time to run like crazy and there were a bunch of discarded high-heel shoes on the floor. Mosh, Gretchen, Edward, Skippy and I ran down a steep ramp that had to be at least fifty yards long before we entered the huge open space of the parking garage. The sprinklers in this area hadn’t activated, so at least there was plenty of traction. There were several semis and trailers parked here as well as a bunch of miscellaneous cars.

“Pitt! Status!” shouted the voice in my earpiece.

“Busy right now, Grant,” I gasped as I kept on running.

We passed a pillar and I was suddenly jerked off balance as someone grabbed my arm. Slamming into the pillar nearly knocked the wind right out of me. I tried to bring up my shotgun but it was swatted aside. Agent Franks shoved me back into the wall, hard, and held a single finger up in front of his lips, indicating the need for silence. The reason quickly became apparent when the wall twenty feet over the ramp exploded in a shower of fragments, dust, and flying rebar shards. Cratos slammed his fists right through the wall. The great red beast launched himself flailing into the room, landing on the floor hard enough to shatter it in a ten-foot circle.

Franks pushed me back even harder with his left hand, raising a stubby FN F2000 rifle in his right. He was still in his suit, and hadn’t even taken the time to remove his clip-on tie. Cratos immediately focused in on my fleeing brother and the orcs and took off in pursuit. “Filthy souls to EAT!” He kicked a parked car and rolled it onto its side, scattering a cloud of safety glass. The screech of metal was obnoxious. Earth shaking with each step, the monster ran right past us. Smoke rose from his flesh but he looked no worse for having been doused in chemical flames.

“Now!” Franks shouted, spinning out from behind the pillar and leveling his rifle at the back of the running monster. A dozen other Feds appeared from behind various vehicles and opened fire, filling the garage with the deafening chatter of automatic weapons and the thumps of grenade launchers. Cratos was caught in the fusillade, hundreds of rounds and supersonic fragments impacting his armored hide. He momentarily disappeared in a cloud of smoke and flashes, spinning, off balance. I caught a glimpse of him as he reacted to the onslaught and covered his head. The monster tripped, toppled forward, and crushed a pickup truck beneath its bulk. Mosh and the orcs were nowhere to be seen.

The fire let up as the final guns ran out of ammo. Then came the simultaneous clatter of the well-trained agents quickly reloading. The oni wasn’t moving. Nothing normal could have lived through that, but these things were not normal. “Cables,” Franks ordered as he jerked the mag from his bullpup carbine and pulled a fresh one from inside his coat. “Go.”

Wiping the water from my eyes, I stared in disbelief as four agents sprinted to the downed monster. Each one was carrying a giant steel manacle, thick steel cables strung between them. Several other Feds ran up behind them, carrying some sort of spear trailing a fat electrical cord. A generator roared to life. It was some sort of monster taser. “You’ve got to be flipping kidding me,” I muttered. “Go cut its head off or something.”

“Orders said take them alive,” Franks replied.

That was stupid. Taking a cultist captive was one thing. Getting close to that downed monstrosity was idiocy. “There’s another one around here,” I warned.

“Bia,” Franks said, indicating that he knew a lot more about these things than he had ever let on. Son of a bitch. “We’ll take the big one first.”

The red form stirred, the metal of the pickup truck grinding beneath it. The agents began to shout and they hit it with the metal spear. Electricity crackled and the oni jerked and twitched, thrashing violently, smoke rising from the impact with a smell like burning rubber. “Bag him!” one of the men shouted and they started locking the giant manacles around Cratos’ thick wrists and ankles. Every time it began to move, the agents on the cables would step back, and they would hit him with the spear again. I had to admit, the MCB was effective. MHI would just have chainsawed the beast as soon as he was down.

Franks got on his radio. “This is Delta. We’re taking Force into custody. Violence unaccounted for.”

“Excellent. Research was positive that oni were vulnerable to electricity.” I could hear Myers reply. “Is Pitt still alive?”

Franks scowled. “Yeah . . .”

“So, you got your monster to interrogate. I’m guessing we’re square?” I asked hopefully.

“I’ve got three injured men because of you,” the big man replied. “We’re not done yet . . .”

“Movement. Shock him!” One of the agents shouted from Cratos’ side. The men on the manacles stepped back and the spear was driven in, but nothing happened this time, no arc, no sparks, nothing. “Malfunction! Hit him again.” The spear was jabbed again but with no effect. The agents cried for help with terror in their voices.

Franks stepped forward, trying to discern the problem. The red hulk started to rise. The men on the manacles retreated, yelling for assistance. I glanced to the side. The electrical cable leading from the portable generator to the spear had been severed. “Bia!” I shouted, as the purple figure threw off its cloak behind the men providing covering fire. Cackling, she slashed into the agents, ripping through their armor, blood spraying. They died quickly, having never even seen her coming.

“Aim for her eyes!” Franks shouted, but she was already gone, moving behind some parked trucks.

My attention snapped back to the big red one. An agent was shouting, “Sir, Force is—” but he never got to finish the sentence. The massive oni rose, bellowing, cables twisting and snapping, and one huge fist clocked the man, launching him across the garage in a cloud of bodily fluids. The other men started shooting, but they were too close to the beast now. With a roar, Force laid into them, living up to his title. With each movement, another agent went down, and in a matter of seconds, the survivors were retreating in disarray.

“All teams converge on the garage now!” Franks ordered into his radio. He put his rifle to his shoulder and aimed carefully at the twisting and jerking monster, searching for the eyes. I put Abomination to my shoulder and centered the sight on the moving target. It was an exceedingly difficult shot. Franks fired and missed. The oni whipped one strand of cable wildly, cracking the air like a bullwhip, and a nearby agent went down. The man screamed incoherently, both of his legs severed at the knees. I tuned that out and exhaled. The eyes were moving. Focus on the holographic dot. The trigger pull was smooth and straight back to the rear.

My slug struck Cratos in one diminutive black eye. The giant paused stupidly, as if thinking about something exceedingly complicated. He stumbled and went to one knee. Something that looked like thick steam came pouring from the now-open socket. He put one meaty palm on the floor to steady himself and shook his head. When he looked back up through the rotating cloud, the eye had returned. His red lips pulled away from his tusks, and he snarled at me as the smoke dissipated. “Filthy-souled Hunter!” He came off the floor and charged like an enraged bull.

Franks shoved me aside at the last second. Cratos flew past and collided with the pillar, blasting a giant chunk from it. Franks spun one way, I sprawled the other, frantically dragging myself on my butt through the debris. The giant came out of the dust, shaking himself violently. One piece of rebar, unnoticed, was impaled through his chest. “Lose some souls because of you. Replace it with yours!” he growled, bearing down on me. I kept scuttling away, but he was right there, and I could taste his horrible sulfuric breath pouring down.

His tiny eyes bore into me and the blackness behind those lenses seemed to stretch on forever, inky pools from a horrible place, utterly devoid of light. He extended one giant red hand toward me, palm as big as my chest. I felt myself growing weaker, like all of the warmth was being sucked out through my ribs, leaving my limbs numb and cold. I couldn’t breathe.

The life was being pulled out of me . . .

Suddenly, it was as if I could see through his skin. The oni’s body was just a shell, a constructed mass of false tissues, and underneath was the real creature, a swirling demonic bag of stolen souls.

The oni licked his lips hungrily.

Then he was gone. The rear end of a bus smashed into Cratos, driving him back into the pillar with a brutal crunch. I shook my head as air filled my lungs and blood flowed back into my extremities. It hurt. I stumbled to my feet. The door of the Cabbage Point Killing Machine luxury tour bus slid open with an automated hiss. Mosh sat behind the wheel. “Get in!”

One giant red arm was already flailing about, pinned between the pillar and the bus. The rear tires began to slide forward against his pressure. That’s one tough monster. I ran and jumped into the vehicle. The three orcs were clustered behind Mosh. Edward had gotten cut on the arm at some point and Gretchen was ministering to him. Somebody pushed in behind me. Franks.

“Get on the freeway,” he ordered. There was a huge gash across his chest, and his white shirt was hanging open and soaked with blood. I didn’t know if it was his or somebody else’s. Franks didn’t indicate that he was in pain, but then again, I didn’t know if he could feel pain. “They’ll follow Pitt.”

“Me?” Mosh asked in confusion.

“No, him.” Franks jerked his thumb at me. “Drive.”

I ran down the aisle of the tour bus as Mosh ground the gears. The bus was so opulent that if it hadn’t been such dire circumstances, I probably would have stopped to gawk. It was like a death-metal version of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. “You’ve got a Jacuzzi in this thing?” I shouted.

“Hell, yeah,” Mosh said. “Hold on. I’ve only driven this once before.”

The bus lurched forward, stopped, lurched again, and then was building up steam, heading for the garage exit and the open night. The rear end was crushed and a giant red visage was glaring at me through the broken back window. Cratos’ tusked face curled into a snarl as we pulled away, freeing him. I raised Abomination, aimed carefully, and put my finger on my gun’s second trigger. These things absorbed people’s souls, and somehow that’s how they had lived for thousands of years. I’d seen the pressurized bag inside them. Apparently the gateway to that was in their heads. If he lost some energy from a .68 caliber slug through the eye, let’s see how he did with a 40mm grenade up the snoot.

“HUNTER!” Cratos roared.

I shot him in the mouth as we drove away.

The explosion blasted his head wide open, unhinging his jaw. There was a billowing cloud of that same white smoke as the giant toppled over and thudded to the earth.

That had to have finished him. The oni shook on the ground, facedown, head deflated like collapsed dough as the false body seemed to shrink. “No backstage pass for you, jerk-off.” I laughed.

But then the head puffed back up. The skull was briefly soft as it bulged and throbbed but then it seemed to instantly harden. Re-formed, he looked up and focused right in on me, black eyes filled with simple hatred. Cratos lurched from his knees and started running after us, each step like thunder.

“Step on it, Mosh!”

Chapter 7

We tore out of the Buzzard Island Amphitheater parking lot and up onto the freeway heading south. There were a ton of flashing lights, ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars arrayed around the hall now. Thousands of people were wandering around, aware that something weird was going on, but not knowing what exactly. And it was about to get a whole lot weirder for them when that unkillable red bastard came running out after us.

“Head for the Air Force base,” Franks directed Mosh.

“Listen, big scary dude, I don’t know where the air base is,” Mosh said. “Owen, who is this asshole?”

“He’s my bodyguard . . .” My brother started to turn around. I knew he had a lot of questions at this point, and the look he gave me indicated just how pissed off he was. “Just . . . Never mind . . . Keep heading south. I’ll tell you where to turn.” I held onto a stainless steel pole by the driver’s seat as the bus jerked violently through the gears.

Franks keyed his radio. “This is Delta lead. Southbound in the black bus with the primary.”

Myers came back. “Are you all right, Franks?”

“Yes, sir. But Alpha Team was rendered combat ineffective.” Apparently “combat ineffective” meant that most of them had just gotten dismembered. The quiet man stated it with less emotion than the average person expressed over stubbing their toe.

“Evacuating them now. Apaches’ ETA ten minutes,” Myers replied. I breathed a sigh of relief at that. There was no way that Cratos could catch up to us on foot before we had some serious firepower overhead. “We’ve got a level-five containment problem here, a couple hundred viable witnesses.” The senior agent sounded really upset.

“Did you get Violence?”

“Negative.”

Franks started scanning through the darkened windows. “Roger that.”

“Owen, we’ve got to talk,” Mosh said as he painfully ground the bus into a higher gear. He turned and looked at me. “Okay, what the hell were those things? What are you doing playing commando? You’re an accountant! And these weirdos keep bowing and calling me War Chief.” He waved his hand at the orcs. All three bowed simultaneously. “See? See!”

“I’ll explain everything.”

“No. You won’t,” Franks ordered. I had to remember that part of his job was murdering witnesses who couldn’t keep their big mouths shut.

“Wait,” Skippy interrupted before I could tell Franks to go screw himself. “Smell monster.” He lifted up the base of his mask, revealing his face. The wide nostrils in his piglike snout flared as he sniffed the air.

“Aaaahhhh!” Mosh screamed when he saw Skippy’s face, jerked the wheel of the tour bus, and clipped the rear end of a passing car. The car careened off the freeway and out into the wetlands. He barely regained control before we went off the road, all of us being slammed back and forth, and stumbling in the aisle. “What the fuck!”

Skippy dropped his mask. “Sorry . . . War Chief.” Then he bowed an apology to Mosh. “Sister here.”

There was a thump on the roof.

I raised my shotgun and started blasting random holes through the ceiling. Franks had lost his rifle at some point. A Glock appeared in his hand and he started shooting. Skippy raised my .45 and popped off the remaining rounds in the magazine. The roof was Swiss cheese in a matter of seconds. A purple hand smashed through the roof and wrapped around the shoulder of my armor. Bia hoisted me from floor as if I weighed nothing. My head slammed into the sheet metal as she tried to tug me through the gap. My boots kicked uselessly. Franks maneuvered for a shot. I levered Abomination up and emptied the rest of the magazine through the roof and right into Bia’s body. She didn’t let go.

Skippy and Gretchen grabbed my legs and pulled down. Monster tug-of-war. I screamed as my head slammed into the roof repeatedly. Ditching the totally ineffective baton, Edward leapt up and pulled the kukri from my vest. He swung, embedding the blade deep into the oni’s arm. She shrieked and the claws released.

I landed on the minibar, shattering a bunch of expensive booze bottles and a fancy mirror. The arm disappeared. I hit the floor hard but my new angle gave me a clear view of the freeway ahead. “Mosh! Look out!”

My brother, distracted, had turned toward the action. He swiveled back just in time to see the rear end of the semi we were about to collide with. All of us were flung about as Mosh cranked it violently to the right and stomped on the brakes. We tore one of our headlights off against the rear of the trailer. The bus bounced wildly as we went off the pavement, tearing huge swaths out of the grass. We slid, somehow moving sideways in the mammoth vehicle, then jarred violently back onto the pavement.

We were on an off-ramp.

Mosh righted the vehicle, but now we were curving back, heading to the northeast. We began to climb up an overpass, going back over the freeway. We were in too high of a gear, and the engine made a gurgling noise as Mosh downshifted.

“Wrong way,” Franks said simply as he shoved a fresh magazine into his 10mm.

“Maybe we knocked that bitch loose!” Mosh said hopefully.

Bia crashed through the side this time, a purple blur swinging down from the roof. The oni’s massive fist hit Franks square in the chest and he just disappeared, his body flying through the glass on the opposite side.

“Franks!” But he was already gone, blasted right out the moving vehicle and into the night. Struggling, I pulled another Saiga magazine from my armor. A long purple arm stretched forward, searching for me, ripping up shards of thick carpet. Edward stepped forward, kukri swinging, and nailed her again. The blade bit deep but no fluids came out. Bia screeched, swinging at Edward, and without room to maneuver he couldn’t dodge. The orc sailed down the aisle, colliding with the dash. Ed tumbled down the stairs, landing against the door.

Abomination reloaded, I put a round of double-aught buckshot into Bia’s face. She turned away from me, and noticed my brother steering, eyes on the road, a bunch of orange flashing lights pulsing through the windshield past his bald head. Bia crawled further into the bus. “Mosh, move! Move!” I screamed.

But she wasn’t going for him. She knocked Mosh from the driver’s seat. Claws reached for the wheel and I realized what was happening, but too late to do anything other than shout something unintelligible about holding on. Purple fingers clenched and jerked, the wheels screeched in protest, and the orange flashing lights rushed up to meet us.

We hit the construction equipment at about forty miles an hour.

I woke up.

It must have only been a moment later. I tasted copper. Blood was running freely from my scalp and down my face. I wiped it away with one sleeve, smearing it away from my eyes. The bus was resting at an angle, the right side and front end a lot higher than the rest of the vehicle. The door was open. Edward was still stirring slowly on the steps. The door was open. My brother was gone.

“Mosh?” I sat up slowly, feeling the urge to puke. No answer. “You okay, Ed?” He gurgled. But he always sounded like that. I started to call for Franks, my brain needing a second to realize that Bia had already murdered him. The hole through the side of the bus was splattered with Franks’ blood. “Skippy? Gretchen?”

“Pretty bus . . . all smash,” Gretchen said sadly.

“War Chief?” Skippy asked. The two of them had ended up further back toward the Jacuzzi.

“Mosh?” I asked again, pulling one leg out from under me. Dizzy, I crawled down the stairs, past Ed, hands crunching bits of broken safety glass into the thick carpeting, and tumbled, facefirst, onto the pavement. Bia had steered us into a giant orange vehicle labeled Alabama Department of Transportation. Judging by the front of our bus, it was one solid chunk of machinery. Other orange vehicles were parked behind it. One lane of the overpass, the one that we were currently in, had been blocked off by rubber cones. Glancing back, Mosh had managed to run over at least fifty of them. I pulled myself up the side of the bus, and tucked the butt of my shotgun against my shoulder. “Mosh! Can you hear me?”

We were on the edge of the overpass. Southbound vehicles flew past beneath us, in the direction we were supposed to have been going to meet air support. Would the Apaches know where to find us? Gun raised, I stumbled around the side of the bus. That evil she-demon had to be around here somewhere.

“Pitt. Come in, Pitt.” It was Grant.

“Listen, we’re on the overpass about two miles south of the concert, just north of the river,” I replied. “We need immediate extraction.”

“Damn it, that was you behind us.” His voice became quieter as he said, “Flip around, head back to the overpass,” then returned to normal volume. “We’re on the way.”

The construction crew was on foot, running for their lives down the edge of the overpass, scared to death of something. A car zipped past in the open lane. Every passenger in the vehicle swiveled their heads in the same direction, a family of four, each of them with mouths wide open, all staring at something just around the end of the bus.

Bia! I flew around the corner, Abomination up. I was going to pop her in both eyes and kick her ass off this bridge.

“Hey, Bro . . .” Mosh croaked, “. . . could use a hand.”

My brother was dangling over the edge of the overpass, Bia’s claws encircling his throat. Mosh was holding onto her wrist with both hands, arms bulging, legs kicking futilely as vehicles screamed by below. The oni smiled, her sharp white teeth a brilliant contrast to her leather skin. She was standing on the raised concrete barrier to keep cars from driving off the side. If the drop didn’t kill him, a passing car would.

Bia dipped her head in greeting. “Greetings, Hunter.”

“Let him go,” I ordered.

She ignored me and continued speaking. My brother had to weigh at least 250, but she didn’t seem to even notice his struggling weight. Her focus was entirely on me. “I should have pulled you out of there instead of this one, but you humans all smell the same when stinking with fear.”

Grant’s voice sounded in my earpiece. “We’re south of you. What’s that purple thing?”

I keyed my radio as discreetly as possible. “Snipe her,” I whispered, hoping that the throat mike would pick it up.

The oni didn’t seem to hear me. “The old gods have smiled upon us tonight. I was afraid we would have to harm you. The Shadow Lord’s contract specified that our payment would be halved if you were injured. Luckily, the foolishness of humans knows no bounds when their blood kin are threatened. When the Shadow Lord’s minion reported that you had left in such haste to come to your brother’s aid, I knew we would surely capture you tonight.”

That staggered me. There is a spy. I had a clean shot at her eyes, but I was terrified she’d drop Mosh. “I don’t care about your contract, just my brother.”

Bia cackled. The unnatural sound caused the hair on my arms to stand up. “The contract is everything. Would you break a contract, my fellow Hunter?”

“Fellow Hunter?” I snorted, never letting the muzzle of my gun waver. “I don’t think so.”

“Oh, we’re very much the same, we are. My brother and I deal in the same trade as you, only we’re not picky who we work for.” She reached with her free hand into her gray cloak and pulled out a tangle of rope. She tossed it at my feet. “Just like you, we have contracts to fulfill, and now I must fulfill mine.”

It was just a small bundle of hemp rope. Then suddenly, it twitched. I took a step back. The rope moved on its own, uncoiling into a memorized circle. As the ends met, there was a flash of fire, and the cement inside the radius disappeared into nothingness. It was like there was a black hole in the floor of the overpass.

“The portal will take you to the Shadow Lord. You will step into it willingly.”

“Fat chance of that.”

“Or I drop your blood kin to his certain death.” She shook Mosh painfully. His eyes were shut tight as he yelped in pain. “Then I will make you get in the portal. If I cannot, then my brother will be here in a moment. You would much rather do it my way than his. Cratos will simply pull your limbs off and toss you in. I would rather not lose our bonus. Either way, you will be at the feet of the Shadow Lord before this night is through.”

“Violence . . .” The ragged voice came from slightly behind me. I turned.

Franks! He was alive, barely. Blood was running freely from a dozen lacerations. His suit had been reduced to rags. He must have lost his gun, because now all he had in his right hand was a folding fighting knife. He limped right past me, one foot dragging on the pavement.

He was seething.

“We have no quarrel with your kind,” Bia said. “This is not your concern.”

“Bullshit,” Franks muttered, closing, as he left a splatter trail behind.

Bia was distracted by Franks. “Grant, you got a fifty?”

“Yeah. I’ve got my McMillan.”

He’d been working on precision shooting with the Newbies today. I could only pray that he had a good zero. There was no wind. “Head shot. Don’t miss. Wait for my signal,”

“I’m three hundred yards away,” he protested.

“It’s a big head, asshole,” I hissed.

Bia shook my brother again. Mosh was struggling to hold onto her arm, slipping. “I only want the Hunter.”

“You can’t have him,” Franks said slowly, still drawing closer to his target. I had to do something before he got close enough to attack, because I knew he wouldn’t care if Mosh was splattered into roadkill.

“Have you grown so weak, so jealous, that you would live as a slave?” She extended one huge hand toward Franks, pleading. “The Shadow Lord understands the fallen. He can grant you true freedom. Join us.” Bia said something else in a strange, almost musical language.

Franks stopped, turning his head slightly, as if thinking about her offer, whatever the hell all that weirdness meant. There was a bellowing cry in the distance. Car horns were blowing. Cratos was almost here.

“Ready,” Grant said in my ear. “Hostage is blocking the shot.”

“Hey, Bia!” I shouted. She turned her attention back to me. I was way too far to make a grab for Mosh. “I’d go with you to save my family. Your shadow guy was right about that. But you’ve got one problem . . .”

“Yes?” Her red eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“That’s not my brother. You grabbed the drummer by mistake.”

Curling her massive arm, she pulled Mosh closer for examination. Purple lips pulled back, puzzled, over those deadly sharp teeth. Mosh was suspended over the concrete now.

Grant was calm. “Clear.”

“Send it.”

The impact made a distinctive sound, like a watermelon being struck by a bat. The boom of the .50 BMG sniper rifle arrived a split second later. The bullet missed her vulnerable eyes but pierced directly through her ear hole.

Bia’s head jerked violently to the side. Mosh was thrown against the concrete, landing hard on his shoulder and rolling away. A terrible whistle emanated from the oni as something unnatural ruptured. Her hands clenched spasmodically over her ears, trying to staunch the energy screaming from her collapsing skull. The inner creature had been ruptured. There was a vortex of white light and vapor shooting from her ears, eyes, and mouth, spinning, flashing upward under the halogen lights.

Franks covered the last few feet, stopped, and glared up at the monster as Bia added her inhuman shriek to the noise. “You always did talk too much,” he said simply. Then he put one hand on her chest and shoved the oni over the side.

It was a twenty-foot drop to the freeway, but I couldn’t tell if she actually hit the ground before the speeding 18-wheeler’s grill struck her. The entire engine block of the semi instantly collapsed around her, driving steel through Bia’s animated body. The truck turned brutally to the side, trailer jackknifing as the truck’s weight slammed the oni solidly into the base of the overpass. The truck shuddered to a smoking-rubber halt. Suddenly a shockwave expanded outward from the impact point. Brilliant white light turned night temporarily into day. The wave passed and there were ghostly figures, literally hundreds of shapes, men and monsters, intelligences and lives that had been captive for thousands of years, now freed, leaping into the sky. They were gone in an instant.

“All those people . . .” I muttered as I walked to my brother’s side, trying to comprehend the sheer horror of the creature we had just ended.

“What people?” Mosh asked hysterically, surely waiting for something else to try to kill him. “Where?” He hadn’t seen them.

Franks regarded me suspiciously, shook his head, then stepped forward and peered over the edge. The truck was crushed below us. The trailer—a giant, stainless-steel tube—was sideways directly underneath the overpass, blocking two full lanes. It was tall enough that I probably could have just jumped down to the trailer and been fine.

Franks still had his radio. “We’re on the overpass.” I was far enough away that I couldn’t hear the response. “Good. Evacuate the road.” The southbound traffic was stopped by the wreck. The Feds must have blocked the northbound route, because nothing was coming from that direction either.

The orcs materialized, Edward balanced between his brother and sister-in-law. I checked Mosh. He was shaken, confused, but seemed okay. It was when I stood up that I noticed how badly Franks was injured. His left arm had been ripped apart from hitting the road, flesh shredded and hanging in strips, splintered bone shards visible through the welling blood. His clip-on tie had been applied as a tourniquet around the top of his bicep.

He caught my shocked expression. “Just a flesh wound,” he said nonchalantly.

“BIA!”

The cry was so loud that the halogen lights overhead exploded. All of us flinched. Glass rained from the sky.

“SISTER!” Cratos was crashing down the freeway, colliding with the stopped cars. His gray cloak was flapping behind, rendering him visible to all. People ditched their cars and fled screaming from the red nightmare giant. “Filthy souls! Filthy souls must die! Kill! Killed SISTER! NOOO!”

“Oh, man. We’ve made him mad,” I said.

Franks scowled, doing the math. The oni was a few hundred yards away and closing quickly. “Go,” he ordered without looking. He limped to a nearby construction vehicle and retrieved a length of heavy cable from the back with his good arm.

I didn’t know what Franks was planning, but anything involving staying and fighting was suicide. “Come on!” I shouted at him as I ran to one of the Alabama DOT trucks. Of course, there were no keys in it. I swore.

“Primary mission, protect Pitt from the Condition,” Franks stated as he pulled out the cable. His injured arm was leaking everywhere, but he still managed to use his left hand to open the steel clip on the end to fashion a loop. Franks tugged out the other end of the cable, pulled it over to the bus and crawled under. He started wrapping the cable around the frame.

“Pitt! We’re below you,” Grant screamed in my ear. A horn honked on the freeway just south of the wrecked truck. “There’s a big red thing coming this way, and I think I just killed its sister or something.”

Franks was going to sacrifice himself to slow down Cratos. He looked up from his work long enough to glare at me. “I’ve never failed a mission.”

In other words, it was time to go.

The fastest way down to Lee and Grant was to go right over the edge. Skippy was way ahead of me. He climbed over the concrete ledge and jumped down to the top of the trailer. His boots bounced, and he fell, but managed not to go over the side. He stood and gestured for his wife. Gretchen was much more nimble and she had somebody to help catch her. Ed, weaving badly, but still managing more dexterity than I would ever have, went over next. I helped Mosh to his feet and we wobbled to the side. “You’ve got to be shittin’ me,” he said when he looked at what was still a pretty darn scary leap down to a narrow, stainless-steel catwalk. Cratos roared again, much closer now. “Point taken.” He jumped, landing awkwardly. I waited for Skippy to help him before I went over.

The yellow sign said that this was a 20-foot overpass. It felt like ten times that when I stepped into space. My boots hit the trailer just as the smell hit my nose. Gasoline. Pain surged up through my ankle, still tender from Mexico. Strong hands grabbed my arm. Mosh shoved me toward the ladder. “Gas truck!” he shouted.

I slid down the ladder, past a bevy of red signs saying danger/peligro and flammable, and landed with a splash. I was standing in gasoline. The tanker had ruptured on impact. My brother was down a second after me. Lee laid on the horn. “Come on!” But then Mosh was running in the wrong direction. “Damn it!” I shouted as I followed. He was running toward where Bia had died. Didn’t he realize we had to get out of here, either before this thing caught on fire or before Cratos got here? Stupid idiot.

Then I felt like the idiot as Mosh scrambled his way up to the wrecked truck. He was trying to get the driver. The engine block was completely smashed into the wall and fragments had been hurled a hundred feet but the trucker could still be alive. Mosh jerked on the door but it was crumpled tight. I reached him just as he crawled, headfirst, through the broken window.

“Hurry, man. We’ve got to go,” I insisted.

“Working on it,” came the muffled reply.

“KILL! KILL!” Cratos screamed.

I saw Agent Franks standing at the top of the overpass, perched in the exact spot that Bia had been in only a minute before. He held the thick loop of cable in his hands, noose ready. Was he going to actually try to lasso the thing? The rear of the tanker shook as Cratos slammed into it, pushing past, splashing into the gasoline. He was so absurdly tall that his head terminated nearly three quarters of the way to the overpass above. He saw me.

“FILTHY HUNTER DIE!”

Franks waited patiently for the monster to step into view.

Force roared. The sound began as a rumble, but then rose in intensity, until it was a primal scream of pure hate. He lowered his head and charged.

Franks tossed the makeshift noose. The oni’s head passed right through and he made it three more steps before the cable jerked tight. The bus was jerked several feet. His beady eyes bulged as the cable tightened around his throat. Too enraged to stop, he kept tugging inexorably toward me, dragging the bus with him.

The ground was littered with wreckage, gasoline quickly spreading and washing over it. I realized with a shock that much of the debris was actually what was left of Bia. The purple bits looked like dried clay. “Grab my feet and pull!” Mosh shouted. I grabbed him, glad that he was wearing those giant lineman boots that laced all the way up to his knees, and yanked as hard as I could. The adrenaline was surging through my system and I pulled my brother back out the window. Mosh saw Cratos struggling less than a hundred feet away but he was a man on a mission. “Help me with this guy.”

We both reached through the window. I found an armpit, and we pulled, lifting the unconscious man through the gap. Of course, he had to be a big, heavyset guy, too. No, it would have been too much to ask to have to carry a petite person out of a probably soon-to-be-exploding truck with an angry giant thing trying to eat your soul. No, Owen Z. Pitt, you get a three-hundred-pounder. It took two strong and desperate men to pull him through the window. I slung the trucker over my back in a fireman carry and ran for our lives.

Cratos was trying to scream, but the sound was choked off by the cable. The harder he pulled, the tighter it got, but he was still getting closer. Driven by supernatural strength, he had dragged the tour bus partway over the cracking ledge. If that thing went over it was bound to spark and blow us all to kingdom come.

Then I heard the choppers. The MCB’s Apache gunships were coming in, low and fast, from the west side of the island. Their mission was to put some hurting on this monster.

And they didn’t know about the fuel tanker.

What Franks did next absolutely stunned me. With his knife held in his good hand, he leapt over the edge, not to the trailer top, but rather, straight to the ground, directly behind Cratos. Franks landed on his feet, automatically rolling to absorb the impact, but still surely breaking his legs. He tumbled through the gas, coming up in a petrochemical splash, right beneath the oni’s leg. Franks slashed the knife brutally, chopping through whatever served as the unnatural beast’s ligaments, hamstringing it. Cratos collapsed to one knee, the cable pulling even tighter.

The beast swung, tearing one mighty fist at Franks, but hitting only gas and pavement, as Franks had rolled behind the other leg, and struck deep there as well. This time Franks wasn’t fast enough, and a backhand landed hard enough to tear a cloud through six feet of road. Franks was flung into the darkness, disappearing into the trees along the river.

Now, with both legs damaged, the oni toppled, hanging itself entirely. It struggled, twisting, legs flopping, as it swung back under the overpass.

The gasoline was everywhere, soaking my legs, as I lumbered up to the MHI van. Grant was holding the back door open. “Toss him to me!” he shouted. I shoved the injured trucker in before clambering up behind. Grant and Mosh were in a second later, and Lee had us moving before we could even get the rear door closed. An angry dragonfly shape passed overhead as the first Apache took aim.

“Gun it, Lee!”

“Going as fast as I can,” the little man stated calmly, as he put all of his weight and will on the gas pedal. The MHI vans were all supercharged V8s, and that was a good thing.

“Go! Go! Go!” Grant shouted.

Behind us, Cratos raged and fought. The millennium-old killer was hanging, thrashing, tiny eyes bulging with hate, when the chopper fired. The 30mm cannon struck him in the torso, depleted uranium shells exploding out his back in a shower of fragments and white light. Rocket pods launched, lancing fury under the overpass. The gasoline caught, flames tearing across the freeway, leaping back up into the emptying trailer, igniting the massive amount of fumes in a conflagration that was probably visible in Cazador.

A wall of heat and pressure rocked the van, blowing the rear windows out in a spray of hot glass. I covered my head. A killing wind smashed through the interior, super hot and stinging. The exterior paint caught on fire.

But we made it.

A roiling red-and-black mushroom cloud rose behind us, hundreds of feet into the air. Somehow I alone could see through the conflagration to see the ancient oni’s final moments. Through the curtains of fire and smoke and howling wind, the beast hung by a fraying cable, false flesh boiling away, energy fleeing, until finally, in a flash, he was consumed. The container was destroyed, freeing thousands of trapped souls as his body exploded into clay dust that was sucked upward into the flaming vortex.

“You okay?” I asked softly.

My brother had spent the last fifteen minutes doing CPR on the trucker. The two of us and the rapidly cooling body were the only ones left in the van. He had done his best, and his chest heaved from the stress and exertion. He smelled like evaporating gasoline.

After we had stopped the van, Gretchen had examined the man for only a few seconds, shook her head sadly, then walked away. If Gretchen had said nothing could be done, then truly, it was over. Mosh didn’t know what I knew about her healing powers and had continued trying to resuscitate, pumping the man’s chest over and over, stubbornly trying to work a heart that was just plain done, then filling the lungs with air and trying again.

The back of the van was bare. It made a decent work space for first aid. Mosh leaned back against the wall and rubbed a filthy hand over his face.

“You okay?” I repeated, a little louder this time.

The trucker was a big old boy with a Charlie Daniels beard, with those kind of thick arms that bordered on fat but were amazingly strong, and he had LOVE tattooed on one set of knuckles and HATE tattooed on the other. It was cheesy, but it didn’t matter now, because he was dead, and it was my fault. College kids in Mexico, who knows how many innocents tonight, my family put in danger, and it wasn’t going to stop. . . . All because of me.

Mosh gave a sad little laugh. It was a pathetic sound. “Hell of a night.”

“Yeah . . . Listen, dude, I can explain everything.”

He just shook his head. “Shut up.”

“No, really. Everything you saw, I can explain.”

Mosh lowered his hand. His face was bloodstained and scratched. “Just leave me alone right now, okay?” His eyes got a dangerous squint to them and just for a second I could see that family resemblance that everybody always told me about.

I nodded. I could understand. There was a helicopter landing outside. This particular talk could wait. The back doors of the van were pulled open. Grant was standing there in his perfect black armor. “Feds are here,” he stated, though it was pretty obvious with the black helicopter settling on the freeway a hundred feet away.

“Hey, Grant.”

“Yeah?”

I clapped him on the shoulder. It was kind of awkward. “Good shot back there.”

Grant just nodded, his expression inscrutable. It was no secret that he disliked me. “Just doing my job.” Saving my life was a professional courtesy, nothing more. “I suppose that makes us even.”

He was talking about me pulling him out of DeSoya Caverns. Technically I figured I was still ahead by one, but I had broken his nose for that incident. “Fair enough.”

The fire was still burning in the distance. We were parked on the bridge between Buzzard Island and Montgomery. State police, by order of the Feds, had blocked the bridge into town. This area was now quarantined, certainly as part of what Myers had referred to on the radio as a Level 5 Containment Event. Agent Myers, trailed by Agents Torres, Herzog, and Archer, approached as Grant and I waited. The Goon Squad looked pretty beat up. Archer had a black eye and a Sig 229 dangling from one hand. Skippy, Gretchen, and Edward were nowhere to be seen, which was probably real smart right about now.

“Pitt . . . Jefferson,” Myers addressed us, anger barely contained. I was waiting for him to explode. I was going to jail, if I was lucky.

“Myers,” I said gravely. “Have you found Franks yet?”

“We will find him,” Myers stated matter-of-factly, somehow talking while keeping his jaw clenched. “As for you . . .”

I waited patiently for my arrest.

Agent Myers hesitated, obviously waffling between having the cuffs put on or ordering his agents to just shoot me to get it over with. The look he gave me was a mixture of anger, frustration, and something else that I wasn’t sure about. He turned from me, studied the surviving members of my protective detail one by one, and then scowled back at me, deep in thought. Finally he seemed to deflate. His teeth unclenched and then Myers just seemed like the tired, middle-aged, glorified bureaucrat that he was. “You, I’ll deal with later. Go home . . .” He waved his hand. “Just . . . go home.”

That was a surprise. “Seriously?”

“But, sir!” Herzog shouted. “He attacked us.”

“I never touched you,” I said, which was true. The orcs had beat the hell out of them—not me.

“He pulled a gun on Agent Franks.” Archer said. “That’s—”

“Enough!” Myers cut his subordinate off. “Pitt, if I thought it would benefit my mission I’d have you locked up for eternity. Your actions jeopardized my men.”

I had no idea why he was letting me go. A smarter man would have kept his mouth shut, but my temper tended to run faster than my brain. “You knew more about these oni than you let on. I had nothing to do with your trap failing. Did you expect me to just let them kill my brother?”

“You’re a free man for one reason only. You’re still our only in against this group,” Myers spat. “Don’t mistake my actions for mercy. I need all of my available men for this containment but I’ll provide another protective detail shortly. We’ll assess how tonight’s setback affects our case against the Condition. Hopefully, the cultist your father shot will survive and we can get some information out of him.”

“How are my parents?” I asked.

“Fine. They’re on a flight now.”

“Parents?” Mosh spoke up from behind Grant, concern evident in his voice. “What happened?”

Myers gestured into the back of the van. “One of your people?”

“That’s my brother, the one you were going to leave to die,” I said, pointing to Mosh, who looked really exasperated.

Myers sighed. “I meant the dead one.”

“Driver of the tanker.” Grant spoke for the first time.

“We tried to save him,” Mosh said.

“I understand.” The senior G-man nodded. “Men, carry this body to the chopper.”

“What about Mom and Dad?” Mosh demanded.

“I’ll explain later,” I said. Mosh scowled in a manner that suggested he was giving serious thought about attempting to kick my ass. I was bigger and had a lot more experience but I knew my brother was damn tough when he got angry. “Chill out, dude. They’re fine.” Mosh punched the side of the van and stomped away. I waited until the Goon Squad had picked up the trucker before returning my full attention to Myers. It took all three of them to hoist the body up and shuffle away, each of them telegraphing their distaste for their superior’s decision not to haul me off. “Any idea how many more dead?”

“Not as many as you would think,” Myers replied. “We got lucky. Some civilians at the concert and I have four men dead and several more wounded.” I didn’t know if he was counting Franks in that quantity. “We got most of the cars stopped away from the tanker and the people stuck behind the crash were smart enough to run when they saw Force drop his invisibility. As far as we know, nobody else was caught in the explosion. In the meantime, I’ve got hundreds of witnesses and a slew of damage that I have to explain. Some idiot is going to talk about this and that means they’ll have to be dealt with . . .” He trailed off, finding the idea distasteful.

“Wouldn’t it be better if we just let the truth be known?” I suggested.

“Not my call, Pitt. I just enforce policy. I don’t make it.” He began to walk back to the waiting Blackhawk.

“You murder survivors and witnesses!” I shouted. “You destroy lives to keep up this illusion of safety! People should know what’s really out there.”

Myers paused, turned, and shook his head sadly. “Can you imagine what would happen if the world found out the truth? Chaos. Pandemonium. No. People need to be kept safe from themselves, and I’ll do whatever I have to, lie, cheat . . . kill . . . anything, to keep my country safe.” The professor was a dedicated man.

It was disgusting. “How do you sleep at night?”

Myers actually chuckled, his normally bureaucratic demeanor apparently damaged by his losses. “I don’t. If you knew what was coming”—he resumed walking, the wind from the rotors snapping his cheap tie over his shoulder and making it difficult to hear—“you wouldn’t sleep anymore either.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I shouted after him.

But he didn’t answer. The chopper lifted off a minute later, leaving me to ponder what it was that Myers thought was coming. Clearly there was more to this cult than the Feds were letting on. Lee hobbled around the side of our van. He was in jeans and a Schlock Mercenary tee shirt. He had bailed out of the compound so fast he hadn’t even had time to gear up. Grant must have gotten dressed on the road. The sight of Lee in normal attire made me especially thankful for my friends. They hadn’t hesitated to go after me any more than I had for my own brother. “Z, I’ve got Harbinger on the phone. He’s been trying to reach you.”

I pulled out my cell phone. It had gotten cracked at some point during the evening’s excitement. “Piece of crap!” I cocked my fist back and chucked it far out into the Alabama River. That small bit of random violence made me feel better.

Lee shook his head and grinned. “You know the company phones have a warranty on them, right? You could have got that replaced for free. Now you’ll have to buy a new one.”

I groaned. “What did he say?” I knew it had to be some variation of Pitt, you suck. Go hide at the compound. Lee handed me his phone.

My boss actually sounded concerned. “How’re y’all doing?”

“We’re good. Only minor injuries.” I hurried, knowing that he was going to rip me for disobeying his orders. “We got to my brother in time. Agent Franks is dead.” Saying that sounded weird. Franks had always seemed so stoic, so invulnerable, that it was hard to imagine anything being able to end his life.

“He was a jackass but he was a pro,” Earl said simply.

I turned away so the others wouldn’t hear. Something that Bia said had been gnawing at me. “The creatures knew I was coming. Somebody told them I was on my way. There is a spy at the compound.”

There was a long silence at the other end while Earl mulled that over. “Either there or it could have been somebody who’s with me right now. Julie got your message and told everybody else. We’re on our way back. I’ve got an idea. I want you to meet me someplace. Can you ditch the Feds?”

“Already done.”

“Okay, Lee’s driving? Pass the phone back to him.”

I walked back to the others and handed the phone to Lee. “What’s going on?” Grant asked. Lee was listening to instructions and went forward to program an address into the onboard GPS.

“Earl wants us to meet him somewhere.”

“I don’t like it. Myers said we should go back to the compound,” Grant said.

“Screw him,” I said automatically. “When did you start caring what the Feds say?”

Grant snorted like that was absurd. “I don’t.”

“You’re just worried that you’re too pretty for prison.” They’d have loved Grant in Tijira. Lee came back. “Where to, man?”

“Birmingham. Harbinger gave me an address for a house in a neighborhood called Hensley.” Lee said.

“Never heard of it, but cool.” So Harbinger had something up his sleeve after all. The whole “hide and wait for the bad guys to kill me” plan hadn’t gone real well so far, so hopefully he had found a way to go on the offensive.

I like being offensive.

Chapter 8

Birmingham was the next big city north of Montgomery. It took us awhile to drive the van through all of the various detours that popped up in the aftermath of the concert. It gave Gretchen a chance to bounce around between the seats, applying greasy, smelly ointments to all of our various injuries.

“Yes, damn it, Tim. The tour bus exploded . . . Yeah, you heard me. Ex-Plode-Ed,” Mosh said into Lee’s borrowed cell phone with quite a bit of consternation. He had wanted to contact his band to let them know that he was still alive. “No, I don’t know what’s going on . . . Atlanta? Hell, I guess we’re probably going to have to cancel it, don’t you think? Since the bus exploded.” He shook his head sadly. “Okay, whatever, I’ll call you back as soon as I can.” My brother handed the borrowed phone back and then banged his forehead against the window.

Yep, I’ve had nights like that before.

Mosh wasn’t very responsive and appeared deep in thought. He hadn’t even commented as Gretchen had applied a paste made out of old squirrels and herbs to the scratches on his face and arms. I had thought about taking him to a real hospital but I knew that he was a lot safer with me than floating around out there, alone and a target.

The worst injury to our contingent had been to Edward. Bia had clubbed him pretty good. He was resting in the back, and Gretchen informed us that he would be just fine. Orcs were built tough.

The broken windows made conversation difficult but at least the airflow made the evaporating gas stink from my soaked boots bearable. Grant rode shotgun, literally in this case, with a 12-gauge FN auto-loader sitting across his lap. It was still unknown just how much info the Condition had about us but we were a relatively small and vulnerable force out here on our own.

Lee had asked for details on the monsters while Gretchen pasted an inch-long cut on my scalp shut. I had lost a lot of scars because of the magical healing at DeSoya Caverns but I was having no problem picking up new ones. Lee had pumped his fist in the air when I had told him the details of Force and Violence’s demise. “Yes!” our librarian shouted. “The clay, the explosions, the ghosts, that’s textbook right there. They were giant, animated soul containers. I was right. They were definitely oni, disembodied spirits living inside a created form. That’s awesome.” He turned to look at me over the seat. Apparently I gave him a stupid look. “Don’t you get it?”

“Uh, no? And watch the road, I’ve already been in two car accidents tonight. Don’t make me make a tacky comment about Asian drivers.”

“Puh-leeze, like I’ve got a Camry with a giant spoiler on it.”

Lee flipped back around. “PUFF on an ogre is only like twenty grand, depending on the breed. They’re big but they aren’t anything special. The PUFF bounty on an oni is in the hundreds of thousands.”

Grant perked right up at that. “You all saw it. I got a confirmed on the purple one. So I’m the primary,” he said smugly. At MHI, the entire company shared bounties, but the team, or in this case, the individual who did the most work, got the most pay. “And to think Earl left me behind to train stupid Newbies while he wasted his time on some wimpy trolls. How many hundreds are we talking about?”

“I’ll have to look it up. It’s not like anybody has killed one of these in a long time.” Lee almost giggled. He was such a dork when it came to monster lore. “And the best part? The Feds smoked the big one, but the law says that government representatives can’t collect PUFF.”

“Really? Agents don’t get PUFF?” Grant was incredulous. “That’s . . . that’s crazy. Well, good thing I’m not a Fed! We’ll file the paperwork for an assist on the red one in the morning.” He had been MHI’s golden boy once, but had left in disgrace. Pulling off a great kill in his first few days back would probably help his reputation. “They couldn’t have got him without our providing a distraction.”

“Oh, that’ll piss off Myers, but good.” Lee held out his fist for Grant to bump knuckles. Grant looked at him awkwardly for a moment and then did so.

“On a personal note, it sucks to be the number one target of a godlike interdimensional being, but it sure is good for business,” I added.

“That’s it.” Mosh finally spoke up. “I’ve had about enough of this shit. PUFF? Ogres? Oni? Who the hell are you people?” He jerked his thumb to where the orcs were sitting quietly in back. “What the hell are those people?” He turned toward me and stabbed one callused fingertip into my armored chest. “And you. You owe me an explanation or you can pull this thing over and let me out right now.”

I glanced out the window. It was the middle of the night and we were in the country. “Not the best place to hitch a ride, bro.”

“I swear I’m about to beat you like a tetherball,” Mosh said.

“Well, it’s a long story,” I began.

“Give me the short version.”

“Monsters are real. We make lots of money killing them,” Lee piped in.

“I didn’t ask you. I asked my stupid brother, who I’m guessing isn’t really a CPA.” He thumped me in the armor. “I want answers.”

I laughed. “Short version?”

Mosh gave me a dangerous look. “Break it down for me.”

Well, if he wanted to be that way . . . “Cool. Remember last year when my accounting supervisor turned out to be a serial killer? Nope. Werewolf. Remember last time we talked and I told you about my new finance job? Nope. Monster Hunter. These guys are some of my coworkers.” I waved toward Grant and Lee, then I jerked my thumb to the rear. “Those folks back there are orcs, but it’s all good, they’re on our side. That muscle-bound guy who got killed back at the overpass? He was my bodyguard, assigned by a shadow government agency that keeps monsters secret from the public. The things at the concert were mythical creatures hired by a death cult to sacrifice me to a giant space mollusk because they think I poked it in the eye with a nuclear weapon last summer . . . Any questions?”

Mosh glared. “You always were a dick.”

“You ready for the long version now?”

I wrapped up as much of my story as possible by the time our GPS guided us to the location that Harbinger had given Lee. It was in an old, run-down, kind of scary area on the northwest side of Birmingham. We pulled onto a narrow street. To our immediate left was a series of fat, rectangular, red-brick buildings. Each identical building was aesthetically awful, with barred windows and knee-high brown weeds in the neglected yards. We were in the Projects.

“So, what do you think?” I asked my brother. “We cool?”

Mosh had been stroking his goatee and quietly looking out the window for the last little while. He turned back to face me. He was still incredulous, but taking it well. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

Honestly, I had wanted to. I shrugged. “If you hadn’t seen what you saw earlier, would you have believed me anyway?”

“No. I would have told you to put down the crack pipe. But now? Hard to argue with what I saw tonight.” When I had first joined MHI, Harbinger had told me that Hunters’ greatest weapons were the flexibility of their minds—their ability to take in situations, no matter how weird, and just deal with them. I had made a pretty good Hunter, and judging by my brother’s reactions, flexible minds ran in the family.

Hensley had the look of a tough town. The streets were mostly deserted at this late hour, but there were still knots of rough young men standing under the streetlights on various corners. They glared at us suspiciously as we drove by, not recognizing us as part of their regular customer base. “Friendly place,” Grant said, clutching the shotgun. Now this would certainly be the wrong vehicle to carjack.

“Come on, trust-fund baby. You haven’t been in the ’hood before?” I asked sarcastically. “This is the kind of place that me and Mosh grew up in. Right, bro?”

Mosh raised a single eyebrow. We had grown up in a middle-class suburb, but he was quick enough to play along. “Hell yeah, straight up ghetto. Right out of Compton. Slinging . . . gats. Yeah.”

“Word,” I said.

“Pimpin’ ain’t easy,” Mosh stated, dead serious.

Grant shook his head, having his negative opinion of me confirmed again. Lee stifled a laugh, realizing immediately how full of crap we were.

The GPS computer voice told us to make a turn and head down under a railway into an even older neighborhood. Lee had to hit the brakes to keep from creaming a nasty-looking Chow dog that blundered stupidly in front of us. To the right was a street of small frame houses, each one with a tiny front yard. The indicated address was the only one with lights on. An MHI vehicle was parked in the driveway and another was in the street. We pulled in behind it and stepped out.

I heard deep barks coming from a dog in the fenced-in backyard. Other than that, this particular street seemed eerily dead. Trash and broken bottles were scattered in the other yards, and every single lawn was dead. There were a lot of smashed windows on this street. It looked like most of the surrounding houses were long since abandoned, leaving this one particular home isolated. It felt good to stretch my legs. There were a few random gunshots in the distance.

“Owen,” Julie cried as she stepped out of the other MHI vehicle. She ran over and engulfed me in a hug. The Hunters from Esmeralda’s team piled out behind her. I kissed her forehead as she held me tight, almost like she was afraid to let go of me again. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“No biggie,” I said modestly.

Mosh cleared his throat.

“Oh, Julie, this is—”

“David!” Julie said, letting go of me, and grabbing Mosh by the hand. She was almost as tall as he was. “Oh, I’ve heard so much about you!”

Mosh looked surprised, first because of the use of his real name, and second because of how strong her handshake was. I’d had that reaction the first time I’d met her too. “You must be Julie . . . You know, I’ve never dated a Julie,” Mosh smirked. “But I did date Ms. July once and you are way prettier.”

Julie hesitated, not sure how to take that particular compliment. “He actually did,” I explained with a sigh. My brother had dated centerfolds, supermodels, and famous actresses. Where I turned into a stammering moron around women, Mosh had always been smooth.

Mosh grinned. “Z really talked you up.”

“I bet. He’s a regular poet,” she said. “I’ve wanted to meet his family forever. We’ve got so much to talk about, but first—” She jerked her head toward the house. “Owen, Earl’s waiting for you inside.”

“What is this place?” I asked.

“I don’t know. He wouldn’t say. He was adamant: just you, and . . .” Her pause indicated that the next part was going to suck. “You need to leave your weapons out here.” She raised her hands defensively. “Yes, yes, I know. He knew you’d freak out, but he said he didn’t want to offend them.”

Them? “Oh, what now?” I groaned. I hated being unarmed on principle, let alone after the week that I’d had, but I trusted Earl. I unslung Abomination. “Fine . . .” It took me almost a minute to completely disarm.

Skippy joined us. He took one glance at the lit house, then shook his head sadly. “Trouble,” he muttered before wandering off.

Under the orange streetlights, Mosh looked a bit apprehensive about being left with a bunch of heavily armed strangers. He grabbed me by the arm and leaned in close. “Where are you going?”

“Just hang out, man. Besides, Julie can explain all this stuff way better than I can.”

“Yeah, about that, you said she was hot, but . . . damn.” He whistled. “How the hell did someone like her go for someone like you?”

“My charming personality.” I shrugged his hand off. “Now back off before I scissor-kick you in the neck. I’ll be back in a minute. Just relax.”

A moment later I found myself at the waist-high chain-link gate in front of the house. There was a plastic sign with a cartoon pit bull printed on it saying beware of dog. I lifted the latch, and walked up the path. Nothing came out to bite me. This yard was free of trash but the grass was just as brown and dead as the neighbors’. The streetlights were blocked by a few overgrown trees, and most of the yard was cloaked in shadow. There was one of those cheesy garden gnomes in the desiccated bushes of the flower bed but nothing else that gave a clue to the personality of the residents. Light was coming through the window but the blinds were drawn, so I couldn’t see a thing inside.

This place gave me a bad vibe. I stepped up onto the porch and went to ring the doorbell, but paused as there was a flicker of light from the flower bed. I glanced down and realized it was orange ashes from the end of a fat cigar. The lawn ornament returned the lighter to the inside of its blue shirt, dusted the ashes out of its white beard, and swiveled its head toward me. Beady eyes peaked out from under a pointy red hat.

I stood there awkwardly. “Hi.”

“What you lookin’ at?” the tiny little man said. “Got a problem?”

“No.”

“Damn right, punk-ass bitch, best step off my porch,” he said around his massive cigar. He was a stocky eighteen inches tall, not including the hat, but his attitude indicated he meant business. “Hunters think they’re tough, actin’ up in here like they run the place? Ringin’ that bell’s gonna wake up Momma, and you don’t wanna wake up Momma.” He lifted his shirt, exposing the butt of a small pistol shoved in his waistband. “You hear me, big man?”

“Hey, I don’t want trouble.”

“That’s right, you don’t. I don’t take nothin’ off no Hunters,” he snarled around the cigar, one diminutive hand landing on the gun. “Move.”

I stepped off the porch, my hands still held in front of me defensively. This was a strange encounter, even by my admittedly jaded standards. “I’m looking for Earl Harbinger.”

“Your boy’s around back with my homies. We owe him a favor, only reason I don’t go upside your head and show your crew what’s up. I’m addicted to killin’, so don’t go temptin’ me.”

“Gotcha,” I said slowly, extending one finger and pointing around the side of the yard. “I’ll just go . . .”

The gnome let go of his gun and let the shirt fall. He blew out a huge cloud of smoke. “S’all good. Follow me. Your boy probably get pissed if my dawg ate you, know what I’m sayin’?”

“Uh . . . yeah.”

The little man swaggered around the side of the house, and I tagged along obediently, following the cloud of smoke. There was a taller gate to the backyard. He pushed it open and entered. The source of the barking was back here. The backyard was even more barren than the front. There was a long steel cable running from the house to the kennel with a length of heavy chain dangling from the middle. But there was no animal currently attached to the dog run. The grass had been packed down into nothing but hardened dirt. The barking picked up and something large crashed into the kennel’s sheet-metal wall.

The gnome went back to the kennel, paused to unlock a big padlock, then opened the chicken-wire-and-rebar gate. “Down, boy,” he snapped, his voice way too deep for such a little creature. The barking obediently stopped. He disappeared inside. I paused, confused, outside the kennel. It was too dark to see in. His red hat popped back out the door. “You comin’ or what?”

“What’s in there?”

“Our secret hideout, what you think this is?” The red hat disappeared back into the shadows as the gnome continued to mutter. “Tall people is stupid.”

I ducked my head to keep from stabbing it on the makeshift structure. I had a sneaky feeling that any cut I got from this thing would result in tetanus. I had to crouch to fit. The inside of the shack smelled like wet dog and poop. There was a huge animal curled in shadows of the corner. The surly gnome paused long enough to move a water bowl aside, then pulled up a hidden trapdoor. The bowl read fafnir. A ladder led down into darkness.

The gnome simply stepped into the hole and disappeared. My attention snapped toward the dog as it growled. It sounded unbelievably scary in the dark. The shape moved slightly with the rustle of chains and brute strength. The gnome shouted from down the hole. “Better hurry ’fore he gets hungry.” Then he laughed. I shuffled over to the hole and glanced down. I couldn’t see the bottom, and it looked like an absurdly tight fit. Screw that.

The dog moved forward slightly and now I could see it better and I immediately wished that I hadn’t. It had the thick face of a Rottweiler and solid black jowls pulled back to reveal a row of sharp teeth and dripping saliva. Then two more heads appeared on each side. Each one was big enough to gnaw my arm off, and all three necks terminated on the same muscular body.

All three heads growled.

The hole was barely wide enough to fit my shoulders but it beat staying up here with Super Dog. I was down the ladder in a second. I landed hard and the trapdoor fell shut above me with a slam. A small flame ignited, revealing that we were in a brick room. The gnome snarled at me over his lighter. “Watch it, stupid human, big old feet stompin’ on everything. Scuff my shoe and I’ll go psycho on your ass.”

“Better put that out. I’m covered in gas.”

He appeared to think about immolating me for a moment. “Yeah, I thought you smelled funny.” The lighter snapped shut, leaving me blind again. He rapped his fist on something steel. A slit of light appeared at knee level and another set of beady gnome eyes peered out at us. A moment later the slit slammed shut, and there was the sound of metal on metal as bolts and locks were undone. The door, which was thankfully normal-sized, opened with a creak.

A second gnome, complete with red hat, white beard, and sawed-off, double-barreled shotgun, was waiting for us. He cradled the shotgun in his arms, and the short weapon was longer than he was. I couldn’t imagine what would happen to the little guy if he touched it off but the look he gave me indicated that he wouldn’t hesitate to use it on me to find out. My guide passed some complicated signs with his hands and asked “Wuzzup?”

“Chillin’.” The shotgun bobbed as he nodded his red pointy hat down the dimly lit hall stretching behind him. He looked me up and down. “The boss is waitin’ for you, so hurry up. You disrespect the boss, and we bust a cap in you, big human. Know what I’m sayin’? You’re on gnome turf now.” He leaned his shotgun against the wall and picked up a metal-detecting wand and swiped it over my lower half. He could only reach up to my stomach, even standing on his tippy-toes and stretching. That seemed to really piss him off. “You gonna bend over so I can finish this, or am I gonna hafta whup your ass and bring you down here?”

Putting my usual sarcastic comments in check, I knelt down so he could search me. I got the impression that these guys had zero sense of humor. The only thing that beeped was a couple of buckles and some pocket change, and seemingly disappointed that he didn’t get to blast me with his 20-gauge, the guard signaled for me to continue. My guide walked down the hall. Judging by the size of the hallway, this had been a normal human structure until they had taken it over. The brickwork was old and crumbling. Naked light bulbs flickered and dangled from exposed wiring. We turned the corner and entered a large room.

A stereo was playing gangsta rap. There were at least two dozen of the diminutive creatures in here. All of them were tiny, with long white beards and pointy red hats. There was furniture scattered around, and I was guessing that it had originally been intended for little kids, as it was all plastic and in festive colors, but these certainly weren’t little kids, and they sure as hell didn’t look festive. One of the gnomes had his shirt off and was laying on a plastic stool, bench-pressing a single forty-five-pound dumbbell. He had Thug Life tattooed on his chest. Every other gnome had an alcoholic beverage in his hands and these were full human-sized drinks. The smoke was thick enough to constrict my lungs. And guns, man, these guys were armed to the teeth. Everybody was packing, mostly a bunch of cheap .25s and .22s, but with an occasional larger gun shoved awkwardly into a waistband.

The gnomes glanced up as I entered. Way up. Every one of them tried to appear as threatening as possible. A few passed complicated gang signs at me. One little guy raised his arms out wide, as if to say, “You want a piece of this?” Then he jerked his head toward me to see if I would flinch. Since he was small enough that I could probably kick a field goal with him, I can honestly say that I didn’t show any fear.

“Word up,” my guide said to the largest gnome, who had to be all of two and a half feet tall, including the hat. They performed a complicated handshake, and then did one of those man hugs where they pat each other on the back once. During the ritual, I noted Harbinger waiting at the back of the room. My guide put one hand on my calf and shoved me forward with a remarkable amount of strength. He laughed as I stumbled, and I resisted the urge to toss him across the room.

Harbinger nodded when he saw me. Someone had brought out two adult-sized folding chairs, and he motioned toward the other one. He was sitting at a wooden table that had its legs sawed off. On the opposite side of the table was another gnome, dressed identically to the others, except for the giant, golden, bejeweled dollar-sign necklace he was wearing. The necklace sparkled in the dim light. The room was large enough that we had a little bit of privacy from the other gnomes now. Other tunnels led off in various directions, suggesting that this place had a lot more to it than what you might first expect. I took my seat.

“Owen, this is Sven Bone-Hand, leader of the Birmingham Gnomes. Sven, this is Owen Pitt,” Harbinger said to the boss gnome. “He’s the one.”

The two of us, sitting hunched forward across the short table from the gnome, made it feel like we were playing tea party with stuffed animals. The creature sized me up. “He’s extra big,” the gnome said slowly, like that was a bad thing. “Real tall.”

Harbinger nodded. “I know, but he’s okay. I vouch for him.”

“You didn’t say nothin’ about him being tall,” the gnome said. “This changes the game, man. I don’t trust tall humans.”

“You don’t trust any humans.” My boss leaned forward. “You going back on the deal?” He reached into his leather jacket and pulled out a stack of rubber-banded currency. It was fat, and the visible bills had Ben Franklin’s picture on them. He put the cash on the table and slid it toward the gnome.

Sven picked up the money and thumbed through it. He smiled. His teeth had diamonds embedded in them. “Harbinger, my brother . . . I’m a hustler, but I keep my promises. Let me do my thing.” Then he vanished.

Literally vanished, he was there one second and then just gone. His chair was empty. The money was gone too. I blinked. Earl didn’t seem surprised.

“Where’d he go?” I asked.

“Gnomes can do that. That’s why they come in handy. They have a gift for not being seen.” Somebody had given Earl a beer, and he tilted it at me like it was a toast. “You didn’t stay at the compound like I told you to.”

“No. No, I didn’t.”

He took a theatrically long pull from his drink. I had disobeyed his orders, but he knew me well. He knew I was borderline suicidal when it came to loyalty. “With family in danger, I would’ve been surprised if you had.” At least he wasn’t mad at me.

I glanced around the basement. “So, what did you just buy?”

“Information.”

“Oh, good. I thought you were branching off into wholesale drug distribution or something,” I said. “What kind of info?”

He didn’t respond directly. “At first, I thought Myers was a liar. There was no way we had a mole at the compound, but if those things knew you were coming, then we’ve got to face facts. We’ve been infiltrated. So now we’re bringing in a secret weapon. You’ve met some of the other races that live in mankind’s shadow, but they live on the outskirts. Gnomes have mastered living right under our noses, thousands of years, damn near in plain sight. Gnomes are sneaky. Every city has them and nobody ever knows.”

“They’re urban?”

Earl glanced at the crowd of little creatures watching us suspiciously as the rap music thumped. “Well, duh.” He went back to his drink. “Scandinavian originally, but everybody adapts. In the old days they hid on farms, cursing the animals if the owners didn’t leave them good offerings. Basically an old-school protection racket, they’ve just gone mainstream over time. Unfortunately, these learned American culture from watching TV . . . rap videos mostly.”

I lowered my voice, “I thought gnomes were supposed to be like all quaint and cute. You know, rosy cheeks, big smile, chubby little guys you put on your lawn. These guys aren’t nice . . . They’re freaking scary.”

“Humans love to take terrible things and make them cute,” Earl said. “Read some of the old fables, before they got prettied up for little kids. If you left your farm’s gnome a bowl of porridge and you forgot to add butter, he’d get mad and slaughter all your cows. That sound cute to you?”

“No. That sounds like the kind of thing somebody would hire us to blow up. Can we trust these things?” I whispered.

“Of course not, they’re crooks. But this bunch owes me a favor . . . Let me do the talking.”

There was a shifting of the air in front of us and suddenly Sven was back in his chair. His “grill” gleamed when he smiled. It was slightly unnerving.

“We good?” Earl asked.

“It’s like this . . . I got a business to run, Harbinger. Sparing a soldier? B’ham’s up for grabs, my man. I need strong arms to hustle. So it’s gonna cost you. Dog-eat-dog world, you know what I’m sayin’?” Almost on cue, the kennel above us shook and the three-headed mutant started barking at something. “West Coast Gnomes tryin’ to move in on my turf. Punks gonna get took down.”

My boss nodded at me, apparently feeling the need to explain. “The Southern gnome families are from Sweden. The ones from California are Norwegian. That side wears blue hats.”

“We got no beef wit’ ’em, but these gnomes is straight off the boat, tryin’ to muscle in on my turf. Ain’t gonna happen. This is the dirty South, know what I’m sayin’?”

Earl smiled. “Consider what I gave you the first half. Second half when we catch the rat. And I know you’re up to it. Did I ever mention that I worked with Al Capone once? You remind me of him.”

The gnome boss beamed at the compliment. Apparently being compared to Al Capone was pretty darn neat for him. He snapped his fingers. Instantly another gnome materialized at his side. That freaked me out. “This my boy, Heimdall Thorfinn Flargin, but we call him G-Nome, ’cause he’s a straight up killa’. He’s like a gnome Tony Montana. He’s got your back.” The new arrival puffed on his cigar. I recognized him as the one that had threatened me on the front porch.

“He’ll do,” Earl nodded.

“He’ll do what?” I asked in confusion.

“Find your snitch. Take care of biz-ness.” G-Nome lifted his shirt and flashed his gun again. In the better light I could tell it was a chromed Walther P22.

“No. You’ll stay invisible at the compound. Keep an eye out until you find out who’s talking to this Condition. And you only talk to me or Owen, that’s it.”

“Shit, whatever, dawg. Long as I get paid.”

“The sooner you find the spy, the sooner I give you the rest of your money.”

Sven seemed to take exception to this. “G-Nome’s so good, I think we need the rest of the dough up front, know what I’m sayin’?”

“I know what you’re saying, and it sounds like you’re trying to take my money without showing me any results. No. Half up front, half when you find the spy.” Earl acted like dealing with criminal scum was something that he had done a few times, but hell, apparently he had known Al Capone. I had to remember that my boss had been around for a long time.

“Harbinger, my dawg, G-Nome’s my main gnome. My main tomte like we say in the old country. He’ll get it done. Even if we have to lower ourselves to dealing with”—he sneered at me—“tall ones.”

I was getting tired of these little bullies and their lame tough-guy act. “At least I’m not a lawn decoration,” I muttered.

“What?” Sven shouted as he shoved away from the table. “What’d you say?”

“Oh hell,” Harbinger muttered.

There was a huge chorus of clicks and rattles as a dozen guns were tugged from various waistbands, safeties removed, hammers cocked, or slides jacked. I was sitting down, so G-Nome was able to reach my neck. His little Walther jammed painfully under my ear. “You got a death wish, bitch?” he shouted. The entire gang of gnomes surged forward, guns extended, most of them held sideways, and I was about to expire in a slew of small-caliber gunfire.

Apparently I had just made a serious breach of gnome etiquette.

“Do it and I’ll get angry,” Harbinger stated. “I dare you.”

That caused the gnomes to hesitate. Apparently they knew just what my boss was capable of. A dozen little muzzles hovered around my skull as Sven huffed and turned increasingly dark shades of red. “You know how insultin’ it is to be stuck out on a yard to keep away Fey? Do you, punk? You ever have a wizard hex you and plant you out in the grass, huh?”

“Sorry. I didn’t know!” I cried, hands raised in the surrender position.

“You come in my house, and think you can get away with calling us lawn gnomes? I don’t think so. Waste him, boys,” Sven ordered.

“Hold your fire.” My boss stood, towering over the diminutive gang. “He doesn’t know Scandinavian fairy lore. Give the kid a break. He’s had a tough day.”

G-Nome snarled. “I demand respect!”

“Shoot him and you’ve got to deal with me, and even if one of you little bastards was smart enough to load silver bullets, then my great-granddaughter and a bunch of Hunters are parked outside. They hear gunfire, they come down here, and Julie will kill you all.”

One of the gnomes piped up. “I saw her. She’s really tall for a girl!” Several other gnomes nodded at this, as if that fact was somehow extra terrifying. It was a really tense moment.

“Your man has to pay for dissin’ my boy in our own house,” Sven stated.

“Hell no,” Earl said.

“You know I can’t lose no face in front of my crew, comin’ in here and callin’ my tomte a lawn gnome. So either we get some respect, or we’re gonna have us a gunfight. He’s at least gotta get a beatdown.”

Harbinger appeared to mull that over for a moment. “Sounds fair.”

“Earl!” I shouted.

“I told you to let me do the talking,” he told me calmly. “A beating’s better than getting shot. Okay, Sven, but let’s make this sporting. Make it a fair fight. My man wins, you still do the job, and it’s half up front, half on completion. Your gnome wins, you get it all up front, plus I’ll throw in another ten grand as a bonus.”

The gnome leader thought about this, stroking his beard slowly. “But it has to be a fair fight . . .”

“Fair?” I asked in confusion. Fairy-tale creatures or not, I was a three-hundred pound former illegal pit fighter. I bench-pressed over four hundred pounds and had once beaten a gargoyle to death with a tire iron. I was having a hard time seeing how me fighting somebody the size of a Cabbage Patch Kid could be construed as fair.

Sven held up both hands, fingers splayed open, displaying them to Harbinger. Gnomes had six fingers on each hand. “Twelve.”

My boss shook his head. “Eight.”

Did these guys have to haggle about everything? He turned down two fingers. “Ten. Or somebody’s takin’ a bullet.”

“Fine, but no weapons. And you’re not allowed to kill him. I need him on my crew. Once he’s out, you leave him alone, or I step in.”

“Deal.” The gnome clapped his hands together. Suddenly it seemed like there was at least another thirty gnomes in the room. Money immediately began to change hands as they started taking bets.

“Seriously?” I asked in total bewilderment. G-Nome pulled his pistol out of my neck. He was grinning savagely as he passed his .22 off to another little guy, and then started signaling specific other gnomes. Those tossed their pieces also. The shirtless Thug Life one dropped the dumbbell with a clang, stood, and cracked his knuckles. Other gnomes began to efficiently remove the plastic furniture from the center of the room. I had a feeling they’d done this before.

“Don’t hold back. They’re tougher than they look. Sam Haven got drunk one time and picked a fight with half this many gnomes and got his ass handed to him. It was hilarious. Don’t worry about murdering any of them. They’re magical, so they don’t die easily. And try not to lose, ’cause it’s gonna cost the company another ten thousand dollars.” Earl clapped me on the shoulder as I stood. “Though, personally, it’s worth it for me to watch you fight ten gnomes at one time.”

“But, but . . .” Somehow this had all just spiraled totally out of control. “I’ve already had a really crappy day!” There was a huge quantity of gnomes in the room now, as a veritable sea of red hats formed a large circle around us. Ten of the little buggers were waiting for me. G-Nome was stalking back and forth, high-fiveing the others. “I can’t hit them! They’re tiny.” The audience began to boo.

“Owen, there ain’t no rules. Don’t forget to protect, well . . .” Earl waved toward his crotch. “You know, they’re gonna hit you low.”

This was ridiculous. I couldn’t hit them. They’d like explode or something.

“Get it on!” Sven Bone-Hand shouted from his vantage point on top of the table.

“Welcome to my Thunderdome, bitch!” G-Nome bellowed.

“Oh, this just sucks,” I muttered as ten gangster gnomes charged me simultaneously.

I’ve been in a lot of fights, but I can honestly say that this was a new experience. It was like a wave of meat collided with my kneecaps and I was instantly swept to the ground in a sea of white beards. Tiny fists began to slam into me with the speed and intensity of a tropical rainstorm, only each one hit like a rock. I screamed something incoherent as I tried to protect my vital parts. They were remarkably strong for their size.

“I told you not to hold back!” Earl shouted from the sidelines as a child-sized leather boot smashed into my larynx. “Get up and fight, damn it! I’ve got money on this.”

I was on my back. There were three of them sitting on my chest and stomach, doing the ground and pound, punching like tiny little jackhammers, while the rest were in a circle kicking me. I reached up and grabbed the only thing I could, which turned out to be a handful of beard. Then I pulled as hard as I could. The gnome flew off my chest and disappeared.

“No fair!” The audience cried. Apparently beards were sensitive. Well, screw ’em. This hurt like hell. I snagged a kicker on each side by their beards, and yanked them together over me. They only weighed about thirty pounds each, and collided with a great deal of force. I rolled over, tossing gnomes in every direction as the beating continued.

Roaring, I squished one underneath me, and the little bastard just kept hitting me in the kidneys. I sat up, a gnome on each shoulder. One of them tried to fishhook me while the other one bit my ear. “Aaarrrgghh!”

I slugged that one in the face and he was airborne. I struggled to my feet, gnomes hanging off of everything, all of them punching, kicking, kneeing, elbowing, biting, and just being a general obnoxious pain. Standing now, I started tossing gnomes into the audience. They landed, got pats on the back from their brethren, and got right back into the fray.

It was G-Nome himself that maneuvered right in front of me and threw an uppercut into my testicles. A wave of unbelievable pain followed by nausea surged through me. I went back to my knees. “Oh . . . it’s on now . . .” I gasped through the continuous stream of impacts. All thoughts of fairness went right out the window as righteous fury bubbled up from my core. G-Nome’s smiling face appeared in my view, beady eyes searching for another good strike. That smile disappeared as my massive hand clamped around his throat. His eyes got very wide.

I picked G-Nome up as I stood, grabbed one kicking leg with my other hand, and slammed him up into the brick ceiling. He disappeared in a cloud of brick dust. The audience made a noise that sounded like “ooohhh.” I brought him back down, let go of his neck, and swung him around by his leg. Half a dozen gnomes were knocked spinning out of the circle. At the apogee of the arc, I let go of G-Nome’s ankle and he flew down the hallway. The gnomes surged back toward me, and it was a swirl of violence. I remember gnomes hanging onto each of my feet as I dragged them across the brick floor, gnomes crumpling under my fists with every swing, and gnomes twirling through the air in every direction. But then somebody shattered a beer bottle on the back of my head, and it got kind of blurry.

“I said no weapons!” Earl bellowed. “That’s it!” I stumbled back and fell on my butt, a literal pile of moaning gnomes scattered around me. The audience was booing and throwing trash at me, but luckily no more bottles.

Mad as hell, I stumbled to my feet, disoriented and ready to go beat the entire audience to death. I could feel hot blood spilling down the back of my neck. More miscellaneous objects flew at me. “Hey! Watch it, you little assholes!” I grabbed a passing gnome by the neck and lifted him overhead.

“Enough!” Sven shouted and the missiles quit flying and only one, last, empty soda can bounced off my boot. My chest was heaving from exertion, my brain ached from the shattered bottle, every inch of my body pulsed with bruised tissue and firing nerves, and I felt an unbearable urge to vomit. But mostly, I was really angry. I was ready to go another round. I cocked my fist back. The gnome I was holding squealed in fear.

“Owen, drop the gnome,” Earl ordered.

I slowly lowered my fist and let go of the little man. He scrambled back into the audience. Sven shouted over the noise of the booing crowd. “All right, Harbinger. You win. Deal’s a deal.”

G-Nome reappeared, missing his hat, blood and dust staining his white beard. He walked back into the circle and spit on the floor. The audience got really quiet. He glared at me dangerously as he flexed his muscles and I got ready for him to charge. “You done yet?” I gasped.

The dangerous little creature eyed me for a moment. “You know what? You’re all right for being so tall.” Finally he grinned, showing off his bloodstained teeth. “Best damn rumble I’ve had in years.” He turned to Harbinger. “We still on?”

Harbinger held up the roll of bills. “If you’re gnome enough?”

“Hell yeah,” G-Nome answered as he caught the money.

The gnomes all cheered.

Julie asked what had happened when she saw me come out of the gnome house, battered and bruised. Unfortunately, Earl and I hadn’t thought to come up with a cover story, and lying to Julie, especially after sustaining a minor brain injury, seemed like a really bad idea. So I told her it was a secret and that I would explain later. I don’t think she liked that one bit, but was enough of a professional to understand that Earl and I had our reasons. On the bright side, I didn’t really want to tell her about how I had gotten beaten up by a gang of garden decorations.

Mosh had been on the phone again, trying to explain how the tour bus had exploded to somebody else. Apparently, rampaging monsters was a bit beyond his PR firm’s regular duties. I crawled into the back of the van and Gretchen began sewing up the back of my head to match the repair she had made on the front earlier. Ahh . . . symmetry. Earl signaled for us to roll out and our convoy started back to Cazador.

Julie and Mosh were in the same vehicle, and as I lay there, incoherent, a bone needle and thread being run through the fleshy part at the base of my skull, my fiancée tried to explain to my brother how he was currently a lot safer hanging out with us for a while. Obviously, safe was a relative word. After a few minutes their conversation was just background buzz.

It probably wasn’t a good idea to take a nap after receiving a serious blow to the head, but I was exhausted, sore, and was asleep by the time we got on the freeway.

Chapter 9

Brilliant sunshine scalded my closed eyelids. I must have slept for hours.

Nope.

I was dreaming. My surroundings were a city park, but not one that I recognized. The trees were thick, brilliant green, and the grass was manicured to perfection. The air was clean and fresh. It was a huge city. Tall buildings rose above the leaves on all sides, but the skyline was unfamiliar. Children ran, laughing, playing, while a nearby street vendor peddled food that smelled really good. Everyone looked happy and the walkways were clean of grime and garbage.

Must be Canada.

I wandered down a stone path, not sure where I was going. In my dream state I noted that I was still dressed exactly the same as I had been when I was awake, complete with armor and weapons. None of the attractive locals seemed to notice. Everyone greeted me with a polite smile, guns and all, so that definitely ruled out Canada.

“Hello,” the Englishman said. He was seated on a wooden bench at the edge of a pond, looking as rough as the first time I had met him, lean frame hunched forward in a bulky gray hoodie, head and cheeks bristling with brown-gray stubble. He was a relatively average-looking man, the kind of guy where you would never guess that he had a demonic leach monster living inside of him. His cold eyes had that same deadly focus as when he had tried to kidnap me, only now he was holding a loaf of bread and tearing off pieces to chuck into the pond. A rioting crowd of ducks clustered there, fighting for crumbs. “Have a seat, mate. We need to talk.”

“Uh, no,” I responded as I automatically pulled my .45 from the holster. I raised it in one hand and cranked off four quick shots into the side of his head. The gun recoiled and noise blasted my eardrums but nothing struck him.

“Don’t be like that. This is neutral ground,” he said, sounding unperturbed, still not looking at me, all his attention on the ducks. I stupidly lowered the STI as a bunch of kids ran past carrying balloons that had been twisted into various animal shapes. Not even the ducks had seemed to notice the sudden gunfire. He pulled off a big chunk of bread, crumpled it into a hard ball, and pitched it far out into the pond. The ducks swam after it, quacking angrily. “You’re safe here. You’ve parlayed before.”

I had spoken with Lord Machado in my dreams once, and that hadn’t turned out particularly well. “I’ll stay over here, thanks.”

“Suit yourself, but we do have business to discuss, you and I. Circumstances have changed since we last met.”

“Met? You tried to eat my brain and murdered a bunch of innocent people.”

“My apologies. I’m working for the Dread Overlord itself. One can’t hesitate when fulfilling the orders of something so epic and terrible that even saying its true name can cause insanity in mere mortals.”

“Well, you can take those orders and shove them up your Dread Overlord’s ass, or whatever orifice crustaceans have.”

He ignored me. “But that was before that meddling vampire exposed you to a shard of the sacred artifact. Events have been set into motion and I’m afraid it may be too late for us all.” The Englishman finally turned to face me. His eyes pierced through me with an unnerving cold. “I need your help.”

I actually laughed out loud. His expression did not change. “Wait . . . you’re serious? Hell no.”

“You think I’m evil, that I’m some sort of monster, don’t you?”

“They teach deductive logic at Necromancer College?”

He shook his head. “I’m no monster. I’m just like you.”

That ticked me off. “You’re nothing like me. I don’t go around murdering innocents.”

“Yet,” he muttered, his voice hoarse, “you murder every day to earn your living. Innocence is such an arbitrary thing to a Hunter. Where you see creatures of evil, I see wonders of the unnatural world, yet you destroy them out of fear and greed.”

“And I’m damn good at it. Get to the point.”

“Remember your search for Machado’s Place of Power? You learned that they only existed at certain junctures, certain specific places and times, and that they were oh so rare. Well, it isn’t just places, mate. It’s people as well. People like you and me. Destiny falls like a mantle on very few of us, and we’re given the power to shape the world, whether we like it or not.”

Or as Mordechai would have said, I had drawn the short straw. I knew this part pretty well. “Yeah, yeah, I’m the Chosen One. Whatever.”

“Yes, a Chosen, but not the One, rather one of many. We are the artists, and this reality is our canvas,” he began to pontificate, reminding me why he was the leader of a religious nut cult. “We’re brothers, pawns in a cosmic struggle, where only—” I lifted my gun, centered the front sight on his forehead and pulled the trigger. BOOM. Still no effect, but it was strangely satisfying. That seemed to annoy the Englishman. “Oh, piss off then. I’ll tell you why I’m here.”

“About damn time.”

“I’m not as simple as you might think. Yes, I do work for them but only because I was able to see the future. The greatest Old One will return, no matter what mankind does. It’s inevitable.”

“Inevitable?” I was unable to accept that. “We’ve beat him before. I stopped him last time. He’ll try again in another five hundred years and somebody else will stop him then.”

“You think that’s the only way? Do you honestly believe it’s so easy? No. There are other plans, other ways back. And it’s only a matter of time before he returns. I was exactly like you once. I learned about the Old Ones, and I thought that I could stand against them. I studied their ways, their power, originally with the noblest of intentions, only to discover it was futile. I could not stop them, so I joined them.”

“So you wanted to kiss up to the winning side? Noble,” I spat. “Selling out humanity so you don’t end up as dinner? I got the same offer from Machado, and my answer stays the same as last time. Go to hell.”

“Machado was a fool.” He went back to the bread and ducks. “You can think that if you like, but I’m not ‘selling out’ humanity. No, I’m the savior of humanity. If I can conquer this world and present it to them, then we will be spared from their full fury. Those are the conditions of my employment.” It was totally insane, but I could tell that he actually bought what he was shoveling. He was a true believer. “If I fail, then eventually they will win, only they won’t be as merciful as I would be.”

“You’re nuts.”

He chuckled. It was a rough sound. “Perhaps. But there’s a war coming, a war that man cannot win. The only question remaining is how brutal will be our defeat. Your way, your struggle, it only ends in death, the eradication of all life on this world. My way, many will perish, so that many more will live. It will be a time of rebirth, renewal, where man will take his place as righteous servants of the great Old Ones.” I started to raise my gun again. “Okay, okay. You’re so bloody impatient. I’m making you an offer . . .”

“I won’t join you.”

“Join me?” he said incredulously. “Why would I do that? I’m asking you to surrender.” Right about then I found myself really wishing that this wasn’t the dream world, and this wasn’t a dream gun, filled with dream bullets, because I’d blow his brains all over the duck pond. “Hear me out. The Dread Overlord has never been personally offended by a human before. He called you by name!” He said that like I should be proud. “His fury is infinite. By sacrificing yourself, you will salve his anger. The longer it takes for me to bring you to him, the more the entire world will pay for your insolence.”

“That’s one hell of an offer.”

“I’m a humanitarian. Think of your friends, your loved ones . . . You’ve personally spit in the eye of the deadliest being in the universe. He will get you. It’s only a matter of time. But it’s my job to make sure that your meddling doesn’t endanger us all. I’m trying to protect the innocent. Your irresponsibility threatens my plan to save the world.”

He was telling the truth, but there was something more. I thought of what Susan said. “There’s something else . . . Something in it for you.”

“I have made a deal, yes. The great gods of the beyond do not give power easily. It must be earned. You will be traded for something that I, and my father before me, have yearned for. You are the key to achieving my life’s work, the merciful domination of this world. ”

“You’re as deluded as Machado was. I’ve seen what those things want, and mercy isn’t part of the equation,” I said.

“The Old Ones don’t want to destroy this world. They’re ambivalent masters. They only destroy that which they can’t have.” He tossed more bread on the water. The ducks quacked and fought for the crumbs. “There are many factions of Elder Things. They don’t care about us. They only want to control as many worlds, as many souls, as they can, and deprive the others of their ownership.”

“Nice touch.” I pointed at the duck pond. “So, are these like some sort of symbolic illusion of great warring interstellar beings and we’re the bread?”

He looked at me like I was dense. “No. They’re just ducks.”

“Yeah, I’m not real good at this whole metaphysical dream thing. How about we hook up someplace out in meat-space so that I can shoot you with real bullets?”

“Owen, I’m begging you. Help me present this place to them. It’s the only way to save us all. Fighting only makes them mad.” He gestured around the city. For the first time I noticed some sort of massive, alien tree amidst the skyline, as tall as the skyscrapers around it. The branches were segmented, twisted, unnatural and black. There were no leaves, rather strange membranes, shimmering like locust wings, stretched between the insectoid branches. It was wrong. It did not belong on this world.

“What is that?”

He was rather proud. “The key to man’s unity. The key to our survival. Under its boughs, there is only peace.”

The beautiful city had been built around the tree, for the tree. I shuddered.

“This is my world. My world will be a utopia. No more war. No more starvation, strife, or disease. I will banish death. But if we continue to struggle, their patience will wear thin, and their methods will turn from subterfuge to brute force . . .” As he said that, the sky darkened. The nearby leaves and grass turned brown, wilted, and died. The giant buildings twisted and collapsed in gushing clouds of dust, but the great tree remained unharmed, standing alone on the burning horizon. The sky turned blood red with smoke and fire. The sounds of laughter in the distance mutated into screams of pain and the wails of torture. “And this will be the result . . .” The clean water of the pond turned to black pollution. The feathers burned off the ducks in a stench of acid and bile. Oily purple tentacles the size of spaghetti noodles encircled the frantic birds and sucked them down in a spew of harsh bubbles. “My way is the only way. Help me stop this.”

Glancing around the terrible landscape, I knew he wasn’t exaggerating. I had seen this before, different variations of this vision many times. The Old Ones were coming. This was the future . . .

No. This was a future. I strengthened my resolve and gave my final answer. “I’ve already picked my side.”

“Your side?” he replied derisively. “Oh, I’m quite familiar with them. Your side is made up of ghosts and fools. You ally yourself with the Hunters, yet Harbinger’s a liar and a murderer. You think the government can protect you from my religion of truth, yet Myers is a traitor and a coward. The vampires Shackleford offer you an out, but my own sins pale before Susan’s ambitions and Ray’s pride. Your side is an alliance of flawed convenience, and it will shatter at its first test.”

He spoke like he knew them . . . “Who are you, really?”

“I’m your friend. I’m the only one who’ll tell you the truth.” His voice raised in volume and intensity. “I am the Lord of Shadows, High Priest of the Sanctified Church of the Temporary Mortal Condition. I am the first Horseman of the Apocalypse, the herald of the burning sunset of one age and the dark dawn of a new.”

My grip tightened on my pistol. A hot wind blew through the destroyed park. I had had enough of this nonsense. “No. You’re just another pain-in-the-ass psycho screwing around with magic shit that shouldn’t be screwed with. Listen real careful, you quisling fuck, I’m coming for you and your little church, and I’m going to end you.”

“I was afraid of that, but I had to offer. I’m not by nature a violent man,” the Englishman responded, but the steel in his voice indicated that was a lie.

“Well, I am,” I responded.

We were plunged into shadow as a huge shape blotted out the reddened sun. I glanced up, my brain unable to comprehend the massiveness of the creature swimming through the air above us, trailing streamers of flesh, thorns, and a thousand eyes for what had to have been a quarter mile. Part blimp, part squid, all gut-wrenching terror. I knew that there were hundreds more just over the horizon.

“You’ve made your choice,” the Englishman said, but when I turned my attention back to the park bench, the thin man was gone, and now it was a hulking shadow shape there, a formless mass with the consistency of oil-fired smoke. It tossed the rest of the loaf of bread into the bubbling tar, which disappeared with a hiss. The shape moved, flowing up from the bench, towering above me as it prepared to leave. “When we meet again, expect no mercy.”

“Likewise.”

By the time we rolled into the compound, the sky had reached that kind of muted, quiet gray that came just before dawn. Most of the occupants of our vehicle were asleep at this point. An exhausted Lee was still driving. Julie was out, somehow actually using the butt stock of her M14 to prop up her head, and snoring loudly, which she did quite a bit, though I would never let her know. Mosh had finally passed out, having called his PR firm, manager, agent, and bandmates before the borrowed cell phone battery had croaked.

My muscles groaned in protest and my ankle burned painfully as I stepped onto the gravel outside the office building. I was still hurting from Mexico, let alone wrecking the tour bus and getting my ass kicked by gnomes. I had removed my stinky gas-soaked boots, and the little rocks jabbed painfully into my too-soft soles and still-bandaged heel. I didn’t really think about the pain, which was nothing a handful of aspirin couldn’t dull, but rather I was preoccupied about my meeting with the shadow man.

He had known Harbinger, Myers, and Julie’s parents. There was just something about the way he had mentioned them that indicated some familiarity. I had a higher opinion of Earl than murdering liar, of course, but I couldn’t really fault his assessment of the Fed or the vampires. If he knew them, then they might know him, and at this point, any intel was good intel. I intercepted Harbinger as he was stepping out of the passenger side of the other MHI vehicle. “We need to talk. I just had a psychic meeting with the bad guy.”

It was a testament to the weirdness of our job that he didn’t even bat an eye. “No shit? Okay, conference room in five minutes. Just me, you, and Julie. We don’t know who else we can trust.”

“Make it ten. Give me a chance to scrub the gas off before I get foot cancer or something,” I said quickly as the road-trip weary Hunters from Esmeralda’s team began to pile out and unload their gear. I had to keep in mind that one of these people could be the traitor.

“Well, that was a waste of time,” Cooper said as he pulled a rifle case out of the back of the truck. “Didn’t even get to shoot any trolls.”

“You’re such a glass-is-half-empty kind of guy,” his team leader said, stifling a yawn. Esmeralda didn’t manage to look any more intimidating wearing all her gear than she did wearing a sweater with kittens on it. “Think of that as a chance to drive around scenic Alabama.”

“It was dark. Then we stopped in the ghetto,” Cooper muttered. He was a relatively new Hunter, about my age, a few inches shorter than me and stocky, with square glasses and short dark hair. He had been an explosive ordnance disposal tech before joining us last year. He’d just gotten off active duty and gone on a road trip when he had encountered a winged terror eating travelers at a rest stop on I-15 in middle of nowhere, Nevada. The manner in which he’d shoved an illegal hand grenade down the creature’s mouth had gotten him recruited. “Yeah, that was awesome.”

Nate Shackleford unfolded himself out of the driver’s seat. He was the junior man on the team, but men of our stature always got the front seat. I did not know Julie’s little brother very well yet, but he really seemed like a likable, energetic, humble kid. Like Julie, he took more after Susan than Ray, though I could see the resemblance to his father, only without all the crazy. “I can’t believe that Milo took out the whole infestation.”

Cooper snorted. “Infestation . . . It was one troll!”

“I warned you guys that eyewitnesses always exaggerate,” Esmeralda chided them.

Julie joined us. “The client was pretty excited on the phone.”

Esmeralda automatically lapsed into teacher mode. “You never know what’s going to happen when you meet a new client. Most of the time they’re pretty normal, but every once in a while, one answers the door and tries to chop your head off with an ax.”

“Wow, has that ever actually happened?” Nate asked.

“No . . . but it could.”

Mosh was trailing along behind Julie, looking around in confusion at the paramilitary compound. “Oh, man . . .” His jaw fell open when he saw our red and white MI-24 Russian attack helicopter parked in front of the hangar. I suppose that my workplace was a bit different than the average. “You guys have a Hind?” He had always appreciated anything with an engine more than I had. “That is so awesome!”

“That’s Skippy’s baby,” Julie responded.

My brother turned to the orc. “Can I have a ride?” Skippy began to nod vigorously, eager to please the Great War Chief.

“Shhh . . .” Earl held up his hand. I couldn’t hear a thing, but he was the one with the werewolf hearing, so I shut up. “Chopper coming in.” He paused. “Blackhawk.”

It could only be the government. With the huge debacle of the freeway explosion and the hundreds of witnesses to the oni there, I had been sure that the Feds would have been too occupied with damage control to dispatch new babysitters. Apparently I had been wrong. With Franks dead, I had no idea who they would send this time. Unfortunately, after my talk with the Englishman, I wasn’t feeling real optimistic for the fates of those assigned to guard me.

It took another thirty seconds before anyone else could hear the Blackhawk. It came in low over the trees, circled the compound once, then set down in the parking lot in front of the office building. The blades kept turning as the door slid open. A Fed in a jumpsuit and helmet exited from the side. He positioned himself to help the next person out, which turned out to be a burly, older man.

“Oh crap,” I said. “I forgot.”

“Dad?” Mosh asked in confusion.

My father had exited a few helicopters in his day, and even had one shot out from under him once in 1968. We had heard all of those stories as kids. He glowered at the agent attempting to assist him until the man shrank back under that intimidating stare. Keeping one hand on his head to keep his hat from blowing off, he extended his other back inside and—

“Mom?” My brother was really flustered now.

My mother was really excited to have ridden in a helicopter. We were far away, and the rotors were beating, so we couldn’t hear her, but she was animatedly talking to the agent, probably about the weather, or her book club, or trying to find him a wife, or who knows what, because Mom was always talking about something. The agent actually took the time to snap a crisp salute to my dad. Probably a former military man himself, and everybody saluted my father once they knew who he was. Dad did one of those “whatever” salutes in return, grabbed Mom by the arm, thereby interrupting her conversation—not that anybody could have heard her over the rotors anyway—and steered her away from the chopper. The crew began to unload luggage onto the parking lot.

Dad saw us and approached with that bulldog walk that only men with really thick necks and big shoulders can pull off and still look tough. Mom paused to point at the chopper as it lifted off because, despite the inconvenience of being evacuated from her home after a kidnapping attempt by rabid cultists, riding in a chopper is pretty darn cool any time you get to do it.

“Mom and Dad?” I think Mosh had been less surprised to have an oni dangle him from an overpass than to see our parents get out of that Blackhawk.

“Mom, Dad!” I waved.

“Oh, shoot. Your mother . . . oh, crud, I wish I had a chance to change,” Julie began to fidget. I thought she looked perfectly presentable, since she was wearing armor and carrying a sniper rifle, which I personally found to be remarkably hot, but women are weird like that. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She didn’t add you insensitive jerk but I could tell it was implied.

“Lot of stuff on my mind,” I muttered out the side of my mouth.

“Like that’s an excuse.” She was trying to decide what to do with her rifle. Finally she just slung it, and let it hang behind her. She always wore her long hair pulled back when she was working, but that didn’t stop her from patting her head to make sure it was still there.

My parents stopped right in front of our group. Dad was angry. Of course, he had just shot four men and knew it was somehow my fault. Mom looked kind of confused. She pointed at my feet. “Where are your shoes?”

“Uh . . .” With all of the weird things that were going on for them right now, that wasn’t one of the questions that I had been mentally prepared to answer.

“You’ll wear holes in your socks!” Mom had immigrated to the U.S. a long time ago, and you could barely hear her accent, except when she got excited. Apparently my socks were very exciting. My mother was white-blonde, pale, tall and, shockingly enough considering the man she had married and the sons that she had spawned, skinny.

Dad just scowled. His skin was dark, wrinkled and creased from years of sun and wind. His once thick, curly, black hair was gray. He was wearing a hat, mostly, I knew, because it hid his bald spot. That killer gaze swept over our crew. All of the miscellaneous Hunters took an involuntary step back, then quickly decided that they were better off unloading the rest of their gear later, and dispersed without further comment. Dad just emanated this attitude of the only reason I don’t kill you all is because it would be illegal. Only Mosh and I were immune to The Look, and that was only because of overexposure.

“Boys,” Dad stated.

“Owen blew up my bus,” Mosh exclaimed, as if that explained everything. I had to remember that my brother hadn’t actually spoken to our folks for several years, and their last parting hadn’t been friendly. Despite Mosh’s massive success, Dad had never approved of his decisions. This reunion had to be kind of awkward.

“The government blew up your bus,” I explained calmly.

Only Earl and Julie had stayed. Julie elbowed me in the ribs. I grunted, realized that I was supposed to introduce her, and stammered, “This is Julie. My girlfriend. I told you about her . . . and stuff. I guess.” I had to remember that pretty much everything I had told my folks about the two of us had been fabricated, because, at the time, I had no intention of ever telling them how we had actually met or what we did for a living. This complicated matters.

“Yay!” my mother exclaimed, and immediately wrapped Julie in a hug. “She’s beautiful. Let me see the ring! Oh, I’m so proud, Owen.” Apparently Mom didn’t even notice that Julie was dressed for combat. She was probably just glad that I had found a girl at all. She had certainly hounded me enough on that subject my entire adult life. Mom had probably been suspicious that Julie was imaginary, and I had just made her up to stop the nagging.

Dad scanned Julie once and nodded in approval. “M14. Nice rifle.” My father was a practical man. Then he gave Earl The Look. Earl didn’t flinch. That alone should have alerted Dad that Earl Harbinger wasn’t actually human anymore. Dad stared at my boss for a long time, bit his lip, looking confused for a moment, almost perplexed, like a bullfighting bull that just got poked and was trying to figure out whom he needed to gore. Mosh and I glanced at each other. Dad perplexed was scarier than normal Dad. “Do I know you?” the senior Pitt asked.

Earl shook his head. “I don’t believe so.”

“Yeah . . . yeah I do.” Dad was positive. “But it can’t be. You’re too young. Was your father in Vietnam?”

Earl paused for a long moment. “No,” he said calmly.

“You wouldn’t happen to be related to some guy who worked for the CIA, went by the name . . . what was it . . . Mr. Wolf?”

Mr. Wolf? If that was one of his pseudonyms, it was pretty damn lame.

Earl frowned slightly. “Never heard of him.”

“Good, because he was a real jerk-off. But damn if you’re not like his twin. Good thing you’re not, ’cause me and him have a disagreement to settle.” Dad was obviously suspicious. Mosh, Julie, Mom, helicopters, compounds, assassination attempts, everything else was forgotten as Dad focused in like a laser beam on Earl. “What’s your name, buddy?”

“Harbinger. Earl Harbinger. Your son works for me.” He stuck out his hand to shake. My father took the smaller hand in his catcher’s-mitt-sized paw and I knew that Dad was going to try and crush him.

“Auhangamea Pitt,” Dad said as he squeezed. “This is my wife, Ilyana.”

Earl smiled slightly and squeezed back. Dad’s brow furrowed and I could tell that he wanted to cringe. Most normal men would have. Earl let go and nodded. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Pitt. I’m sure you’ve got a lot of questions for your boy that I’m sure he’s just itchin’ to answer. I can assure you this inconvenience will be temporary. We’ll find you a room and get you settled in for your stay. Welcome to Monster Hunter International.”

The best available room at the compound was on the first floor of the main building, near the stairs to the basement and the archives. It had been set up for clients and VIPs, but since visits like that were extremely rare, the room, though nicely furnished, smelled a little musty.

“Beats a hotel,” I suggested helpfully as I put Dad’s suitcase on the bed. I still stunk of gas and had quite a bit of my own blood dried on my clothing. Dad just glowered at me.

Mosh was getting cleaned up. It had been about fifteen years since we had last been forced to share a room, but it was either bunk with me, or sleep in the barracks with the Newbies. He’d dealt with enough weirdness so far that the last thing I wanted to do was stick him with a bunch of really gung-ho, brand-new Hunters.

Julie had tagged along. My mom hadn’t stopped talking to her since she’d gotten off the chopper. Julie had dropped her vest and rifle behind Dorcas’ desk, so now she only had her form-fitting and, in my opinion, very flattering Under Armor shirt on. Julie was nodding her head patiently as Mom continued to ramble on about her day’s adventure as she carried more bags through the door. She gave me a patient look that basically said you weren’t kidding about your parents.

Dad waited until all four of us were present. His deep voice indicated that he wasn’t messing around. “All right then, I want some answers, and I want them now. There’s some strange business going on here. First off—”

“How did you two meet?” Mom asked, clapping her hands together excitedly. Dad rolled his eyes and groaned.

Julie gestured toward me. “Well, we had a contrived story to tell you, but I guess we can tell you the truth now. We work together. The first time Owen and I met was when I interviewed him for this job.”

Mom covered her mouth, like me dating the boss’ great-granddaughter was the most scandalous thing ever. Hell, like Mom even knew what I did for a living. “You’re his supervisor?”

“Technically, yes, but he doesn’t take well to supervision,” Julie laughed. Mom laughed. Mom began to ask Julie for details. They both plopped down on the edge of the bed. Dad and I exchanged glances. He signaled for me to pull up a chair to the side so we could address man business.

Mom was so personable that when she entered a room, she created her own gravity field that dominated everything. Once free from Mom’s sphere of influence, my father turned stern. “I killed four people today. I haven’t done that for a while. I’d like to know why.”

“So the last guy died too?” I had really been hoping that the Feds could have gotten something out of him.

Dad shrugged. “Looked like a liver hit. I’d be amazed if they got him to the hospital before he croaked. I’m getting sloppy in my old age. Mozambiqued the other assholes. Don’t dodge my question, boy.” He glanced at his watch. “I’m missing a fishing trip today because of this.”

“Okay . . .” I had thought about this moment, and the best way to convey it, for a long time, but all of my practiced lines were forgotten under the stare of those hard eyes. My entire life, this man hadn’t ever really approved of me. He had always been gruff and cold. The closest we had ever come to bonding was him teaching me to kill stuff. Well, when all else fails, go for brevity. “I’ll get right to it. Monsters are real. I’m one of the people who hunts them.”

Dad nodded slowly. “Pay good?”

“Pay’s awesome.”

“Monsters?” Dad took off his hat and set it on the small table between us. He scratched his bald spot. “All right then. I’m glad we got this all cleared up.”

That’s it? He showed no emotion. That wasn’t one of the outcomes that I had imagined. “Uh . . . cool. Any questions?”

He intertwined his fingers, put his elbows on the table, and studied me silently. I never could read him, and now was no different. It was like being under an electron microscope as he stared right through my façade of confidence. This man could read me like a teleprompter. “Oh, I got questions—lots.” Then he went back to glaring at me. It was extremely awkward. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.

I’ve died twice, traveled through time, stopped an alien invasion, and battled just about every terrible being that hell could puke onto the surface of the Earth, but despite those facts, this man could still make me feel like a pathetic fat kid. It really pissed me off. My entire life I had striven to make him proud. I had failed every step of the way. No matter what I did, I would never measure up to his impossible ideals of what it meant to be a real man.

But no more. I knew what I was. And I didn’t have to take his shit anymore. I was going to make him understand. He was on my turf now. “Listen, Dad,” I said as I reached across the table and grabbed him by the arm. “I—”

Black energy crackled inside my skull.

“Damn it, boys. That was pathetic,” I shouted at my sons as I threw my own pack down. Personally, I was exhausted, but I wasn’t about to let them know it. They could never see weakness as an option. The boys were big and strong for their ages, but I had overloaded their bags on purpose. I knew that they had to be hurting bad by now. “That was slow.” I made a big show of looking at my dive watch. “We only averaged thirteen minutes a mile. Thirteen!”

“It was straight uphill!” Owen protested. He had to pause, pull out his asthma inhaler and take a deep puff. He didn’t use it nearly as much as he had when he was younger, but we were several thousand feet higher in elevation than he was used to.

“And the ground was all loose,” David whined. “My feet hurt.”

Damn right their feet hurt. My feet were killing me, and I had done forced marches most of my life. They were only fourteen and eleven. Their pack straps had probably abraded right through the skin of their shoulders by now. “You think if the enemy were right behind us they’d be complaining? Hell no, they would’ve chased us down, raped us to death, then cut us into steaks and eaten us.”

“But ‘the enemy’ aren’t chasing us, Dad. This was supposed to be a camping trip.” My oldest gestured around the mountainside. He had always been a smartass. The kid was incapable of knowing when to shut up. Despite how I was always farming him out to the neighbors for adult-level manual labor, and he was strong as hell, the boy was still pudgy. He paused to wipe the sweat off his face with his tee-shirt, not that it would do much good, since his shirt was already totally saturated.

David started crying. “I can smell Mom’s cooking. Camp’s right there. Can I go sit down now?”

“Yeah, go,” I jerked a thumb back toward camp. I could smell it too, and my stomach rumbled. “And don’t be such a baby.” I felt like a complete asshole as I said it, but I had started having the dream again, at least once a week now. Some nights I couldn’t sleep at all, even when the dream didn’t come, just because I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I didn’t pretend to understand the dream, but I knew it was true. My children couldn’t afford to be weak.

“Dude, drop your pack. I’ll take it,” Owen offered to his brother as he glared at me. Yeah, the boy may be chunky, but he’d inherited my mean streak. Good. Let him be angry. It gave him something to focus on. David shrugged out of the pack and handed it to his big brother. Owen cradled it in his arms as David ran for our campsite.

“This was supposed to be a fun weekend,” he said.

“Fun is relative,” I answered. “Having the strength and the knowledge to survive anything the world throws at you isn’t supposed to be fun. But it makes you a man. So man up and quit your crying.”

“You don’t always have to be such a jerk.” Owen spat as he walked away.

If only you knew, boy . . . if only you knew.

I took my time following them into camp. The forest was actually very peaceful as sunset approached. He was right. This was supposed to have been a vacation. I had retired from the Army a few years ago, and was now working as a bookkeeper, of all the idiotic things . . . So it wasn’t like I got to spend a lot of time in the great outdoors anymore.

My wife was waiting for me, arms folded, scowling, her blonde hair pulled up underneath a handkerchief. She smelled like wood smoke.

“Keeping the home fires burning, huh?” I joked.

She didn’t think I was funny. “Ten miles? You made them walk ten miles, and after skipping lunch?” She had grown up in a home where they often went hungry because of Communist ineptitude. To my wife, missing a meal as an American was a serious offense, because this was the Land of the Free, damn it.

“I have to do stuff like this . . . You know it.”

God bless her, she at least believed me. “You’ve been distant lately. The dream again?”

“It’s been bad.” The sound of an acoustic guitar started back at the tent. It was actually rather good. David certainly had a gift for that silly thing.

Ilyana nodded slowly, understanding. She was as pretty as the day I had first seen her, sneaking her dissident family over from the wrong side of the Iron Curtain. “You know that I trust you, but what if you’re mistaken? Your children think you’re a beast, you know. You push them too hard. And what if you’re wrong?”

“I pray every day that I’m wrong.” I bit my lip. Saying this made my voice tremble and break, and tears welled up involuntarily in my eyes. “But I know I’m not. I hear the war drums. Some day one of those boys will be known as the god slayer and that’s before it even gets really rough.”

No father should have to know that it is his son’s job to die saving the world.

Dad can cry?

I was back in the room, still clutching Dad’s arm. I let go, shocked by how hard I had been squeezing. There was an imprint on his forearm and he looked at me, stunned.

“Son, what’s wrong?”

It was the same thing that had happened a few days ago with Agent Myers. Somehow I was seeing other people’s memories. I shook my head. Only a few seconds had passed. I was nauseous and dizzy. When I closed my eyes hard I could still see the lightning shapes moving in the corners. They slowly dissipated. Stupid artifact. This vision brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Forces of Evil.

One of his sons had to save the world? I already had. Mordechai had told me that I had been picked before I was born for that job. How had Dad known so long ago? “You had a dream?” I asked. “What’s this dream show you?”

Dad was confused. “What are you talking about?”

I began to babble. “All these years, the way you treated us, the stuff you taught us. The shooting, the fighting, the survival skills, it was all because of a dream? God slayer?”

My normally imperturbable old man suddenly looked like he had stuck his finger in a light socket. “How do you know about that?” he demanded.

“Tell me!” I shouted. This startled Mom and Julie.

Dad shoved himself back from the table and stood. “No!” he bellowed. “You can’t know about that. You can never know.”

“Calm down, dear, remember your condition,” Mom scolded.

My father began to pace like a caged bear. It was almost like he was nervous. But that was impossible. “I kept it from you, because . . . I was scared.” He had never said that phrase ever before. Auhangamea Pitt was scared of nothing, or at least that’s what I had told myself my entire life. “I was scared for you, even before you were born. I didn’t want to believe the promise. It was just too terrible, but in the back of my mind, it was always there, so I tried to get you ready. That was my duty. The dream taught me what I had to do. Preparing you boys was my calling. That’s why I’ve done what I’ve done. That’s why I got so mad at David when he ran away. I was so fixated on this that I chased my own son away, and when that happened, I swore that I would forget about the damn dream and never talk about it again. You were grown, and I’d done my best, so my job was finished.”

I placed my hands on the table to steady myself. “Dad, listen, it doesn’t matter now, but I need to find out what you’ve seen.”

He shook his head. “I’m . . . I’m not ready.”

It was my turn to be the bossy one for once. “Well, you damn well better get ready then, because some serious shit is going down.”

“Don’t cuss,” Mom snapped automatically.

Dad quit pacing, returned to the table, and slowly sank into the chair. He seemed to shrink. That scared me. “I’ve had this dream for decades. In it, one of my sons has to die to save the world from something terrible. . . .” He sounded tired as he revealed his burden.

This whole thing was so damn shocking that I actually laughed out loud. “Dad, it’s okay! The stuff you taught me paid off. I’ve already saved the world. It’s okay. We beat the terrible thing last summer, and I’m still alive.”

“No,” he stated solemnly, like a man who knew his torment wasn’t yet over.

“Mr. Pitt, really, it’s okay,” Julie said soothingly. It was weird to hear her call my father “Mister,” but it wasn’t like she knew him at all, and she still didn’t know how to pronounce his first name properly anyway. Too many vowels. “Owen’s telling you the truth. I was there. He did what he was supposed to, and we all lived.”

“No.” Dad shook his head. He looked like he was going to cry. I had never seen that before. It was making me very uncomfortable. “What I’ve seen hasn’t happened yet. What you’ve seen so far is nothing. There are still a few signs left.”

“What are you talking about?” I had done my job. I had stopped the Cursed One. What else did they want from me? “Signs?”

My father began to speak, but there was a commotion out in the hall, and a sudden banging on the door. The door flew open, revealing Trip Jones. He was really excited, and his appearance indicated that he had run here. He must have just gotten back from exterminating trolls. “Sorry to interrupt, but you guys need to come with me right now. Z, Julie, you’ve got to see this. It’s really important.”

“Damn it . . .” I muttered. Mom scowled. “Sorry.” I stood and pointed at my father. “We’ll talk later.”

Dad pushed away from the table. “Owen, son . . .” And then he surprised me. He grabbed me awkwardly by the shoulders, pulled me close, and gave me a hug. He had never actually done that before. I was 25 years old, and had never actually been hugged by my father that I could remember. I was too shocked to respond. Finally I patted him on the back.

“Ahh . . . how nice,” Mom said.

After a brief moment, he let go. “Give me time to think, then we’ll talk. I didn’t know if this time would ever really come. I’ll tell you everything.”

Trip jerked his thumb down the hall. “We’ve got to get to Milo’s workshop.”

Chapter 10

Apparently Trip really did believe it was important, because he full on sprinted across the entire compound to Milo’s workshop. Trip had played college football and could run unbelievably fast. I, on the other hand, am a sluggish brute, and preferred only to run when something was chasing me. But apparently this was a big deal, so I hauled butt, yelling hoarsely for various Newbies and Hunters to get out of my way. Unfortunately, Milo’s workshop was set out by itself, most likely isolated to protect everyone else in case one of his inventions went horribly wrong and turned our gear man and his shop into vaporized atoms.

By the time Julie and I got there, Trip was already inside, and I was panting. Julie looked fine. “You should do more cardio,” she said patiently as she opened the door for me.

“Punching bag’s cardio,” I gasped.

“Only when you do it for more than a minute.”

“If I have to punch something for more than a minute”—panting—“it’s time to go to guns.”

“Wait.” She grabbed me by the arm. “This business with your dad . . .”

“I don’t know, but I intend to find out. Come on.”

The inside of Milo’s shop was a mess of machinery of every type: welders, lathes, mills, drill presses, and things that I didn’t even recognize. Miscellaneous guns were piled in every corner and on every shelf. There was even a rocket launcher of some type dangling from a strap hung over the antlers of the crocodile head mounted on the wall.

We stepped past the biggest harpoon gun that I had ever seen. It was the size of a riding lawn mower, all stainless steel with a spool of cable thick enough for high-power lines, loaded with a spear as big around as a fence post, and painted on the side was a picture of a creature with a shark’s head ending in squid tentacles with a big slash through it, Ghostbusters style. So that’s where Milo’s discretionary budget had gone lately. If I wasn’t in such a hurry, I would have stopped and admired the monstrosity.

Milo saw me looking at his invention. “Yeah, it is pretty freaking cool. I’m done messing around with stupid luskas. Next time we have to hunt shark-krakens, we do it in style. This sucker could harpoon Godzilla! The guys in Miami are going to love this baby. I call it Leviathan.” He had been waiting for us, pacing, his long red beard bouncing with each step. He had undone the beard braids and the entire thing was in a giant puffy mass that extended halfway down his chest. “Well, anyways, you aren’t going to believe this, but I think I’ve found a way to track down the Condition.” He gestured for us to follow as he headed for the back of the workshop.

There was a roll-up door, and an MHI Crown Vic was parked in one of the few open spaces. Holly was standing near the rear, casually holding her .308 Vepr carbine pointed at the trunk. She smiled when she saw us. “Z, you’re all sweaty. Did we interrupt you two at something?”

I was too out of breath to respond, so I flipped her the bird. She winked. Trip appeared with a ring of keys and moved to the trunk. “Ready?” he asked Holly.

“Born ready,” she said as she planted the big AK against her shoulder and took aim. “Open it.”

“Slow down,” Milo urged. The short man paused to push his glasses back up his nose before getting down to business. “You guys have no sense of presentation. Young Hunters are so excitable. You can’t just spring it on them. You’ve got to work up to it. It’s all about presentation.”

Julie groaned. Milo’s ideas were often good, sometimes bad, usually weird, but always with the best intentions. He was constantly thinking outside the box. Way outside the box. “I swear if there’s Powerpoint involved, someone’s getting shot.”

I was a little impatient, considering that my father had been about to tell me something that was probably really important concerning my destiny and all that jazz. “Come on, Milo. Spill it. How are we going to find the Condition?”

Milo smiled broadly. “You sent the three of us out to shake down the elves to see if we could find out anything—”

“Useless as usual,” Holly interjected. “Though the Elf Queen asked how the Dreamer was doing. I think she’s got a crush on you, Z. She’s kinda cute for a four-hundred-pounder.”

“But then we get the call to head over to Bessemer for a troll infestation. You guys had to bail, so we took care of it on our own,” Milo said proudly. “How much do you know about trolls?”

“I’ve killed . . .” Julie paused, thinking, “five of them on two separate cases. They’re rubbery, super resilient, heal fast, are very vulnerable to fire, eat anything, but prefer children, and they’re smarter than they look. It’s always best to engage them from a distance, then when they’re down, burn them.”

“Yes, yes,” Milo steepled his fingers, looking briefly like he was teaching elementary school, obviously leading up to the payoff. “All true, but more important . . . what do they do for fun?”

“Hang out under bridges and harass goats?” I asked.

Julie hesitated, flustered. “Well . . . I . . . I don’t actually know.”

“Aha!” Milo shouted, grabbing a bunch of printouts off a nearby table. He shoved the papers into her hands. Julie glanced at them, frowning, then started to pass them off to me.

“Hot stock tips? Free iPods? Discount Viagra? Enlarge your—What the hell?” I asked, as Julie handed printed e-mails to me. Dear Sir, I am Barrister Kojima Loima of Nigeria and I must approach you concerning an opportunity of extreme urgency. My client former Prime Minister Katanga has requested that I safely move his fortune from our country to the U.S. in secrecy. I must transfer a sum of sixty-two million dollars to your bank account— It just went on and on. “What is this?”

“Spam,” Milo said solemnly.

“Trolls are spammers?” Julie asked.

“Oh, and so much more!” Milo exclaimed. “Open it, Trip.”

Holly tightened up on her rifle. Trip turned the key and popped the lid. The trunk appeared to be filled with a bunch of greasy rubber hoses. Suddenly, the pile moved, revealing it to be one solid mass curled into an uncomfortable fetal position. Giant clawed hands and feet had been chained together and padlocked. Two round yellow eyes opened and blinked at us. It had a pointy nose, hooked over a mouth full of dingy, blunt teeth.

“You are the suck!” the creature hissed. It started to rise. Trip moved forward, cocked one fist back and slugged the monster right in its massive mouth. The creature winced back.

I looked at Trip in surprise. He was normally the nicest person I knew. “I hate spammers,” he explained as he shook his aching hand.

“Milo?” Julie asked slowly. “Why is there a troll in your trunk?”

The little man was really excited now. “When we hit the target, we were expecting a bunch of these things, and instead only found this one. He’d fallen asleep with his head sitting on a desk with a bunch of computers running on it.”

“There was a pile a foot deep of empty energy-drink cans and Ho-Ho wrappers on the floor,” Holly added. “He’d been playing online games, arguing with random people on like fifty different internet forums, writing spam. It was really pathetic. Most of it was totally incoherent.”

“And the punctuation . . .” Trip muttered, obviously offended. “According to his MySpace page, he’s a sixteen-year-old girl named Brittany who likes to post pictures of herself in her underwear.”

The thing in the trunk stirred, glaring at each of us angrily. It was an intimidating beast, lean, with limbs that, even though they were crammed into the trunk, were obviously too long. “So internet trolls . . . are really trolls?”

Julie folded her arms. “No, Milo. You can’t keep him as a pet.”

Milo was indignant. “Of course not; I remember what happened when I tried to raise that sasquatch. How was I supposed to know it was going to eat Sam’s dog? Poor Squeaky . . .” I didn’t know if that was the name of Milo Anderson’s bigfoot or Sam Haven’s deceased pooch. Milo lifted one last bunch of papers. “Anyway, this is why I brought him back.”

The logo on this e-mail was the same sky squid as the Condition handout Myers had presented to us. I took it from him and read. The message was brief.

Attention creatures of the darkness, the Shadow Lord, High Priest of the Sanctified Church of the Temporary Mortal Condition, extends his benevolent hand in friendship. Join our mighty legion. No longer must you live in secret beneath the blighted cancer of humanity. A new age is coming. A dark new dawn breaks.

It was an invitation. It was dated several weeks ago.

The troll continued to glare at me and gnash its dirty teeth. “Are you a member of the Condition?” I asked.

“No,” it hissed. “Condition is not to be trusted.” The troll’s voice was wheezy, like its lungs were filled with cobwebs and its vocal cords were coated in rust.

I distrusted it immediately. This thing was just plain icky. “What’s your name? And I know it isn’t Brittany.”

Air escaped from its mouth in a series of puffs. Laughter. “Tell you nothing, human.”

Holly leaned forward and jammed the muzzle of her AK into the side of his head. “Start talking, spam-boy, or I’m going to let out some pent-up aggression on your face!”

That got its attention. “Okay . . . okay. Don’t let the pretty one hurt me!”

“Aw . . . he likes you,” Trip said.

“Melvin, humans call me Melvin,” the troll said quickly, raising one chained hand to protect his face. The dirty claws extended from the end of each fingertip at least half an inch. “My pack joined Condition, but Melvin stayed. Not trust Condition.”

“Where’s your pack now?” Julie asked.

“They go to join army. But trolls are lazy. He not want lazy servants. Dead servants never lazy. So he made them all dead. Now Melvin is alone. All alone . . .”

That almost made me sad. Almost. “Do you know where to find them?”

He shook his head. “Let me go free. I tell you, then you kill poor Melvin.”

Poor Melvin was an eight-foot-tall, carnivorous killing machine. Letting him go wasn’t really an option. But I needed him to talk. Maybe if I treated him with a little respect, he might open up. If that didn’t work, we could always let Holly have a crack at him. She seemed the least morally adverse to beating the truth out of something. “Let him out.”

“What, Z?” Trip asked. “Serious?” Julie looked at me like I was nuts, but didn’t say anything. She drew her .45 from her holster and held it low by her side.

Milo stepped off to the side and retrieved a Mossberg shotgun from one of the many racks. He pumped a shell into the chamber. “Don’t trust him, Owen. I’m a moderator on a forum. You can’t ever trust a troll.”

“Listen, Melvin. We’re going to let you out of the car. If you try anything stupid, we’re going to shoot your arms and legs off and then we’re going to burn you to ashes. Got it?”

“Melvin play nice,” the troll promised. He began to slowly unfold himself out of the trunk. First one long leg came out, chains clanking, until claws clicked on the concrete floor, then it took a minute to get his spindly torso out of the narrow space. Finally the troll stood, all twisted and gangly, wrists chained together in front of its narrow chest. His flesh really did look like row after row of dirty garden hose stacked into a rough humanoid shape. I had to crane my neck to look him in the eye. There was a mass of stringy black hair matted together on his head. The other Hunters kept their guns trained as I stepped closer.

“Okay, Melvin. I’m going to level with you. I really need to know how to find the Condition. Help me avenge your pack’s murder.”

He laughed again. “Not care about rest of pack. Pack was stupid. Got turned into zombies. Now they not hog Melvin’s bandwidth.” His breath stank of stale Red Bull and his teeth hadn’t been cleaned lately, if ever. “They are the Fail. No, Hunter. You let Melvin go. Then I tell you where pack went.”

I was afraid of that, but I had an idea. Twice in the last few days I had been able to live somebody else’s memories: Myers’, and only a few minutes ago, my father’s. Susan had exposed me to that cursed artifact so that I would have the ability to fight this Condition. If it worked on people, maybe it would work on monsters. If he wouldn’t tell me what I needed to know, then maybe I could just take it. It was worth a shot. I extended one hand slowly toward Melvin’s clawed hand.

“What are you doing?” Julie asked.

“Trust me.”

The troll regarded me suspiciously. Finally I touched his hand. He felt warm and squishy. Nothing happened. No black magic lightning. Nada.

Melvin screamed. “It burns! It burns!” I jerked my hand away. The other Hunters took an involuntary step back. The troll smiled, showing off row after row of rotten teeth. “I kid. I kid.” Then he head-butted me.

His rubbery skull rebounded off mine, flaring pain through my brain, sending me flailing back, blocking Julie’s shot. He moved with surprising speed for his size. One fist swung out, slamming into Holly’s stomach and knocking her to the ground. Milo blasted him in the back, the buckshot sending chunks of green meat in every direction. Melvin didn’t seem to notice. He surged forward, grabbed Trip by the shirt and tossed him headfirst into the trunk of the Crown Vic. Then Melvin slammed it shut.

My eyes were watering as I stumbled out of Julie’s way. She opened fire on Melvin, her bullets tearing into the troll. I swear he giggled as he reached past Milo, grabbing onto a huge shelf of tools, guns, machinery, assorted widgets, and pulled. The heavy shelf teetered for a second before falling over.

“Move!” Julie shouted as all of us dove for cover. The shelf came crashing down, bits and pieces flying in every direction. I rolled out of the way as a chainsaw spiraled past. Milo cried out as something landed on him.

Ankles chained together, Melvin hopped for the open roll-up door and the freedom of the forest. Trolls were amazingly fast. “Ha ha. You got pwned, bitches!” He laughed as he cleared the exit. Milo was trapped underneath the shelf and thrashing about. Julie was cursing and reloading her 1911. Holly had the wind knocked out of her and was gasping for breath. Trip was beating on the inside of the trunk. I drew my STI .45, wiped my watering eyes, and started after the escaping troll.

“Witness my perfection, newbs!” Melvin shouted as he hopped down the pavement. If he reached the fence, we were going to lose him.

Suddenly a figure appeared around the corner of Milo’s workshop and intercepted the bouncing troll. With his back toward me, I couldn’t tell who it was. A boot smashed into Melvin’s knobby knees as a large hand grabbed him by the neck. The troll went down with a screech, “No fair!” as the man wrapped his other hand around Melvin’s head.

“Wait!” I shouted, but I was too late. With a brutal twist, the troll’s neck snapped, and Melvin flopped twitching to the pavement.

The figure stood, dusted himself off, and nonchalantly turned around. The big man was wearing a black suit, black sunglasses, and black strangler gloves. I gasped.

Agent Franks nodded slightly in return.

The Goon Squad rushed around the corner and joined him. Torres, Archer, and Herzog looked exhausted. They’d apparently had a long night. “Burn it,” Franks ordered as he strode forward, gesturing back at the troll.

“How? But you . . .” I stammered.

Franks stopped in front of me. “Mornin’ . . . sunshine,” which was exactly how I had sarcastically greeted him every morning since he’d been here. I think he was enjoying my discomfort.

Julie pulled the shelf off Milo. He was flustered, but okay. Holly had gotten unsteadily to her feet. Trip was still banging on the inside of the trunk and shouting. “Would one of you guys let him out?” I asked.

“Trip’s got the keys,” Holly responded.

Archer, who struck me as the most efficient of the Feds, entered the workshop and spied an acetylene torch. “Mind if I borrow this?”

“Be my guest,” Milo responded. Archer wheeled out the torch, turned on the gas, and ignited it with a striker that was chained to the dolly.

“Who’s pwned now, punk?” Holly asked rhetorically as she rubbed her bruised stomach. “Aww, hell, that didn’t work out like we imagined.”

Milo shrugged. “Capturing him seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Trip yelled something unintelligible from inside the trunk.

“Good idea. Hold on,” Julie shouted at Archer. “Trolls regenerate. Let’s haul him down to the basement and lock him up. We can still interrogate him later.” Archer looked disappointed as he twisted the knobs and closed off the torch. It made a popping noise.

Franks glanced around at the destruction. “I can’t leave you alone, can I?”

I had always suspected that there was more to Franks than met the eye. He was unbelievably tough. Despite my background as a fighter, he had beaten me soundly and had taken inhuman amounts of damage at Natchy Bottom before going down, but that proved nothing. The fact that he was standing here now, after I had seen some of his bones sticking out twelve hours ago, indicated that he was definitely not human. “What are you?” I asked.

Franks’ face was emotionless behind those tinted sunglasses. “Hungry. Let’s get lunch.”

Franks, showing no indication that he should have been dead, ate about 7,000 calories worth of MHI’s food, while his men wandered back to the barracks to get some sleep. Apparently, threatening as many witnesses as there were during a Level 5 Containment was hard work. I was feeling it myself. I had slept for less than one hour in the last thirty, and I had met with the shadow man during part of that, so I was nearing a terminal crash, and was damn loopy at this point.

I moved the ice pack to a different spot on my face. I had a nasty bruise. “So, Franks, seriously, your arm was hanging off in pieces last night. And now you’re sitting here, all fat and happy.” I’ve had a werewolf for a boss, twice, and had seen some really bizarre stuff over the last year, so I was flexible, but I was also curious. “What the hell are you, really?”

Franks chewed his fifth microwave jumbo burrito. MHI’s stockpile of cafeteria food wasn’t exactly gourmet dining. He still hadn’t removed his sunglasses or gloves, even though we were indoors. “I’m a representative of the United States Government, here to protect you.”

“Yeah, whatever, but you aren’t normal.”

He chewed with his mouth open. “Don’t be such a racist.”

I slammed my fist into the table and left. If he possessed any emotions at all, I knew he was doing this just to tweak me. Franks grabbed his last few burritos and followed.

I needed to get some rest, but Harbinger had wanted to discuss strategy first, and had called another meeting since the arrival of my parents had blown away our original plan. Julie and Earl were already there when I arrived. Milo, Holly, and Trip arrived once they succeeded in picking the lock on the trunk lid. Because the three of them had been on the way to Bessemer for the troll hunt, and nobody had ever notified them about my leaving the compound to go after Mosh until afterward, there was no way that any of them could be the spy. Which was great, because right about now I needed all the friends I could get. I had ditched my uncommunicative bodyguard at the base of the stairs and headed for the conference room. I wanted to make this quick, because I still wanted to talk to my father. I had a lot of questions, but first things first. I had to figure out a way to hit back at these cultists.

“What happened to your face?” Earl asked as we sat down.

“Head-butted by a troll,” I grumbled.

Earl laughed at me. “I heard. I see Franks is back.”

“I thought you said he was dead,” Julie said.

“His arm was almost torn off and that’s before he got punted across the freeway, so you tell me.” I turned to Earl. “Is he like you?”

“No. I’d smell that,” he answered.

“So, what does he smell like?” Maybe Earl’s supernatural senses could give us a clue.

“Old Spice.” Earl shrugged. I put my face in my hands and groaned. “What? He does.”

“He’s scary is what he is,” Trip said. “Honestly, that man gives me the heebie-jeebies. There’s something about him that’s just not . . .” He trailed off, looking for the right word.

“Human?” Holly interjected. “He’s nominally on our side, and we’re stuck with him, so we might as well just ignore him. But yeah, I agree with you. He gives off a bad vibe. Too bad he broke Melvin’s neck before we could make him talk.”

“Because that was going so well . . .” My face really hurt.

“The troll will wake up eventually, though he’ll probably be useless.” Julie got us back on track. “So you spoke with the leader of the Condition?” I filled them in on the conversation, down to every detail I could remember, ducks and all. Earl frowned when I got to the part about how the Englishman seemed to know him personally.

He stood and walked to the wall, where the sketch artist’s rendition of our enemy was tacked. “I honestly don’t know this guy.”

I kept on. Right now it was our only lead. “It was like he slipped up. Like he knew you, Ray, Susan, even Myers. You all used to work together. Did any of you work with somebody from England?”

“Yeah, lots. We’ve worked cases over there and we’ve worked alongside Commonwealth teams like the Van Helsing Institute and even their governmental units, but I can’t think of anybody in particular.” Earl was quiet for a really long time as he studied that picture, running his hands through his thin hair. He started to speak, then shook his head, as if the idea was just too stupid to contemplate. He grew frustrated and turned away. “Hell if I know.”

“Well, what’s the plan then?” Julie asked.

“I don’t have one!” Earl snapped, which surprised me. He never raised his voice at any of us, let alone his great-granddaughter. That was really out of character. He immediately apologized. “Sorry, I’m just tired is all.” He reached into his ancient leather jacket and pulled out his cigarettes, once again breaking his normal self-prohibition on smoking inside the main building. “This whole thing is pissing me off, and tomorrow’s a big day.”

“What’s tomorrow?” I was too tired to remember.

“Newbie class graduation,” Julie answered. “Esmeralda says they’re ready to go. Most of our team leads and whoever else can get off are flying in to interview and pick which ones they want.” Even as busy as our teams were right now, the leaders were going to make the time to come, because if they didn’t pick their own Newbies, then they got the leftover ones, and nobody wanted to be that team.

“Well, that’ll be fun,” I suggested.

“Too bad one of them is probably a spy,” Earl spat. That was probably what was eating him up. The very idea that one of his Hunters was working for the bad guys was blatantly offensive. In a group like this, we had to have total trust in each other. Hunters depended on their team, and by extension their whole organization, to have their backs.

“What did that oni thing tell you again?” Milo asked.

“She said that the Shadow Lord’s minion had reported that I’d left the compound in a hurry to go there. So take that for what it’s worth.”

Milo stroked his beard contemplatively. “Maybe they just have somebody hiding out in the forest with binoculars.” The idea of having a spy obviously seemed farfetched to him. He had lost his family at a young age, and had practically been raised by MHI. “Well, except that Skippy’s people hunt the forest, and they’d spot anybody who hid out there for very long.”

“We have to assume the worst,” Julie stated. “We’ve got to think about who the possible leaks are.”

“All the Newbies,” Trip supplied. “How many of them saw you leave, or heard about it after you left?” Going through that group seemed daunting.

“Esmeralda’s team. She and Cooper were with us, and one of them could have made a call when we weren’t looking,” Earl added. I noted that he didn’t mention Julie’s brother, Nate, because that was family, and therefore impossible to him, despite Nate’s father’s record for betrayal. “But I’ve known Esmeralda forever, and I just don’t see that. Cooper seems like a good kid, but he’s only been with us for a year.”

“Dorcas,” I said. Then all of us laughed. Not very likely.

“What about Grant and Albert?” Holly said. “They were right behind you.”

“Al? I don’t see it.” Just because I held myself responsible for Lee’s injury didn’t mean he held any grudge. He was too honest a guy to fall in with the likes of the Condition. I paused. On the other hand, Grant had been gone for some time after leaving the company, only to come back just when this craziness started. “What was Grant up to all those months?” I asked.

Julie shook her head. “No way. He’s a lot of things, but he’s no cultist.”

But it was obvious. Grant was our prime suspect. “Think about it. He’s perfect. The timing just fits. Why else would he come back when he did?”

“A fat paycheck, for one thing,” Holly suggested. “Man, I wish I had been along for that stupid oni instead of a lame troll.”

“It’ll be a cold day in hell before Grant Jefferson has to worry about money. His folks own, like, Delaware or something,” Milo pointed out.

“You sure you’re not letting your personal feelings get in the way of being objective?” Trip asked. “He did save you from the monster that was trying to kidnap you, which would make him a pretty lousy double agent.”

“Or a really good one!” I insisted.

“You just hate his guts. It can’t be Grant,” Julie responded.

“And why are you defending him?” I shot back, and then immediately regretted saying it. Julie glared at me.

“Well, it’s somebody,” Earl stated. “And until we find them, we’re not safe. Eventually this shadow freak is gonna lose his patience and just have the spy shoot Owen in the back.”

“And if I leave, then he’ll find me with magic and throw an army of undead at me. Great. At least here I’m safe from the dead.”

“On the bright side, if it’s a Newbie, then we’ll farm them out to somebody else in the next couple of days,” Holly offered helpfully.

“Unless I pick the spy for one of our vacancies. I’m a team lead too, and I’m still short since I sent Sam off to form Team Haven out in Colorado,” Earl muttered.

“I do miss the big lug,” Holly admitted.

“And then what about the next class, and the one after that? No, we can’t risk filling MHI with a bunch of nut jobs. Not with the kinds of things that we’re running up against all the time. Our people have access to every evil widget that comes down the pike. We have to end this now.”

As if on cue, a small figure popped into existence, standing in the middle of the conference room table. The gnome tilted his pointy red hat at Earl. “’Sup, dawg. G-Nome, reportin’ for duty.”

Julie, startled, went for her gun, but I grabbed her arm. “He’s cool,” I said.

“Damn right, I’m cool. Cool as ice,” he said. His face was badly bruised, and he was wearing a few Band-Aids. I had at least given as good as I had gotten. The gnome turned his attention to Holly, leering down her tank top. “Hey, baby. Lookin’ fine. I do like them blonde human chicks.”

“Who the hell are you,” she demanded, before adding, “Shorty?”

“Hey now, baby. It’s all good. I’m G-Nome, out of B’ham.”

Holly was just confused now. “Genome?”

“No . . . G hyphen Nome, straight-up gnome killa from the North Side.” He flashed a gang sign, then folded his arms. “Yeah, that’s right. I’m Tony Montana, baby.”

Julie pulled off her glasses, cleaned the lenses on her shirt, and then put them back on. Nope. He was still there. She glanced at me, and I gave her the I’ll explain later look.

“You were only supposed to appear to me or Owen, remember?”

G-Nome shrugged. “Y’all didn’t seem to mind sharin’ no secrets with these.”

“You find anything yet?” Earl demanded.

“I’m just gettin’ the lay of the land, know what I’m sayin’? Seein’ the sights. Speakin’ of . . .” He looked back at Holly and raised his eyebrows up and down quickly. “You know, they say once you go gnome, you’ll never go home.”

“Ewww,” she responded, too grossed out to come up with one of her usual rebuttals.

“Back off, stubby,” Trip said.

“Oh, you want to go, homie? Thinkin’ you all bad?” G-Nome said, puffing his chest out.

“Don’t go there, Trip,” I warned. “Trust me on this one, man.”

“Get back to work. Report in when you’ve got something,” Earl ordered.

“Peace.” And he was just gone. It was really unnerving.

“So, that’s the secret weapon you were telling me about? One of the guys from the Rice Krispies, only psychotic,” Julie muttered. “What’s this place coming to?”

Milo harrumphed. “And you made fun of me for bringing home a troll,” he said with a great deal of indignation.

Earl tried to placate his people. “He’ll find the spy. Gnomes are sneaky. In the meantime, I’m going to bump up our security here. That attack on the concert was too brazen, too crazy. Monsters don’t normally operate in the open like that. It brings down too much heat, but those just didn’t seem to care.”

“Undead and transdimensionals can’t enter the compound because of the warding, but he may try to attack us with his human followers or other types of monsters,” Julie said. “Obviously it doesn’t work on lycanthropes . . .” She waved at Earl. “It probably won’t stop anything that was born on Earth.”

“So something direct from the Old Ones couldn’t come here either?” I asked, thinking of the swarm of Christmas Party monsters we’d fought in Natchy Bottom.

“As far as I understand how the ward works, it’s basically a focus point for our reality. Like a magnifying glass under the sun. Undead are an unnatural thing in this world, so it just blasts them. Things from outside this reality can’t take the heat,” she explained. “It’s part magic, part physics, and way over my head.”

“Groovy,” Trip said. He loved the magic stuff. It came from being a fantasy geek.

“We’ve got the security room in the basement. The whole perimeter is wired with cameras and motion detectors, but we hardly ever man it,” Julie suggested. “That should give us plenty of early warning.”

Earl nodded. “I want somebody in there, around the clock.”

“I’ll make up a schedule,” she answered. “I’ll have to cycle through the Newbies too, which means some of them will have to get limited basement access.”

“Just keep them away from my personal space. Well, that’s it for now then. Let’s get some rest. I know none of us did last night.” My boss yawned as he said it. Hunters tended to work really weird hours, but even we had our limits.

I raised my hand. “We’re not done yet, Mr. Wolf.”

He groaned. “I didn’t get to pick the name. I thought it was goofy as hell. Hey, let’s name the lycanthrope Mr. Wolf, because nobody will ever see through that. The government spooks love naming supernatural assets like that. I knew this one poor weredolphin in the Pacific that got coerced into working for the OSS doing naval recon back in ’44. They designated the poor girl Ms. Fish.”

“Dolphins are mammals,” Milo pointed out helpfully.

“Exactly. And yes, Z, I have met your dad. I didn’t ever know his real name either, so I never knew you were related, though I can see the resemblance now.”

“You actually worked for the CIA?” It sounded surreal in a black-helicopter, conspiracy-theory kind of way.

“I’m the only non-PUFF-applicable werewolf in the world. They didn’t grant that status for kicks. I’ve been called up to serve my country twice, three times if you count back to when I was just a poor human kid. People like me got to earn PUFF exemption, and sometimes earning it means working the occasional odd job for the Man, like you have to go somewhere nobody else can and eat a specific bad guy’s face. Got it?”

“You were an assassin?” Trip asked in disbelief.

“It’s hard to run a guerilla war when there’s a werewolf sharing your jungle,” Earl sighed. “I did what I had to do. Y’all would’ve done the same. I’m just not proud when I have to let the beast run free. Maybe that’s why I’ve been such an effective Hunter. I understand both sides, real good.”

That gave me pause. The Englishman had said Harbinger was a liar and a murderer. That put the murder part into new perspective. I let it go though. I was too tired to exercise any critical thinking skills right about now. “Sorry, Earl. None of my business.”

Chapter 11

Grant had to be the spy.

Maybe I was biased. We had butted heads ever since I had been recruited. I had never liked him and the feeling had been mutual. The fact that I’d had a crush on his girlfriend hadn’t helped things, and then when he’d screwed up on the Antoine-Henri, it had pretty well sealed the deal. I had learned later that he had regretted his call to abandon me so much that it had made him doubt his abilities as a Hunter. That, coupled with the brutality of his time being a captive of the Seven, had led to him leaving.

Just because I was biased didn’t make me wrong.

Grant Jefferson was staying in the barracks temporarily. He would be assigned to another team within a few days. I’d told the others that I was going to bed, but had immediately gone for a stroll. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to go talk to him first. I mentally justified the lie, as Earl Harbinger had put me in charge of rooting out the mole, after all.

I was just going to talk to him and see if his story made sense, nothing more than that. If he slipped up and said something suspicious, I would just take it back to Earl. The fact that I had stopped long enough to sling Abomination over my shoulder was just a coincidence. It wasn’t like everybody around here wasn’t always armed to the teeth anyway. This was just a friendly little social call.

As usual, Franks had tailed me. I still didn’t know how the hell he was alive, but I didn’t really have the energy to dwell on it. This conversation was none of his business.

The main room of the barracks was filled with Newbies taking a break. The recreation room was actually a rather nice facility, complete with a pool table, big screen TVs, and lots of video games. We were a paramilitary organization, but we certainly weren’t into that whole Spartan thing. Dawn, the Newbie who had spoken with me yesterday, was playing a game of pool. She perked right up when she saw me. That girl’s default setting was flirt. She batted her eyes. “Hey, Z. Care to join me?”

Oh, so it was “Z” now? “Naw, I’m on business. Have you seen Grant?”

Her expression changed when she saw the hulking form of Franks fill the doorway behind me. For a second, she actually looked frightened. Maybe Franks had paid her a visit after her first monster encounter too. “No, haven’t seen him,” she answered quickly. “I’ve got to go.” She tossed the pool cue on the table and walked away.

Some Newbies playing a game of Guitar Hero pointed me toward the correct room. Too bad I was a man on a mission, because I was the reigning company champ on that game. And to think that everybody thought my brother had inherited all the musical talent. The Newbies got really quiet when they saw that I had Agent Franks with me. I couldn’t say that I blamed them. He just had a kind of dampening effect on people.

“Yo, Franks,” I said. “You mind hanging out here for a minute?” He just stared at me blankly. “Private matter.” He didn’t even bother to respond. I leaned in closer so that the Newbies wouldn’t hear. “I need to talk to somebody, alone.”

Franks looked at me like I was an imbecile. I couldn’t tell him that I thought Grant was the spy, since there was no way in the world he was going to leave me alone with somebody who might be a member of the cult he was supposed to be protecting me from. Franks glanced around the room, studying the inhabitants. He seemed awkward in a place dedicated to recreation.

“I’ve got to talk to Grant Jefferson. He . . . saved my life last night. I need to thank him. And I need to apologize for being a jerk to him.” Franks raised an eyebrow. The concept of saying “thank you” or “I’m sorry” probably did not compute, but for whatever reason, he nodded. “One minute.” Leaving Franks to watch the Newbies try to beat Arterial Black on “Hard,” I went down the hallway and knocked on Grant’s door.

“Yes,” came the voice on the other side. “Who is it?”

“It’s Owen Pitt.”

There was a long pause and the noise of a drawer closing. Finally the door opened. Grant’s black armor was hanging in the closet behind him, and he was wearing normal clothing for once. “Is there a mission?” he asked hopefully. I shook my head in the negative. “Does Harbinger need me?”

“Naw, man, I . . . uh . . . I just wanted to . . . talk.”

That confounded him. “Talk?”

“Yeah, about . . . stuff. Can I come in?”

“I guess.” Grant stepped out of my way. Harbinger had at least given him one of the private rooms so that he wouldn’t have to share with a Newbie. There was a desk and I pulled out the chair and sat, casually letting my shotgun dangle at my side. Grant, puzzled at what I was doing here, closed the door and sat on the bed. “What can I do for you?”

I hadn’t really thought through my plan. Planning’s not the kind of thing you do when you’re exhausted and just got beat up by gnomes. Might as well try to be nice, lower his defenses. If that didn’t work, I would probably just start punching him in the face until he talked. “I just wanted to say thank you for saving my brother’s life. That was a good shot.”

“Yes, it was,” Grant replied. “And?”

And? “Well, I just wanted to tell you I appreciate it.” I paused. “And I wanted to welcome you back,” I lied. “We never really got along before. I wanted to get us off on the right foot this time.”

Grant was smart enough not to buy that. “That’s nice. I’m glad to be back.”

“Yeah, about that . . . why?”

“Why?”

He knew damn good and well what I was asking about. “Why’d you come back? I heard you’d moved out to Hollywood, and were living large, hanging out with movie stars and all that. Hell, I’ve been told that you’re already worth a fortune. Your family are like billionaires. Why give up the sunshine and the babes and come back to this?” I gestured around the rather plain little room. He didn’t respond, so I continued. “Slogging through the blood and the guts, risking life and limb. Most of us are doing this to make the kind of money that you’ve always had. Why risk that?”

“True, I’ve been financially blessed, just a happy circumstance.” He regarded me suspiciously. “But Hunting was never about money.”

“Why then? Why’d you come back?”

There was quite a bit of hesitation. Got you, sucker, you were coerced into it by a giant squid cult. Admit it. Finally, Grant cleared his throat. “It isn’t any of your business.”

“I think it is,” I answered, then corrected myself. “Not just for me, but for everybody in the company. You’re going to get asked eventually, so what are you going to tell them?”

“I’ll tell them what I just told you. That it is none of their damn business . . . So, is this an official visit or personal? Did Harbinger send you to check on my level of commitment or is this because you don’t like having me around Julie? Are you worried about something?”

What? “That’s just stupid.”

“Is it?”

“Epic stupid. She has nothing to do with this.”

Grant smiled. Holly had told me that he had a disarming smile. I found it rather patronizing. “You know what I did before I was a Hunter?” I shrugged. Julie had said that he’d gone to Harvard. “I was a new attorney at a very prestigious firm. I’d won every single case that I’d had, and some of them were rather impressive. You know why?”

“Because you’re just that good?”

“Yes, that and because I can always tell when someone is lying to me, and you, Pitt, are a terrible liar. You’re worried that your future wife”—he practically spat the word—“still has feelings for me. Before you came along, we were close. We had a real future together. You screwed that up. You feel inadequate, and now you’re scared that I’m back—”

I cut him off. “Don’t flatter yourself, dude.”

“Well, don’t worry about it. I’m done with her. I don’t know if she had an aneurism or what to distort her judgment enough to fall for somebody like you, but it doesn’t matter. Damaged goods now. If you think that I came back to MHI like some lovesick puppy, then you’re a fool.”

This was certainly spiraling in a direction that I had not expected. Might as well run with it. “Why’d you come back then, Grant? What pushed you to swallow your pride? Was it that hard to admit that you were wrong?”

Grant stood. “Wrong?” he shouted. “I was a snack for a nest of vampires. Do you have any idea what that’s like? Quitting wasn’t a mistake. It was what any sane person would do.”

“So you quit because you were scared?”

He went to the door and jerked it open. “Get out.”

I slowly stood. I had two options. Continue to push it, or let it go for now, and I hesitated, undecided. If I was wrong, I couldn’t just start kicking the crap out of another Hunter in the barracks, but if he was the spy, then the longer he was free, the greater the danger to everyone. I split the difference. Stopping in the doorway, just inches away, I asked one final time. “I just wanted to know the real reason why. That’s all. I’ll never bug you again.”

Grant was seriously angry. His face had turned a shade of red I’d not seen before. Something must have snapped. “I came back because I’ve never failed at anything. I don’t know how to fail. Of course I was scared; only idiots like you are immune to fear. But I let the fear win, and I ran away, and I hated myself for it. Every single day, I’d read the papers. I’d recognize the cover stories. The missing persons, the obvious tricks to hide monster attacks, and the anger just filled me.”

“Hunting’s in your blood,” I answered slowly.

“That’s Shackleford myth,” he hissed. “There’s no such thing as a born Hunter. The only thing in my blood now is the curse of the vampire, and when I die I’ve got to get my head sawed off because of it. Nailing supermodels and going to all-night parties is great, but every morning I got to look at a failure in the mirror. I’m here for one reason and one reason only. I’m the best at everything I decide to do, and I can’t quit until I prove I’m the best at this too . . . I can’t quit until I beat this. I will be the most effective Hunter in the world or I’ll die trying. Do you have a problem with that?”

Damn it. He was telling me the truth. I could see it in his eyes. This was a man who was just as driven as I was. No wonder we never got along. “No,” I answered. I walked out the door and he slammed it shut behind me. I gave a long sigh. “Welcome back, Grant,” I muttered to myself.

“Owen, I’m glad to see you,” Mom said as she answered the guest room door. “I’m afraid you woke us up. I know it’s the middle of the afternoon, but we didn’t sleep a wink last night.”

“Sorry, Mom, but I need to talk to Dad. It’s really important.”

“What happened to your face?”

“Sucker-punched by a troll . . . Really, I need to ask him some questions.”

Mom looked me over. I really wasn’t in a state of grooming that was up to her usual standards. I was actually impressed that she didn’t whip out a cloth, spit on it, and start rubbing my face. She had gained some self-control over the years. “Why do you have that big gun on?” She pointed at Abomination.

“Protection,” I shrugged. I had been ready to shoot Grant with it, but that was too long of a story. Now that it looked like he was just another emotionally deranged Hunter, I was back to square one. “I use this for work. You know, my real work.”

“Ooohhh, that must be your Abominator. Julie talked about it.”

“Mom . . .” Leave it to your parents to screw up even the coolest stuff. “It’s Abomination. And quit stalling, I need to see Dad.”

She turned and looked back into the darkened room. I could hear Dad snoring. She moved out into the hallway, barefoot and in a borrowed bathrobe. She closed the door softly behind her. “He needs his rest.”

“But—”

“No, you but. Your father needs his rest. He’s been sick.”

I had no idea what she was talking about. “Sick?”

“Oh, hello, young man. I didn’t see you there.” Mom smiled politely at Agent Franks, who, as usual, was following me around. “I’m Ilyana Pitt. You must be one of Owen’s friends.”

I snorted. Friend . . .

“Ma’am,” Franks nodded.

I cut her off before she could start to harass Franks. I knew even the most stoic man I’d ever met couldn’t withstand her, and within moments she would beat his life story out of him and probably enroll him in her book club or something, but I didn’t have time for that. “I’ve got to talk to him right now.” I put my hand on the door and started to push.

One surprisingly firm hand landed on my chest. “Oh, no you don’t, mister.” Mom shoved me back. She was angry now. “You can talk to him when he’s rested. I’ve been listening to this magic prophecy dream business for the last twenty-five years and I’ve had to put up with all sorts of strangeness and nonsense, and stockpiles of guns cluttering up my basement, and you two fighting and being obnoxious to each other that whole time. The very least you can do is come back later.”

“But, Mom, it’s important!” I’m afraid I whined; parents can do that to you.

“And it’ll still be important in a few hours when we’re not all cranky and stressed. Now go before I get mad.”

I couldn’t believe this. We’re talking about the end of the world, and I was getting kicked out by my mother. This was embarrassing. If I hadn’t been exhausted and injured, I probably would have pushed it, but as it stood, all I wanted to do was flop into bed and not get beaten up by oni, trolls, gnomes, or zombies for a while. “Fine,” I muttered.

She actually patted me on the cheek. “Good. See you later. Love you.” Then she slipped back inside the guest room and closed the door.

I groaned. Franks’ emotionless mask almost appeared to be smirking. “Your mom seems nice,” he said.

I sank onto my bed, frustrated, exhausted, and with no clear idea of what the hell I was going to do about the problems facing us. We had a spy, this shadow cult had shown they were willing to pull out all the stops, my family was now involved, and I was once again experiencing strange, Old One-related abilities. Normally I would have just lain there, too spun up to sleep, but I had gained a roommate.

“Okay, so what was the weird chick in the ninja outfit that put that smelly grease on my cuts?” Mosh asked. He wouldn’t know just how effective that “grease” was until morning. “With the tusks?” He had been asking me monster-related questions for the last hour.

“Orc. They’re distantly related to humans. Most of them never speak. They always wear masks, but even then they’re painfully awkward. Each one has some sort of gift that they’re magically good at. Gretchen is a healer. Skippy is the best pilot in the world.”

Mosh was nodding thoughtfully in the dark. “So that explains the Stig.”

“Who?”

“Never mind . . .” Mosh muttered. “I thought orcs were the bad guys and elves were good.”

“It’s complicated. This particular tribe is good.”

“Are there elves then?”

“Yes, the local ones live in a magic trailer park. Go to sleep, Mosh.”

I had killed the lights, but I could sense the shifting on the cot on the other side of the room. It was quiet for a long time.

“So, the reason Dad’s always been a jackass is because of a dream? And because he’s been afraid?”

I sighed. I still hadn’t really absorbed that yet. All these years I’d just assumed my father was a paranoid jerk by default, and now it turns out that he had reasons. “I suppose so, but I don’t know yet.”

“I can’t believe he told you that. . . . Dad only ever told me stories about murdering communists. It’s not like he ever talked about his feelings. Hell, I didn’t know he even had feelings. . . . So it turns out that Dad was right the whole time?”

“Huh?”

“You don’t get it, do you? Ever since we were little, he’s put us through Pitt boot camp and treated us like crap, and we hated him for it because we thought he was crazy . . . But now you’re some sort of top secret badass fighting evil death cults, and you’re using the exact kind of skills that Dad tried to beat into us. Hell, if it wasn’t for Dad being such a dick, we’d probably be dead. So I guess that means that he was right all along. . . . That’s some mind-blowing shit right there. I’m going to have to tell my therapist about this one.”

Crap. Mosh was right. Talk about a paradigm shift. It can be really difficult to admit that you’ve had such a fundamental misunderstanding about someone. “Well, he’s still been a jerk about it,” I muttered.

“A prophetic jerk, though . . . Man, I can’t believe Dad actually told you any of that.”

I rolled over and stared at the ceiling. “He didn’t tell me. I read his mind.”

Mosh grunted. “You read minds?”

“It’s a long story.”

It was quiet for almost ten seconds that time. “Okay, what am I thinking right now?” my brother asked.

He was probably thinking that I had ruined his life. I still don’t think he grasped the full implications of what was going on here yet. “You’re thinking about how you’re finally going to get that operation you’ve always wanted, and how you’ll be a lot more comfortable as a girl, and not having to live a terrible lie, and how you can’t wait to get a pretty blue sundress to go along with your new spring wardrobe. Now go the hell to sleep already.”

“Blue isn’t my color . . .  Night, bro.”

My brain finally gave up. I finally started to drift off. Tomorrow we would figure out something. There had to be a way to defeat the Condition.

“So . . . are dragons real?”

We need to talk.

The whisper startled me awake. I blinked the heavy sleep from my eyes. My alarm clock display read 3:00 a.m. on the dot. For a long moment I lay there, trying to decide if I had been dreaming or if somebody had actually spoken. There was an unfamiliar shape on the cot on the other side of my room, and it took me a moment to remember that my brother was crashing here too.

My whole body ached despite Gretchen’s efforts. I had been physically abused over the last few days and I was feeling it right now. Every muscle protested as I sat up. Stupid monsters. There was nobody else in my room, so I must have been dreaming. I needed to get up and use the bathroom anyway.

I walked barefoot into the hall and headed for the bathroom. It was quiet. The other doors were closed. I took care of business and headed back to bed.

We need to talk.

I froze, positive that I had heard that. Scanning both ways, I couldn’t see anyone. I was alone in the hallway. It had been a woman’s voice, I was sure.

Meet me at the front gate. Neutral ground.

What the hell? I was definitely hearing a voice, but I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. This was weird, and weird was usually bad. I flipped on my light, causing Mosh to snort, grunt, and roll over, pulling his blanket back over his shaved head. I picked up Abomination off my dresser and waited. I was wide awake now.

It’s telepathy, stupid. I’m trying to send you a discreet message.

“Susan . . .” I said slowly, tightening my grip on my weapon.

Yeah. Now pay attention. Broadcasting is hard work. Meet me at the front gate. Come alone. We need to talk. If I wanted to kill you, there are lots of easier ways to do it.

“Bullshit,” I stated. I didn’t know vampires could do this kind of thing, but I guess it went back to the whole foggy night, hypnotize the victim, and have them walk outside kind of bad Dracula movie thing. This certainly wasn’t nearly as smooth as the movies made it look.

You have my word. I need to talk with you, not murder you. It’s about our mutual enemy. Time’s getting short.

“You can say what you’ve got to say just fine like this.”

“Dude, shut up and kill the light.” Mosh muttered. “You’re having a bad dream.”

I’m trying to help you, moron.

I laughed. “Maybe I don’t want your help?”

Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be. Fine, be stubborn. Don’t come alone then. Let me wake up somebody with half a brain and see what they say . . .

Then the voice was gone. I sat there, my shotgun cradled in my lap, waiting, but nothing else came. “Damn it,” I muttered, realizing that if Susan really was at the front gate, then I needed to sound the alarm.

Mosh sat up, finally awake, and obviously frustrated. “Man, you’re pissing me off. You’ve always talked in your sleep and—” He stopped when he saw I had Abomination ready. “Whoa . . .”

“Naw, it’s cool. Stay here.” I stood up and stuffed my big feet into my sandals.

“What now?” he asked, rubbing his eyes, suddenly worried.

“Nothing. Go back to sleep,” I ordered as I opened my door.

“Oh, yeah, because that’ll be easy,” my brother responded.

Further down the hall, another door creaked open and Earl stepped out, tugging his leather jacket on over a shirt, Thompson subgun dangling in one hand. He saw me.

“Susan?” I asked.

“Yep,” he responded.

“Plan?” I closed my door behind me.

“See what she’s got to say, I reckon.”

“And what if it’s a trap?”

His eyes seemed unnaturally golden in the dim light. “Then I tear her apart.”

Earl Harbinger and I moved hastily to the back stairs. We were assuming that Franks was camped out at his usual position and wanted to avoid him. My boss stopped me with a raised hand while he listened down the stairwell. “All clear,” he said before padding down. I hadn’t realized that Earl was barefoot.

Rather than stopping on the main floor, we continued to the basement. I had no idea where he was leading me. Earl walked quickly through the lower floor, past various storage rooms and the entrance to the archives before turning a corner and heading back into the deepest area of the basement, where I had never really explored. The building really was vast, and I just never really had the time to screw around in the dusty, unused sections. I knew that down here somewhere was Earl’s cell for full moons. He finally paused before a closet door.

“What’re you doing?” I whispered.

He didn’t respond, just unlocked the door with one key from a fat key chain and went straight to the back of the room. He walked to a shelf of cleaning chemicals and shoved it aside. It was on casters and rolled smoothly out of the way to reveal a heavy iron door. He unlocked a padlock, then had to tug the door a few times to get it to open. It creaked on rusty hinges.

Stone stairs led into the darkness.

“You’ve got to be kidding me . . .”

“This whole place is riddled with secret passages,” he responded. “Every major building in the compound is connected. This will take us right up to the gate. Come on.” He started down the stairs.

“Why don’t we just walk out the front door and across the parking lot?” I asked, as I examined the cobwebbed rock walls. “That’d be a lot faster.” And less creepy, but I left that unsaid, because I didn’t want to sound like a wimp. I really didn’t like being underground.

“If we do have a spy, I don’t want them seeing us meeting with a vampire,” he said simply. He had a point. The less the Condition knew, the better off we were.

The tunnel was pitch black. I turned on Abomination’s attached Surefire flashlight and the brilliant beam flooded ahead of us. Dust swirled through the light as we disturbed the ground underfoot. The tunnel was at least seven feet tall and four feet wide. “I didn’t know about any secret passages.”

“There’s lots of stuff you don’t know yet,” my boss replied. “No offense, but you’re still new at this.”

“Relatively speaking,” I responded as we walked. “What’s to keep undead from using these to sneak in here?”

He shook his head. “The warding extends underground and into the air above us. It’s kind of like a bubble in all directions. That’s why I’ve got it hidden dead center in the middle of the compound for maximum coverage.”

“Why don’t we just take it with us whenever we go on a case? We could be blowing up undead left and right. That’d be sweet.”

“Like I said, you’ve got a lot to learn. Wards aren’t mobile. You can take them someplace and turn them on, but you can only do that so many times before they’re worn out, which would be a waste. You’ve got to tune them for a location, but lots of important places get warded: the White House, the Vatican, NORAD, that kind of thing. But they’re rare and expensive. The science of making them has been lost for hundreds of years. There’s probably only a dozen ward stones in private hands in the world. I picked ours up off a guy that didn’t need his anymore.”

We turned a corner. There was an intersection that branched off in different directions. There were a surprising number of tunnels. I was totally disoriented but could tell we were trending upward. “Where’d you get ours from?”

“I looted it from Adolf Hitler’s bunker. . . . Ah, here we go.” He gestured at a rusty metal ladder sunk into the wall with heavy bolts. He immediately started up, not leaving me a chance to ask if he was pulling my leg or not. “Kill the light.”

I shut down my Surefire, dropping us back into darkness. I was blind. There was a scraping noise from above as Earl moved some sort of cover out of the way. A small bit of light cascaded down the hole. It was blocked momentarily as Earl climbed through the gap. I followed.

It felt good to be in the open air. Crickets were chirping everywhere. It took my eyes a minute to adjust. We were just inside the chain-link fence, twenty feet from the front gate and main road. Earl was squatting to the side. He touched my arm and signaled for me to stay low. We were surrounded by kudzu. I sat in the slightly damp vines and waited. The nearest light came from the fat bulbs over the gate, hazy behind visible humidity. Swarms of miscellaneous insects buzzed around the lights, casting hundreds of tiny dot shadows.

“Where is she?” I whispered.

“Shhhh,” Earl hissed.

Then the crickets stopped chirping. I realized the temperature was dropping. Suddenly it was abnormally cold and prickles of discomfort moved across my sweat-damp body. A feeling of dread and discomfort settled into my bowels. She was here. “About time.” Susan’s voice came from somewhere inside the shadowed forest. I scanned the trees but couldn’t make out anything. “It’s good to see you again, Earl.”

“Hey, Granddad,” Ray said. “Been a long time.” I couldn’t spot him either but I kept scanning.

“Make it quick,” Earl responded, his voice sounding strangled. This was very hard for him.

“You don’t have to be such a prick,” Susan responded. “I’m trying to do you a favor. We were family once.”

Earl stiffened. “No. A human being named Susan Miner married my grandson, Ray. They were good people. I loved them. But they’re dead and gone. You’re just an empty shell with no soul and all their memories. So cut the bullshit, and say what you’ve got to say, you worthless monsters.”

Red eyes winked into existence through the fence. They were coming right at us. “You don’t want to hear what I’ve got to say, old man,” Ray was mad. “You left me to rot in Appleton for something that wasn’t even my fault. You’ve got more blood on your hands than a legion of vampires. Which one of us is the real monster?”

Harbinger stood. “Well, why don’t you just come across this fence and show me what’s up then, boy?”

“I would,” Ray spat. The red eyes stopped, hovering a stone’s throw away. “But I don’t feel like dying once and for all. Remember, I know all about your magic rock. Why don’t you come over here and we’ll finish up some family business.”

“Knock it off,” Susan ordered. She sounded just like Julie when she said that. “We’re not here to fight. I offered a truce, and I’m standing by it.”

“You’ve got your truce for now, but mark my words: I’m going to end your miserable non-lives eventually,” Earl vowed. “You threatened my family, so you have to die.”

Susan was livid. “I promised I would leave Julie alone.”

“We’ll see . . .”

“What do you want?” I asked, speaking up for the first time.

A second pair of eyes approached, swaying through the trees. She stepped from the shadows, an eerie mirror image of Julie, wearing the same dress that she had in Mexico. Her white teeth cut a razor line through the darkness. She was hauntingly beautiful as the humidity turned into swirling fog around her legs. “I want this necromancer gone. He knows I’ve helped you, and now he’s trying to destroy me.”

“Help?” I spat. “You can’t call anything tainted from the Old Ones help.”

“What’s it done to you?” Ray asked eagerly. “What did it unlock?”

“Don’t answer him,” Earl ordered. “Ray talks a big game but he sucks at black magic. Damn near tore an interdimensional hole out Alabama’s backside. Caused the death of his own son. He always let his pride blind him to danger.”

“I told you that wasn’t my fault!” Ray shouted. “I did the best I could.”

“And little Ray got his guts torn out for it, as well as over a hundred and twenty other innocent people, including ninety-seven of my Hunters. Appleton was too good for you. I should have left you in that rift with those Old Ones you love so much.”

“I was lied to,” Ray insisted. “The spell should have worked.”

“You can’t blame anyone for that but yourself. Nobody lied to you. You dabbled in things no man should, and we all paid for it. If I had known what you were doing, I would have taken you out myself, blood or not. The only person lying here is you. You even set the archives on fire to keep us from finding a way to close your precious gate. You knew exactly what you were doing.”

Ray laughed. It was an angry, bitter sound. “I didn’t torch the archives, you old fool. I was at Gulf Shores getting ready for the party when that bomb was set. I got suckered, just like you, just like everybody else.”

Earl hesitated. I could tell he was angry, itching to fight, but that had thrown him for a loop. I realized with a shock that this was the first time the two had actually spoken since the Christmas party that had almost ended everything. “We always thought you were working on your own.”

“I promised Owen I’d tell him as soon as I knew for sure. The same man, or used-to-be man, that we’re fighting now arranged it all . . .” Susan said. “My poor, distraught husband did what he did out of love. He just wanted to bring me back. If only he had known I was a vampire, and being kept as a slave, unable to contact him— No, Earl, save that anger. Ray was used. This damn necromancer preyed on his weakness, his mourning for me, and twisted it to his advantage, used him in an attempt to establish a bridge to the other side. That’s your real enemy, and he’s been your real enemy all along. He hates MHI for what it stands for, and he hates you personally, as he has for years.”

“No,” Earl stated. “Enough of your lies. Don’t make excuses for Ray’s bad decisions.”

“What? You can’t handle the truth? You don’t want to hear that you punished your grieving grandson, when he was only trying to do the right thing? You don’t want to hear that you’ve been wrong all this time? Well, too damn bad,” Susan said. “You screwed up. The real bad guy was under the nose of the mighty Earl Harbinger for years.”

“Who then?” he demanded.

“The man who arranged for me to be enslaved in ’90. My death was part of his plan. Oh yeah, he was thinking that far ahead. He needed Ray broken and searching for something. The man who orchestrated the destruction of your company and the deaths of all your Hunters in ’95, and when you stopped him there, the government completed his job and shut you down anyway. But it goes back even further, and you were too stupid and guilt-ridden to see it. You lost an entire team of Hunters to him before that, simply because one of them knew too much.”

“Give . . . me . . . a . . . name. . . .” Earl said through clenched teeth. His eyes were bright gold now, and he was barely containing his rage. I honestly thought he was going to hop that fence and go toe to toe with both of the vampires.

“What’s the matter?” Susan chuckled. “Losing your cool?”

The forest suddenly ignited with light. A red parachute flare was drifting through the sky. The vampires were both clearly visible now. The alarm began to sound, an old-school air raid horn blaring one harsh note across the entire compound.

“It’s a trap!” Ray shouted as he moved back into the darkness.

“Damn you,” Susan said as she melted away. “I was trying to help.”

“No! Give me a name!”

But the vampires were gone.

“What did you do?” I shouted.

“Nothing,” he replied. “Somebody must have picked us up on camera. I’ve got to go after them.”

“You’ll never catch them. They’re way too fast.”

“Watch me.” He dropped his Tommy gun on the ground and shrugged out of his jacket. “A human couldn’t track them, but I can.”

“You’re going to change?” And not on the full moon? That was insanity. He never did that. It was utter and reckless stupidity.

But Earl was desperate. “I’ve got to catch them. They’re too damn evil to live.” One impossibly strong hand grabbed me by the shoulder. The hair on his arms was now carpet thick and his fingernails were abnormally long. “Don’t let anybody follow. Get them inside the main building. It’s too dangerous out here.”

“We can take Susan.”

“No.” He smiled beneath glowing eyes. All of his teeth were razor sharp and pointy now and his words were slurred and hard to understand. “Because of me.” He took three steps, leapt effortlessly over the eight-foot fence and disappeared into the forest.

“I want everybody evacuated from the barracks and into the main building, now!” I shouted at the approaching Hunters. Esmeralda’s man Cooper was in the lead. He had his FAL shouldered, was fully geared up, and was sweeping his rifle from side to side. Behind him were a couple of real Newbies, one of the Haight brothers from Utah, Dawn the beauty queen, and one make-believe Newbie, Herzog, still trying to be incognito.

“What’s going on?” Cooper asked.

“Doesn’t matter. I want everybody inside. Button the place up. This isn’t a drill.” I must have looked kind of weird, since I was just wearing shorts, a tee-shirt, and sandals, but carrying Abomination in one hand and a Thompson in the other. I had tossed Earl’s leather jacket over one shoulder, figuring that if he didn’t end up committing any atrocities out there tonight while he was shape-shifted and insane, he’d probably want his stuff back in good shape.

All of us started back across the parking lot to the main entrance. Cooper was excited. “Yesterday Julie started having us take turns, working in pairs, monitoring the security system. She told us to be ready for anything. We caught a couple of figures on thermal and went to check it out. We were just getting off shift and these guys were coming on. When we saw the undead we sounded the alarm.”

“How’d you know they were vampires?”

“I had two on thermal, but four on night vision,” Cooper explained. “No body heat. Dude, that was like an ‘oh shit’ moment.”

I bit my tongue. He had done exactly what he was supposed to have done. The timing had sucked, but it was what it was. “You did good. Head that way and clear out the barracks. And no word about vampires to anyone, got it?”

“Sure thing.” Cooper ran off with the two Newbies in tow. Dawn hesitated, like she wanted to talk to me, but I had to hand it to her, she followed orders. Herzog, on the other hand, didn’t give a damn about my MHI seniority and stayed with me.

“You better go keep up appearances.”

“Shut up, punk,” the undercover MCB agent snapped. “What were you doing outside without coverage?”

“Taking a stroll,” I replied. “I do love spring nights.” In the distance there was a terrible noise. A wolf’s howl, but it was unbelievably loud and the pitch sounded too human. I had to remember that Earl wasn’t just a werewolf. He was the friggin’ king of werewolves, the ultimate alpha male.

Herzog almost leapt out of her boots. “What the hell was that?”

I was terrified of werewolves myself because of personal experience, but I didn’t let it show. “That there is why I want everyone inside. For an agent, you sure are jumpy.”

The noise startled the stocky woman from her usual hard-core façade. “Screw that. I’m no field agent! I’m not used to this crap. Let’s go.” She took off, moving with the speed of somebody who figured they were about to be monster chow, stubby legs pumping.

Not a field agent? I frowned. That didn’t make any sense. She’d been assigned to protect me. Myers had said they were some of his best men . . . handpicked. We were about a hundred feet from the front door and Hunters were piling out, throwing on weapons and gear in response to the alarm. I caught the short woman in a couple of steps, let Abomination hang by the sling, grabbed Herzog around her bicep, and spun her back to face me.

“Hey!” she shouted.

“Not a field agent? What are you?” I demanded.

She began to stammer something. I squeezed harder. “I’m a clerk!” she squealed. “Admin clerk. But . . . but I’m a fully sworn agent. I’ve been through MCB school. Let go.”

“A clerk?” I released her arm.

Her face fell. “I was at the IRS and I came across some top-secret returns about PUFF. I did some poking around and that’s how I found out about monsters. I’ve never actually seen one. Even the MCB needs somebody to shuffle paper, so they offered me a job and sent me through the academy.” Harbinger howled again. He was fully transformed now and he sounded relatively close. “Please, let’s get inside!”

“Why are you on a protective detail?” This didn’t make any sense at all.

“I don’t know. Agent Myers assigned me to Agent Franks’ command for this mission.” Her beady eyes darted around nervously. She was really freaked out.

“What about Torres and Archer?”

“Oh no, Anthony’s a full-on pro. He’s been on all sorts of missions. But Henry’s more like me. He’s a crypto-commo geek. That’s what he did in the Army. But he’s cool and he’s actually been on a few missions with real monsters, but I don’t know if he’s actually ever killed any. Please, let’s get out of here, before whatever that is comes and gets us.”

She sure had been a lot tougher when she had been threatening me with a gun. “Go.” I nodded toward the door. Something was fishy. Franks was a one-man wrecking crew, but the Goon Squad weren’t the hardened killers that I had been led to believe they were. Torres had been by far the nicest of the bunch but he was the only one who had actually seen the elephant.

I would have to think about it later. A bunch of Hunters were fanned out, covering the entrance, weapons pointing outward in a rough semicircle of potential destruction. I had to remember that only the old-timers and the ones wearing Happy Face team patches knew about Earl’s little secret. The alarm died off and two giant spotlights ignited on the roof, sweeping randomly across the perimeter.

It was a relief to see Julie come trotting out, brutal M14 in her lovely hands. “What’s going on? Are you okay?” Herzog’s stocky form pushed past Julie and retreated inside the relative safety of the fortress.

“I’m fine. Your parents are here.”

“Damn them!” she shouted. Several other hunters jumped at that.

“And . . .” I raised Earl’s empty jacket. She knew right away what had happened.

“Everybody inside now!” Julie ordered. “Move! Move! Where’s Dorcas?”

Our receptionist was leaning in the doorway in a flowery old-lady nightgown. Her hair was up in curlers. The reason she was leaning was because she hadn’t had a chance to attach her artificial leg yet. It was tucked under one arm. A massive stainless-steel revolver hung loose in her hand. “Yep?”

“Once everybody’s in, I want a full head count. We’ve got a Code Silver.” She gestured at Earl’s leather jacket.

“Aw shit. Not this again,” Dorcas muttered. “Let’s go, kiddies.” She pushed off from the doorframe and hopped out of sight.

I stayed with Julie at the entrance until the last of the Newbies was roused from the barracks and herded inside. She glanced around, careful to make sure that there was nobody close enough to overhear us. “Why’d he do it? The full moon was a week ago. He didn’t have to change.”

“He did it on purpose. He was going after your folks,” I whispered. “I think he was dead set on not letting them get away.”

“That was stupid.” Julie shook her head. She hadn’t had a chance to tie her hair back, and it was so dark and shiny that it reflected the spotlights. “Well, at least he should have some judgment right now. The closer to the full moon, the more out of control it is. He shouldn’t wander into town and eat anyone. Sometimes I’m really glad we’re in the middle of nowhere.”

“What about Skippy’s village?”

“They know to get inside when they hear the alarm. Skip knows what to do and they’ve all got silver bullets. Earl goes in there and they’ll shoot him. Nothing personal, that’s just how it is, and Earl would understand. Their wargs will give them plenty of early warning. Let’s get inside.”

The two of us were the last ones in. We pulled the massive doors closed behind us and threw down the bar. There were a bunch of really confused, half-asleep, heavily-armed, almost-graduated Newbies wandering around the reception area. The Hunters experienced enough to know about Code Silver were busy getting everybody calmed down and oriented. Julie rested her head on my shoulder briefly so she could whisper, affording us a tiny bit of affection amid the chaos. “I hope he catches them . . .”

Wrapping my arms around her, I squeezed her tight. It would be really nice to have the curse of Susan and Ray removed once and for all. “Me too.” Damn it, we had almost had a name. I had been right. The shadow man was somebody from MHI’s past. If we knew who he was, we could find and destroy him, but that was assuming Susan was even telling the truth to begin with.

I let go of Julie so she could get back to damage control. Monster Hunters by their nature are not an easily riled bunch, but they were also intensely curious, and with Earl out running naked and hairy through the woods chasing vampires, that left Julie as the de facto head of operations. She needed to get everyone taken care of.

Dorcas had finished taking a quick roll and reported in. “Your grandfather’s upstairs, has his hearing aids out, so slept through the alarm. Milo’s in Cazador at his house. Everyone else who should be here is accounted for.” She added the next bit with extra volume for anyone listening. “Oh, and Earl Harbinger is in Montgomery on business.”

I noticed my folks standing near the wall of memorial plaques; they’d apparently been woken up by the alarm. Mosh was coming down the stairs. So I had some explaining to do myself. I started toward my parents and was almost there when a whisper filtered through my mind.

This message from Susan was weaker than the others. She was either further away, or hopefully busy getting her arms pulled off by an angry werewolf. It was a single word.

 . . . Hood. . . .

That sounded familiar. I paused, turning slowly. The wall of plaques stretched before me under the Latin Sic Transit Gloria Mundi. My hand automatically flew to the silver surfaces, passing quickly through them, each cool to the touch. I found the one I was looking for within seconds.

A. MARTIN HOOD

1/14/1960-10/17/1986

Chapter 12

3:45 a.m. Back in the conference room, with the only people who I knew I could trust: Julie, Trip, Holly, and the absent Milo on the speaker phone.

“Do you remember this guy, Hood?” I asked. “Supposedly he died in ’86.”

Julie shook her head. “Kind of, but I was too young. I know I met him, but I couldn’t tell you anything about him. Milo?”

“You sound funny on speaker. You aren’t that high-pitched in real life, Julie,” he replied. “He was the one who made the balloon animals at your birthday party a couple of years. He was really good at that.”

“Oh! Dad’s pudgy friend.”

“Yeah, Marty Hood. The fat funny guy. He was on Earl’s team when I first joined up. Couldn’t ask for a nicer Hunter. I was a really young Newbie and he was always helpful. He had a reputation of being smart. One of the nerdy, brainy types, rather than the kick-in-the-door-and-blast-everything kind of Hunter. No offense, Z.” That made me smile. I had a bit of a reputation. “Julie—him, your dad, and Myers were good friends, like brothers. Earl loved him like a son. I didn’t know him that well, but I really liked him. He died not too long after I came aboard.”

That didn’t sound at all like the hyper-intense religious fanatic I had met.

Holly cut in. “Yeah, he was man of the year, but was he British?”

Milo answered immediately. “Yes, he was. I remember that. I thought it was funny, because he was from Birmingham, only the England one, not the Alabama one.”

Holly sat back in her chair, looking smug. “Bingo.”

“Looks like we’ve got our wizard,” Trip replied. “He must have faked his own death.”

The speaker-phone box was a triangular plastic thing and the noise that came through it had to have been Milo Anderson clearing his throat. “Uh . . . that’s not real likely, Trip.”

“So you had a body?” I asked.

“Well . . . we had most of a body. But it was obviously him. And we gave him a Hunter’s Funeral, so there’s no way you can fake that.” Milo had a point. A Hunter’s Funeral featured a decapitation. When you had to deal with the icky, contagious things that refused to die as often as we did, beheading and cremating your dead was a good habit to get into. “I saw the body, so did a bunch of others. No, Marty Hood died, and it was really horrible, and permanent . . . and messy.”

Holly was nonplussed. “Magic.”

Trip shook his head. “Real magic isn’t just where you can wiggle your fingers and say some words and then break all the laws of physics. There’s got to be another explanation.”

“Yes, there is,” Julie added. “My mother’s a liar, and she picked a random dead British Hunter to make us waste our time.” The hate in her voice was obvious. “We can’t trust her.” That explanation was plausible. Susan’s motives were murky at best and only a fool would trust the dead. Julie unconsciously rubbed the mark on her neck, reminding me again of how Susan had said that the mark was eventually going to kill the love of my life. I needed to believe that Susan was a liar.

“So how did he die then?” Trip asked. It took my tired brain a moment to remember that Trip hadn’t been there when Harbinger had admitted to killing Hood by accident, thereby earning Myers’ eternal animosity.

The phone was quiet for a real long time. Finally, and with obvious reluctance, Milo began to speak. “I don’t know if I should be telling you this. It’s probably something that you need to talk to Earl about, not me. I wasn’t there when it went down. I just helped clean up.”

“Earl’s a little busy and can’t come to the phone right now,” Holly said. “You know, blood-lust rampage . . .”

“It was an accident,” I added, prompting Milo to go on. “It was Earl’s fault.” The others looked at each other in confusion.

“You know already?” Milo asked, sounding relieved. “Well, in that case, yeah, it was a terrible accident. I got there too late to help. Dorcas had already been taken to the hospital. Ray had gotten it under control and barricaded the door while he regenerated.”

“Huh?” Julie asked. “While who regenerated?”

“Earl,” Milo responded like this was the most obvious thing in the world. “Dwayne wanted to finish him off, go in there with a 12-gauge and some silver double-aught, but Ray pulled a gun on him. They got into a big fight. Dwayne was really mad.”

Milo’s stories tended to jump around a lot. “Dwayne?” Trip asked.

“Myers . . .” I responded. “Back when he was with MHI. Right?”

“Yeah, he was going nuts. Wanted to go in there and take Earl out, walked right up to the door with a shotgun, only Ray just laid him out cold, then stuck a .45 in his face. Hood’s blood was everywhere. It was really intense.”

“Okay, you need to back up a whole bunch,” Holly suggested. “You lost me a while ago.”

“Just like tonight. It was a Code Silver,” Milo said.

There was a hard knock on the door. It immediately opened and Dorcas, still wearing her flowered nightgown, was standing there, out of breath. She had finally gotten the chance to strap her leg on. The old lady slammed the door behind her, seething, hobbled right up to the table, pulled up a chair next to me and flopped into it with a grunt.

The four of us exchanged glances. Dorcas didn’t speak, she was breathing too hard. I suspected that she had actually run up the stairs. Her face was red beneath her white hair and pink curlers. “What? Who’s that?” Milo asked.

“I caught part of your call when I picked up my phone downstairs,” the crotchety old lady said. “Y’all need to remember to use the secure line if you’re gonna be talking about secret stuff.” She gave us all a withering death glare. “Spies and whatnot all around this place, and you use an unencrypted line?”

“Sorry,” Julie responded, looking embarrassed. In the rush she had just called Milo directly. Even somebody like Julie could slip up when in a hurry at three in the morning. She started fiddling with the phone.

“Milo, you’ve got no business sharing this story. It ain’t your story to share. You weren’t there until the end.”

“No, ma’am,” Milo automatically replied. His response to cranky, scary old ladies was exactly the same as mine. “But they need to know.”

“Damn right, they do,” she answered. “But let somebody who was there tell it. I earned that much.” Dorcas leaned way back in her chair, reached under her nightgown and pulled on a couple of straps. Her plastic leg popped right off. She tossed the prosthetic on the table with a clang. It had a fire-breathing warthog engraved on it and there was a pink slipper on the foot. “I earned it.”

“Yes, ma’am. Yes, you did.”

“That’s right, that’s why I’m gonna tell it.” Dorcas gestured at Holly. “Get me some coffee, girl. Black. Move.” Even Holly knew better than to argue with that. Then Dorcas turned to me. “You, what did I tell you about werewolves when we first met?” She stabbed one bony finger at me like an angry question mark.

“That you used to kill them yourself . . . before one took your leg.”

“That’s right, Z, my boy. Those of us who’ve got torn up by those things understand. Only you got all cured up by those Old Ones and lost your scars. Well, I got to keep mine. I earned my scars.” She reached over and poked me in the forehead, right where my big scar had been.

The conference room disappeared.

What’s that ruckus? It was coming from the old slave quarters. I sat up in bed and listened. Earl was unnaturally agitated. Hell, he sounded right crazy. My watch said it was just shy of two in the morning. I got out of bed. The guestroom of the Shackleford place was real nice, but there was no rug in here, and the wood was October cold under my feet. I winced a little. Wide awake now, I pulled the curtain open and looked outside.

The little building that they kept Earl locked up in during the full moon was right under my window. The old slave quarters they called it. Damned bunch of scratched-up rocks I called it. The moon was bright and there weren’t no clouds in front of it right then, so I could see somebody standing outside the door of that little prison fiddling with the chains. Damn idiot. What was he trying to do? Let loose a werewolf? Best put a stop to this nonsense real fast. My armor was sitting on an old chair by the bed, but I didn’t have time for that. My team patch, Sparky the Warthog, was on the sleeve, but I probably wouldn’t need ol’ Sparky. Probably just some stupid country kid trying to figure out what kind of animal the crazy old Shackleford family kept locked in that little outbuilding. I stopped to get hold of my Ruger Redhawk and my flashlight, because my momma didn’t raise no fools, and nobody ever said that Dorcas Peabody was a fool.

I hurried downstairs. I always was a fast runner. Even though I was starting to feel the age and the pains and whatnot, I could still show up those youngster hotshot Hunters. There were a bunch of us staying at the old Shackleford place tonight, Hunters from all over the damn place. Big case just got wrapped up, and it was nearing Halloween, which was always our busy season, so we’d celebrated, and I had drunk a little too much with dinner. It had been good to see so many old friends. I suppose I had probably drunk less than some of the other Hunters, though, which was probably why I was the first one to get my ass downstairs and out the back porch.

The soles of my feet were hard as leather. Where I grew up in Tuscumbia on the Tennessee River, shoes were for church and that was about it. Even though I could afford real nice shoes now, I still had country feet. I didn’t even notice what was under them as I walked to the old slave quarters. All I was thinking about was somebody messing with Earl’s door and how nobody was fool enough to let loose a werewolf.

A big cloud moved in front of the moon, making it dark. Looks like rain. I turned on the flashlight and pointed it at the slave quarters twenty paces away, lighting up the man by the door. I’ll be damned. It’s a Hunter. It was that dumpy limey kid, the one that Dwayne trained, and from what I’d heard, he was supposed to be smart enough to know better than to screw with Earl in this state. The kid had just got moved to Carlos’ team back east, what the devil was his name again?

“Hood?” I asked. “What in the hell are you doing with that lock?”

He turned, looking at me, and he had a real funny look on his moon face. “I can’t stop it.” He had a ring of keys in his stubby fingers and I noticed that all the chains to Earl’s door had been unlocked and were laying in a big mess at his feet. Werewolf Earl was just plain crazy, slamming into the door, sensing meat and blood right on the other side, just taunting him into a frenzy. The only thing keeping the door closed now was the big block of wood barred across it. “I can’t stop it,” he said again, sounding all sorts of crazy.

“Boy, you gone nuts? Get back from that door!”

“He’s in my head!” His big eyes blinked at me, real stupid, like there was something wrong in his head. He was scared, and damn well he should be, because werewolves were some scary shit! He was bawling and tears were pouring down his face. “I can’t stop it.” Earl slammed into the door, hard enough to shake the entire building. But the Shacklefords had reinforced the door with bands of iron years ago. It would hold, unless Hood lifted that bar.

“You open that door, and Earl’s gonna put a stop to you, right quick,” I said, not even thinking about the .45 Long Colt in my hand. This was a fellow Hunter. No way he could be stupid enough to open that door. That’d be suicide.

Hood committed suicide.

The fat kid turned around, hooked his fists under that big old bar and lifted it real hard. It popped out and fell on the ground.

I was surprised. Hood stepped back. “It’s done,” he said, smiling, then started to say something else, but that’s when the door flew open with a bang, and there was just this bunch of pale fur and golden eyes flashing ’round under the moon. Hood started to scream as claws lit into him. He got opened up. Guts spilling out, flying all over, and then he went down, the werewolf on top of him, arms and legs just a-kicking, blood spraying. He just kept screaming for what seemed like forever, but probably was only a couple seconds, before Earl sunk his teeth into Hood’s throat and went to town.

“Oh, no,” I said. I was pointing my big old .45 right between those golden eyes. We had talked about this. Everybody that knew about Earl’s condition knew what to do. We weren’t supposed to hesitate, just shoot him. That’s what Earl wanted.

I hesitated. The werewolf was squatting on the body, just ripping and eating and tearing. Hood was sprayed all over as sure as somebody had stuffed a grenade in him. Blood and snot was just pouring off Earl’s teeth and dripping all over Hood’s face. The kid’s eyes were open. His neck was gone and blood was all over the ground. Earl looked right at me, then took a slow step off the body, coming closer. Then he took another step. And another.

I had killed more werewolves than any other Hunter ever. I thumb-cocked the hammer. Kill him!

But I didn’t. For the first time in my life, I didn’t have the guts to do what needed to be done. I had known Earl for thirty years, met him clear back when I had been a pretty young thing. I had loved him once, but I had kept on getting older while he had stayed the same, and that kind of thing could never work right. He’d known that. He’d convinced me, a silly girl with a crush, of that. But I just couldn’t shoot Earl.

“Earl, it’s me. Dorcas. You listen up. You stop right there.”

Another step.

“Don’t make me kill you. Listen to me. Stop—”

Those eyes were glued to me. He moved so fast . . .

Earl hit me in the chest. I was flying through the air, then I landed on my face. A big old claw landed on my foot and pulled me back to him, filling my mouth with dirt. Then he flipped me over. My gun came up for shooting, but he knocked it out of my hand. One claw slammed my thigh to the ground while the other one lifted my foot right straight up. My knee broke and I hollered.

It came right off. My leg tore right off! He just pulled so hard in both directions at one time that the muscle just ripped apart. It hurt so bad, Christ Almighty, it hurt bad. I must have passed out for a second, because next thing I knew, I was crawling, squirting blood all over, and Earl was back there, squatting, holding my leg in his hands and eating it. The son of a bitch was eating my leg, just chewing away. Where’d my gun go?

Then he tossed my leg over his shoulder and came at me on all fours. This time I knew he was gonna eat my guts and for the first time in forever, I was scared, damn scared, piss your pants, know you’re gonna die scared. He stopped, and those yellow eyes got all scrunched up, and then I heard the gunshots. Earl turned to see who was shooting him, but a big old chunk of meat flew out of his chest, and he went down. Silver bullet.

“Dorcas! Are you okay? How’d Earl get out? Oh shit! Your leg!”

It was Dwayne Myers. I tried to tell him what happened, but my head hurt too bad and the words wouldn’t come out. I had this damn ringing in my ears and I felt real cold.

Somebody else grabbed hold of me and I felt something hard twist around my leg. Hunters were here and they were all jabbering now. I wanted them to shut the hell up so I could close my eyes, but I knew that was probably just the blood loss talking. I started to come in and out. Black and then moonlight, stuff happening, all confusing, then back to black. Ray, always so damn brave, grabbed one of Earl’s hairy arms and dragged him back inside the slave quarters, then came back out and slammed the door shut. Black. Dwayne was crying now, holding what was left of Hood in his arms and rocking back and forth. Dwayne was all covered in blood.

I finally managed to say something, but I wasn’t sure who I was talking to. “Don’t kill Earl. It ain’t his fault.”

Black.

Black.

I opened my eyes. I was myself again, Owen Zastava Pitt. This magic stuff was one bad trip. I had just lived for a moment as a middle-aged woman, and experienced having my leg torn clean off by a vicious beast. My knee hurt with a phantom pain from over twenty years ago. Glancing around, conference room, same people, Dorcas was talking, but it was just a background buzz. I had just lived the story as she’d brought the memory up. I closed my eyes, and all I could see was a much younger Agent Myers, kneeling, with half of a torso in his lap, exposed ribs in mangled flesh, and a flopping, nearly decapitated head cradled in his arms, his white shirt soaked red, as he cursed Earl Harbinger to hell.

The other Hunters were enthralled as Dorcas told her story. Gradually the humming in my ears tapered off, and the black flashes inside my eyes died down. I could hear words again.

“So that damn fool, Hood, lifted the bar, and Earl flew out and tore him apart. I went for my gun, but Earl came over and ripped my leg off. Then Myers came out and shot Earl a couple of times with silver bullets.”

“I never knew . . .” Julie said. “That’s horrible.”

“Why didn’t you shoot him?” Holly asked.

“He was just too damn fast, and I was sleepy and not paying attention,” Dorcas lied.

“No,” I said without thinking. “You didn’t want to shoot him . . .” My head was still really clouded.

Dorcas glared at me, eyes like dangerous little pinpricks. “What was that, boy?”

“Nothing, ma’am,” I responded quickly.

“Thought so,” she snapped. “If you’re ever close to him on the full moon, remember, he ain’t got no control then. A real Hunter don’t hesitate. You put him down. Put him down hard. Got that?”

“Yes, ma’am,” all of us responded in unison. Dorcas continued to eye me suspiciously. Maybe she wasn’t really lying. Maybe she had told this story enough times that she honestly didn’t remember about how as a young woman she had once been so in love with Earl Harbinger that she had almost let him murder her decades later.

Either way . . . none of my business.

“Are you positive that it really was him?” Holly demanded.

“Yeah, I’m positive. Everybody was positive. Earl near tore his head off. That’s hard to fake. Now where the hell’s my coffee?”

“Sorry . . .” Holly murmured and returned to the coffeepot.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Trip said contemplatively. “Did he say anything?”

“The whole thing was kind of fuzzy,” Dorcas answered. She had undergone an intense trauma, so that was understandable. “He said he couldn’t stop. Like he had no choice, like he had to open that door. It don’t make no sense to me, but that’s what he said.”

“Why’d he do it? Did you guys investigate?” I asked.

Milo chimed in. “Of course. But we never found anything. He was totally normal one minute, then he did something monumentally stupid. It was like he was trying to kill himself, but he never gave any indication beforehand. His teammates were more surprised than anybody. Hood wasn’t the suicidal type.”

“He was on Carlos’ team. Is he still around?”

“How’d you know that?” Dorcas asked. She had been suspicious before, and that had just confirmed it.

“Don’t matter,” I replied quickly, and I could tell she didn’t like that one bit. Well, I didn’t like being telepathic either, so too damn bad. There wasn’t time to be polite. “Can we talk to this Carlos? Maybe a Hunter from that team will know something about this shadow man.”

Dorcas shook her head. “Carlos Alhambra’s team was lost.” She thought about it for a moment. “Probably about three years after Hood got eaten. Like ’89, I figure.”

“A year before my mom disappeared,” Julie added.

“How do you lose a team of Hunters?” Holly asked slowly.

Dorcas made a motion with her hands like a magician doing a trick. “Poof. Just gone. They were working a case and they just never came back. Five good men missing.”

“Carlos was the only survivor,” Julie said. “I remember because I was young and it terrified me. All I could think was that could have been one of my parents lost like that. They found him wandering through the forest weeks later, dazed, half-dead from exposure, his mind totally gone. No sign was ever found of his team.”

“I’ve heard that story before somewhere,” I said.

Julie nodded. “You met him. He’s still a patient at Appleton.”

“That’s right.” Dr. Nelson had showed me on the tour. Carlos had been in the wing of the Appleton Asylum reserved for the seriously damaged cases. That wing of the place had haunted me, noises of gibbering madness coming from behind every steel door while the good doctor had lectured me about the dangers a Hunter’s mind could be exposed to. “Susan just said that Hood had taken out a team of Hunters and we had never even suspected . . . She said that they had learned too much.”

“We’ve got to go talk to him,” Trip said.

“Carlos hasn’t said a word to anybody since they found him . . . All he does is sit there and hum children’s songs and shit himself. His brain turned to mush. Whatever he saw messed him up something fierce,” Dorcas said sadly. “He was a good man.”

“Too bad,” Holly muttered as she shoved coffee to Dorcas. “If he could talk, he’d probably lead us right to this shadow freak.”

There might be a way. I glanced at Julie. She must have known exactly what I was thinking, because she shook her head. I didn’t need psychic powers to know that she thought it was stupid and dangerous. We had no idea how these weird powers worked or what side effects they might have. All I knew was that anything that came from the other side had to come with a price. And dredging through the memories of a madman was probably not the best idea anyway.

“Don’t you even think it,” Julie said. “I’m putting my foot down.”

“What?” I asked with feigned innocence.

“Huh?” Trip asked.

“Nothing,” Julie responded. “Owen was just thinking of doing something asinine.”

“What’d I miss?” Milo asked.

“Nothing. Sleep on it, and we’ll see you in the morning.” Julie stabbed the button and ended the call. “Dorcas, would you mind going back downstairs and checking on the Newbies? It isn’t safe to send them back to the barracks yet, so we’ll probably need to think up a story. I’ll be down in a minute.”

The old lady grumbled as she pulled her leg off the table and strapped it back on. She was the only one here who didn’t know about what I was experiencing. Dorcas stood with a wobble, snatched up her Styrofoam cup, and headed for the door.

“Hey, Dorcas,” I stopped her. “Thanks for telling us about that.”

The old lady gave us a bitter smile. “There’s always been too damn many secrets around this place,” she said, knowing full well she was getting left out of something. She was on the list of potential spies, though personally I really doubted that. It would be a cold day in hell before I could imagine that woman signing up with a death cult. “Do what you gotta do, kids. I’d do the same if I were you.” Then, in a flash of pastel bathrobe and the slam of the door, she was gone.

“Well, now we know why she’s MHI’s little cup of sunshine,” Holly said.

“Like you’ve got room to talk,” Trip responded. “That’s you in a few years.”

Holly reached over and punched him in the arm. Trip flinched.

This whole thing sucked. Earl had been right from the beginning. The very idea that a fellow Hunter could be betraying us was painful and damaging. I swore to myself that I was going to catch the son of a bitch so we could get back to normal. But first things first . . . Julie didn’t waste any time. She turned to me. “You can’t try to read Carlos’ mind. That’s suicide.”

“You got a better idea?”

She paused, rubbing her neck. “Not really. But you don’t know what you’re doing. Do you honestly think you can control it?”

“Sure I can,” I said with false confidence. “Compared to time travel, it’ll be a walk in the park.

Holly laughed. “Then you’re an idiot. You just had an episode when Dorcas was talking, didn’t you? You got all glassy eyed and stupid for a second. I thought you were going to drool on the table.”

“Again?” Julie asked with alarm. “How many more times has this happened?”

“Just a couple little ones,” I lied.

“I don’t like it, man. You’re messing with things you don’t understand,” Trip said. “There’s got to be another way. We’ve got his name.”

“The Feds have more resources,” Holly added. “They can probably find him better than we can. Like with secret databases and the Patriot Act or something.”

“Do you really think the Patriot Act has a clause for necromancers?” I asked pointedly.

“You know what I mean. We should tell Franks, and let them handle it. It’s not like we’re getting paid for this.”

Julie agreed with Holly. “They’re right. It’s too dangerous.”

I didn’t say anything, but my friends knew me far too well, surely understanding that I’d had enough. They continued to come up with reasons why I should just stay safe. But I was tired of waiting. Screw it. I stood, placed my palms on the table, and raised my voice. “These assholes have tried to kill me and my entire family. As long as they’re out there, everybody I love is in danger, and that includes you guys. Sitting around powerless is pissing me off. You want to sic the Feds on him, fine, whatever, but this is my fight. This is personal. So now it looks like my enemy is this Hood guy and we’ve got a lead. Yeah, it’s a pretty iffy lead, but it’s what we’ve got. So I’m going to Appleton, and I’m going to find out what those missing Hunters learned, even if I have to rip it right out of his brain.”

The others were quiet after my outburst. Finally, Julie broke the silence. She folded her arms and leaned back in her chair. “You’re the most stubborn man I’ve ever known.”

“And that’s why you love me. Look, I’ll just sneak out. Nobody will even know I’m gone. You guys cover for me, tell everyone I’m asleep in my room or something. If the Condition thinks I’m here, then they won’t even know to grab me.”

“You’re not going anywhere alone,” Trip said. “I’ve got your back, Z.”

That wasn’t a surprise. Trip was probably the single most honestly noble person I had ever known. He typified all that was heroic about Monster Hunters.

“We’ve got your back,” Holly added.

“I thought you didn’t want to get involved if you weren’t getting paid for it?” I asked, knowing that Holly talked a big game about being the hard-ass, but deep down, she was just as loyal as Trip.

“Don’t be such a douche bag.”

If I told them it was too dangerous, then I suppose that would make me a hypocrite. Trying to talk them out of it would be as futile as them trying to talk me down. So I said what I could. “Thanks. You guys up for a field trip to the insane asylum?”

After changing into street clothes, concealing some guns, and grabbing our gear bags for a worst-case scenario, Trip, Holly, and I snuck down the back stairs. In theory, if nobody saw us leave, then we wouldn’t have to worry about the spy. Unfortunately for Julie, with Earl currently indisposed, she was in charge, and in a couple of hours most of the MHI team leads from around the country would be arriving to sort through and pick out their favorite Newbies, so she was stuck here being managerial. For the rest of us, our absences wouldn’t be missed, but no Julie would be glaringly obvious. She didn’t like it much either.

There was no sign of Franks or the other Feds. There was no way that he would let me go, short of me beating him unconscious, and from I’d seen, I didn’t even know if that was possible. The front area was still packed with Newbies. Some had found spots to go back to sleep, but most of them were still milling around because of the excitement and the fact that they were still guessing about why they had been rousted out of the barracks. Julie was just going to have to deal with that problem.

I made eye contact with Grant as we were leaving. He’d been on Harbinger’s team and knew the drill. He went back to feeding some line of bull to the Newbies. The three of us just kept walking. He was still a jackass, but it was nice having another experienced man on hand.

We gathered by the back door. The coast was clear. The plan was to discreetly grab a car from the lot and head for Appleton. It wasn’t that far a drive, and we should be able to get there before sunrise. Hopefully Earl was still chasing vampires, so we wouldn’t run into him. Julie was supposed to be covering for us right now and taking care of whoever was manning the security room. With luck, the Condition would never even know I was gone.

I hoped.

“You ready?” I asked, heavy bag shouldered, hand on the latch.

“Let’s get out of here,” Holly said. Trip gave me a thumbs-up. I patted my pocket to make sure I had the car keys. Still there. Good to go. A hundred yards to the car, and we were gone. I shoved open the heavy door and stepped into the night, only to immediately come to an abrupt stop. “Aw hell . . .”

Agent Franks was sitting on the concrete steps directly in front of the back exit. His face was emotionless behind his sunglasses as he fiddled with his fancy PDA. His gloved thumbs moved across the keypad. He was a surprisingly fast texter for a man with such large digits. “You think I’m stupid?” he asked, not bothering to look up.

“Is that a rhetorical question?” Holly responded.

“What are you doing out here, Franks?” I growled. I didn’t have time for this nonsense.

“Checking my e-mail,” he said. He finished what he was doing, closed the device and dropped it into a suit pocket. Now he turned his head slightly to study me. I could see my reflection in his shades. I had no idea why he was wearing them in the dark. It took him an infuriatingly long time to phrase his next question. “Going somewhere?”

“No,” I answered, giant canvas bag large enough to hide a dead body slung over my shoulder, proving me an obvious liar. This was really making me angry. I was tired of this oppressive jerk getting in my way, because regardless of whatever the hell he really was, man or monster, Franks was above all a pain in my ass. “Didn’t you hear there’s a werewolf out? There’s safer places for you to hang out while you download porn.”

“You probably shouldn’t do that on a government computer anyway,” Trip pointed out. “That’s a misuse of taxpayer funds.”

Holly’s voice was flat. “Naw, I’m cool with it. The more time federal agents spend masturbating, the less time they have to screw around with us.”

The muscular Fed slowly stood, drawing himself to his full height, nonchalantly dusted his pants off, and then got right up in my face. He was remarkably intimidating, but I didn’t blink. A giant vein pulsed in his forehead. “Where are you going?”

I’d had enough of this clown. If he wanted to throw down, now was as good a time as any, and I wasn’t going to go out as easy as the last time we had tangled. I dropped my gear bag on the concrete at Franks’ feet. “Wherever I damn well feel like.”

“Is that so?” Franks responded slowly.

Always the peacemaker, Trip stepped forward. “Listen, Agent Franks, we’ve got a tip about the Condition. This is our chance to find out what’s going on. Let us go take care of business. Anything we learn helps your mission just as much as it does ours.” Leave it to Trip Jones to resort to reason when I was all ready to get my violence on.

“A tip?”

“The kind that only I can access,” I responded. The silent jerk wasn’t going to let us pass, there was no way. But I would be damned if I was going to be his prisoner in my own home while a gang of psychotic cultists plotted against my family. My pulse quickened. If I sucker-punched him I’d have a chance . . . Right in the nose, then push him down the stairs, kick him while he was down, and run for the car. Franks probably wouldn’t shoot me since he was tasked with protecting me. Probably. “The kind of tip that leads us right to the shadow man.”

Franks appeared to think about it, wheels ponderously turning. “You aren’t going anywhere—” Decision made, my right hand flew up, fingers tightening into a fist the split second before impact, three hundred pounds of muscle driven by righteous fury and years of mixed martial arts experience, in a brilliant sneak attack maneuver—

Blocked.

Not just blocked, but somehow Franks actually raised his hand and caught my fist an inch from his shades. He shut me down so hard that it was like a kindergartener trying to fight back against a fifth-grade bully. He twisted, using my leverage against me, tendons crying in protest, as he bore down on my joints. I squealed like a little girl and went automatically to my knees. His other hand flew under his suit coat and came out with a Glock that he promptly stuck in Holly’s face. She stopped doing whatever it was that she was doing, probably reaching for a weapon, and calmly raised her hands.

“Ow ow ow ow . . .” I said, my elbow touching my forehead and my wrist bent at an impossible angle somewhere behind my neck. The pain was unbelievable. For a second, Franks seemed to ponder what would happen if he just tossed me facefirst down the stairs, but then the pressure let up.

He kept the Glock on Holly, which was probably wise. “As I was saying, you aren’t going anywhere . . .” He let go of my wrist and tingly nerve fire shot down my arm. I fell on my butt. Franks lowered his gun. “. . . without me.”

Trip extended one hand to help me up. “Really?”

I groaned as my friend assisted me off the stairs. How embarrassing. Franks had read me like an open book. “You’re letting us go?”

He nodded once, keeping one eye on Holly, as if waiting for her to attempt something nefarious. She tried to look innocent. “This better be good,” Franks muttered as he turned his back and started down the steps. A werewolf howl reverberated across the compound. “You drive. My truck’s in the shop.”

Chapter 13

It was a long, hushed drive to Appleton. Trip drove and I rode up front, with Holly and Satan’s G-man in the back seat of the MHI Crown Vic. Since the last time I had gone anywhere with Franks I had actually shoved a .45 in his ear, I could understand why he chose to sit directly behind me. The mood was unnaturally somber as Franks’ presence had a stifling effect on our normal conversation. I bet he was just a blast at parties.

I had asked him at one point if he was going to contact his superiors or the rest of his protective detail to notify them of our destination. He had responded with a single raised eyebrow, which indicated to me a big negative on that idea. Because not only would he get ordered to turn around, he didn’t like his current assignment any more than I did, and the sooner he could wrap this case up, the better. It was kind of frightening that I got that from a single eyebrow, and indicated to me that I was spending way too much quality time around Franks.

“Does anybody have the Nelsons in their address book?” I asked as we neared Camden. The good doctors probably deserved a warning about our visit. The last time I had been here to see a patient, gargoyles had destroyed half the place, smashed a few patients into mush, and given the husband of the Nelson team a heart attack.

Holly responded. “I do. I’ll call them.”

I had no idea that she even knew them, though it made sense. The Nelsons were former old-school MHI members, one psychologist and one psychiatrist, who specialized in helping the victims of monster violence. Of all of us, Holly Newcastle had experienced the most brutal and unforgiving introduction to the real world of any Hunter I knew, as a captive in a vampire feeding pit. Even after all this time, she had still never confided her whole story to even her closest friends.

I caught Trip glancing at the rearview mirror to sneak a look at Holly. He was probably thinking the exact same thing I was. Was she getting counseling or something? If so, good for her. This stuff was brutally hard on the brain and I would never fault anybody for wanting to talk to a professional about it, especially somebody that actually got it, like the Nelsons. “Have you been visiting Appleton?” Trip asked. Even Hunters had days off, and it wasn’t like we didn’t have personal lives that the rest of the team didn’t know about.

“Yeah . . . that offend you?”

“No. Of course not.” He quickly snapped his eyes back to the road to avoid Holly’s ire. I chuckled to myself.

“What?” Holly asked me suspiciously with her phone against one ear.

“Nothing,” I replied quickly. I was saved when somebody picked up on the other end. Apparently the Nelsons, whichever one she had reached at least, were early risers. She warned them that some Hunters were coming on business, but didn’t want to give any specifics over the phone. She thanked them and hung up.

Twenty minutes later, we were there.

The front gate of Appleton was new, made up of freshly painted iron bars riding on smooth hydraulics. Julie had driven a van through the old one. Trip braked at the intercom, hit the button, and stated that we were MHI. A moment later we were heading down the lane. The sun was rising over the gothic spires of the asylum, a gray hulking shadow of carved stone and bleak walls. It looked really terrible considering the good work that went on inside. The Appleton Asylum was the home to many survivors of monster attacks, shunned and considered delusional by the rest of the medical community, but welcomed with open arms here. We parked in the nearly empty lot. It was early enough that the day-shift employees hadn’t yet arrived.

There were new doors installed at the entrance, and it was obvious, since the stonework didn’t quite match, that repairs had been conducted here as well. Stupid gargoyles. Both of the Nelsons were waiting for us.

Lucius was portly, short, with wispy gray hair in a halo around his mostly bald head, and suspenders keeping his pants up over his belly. Joan was taller than her husband, thin, gangly, and brought to mind a stork or other long-legged bird. Both were in their sixties, and both were wearing absurdly thick glasses. I loved the Nelsons.

We piled out of the car. “Hello, everyone!” Lucius bellowed with a voice that belied his age. It was rare for Hunters to come visit and we were always greeted with some enthusiasm. Apparently, those of us who made it as Hunters tended to find this place, and its residents, kind of unnerving. There was a fine line between a survivor who became a Hunter and a survivor who lost their marbles. “Good morning!.” He came down the stairs remarkably fast and intercepted me with a hearty handshake. “Well, Owen, my boy, it’s been a long time,” he said, which made me feel even guiltier for not visiting.

“Holly, it’s wonderful to see you,” Joan exclaimed excitedly as she virtually tackled Holly in a hug. “And this young man must be . . .” She turned to Trip. “Jones. Let’s see, James, no, John. It was something biblical.”

Trip smiled and extended his hand. “They call me Trip, ma’am.” She grabbed his hand and pumped vigorously.

The male Dr. Nelson let go of me and surged toward Trip. “Ah, yes. I’ve heard about you. Read your file, zombie attack survivor out of Florida. You were the schoolteacher who was forced to dispatch all his students with a sledgehammer!”

“Pickax,” Trip corrected, slightly embarrassed.

“Marvelous! That must have been very distressing . . .” The Nelsons were looking him over excitedly, just sensing that he had to have all sorts of angst and trauma that they could write a paper on. They couldn’t help themselves. They had done that to me the first time I had met them too. “Really, you need to sit down and have a chat with us . . . time permitting, of course.” They simultaneously glanced over as the car door slammed. Franks had gotten out and was adjusting his clip-on tie. Lucius was flummoxed. “It can’t be . . .”

“What’s he doing here?” Joan demanded, pointing at the Fed. She raised her voice. “I want him off our property immediately!” Franks approached, scowling. She increased in volume and pitch. “Get him out of here before any patients see him.”

“Doctors,” Franks stated coldly, “I’m here on official business.”

Both Nelsons were clearly agitated at his presence. “Your official business can kiss my old white ass, you simpering, feculent, no-good, hell-spawn fascist!” Lucius shouted. “You have no business here.”

“I see you guys have met . . .” I said.

“You disgusting pig. You filthy-murdering bastard!” Joan shook her fist in the air. “I’m calling security.”

“Forget security. I’m getting my rifle,” Lucius shouted, turning back into the asylum. “Jackbooted Nazi!”

“We gonna do this the hard way?” Franks asked.

I had no doubt that he wouldn’t hesitate to pummel two senior citizens just for kicks. “Whoa!” I shouted loud enough to scare some birds out of a nearby tree. The Nelsons stopped yelling. “Everybody calm down. What’s the problem?”

“He’s the problem!” Joan shrieked.

“Yes, I caught that part. I already know he’s an asshole, but specifically.”

Lucius was enraged. “Half our patients wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for this man and the others like him. The MCB intimidates witnesses and survivors. They murder anybody who dares spill the beans about their little secret. Monster victims need love, and support, and therapy, so they can return to their lives. But the MCB takes survivors and punishes them instead.”

Joan cut in. “The last thing these people need is for their own government to come along and tell them they’re insane, that they imagined the whole thing, or if there’s any forensic evidence, they cajole the victims into silence. Do you have any idea what kind of damage that does to people?”

“It’s like locking up a rape victim because she might make the town look bad!” Lucius sputtered. “It’s preposterous. It’s absurd!”

“It’s policy,” Franks answered.

“That didn’t work at Nuremburg and it won’t work for you,” Joan spat. “I may not know everything, Agent Franks, but one thing I do know for certain is that you’re going to burn in hell.”

Franks nodded, ever so slightly. “Been there. It’s overrated.”

“Enough,” I said. “Lucius, Joan, please. I know this sucks, but we really need your help. I need to speak with somebody in your care. I’m stuck with Franks.”

“It’s really serious,” Holly said apologetically. “We wouldn’t ever had brought him if we had realized.”

Joan shook her head. “I know you didn’t realize what you were doing, because you’re far smarter than that, Holly. I have patients inside, patients whose loved ones this man has actually murdered. I took an oath not to do any harm. I can’t let him inside my facility.” She was adamant.

This was getting nowhere, and I had to get to Carlos. “Franks, I need you to stay in the car.”

“No.”

I knew better than to waste my time arguing with him. Cutting down a redwood tree with my teeth would be more productive, and probably faster. “Doctor, please, we’ll go fast. Your patients will never even know we’re here.”

“He’s not coming in here without a warrant,” Lucius stated.

“I don’t need a warrant,” Franks responded.

“Why, you rotten—”

“Okay!” Holly jumped in. “How about this? While we’re sitting out here making a scene, some of these patients you’re worried about are going to come and see what’s going on, and they’re going to see this scumbag,” she jerked her thumb at Franks, “and they’re going to freak out. So how about we go someplace else, with no witnesses, and you bring out the one patient we need to speak to? Everybody’s happy.”

The Nelsons looked at each other, obviously not happy.

“It isn’t to help the government,” I said. “It’s to help me, personally. A Hunter named Martin Hood has returned from the grave. He’s already tried to kill my entire family and he will not stop until he gets me too.”

That confused them. “Marty?” Lucius said. “Marty Hood? There’s no way. He was one of the good ones. He was a great kid. You must be mistaken.”

“Well, that’s what we need to find out. This might be for nothing, but I have to know the truth. Please help me.”

Joan sighed, exchanging glances with her husband. Lucius adjusted his mighty suspenders. They had been married for forty-plus years, and had reached that point where a lot of communication was unspoken. Lucius responded for them both. “Very well, Owen. We’ll bring the patient outside. Whom do you need to speak to?”

“Carlos Alhambra.”

Joan crossed her arms. “Then I’m afraid you’re wasting your time. Carlos hasn’t spoken to anyone in decades.”

“He’ll speak to me.”

The spot that the Nelsons picked for our use was a gazebo on the far side of the lawn. None of the patients would be outside this early, and if any patients were at the windows, we would be far enough from the building that they wouldn’t get a clear look at us. Franks would be just a random big dude in a bad suit, not the man who personally murdered their fellow survivors who couldn’t keep their mouths shut.

A morning mist was rising from the Alabama River. Separating it from us was a wrought-iron fence. Most of the patients at Appleton were here voluntarily, but there were a few who weren’t, and there were others screwed up enough to decide that the river was a great place to take a header into. Tall trees, draped in Spanish moss, surrounded us. It was actually a very peaceful moment and I took the time to savor it, because what was coming next was probably going to suck.

“So, how have you been?” Lucius Nelson asked.

“Other than the whole death cult thing, pretty good actually.” The two of us were sitting on a bench inside the gazebo. Franks was wandering through the trees, probably checking the perimeter. Holly was fifty feet away, throwing rocks over the fence into the river to watch them splash. Joan had left to retrieve Carlos, and Trip had gone with her. “You guys are coming to the wedding, right?”

“Yes, yes, of course. I’ve known Julie since she was a baby. We wouldn’t miss it for the world. We’re rather fond of her, you know. And I would probably be dead if it weren’t for you.”

That was embarrassing and I felt that it was mostly untrue. “I didn’t do anything that any Hunter wouldn’t have done.”

“Exactly,” he smiled, then gestured toward Holly. “And how has she been? We haven’t seen her in months.”

“Holly? Well, as far as I know, she’s okay . . . I didn’t know she was getting professional help. I know you probably can’t talk about it, doctor-patient privilege, and all that, but if there’s ever anything that I can do to help her, just let me know. She’s my teammate and my friend, and finding out that she’s still hurting, still needing help . . . is just terrible,” I said truthfully. “Though after what she went through, who could blame her?” I added quickly, not wanting to offend the good doctor over the importance of his counseling.

He laughed. “Getting help? Son, she is the help.”

“Huh?”

“That young lady is a volunteer on her days off. She comes in and helps out with the patients, visits, listens to them talk, plays Ping-Pong and checkers. She’s especially good with the little children. She’s wonderful, really brightens everyone’s day, and we’ve been sad that she’s been too busy lately, but such is the life of a Hunter. She understands these people, and they love her for it.”

“Holly? Really?” That was a new one on me. It sure didn’t fit the image that she tried to cultivate. I wondered why she never told us.

“Oh, here they come,” Lucius pointed back toward the asylum. Joan was leading the way, and Trip was pushing someone in a wheelchair. “Now don’t be disappointed when this doesn’t work. If Carlos actually communicates I’ll be absolutely shocked. He’s been in a total stupor for decades.”

“How bad is it?”

Lucius shook his head. “In layman’s terms, he’s checked out, toasted, brain turned off, a borderline vegetable. All he has done for years now is hum simple children’s songs. Carlos was one of the smartest, bravest men I’ve ever known. I was proud to consider him a friend. And then one day, this happened. No medical explanation for it, no brain damage, no serious physical trauma, nothing.”

“No idea what caused this?”

“No. He went on a mission, but only his body came back. I don’t . . . I . . .” He lifted his glasses and wiped under his eyes. “Sorry.”

“I understand.”

Trip pushed the wheelchair up the ramp and into the gazebo. Carlos was wearing a red bathrobe over a white gown. He was frail, with atrophied muscles, hands so thin that you could see bones through the papery skin, and hair that was buzzed short on his pale skull, probably for ease of maintenance by the staff. His head was lolling slowly from side to side as he stared at his lap. He was humming but I did not recognize the tune.

Doctor Joan took a cloth from the back of the chair and wiped the drool from his chin. His blank eyes gave no indication that he was aware of any of this. I got off the bench and squatted in front of the wheelchair.

“Hello, Carlos. My name’s Owen Pitt. I’m a Hunter too. We need to talk.” No response, obviously. “I need to talk to you about Martin Hood. I believe that he’s the one who did this to you and I need your help.”

“I don’t think he can even hear you, dear,” Joan suggested gently. “He’s shown zero reaction to stimuli since he’s been here. We’ve run every test you can think of.”

I reached out my hand to touch his, but hesitated. I had talked about ripping the memories right out of his head, but now that I was in his presence, I didn’t feel so confident in my rightness. It seemed awkward and invasive. This was a man, a fellow Hunter, and I had no clue what I was doing.

“You think this is a good idea?” Trip asked, sensing my hesitation.

“No, not really,” I snapped. “You got a better idea?”

He shrugged. “Well, if you’re going to do it, do it before Franks comes back.” Trip was right. I didn’t want the government to know that I had inherited any abilities from the artifact.

“Do what?” Doctor Joan asked, concerned for her patient.

“Owen can read minds,” Trip said, then held his finger in front of his lips to indicate that it was a secret.

“Really?” Lucius was fascinated, probably sensing another paper.

“I don’t know how it works. It isn’t every time I touch somebody. It seems to be a combination of when they’re thinking about a particularly strong memory while I’m also interested in that same memory. I think . . . I picked this up from the Old Ones somehow.”

“Well, scientifically, that sounds like a crock of shit,” Joan said.

“But we’ve seen some weird things,” Lucius added. That was the beauty of working with former Hunters—very flexible minds. “Is it dangerous?”

“I have no idea.”

“If they need to be remembering, how’s that supposed to work with somebody who doesn’t think about anything?” Joan asked sensibly.

I didn’t really know that either. Maybe if I wanted that memory enough for both of us . . .

“Franks is coming back,” Trip said.

Aw hell. I touched Carlos’ skeletal hand.

*   *   *

Well, this is certainly different.

The world was vast, only there was no world. Just a void. An infinite space of nothingness. The void had no boundaries, no beginning, no end. There was no light, no dark, no color. Infinity stretched on forever.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Owen,” I answered. “With MHI. Who are you?”

“I don’t remember,” the voice was male. “What are you doing here?”

“Where is here?”

“I don’t remember that either . . .” the voice answered, confused. “But I’m not alone. It lives here too.”

“Carlos, is that you?”

But then that first voice was gone. And something hideous took its place. This voice was different, screeching like bagpipes made out of rotten entrails and filled with broken glass. My mind rebelled against the unnatural force.

THIS IS MY SHELL. FIND YOUR OWN.

“What are you?” I challenged.

No answer.

Talk about weird, but I didn’t have time for this. I needed to find information on Hood. Just having that thought seemed to cause the world to change. “I know that name,” said the first voice. “I know Hood.”

Now I could see; there was light, space, dimensions and gravity, as a blurry scene unfolded before me. A group of people, obviously Hunters, though their gear was outdated and their team patch was unfamiliar. There was no sound, but the scene was obviously one of welcome, as the group greeted a new member. The extraneous details of the scene were fuzzy gray blotches. The Hunters’ faces were just . . . blank. Pasty blurs of flesh where their features should have been. Only one of the men was clearly visible, the new guy, and the scene focused in on him. He was an overweight young man, with a mop of curly hair, wearing a vest that barely fit over his stomach. His attitude was jovial as he smiled and laughed with the others. The scene slowed, the Hunters’ movements became sluggish, until they quit moving entirely.

I had a physical form again. I walked between the frozen Hunters, a three-dimensional snapshot from time. Stopping in front of Hood, I studied him. I recognized him from Dorcas’ memory. He had acne scars and looked nothing like the tough guy who had attacked me. In fact he didn’t look like much at all, just a fat, goofy dude about my age.

“I remember this . . .” said the voice, and this time it came from directly behind me. I turned. One of the Hunters in the scene was speaking. Unlike the others, he still had details. His armor was olive drab, crisscrossed with leather bandoleers of shotgun shells. He was fit, strong, with a skinny beard and a thick head of dark hair just peppered with gray. Hispanic, probably about forty, he was a handsome man, but his eyes were sunken, haunted. I could only barely recognize him as the fragile person who I had met in the real world. “I remember this. It hasn’t taken them all away.”

“What hasn’t taken them?”

“Feeder,” he answered, as if that were obvious. “Are you here to help me?”

“Yes,” I answered, not having any clue how I was supposed to do that. “Where is this Feeder?” Carlos held one finger up and placed it against his temple. I nodded.

“Don’t worry. It’ll come for us soon. Whenever I remember something, it comes and eats it. I have almost nothing left.”

“It eats your memories?”

“More like it consumes, partially digests, and then pukes them back in pieces all over my brain. I’ve only saved a few. I’ve forced myself not to think about them, but I know they’re there. When I remember something, it’s gone forever. All the happy ones are gone.” He held up his left hand, indicating a wedding ring. “I was married, I think, but I don’t remember her. He destroyed those early, since they were the first ones I thought of when I was trapped. Once those were gone, then he took the regular ones. I couldn’t fight him. He’s too strong. He’s always hungry.”

I could only listen, horrified, wondering if my own were in danger while I was here.

Carlos stepped between the frozen bits of memory. His whole body was trembling. “I don’t remember any of my life. I know what things are, and what words mean. I guess he can eat the meat, but not the bones. I don’t remember ever experiencing anything. I know what food is, but I don’t know how it tastes, you know what I mean? I’ve got almost nothing.”

“How’d you save this one?”

“Oh, he let me keep the bad ones, the ones to taunt me, to laugh at my failure. Everything else I’ve ever experienced is all twisted and broken, but not these. I can relive the mistakes leading up to the end of my life whenever I want. In fact, that’s the only thing that I can do. This thing living in my head is a malevolent motherfucker, that’s for sure. If I could take any joy out of the ones he’s left me, then I’m sure they’d be consumed along with all the rest.”

“Once he takes everything, what’ll happen to you?”

“Maybe then he’d just let me die. . . .” he said wistfully.

This poor man’s mind was being devoured, but the thing doing it was leaving the memories about this one particular Hunter for a reason. “Martin Hood did this to you, didn’t he?”

He walked past me, through the crowd of distorted figures, and stopped, staring into the frozen eyes of young Mr. Hood. “Will you help me?”

“What can I do?” I asked.

“I’ll show you these scraps, these things that Feeder’s left to toy with me. In exchange, I want two things. I won’t help you until you swear you’ll help me.”

“Name them.” I expected for him to ask me to free him, to destroy this demon in his head, but not what came next.

“Kill me.”

I was shocked. That’s not why I was here. I couldn’t do that. I started to respond, but choked. The frozen Hunters surrounded me, their faces scratched out of existence like a pencil drawing brutally scrubbed with an eraser until the paper tore. All happiness had been blotted from this man’s existence, his body was nearly a lifeless husk . . . No. I understood the request.

I nodded. “And the second?”

He glared at the jolly, fat Hunter so long that I started to think I was another forgotten memory.

“Avenge me.”

This was different than the other times that I had lived through others’ memories. This time I didn’t see through his eyes or feel with his senses, because those were long since muted and passed. Carlos no longer knew what it was like to experience such things.

Rather it was like I was a bystander as a partial scene unfolded in front of me. Details were few, sounds were painful and flat. The colors had bled into grays and shadows as even simple things like that had been stolen from him. What a horrible way to exist, and this was all that he’d had since 1989. I was watching the welcoming of the new Hunter. Hood smiled and laughed as Carlos’ team greeted him, slapped him on the shoulder, and shook his hand. The only two who had faces were my host and his future nemesis.

“He came highly recommended. A good friend of mine said that he was talented, that he would be an asset to our team,” Carlos spoke to me, even as he shook phantom hands with Hood. “My friend was a man named Harbinger.”

“I know him,” I said.

Carlos shook his head. “I don’t. I only remember what little bit is connected to these few things. That’s all. But I hate him for bringing this monster into my life. Feeder let me keep my hate. It makes him warm.”

Then we were in an unknown place, an intersection of two streets. A team of Hunters had taken up position around a few cars and were firing into a crowd of shambling zombies. There were hundreds of undead. It was a huge outbreak. Carlos and I walked between the flying bullets and the crowd of rotting undead. He gestured to where his mirror image was leaning over the hood of a car and blasting round after round of buckshot into the approaching mass. “Business was really good. I didn’t realize at first that it was a little too good.”

A zombie made it over the hood of the first car and Hood took it apart in a spray of machine-gun fire. “It had been kind of slow. We didn’t really have much to do, and my team was getting the least business of any team in the country. Just bad luck I suppose. But then, within a few weeks of Hood’s arrival, we were getting undead outbreaks constantly. Suddenly my team was raking in the dough. We were the stars of the company.”

A zombie hit Memory Carlos from behind, taking him hard to the pavement. The nearby faceless Hunters were in no position to help and it looked like certain death. But the zombie froze, an inch from taking a bite out of Carlos’ neck. It stayed there for a moment until Carlos could roll over, draw his .45 and put a round into the creature’s brain. The splattered team leader caught a brief glance of Hood, hand extended, two fingers pointing at the frozen zombie. Hood went back to the action as if nothing had happened.

My host shook his head sadly. “That was my first clue, but in the excitement, I missed it. It went on. Every time we had nothing going on, more undead would pop up somewhere in our region. I was thinking that we had some hardcore necromancer living in the neighborhood, but he was always one step ahead of us. I was too stupid to realize that I saw him every day.”

More scenes flashed by. Several months had passed since these Hunters had started working together. “By that time, I was a wealthy man, not that I can remember what I did with it. He’s let me remember that I was like a damn superhero to the other Hunters, just to rub it in. Really, I was just a chump. Hood came across as a nice kid, a real joker, a bookworm, an intellectual, and a dork. Everybody loved him. It was a lie, an act. We didn’t realize what he was fixated on.” There was a vision of the two men, sitting on a bench on an ocean pier, drinking and telling stories, unwinding after a long day at work. “It turned out that Hood’s parents were killed when he was just a boy. They were occultists, and had been messing around with the Old Ones back in England. He confided this to me one night. That’s why he became a Hunter. He wanted to fight those things. He was obsessed with them.”

“Why’d he tell you?”

My host laughed. “You’ll see . . .”

Hood took a long draw from a cigarette before flicking the butt into the ocean. “See, boss, that’s what got me thinking . . .” It was obvious that he’d had too much to drink. “There’s a lot of information about the Elder Things floating around. Why not, and this is just a hypothetical, use their own weapons against them? Harnessing magic is no different than harnessing electricity.”

Carlos openly scoffed. “That’s insane.”

“No. Hear me out, mate. You’re a smart chap. It’s like the war, the big one. My grandmother lived through the Battle of Britain and she told me what those V rockets sounded like when they flew over. Pure terror. Evil stuff, right? But as soon as the war was over, bam, the Allies grabbed up every German scientist they could, right? That’s how we put a man on the moon.”

Carlos took a long drink. “I suppose.”

“This is the same thing. Just because knowledge originates from a bad use, doesn’t make it bad. It’s still knowledge. We owe it to ourselves to study the Old Ones, not just shun them. Think of what we could do.” Hood grew somber. “Imagine if a group of us, people like me and you, who knew what was really out there, worked together and harnessed that power . . . We could banish death itself!”

“That’s not how it works. Anything those things touch is tainted. Stay away from it, Marty.” The Carlos of memory tossed his now-empty bottle out into the waves and stood to leave. “You’re drunk and talking stupid. I’ll call you a cab. Go home and get some rest, man.”

“I thought maybe you would understand . . .” Hood muttered to himself as Carlos walked away.

Carlos continued his narration as the pier dissolved. “I figured it out eventually. Hood had found something in the archives back at headquarters. Some old book, picked up from who knows where.” The next scene was in a room filled with many shelves, lined with row after row of books. At first I thought we’d come to a library, but then I realized that it was a small apartment, literally packed with books. The titles on the spines were all blurry and forgotten. Hood was sitting at a table, giant tome open before him, a single small bulb providing light enough to read by. The book must have been etched into Carlos’ memory, because it was crystal clear. A massive, leather-bound thing, the pages ancient and covered in symbols and geometries that suggested madness in whoever inked it in blood millennia before.

“Hey, Marty. Nobody’s been able to get ahold of you. I was getting worried so I had your landlord let me in. Are you okay?” Carlos called as he entered the room, only to jerk to a halt when he saw the open book. “Is that— What are you doing with that thing?”

“Learning . . .” Hood mumbled as if he was in a trance, not looking up as he traced his hands over the words. The crazed scribbling seemed to move. There was a drawing of the monstrous alien tree, branches like twitching cricket legs. A black smear had been rubbed onto the page above it, like a cloud rising from the tree.

“Damn it!” Carlos shouted as he shoved the book off the table and onto the floor. The pieces had finally clicked into place for him. The book landed with a thump, open to a page with a picture of a giant squid thing that I knew all too well. He reached across the table and grabbed Hood by the shirt and jerked him forward. “It’s you! You’re behind these outbreaks, aren’t you? Answer me, you son of a bitch!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hood stammered. Then Carlos slugged him in the face, brutally hard. He grabbed the fat kid by his curly hair, yanked him out of his chair and shoved his face down against the open book. Blood dripped onto the pages.

“Liar!” Carlos shouted, enraged.

“All right, all right!” Hood cried. Carlos jerked him up and brutally shoved him back into one of the shelves. Books crashed to the floor. “Let go of me, please,” he sobbed.

“It was you all along. I can’t believe this!” Carlos released him and stepped away, hurt and disbelief obvious in his voice. “Why? Why’d you do it?”

“I had to! You don’t understand what’s at stake. We have to learn the mysteries or we’re doomed.”

“You’re doomed all right. How many innocent people have died because of you? You know what the Feds are going to do when they discover you’ve been raising the dead? You’re going to prison for the rest of your life.”

Suddenly Hood went from simpering to in command. The change was shocking, like somebody had flipped a switch and another personality stepped forward. “Oh, that’s where you’re wrong, mate. You won’t tell the Feds a word.” Blood ran down his nose and dripped down the crease of his double chin but he didn’t wipe it away. His eyes burned with the fervor of a true believer and for the first time I saw the man who would become the Shadow Lord. “Because you’re going down with me if you do. I’ll say that you ordered me to raise those zombies for the PUFF bounties.”

“Oh, I am, huh?” Carlos responded as he pulled his pistol from inside his waistband. “We’ll see about that.”

“You won’t shoot me,” Hood stated flatly. “If I die, then I’ve left evidence for the authorities that not only did I create those undead, but that I did it on behalf of not just you, but all of MHI. The government will destroy you all for that. You love this company too much.”

“Bastard!” The angry Hunter raised the gun and pushed it into Hood’s cheek.

“Do it. I dare you,” Hood snapped. “Kill your teammate. Murder your friend. Then explain that to the authorities. Explain that to the others while you try to convince them I wasn’t making enough zombies to make you a millionaire.”

Carlos hesitated, doubt creasing his features. “Damn!” he shoved the fat kid to the floor and stomped away, trapped. He paced back and forth for a moment. “You idiot. What’ve you done?”

“I’m fulfilling my destiny. I’m going to stop the Old Ones, once and for all.” He finally paused to wipe his nose. “The bounties are funding my research. Animating the dead is letting me hone my skills. This is just the beginning of an epic work. You’ll see.”

Carlos shoved his pistol back into its holster before grabbing Hood by the neck and dragging him toward the door. “No. You’re coming with me. We’re going to see Harbinger. He’ll know what to do.”

We were back in the original void. Darkness in every direction.

“I didn’t know what else to do. He was my responsibility and I failed. I turned to the one man who I knew would have the answers. We left that night, me, Hood, and that infernal book, and caught the first flight. I remember that he came along willingly, telling me the whole time about how he was right and how he would persuade Harbinger to see. I think he wanted me to dwell on his argument . . . When we arrived, there were a bunch of Hunters there, and unfortunately, it was the full moon. I had been too preoccupied to even realize that, so we weren’t able to speak to him.”

The night Hood died, I thought to myself.

“Exactly,” he answered. There was a terrible, rending sonic wail. It came from the distant void. “Feeder’s coming. I have to finish this.”

We were standing on the edge of a circle of chaos. The little stone shack, the old slave quarters of the Shackleford family estate, was before us. Hunters were milling around. There was blood everywhere, stark red against the black and white of the rest of the world. Hood’s dismembered body was at the entrance. A faceless Hunter was holding the body, trying in vain to help. I knew that the erased man was Myers. Other unknowns attended to a second injured person. A leg, severed at the knee, lay half chewed off to the side.

“He committed suicide.”

“So I thought. Nobody but me knew about Hood’s crimes. I felt terrible. I blamed myself for his death and the whole situation. I had failed.”

I walked through the carnage. Hood was obviously dead, literally torn apart. There was now a struggle, a fight, between Myers and someone else who could only have been Ray Shackleford. The words were erased, but I knew that Myers wanted nothing more than to avenge his friend’s death. “You never told the others.”

“No. I didn’t. I thought that Hood had killed himself out of guilt. Everyone loved him. What good would tarnishing his memory serve? Plus, I was afraid . . . somehow I could have done something different, somehow it was my fault. No, it was my secret to bear. No evidence ever arose after his death, so Hood must have been bluffing about that, so I just left it alone. I hid his stupid book.”

“You didn’t destroy it?”

“I couldn’t. It wouldn’t burn. I should have tried harder.”

Suddenly, something rose over the Shackleford ancestral home, above the slave quarters, a shadow as big as the house, only shaped like an earwig. The sonic wail tripled in intensity as the shadow of pincers covered the full moon.

FOOD. The scream slammed through my skull.

“Holy shit!”

“Feeder’s here,” Carlos said nonchalantly. “Good. I won’t miss this one anyway. Come on, I’ve got one more. Three years later.”

A new place, a large older house in a pine forest, on the top of a hill. A team of Hunters were moving quickly through the darkened trees, weapons hot. They were sweaty, panting, a few of them had sustained injuries. This memory was the clearest of all. The others even had faces.

Carlos must be reading my mind. “Yeah, Feeder hasn’t touched this one. This is the worst of all. I couldn’t tell you who any of these people are, but it likes to let me watch them die, again and again.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be. This is now the only memory I have left of my entire life. Well, there’s actually one other. I can remember mi madre singing nursery songs to me when I was little. I think that’s the oldest one I’ve got. For some reason, Feeder has left that one alone. I think he likes the music . . . Please, don’t forget your promise.”

“I won’t.”

“Good,” he said. “Watch.”

There were six of them. They were coming up on the house in three pairs, moving fast. They stopped in the trees just outside the yard. I focused in on their leader as he tried his radio, frustration was plain on Carlos’ face. “We lost radio contact as soon as we arrived. Then we were cut off, surrounded, driven through the forest by undead. It wasn’t until later that I realized we’d been herded to this place. He wanted it that way. He wanted us on our own at the end. He knew our methods, our procedures, he knew exactly what we’d do.”

The Hunters hit the house. One pair on the back door, one on the front, the final held the perimeter. The teams cleared the Victorian-style house, finding it empty, boarded-up, furniture sitting under tarps, covered in dust. The first pair discovered the stairs to the basement.

“He lured us in. We were surrounded, no comms. The case was supposed to have been straightforward, basic monsters on the property, not that I can remember what they were supposed to be at this point, or where this even is, but we sure weren’t prepared for what we found.”

The basement was utterly normal, except for one concrete wall where the foundation had been chipped away to reveal a hole. The ancient tunnel wound down into the earth. The Hunters prepared to check it out.

“No escape, so I decided to try the tunnel. It might have led to a way out, or it might have led to whatever was controlling the monsters attacking us. I was such a fool. I let my ego cloud my judgment. I remember that I only made three big mistakes in my career. First was ever trusting Hood. Keeping his secret was number two. Going down that hole was my last.”

Time passed as the Hunters went steadily downward, their unease growing at each step, noise of the undead trailing behind them a constant companion. They set ambushes, slowed their pursuers, but there were always more. At the end, the tunnel opened into a large, artificial room. Creatures—impossible creations of mismatched body parts from various animals, armor-plated monstrosities—rose up around them and cut through the Hunters with ease. They put up an amazing fight but were finally overrun. The memory was allowed to linger on the final suffering of each individual, chopped to bits at the ends of meat-cleaver arms or lacerated by serrated-steel teeth.

Carlos awoke a short while later, bound to a table with leather straps, someone calling his name. I recognized who was speaking immediately. The shadow man’s appearance in the memory was the same as in the present. He hadn’t even aged. This time he was wearing a white rubber butcher’s apron, splattered with blood. He smiled broadly at Carlos.

“Hey, mate. How have you been?”

“Where are my men?”

“Recruited into my army.” The necromancer paused to pull a sheet off of another operating table. Carlos screamed when he saw the bodies of two of his team in the process of being stitched back together into something else. The Hunter thrashed against his bonds in vain. “I’m improving on God’s creation.”

Carlos continued to struggle, insane at the sight of his friends. “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you! You son of a bitch! I’ll kill you!”

“Please . . . You didn’t have the stomach to do it before and that’s what brings us here today, I’m afraid. It pains me to do this, but I gave you an opportunity to see my side of things, only you wouldn’t listen. You had to be self-righteous and stubborn. So now, the time has come for you to pay for your mistakes. But take comfort, your sacrifice will not have been in vain.”

“Who are you?” Carlos demanded, still straining to free himself, wanting nothing more than to rip the man before him limb from limb with his bare hands.

“Come on, Carlos.” The shadow man shook his head. “Do I really look that different now? The old body was so soft . . . It was a liability. When you forced my hand, I had to go with one of my contingency plans. The spell had already been prepared, but it was something that I had lacked the courage to implement on my own. There are many things that can go wrong when you swap bodies. Really, I should thank you. I found a way to trade up to something better, switch places if you will. I took this body from a poor addled nitwit, an easily manipulated man-child. I moved in and the poor sod got my old body. Lucky for him, he only had to put up with it for a few minutes before Earl ate him!”

“M-M-Marty?”

Hood pointed at his chest with both hands and smiled. “In the flesh! And the ladies love this body a lot more than the old one, I’ll tell you that.”

Painful realization hit. “But . . . but you’re dead!”

“See?” Hood laughed. “I’ve conquered death, just like I told you I would, all those years ago. You shouldn’t have mocked me . . . Nobody should have mocked me.”

Carlos screamed. It was pure, primal hate. It went on for a long time as he struggled, futilely trying to break his bonds. Finally, rationality returned. “Marty, you worthless sack of shit, those were your friends.” He jerked his head painfully toward the other table. “We were your family!”

Hood spread his arms wide. For the first time Carlos noticed the rotting things standing in neat rows behind his captor. The creatures had been spliced together, bones screwed to steel plates, bolts and wires crisscrossed, ivory, muscle, and iron conglomerated into a grotesque parody of life. “This is my family now.”

Rage turned to fear. “You’re insane!”

“That’s a matter of perspective. I’m rather sure that I’m the only sane one here. See, things have changed. I was naïve. I thought I could beat the Old Ones at their own game. But I realized the truth. They can’t lose. So I cut a deal to benefit us all. And now you’re going to help me help them.”

Carlos’ eyes flicked back and forth across the line of slavering monstrosities. “What do you want from me?”

Hood chuckled. “After I ‘died,’” he made quote marks with his fingers, “you kept something of mine. I need my book back. It holds information that will allow me to open a portal to the other side.”

“You can’t do that!”

“Actually, you’re correct. Very few people have the potential to unlock that kind of mystery. Sadly, I’m not one of them. I’m going to arrange for it to fall into the hands of someone who can. He’s not even aware that he’s helping me yet. He needs to be broken first, but I’ve already arranged for that.”

Devious bastard . . . It all made sense. Hood was behind what had happened at the Christmas party. He was responsible for Susan’s turning. He’d tricked Ray into opening that rift.

Hood leaned in close, stopping his face inches from his old leader. Carlos remembered it so clearly that he could smell Hood’s aftershave. “So, where did you hide my book?” he whispered.

Carlos spit in his face. “I’ll never tell you anything!”

The shadow man nodded slightly, not noticing the saliva in his eyes. “And I wouldn’t have expected anything less from you. So once again, we’ll do this the hard way.”

“You going to torture me, pendejo?” Carlos demanded in typical MHI-style defiance. “Bring it!”

“You wish. Torture would be easy. See, working for the Old Ones does grant you a few perks, a few abilities, if you will. They’ve sent some friends to . . . how should I say . . . live with me. Sure, I could torture you, knives, hot pokers, electric shocks, all that nonsense, but that would take time, and I don’t have the stomach for such things.” He gestured at the operating table full of mismatched body parts. “I’m a creator, not a destroyer. Rather, I’m going to send something to root around inside your brain and take what I need. So to answer your question, no torture. This is going to be much, much worse.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Good-bye, Carlos. I learned so much from you, and really enjoyed our times together. You were one of my best friends. It really was a pleasure.” His neck swelled as something crawled up from inside his torso. Hood opened his mouth. It was like staring down a deep well. Two tiny red eyes opened and blinked in the inky blackness. Miniscule pincers extended past Hood’s lips. Carlos began to scream.

The tiny creature latched onto the Hunter’s face, soft, black ooze crawling into his eyes, up his nose, down his throat. The screaming turned into choking and convulsing. I had to look away.

The scene went black. We were back in the void.

“It was a little thing at first. Like a headache. But it grew, and grew, and grew. The more it ate, the fatter it got. Everything I thought of, destroyed, torn apart. Just bits and pieces of me. It found what it was looking for, but it didn’t stop there. No . . . it’s just been taking ever since.”

I had narrowly avoided the same fate in Mexico. I shuddered. The bagpipe howl arose as the mind demon approached.

“You better go now. Please, keep your promise. I’m begging you. Finish this.”

Feeder surrounded us, a bloated, disgusting thing. Slobbering, chewing, tearing and flinging, as the last few visions of a mortal life were rendered into nothing.

“And this is the way the world ends. . . .” my host said.

Back in the real world, I gasped and jerked my hand away from the wheelchair. Carlos’ head was still rolling around weakly from side to side as a puddle of drool collected on his robe. He was humming softly.

“What happened?” Lucius Nelson demanded, concerned for his patient.

Glancing around, the doctors and Trip were still in the same spots in the gazebo as when I had left. Franks was approaching up the path at a brisk walk.

“How long was I gone?” I asked.

“You didn’t go anywhere,” Joan replied.

“Five seconds, tops,” Trip answered quickly. “Did it work?”

“Yeah, kind of.” I stood. “Doctors, we have to let Carlos die.”

“What?” both of them responded simultaneously.

“Please, believe me. There’s something terrible living inside his head. It’s devouring him, piece by piece. He made me promise to kill him.”

“Owen, that’s ridiculous.”

The wheelchair began to vibrate. I looked down. Carlos was going into some sort of seizure. It stopped. He was no longer humming. That too had been taken from him. His final memory was erased. The shaking ceased.

Joan knelt beside the chair and placed her fingers on Carlos’ neck. “I think he’s dead.”

Suddenly the patient’s head snapped up. His eyes opened, revealing blood-red orbs. One thin hand locked around Joan’s wrist with bone-crushing force. He jerked her to her knees.

My STI came out of the holster so fast that it practically materialized in my hand. I clicked the safety off as the front sight landed between those red eyes. “Let her go!”

“Noooo,” the thing inhabiting Carlos’ body hissed. Joan cried out as it squeezed her arm. “Feast is over. . . . Need new shell to live in.”

“What’s going on?” Lucius cried out. “Carlos, let her go. We’ve been trying to help you.”

“That ain’t him, Doc. This thing is from the other side. Isn’t that right, Feeder?”

The body wheezed. “Not true name. Name given by weak fleshling.” The voice was raspy, not used to creating speech. “So hungry. Must feed.” His other hand reached toward Joan’s face, as if to caress it. Nostrils flared as it drank in her smell. “So many memories in this one . . . to feeeaaassst.”

His wife in danger, Lucius Nelson’s reaction was a split second faster than mine. Carlos’ head jerked one way and then back as our bullets crossed an X through his skull. Joan fell. I stepped forward and booted the frail body in the chest, sending the wheelchair rolling back down the ramp and into the sunlight. The chair toppled over.

Even with the back of his skull missing, the animated body tried to rise, atrophied muscles driving forward, in search of another host. The movements were jerky, awkward, painful to watch. “Feeeaaassst . . .”

Trip had drawn his Springfield XD .45. Doctor Lucius stood at my side, stubby Colt officer’s model at the ready. The three of us looked at each other, knowing what had to be done, then we opened fire. Dozens of bullets tore through Carlos. A few seconds later, our slides were locked back empty, my ears were ringing, and the riddled body was absolutely still, blood pouring into the grass.

“What the hell!” Holly shouted as she ran toward the gazebo. She paused long enough to pull her STI Ranger and train it on the blood-soaked mess on the lawn like the rest of us. “Everybody okay?”

“We’re fine,” Joan answered calmly. “I think my wrist is broken though.” The birdlike woman had pulled herself onto a bench. From somewhere she had produced a .380 PPK and was holding it shakily in her left hand, her right resting awkwardly in her lap. She saw me looking at her. “Old-school MHI, kids. Shock is nature’s anesthetic. Give me five minutes and I’ll be crying like a baby.”

I dropped my spent mag, slammed a new one in the gun, and dropped the slide. “See to your wife,” I ordered Lucius. “Trip, Holly, on me.” I approached Carlos’ body slowly. The three of us covered him, pistols ready, but there was no movement.

The Hunter was dead, freed from his torment at last.

Agent Franks nonchalantly joined us a moment later. The big man studied the three of us, guns hovering over the ventilated corpse and his wheelchair. He shrugged, removed a candy from his pocket, unwrapped it, tossed it in his mouth, and threw the wrapper on the lawn. “Brutal . . . even by my standards,” he said, chewing loudly as he walked away.

“What’s that?” Trip asked, gesturing with his gun. “On the sidewalk?”

A tiny, black, glistening earwig-slug thing was oozing away from the shattered skull. I moved so that my shadow wasn’t protecting it. The tiny beast rolled over, revealing a pair of red eyes and a mouth with hooked teeth. It screeched in pain when the sunlight hit it.

I raised my size 15 boot. “Good-bye, Feeder.” It smashed with a sickening, wet pop. I ground it in. Black smoke hissed from the pavement.

First promise kept.

“You know, you’re no longer allowed to visit here, Owen,” Lucius advised me. We were in the Appleton parking lot, getting ready to leave. “Every time you do, we lose patients. At this rate you’ll put us out of business in no time.”

“I’m really sorry. . . .”

“I’m seriously thinking of having a restraining order drawn up,” the doctor said with grave sternness. I suddenly felt like I was going to puke. He thumped me on the arm. “Ha. I’m just kidding, boy. Relax. It comes with the business.”

Joan shook her head. “Forgive my husband. His idea of humor’s a little skewed.” Her sprained wrist had already been wrapped. She held it up. “But then again, I just took some Lortabs, so everything seems a little funny.”

“Seriously, I wish we would have known about poor Carlos sooner. We kept him alive for all these years, when all we were doing was prolonging his suffering.”

“You did the best you could,” I responded. “There’s no way you could have known.”

“No medical textbook I know of has an entry for what crawled out of his head, I’m afraid,” Lucius answered, “unless we write it ourselves. Maybe now you understand why when it comes to interviewing survivors, Joan and I can be a little . . .”

“Pushy?” I interjected.

“One way to look at it, I suppose,” he chuckled. “Listen, I do want to help you. When Marty Hood first joined MHI, I did one of those pushy interviews. Here’s the file. Maybe something in there will come in handy.”

I took it from him. “Isn’t this like privileged information?”

He smiled. “My Hippocratic Oath goes out the window when you sign up to help the Old Ones. I wouldn’t piss on him if he was on fire.”

Holly joined us. “We’re ready to go. We took the body down to the basement like you asked. None of the other patients saw us.”

“Good, good . . .” Joan said. “Thank you, dear.”

Lucius smiled sadly. “This place was built eighty years ago to house tuberculosis patients. We have an excellent crematorium. Morbid, yet so very effective. Necessary, given the things that poor man was exposed to. Don’t worry, we’ll say a few words over him.”

“Thank you for your help,” I told them sincerely.

“We’re always here to help, and we only ask one thing . . .” Joan said. Agent Franks, apparently tired of our good-byes, began to honk the horn. She groaned. “Don’t ever bring that man onto our property, ever again.”

“Deal. I don’t like him, don’t trust him, and the sooner we’re done with this, the sooner I can get rid of him.”

“Hmm . . . Franks is obnoxious. How many people can you fit in that crematorium at one time?” Holly batted her eyes innocently. We all looked at her. “What?”

“Anything helpful?” Holly asked.

I handed the file across to the back seat so she could see it. “Well, Doctor Nelson figured Hood was driven, obsessed with success, and couldn’t tolerate failure. As a boy, he was deeply traumatized by watching his parents’ deaths, and was fixated on preventing that kind of thing from happening to others.”

“Sounds like a pretty typical Hunter,” Trip said.

“Yeah, I suppose.” Fanatical and traumatized by something and doing their best to protect the world. “Hell, I bet he fit right in.”

“Except for this part where Doc says that Hood had a genius-level intellect. No offense, but I’d say most of us don’t set the bar that high,” Holly pointed out.

Trip responded. “I went to college.”

“I took an IQ test once. It said I’m all sorts of smartified,” I joked.

“Okay, so Trip got through school by catching footballs and you beat up some nerds for a certificate. But according to this file, this Hood guy’s brain is wired like Stephen Hawking . . . Like an evil Albert Einstein or something. This is one smart dude we’re talking about, with real obsession problems, and now he’s locked onto you.”

“He’s smart, but I’m no slouch,” I said. Franks snorted. Man, I hate him.

“Just because nobody will play against you in Trivial Pursuit anymore doesn’t mean you’re a match for this guy, Z,” Holly pointed out.

“That’s just because Julie’s always on his team, and she knows all the artsy questions,” Trip muttered.

Holly continued. “What I’m getting at is that we’ve underestimated this guy. When we first learned about him, we thought we were just facing another bad guy, another monster. But this one’s different. He’s a former Hunter, so he already knows how we roll. He’s patient enough to fake his death and plot craziness for decades. This man outwitted Earl Harbinger and all the Shacklefords, all while right under their noses the whole time. We already knew about the cult, but we’ve underestimated their leader. The idea of a spy inside MHI seemed stupid to me at first, but this Hood’s some sort of chess master, and he’s thinking ahead. This man will not stop and he’ll pull out all the stops. We’ve got a lot bigger problem on our hands than we thought.”

She was right. The car was quiet while I mulled that over.

“What do you think, Franks?” Holly asked. I was surprised that she would actually try to involve him.

Franks had to have realized by now that I had somehow read Carlos’ mind, but he didn’t indicate that he cared one way or the other. He was quiet for a long time, shaded eyes staring out the window. “I’m not paid to think.”

“Helpful, ain’t he?”

Franks turned forward. “But . . . I doubt you’re ruthless enough to survive.” He went back to the window.

We drove the rest of the way in silence.

Chapter 14

It was well after noon when we pulled into the compound. There were several extra vehicles in the lot, some rental cars from the airport and a few other MHI vehicles from the team leads who were stationed close enough to drive.

“I wonder if Earl’s back?” Trip asked.

“We need to talk to him. And keep this on the down low. If the Condition’s infiltrated headquarters, then they might have gotten people onto the other teams too.” Hell, Hood had actually approached Carlos about working together. Who knew if he had tried that with anybody else?

“That really pisses me off,” Holly said. “I hate traitors.”

Franks actually murmured agreement as we got out of the car. “Me too.” He held back as the rest of us got our gear bags out of the trunk, then walked up the stairs. Could Franks sense just how unwelcome he was going to be inside a building packed with the most experienced Hunters in the country? Doubtful. He probably had some other nefarious, inexplicable reason. It wasn’t like Franks cared if he was welcome or not.

The office building was busier than it had been since last summer. There were Hunters everywhere. Dorcas was at her desk, angrily answering questions and shuffling papers. She was surrounded by Newbies filling out requisition forms so they could take equipment with them or harassing her for their last training paycheck. They were out of here, ready to start life as real Hunters, and the atmosphere was kind of like the last day of high school before summer vacation. It was downright festive.

“Z!” somebody shouted. Suddenly I was engulfed in a rib-crushing bear hug, which smashed my arms to my sides, jerked my feet off the floor, and popped my vertebrae. The man was a little shorter than me but strong as an ox. He bounced me around for a moment, knocking his black cowboy hat off; his giant mustache tickled, and I could smell the Copenhagen chewing tobacco. Sam Haven was home.

“Hey, Sam.” He dropped me back to the ground. Our old teammate then turned his attention to Trip and Holly. They got the same enthusiastic treatment. “How’s Colorado?”

Sam grinned. “The finest warriors in history trained me to fight from the sea. I’m a master of maritime mayhem, a Son of Poseidon,” he loudly proclaimed. Sam had been a Navy SEAL. He paused to pick up his hat and smashed it back onto his mullet. “So of course, Earl puts me in charge of a team stationed five thousand feet above sea level in the middle of the damned country. Denver’s lousy with hippies. I mean, they’re everywhere. But the women are smoking hot and there are some good local beers. So overall, it’s a wash.” He turned his shoulder so we could see the patch on his armor. “Check it out. Pretty cool, huh?” The Team Haven patch was a walrus with a banjo. “Maybe you kids will get your own someday. Holly could have a stripper on a pole. That’d be sweet.”

“I’ll save you a copy,” Holly patted him on the back. She’d missed him too.

“That looks great.” It really did. The walrus just kind of suited him I suppose. “Sam, listen, it’s urgent. Is Earl back?”

He leaned in conspiratorially, glancing from side to side to make sure nobody else was listening. “He wandered in this morning. That skank-whore, Susan, got away.”

“Figures.”

“Don’t worry, one of these days, we’ll take them down. And I just hope that it’s one of us old-timers. It should be our job, our responsibility.” Sam had served with Ray and Susan when he had been a young Hunter and he had been on the team when Susan had disappeared. For Sam, having one of his team end up playing for the other side was a personal insult. “Come on. Earl’s downstairs recuperating.” Sam bulled his way through the crowd. Other leads intercepted us, greeting, visiting, all of them exceedingly friendly. I knew most of them from last summer or from Milo’s wedding. It was kind of weird, but among all of these more experienced Hunters, I was sort of famous. I noted that Sam was the only commander wearing his full uniform. He was just that proud of his new patch that he had to show everybody. “We’ve been interviewing Newbies all morning, and after lunch we get to fight over who gets who. But I get the first-round draft pick.”

“Because you’re the newest team?”

“No, because I’m that awesome. Boone thinks he gets first pick, since he says he’s short-handed. Hell, I’ve got the same number of men he does. We’ll have to wrestle for it.” Still being relatively new to the ways of MHI, it wouldn’t have shocked me to discover that feats of strength were a recognized method of solving human resource issues. “I’d whup his ass.”

“Hmm . . . Maybe I would make a good team lead,” I muttered. I had, after all, beaten people up for money for a few years. Between that and the fact that I could actually do a budget, I might be able to get myself a promotion. As we approached the cafeteria, I heard the sound of an acoustic guitar. Glancing inside, I noticed my brother sitting at one end of the room, borrowed guitar in hand, as he cranked through something familiar. Several of the single female Newbies were sitting at the next table batting their eyes at him, as well as half a dozen masked and hooded orcs who were just happy to be in the presence of greatness. It was rare for any of the orcs to want to be around humans, even us, but they made an exception for our celebrity guest. “He always did get all the chicks.”

Holly listened for a moment as Mosh’s fingers flew back and forth. “Damn, he’s really good.”

“Some say the best in the world. We are a talented family.”

“His talent’s cooler though.”

I shook my head. “Fine, don’t come crying to me when you need help with your taxes next year.”

Mosh saw us standing in the doorway, stopped playing mid-lyric, dropped the guitar, jumped up, and started toward me. The orcish contingent immediately began to boo loudly. He ignored them and focused in on me with an unnerving intensity. He must have picked that up from Dad. “There you are. We need to talk. Have you seen the news?”

“Been too busy.”

“The official story is that I caused all the crazy stuff at Buzzard Island! Out-of-control special effects and lame-ass shit like that. When can I get out of here?”

“Dude, chill. I’m working on it.” I raised my hand defensively. “I’m taking care of this as fast as I can.”

“Not fast enough. Mom keeps trying to talk to me. I don’t have any of my stuff. We’ve already had to cancel some shows, and if I don’t get out of here soon, we’re going to have to screw the whole tour. You know how pissed the fans are going to be when I have to refund ten sold-out concerts? I’ve got bills to pay.”

“Aw man, you might have to sell that Ferrari you just bought,” I said.

Mosh snorted as if I had just given him a grave insult. “It was an Aston Martin.”

“Whatever. Look, it just isn’t safe yet. You go out in public, and you might as well strap a big target to your forehead.”

“I can get security.”

“Now you’re being stupid. Bodyguards aren’t up to this gig.”

Sam raised his hand. “Hey, if I can butt in, I know a little company that can pull security . . .” Mosh and I both scowled at him. “Oh, fine. Just trying to scare up some business. Alrighty then, I’ll be waiting downstairs when you drama queens are done having your slap fight.” He spun on his boot and left. Trip looked uncomfortable. Holly appeared to be enjoying the show.

Mosh moved in closer and poked me in the chest. I was certain he remembered just how much that bugged me. “Listen, people are already starting to talk. The fan sites are saying that I had to check into rehab. And one of those government guys was on the news saying that the big explosion was because I personally wrecked the tour bus into that gas tanker. He didn’t come out and say it, but he was trying to make it sound like I was totally wasted or something. It was the one who looks like an English teacher, the dirty, rotten, lying sack of shit.”

“Oh, you mean Agent Myers. Yeah, that’s what he does for a living. He makes monster attacks go away.” I steered his hand away from me. “Look, I feel your pain, and I’m sure this will all make a great episode of Behind the Music someday, but in the meantime, you’re stuck.”

“I should so kick your ass.” Mosh was ticked. “Am I supposed to be a prisoner here or something?”

“No, feel free to walk out that front gate and let me know what kind of monster manages to eat your brain first. See if I care.”

“Damn it!” he shouted. “This is really screwing up my career.”

“You think a bunch of fanatics and their squid god give a crap about your career? Quit being such a baby.”

Holly stepped gently between us. “Okay, guys, calm down. Yes, this is all Z’s fault.” She gave me a look, indicating that I had just better shut it. “And I’m sure he’s really sorry. But we’re resolving this situation as quickly as possible.”

Mosh stepped back, still huffy. He turned his attention to Holly for the first time. “And who are you?”

She stuck out her hand. “Holly Newcastle. Monster Hunter. I’m on your brother’s team.”

It was almost as if I could see the mental shifting of gears. Mosh went from Angry Important Guy to Player mode. He took her hand, and wasn’t very discreet as he checked her out. And Holly was a very attractive woman. “Well, nice to meet you, Holly. I’m Mosh Pitt, international superstar.” He was such a cheese ball.

Oh, barf. I waited for Holly to throat-punch him.

She giggled. Tough-as-nails killer of monsters Holly Newcastle actually giggled. Like a . . . girl, or something. Trip and I looked at each other in confusion.

“You know, Mosh, I’m sure you’ve got a lot of questions that just haven’t been answered. And your brother’s been too busy to help you, so I can totally understand your frustration. I’d be glad to take the time to explain everything.”

He nodded. “Yeah, there’s been a lot going down. Maybe we could talk about this . . . over some lunch.”

Oh my gosh. Holly was flirting with my brother. “Sure, that’s a great idea. We’re not exactly equipped for fine dining, but I could probably whip up a little something. . . . Z, Trip, why don’t you guys go talk to Earl. I’ll catch up.” She took Mosh by the arm. “Right this way.”

Mosh winked at me. “Maybe this place doesn’t totally suck.”

They left for the kitchen. The female Newbies looked offended and the orcs were fighting over who got to keep the guitar that Great War Chief had actually used.

“What just happened?” Trip asked.

“Hell if I know. Either Holly’s covering for us, or she’s actually attracted to goofy-ass bald men with lots of tattoos and really stupid pointy goatees . . . My money’s on getting him out of the way for me. I owe her one.”

Trip folded his arms. “Well . . . I don’t like it.”

He actually sounded . . . jealous? Naw, that was absurd. “Come on, man. We’ve got to take care of business.”

Earl leaned back in his chair and lit his fourth cigarette since I had begun my story. It was a good thing his tissues regenerated supernaturally or he surely would have died of lung cancer eons ago. He put his bare feet on the table and pondered on what I had said.

“I just can’t believe it . . .” He shook his head. “All these years . . .”

Trip and I had found Sam and Earl in the basement office outside of Earl’s prison cell. This was the place in which he usually cleaned up and calmed down after a werewolf stint. It was more of a bunker than an office, with some thrift-store furniture, a shower, and a door that looked like it had come from a bank vault. I knew behind that vault door was an even plainer room, with a tiny drain hole in the middle and hundreds of thousands of scratches etched into the concrete. Sam was sitting off to the side. “All these years you’ve been beating yourself up about killing the little punk and it turns out he deserved it anyway.”

My asthma was tearing me apart. There weren’t any windows in the basement, and the air was thick with secondhand smoke. “Except it wasn’t even him you killed.”

Sam leaned forward. “So let me get this straight. Hood swapped bodies with some other dude, and it was that dude, in Hood’s old body, getting mind-controlled or something, that opened Earl’s door?” I nodded. Sam paused to spit his chew in a Styrofoam cup. I was surrounded by nicotine addicts. “Man, that’s some messed-up shit, right there.”

Earl talked to the ceiling. “Why didn’t you tell me, Carlos? We could have figured this out together.”

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Trip said.

“He was like a brother,” my boss said simply. He lowered his head and faced us. I was glad that the anger in that look wasn’t directed at me. “Marty Hood . . . It sounds stupid, but the more I think about it, the more it fits. He was always into that stuff. Him and Ray were always poking around the archives. Trying to understand monsters. You don’t understand them . . . you understand how they think enough to track them down and destroy them. There’s a big difference.”

“So the necromancer was a Hunter. He knows our capabilities. Did Hood know about the compound’s ward stone?”

“Ward what?” Sam asked. If Sam Haven didn’t even know about the warding, then that meant very few Hunters did.

“Long story, Sam.” Earl shook his head. “Hood shouldn’t. I never told him. The last time we fiddled with it, he had already been moved to Carlos’ team. We kind of take it for granted, don’t really talk about it much.”

“So now what do we do?” I asked.

Earl appeared exhausted, with black circles under his eyes. He pulled a pair of socks out of the desk and started putting them on. “Let me think on it. We’ll talk again later. Right now, I’ve got to get presentable. I need to play referee while the team leads fight over who gets which Newbie.”

“I want the Haight brothers,” Sam said quickly. “I need more shooters, and those boys are tough.” I knew which Newbies he was talking about right away. They were two brothers from Utah, whose construction crew had accidentally dug up the resting place of some evil spirit while laying a foundation. Both were rodeo tough guys and longtime varmint hunters; they had also been by far the best gunmen in this class.

“I can’t give you both of them,” Earl said.

“Aw . . . come on, man. They made a bomb out of five hundred pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer on the spot and blew up a skinwalker. That’s the kind of initiative I need!”

“You and everybody else, Sam. I give you both of them, and I’ll have to listen to the others complain about favoritism.”

Sam smirked. “Well, I am your favorite. Okay, if I can’t have them, then I want that Torres kid.” Trip and I snickered. “What? Something about him I don’t know? He seems squared away.”

“He should be. He’s one of Franks’ men,” I replied. “He’s one of my protective detail.”

Sam scowled. “Now you’re just messing with me.”

“No, I’ll explain later,” Earl said as he tied his boots. “You can’t have Archer or Herzog either. They’re Feds too.”

“Well, Archer had struck me as a good support guy. Those anal-retentive OCD types usually are, all organized and shit. But Herzog . . .” He grimaced, “I don’t know why anybody would pick her. During the interview she went off about how a centralized government is the best way to hunt monsters. What a hag.”

That reminded me of something. “She’s not an operator. She’s a clerk.”

Earl looked up. “What?”

“She’s not a Hunter at all. But she was assigned to this job by Myers himself. Herzog slipped up and admitted it because she was worried about you eating her. No offense.”

“She’s not my type,” my boss responded dryly. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would Myers send a desk jockey on a protection job?”

“Beats me,” I responded. “But Myers picked those three to back up Franks for a reason. And I can’t figure out why.”

Earl stood and threw on his ancient bomber jacket. “I want to speak with Myers anyway. He needs to know his old buddy is our bad guy . . . I’m sure Franks already reported in, but I can’t wait to rub it in personally.” He smiled maliciously. “Good old Myers wanted to kill me for that night, and when he didn’t get his wish, he tried to ruin this whole company instead. He’s screwed us every chance he’s had, and it turns out that he was just as big a sucker as the rest of us.”

There was a knock at the door, and Julie entered, only to stagger back as she hit the wall of smoke. “Oh wow, how can any of you guys breathe in here?”

“Man business,” Sam stated. I coughed painfully.

Earl poked himself in the chest. “Regeneration. What’s up?”

Julie saw me and grinned, forgetting Earl for a moment. “You’re back.” Her smile brightened my day. I’m such a sap. She got down to business. “We need you upstairs. VanZant is arguing with Mayorga again about who gets the top support person. Hurley’s adamant he wants both techs, and says he needs another Spanish speaker. Esmeralda’s taken a bunch of folks out to the range because Eddings thinks she’s fudged the shooters’ scores. He says there’s no way that she can be graduating this many Newbies and more probably should have flunked.”

My boss groaned. “That’s because last time he trained, we only passed six people and he can’t admit she’s a better trainer than he is. These guys are the best killers the world has ever seen, but I swear sometimes running this show is like herding manticores.” There was a sudden banging from inside Earl’s cell. “And another thing, why is that thing in here?”

“Oh, I almost forgot about him. What’s his face . . . Melvin. We needed to stick him someplace secure,” Julie explained.

“Great, now my cell’s gonna smell like troll,” Earl muttered.

“He still might know something,” she said. “I figure give him a few days without internet access and he’ll be ready to talk.”

Earl shook his head. “I’ll have Milo order some air fresheners before the next full moon. Okay, everyone, that’s all for now. We’ll talk again later.” The group dispersed.

Eyes watering, lungs burning, I stumbled into the hall. Julie took me by the hand as the others kept walking. “You okay?”

“Asthma,” I replied.

“No, I mean, about everything. Something bad happened at Appleton, didn’t it?” she asked.

“How can you tell?”

Julie was worried about me. “You seem . . . distant.”

She was right to be concerned. She didn’t know just how much I had been using the power that I had gained from that artifact shard. I stroked her hair, and as it parted, the black mark on her neck was revealed. There were a lot of things I hadn’t confided to her yet, but since she was the most important person in my world, I needed to. “Everything’s going to be fine. Don’t worry. Come on, I’ll tell you all about it. But let’s get some fresh air.”

“Oh, it isn’t that easy,” Julie said. “You forgot something. You’ve still got another challenge to face.”

“Oh, man, what now? Walk the Hell Hounds? Clean the pterodactyl cages?”

“Not quite that terrifying. But still, he’s pretty darn scary.”

I had totally forgotten. “Dad.”

I found my father sitting on a bench outside the main building next to a larger man who I recognized as one of our senior team leaders. His name was Benjamin Cody, and he was leading the team that was currently fulfilling our contract with the Department of Energy. Their patch was a molecule with fangs under the words exite! chemicus sum! Which was Latin for, Back off, man! I’m a scientist! That team had the proud history of having cleaned up Los Alamos after the Manhattan Project had unfortunately dabbled in other, less successful types of weapons projects. Cody was one of the oldest active Hunters, and you had to be damn smart to get assigned to that contract. They were our specialists when it came to taking care of science projects gone bad. Julie had mentioned recently that Cody was mulling over the idea of retirement.

He had also served with Dad in Vietnam. I had learned that fact last summer when he had tried to pump me up to go kick Lord Machado’s ass. So at least Dad had found a friend. I approached them from behind. They apparently didn’t hear me, but what could you expect from two guys who had spent the best years of their life surrounded by explosions? Cody was telling a familiar story. “So, then they find this back door into the cavern . . . it’s some sort of magic portal. No hesitation, balls to the wall, your boy actually jumps through it, grabs the hostage, and runs out, with like fifty wights right at his feet.”

Dad stopped him. “What’s a wight?”

“Think of a zombie on steroids that paralyzes you with a touch. But anyway, that was just the beginning. The rest of us were busy fighting these Master vampires, and we were running out of time, when the kid went back through the portal with a small group to take on the head asshole himself.”

I swelled with pride. Everybody in MHI knew about my exploits at DeSoya Caverns.

“Brave and stupid. Sounds like my offspring,” Dad grunted.

Never mind. I cleared my throat so they would know I was present.

Cody turned around. “Well, afternoon, Z.” He extended one callused hand. I shook it. “I was just telling your father about the last time we worked together.”

“That was a tough day,” I replied. My dad scowled at me, as if to say that I wasn’t qualified to judge such things.

“A bunch of us didn’t come back,” Cody replied as he stood. He was a burly man, thick-shouldered, with a gray beard and mane of hair that made him look vaguely like an old lumberjack. “Well, I’ve got to get back to work.” He turned his attention back to Dad. “It was good to see you again, Augie.”

“Likewise, old friend,” my father replied. “It makes me feel a little better to see that this outfit isn’t entirely staffed with nut jobs.”

“Who said that it wasn’t?” Cody smiled. “It takes some getting used to, but this is as good a group of men as I’ve ever served with. And we’ve got a hell of a good CO.”

Dad’s brow creased. “You mean, Mr. Wolf?”

Cody didn’t show any reaction, even though all of the team commanders were aware of Harbinger’s condition. “I wouldn’t know. But if Earl Harbinger came to me and said he needed volunteers to follow him on a suicide mission into Hell’s bathroom, I’d go in a heartbeat, just for the chance to watch him kick Satan off his crapper. Don’t worry, Aug, your boy’s in good hands.” The two old vets shook hands and said their good-byes. I waited patiently.

After Cody left, Dad gestured at the empty spot on the bench. I took a seat. “We’ve got some things to talk about,” he said simply, eyes staring into the distant forest. There was a constant rattle of gunfire coming from the shooting range as the Newbies showed off what they’d learned.

“Mom told me you’ve been sick. She wouldn’t let me talk to you yesterday. What’s wrong?”

“She’s protective like that,” he responded, avoiding the question. “That’s not why you’re here.”

“I want to know about this dream of yours.”

He shook his head sadly. “You wouldn’t understand. . . .” My laugh was so sudden and bitter that I must have surprised him. “What?”

“Wouldn’t understand?” My voice dripped with anger. “Don’t treat me like I’m a stupid kid.”

“Listen, boy—”

I cut him off. “No, you’re going to listen to me for once. I’ve stood at the edge of the universe and seen what’s on the other side. I’ve faced off against evil that most people couldn’t even comprehend and I shot it in the face. I’ve traveled through friggin’ time.” A lot of pent-up aggression fought its way to the surface. “I’ve read people’s minds. I’ve seen some things that no sane person would ever imagine. I’m not here for you to bully and push around and scare. So don’t you treat me like I’m your fat, dumb, never-good-enough child, Dad. I’ve had enough of your crap, and it’s time I got some straight answers. Man to man.”

Dad waited. “You done?”

I realized I was breathing hard. “Yeah.”

He smiled slightly. “Cody was right. You do take after me. Stubborn. Now put a sock in it.” He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out an envelope that had been folded neatly in half. He handed it to me. My name had been scribbled across the front in bold black letters. “You know I’ve never been much of a talker, and Lord knows you aren’t a very good listener, so I wrote it down for you. I spent all last night and all morning putting down every detail so I wouldn’t forget anything.”

I took the envelope. “This is the dream?”

“You could say that. Vision, prophecy, whatever.” I started to open it, but his hand landed on mine. Dad started to speak, but hesitated.

“What?”

“Once you read that letter, my life will be over.”

That sounded ominous. He was dead serious. “What do you mean?”

His voice was strained. “I’ve been living on borrowed time for over thirty years. My life was a loan, and once you read that,” he gestured at the letter, “the loan can get called. So humor me.”

“I don’t understand.”

My dad chuckled. “See, I told you so, Mr. Know-it-all. There’s a place, a terrible place inside the border of the old Soviet Union. The coordinates are on that sheet. I was sent there on a black op a long time ago. Some really shady stuff was going on, some weird weapons project, and we needed to find out what it was. I didn’t survive . . .”

“Huh?”

“I was murdered. Dead. Done. Literally, a hole blown through my skull. But I was sent back, healed, given that dream and a charge that I couldn’t fail. See, I wasn’t done yet. I was told that I was going to have a son, and I had to prepare him for something unthinkable.”

I didn’t know what to say. It sounded so farfetched, so impossible. But then again, I had experienced the same thing myself. Mordechai had told me I’d drawn the short straw and then sent me back to slug it out with the Cursed One to see who got to decide the fate of the world. You could say I was pretty open-minded.

“I never knew if it was going to be you or David, but one of you was chosen before you were born. But from what I’ve heard over the last few days, you must be the one. I’m sorry, son.”

“I am the one,” I responded. “But I did the job, and I’m still here.”

He spied a stick on the ground, bent over, and used it to draw a design in the dirt. He tore at the ground furiously. The symbol was unfamiliar.

When he was done, he asked, “Have you seen this before?”

Looking at it left me strangely queasy. It wasn’t like the Old Ones’ writing I had seen in Lord Machado’s memories, or like Hood’s grimoire, nor was it like anything I had seen in the regular world. But at the same time, it seemed like something I should recognize, but it was just beyond the edge of my consciousness. “No. I haven’t.”

“Then it isn’t time yet. When you see that sign, the time has come.”

“What does it mean?”

“It’s a name.” He kept the stick in his hand and absently poked it at the dirt. “There were a few other signs. Some that I could see happen and others that I wasn’t sure about. The five minutes of backward time. That was one of them. Before it happened, I had almost been able to convince myself that none of this was real. You kids were grown-up, leading your own lives, the dream wasn’t coming as often, and maybe I had imagined the whole thing, you know. But the five minutes, that settled things.”

My father didn’t know that that had been my doing. There was no way he could know that. “That was my fault.”

He nodded, unsurprised. “That was part of it. In the dream, time is like a tube filled with water. As time goes by, the water freezes. The past is frozen solid, unchangeable, but the future is fluid until it happens. We live at the surface of the ice, the present. The water goes on forever. Whatever you did flash-melted a tiny bit of that water, moved us back in time. You woke him up.”

“Who?”

He gestured at the symbol, an unknown player in this game. Then he erased it with his foot, blotting it out with a look of disgust on his face. “You had no choice. There are multiple sides at work, and if any of them win, we lose. This is the first and the last. That jackass that’s messing with us right now? He’s with one faction, but his side isn’t the worst. Not by a long shot.”

“How do you know this stuff, Dad?”

“It’s all in the note. And once you read it, my job will be done.” He sighed. “I had a good run.”

I lifted the envelope. “You make it sound like as soon as I look at this, you’re going to just keel over or something. What’s going on?”

Dad paused. “Nothing.”

I groaned. “You’re the worst liar ever. It has something to do with Mom saying you’re sick, doesn’t it?”

He smiled. “When I died, I got shot here. Boom. Headshot. Asshole with a Dragunov.” He tapped his finger to the base of his skull. It was utterly improbable, but I lived in a world of improbabilities. “Then I met the others. They stuffed my brains back in, fixed me up, sent me back, and I woke up on a mountainside covered in my own blood, with the understanding that when my mission was complete, when my son was prepared and taught, it was time to go home. A couple of years ago, guess what a physical turned up? Right in the exact same place . . .”

His words hung in the air. My world came crashing down. It was impossible. It couldn’t be. “Oh no, please, no.”

“There’s no way to operate without killing me. The mass is at the base of my brain. But it hasn’t grown or changed since the doctors found it. It’s just sitting there, waiting. Just a lump of abnormal cells. Usually it don’t bother me. I know it’s not going anywhere until my job’s done. That’s a lot more assurance than a man can ask for.”

“Does Mom know?”

He nodded.

His life had been prolonged to give me this? I shoved the letter toward him. “Take it back.”

My dad didn’t move. “I can’t. The time will come that you’ll need it. See, I’m not the only dead man walking here. Your fate is sealed as much as mine. Only you can’t be weak. You can’t fail.” He grabbed my arm, hard, and shoved the letter back against my chest. His eyes bored into mine. “You have to be strong.”

I didn’t know what to say. Stunned, speechless, his hand crushing mine and the letter, I sat there. All these years, all the things that he had taught me, it was all for this. “Don’t do this to me.”

He let go. “Son, I’m sorry. But we’re both soldiers. We didn’t pick the job. It picked us. It isn’t like I’m going to live forever anyway. And now that I know you’re the one, there’s no time to waste. The longer you hesitate, the stronger he’ll become. Read the note. It’ll tell you what must be done.”

“That’s insane. I can’t kill you.”

Auhangamea Pitt, war hero, man of courage and honor, father, wiped his eyes and turned away from me. “My job’s done. I just hope that when you read this, you can know that I was just doing what I felt was right.”

It wasn’t right at all. For the first time in my life I finally felt like I knew where my father had been coming from. We’d talked, finally as equals, hoping to come to terms, to understand him, not this. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. But I knew what Dad would say to that, the same thing that he’d told me for years. Life isn’t fair.

But I was tired of being a pawn in some cosmic game. I stood and dropped the note on the bench next to Dad. He just looked at it, then back at me, disappointed. I had to get out of here. “Well, whoever this scumbag is, he can get in line. Dream your dream, and tell the people who sent you back that I’m not ready yet.”

“It won’t work, son. This is inevitable.”

“I’m getting real tired of that word,” I spat. “I’ll find a way to beat this. My father didn’t raise any quitters . . . I’ll talk to you later, Dad.”

Inevitable.

There had to be a way to fix this. That’s what I do. I fix things. I find ways to make them right. There had to be a way.

I half walked, half stumbled, away from my father. I wandered aimlessly across the compound. There was a spot of shade under the roof of the barracks. It was a secluded spot, and I leaned against the wall, head in my hands. Before I knew it, my knees had weakened, and I sank to the ground, shaking.

I couldn’t wrap my brain around not having my dad around. He had always been a rock. What was going to happen to Mom? Hell, somebody had to tell Mosh. I needed to talk to him, to somebody, but I couldn’t find the strength to rise. So I sat there for a long time, just tired, too dumbfounded to string a coherent plan together, feeling stupid and guilty for not staying with my father.

Finally, something woke me from my stupor, a hard tapping on my arm.

“What’re you crying about?” G-Nome was standing in front of me, partially hidden in the shadows of the barracks. The sky behind him indicated that dusk was approaching. I had been sulking for a long time.

“I wasn’t crying . . .” I rubbed my face. “What do you want?”

“Sissy,” he answered. With me sitting down, I still towered over him, even if you counted his pointy hat. “You humans get all emotional about shit. . . . Well, I done found your spy.”

That got my attention. “Who?”

“It wasn’t easy. But I caught him. He’s been texting on his phone. I been readin’ over his shoulder. He’s been tellin’ somebody where you at all the time.”

“Who?” I demanded.

The gnome smiled, eyes twinkling over rosy cheeks and puffy white beard. He took his time answering, taking a cigar out of his shirt and lighting it. He must have realized that I was about to wrench his head from his shoulders and finished quicker than he started. “That pretty-boy human, Grant.”

“Grant Jefferson? You’re sure?”

G-Nome took a long puff, then blew it out in a perfect ring. “Sure, I’m sure. Last night, when you left with that blonde hottie and your homie, he waited till you got outta sight and then he was all like textin’ some fool about it. I read it, sayin’ you had bags packed, like you was escapin’ out the back, know what I’m sayin? But I been followin’ him to make sure and he just got called by somebody checkin’ on you.”

“No chance you’re wrong?”

“Hells yeah. He texts in all the time. Always sayin’ where you’re at and who you’re talkin’ to. When you went to sneak out last night, he’d sent the message before you’d even made it out the back door! Ain’t just about you all either. He’s been tellin’ them all about MHI business.”

Bastard. All that talk about needing to succeed, not being a quitter, and I had bought that, hook, line, and sinker. He had totally snowed me. I should have trusted my initial instincts. My legs had fallen asleep, and tingled painfully as I stumbled to my feet. Coldly, I drew my .45 from my inside the waistband holster and pulled back the slide slightly to make sure I had a round chambered. “Where is he?”

“In the big building. My dawg, Harbinger’s talkin’ to his peeps, some graduation ceremony or somethin’, I don’t know. That’s why I had to find you. You gonna bring the pain?”

“I intend to kill him if that’s what you mean.” I shoved my gun back in the holster.

“Sweet!” G-Nome turned his head to the side, as if listening to something I couldn’t hear from inside the barracks. His nose twitched, like he was smelling the air, and he suddenly frowned. “That ain’t right. Gotta bounce. Have fun.” And with a pop, he disappeared from sight.

I started toward the main building, murder on my mind. Thirty yards away was a figure leaning against the trunk of a tree, waiting. Franks had been following me the entire time, fulfilling his duty, but keeping his distance while I had my emotional collapse. I passed him without a word. I didn’t turn my head to look, but I knew he followed.

As long as he didn’t try to get in my way for what was about to come next, I didn’t care. The traitor had to die.

The rational part of my mind urged caution, that maybe I should slow down, think it through, get some help first . . . Maybe it was because of my dad’s terrible news, maybe it was because I somehow knew with absolute certainty that the gnome was telling the truth, I didn’t know exactly, but rationality went right out the window and I was in a red haze of anger that could only be cured by facing the traitor.

The main building was busy. Everyone was congregating for the graduation ceremony that Esmeralda had organized. Earl was going to say a few words, and then announce where the Newbies were going. The atmosphere was one of excitement. Nobody else was aware that I was a man on a mission as I barged through the entrance. Dorcas was behind her desk, being harassed by joyous Newbies. From the look of her, I was guessing that for the special occasion there was more in her coffee cup than just coffee. She saw me and started shooing the others away. “Z, where’ve you been? Julie’s looking for you, but your phone isn’t picking up.”

That’s because my BlackBerry was at the bottom of the river outside Montgomery. “Have you seen Grant?”

She must have realized from my expression that this was serious. “No. What’s going on?”

I glanced in both directions, just a bunch of Newbies walking toward the cafeteria. Earl was about to speak. “Has anyone seen Grant Jefferson?” I asked loudly. The Newbies shrugged and continued on.

Franks tapped me on the shoulder with one gloved hand. “What are you doing?”

“Taking care of some personal business,” I responded as I kept walking.

Franks began to say something, but paused as his phone started buzzing. He looked at the display in frustration, then stopped to read the text. I took the opportunity to head down the hallway after the Newbies.

The cafeteria was packed with folding chairs and loafing Hunters. The leads were all sitting in front, joking and heckling each other. The Newbies were filing in, taking their seats. Earl was pacing back and forth, waiting for everyone to gather. Not being the kind of person to go for a lot of ceremony, he was wearing his regular scuffed bomber jacket and looked agitated that he was doing this kind of thing. I’d heard him refer to his little talks as dog and pony shows more than once, but he was a hell of a good motivator. Julie was seated next to her grandfather. She waved when she saw me.

I was too preoccupied to wave back. Scanning the crowd, I saw just about everyone I expected to. Even my parents were there as guests watching the spectacle, but no Grant. I hadn’t formulated a plan yet. Dragging him out of the room by the hair was probably not the most discreet tactic, but it was the one that I was currently running with.

I waited. Maybe he was coming. The Goon Squad was there, still pretending to be Newbies. Torres was the last of the undercover Feds to arrive, and when he saw me standing at the doorway, he paused and waited next to me. “You okay?” he asked, ever helpful. He must have seen the expression on my face, and grew worried. “Owen?”

I didn’t answer. The last of the Newbies pushed past me, looking for seats. The gang was all here, over sixty Hunters. Julie handed Earl a microphone and he rapped it sharply. The intercom speakers thumped.

“Sorry, but I have to use this thing,” Earl said, “Julie didn’t think that it was fair that the Hunters manning the security room couldn’t listen in. I don’t know what she’s thinking, because it ain’t like I’m much of a talker.” The room laughed.

The security room. Julie had scheduled it so that at least two people were in there manning the cameras continuously since Susan’s visit. I exited and ran down the hallway. Grant might be there, and if he wasn’t, I could use the cameras to find him.

I had always suspected it could be him, the slimy little prick. He had left the company with his tail between his legs. I bet he had been an easy mark for the Condition. I didn’t know what they were paying him, but whatever it was, wasn’t enough. He had come crawling back at such a convenient time . . . We were such suckers. Grant had probably jumped at the chance to betray us when he had found out it was all about killing me. Black anger welled up in my heart. Knowing the kind of evil we were fighting, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if his payment was in the form of Julie. Oh, this was personal now.

Earl’s voice was tinny over the intercom as he got down to business. “Welcome, Hunters. And I can actually say that now. Hunters. Because there aren’t any Newbies in this room now, just equals.” The sound that came next had to have been applause, but it was hard to tell.

I flew down the stairs to the basement. The door to the security room was straight ahead down a long hallway. I stuck one hand under my shirt and put it on the butt of my gun.

“No need to clap. Besides, if you get Boss Shackleford clapping he’s likely to hurt himself with that hook.” More laughter. “Just kidding, Boss.”

My blood was pounding in my ears. If Grant was in that room, I was going to end his miserable life. At the end of the hall, the door was closed.

“Young Hunters, look at these people sitting in front of you. These are the finest leaders MHI has ever had. I’ve worked with every single one of them, and wouldn’t hesitate to trust my life to their hands. Regardless of who you’re assigned to today, you can know that you’re with the very best. Well, except for Sam . . . for those of you stuck with him . . . sorry about that.” There was a loud response, but it was indecipherable over the intercom. More laughter. “I’d put the microphone there, but I don’t think that’s legal in Alabama.”

My boots skidded across the concrete as I reached the security room. I grabbed the doorknob. It was locked.

“Before Esmeralda reads off your name and your assignment, let me just say that this is the most successful training class we’ve ever conducted. I’ve interviewed you all. I’ve seen your records. I’ve watched you improve. I’ve been impressed, and I don’t impress easy.”

I rapped on the door. “Come on . . .” I whispered.

“When you came here a few short months ago, you were all survivors. That’s what set you apart from the rest of the world. A survivor has heart. A will to win. A desire to live. You were survivors, but now you’re something more . . .”

My pounding increased in intensity. Nobody was answering.

“You are Hunters.”

Something was wrong. I stepped back, and with a roar, slammed my boot into the steel door. Pain shot up my injured ankle. The frame cracked, but it held.

“Survivors take care of themselves. Hunters take the fight to the other side. We are the final line against evil.”

I stepped back again, readying myself to kick the door again. Somebody shouted from down the hall. “Owen!” I spun to see who it was.

“We will hold the line.”

It was Grant. He was walking down the hall toward me, five yards away. His arms were held wide and he had his phone in one hand. “What the hell are you doing to that door?”

My .45 appeared in my hand and I punched it toward him. “Don’t move! Don’t you fucking move!”

“Whoa! Whoa! Calm down!” Grant cried. He was wearing his armored suit so I aimed at the junction of his nose and eyes.

“What are you doing down here?” I shouted.

“Somebody said you were looking for me,” he said calmly. “Now put the gun down. You’re acting nuts.”

“I’m nuts? I’m not the traitor, you son of a bitch.”

Grant paused, a painful look crossing his handsome features. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Earl’s voice was just background noise now.

My gun didn’t waver. If he so much as twitched I was going to blow his brains out. “Don’t you lie to me,” I hissed. “I know all about your messages.” I nodded at the phone. “Why’d you do it?”

His eyes flicked unconsciously to the device in his hand. “Just calm down, Owen.” He slowly put the phone back into his pocket, then put his hands back up.

“Why, Grant? Do you hate me that much? Do you hate Julie that much? Are we talking jealousy, or is it something worse? Do you actually believe what the Condition stands for? Tell me, because I really want to understand before I kill you.”

He was blinking rapidly, knowing that I wasn’t bluffing. “It isn’t what you think.”

That sealed his fate. I tightened my grip. The safety was off. My finger was on the trigger.

“Wait!” someone ordered from the direction I had come.

I kept the gun on Grant, but turned my head slightly to see. It was MCB Agent Herzog. Directly behind her was Agent Torres. They must have followed me downstairs. “Get Franks. I found your spy.” I turned my attention back to Grant. “And tell him to hurry, because if he wants to interrogate him, he’ll need his own necromancer.”

“Listen to me,” Grant pleaded. “Yeah, I’ve been spying on MHI, but for a good reason. Let me explain. I’m trying to help.”

“I’ve heard that line before, you sack of—” Then I thought of something. Nobody had answered the door to the security room, even after all the noise I had made. I lowered my gun slightly, and threw a brutal side kick into the steel. This time the bolt tore through the frame. “Don’t try to run or do anything stupid. You know I don’t miss,” I ordered.

I risked a quick glance into the security room.

There was blood everywhere.

“Son of a bitch . . .” I covered the distance to Grant quickly, my gun on him the whole time.

“Wait. What’s going on?” he asked. “I don’t—”

I struck him in the face with the butt of my compact STI. He stumbled back into the wall. I hit him again, slamming his head into the concrete. He raised his hands to protect his face, but I swatted them down and smashed my gun into his temple. Then I rammed my knee into his ribs repeatedly with savage fury. He slid to the ground. I jerked his pistol from its holster and tossed it down the hallway. I grabbed him by the boot and dragged his semiconscious weight back to the security room.

The agents were still standing there. Herzog was shocked. Torres had drawn his sidearm and was pulling something out of another pocket, probably his radio. “Sound the alarm,” I ordered as I dragged Grant through the door. Herzog glanced inside, saw the carnage, turned a ghastly shade of green, and stumbled back.

I turned my attention to the security room. Blood was splattered all over the bank of monitors. There was a single Hunter on the floor, facedown in a giant red puddle. Adrenaline and fury were pounding through my veins. I rolled him over. It was one of the Newbies. The taxi driver. I couldn’t even remember his name. His throat had been cut.

Flat on his back, Grant groaned.

I kicked him in the side. “Why? What’d he do to you?”

“Wasn’t me!” he cried.

I squatted down. It was time to end it. “You want to worship the Old Ones? Well, tell them hi for me.” I placed my gun against his temple.

Grant sputtered something. It took me a second to realize he was laughing at me. His teeth were red with blood. “Old Ones? God, you’re a moron . . . Sure, I’m a spy, but not for the Condition.”

What?

“He’s working for the Monster Control Bureau,” Agent Anthony Torres said from the doorway. “Myers recruited him after he left MHI.”

“Are you serious?”

Grant gasped as he looked over my shoulder. “It’s you!”

Torres was standing over me, collapsible baton extended above his head. “Yes.” Then he cracked me hard, lights exploded in my skull, snapping my head around. The floor came up and hit me.

“Anthony! What are you doing?” Herzog screeched. I couldn’t see what happened next, but there was a sudden whump.

Sitting up, I raised my gun but another quick strike of the baton knocked it from my hand. Torres kicked me in the chest, sending me back to the ground.

“Stop right there,” he stated as he raised his HK in his other hand. A fat sound suppressor had been screwed onto the muzzle.

My head hurt. That baton had nailed me good. The spinning room lurched to a stop. “What are you doing?” I grunted.

“I’m completing my mission,” Torres said calmly. His normally cheerful disposition had been replaced with something cold. He stepped completely into the room and closed the damaged door behind him. Back against the wall, he kept the gun pointed at me. I realized with a start that Herzog was also down, a gaping hole in the side of her head, brains dripping down the wall behind, eyes like glass, open and staring at nothing. “I never did like her,” Torres said. “Too bossy.” Then he lowered his gun and shot her twice more, each round from the suppressed pistol sounding like the slamming of a thick book. It was back on me before I could do anything.

Grant struggled to sit up, but began coughing. I had really hit him good.

“Hunters, as you enter the world, your greatest weapon is the trust you have in your team,” Earl said over the intercom. The intercom speaker was next to Torres and he turned it off.

“I’ve listened to enough blowhards for one night,” Torres said. His demeanor had changed. The friendly act was cast aside, and now I could see the crazy in his eyes. Damn, he’d been a good actor. “You know, you look confused, Owen. Let me try to help you out here. I’m an acolyte in the Exalted Order of the Shadows, that’s who I really work for. Jefferson here is pretending to work for MHI, when he’s really working for Myers. His assignment was to help Franks catch which of your detail was the spy.”

“Traitors,” I muttered. “Both of you.”

“I was trying to serve my country. . . .” Grant said, spitting a gob of blood on the floor. “Unlike this piece of shit.”

Undeterred, Torres’ HK kept floating between Grant and me. If either of us moved, we were dead. “Well, you did find me finally, Agent Jefferson. I’ll give you that.” Torres smiled. “Maybe you’ll get a posthumous promotion for catching me. . . .”

“Squid lover,” Grant spat.

“Don’t knock it until you try it.” He turned his attention back to the door, and peeked through the crack down the hallway. The gun was still pointed in our direction. Torres was a pro. “Don’t try anything stupid, Pitt.”

“Grant, what the hell’s going on?” I hissed.

“I was trying to help you, moron.” Grant moaned as he sat up. “Myers knew the MCB had been infiltrated. I was supposed to watch out for you and back up Franks. When one of Myers’ people, Patterson, was killed trying to infiltrate the cult, there were only a few agents who knew about her cover.”

My head was spinning, and not just from Torres’ baton. Myers had shown me pictures of Agent Patterson. She had been the one chopped into pieces—Franks’ friend. Torres was still listening and turned his attention back to us, grinning.

“Served the bitch right, trying to lie to the sacred Order. There were only a handful of us who knew about Ashley’s assignment. Archer took care of her comms. Herzog”—Torres gestured at the dead woman—“processed her reports. And I was her field backup. Myers could only narrow it down to the three of us. He was suspicious, but couldn’t be certain if he’d been betrayed or if the Order was getting its intel some other way. When the Dread Overlord sent his request for your utter destruction, that toad Myers saw his opportunity. He knew if one of us was a spy, we’d surely reveal ourselves to take a shot at you.”

It made sense. That’s why Herzog was just a clerk. They had never been here to protect me. They had been here simply to see which one tried to kill me and then Franks or Grant could capture them. I didn’t know if I was angrier at Torres the traitor or Myers for bringing this down on our heads.

“You weren’t supposed to figure that out. . . .” Grant said.

“I wasn’t supposed to know about you either. Looks like Myers underestimated the Order again.” Torres went back to watching the hallway. He was waiting for something.

I had to keep him distracted. I had to go for that gun. “So this whole thing about MHI having a spy was a lie?”

“Oh, no,” Torres said. “You’ve got bigger problems, an actual doppelganger.” He gestured at the blood-soaked Newbie, almost reverently. “This is its work. In fact . . .” He glanced absently at his watch. “We both have our missions, and our assignment is almost done. Check out the monitors.”

Beneath the blood splatter were twenty different black and white ten-inch screens. The compound was well covered. The one of the cafeteria was packed with Hunters as Earl wrapped up his speech. The other views were mostly empty, but movement caught my eye on one of the central ones. A group of shapes were moving toward the barracks. Men with guns.

“Fellow acolytes,” Torres said proudly.

“Half a dozen ass-wipes aren’t going to stand up to a bunch of pissed-off Hunters,” I said. “Hell, Earl will probably just eat them.”

Torres was enjoying himself. He turned away from the door. “Our doppelganger will neutralize your little werewolf at the proper time, with MHI-issued silver bullets even. My brothers are here to destroy your ward stone.” The look on my face must have betrayed my surprise. “Oh yes, we know all about that. Harbinger thought secrecy would protect it. Not even our High Priest was privy to that. But Myers knew, and he filed it in his official report on MHI.” Torres shrugged. He was feeling smug. “Just another thing I was able to pass on to the Order.”

The monitor that covered the front gate showed movement also. A semi pulling a huge cargo trailer rolled to a halt, then another parked beside it, and another pulled up behind. The drivers got out and moved to open the rear doors. More trucks were pulling up behind. You could pack a lot of dead stuff into that many trailers.

“With your shield gone, a veritable ocean of the righteous dead will flood this place. Once the Hunters are gone, I’ll deliver you personally to my Master.”

“What about me?” Grant asked.

Torres scowled. “You? I just wanted to gloat for a minute. Might as well pop you now.” He moved the gun back toward Grant. “All that I’m going to ask is that I’ll be the one to animate your corpse afterward.”

Grant gave Torres a bloody smile. “Good thing I texted Franks when I found Pitt.”

Grant had been holding his phone when I had spotted him.

Torres’ eyes flicked to the door just as it exploded inward. He opened fire. The flash-bang grenade went off a split second later.

My eyes were scalded with light and my ears rang with a deafening screech. Head swimming, I struggled to my feet. I had to reach Torres. I misjudged and crashed into the wall. A strong hand grabbed my neck and shoved me out of the way. I tripped over Herzog’s corpse and went to my knees.

A moment later I could see again. Bright purple ghosts floated across my corneas, but I could at least tell what was going on. Torres was facedown on the floor. Franks was kneeling on his back, handcuffing him. Archer stood in the doorway with a Sig 229 pointed at Torres’ head.

Then I could hear. Torres was screaming, thrashing. “The High Priest is coming! His legions are coming! You can’t stop him! It’s the dark new dawn! Do you hear me?”

Franks jerked Torres to his feet. He towered over his prisoner. “Yeah. I hear you.” Then he slammed his giant fist into the side of Torres’ head with a brutal hook. The cultist collapsed, unconscious. “So shut up.”

I got unsteadily to my feet. “Where’s the alarm button?”

Franks pointed at Torres’ limp form. “Get him out of here.” Archer looked confused. “I’ll explain later. Contact Myers. Tell him we got the spy.” Franks glanced down at Grant. “Nice work, Agent Jefferson.” He was smug, mission completed, no idea what was coming our way fast.

There was a large red button on the control desk. I mashed it repeatedly. Nothing happened. I looked under the desk. The wires had been torn out. I swore.

Franks’ blunt features were perplexed. “What?”

Grant had gotten unsteadily to his feet. He pointed at the monitors. “The Condition’s attacking!”

The acolytes had pulled up a hidden hatch near the barracks and were entering the tunnels. The view of the front gate showed the trucks and the movement of some vast beast tottering down the trailers’ ramps. On the cafeteria camera, Earl finished speaking. He was stepping down. Esmeralda was taking his place. Someone stood in the audience, back toward the camera, a gun extended forward. It was utterly silent. Earl jerked as a hail of bullets tore into him. There was a loud noise down the hallway as something exploded.

The power went out.

Chapter 15

A brilliant flashlight beam clicked on. Franks flashed it around the room.

“Status?”

“Commando team is trying to destroy our ward stone. And when they do there’s at least four truckloads of undead waiting to charge in.” I pulled out my own Streamlight and shined it around the room. I spotted my compact STI .45 and picked it up. “We’ve got to protect that ward.”

Grant, stumbling from the beating, retrieved Torres’ suppressed HK and looted some extra mags from the unconscious traitor. That’s right, I had tossed Grant’s gun down the hallway. Franks was a hulking shadow behind his light. “Archer, request reinforcements. Jefferson, call the Shacklefords and warn them what’s coming.”

Archer came back immediately. “I’ve got nothing.”

“No signal,” Grant said. The Condition was jamming us somehow. This was a full-on assault. Hood had set it up perfectly. He must have been planning this forever. Like Holly had said, this was a chess game to him.

“You know where the ward stone’s at?” I asked. Grant had been around longer than I had.

“No idea,” he answered. I shined my flashlight on him. He was bleeding from his nose and one eye was swollen shut. I had really clocked him. Served him right, just not for the reasons I had imagined. If we lived through this, I was going to find out why Grant had turned snitch and then I was going to beat him to death.

“The bad guys were heading into the tunnels by the barracks. Earl said that the stone was centrally located,” I said.

“Probably in the middle of the property,” he responded. The main building was toward the front. We had some ground to cover.

The compound was connected to the regular electrical lines. Those must have been cut by whatever that explosion was, probably set by the doppelganger. But we had our own backup generators in the basement. I could hear them begin to whine from down the hall. They were up and running within a minute. The lights came back on.

The cultists were in the tunnels. Luckily Earl had given me a brief tour. “I know about an entrance to the tunnels. We’re close. We can intercept them. We’ve got to hurry.” I started from the room.

“Wait,” Franks said as he blocked the exit. “I’ll handle this. My mission is still to keep you safe.”

“No, you lied. Your mission was to capture your traitor.” I pointed at Torres’ unconscious form. “Now get the hell out of my way.”

“You were both part of my mission.”

“You son of a bitch . . .” He had brought a murderer right into my house, and put all of us at risk, just to accomplish his mission. Unfortunately, I couldn’t even afford the luxury of being angry. There was work to be done. “We’re out of time.”

He contemplated that just for a second. After all, with the warding down, we were probably all going to die anyway. “Fine. Let’s go. Archer, warn the Hunters. Find a way to contact Myers.”

“Yes, sir!” Archer shouted, whipping out a pair of handcuffs and securing one of Torres’ already cuffed wrists to the heavy desk. Then the efficient agent sprinted from the room, shouting back at us. “I’ll get help.”

Franks raised his Glock 10mm. He was wearing a suit, and other than what he had stashed in his pockets, probably didn’t have a lot of extra firepower. All I had was my compact pistol, two extra 10-round mags, and a Spyderco folding knife. The rest of my gear was upstairs, fat lot of good that did me right now. Grant had Torres’ piece, but at least he was wearing armor. So it was up to a brute, a snitch, and me, armed only with handguns, to defeat a commando force of heavily armed and amped-up cultists. I led the way toward the tunnels. “Hurry.”

We reached the storage closet that Earl had showed me. The door was locked. I kicked it open. My ankle was really burning now. Shoving the shelf of cleaning supplies aside, I realized that there was no way I was going to batter this massive door open. The padlock hanging from the massive latch was a serious piece of steel. “Crap! I can’t open it.”

“Move,” Franks ordered as he shoved past me.

“Well, that was stupid,” Grant said.

“Shut it, you rat.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about it, so shove it,” Grant returned. “I saved your life.”

“I can’t believe you’re a Fed. You lied to us all.”

“I’ve got my reasons,” Grant replied as he took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the blood from his forehead. “I told you the truth earlier. You think this is all about you? The world doesn’t revolve around you, Pitt.”

Maybe Grant just brought out the worst in me, but I wasn’t in the mood to listen to his crap. “Well, yeah, it does. So screw you.”

Franks studied the big lock for a moment. Maybe he was planning on shooting it. Realistically, as solid as that chunk of steel was, we were going to run out of ammo and die from ricochets long before we broke it. Franks put his gloved hands around the lock, braced one big foot against the door and pulled with all his might. He roared as the metal bent, tore, then broke free. He fell back. Whatever the hell Franks really was, he sure was handy to have around.

Franks tossed the broken lock on the ground. He cracked his knuckles. “Go.”

I pulled out my flashlight as we entered the tunnel. I remembered how to get to the intersection, but the only other time I had been down here, I had gone in the opposite direction than we needed to go. But rough estimation should get us toward the barracks.

The tunnels were cold, and without Earl to lead me, they felt strangely eerie. I set off in the direction of the barracks. Running with pistol in one hand, light in the other, I almost missed the turn. Franks collided with me. I picked the direction that seemed correct.

“Booby-trapped?” Franks asked.

“Uh . . . I don’t actually know.” Earl had never mentioned it, but all things considered, that seemed like a definite possibility.

“They should be. Stay behind me.” Franks took the lead. He raised his light and scanned ahead. The big man took off at a run. It was a struggle to keep up. Franks was fast. I followed the bobbing light. It paused as he came to another branch. I guessed approximately where we were and shouted for him to keep to the left. Franks disappeared again.

“Damn, he’s quick,” I gasped. “What the hell is he?”

“I don’t know either,” Grant answered. “That was classified.”

“Well, you’re about useless.”

We had to be getting close now. Suddenly the tunnel ahead of us was plunged into darkness. Franks had killed his flashlight. There had to be a reason, so I did the same. My eyes were not adjusted to the dark at all, so I placed my hand against the cold wall and shuffled forward blindly. My heart was pounding. I could hear Grant breathing hard behind me.

Something large and warm bumped into me. I almost shot him. “Suppressed weapon,” Franks whispered. There was some shuffling as Grant handed off Torres’ gun. “Count to thirty, then follow.”

I counted. I got to twenty-five before I heard a pair of thumps that could only be the silenced .45. I moved forward.

The tunnel curved, and my boots collided with a large, soft object. I knelt down. My hands landed in something sticky and hot. Blood. In utter darkness, I felt around. The body was wearing a tac vest covered with MOLLE pouches full of equipment. My fingers landed on lips and teeth. Goggles. The man had been wearing night-vision goggles. I tore the device off his head and held it up to my eyes. The world was immediately bathed in a brilliant green glow. I flinched as I realized Franks was squatting a few feet ahead, looking right at me. Alien and terrifying in the unnatural light, his eyes glowed. He held up one finger in front of his lips to indicate the need for silence. Apparently he could see in the dark too.

The Condition did not skimp. These were at least as good as the third-generation monoculars that MHI issued. I pulled the strap and chinpiece over my head. It was absurdly tight, and immediately began to hurt my face and cut off the circulation to my throbbing scalp. But I have an enormous head, so what do you expect.

Grant bumped into me. I put my head next to his ear and whispered for him to stay here. The cultist had an Uzi subgun with a massive sound suppressor at his side. I pressed it against Grant to replace the HK. He clumsily found it in the dark and took it from me. The goggles cut down my field of vision so much that it was like looking through a toilet-paper tube. When I looked back up, Franks was gone. I followed.

I heard voices. “We’ve retrieved the stone, Mistress. The warding is down.”

“Excellent, take it to the surface. The Shadow Lord wants it immediately.”

We were too late. The voices were getting closer. I reached another intersection. How big was this place? Maybe if I could put the stupid thing back, it would turn the shield back on. I was drastically turned around by now, but I could clearly tell which direction the sound was coming from. Franks materialized through the pixelated glow. He held up both hands. Five fingers on one, three on the other. Eight men.

“Where’s Harris?” Sound carried strangely down here, so I couldn’t tell how far away the voice was.

“I sent him to cover that tunnel,” the woman said.

“Wait . . . I smell his blood.”

I rubbed my sticky fingers together. I had wandered right into the dead cultist’s body. I was covered in his blood. But how could he smell it? Damn it. They weren’t all normal. . . .

“Hunters! They’re here. I can smell them now. They’re close. Let me transform and hunt them. Please?” The voice sounded eager, hungry. “Pretty please?”

“Be careful. I’ll take the humans up to secure the stone. Kill them all, my love.”

I saw Franks’ pixelated face mouth the word werewolf. Of course. It couldn’t ever be easy, could it? I hoisted my STI and gave him a thumbs-up. Silver bullets. Franks pointed at me, then pointed down one passage. I nodded and proceeded in the indicated direction. Franks disappeared down the other.

I hate werewolves. Werewolves are what got me involved in this business to begin with. I’m scared shitless of werewolves. But there was no time for fear. I could dwell on the absolute bowel-clenching terror of trying to take on a ball of razor claws and fury in this enclosed space, or I could man up and go kill him. Less than a minute later a howl reverberated through the tunnel.

That transformation had been quick. This wasn’t some wimpy young werewolf like the one that had almost ended my life. But even tough lycanthropes weren’t immune to silver. That thought immediately made me think of Earl. If he had been hit with MHI-issued ammo, he might already be dead.

I kept swinging my head back and forth in wide arcs, scanning through the narrow field of view, gun trembling in my hands, waiting for the cultist-wolf to appear. When he did, it was unbelievably fast. One second the tunnel was open, the next, something was in front of me, a massive, hairy shape, with eyes glowing over a gaping maw full of teeth. The tritium night sights on my little pistol glowed like road flares in the night vision. I jerked the trigger twice.

The noise was brutal in the confined space. Smoke floated in front of the lens. The werewolf was gone. I’d missed.

Damn, he’s fast.

The tunnel walls seemed to press in around me. I moved forward, gun up. If he reappeared, I wouldn’t have much time to put him down. I had to incapacitate him quickly, because if he got in range, I knew that he’d tear right through my unarmored vitals.

Waiting, I covered the corner. He had to come through here. If I rounded the edge, he could be right there. I listened for breathing, but my ears were still ringing. I didn’t have time for this. If the cultists got away with that stone, we were going to be up to our ears in dead things. They were probably already swarming over the fence. Crap. I surged forward, pistol raised. The hall was empty.

I ran in the direction that I thought the voices had come from. The werewolf was still out there somewhere in the darkness, but I had to reach that stone first. My enhanced vision revealed a larger open space ahead of me. I came up on the corner ready to shoot, but there was no movement.

There was a big steel portal in this room. It was an old-fashioned vault door with a giant, spinning wheel in the center. There was a perfect circle cut through the side of the door. I touched the edge. Several inches of steel had been cleanly sheared. It was cool to the touch. They had used some sort of magic to bypass Earl’s security, and judging from the shape, it was probably another one of those magic ropes. Inside the room was a concrete pillar, looking almost like a speaker’s podium, but with an empty indentation in the center about the size of a softball.

There was a scraping noise behind me, claws on rock. I spun, but couldn’t see anything. Stupid werewolf’s stalking me. Well, let him come. One of us would be faster than the other. It was that simple. I ran after the cultists. This tunnel was trending upward, but we seemed to be circling back toward where I had left Grant. I was so lost.

Scritch.

I spun on the ball of my foot, gun punching out. A black shape barreled toward me, eyes glowing like green balls of fire, saliva flying from rows of teeth. I fired.

We collided, slamming me painfully down. There was a flash of heat and fur rubbed across my face. I rolled over, gun tucked in tight against my body. My goggles had been knocked askew. I couldn’t see anything. Something moved before me. There was a tearing of wind, and claws ripped four lines through my shirt. I opened fire.

A shriek of pain. I’d got him! The last shots in my pistol were gone in a split second, my slide locked back empty. I automatically dropped the mag and jerked another one from my belt, slamming it home and chambering a round. Claws scratched and I cranked off ten more shots in that direction, as fast as I could pull the trigger, muzzle blast creating a strobe effect as the shape rolled away from me.

It was quiet except for my breathing. Adrenaline was pounding through my system. I reached up with my shaking left hand and jerked the goggles back into place.

Agent Franks towered over me. I jumped. He had the suppressed HK in one hand. The werewolf was curled into a fetal position between us, a bristling mass of hair and muscle. Air hissed from its perforated lung. I’d nailed the werewolf repeatedly. Franks raised the pistol and put a final round through the creature’s skull, splattering the tunnel floor. Franks nodded. “You got him . . .” Then he pointed at his abdomen. “And me.”

It was hard to tell through the night-vision, but there was a leaking hole low in his side. I’d shot Franks! “Oh, man, are you okay?”

He appeared to think about it as he stuck one finger in the entrance wound, not feeling any pain. “Bullet struck my pelvis below my vest. Glanced upward . . . Hmmm, hit a kidney. You owe me a new one. Come on.” He turned and stalked after the cultists.

Now that was tough, even by Monster Hunter standards.

“I’m sorry!” I exclaimed as I stepped over the dead werewolf. I’d never shot anybody by accident before. It was humiliating. Even if it was a pretty intense situation, I was still supposed to be the master of this stuff. I shoved my final magazine into the smoking STI and followed Franks.

Twenty feet of tunnel later, there was a chattering of submachine-gun fire. I pressed myself against the carved stone, but it wasn’t directed at us. It was coming from just ahead. Franks surged forward. I followed. Grant was kneeling at the corner, metal Uzi stock at his shoulder, firing blindly down the hall. He must have stumbled around totally in the dark until he had heard the cultists. There was a ladder leading up into the night. There was one body at the base, and another one dangling with an arm trapped through the rungs. Way to go, Grant.

Somebody stuck an arm down the hole and muzzle flashes sparked as they shot at us. Franks extended the HK and fired. There was a scream of pain and a clatter as the man dropped his gun down the hole. Franks hit the ladder and began to climb. He jerked the dead cultist off and let him drop. “Grant, follow us. We’re heading up!” I shouted.

“I’m blind, idiot!” he responded.

“Head toward the gunfire,” I suggested as I started climbing. Franks was nearing the top. There was a sudden boom as something detonated above him. He fell a couple of rungs, and I cringed, waiting for him to land on me, but he caught himself with a grunt. The cultists had grenades. Franks growled in frustration, blood falling from him and splattering my upturned face as he shoved himself up and through the hole.

I was out a second later, a cloud of dust and smoke still hanging in the air from the explosion. I tore off the goggles. The sun had just gone down, but it was brilliantly bright compared to the stifling tunnels. Franks was already moving, firing the suppressed pistol through the swirling dust. It ran dry, and he dropped it, automatically drawing a Glock. I couldn’t see what he was shooting at, but I took off after him.

It took me a moment to orient myself as the dust cleared. We were at the north corner of the barracks. I ran, subconsciously crouching over as bullets crashed through the dirt at my feet. Somebody was shooting at me! I hugged the wall behind Franks, safely around the corner. I’d never actually been in a gunfight before. It was certainly different than fighting monsters!

Franks nodded at me. “Five left.”

I was gasping for breath. I glanced down at my gun. “I’m down to my last ten rounds.”

“So shoot each one twice,” Franks replied. He reached down and checked his side. Blood was drizzling out from under his suit and soaking his pant leg. “I’ve got to stop this.”

“Sorry,” I stammered. I had often dreamed of shooting Franks, just never by accident. He had lost his sunglasses and in that brief lull I noticed something strange under the lights of the barracks. His eyes had changed. They had always been dark, almost black, and one still was, but the other was light blue.

Franks caught me staring and turned his head away. He pointed at the door the cultists had entered. “They’re covering that entry. Is there another way in?”

It took my brain a second to process the request. There were windows, and they slid open, but like everything at the compound, they were barred. I had lived in the barracks while I had undergone my Newbie training. Yeah, there was an entrance on both sides, and one in the middle to the rec room. I found myself nodding.

“Flank them,” Franks ordered.

I didn’t know at what point in time he had become in charge, but I had never actually fought human beings to the death before, so it seemed like a reasonable request. I moved quickly down the wall, but just as I did so, a massive fireball rose from the main building, highlighting strange, disjointed shadows scaling the walls. The undead were here. We were under siege.

The barracks was a very basic building. It was a prefab, shaped like a big H, with a row of sleeping quarters down both sides along a hallway, showers on the end, and the recreation room in the center. I paused outside the side door.

This was nuts. I shouldn’t have been scared. I’d risked my life dozens of times now, but facing people was different. Well, they had at least one werewolf, so I guess I couldn’t assume the rest of the cultists were human either. I had killed a man but I didn’t really know if the reborn Machado counted. I checked my gun and took a deep breath. Screw it. Monster, human, whatever, put a bullet in the right place, and they all go down the same. People are just softer. The knob was cool under my hand as I pulled the door open.

Nothing moved in the hallway.

I moved slowly, setting each boot down carefully so as not to make too much noise. The doors to the Newbies’ rooms were all open, everyone having cleaned out their stuff in preparation for getting the heck out of here. Luggage was stacked by each door. The walls had once been boring beige, but just about every inch had been covered by tacked-up posters, pictures, notes, Sharpie autographs, or even graffiti from years of new Hunters.

There was a noise—a crash as something fell over. There was movement in the room to the side. I raised my compact STI and covered the doorway.

A man stepped out, dressed entirely in black, wearing a balaclava and a pair of night-vision goggles pushed up on his forehead. He had the butt of an MP5 against his shoulder, muzzle down, as he swept into the hallway. They were clearing the building, probably getting ready to hole up and defend this place until the Condition secured the compound.

His eyes widened as he saw me five feet away, but it was too late to matter. The bullet passed cleanly through the cultist’s face and he dropped in a spray of blood droplets.

“Contact!” someone screamed from the rec room. I leapt over the cultist’s body and into the room he had just exited. Someone took the opportunity to fill the hallway with lead, emptying a magazine in a rapid buzz. Projectiles flew through the walls as I flung myself facedown on the carpet. I rolled over and covered the doorway.

The gunfire stopped. I got to my knees and took the corner. Another black-clad cultist was crouched just inside the rec room. He was fumbling, trying to shove a magazine into his subgun. He was mostly hidden, but prefab walls are thin. Since I couldn’t see his head and he was probably wearing armor anyway, I aimed low, and cranked off four rounds through the wall.

He bellowed in surprise and fell out of sight. I got up and moved to the back of the room. Sure enough, another cultist responded, tearing the space that I had been inhabiting into splinters. The bars of the window collided with my back. Terrible noises reverberated through the glass, audible even over the gunfire and the angry shouting of the injured cultist. An epic battle was being waged outside.

It was with some shock that I realized that this was my old room. Right there on the wall was my own autograph. ozp: combat accountant. I had been sitting on that bed right there when Trip had talked me out of giving up and quitting after I’d injured Green in training. My autograph disappeared as a bullet plowed through it. I hit the deck. These were high-powered rifle rounds, and they were zipping right through the walls like they were made of paper.

“Hold your fire!”

“I’ll hold mine if you hold yours!” I shouted back.

It was a woman’s voice, coming from the rec room. “I know that smell. We’re supposed to take that one alive.”

Great, another werewolf. “No, wrong guess,” I replied as I crawled across the floor of the tiny room. There had been a mirror on the wall. I was lying in broken glass. Hands trembling, I picked up a giant shard and angled it so I could see down the hallway. It was clear.

“Yes, it is Pitt. The Master retrieved some of your clothing when you escaped from him in Mexico. I know your scent well, Hunter.”

“How many werewolves does your boss have anyway?” There was someone moving just inside the rec room, but I didn’t think it was the speaker.

It took her a moment to respond to me. She was busy whispering orders to the remaining cultists. Where was Franks? I really could use a hand right now. But he was probably passed out from blood loss because I’d shot him in the kidney. The woman shouted back at me. “Just me and my mate, and since he’s not rejoined us, I can only assume he’s dead.”

“Yep, I murdered the shit out of him.”

She was quiet for a long time. When she spoke again, her voice was filled with fury. “Then that was a mistake. Kill him.”

One of the other cultists piped in. “But the master said—”

“I said kill him!” the werewolf shrieked.

The reflection in the broken mirror revealed the cultist poking his head around the corner, barrel of a rifle just below. I threw myself into the hallway, front sight snapping into place instantaneously. I stroked the perfectly polished trigger to the rear, launching a 230-grain silver bullet, striking him in the throat. He didn’t go down, so I shot him again, and again. He flopped backward in a heap, combat boots kicking stupidly into the air. I scrambled back into my old room before somebody else could jump out to shoot me.

There was more shooting from the rec room. Franks must be making his move. I got ready to charge. If I could hit the hall while they were distracted, I could pop the last few and get our ward back. I’d lost count, but I had a few shots left. Then I realized I was covered in blood, and with a panic began to look for holes. Wait. It’s not mine. . . . Awesome. I moved for the hall.

But the werewolf had come to me.

We almost collided. She was a short woman, appearing physically young, but with unnatural silver hair and eyes that were glowing an angry gold. I jerked my gun up, but her hand slammed into my forearm, blocking the shot. It was like getting hit with a pipe. The STI dropped from tingling fingertips. She moved insanely fast even in human form. A punch landed against my ribs, slamming hot pain through my entire body. She wrapped petite hands around my throat and crashed me into one side of the hallway, smashing me through boards and drywall, only to jerk me out and sling me around into the other wall. She tossed me headfirst toward the rec room. “He was a good man!” she screamed in my ear. “A good man!”

I came off the floor. I was pissed. “Now he’s a dead man, bitch.” I slugged her in the face, my massive fist curling tight at the last possible instant. It was the kind of hit that I had used to knock gigantic brutes into unconsciousness. Her head snapped around, silver hair flying.

My hand stung from the impact. But she didn’t go down. When she looked back, silver hair parted, revealing a mouth that was now full of impossible incisors. She snarled as she swiped her open hand at me. Fire lanced across my chest as her lengthening fingernails tore through my skin. I leapt back, more of the wild swings tearing at me. I was too slow, and she raked lines of blood down my left cheek.

Rage washed over me then and it was on. I caught her by the wrist and pulled her forward. I jerked my knee up and hit her in the stomach. She slashed me again in the side, but fury cleansed the pain. With her bent over, I grabbed the back of her head and shoved down as I brought my knee into her face. Some of those sharp teeth shattered as I hit her again. I was on her, launching a flurry of attacks, meaty blows hammering into her like I was beating a hundred-pound punching bag. She flailed back and I straight-kicked her in the chest. Supernatural powers aside, I was three times her size and weight, and physics beats magic. The werewolf flew down the hall.

But she landed on her hands and knees, her head flying right back up. “Is that the best you got?” she snarled with an inhuman voice as bones crackled and twisted. She ripped open her tac vest with claws that were now long enough to eviscerate. Silver hair was growing from her skin. She screamed as her teeth extended past her tearing lips.

“Yeah, it was.” I spun and ran for the rec room. I didn’t know where my gun was and I could only pray that the cultists I had shot had silver bullets loaded, too. The werewolf shrieked and jerked as she continued her transformation.

I hadn’t really thought about what to do with the remaining cultists though. . . .

Two were covering the other entrance, shooting at something that I assumed was Franks. One of the men I had hit was lying flat on his back, dead. The other one was leaning against the pool table, trying to stop the bleeding from his legs, and judging from the puddle, he was losing badly. None of them saw me enter.

The dead one had an AK-47 next to him. Even if it wasn’t loaded with silver, 7.62x39 ought to tear some serious holes in a werewolf. I reached down—

But the werewolf intercepted me first. My feet flew out from under me as she collided with the backs of my knees. I landed on my back. The injured cultist cried out when he saw her, still more human than beast, but distorting rapidly. Distracted by the noise and driven into a frenzy, she leapt on her associate and lit into him with unbelievable ferocity. Blood and entrails sprayed across the pool table. The two others guarding the door turned to see what was going on, and lurched upright in fear.

“Claudia, no!” cried one of them. This was the kind of fury that Earl had warned me about. Her face had extended into bloody jaws. Golden predator eyes locked on them and lurched forward.

Both of the cultists jerked as projectiles ripped into them through the doorway. Franks had used the lull to his advantage. The werewolf leapt on top of the nearest and sunk her teeth into his throat, taking them both down in a jumble of arterial spray. They crashed into the 56” flat-screen and tore it from the wall.

I slipped in the warm blood, trying to find traction to rise. The werewolf looked up from her victim, the part of her mind capable of rational thought surely remembering that I was the one who had killed her boyfriend. I slid toward the pool table, latched onto a handful of felt and pulled myself up. Grabbing one of the solid balls off the table, I cocked my arm back and launched it at her. It hit her in the snout. She yelped, and I immediately chucked another pool ball. This time I missed.

She slunk forward. I grabbed the only other weapon that was in reach, a pool cue. It looked so skinny and feeble, but it beat harsh language. I raised it overhead and brought it down with a bellow. It snapped in half.

The werewolf was not amused. She stood upright, and now with her warping bones, she was my height, but gangly and misshapen. I held out the broken haft, ready to stab. Frothy bubbles blew from her nostrils as she backed me into the corner. Her silver mane was streaked with red. She closed in, instinct demanding to rip me to bits.

“Bad werewolf,” Franks said from the entrance. “Sit.”

The werewolf swung her head to assess the interloper. I slammed the jagged end of the pool cue into her throat. It was like a blood explosion. She howled in sudden agony, claws flying to the wound. Franks raised his Glock and calmly put a single round of silver 10mm through her brain, ending the scream forever. She collapsed.

“Stay. . . .” Franks walked up, assessed the body, then fired two more rounds into the corpse, just to be sure. “Good werewolf.”

I was out of breath and covered in dripping blood. “Was that your idea of a joke?” He cocked his head to the side, inscrutable as ever. “Never mind. What took you so long?”

Grant answered that. He came running into the room, smoking Uzi in hand. “Help me barricade the door!”

“From what?” I asked.

Something gigantic roared outside. “That! Hurry!”

Franks got on one end of the pool table that had to weigh a ton, lifted it with a grunt and started dragging it across the floor. I threw my shoulder into the other side and shoved. Muscles straining, we got it next to the door, moved to one side, heaved, and tipped it over with a crash. We shoved it against the entrance.

The table shook as the giant beast collided with the doorway. The impact shook me to the bone. “What is that?” I shouted.

“I think it’s a zombie bear,” Grant said as he reloaded the Uzi, putting his shoulder against the table to help hold it.

Franks braced himself against the table. “Armored zombie bear,” he corrected.

“I tried to shoot it in the brain, but it’s got a helmet or something,” Grant shouted. The creature crashed into the table again, sliding all three of us back a few inches. “A helmet! Who puts buckets on zombies’ heads? That’s not fair! Where’s the ward?”

The werewolf had been the leader. I hurried from the table, slipping on the bloody tile. The silver-haired woman was facedown. Her clothing was hanging in tatters. I had no idea what the stone looked like, but I assumed it was substantial. There was a black satchel on the floor. I ripped it open and my hands landed on something hard and cold.

It looked like a perfect granite sphere, about the size of a Magic 8 Ball. I rolled it over in my hands and discovered that there was a row of archaic letters carved into it. It looked like gibberish.

“Make it go!” Grant shouted. The zombie bear was crashing rhythmically into the table. My companions were sliding back against the relentless hammering.

“Turn it on,” Franks ordered. A massive limb erupted through the center of the table. It was hairless, pink exposed muscle, with steel spikes bolted onto the end of the paw in lieu of regular claws. The paw swung about, searching, then jerked back out when it didn’t catch us. Franks poked the muzzle of his Glock through the hole and cranked off half a dozen rounds. “Turn it on now!”

I touched the letters. Somehow, they turned like a combination lock. The letters were old-fashioned and spelled nothing. I randomly swiped my fingers across them, and they spun, symbols magically materializing on the smooth stone, spelling more nonsense. “I don’t know how!” Earl had said that it needed to be tuned for a location. The cultists must have moved the combination when they picked it up.

The zombie bear had a running start this time. This time the table blew right in half. Franks and Grant were sent sprawling. I dove for the AK-47.

The beast was gigantic, big as a friggin’ cow, hairless and pink, corded muscles bulging, with bands of steel and spikes welded together across its body. It was already riddled with puckered bullet holes, but showed no indication that it even knew. The head was an armored monstrosity, battleship plates bolted together into an armored box, then laced in razor wire and scalpel blades.

It was blind.

Now inside, it shuffled forward, clumsy limbs tearing rusty holes in everything, a snorting noise echoing from inside the helmet as it smelled us. It couldn’t bite, but we were sure to be crushed or cut to ribbons as it stupidly tried. I hoisted the AK, jerked it to my shoulder, and fired at the helmet. The gun was set on full-auto, and the 30-caliber bullets bounced off in sparks and fragments. The best way to take out zombies was to destroy the brain, and that didn’t look like an option here, not to mention it was covered in blades and weighed a thousand pounds. Catching my scent, it lumbered at me.

Franks intercepted the bear. He had his fighting knife in one hand and a grenade in the other. He dodged under the swinging blades, cut a long gash between the monster’s ribs, then slammed his fist through the gap, sinking clear up to his shoulder in organs. It dragged him along toward me. “Back,” Franks ordered, jerking his gore-stained arm out of the hole with a disgusting squelching noise and falling away from the deadly legs. The grenade was gone. The zombie bear’s roar reverberated inside the helmet. I sprinted down the hallway.

The explosion was muffled inside the bear carcass. When I opened my eyes, a red cloud filled the recreation room. It was literally raining meat. Bits and pieces fell from the ceiling with wet thumps.

We certainly wouldn’t be using the rec room anytime soon. The armored zombie bear had been blown apart. The head and shoulders were filling the bullet-riddled doorway. The head was still moaning, but it didn’t have any limbs to drive it. I kicked the box.

Franks stepped out of the blood cloud. He was entirely coated in a viscous red slime. He was terrifying to look at, but I’m sure I didn’t look much better. “Jefferson, get weapons. Pitt, ward.”

I tossed him the ball. He caught it with one hand. The noise from the compound indicated that there were more of these things out there, and MHI was responding with explosives, lots of explosives. Franks scowled as he studied the letters. Apparently he was as stumped as I was.

“Let’s get to a more defensible position while we figure that thing out,” I suggested, jerking my head back the way I had come.

Franks put the ward stone to his ear and shook it. “I hate puzzles.”

Chapter 16

The most defensible rooms in the barracks were the bathrooms. There was only one entrance and no windows. If the cultists had grabbed this instead of the rec room, we wouldn’t have been able to dislodge them. We took the women’s instead of the men’s because it was on the side away from the main building, where the undead seemed to be focusing their attention.

Franks held the ward stone in his big hands and studied it with one black eye and one blue eye, unblinking. The letters were not cooperating. Grant and I covered the doorway. Grant had picked up another Uzi. I had kept the AK-47 and stuffed magazines into every pocket until the weight threatened to pull down my cargo pants. I had found my pistol in the hall and returned it to its holster, but it only had a couple of shots left.

“Any luck?” I asked. Franks didn’t answer, intent on the code. “What, they don’t teach you this stuff at your fancy academy?”

“Shut up,” Grant muttered.

“No, you shut up,” I snapped. “I’m not done with you yet. We live through this and I’m going to beat your ass. The last one was just a warm-up.”

“You sucker-punched me at gunpoint. Try me in a fair fight, and we’ll see how tough you are,” Grant responded. He was delusional if he thought that would make a difference. “Torres would already have turned you over to his church if it wasn’t for me.”

I turned back to the door. “Traitor,” I muttered.

Grant was ticked. “You’ve got no clue. I joined MHI to make a difference. But MHI’s all about making money, not about making the world a better place. Myers was just like me once, disillusioned by MHI. He gave me a chance to do something important. MHI let me down, not the other way around. I thought that I had failed you guys, but it was the organization that failed me.”

“So you took Myers’ job offer?”

“Yes, I did. Best decision I’ve ever made. He needed somebody who could get on the inside, help catch his spy, and if that didn’t work out, at least he had someone undercover to keep an eye on MHI before they did anything really stupid. I got into this to help people. The Monster Control Bureau represent the real heroes. They do a dirty job to protect this country. MHI is just out to make a buck.”

“Make a buck? That’s right, that doesn’t matter when you’re born rich.”

“Quiet,” Franks ordered, tired of our bickering.

I glared at Grant, then went back to watching the entrance. He was a traitor, pure and simple. Myers had used me as bait to clean his own house, and now my friends were paying the price. When this was over, there were some accounts that needed settling.

My face hurt from where the werewolf had clawed me. Touching it indicated that the flesh was rent open in a few parallel strips down my cheek, and I was bleeding badly. Grant had the door covered while Franks fiddled with that stupid thing, so I made my way over to the sink and turned it on. The cold water burned.

Franks looked up from his task and saw me splashing the claw marks. “If you’re infected, I’ll have to—”

“Kill me? Yeah, I know. That’s how we met, remember?”

Franks nodded and went back to the ward.

It was when I looked back in the mirror that I noticed something amiss in one of the stalls. The door was closed, but there was a shadow dangling just under it. Shutting the water off, I approached the stall. I used the muzzle of the AK to push it open.

“G-Nome?”

The gnome had been shoved in the toilet. He was so small that most of his body was squished into the water, and it was awfully pink. One boot was dangling down, and that was what I had seen. His red hat was crunched low on his head, and his white beard was smeared with blood. His breathing was rapid and shallow.

I knelt next to the toilet and removed his hat. His eyes fluttered open weakly. He was badly injured. “’Sup, tall one,” he sputtered.

I reached out and touched his hand. “What happened?”

Black lightning struck and the bathroom vanished.

This time was different than the others. It was the first time that I’d experienced a nonhuman’s memories. The thoughts were subtly alien, and it took a moment for my brain to adjust and it couldn’t quite settle into the first person, rather I was a spectator in G-Nome’s head. He had confided in me Grant’s treachery, and he’d left me, confused by how such a physically tough human, a man-mountain of ass-kicking, could be crying and moping like a baby. No self-respecting gnome badass would ever let his homies see him cry. Tall humans were so weird. He knew it came from all of that banging their heads on doorways and ceiling fans and shit.

G-Nome had heard the shower turn on in the girls’ bathroom, and though he enjoyed spying on human girls as much as the next gnome, he was excited to watch the Tall One shoot the Snitch. He was from Birmingham, so he’d seen plenty of humans shoot each other, and that never got old. But when he caught the smell of killing on the air, he knew something wasn’t right. Suspicious, he’d left the tall human to his business and ported through the wall.

The shower was on when he popped into the bathroom. G-Nome held extra still so the invisibility would hold. He knew from experience that humans freaked out when they caught you looking at them. He could smell which human it was immediately. There was something special about this one. He’d seen her around the compound, and she’d stuck out for some reason, even for a human. It was that younger human hottie, with the redneck accent . . . Dawn. He’d overheard that she was a human beauty queen, and he could see why—that human was smokin’. Momma had warned him about the dangers of human women, what with their tallness and lack of facial hair.

G-Nome noticed Dawn’s discarded clothes and he was reminded of the death smell that had gotten his attention to begin with. They were piled up at the foot of the shower, and they were all messy. She’d been splashed with blood. He got closer and checked them out. The red was in splatters, like she’d slaughtered a pig or something.

Now that didn’t make no sense. That red beard, Milo, wasn’t having anybody do any work with bodies and guts today. And it was the day of the Hunters’ big ceremony. So why was Dawn here, covered in blood, and not in the big building with everybody else? She had been up to something.

G-Nome was known as the sharpest gnome on the North Side for a reason, and he knew right away that something was up. He snuck over real quiet and picked up her shirt. He sniffed it. The smell told him that it had come from one of the other new humans, but he couldn’t remember the dude’s name. G-Nome didn’t know how much blood was inside a normal human, but if this much got spilled at one time, he was probably dead. He had to tell Harbinger.

The shower turned off. G-Nome dropped the shirt and padded quickly to the corner. He was extra careful to stay still so the invisibility would hold. Dawn stepped out of the shower.

The sight was enough to take his mind off the murder. Aw hells yeah, baby . . . She had the longest legs of any human he’d ever seen. G-Nome knew he better be paying attention now that he knew some weird shit was going down. She didn’t bother to cover herself or dry off. Instead she picked up the clothes and stuffed them into the garbage. Then she stopped and lifted her pretty face to smell the air . . . He’d never seen a human do it like that before. Humans had terrible noses. G-Nome thought about just porting through the wall and getting the hell out of here, but he was too curious. Dawn’s nostrils flared. She spun around, wet hair flying around her shoulders, and she stared right at him.

How could she see him? Humans couldn’t see gnomes when they were still.

Dawn blinked and then her eyes were solid, colorless, clear as ice cubes. “Tomte,” she hissed, and her voice was all wrong, low and scary, and she used the old word for gnome. It took him a second to realize that he was dealing with a Fey and another second to realize that it was the worst kind of Fey of all.

“Doppelganger!” G-Nome sputtered as he reached for the gun in his waistband. But by then it was too late. The creature descended on him.

I jerked my hand away, a trail of black light drifted from his arm to my fingertips. It held for a moment, then drifted off like smoke. I could still feel the pressure of the shapeshifter’s hands around my throat.

“Yeah, crazy, huh?” G-Nome smiled weakly. “That was whack . . .” He trailed off.

He was dead.

I pulled his sopping body out of the toilet and set him gently on the ground. He didn’t weigh much.

“Where’d you get a gnome?” Franks asked.

I shook my head. “The Condition has a doppelganger here. That’s what Torres was talking about.”

“Who?” Grant asked.

“The girl from Texas, Dawn. She must have been on guard duty and killed that other Newbie, then she came back to clean up here and murdered G-Nome.” I knew almost nothing about doppelgangers, except that they were some kind of rare shapeshifter. “Then she went back and shot Harbinger.”

“So that’s how you caught me.” Grant muttered. “A gnome. . . .”

“If the doppelganger got away, it could be anyone now,” Franks said, not looking up from the ward stone. “I can’t figure this out. You have to know the inventor’s codes.” There was a massive bang as something landed on our roof. Grant and I flinched and raised our weapons, but with a sudden tapping, the noise retreated. There were all sorts of undead out there. “Who could make it work?”

I shrugged. “Earl, of course.” I didn’t add if he’s still alive. “Maybe Julie, or one of the older Hunters, but they’re all at the main building. Let’s get back there and find somebody.” Apparently Franks agreed. He handed the ward to me. I stuffed it in the bag and hoisted the stolen AK. “Tunnels?”

Grant stood. “I don’t really want to try the front door right now.”

The compound was a war zone. A few hundred yards away the main building was under siege. Black shapes were clambering up the walls. Occasional explosions highlighted more dimly-visible things moving in a circle around the structure, directed by robed figures. Muzzle flashes flew from every window on the top floor. Continuous streams of tracers rained from the roof into the surroundings and a few worked patterns across the night sky.

“What are they shooting at in the air?” Grant asked hesitantly.

The three of us were clustered, kneeling next to the opening into the tunnels. The ladder stretched into the darkness below us. “I don’t know,” I said quickly. This asshole was creative enough to animate bears, so who the hell knew what he had for air support.

Headquarters seemed to be holding its own. The heavy portcullis had been dropped over the front door. A mass of misshapen bodies was piling up at the entrance. Hammering and hacking could be heard even over the gunfire. Suddenly a brilliant streamer of fire ignited from the narrow windows above the door, as someone used a flamethrower to hose down the monsters at the gate. Flaming bodies stumbled about before collapsing.

The flamethrower revealed something else charging out of the darkness. A massive shape, big as a truck, plowed through the burning dead and collided with the gate. The crash echoed across the entire compound.

“What’s that?” I hissed.

Four streams of tracers lit into the giant, followed by more fire, and what had to be a chain of 40mm grenade detonations. The now-burning beast backed up for another run. “Hmmm . . . zombie elephant,” Franks answered thoughtfully. “Unless it’s a dinosaur. Hard to tell with the armor.”

So Hood had either murdered a zoo or he’d pulled a Jurassic Park, but either way, this was really bad. “Back door it is,” I suggested, shining my flashlight down the ladder.

Two dozen white eyes blinked back at me.

“Shoggoth!” Franks bellowed. His palm struck me in the shoulder, knocking me aside. A black tentacle exploded from the hole, splitting the air where I had been standing. It snapped back into the dark with a bullwhip crack. Franks yanked another grenade from his damaged suit coat, pulled the pin, and tossed it down the hole. “Back.”

I ran toward the barracks. I could hear Grant huffing along beside me. The grenade detonated, but rather than a boom, it was a hiss. Thermite. The shoggoth made an unbearable noise, a terrible distorted wail, like somebody had overloaded a bank of speakers by having an insane howler monkey attack the microphone. We clamped our hands over our ears. The noise faded away.

When I turned around, smoke was pouring from the hole. “Is it dead?”

Franks looked at me like I was stupid. Of course not. Harbinger had said that the warding kept out undead and transdimensional creatures, which apparently included the Condition’s pet shoggoth. With the shield down, it must have burrowed right into our tunnels. “We’ve got to get back down there.”

“No more grenades,” he replied.

They were only vulnerable to fire. Now there was no way to get into the main building. “Damn it!” That thing would own us in the tunnels.

“Quiet!” Grant exclaimed, holding up his hand. Large wings batted above us in the night. The shoggoth’s scream must have gotten its attention. The three of us ducked back under the overhanging roof of the barracks. The thing circled for a moment, each beat of the wings ponderous and slow. As the noise stopped, something landed on the roof above us with a crash of breaking shingles.

I held my breath. I was screwed. Monsters below us, monsters above us, monsters all around us. We were armed with a few stolen small arms and a magic rock that we didn’t know how to work. We had nowhere to go, and my companions were a snitch and a psycho. Talk about bleak. Dust fell from the overhang as the winged monster above us shifted.

There was a flash from the opposite side of the compound. There was a violent impact overhead and whatever it was above us crashed into the roof. The mystery creature leapt upward, visible for just a moment as a gray mass, before two wings spread wide and it jerked straight up and out of sight, absurdly fast.

What was that? Grant mouthed, obviously afraid.

I shrugged, hell if I know, then pointed in the direction of the muzzle flash. It had come from Milo’s workshop. Either Milo was at his shop and had sniped the thing, or somebody else had done us the favor. Either way, it beat sticking around while other things came to see if there was anything edible over here. Franks realized what I was thinking and nodded. There were a few terrain features we could use for cover between us and the shop, but there was a long expanse of open ground at the end. Sticking Milo clear out there made sense when he was playing with explosives and deadly chemicals, but didn’t seem so clever right about now.

“Leapfrog,” Franks stated. He pointed at Grant, “One,” then at me, “two,” then jerked his thumb at himself. “Three. Move.”

If something spotted us, we were as good as dead. Grant took one quick look at the dark sky, then back at the fires leaping up around headquarters. Nothing seemed to be coming this way. His Adam’s apple bobbed visibly as he swallowed hard, then he took off at a full sprint for the next building. It was a Tuff Shed we stored maintenance equipment in. He reached it, then spun around, jerking his head in every direction. He waved for me to come, then raised the Uzi and waited.

I leapt to my feet, moving as fast as I could. My blood was thundering in my ears as my big boots slammed into the gravel. I made it halfway before I heard the wings. Grant was looking right over me, eyes unbelievably wide, as he jerked the Uzi up and opened fire. I fell on my face, sliding across the dirt like I was trying to steal a base. The winged monster zipped past me in a blast of wind. Jerking my head up, I saw the wings spread as it soared upward again, giant three-toed talons trailing behind. I wanted nothing more than to lie here and try to hide, but that was suicidal. Clambering back up, I ran the rest of the way to the shed.

Grant was stammering. “Okay, walking dead, that’s fine. Running dead, I can handle. But the flying dead? Hell with this. I quit.”

I gasped for breath. “Too late. You’re fired.” Franks had seen what had happened to me, but went for it anyway. He moved unbelievably fast for such a big dude, arms and legs pumping like an Olympian. “Here it comes,” I said, as I caught sight of the flying monster banking around. It was trailing Franks now, high in the air. It tucked its wings in and plummeted like a missile right at him. The AK’s iron sights were rudimentary at best, and I could barely see them in the dark, but I did my best, pumping round after round at the speeding target. We weren’t going to stop it in time.

Franks must have known that. He suddenly stopped, throwing his weight back, skidding through the gravel as he turned, raising his own stolen AK one-handed and firing, a long strobe-effect burst of full-auto right into the creature. It flared its wings at the last moment, then Franks was simply gone, scooped right off the Earth and sucked into the sky.

They passed right over us, and the last thing I saw before they disappeared over the top of the shed was Franks crawling up the monster’s legs and actually punching it in the face.

The land-based undead had heard the gunfire and shadows were moving in front of the flames, lumbering our way. Grant and I looked at each other, then at the direction Franks had gone. That was the direction we were heading anyway. Tactics were out the window, and now it was time to haul ass. Correction—speed is a tactic. “Run!” I shouted.

We cornered the building, moving fast for the relative safety of Milo’s workshop. Grant is a lot lighter than I am, and even wearing his armor, he quickly left me in the dust. When you’re getting chased by a zombie bear, I guess you don’t need to be faster than the bear, just faster than your friends. I briefly contemplated shooting Grant in the leg.

Then I heard the beat of wings again. Damn it, not now. This time the beating seemed somehow lopsided and unbalanced. The gray shape appeared out of the sky ahead of us, ungainly, with one wing fluttering. A darker shape that could only be Franks was dangling from one side, slamming a fist repeatedly into the monster. It spiraled down, out of control, and crash-landed into some kudzu-coated trees.

I veered slightly off course, heading for the trees. The noises were clear. Somebody was administering a severe beating. The monster was on its back, Franks was astride its chest, raining hammer blows down on its mutant skull, beating the hell out of a creature that was approximately the size of a living-room couch.

One giant claw shoved Franks off and the creature sat up. It was a zombie, but a zombie of what I couldn’t tell you. Its legs ended in raptor claws, but its upper body was that of a man. Leathery bat wings extended from each shoulder, one clearly crushed and broken by the fall. Its face was a skull now, but about the size of a five-gallon bucket and filled with teeth that looked like rusty nails. Blank eye sockets swiveled toward me.

It took me a couple of shots in the dark before the skull exploded into powdery fragments. It dropped.

Franks appeared. His breathing was ragged. “I hate flying coach.”

“Man, you’re a regular comedian tonight,” I said as I jerked another magazine out of my pocket and reloaded. “We’ve got to keep going, more bears coming fast.” But he didn’t respond. When I glanced back, he was facedown into the kudzu. “Aw hell.”

Grant had kept on running for the workshop and I could no longer spot him in the dark. I could, however, hear the undead getting closer. Franks weighed a ton. The smart thing to do was leave him here. It wasn’t like I owed him any mercy. This whole thing was his and his stupid organization’s fault.

I actually made it a couple of steps toward the workshop before I stopped. He wouldn’t have left me. “ARRGHH! Stupid Fed. Stupid Franks.” I scooped him up, got one arm over my shoulder, and shouted in his ear, “Move your ass!” His big head lolled to the side. He was unconscious. “Oh, it can never be easy. Never! Easy!” I heaved him into a fireman’s carry. The kudzu vines dragged at my boots. The shuffling, metallic snorting of the undead was getting closer. Safety was still a hundred yards away. I kicked my feet through the thick plants and tripped and stumbled for safety.

I could see the workshop clearly now. Someone was moving in one of the windows, a long tube on their shoulder. I cleared the kudzu and could run again, slipping through the dirt, ankle throbbing with each step. A terrible noise came from the workshop and a streak of fire tore past. The trees behind us exploded. Rocket launcher. Oh, these monsters had picked the wrong place to mess with.

More rockets followed. Judging by the rate of fire, Grant had reached the workshop and was joining in. Milo had a ton of stuff stashed.

“Pitt!” A voice bellowed behind me. “I’m coming for you.”

The Englishman.

I risked a glance back. A towering thing was making its way through the smoke and falling debris, each footfall shaking the very earth. It had been an elephant once, and a big one, a majestic beast, but now its ivory tusks were sheathed in iron, its head plated in steel, its bones wrapped in wire and Kevlar sheets. Riding on its back was my nemesis. He was no longer wearing simple clothing, but had dressed for the occasion with an ornate black robe, a golden pendant of his squid god on his chest. His rough features shifted under the shadows of his cloak.

“Hood,” I spat.

He raised one hand, signaling a halt. The zombie elephant reared up on its hind legs, rising high into the air, blowing air through its dusty lungs like a damaged tuba. It came back down, forelegs slamming into the dirt with an impact that shifted the ground underfoot. “So you know my name . . . There’s power in knowing one’s name.” There was another bear, and something that looked like it had been stitched together out of a German shepherd and a goat, and behind them were at least a dozen humanoid zombies, all in various states of augmentation. His troops began to fan out in a circle around me. “How did you find out?”

Franks was dead weight on my back. There was no way I was going to reach the workshop now, so I slowly lowered him to the ground. “Carlos Alhambra told me.”

The shadow man nodded, unsurprised. “Killing him would have been smarter, but he deserved to suffer.” There was another concussion from the workshop, but Hood merely waved his hand in the direction of the oncoming rocket. The darkness seemed to coalesce and solidify, and the warhead detonated harmlessly well short of us. “Destroy that nuisance,” he ordered, and several of his minions immediately charged the workshop, scampering off through the swirling wall of black.

The wall blocked the lights of the workshop, but Milo’s rocket fire had ignited the small copse of trees, and I had some flickering light to work with. But it was even dimmer than what I had in Mexico, and he had been virtually unstoppable there.

“You got what you came for. Let the others go and I’ll come with you.”

He laughed above me. “Oh, come on, mate. You had your chance to do it my way. I’ve squandered years of work for this moment. Do you have any idea how much time it takes to put together an army of the dead? I’ve been collecting corpses like some people collect stamps.” He stroked the mottled, rotting back of the elephant. “But tonight has put quite a dent in my collection. So, no, I’m going to see the heart torn out of MHI before I go.”

“Where the hell do you get dead elephants anyway?” I asked.

“The internet,” Hood responded. “Zoos, circuses, that sort of thing.”

“Oh . . .” I still had the AK in one hand. He saw me thinking about it, and shook his head.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“If you were me, I’d kill myself,” I responded. “And you know . . . that’s not a real bad idea. . . .” I raised the hot muzzle and stuck it under my chin.

He stood on the back of his mount. “Wait!”

“Delivering me with half my head missing might piss off the Dread Overlord, don’t you think?” I stuck my finger on the trigger. I wasn’t bluffing. “Call off your army and I’ll go with you. Otherwise I blow my brains out and you’ve got to break the news to your super oyster.”

“Hold on,” Franks whispered from the ground. He’d woken, and had reached into his suit, pulled out a flask, and was unscrewing the lid. Hell of a time for a drink. . . .

Hood’s voice was soothing. “You don’t want to kill yourself. Suicides go to hell, you know.”

“Oh, like you believe in hell,” I muttered.

“Got me there, but we can still work this out. Alive is preferable, just for the amount of suffering that he can inflict on you, but dead? I could probably clean you up right well, if you leave me no other choice.” He seemed to grow angrier the more he thought about it. “You think you can threaten me with your death? I’m a king of death! Look around you! Death is my servant! Death is my art!”

Franks put the flask to his lips and poured the contents down his throat. He grimaced in pain as if the liquid really burned going down. Some of it spilled out and dripped down his face. It glowed blue in the dark.

That got Hood’s attention. “Well, well, well . . . Special Agent Franks, I’d almost forgotten about you. I see that you’ve some of the Elixir of Life. I always wondered how something like you managed to stick around for so very long. Personally, I’d thought that Herr Dippel had taken the formula to his grave. You really must give me that recipe.” Franks dropped the flask and began to convulse in the dirt. Hood shook his head sadly. “Painful, and wasteful. You can’t expect a dosage of the Elixir to save you now.”

Franks was shaking badly as he struggled to his feet, using my belt for help. I kept the AK pointed at my brain. I could hear his body reacting to the potion. Franks’ bones were popping. The veins in his face were pulsating. The shadow man was obviously surprised by this development. Franks smiled, teeth white in the dark. “One dose? Try five, asshole.”

Hood paused. “Impossible . . . No flesh could withstand that level of purification.”

“You’ve got to work up to it.” My protector shrugged out of his coat and yanked off his clip-on tie, Glocks dangling on both sides from a double-shoulder holster. His shirt hung in a blood-soaked ruin. The firelight flickered across his body. The muscles in his neck throbbed and pulsed. He pulled off his strangler gloves and tossed them to the side, the bones in his hands cracking as he rolled them into fists.

His left hand had HATE tattooed across his knuckles . . .

The dead trucker in Montgomery had that same tattoo.

No. That was the dead trucker’s tattoo . . . That was the dead trucker’s arm.

My mouth fell open and I almost dropped the AK. Franks spoke quietly, “Primary mission. Protect Pitt from the Condition.” He glanced over at me, one blue eye reflecting the firelight and nodded through gritted teeth. “I’ve never failed a mission.”

Franks was built out of spare parts. . . .

The shadow man, suddenly afraid, gestured at his undead. “Take them!”

The monsters surged forward. I jerked the AK down and opened fire. Franks crossed his arms, then whipped them outward, a Glock appearing in each hand, firing with terrifying accuracy right through the joints in the zombies’ helmets. The elephant bellowed, stampeding forward, coaxed on by its master. Hood shouted a maniacal cry as the elephant bore down on us.

There was a blur of motion as something leapt through the air onto the elephant’s back. Earl Harbinger landed directly behind Hood, dumping an entire magazine of .45 from his Tommy gun into his enemy’s back. Hood’s body rippled like water. The gun emptied in seconds, Earl Harbinger grabbed the shadow man by the robes and flung him from his perch. Hood fell hard in the dirt. Earl jumped after him, landing in a crouch. The elephant was heading right at me, and I dove aside, tree-trunk legs crashing past like thunder.

“You!” Hood spat from flat on the ground. The robes shifted as his flesh turned to molten shadows. They swirled and re-formed. Now he was standing. He calmly brushed the Alabama red clay from his fancy outfit. “So my assassin failed.”

Harbinger stood. “Shot the hell out of me with silver bullets.” He raised his arms, displaying his battered leather bomber jacket. “You should have told her to shoot me in the head. I don’t just wear this coat ’cause it looks cool. This is one-hundred-percent-genuine minotaur hide.” He thumped it for emphasis. “Bulletproof.” Earl smiled his predatory grin. His eyes were glowing gold. “You’re looking good, Marty, for a dead man.”

Undead were swirling all around. The humanoids were wearing helmets of hardened steel, only their lower jaws open and chomping. I shoved my muzzle into an onrushing zombie’s mouth. The jaws clamped down automatically and I fired, the bullet ricocheting around inside the bucket, pulping the skull to bits. A zombie bear intercepted Franks, knocking him to the ground, slicing him about between the razor sharp legs. The Fed, unperturbed, jammed his guns into the intersection of the bear’s protected head and body and severed the neck with a slew of 10mm rounds. The bear collapsed, crushing him beneath.

Hood and Harbinger were circling each other. The Condition’s high priest was speaking. “A dead man, Earl? On the contrary, I’ve never been more alive.” He waved one hand, and it warped into a foot-long shadow blade. His other hand twisted into a three-fingered claw, wide as a shovel head.

“I’ll have to remedy that,” my boss replied. “I’ll get it right this time.”

“You destroyed my old body. Rather admirably at that, but the spirit that was residing there came from this vessel. Think of it as trading up for a new model car.” Hood swung the shadow blade and Harbinger ducked under it.

I kicked the legs out from under another zombie, slammed the AK under its chin, and blasted it. I moved to help free Franks, but with a bellow, he pushed the giant bear off him and heaved it aside. He sprang to his feet and slammed his fist through an approaching zombie’s helmet. HATE came out clutching a handful of brain and the zombie dropped like a sack of potatoes. A goat-dog thing charged Franks, snapping at his legs, but he punted it across the clearing and into the burning trees.

“I’m invulnerable in the dark, and this little fire isn’t nearly enough,” Hood stated proudly as he swung his blade hand. Harbinger bounded over it, flying through the air at his foe, his own hand opened into a claw, swinging with a roar through the ornate robes. Earl rolled through the robes, crashing into the ground as all resistance gave way. He was up, bewildered at the empty fabric in his hands. A twelve-foot solid shadow rose behind him, and he screamed as a black spike was driven into his back.

“Earl!” I shouted.

“Stay back!” he ordered, bloody spittle flying from his mouth. Harbinger spun, tearing through the shape to no effect. One whipping tendril struck him across the abdomen, launching him back into the darkness. He hit the ground closer to the fire.

The shadow surged under the robes, the fabric rising into a man shape, and then settling into the form of Hood as he strode toward Harbinger. “You have no idea how much I’ve looked forward to this.” I shot Hood square in the back of the head. The bullet zipped out his forehead. He paused, looking back at me slyly. “Patience. I’ll be back for you.”

Earl rose. He was shaking badly. There was a hole in his chest, and it gradually closed, pinching off a trail of blood. There was a loud series of booms from the main building, like the sound of launching fireworks. “This whole owning-the-night thing ain’t fair,” Earl said as he pointed at the sky. “And if you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck.”

The sky lit up with a brilliant fireball. It drifted slowly toward the Earth. Then there was another, and then several more, appearing in rapid succession. The compound visibly brightened as the parachute flares and star shells floated downward. The compound’s mortars were filling the sky with burning phosphorus light.

“That’s cheating, Earl.” Hood smiled, seemingly eager for this fight.

Flickering shadows played across Earl’s features as more shells rained from the sky. “My daddy always said that if you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying hard enough.”

Franks twisted the head off of the last zombie, and immediately began walking toward Hood. The shadow man paused between the two foes, glancing warily between them. The new illumination revealed that the zombie elephant was turning around, coming back for another pass.

Hood nodded slowly, determination hard on his craggy face. He studied the sky, watching the fireballs. “This won’t be enough to save you.” He wrapped his hand around his talisman. It glowed with a black lightning that was eerily familiar. He seemed to grow in size, density and darkness, like he was sucking energy from his surroundings. His voice was low and terrifying. “A bureaucrat’s Frankenstein and the redneck Wolfman are no match for the Lord of the Shadows, High Priest of the Dread—”

“Shut up already,” Franks said as he walked forward. Tendrils of blackness shot from Hood’s hands, lashing into the Fed, knocking him easily aside. The ground swelled under Hood, like a rising bubble. The dirt ripped wide open, revealing a giant rolling slug of tar. Packets of reflecting eyes glared in every direction. The shoggoth had returned.

“Owen! Get the ward to Milo. He knows what to do!” Earl shouted as he ducked and dodged under waves of black energy. “Go!”

I did as I was told and ran for the workshop. It was our only hope. No matter how tough Earl and Franks were, I knew they couldn’t defeat Hood and his minions. The roars and crashing intensified behind me. Gunfire and explosions continued to rock the main building as the bulk of the undead kept up their assault. I sprinted through the artificial wall of darkness, holding my breath like it was a poisonous vapor. I cleared the wall within a few steps, and there was the workshop. I leapt over numerous undead that had been blasted or scorched into pieces. “Milo! I need your help!”

Milo’s head popped up on the roof from behind a stack of discarded LAW rocket tubes. “Owen, what’s going on?” he shouted.

I reached into the satchel that was bouncing against my side and hoisted the stone above my head as I ran. “Activate this thing!”

“I’m on my way down,” Milo exclaimed.

I started to lower the stone, but it disappeared from my hand in a blast of wind. The stone was gone! Jerking my head up in surprise, I was shocked to see one of the flying undead, the stone encircled in its talons, as it beat its mighty wings and gained altitude. I screamed in frustration.

BOOM!

The creature’s leg exploded with a terrible impact. The entire talon fell, severed, still clutching the ball. Running, I caught it all in my outstretched hands. I looked up to see Grant on the rooftop, his head poking up from behind the scope of a Barrett M82A1 .50 caliber. “Move your slow ass, Pitt!” he shouted.

The roll-up garage door was closed. The man-door next to it flew open, and Milo was there, holding a giant flamethrower that had the burninator and a cartoon dragon painted on it. “Let me see it,” he cried as he shrugged out of the flamethrower straps.

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!

Grant had opened fire on something. I turned to see the zombie elephant come swirling through the black wall like an undead freight train, lumbering right at the workshop. I slammed the ball, severed talon and all, into Milo’s outstretched arms, and pushed through the door. I closed it behind me and, for some unknown reason, threw the deadbolt. Milo gave me a look that indicated the idiocy of what I had just done, then he snapped out of it, and started swiping his hands over the numbers.

“Hurry,” I suggested.

“You think?” he responded, beady eyes intent behind his glasses. “Oh, it’s been a long time.”

I began looking for something that could stop a zombie elephant. There had to be something. I paused in front of Milo’s giant wall of weapons. What gun for armored zombie elephant? Man, what kind of messed-up job do you have to ask yourself that kind of question? Then I had my answer, sitting right in front of me on a giant wheeled tripod. I grabbed the handles of the device and began to push the heavy weight across the linoleum. “Is this loaded?”

“Of course,” he responded absently. Milo stood in the center of the room, studying the ward intently. “The ward is like a puzzle, but with coordinates based on ley lines, and the letters are substitutes, but the hard part is that it’s in German . . . Now what was that—”

The roll-up door collapsed as the pachyderm from Hades rammed its way through. Milo looked up in time to see the looming threat bearing down on him, 15,000 pounds of undead fury. I cranked the mighty harpoon gun toward the beast, grabbed the trigger, every bit of the circular sight filled with gray, rotting flesh, and pulled.

Leviathan discharged. The concussion of the harpoon gun actually lifted me off the floor. Driven by a mighty charge of gunpowder, the six-foot, machined-steel spear drove right through the armored bucket of the monster’s head, a roll of cable unspooling through its entire body and out its backside. The beast jerked as the harpoon embedded itself in a steel support pylon. The huge weight dropped instantly, cable pulling right through the decaying flesh, and it fell to the side, taking down row after row of shelves in a mighty crash.

I picked myself up from the floor. The room was filled with smoke from the gun’s charge. I coughed. “Milo?”

No response.

The elephant’s head had been torn off, rotting neck no match for gravity, and was dangling like a piñata on the taut cable. The body was on its side, limp, storage shelves crushed beneath it. Right where Milo had been standing—

He was under it! I ran over to the monster, trying to figure out some way to get under the body. If he was between the metal shelves, he might still be alive. There was no way I could reach him. I needed something to pry up an edge of meat. “Hang on, buddy! I’m coming for you.” I spotted a crowbar, and started to work it under one leg.

Then I heard a strange noise, muffled beneath the corpse. Like somebody was trying to start a lawnmower, or a weed whacker, or . . .

A chainsaw.

I automatically stepped back as the powerful device caught with a roar. There was a terrible racket as Milo attacked the elephant from underneath. Thirty seconds later the chainsaw erupted out the elephant’s flank, spraying fluids, and a disgustingly coated Milo came crawling out from the stomach. He took a mighty gasp of air as his head pushed through the skin. He killed the chainsaw and tossed it. I grabbed him by the hand and tried to pull. Milo pushed me back, reached deep inside the guts, and pulled out the ward stone.

“You okay?”

“Shush!” he sputtered through a face full of rotting elephant blubber. His fingers flew across the stone. There was movement at the torn-open door. I glanced over to see more undead coming. A winged beast landed right in the entrance, hopping forward on its one remaining leg. This was it.

“Bingo.”

Milo moved the last letter into place. A visible shockwave traveled outward from the stone. The air bent in a violent oval. It washed across my body, but I felt nothing. The wave hit the undead and they simply exploded, flesh parting, bones and sinews flying like shrapnel. The wave expanded outward, surging across the compound, a tsunami of destruction, obliterating undead on impact.

There was a terrible wail, a scorching-evil distorted cry, like when we hit the shoggoth with thermite, only far worse. The shoggoth fled before the wave, screaming in pain the entire way.

That left just one thing . . .

Milo tumbled out of the elephant, sliding in a pile of squishy entrails. “Ew . . . this is karmic payback for making Newbies do the Gut Crawl, that’s what this is.”

I picked up the discarded flamethrower, hoisting the heavy pack onto my back. A thick tube led from the pressurized napalm pack to the heavy-duty nozzle gun labeled the burninator. Its operation seemed pretty self-explanatory. I snagged a portable spotlight with my other hand and headed for the exit. “Grab anything that makes light and follow me.”

*   *   *

The star shells were slinking across the sky. The noise of the battle was tapering off, gunfire and explosions ceasing as the undead on the outer edge of the ward’s area of effect were driven off and their cultist handlers retreated. The wall of artificial darkness was still standing and I ran straight through it, heedless of danger. I tripped over a dismembered zombie and fell, sprawling over more bodies. Struggling upright with the heavy flamethrower in one hand, I turned on the brilliant spotlight and shined it outward.

Franks was on his hands and knees directly before me, lacerated, torn, holding one hand to his abdomen. He was coughing blood. It shone red and frothy in the light. I shouted at him as I approached. He looked up, unable to speak, but pointed. I followed his finger with the beam of light. There was a mighty thing there in the shadows, two hulking hands clamped down on a seemingly tiny object. The thing was bent over, like it was devouring whatever it was holding. When the light struck, the giant shape was replaced with Hood’s normal form. He was holding Earl’s head in his hands. When Hood lifted his hand to shield his eyes, Earl fell over, limp.

I set the spotlight on the ground, still covering Hood, and hoisted the flamethrower. He had to step away from Earl before I could use the deadly Milo-designed weapon. “Come and get me, Hood! Bring it!”

He stepped away from Earl and walked toward me, using the sleeve of his robe to protect his sensitive eyes from the light. “You’re a brave man, Pitt.” He swung his hand downward and the spotlight exploded into shards of glass and plastic. His body was instantly replaced with the towering solid shadow. “It’s over, though. Your protectors are finished.”

He drew nearer, but I hesitated, I couldn’t risk immolating Earl. Werewolves couldn’t regenerate from fire. “What’d you do to him?” I demanded.

For the first time I thought I could make out facial features on the shadow blob’s head. Hood was smiling. “I’m assuming since you spoke to Carlos, you met the little imp I put in his head? Well, the thing that I just set loose in Earl’s mind is much, much worse. Serves him right.” Franks surged to his feet, charging past me with a roar. Hood swatted him down, brutally hard. “And as for you . . .” Franks hit the ground, and the shadow man paused long enough to kick him in the ribs, launching him across the clearing. “I have dominion over everything without a soul. I don’t know how you’re managing to resist my commands, but I’m going to drag you home and dissect you until I figure it out.”

Unable to wait any longer, I pulled the Burninator’s dual triggers. The first one ignited a pilot light while the second opened a valve of pressurized napalm. A wave of intense heat washed over me, singeing the hair from my arms. The fire lanced out in a fifty-foot beam, exploding right into the hulking shade.

Hood howled in rage, the shadow shape shrinking into a human form in the firelight. He extended both hands, palms open toward me. The fire seemed to wash over him, around him, but didn’t burn him to a crisp. He grimaced as black energy crackled from his squid amulet, down his arms, and out his hands. The energy collided with the fire, pushing it back. Sparkling bits of napalm fountained into the air, hissing and burning as they fell to earth.

I kept the triggers mashed down, but I could see the wall of flame being pushed back toward me. The heat rose. The moisture was torn from my skin. I gritted my teeth as it began to cook my flesh and burn my clothing. Milo’s flamethrower was no match for Hood’s magic. The heat was unbearable. I couldn’t breathe. The black magic was pushing the fires ever closer, and finally with a scream of heat-exhausted frustration, I was forced to release the twin triggers. I collapsed to my knees. The shadow shape loomed overhead.

Then the world exploded in light and eye-searing agony and an ear-rending screech. Hood screamed with real pain. I was instantly blinded. It was like somebody had driven ice picks through my eye sockets. It was so bright that it threatened to overload my brain. “Owen, get down,” Milo ordered. I was too stunned to comply. Hands hit my back and shoved, slamming my face into the cooler dirt. “Secret weapon time!” Milo shouted. I covered my head as the intense flashing barrage continued.

Thirty seconds later, the terrible noise stopped. I looked up, but all I could see were flashing lights and purple spots. Then some rectangular shape was looking down at me. It was a blank, faceless monster. Milo flipped back the welding mask and grabbed me by the arm. “Let’s go!”

I could barely see. Hood was still shouting, the light having actually seared his shadow flesh. There were other sounds now, a chopper overhead, surely using a spotlight, and the voices of approaching Hunters.

The purple blotch that must have been Hood was moving, staggering about. “It’s not over, Pitt!”

“You lose, Hood!” I bellowed.

“But even in defeat, my servants have secured your fate. I’ll see you soon.” There was a scrambling noise that ended in a pop as he used one of the magic portal ropes, and then he was gone.

I collapsed to my knees. “What’s going on?”

Milo yelled in my ear. “My secret weapon!”

“I’m blind, not deaf, damn it.”

“Sorry. I just made the world’s biggest flash-bang. That was a whole bunch of magnesium and aluminum powder there! I didn’t know if I had the mixture right either, but we didn’t all blow up, so I guess I did. Come on.” He helped me up. Stumbling, led by Milo’s elephant-blood-covered hand, he led me away from the noise. He found a clear spot, and had me sit.

I could barely see my hands. “What’s going on?”

It took him a moment. “Hunters are securing the area. The crazy shadow dude is gone. All the undead are blown up. Fed choppers overhead.”

“Where’s Earl?” I asked. Milo hesitated. “Milo? Where’s Earl?”

“They’re working on him, but . . . he’s not moving.”

I was still blind. “Take me to him!”

“You’re not a medic. Let them do their thing,” he said calmly. I reached out and grabbed his wrist, hard. “Ouch!”

“No time to explain. Get me over there quick, or he’s going to die.”

Milo might not have understood, but Hunters were flexible under pressure. He pulled me back the way we had come. I was starting to see shapes and color further away. There were a group of Hunters clustered over a still form.

“He’s not responding,” someone said. “Physical wounds are regenerating, but something’s wrong. Temperature’s dropping rapidly.”

“Let me through,” I said. “I can help.”

“Z, what’re you doing out here?” It was Holly. She sounded shocked to see me. “What happened to—”

I cut her off. “No time. This is like what happened to Carlos.” Milo guided me closer. I knelt at Earl’s side.

Holly understood. “Everybody step back,” she ordered.

“What’re you talking about?” a purple shape that sounded like Cooper asked.

“Z knows what he’s doing,” Holly said tersely. “You Newbies get ready in case something bad comes crawling out of Earl’s head. And come with me, Coop, we’ve got a rat to catch.”

I had no idea what she was talking about. I touched Earl’s chest. His breathing was almost undetectable and he was utterly cold to the touch. Blood drizzled down my lacerated face and onto my open hand.

I have to save him.

Having no real clue what I was doing, I concentrated, trying to remember what I had felt before when I had activated the power. I could sense it. I could feel the alien presence. Hood had called it an imp, a demon. Whatever the hell it was, I had to figure out how to evict it, and fast.

The world blinked out of existence.

Chapter 17

My eyes no longer hurt. I couldn’t feel the aches, injuries, or fatigue. I was standing on bright white sand while powerful waves crashed ashore at my feet. A brilliant blue ocean stretched for what seemed like forever. It was gorgeous, a veritable tropical paradise. For whatever reason, it really wasn’t what I had pictured the inside of Harbinger’s head to be like.

“What’s going on?” Earl asked from behind me. I turned. He was standing there, looking pained and confused. Behind him was a black rock cliff, and atop it was a rough shack of some kind. “Marty knocked me out and now I’m here.”

“We’re inside your memories,” I responded. “Hood put a demon inside your brain to devour them. We have to stop it before it kills you.”

He didn’t seem surprised, as if my explanation made perfect sense, flexible minds, and all that. “Did you get the ward activated?”

“Milo did, but why isn’t it chasing this thing off?” I asked.

“Maybe it’s safe as long as it’s in somebody’s head?” Earl shrugged. “You got any idea what you’re doing?”

“No. The last time I did this, the monster killed the host, then animated the body and tried to eat Doctor Nelson. But if we attack it before you get too weak, we might be able to throw it out and step on it.”

“Well, that sounds like a hell of a plan,” Earl replied sarcastically. “Remember when I told you not to screw around with this Old Ones’ magic bullshit?” I nodded. “Belay that order. Let’s go kill this little fucker.” He suddenly grimaced, raising his hands to his temple. “Oh damn. That hurts.”

I looked around for a giant earwig. “Where is it? Show me.”

“Near,” Earl said through gritted teeth, glancing from side to side. “I know this place. It’s attacking where I’m most vulnerable.”

Obnoxious seagulls were wheeling overhead. “Where are we?”

“This island is where I learned to finally control the beast. This was my exile.”

“Nice exile,” I exclaimed.

“It wasn’t my first choice,” he muttered, swaying a little, as he put his face in his hands. “I can feel it . . . in my head . . .” The sky was darkening rapidly. I could no longer tell where the horizon ended, as it all turned to an ugly shade of purple, like a spreading bruise. Earl cried out and went to his knees. I moved to his side to help. He gasped and shoved me away. “No. This was where I became a man again . . . I came here, where there was no one to hurt. I can’t let him have this.”

Werewolves were normally borderline psychotics. Earl was an exception. He exercised unbelievable mental control over his state and had done so for the better part of a century. If you were an evil force intent on destroying his mind, you would go right for where he had learned that control. With that iron will broken, the demon would be sure to win.

“It’s here,” Earl growled.

A purple dome appeared, rising over the horizon, dwarfing the cliffs, the shack, then the sky, and finally the entire world. “You’ve got to be kidding.” It was far bigger than Feeder had been. It made the other creature look like a pathetic bug by comparison. A single giant eye opened in the center of the dome. It blinked once, the lid slamming back and forth with a concussion like a hundred sonic booms. A shockwave traveled down the beach. The seagulls exploded.

The unspeakable entity of the Old Ones, summoned by Hood, and dumped into Earl Harbinger’s skull to devour his mind addressed us solemnly. Greetings. I am Rok’hasna’wrath, reaper of souls, devourer of worlds.

The thought hit our minds like a battering ram.

“Aw hell,” Earl muttered.

There was a terrible screeching noise as the creature said its master’s true name. ——— ordered me to this world long ago to serve its mortal priesthood. The High Priest has commanded me to rend this mind to pulp. Already I can see that this is a strong mind, hardened through strife and honed in conflict. I shall consume your memories one by one, growing stronger with each victory. You will attempt to defeat me. I welcome this challenge. This will continue until your spirit departs this shell or the Dread Overlord’s servant no longer requires my services and I return to my home plane. Only one of us can survive.

“Aw hell,” Earl repeated himself. The sky began to spin violently, a maelstrom centered on this one place in his memory.

“How the hell are we supposed to fight that?” I shouted.

This is not your fight.

It was addressing me.

BEGONE.

A wave of force struck me, bludgeoning my consciousness. The world dimmed as the pressure increased. He was banishing me. In this realm, the thing was unstoppable. I could feel my connection slipping. “Earl! He’s too strong. He’s kicking me out!”

Harbinger nodded into the wind. “I’ve seen weirder.” He turned to me, deadly serious. “I’ll hold out as long as I can, but if he wins here, then the beast might end up in control. If I start to change and anyone else is in danger, shoot me. You have to find Hood and kill him to stop this.”

I was sucked upward into the vortex.

Let the battle commence.

My hand burned as I took it from his chest. Earl was convulsing violently, icy sweat pouring from his face.

“What’s going on?” somebody shouted in my ear.

“He’s fighting . . . something,” I responded. My eyes had recovered from Milo’s lights sufficiently that I could see who I was talking to. Esmeralda was at my side, holding a large syringe. She was using it to pull some liquid out of a vial. “Wait, what’re you doing?”

“Horse tranquilizer. If Earl transforms out here, we’re all in danger.” Her forehead had been bandaged and she appeared absolutely exhausted. “I’ve already lost too many kids tonight. We can’t risk it. I have to knock him out.”

“You can’t.” I put my bloody hand on hers. Esmeralda stared at me in disbelief, but she didn’t plunge the needle in. “He has to be focused if he’s going to have any chance at all. We have to get him back to his cell.”

Esmeralda hesitated. She had ten times my experience. If I was wrong, and he started to turn, then we’d have to shoot him or risk all of our lives. “You better be right, Z. Let’s get him out of here fast.”

Hunters were scurrying in all directions, securing the compound. A hairy shape lumbered up to us, red eyes glowing. A giant red tongue flopped out as it panted. It was a warg. “Need ride?” Skippy asked from the giant wolf’s back. The orc’s goggled face swiveled to indicate the others behind him. “See dead things. Clan help.”

“We’ve got to get him back to his cell,” I said. Esmeralda and I lifted Earl’s shaking body and put him over Skip’s legs. The orc was fearless, despite the twitching man on his lap who might quickly turn into a ball of teeth, claws, and fury. “Do you know where that is?” Skippy nodded. The warg immediately launched itself forward, moving with unbelievable speed for the main building.

More warg riders were arriving. Esmeralda turned to me. “Owen, go with him. You need to get back right away.”

I didn’t know what she was talking about. “Why?”

“Julie was hurt during the attack.”

My heart lurched into my throat. “How bad?” Oh no. Please no. I grabbed Esmeralda by the shoulders. I towered over the tiny woman. “What happened?”

She hesitated, not wanting to answer. “Just go. Hurry.”

A second warg and rider padded up to us and stopped. I had never ridden a giant wolf before. The orc extended his hand. The beast tilted its head and examined me quizzically. Hell, I didn’t even know how to ride a horse, and this thing had jaws that could bite the head off a cow, but I needed to get to Julie fast. I grabbed the orc’s gloved hand. With my other hand I got a handful of fur and pulled myself onto the wolf’s back. It yipped as my weight settled and then immediately took off at a run. I hugged my arm around the orc so hard that I probably cracked his ribs, but I was frightened that I was going to bounce off.

She’s going to be fine. She’s going to be fine. I kept repeating that mantra to myself, too scared to think. The ride was surprisingly smooth as the warg ran across the compound. Shocked Newbies raised their guns as we passed but the more experienced Hunters shouted them down. I kept my face pressed against the warg’s fur the whole time. It smelled like coconut shampoo. We reached the main building in a matter of seconds.

I slid off and landed, wincing, on my injured ankle. Skippy was already pulling Harbinger off his warg. “Help Skip,” he grumbled at the Hunters that came running down the steps. I recognized the shortest one as the team lead, VanZant. Two Newbies were behind him, obviously frightened by the snorting warg. “Take Harb Anger . . . safe place.”

Skip knew right where to go and the Newbies took Earl’s convulsing arms and legs and followed. I grabbed VanZant by his sleeve. “Where’s Julie?”

He was a stocky man: the other team leads jokingly referred to him as the Hobbit. He was also a no-nonsense former Army mortar man and a welterweight champion fighter. He seemed surprised to see me. “How’d you get . . . Never mind. You better come with me, Z,” he responded, then hurried up the stairs. I followed him in a daze. The injured Hunters had been moved into the cafeteria. Those with medical training were tending to the worst hurt. Three female orcs had arrived and were lending their supernatural healing skills to the cause.

There were too many wounded, moaning . . . This was my fault, all my fault. “Where is she?” I asked.

“She was right here.” He pointed at an empty spot on the floor. All that was there now was a bloody towel. “We were on the roof when one of those flyers attacked. I was setting up an 81mm and she was directing fire and then it was right on top of us. It clawed through her armor.” He ran his fingers across his stomach quickly. “She was hit . . . bad. I carried her down here myself.” He started to choke up. “There’s no way she walked off.”

I picked up the towel. It was sodden, dripping.

VanZant was an experienced Hunter. He knew a severe injury when he saw one. “Julie!” I shouted, panicking. But everyone else down here had their own concerns right now. The nearest Newbies were utterly shell-shocked and didn’t even look up to see who was yelling. This assault had cost us dearly.

There was a tap on my shoulder. I turned and stared down into Gretchen’s reflective shades. Her manner was inscrutable as usual, but she jerked her head for me to follow. I did so. She led me to the nearest women’s bathroom and held the door open. I was confused. She nodded that this was where I was supposed to go.

I entered to the sound of running water. Julie’s green armor vest was discarded on the floor. It was soaked in blood and there were three vertical slash marks on the front, each one an inch wide, right through the Kevlar.

“Julie?” I asked hesitantly, knees weak, voice trembling, as I stumbled around the corner.

She’s alive!

Julie was standing in front of the sink, back toward me. Her head was down, long dark hair covering her face, and her hands were flat on the tile, as if holding herself up. She had taken her shirt off and was only wearing her bra. The tile around her was stained pink with blood.

She was sobbing.

“Are you okay?”

She lifted her head slowly. “I shouldn’t be.” My fiancée turned, lifting her head and revealing her tear-stained face. “Look.” She pointed at her stomach. Julie had abs of steel. Currently those abs were pink from half-washed blood. There were three dark horizontal lines down her stomach, but other than that, she looked fine. There was no wound at all.

“I don’t get it.” I said quickly. “Esmeralda made it sound like you were dying. VanZant was freaked out.”

“Look,” she ordered again. Puzzled, I bent down. The three lines were black, like a smudge from a piece of charcoal. The skin around the lines was healthy. The lines looked . . . familiar.

“No way!” I leapt back in shock. “No way!”

She pulled her hair away from her neck. The line from last summer had more than doubled in size. Now it was a thick black streak. The tattooed man had saved her life with that gift but we didn’t understand a thing about it. “I should be dead. I never saw it coming. The claws went right through me.”

“This is impossible.”

“Impossible?” Julie screamed. “I shoved my own guts back inside while they carried me away. Fifteen minutes ago I was disemboweled and now I’m fine.” I went to put my hands on her shoulders, but she jerked back. “Don’t touch me!”

“It’s okay,” I said soothingly.

“I don’t know what I am!” she cried. Julie turned away, unconsciously touching her neck, then realizing what she was doing, snapped her hand down in disgust. With a shout of pure anger she slammed her fist into the mirror, shattering it. She realized what she’d done and stepped back, quivering, blood tricking down her knuckles. She stared at the fresh cut in terror, waiting for something awful to happen.

I stood there, useless, helpless. The pain seemed to calm her down. The blood just kept trickling from her hand. Nothing happened. It was just a normal cut. She slowly unclenched her fist and sighed. Her fingers were shaking badly as blood dribbled down them to splatter the tile.

“Oh, Owen, what’s happening? What’s inside of me?”

I couldn’t answer that. I grabbed her and pulled her close. She struggled at first as I kept saying that it would be okay. Finally she relaxed and just sobbed into my chest. “It’s all going to be okay.”

But all I could think of was what Susan had told me in Mexico. You know that it’ll eventually kill her, don’t you? It’s from the other side, where everything comes with a price. I stroked my filthy hand across her cheek. “Everything will be fine.”

Finally she quit sobbing. Her voice cracked. My heart cracked. “I’ve got to get out there. They need me.” I wanted nothing in the world more than to disagree with her, and tell her that she just needed to rest, but she was right. We did need her. She pushed away. “I need a shirt. Can’t rally the troops like this. . . .”

I pulled a bunch of paper towels from the dispenser and passed them to her. She took them and pressed them against her injured hand. It was then that she stopped to look at me. She seemed surprised. “What happened to your face?”

I hadn’t looked at it yet, but I knew the silver-haired chick had cut me good. I could feel the flap of skin dangling wetly. I pushed it back into place and held it there with the rest of the paper towels. “Werewolf in the barracks clawed me.”

“Barracks?” she asked, confused. “When? How’d you get there?”

“Franks, Grant, and I went after the ward stone,” I explained.

Her brown eyes went hard behind her glasses. I’d seen that look before. The sadness, the shock, the fear, it was all gone, replaced with hard determination. Usually when Julie got that look, something was about to get killed. “Hand me my armor. We’ve got to go.”

“Where?”

She threw the blood-soaked vest on, not even bothering to buckle it closed. “To have a talk with somebody.” She pulled the door to the hall open. “You coming?”

We almost collided with a very excited Cooper entering the cafeteria. “Oh man,” the young Hunter sputtered when he saw me. “I was supposed to find both of you. Holly says you need to come quick.”

“Where?” Julie asked.

“Basement.” He hoisted his FAL and ran. Julie was right behind him. I had no idea what was going on, but followed. Cooper was headed for the stairs. Several Hunters stopped to point at Julie, surprised to see her alive, let alone running through the halls. Everyone who tried to talk to her was dismissed with a wave. She was too focused on whatever it was that we were doing. We went down two stairs at a time and found Holly Newcastle waiting for us at the base.

“He went that way”—she pointed—“looking nonchalant.”

“Heading for the tunnels probably, trying to get away,” Julie replied. “Come on.”

The four of us moved quickly. There was a massive hole punched in the wall next to the archives. Broken cinderblocks were scattered everywhere and piles of loose dirt had spilled onto the floor. “What happened?” I asked.

“The shoggoth dug right up to the basement. Then undead crashed through. They were under us, above us, and outside. It was nuts,” Holly said. “Lee held them at this one. He wasn’t going to let anything hurt his precious books. Trip stopped them at another breach by Earl’s room. We tossed some explosives down each and collapsed the walls.”

“And you were with the group that stopped the breach next to the control room,” Julie said.

“What?” Then it hit me. “The doppelganger!”

“So that’s what it is,” she replied. “After Dawn stood up in the meeting and shot Earl, the lights went out, and she vanished in the confusion.”

“Why would she take my form?”

“I intend to find that out right now,” Julie responded as she jerked open the janitorial closet door. She held up one hand for the rest of us to stop. “Owen, honey, where are you going?”

I heard my own voice reply. “Oh, hey, Julie. I was just checking to make sure this door was secure. What’s with the gun?”

“Don’t move!” Julie shouted. “Take them both.”

Cooper leapt through the door after her. I froze as a cold steel muzzle was jammed into the base of my neck. Holly’s voice was totally calm. “Z, I’m pretty sure that you’re the real you, so this is nothing personal, but if you so much as twitch, I’m going to blow your head off, got it?”

“Got it,” I responded. I knew better than to argue with Holly, and I had taught her to shoot that .45 currently aimed at my medulla. Holly would not hesitate.

A large man stumbled into the hallway, thick arms raised, hands placed on top of his short hair, the muzzle of Cooper’s FAL covering him. Except for the fact that he was wearing my armor, carrying my weapons, and was far cleaner, it was like looking in a mirror. “Against the wall,” the young Hunter ordered.

“Watch it, kid,” the duplicate replied.

“Do I actually sound like that?” I asked. “Man, I sound goofy.”

The doppelganger looked up, seemingly surprised to see me. “What the hell is this?”

“Cut the crap, Dawn,” I responded.

My beady eyes squinted back at me. “No way. This is some Condition trick. Blast it, Holly.”

“Both of you, shut up,” Julie ordered as she came out. Her 1911 was at her side. “One of you is my boyfriend, the other one’s dog food.”

“See you in hell, dog food,” the doppelganger said. Dang, that was a good impression.

“So, how do you want to figure this out?” Holly asked slowly.

“We could get Earl to sniff them both, see if they smell different,” Julie said. Cooper looked confused at that. Apparently he wasn’t part of the in-the-know clique.

“Yeah, go get Earl. He’ll know,” my double said.

“Except your stupid boss put a demon in his head and Earl’s busy fighting for his life right now,” I said. Julie frowned. “I didn’t get the chance to tell you. I tried to help, but he’s on his own for now.”

“Personally, I’m thinking this one’s the real one,” Holly tapped me on the back of the head.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because the real Z’s strategy is always to get right in front and let the monsters beat on him until they get tired. The other one’s too clean.”

Julie nodded. “Valid point . . . but . . .” She turned back to me. “How’d you know to say that it was a doppelganger?”

“I found G-Nome stuffed into one of the toilets in the barracks. He saw Dawn cleaning up from murdering whoever was on guard duty in the control room. I read his mind before he died.”

“You what?” Cooper was really confused now.

I heard approaching footsteps, and turning slowly, so Holly wouldn’t get jumpy, tried to see who it was. Trip was leading the way with a massive, hulking shape loping along right behind him. It was the troll, Melvin. “What the hell?” the doppelganger and I said in perfect unison. What was that monstrosity doing loose? And armed? He had a sawed-off, 10-gauge Browning BPS in one hand.

“Hey, guys,” Trip said. “Z . . . and Z.” He was unperturbed. “So I guess one of these two is Dawn.” He must have witnessed the shooting during graduation. He stopped and looked between us, trying to guess. “You know, that is some creepy stuff right there.”

“Oh! Oh! Melvin help,” the troll wheezed eagerly. “Trolls have good senses. We can smell evil Fey.”

“You can’t trust that thing,” the doppelganger said.

“Okay, I’ve got to agree with the shape-changing monster on that one,” I pointed out. “I missed the part where he joined our side.”

Trip smiled and jerked a thumb at the troll. “The undead were breaking into the basement. I was outnumbered and desperate, so I made Melvin a fast job offer. He saved my butt. Say what you will, trolls are mighty handy in a fight.”

“Melvin Monster Hunter now!” the troll said proudly. “Old clan all dead, because stupid. Melvin have nowhere else to go. MHI is my clan tag now.”

Julie pushed her glasses back on her nose. “Trip, we’re really going to have to have a discussion about this.”

“He’s agreed to certain terms of employment,” Trip responded. “No eating people.”

“Melvin not like eating people anyway. Like snacky cakes better.” He smiled, showing off rows of rotting teeth. MHI did at least have a good dental plan. “Melvin will make badass IT department for you. You can pay Melvin in Red Bull and internet connection.”

“No spam or fraud,” Trip continued.

“Aaahhh . . .” Melvin whined. “Fine. Whatever.”

Julie just shook her head in resignation. She’d had a very long day. “All right then, which one is the real Owen?”

The giant troll stood between us, swiveling his head back and forth. Melvin’s nostrils flared. He pointed one clawed finger at me. “That one.”

“Julie!” the fake cried. “You can’t believe that thing! It’s a monster.”

“Keep your hands on your head. Coop, take his guns,” Julie said.

“I can’t believe you’d fall for this,” it grumbled, as Cooper lifted Abomination’s sling. “This is such a crock of—” The doppelganger moved suddenly, slamming his armored elbow back into Cooper’s face, smashing his glasses. The Hunter crashed back into the wall. The doppelganger reached across his chest and yanked out my kukri. Julie calmly shot it in both legs. The bullets didn’t penetrate the Kevlar weave, but struck like hammer blows. My duplicate dropped to its knees.

“Ha! Melvin just guess! Monster go all dumb! Ha ha!” The troll bellowed, then looked stupidly down at his hand as it separated from his arm. The rubbery appendage hit the floor. “Hey!”

My double had swung the heavy blade right through Melvin’s arm. Julie shot the doppelganger in the hand and it dropped my knife. She shot it in the other hand just to be sure. Two fingers flew down the hall. It was kind of unnerving how little hesitation Julie had to shoot something that looked exactly like me. The creature tumbled to the floor and glared up at her with four injured limbs.

I was closest and grabbed Melvin. His rubbery skin squished under my hands as I caught him. “Are you okay?”

“Stupid monster. How can Melvin type now with one hand? Poor Melvin!” It sobbed as it sank to its knees. “How can play video games? Life is ruined. Noooo!”

“Somebody get me a tourniquet!” I shouted.

The troll emitted a strained, wheezy noise. He was laughing at me. “I kid. I kid. Melvin grow new arm by tomorrow. Trolls very resilient.”

My duplicate struggled to rise. It still spoke with my voice. “Fools. You can’t stop the Condition. The time of man is done.”

Julie strode over and snap-kicked it in the face, putting it solidly down. “Drag it inside. Let’s see what it knows.”

I used the opportunity while we taped the doppelganger to a chair to strip it of my gear. It felt good to have my armor back on. I used a bandage from my first aid kit and patched my cheek. I needed to have Gretchen look at that, but she had serious injuries to deal with upstairs, and I didn’t want to bug her about my cosmetic boo-boo. It would probably leave a terrible scar. I had gotten used to having werewolf scars once before. No big deal. I had more important things weighing on my mind.

Cooper was in over his head and had a broken nose to boot, so he went back to join up with his team. Melvin got put back in the cell while he regenerated a new arm. We didn’t really know what to do with him yet anyway, but Trip was a man of his word, which in the best case meant that we couldn’t just shoot him, and worst case meant we probably owed him a job.

We stuck the doppelganger in the next room where it couldn’t hear us while I caught the others up on Earl’s state and what had transpired during the fight for the ward stone. We were using Earl’s office, and just on the other side of the vault door, he lay alone and twitching, fighting an improbable battle against some shade of the Old Ones. With the possibility of him losing control and reverting to his werewolf state, we didn’t even dare leave anyone inside with him. This shape-shifter could hold the keys to finding Hood, and if I could find him quickly enough, we might still be able to save Earl.

I debriefed them as fast as I could. Julie patted me on the shoulder when I was done. “Doppelgangers can read minds a bit. That’s why they’re such effective mimics, so it’ll know exactly how far you’re willing to go to find the truth. It’ll play with us, mess with our minds. This is a job for somebody who knows what they’re doing.”

“Earl doesn’t have time.” Every second we waited put him one step closer to ending up like Carlos.

“I know,” she said. “Do what you can. I’ll find Sam, Boone, or Cody. All of those guys have had to get information out of actual human beings back when they were military. This won’t be a problem for any of them.”

Or my dad, I thought to myself. The will to do awful things was never something that he had lacked. And right now I just prayed that I could live up to what he’d tried to teach me.

Julie hadn’t spoken any more about the marks on her stomach, not even to Trip or Holly, though the two of them had surely noticed the ruined state of her vest. “I’ve got to get a sit rep and headcount. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Her voice was strong, the fear compartmentalized and shoved away to be dealt with later. With Earl down, and her Grandpa too old, Julie had to run the nuts and bolts of this show. Her people needed her. She left the room without another word.

God, I was terrified for her. I watched her leave, wanting nothing more than to never let her out of my sight, but Earl was counting on us, and our only lead was this doppelganger. She’d find us some experienced help from the chaos above, but in the meantime, that left Trip, Holly and me to deal with the doppelganger duct-taped to a chair in the next room.

“We should interrogate Torres too,” I said as I unrolled the hose that we used to spray down Earl’s cell. I had no idea what I was doing but beating the monster with a hose had definite possibilities. “Where’s he at?”

They looked at each other in confusion. “We stopped the undead in the basement, but we never saw him,” Trip said. “I’m assuming that other Fed, Archer, picked him up.”

“The place has got to be swarming with Feds up there by now,” Holly said. “I hope they’ve got the jerk in custody and they’re about to put the screws to him. You know, I never liked him.”

I hoped they were right. If he’d escaped, then Myers’ stupid escapade had been for nothing. I hadn’t had time to consider what I was going to do about that yet, but Myers deserved a shallow grave for what he’d brought into our house. “We better hurry. When the Feds hear we’ve caught this thing, they’re going to haul it off.”

“You guys ever done anything like this before?” Trip asked slowly. We all knew that this had the potential to get real ugly.

“Dude, I was an exotic dancer. How often do you think we had to torture information out of shapechangers?” Holly responded.

“Weekly?” I answered. I held up the hose, immediately felt stupid, so dropped it. “Don’t look at me like that. I was an accountant. We didn’t go over waterboarding in school either, okay?”

Trip looked a little queasy. “Maybe we should wait for Sam or one of those guys.”

“We don’t have the luxury.” I could tell that this was really not something that Trip was mentally prepared to do. He was just too kind-hearted to contemplate torture, even against something like this. I, on the other hand, had just shot a few actual human beings, and it didn’t seem to bother me at all. In fact, I felt strangely justified. I could handle this. “Get your game face on. Earl’s counting on us. There’s a literal demon inside his head, and it’s going to rip him apart until we stop it. We can’t let him down. You with us, man?”

Trip nodded with more vigor than he felt. “Yeah, let’s do this.”

“Holly?”

She snorted. “I’m tougher than you are.”

No disagreement there. “It can read minds, so don’t think weak. Think mean.” I jerked the door open and we went in to question the creature.

We had used an entire roll of tape to secure the shape-shifter to a heavy wooden chair. The three of us stood in a row. If I was smart, I probably would have brought a big lamp or something to shine in its face like in the movies.

“You’re out of your league,” it responded, still wearing my face. “None of you children have the guts. My master holds the keys to life and death and walks in the shadows between worlds. How could you possibly expect me to betray him? My god is a wrathful god!”

“So is mine,” Trip answered.

“You’re Baptist,” I pointed out.

“Exactly.” Trip surprised me. He stepped forward and backhanded the creature in the face. “Where’s the Condition?” my friend shouted.

The head rocked back, but slowly returned, laughing. I have an evil laugh when I’m angry. No wonder people consider me intimidating. “Come on, Trip, you can do better than that!” Trip hit him again, harder this time. He cocked his fist back for another shot.

Suddenly the doppelganger blurred and re-formed. The transformation was nearly instantaneous. Now it was Holly that Trip’s fist collided with. She squealed in pain. Trip jerked back, shocked. The fake Holly cried, hot tears pouring down her bruised cheek. “Don’t hurt me, please!”

Trip raised his hand again, but he was shaking. The doppelganger shifted again, and now it was an older black woman with white hair. “John, how dare you raise your hand to me!” She had a Jamaican accent.

Trip closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. “Where’s the Condition?”

When he reopened his eyes, his mother had been replaced with a teenage girl with red hair and freckles. She batted big sad eyes at him. “You promised you’d protect us, Mr. Jones. But you let those zombies get to us anyway. You got scared. You lied! You couldn’t protect us! Sure, you came back and saved the others, but you were too scared to save me. I hate you!”

“I . . . I’m sorry . . .” Trip stepped back from the creature.

“Enough,” I said. “Dude, it’s okay.”

“Sorry.” Trip was wiping his eyes as he left the room. He closed the door behind him. I glanced over at Holly. She was leaning against the wall, impassive and cool. The doppelganger turned its teenage girl face and spoke, only using my deep voice. “Your friend has a soft heart. I’m sure it’ll be delicious.”

“Your turn,” Holly stated.

The doppelganger studied me for just a moment. Its changes were almost so quick that it was hard to believe my own eyes. For just a moment, the face would be slack, almost squishy, then it was somebody else entirely. Mannerisms, speech patterns, even size. It would have been impressive if it wasn’t so disgusting.

Julie Shackleford looked up at me, fearfully, as I approached. “Don’t hurt me, Owen, please,” she pleaded. No. Not she. It. I kept walking.

“I’m going to figure out how to hurt you. Then I’m going to hurt you until you tell us exactly what we want to know,” I stated. I repeated those words in my mind. I could afford no weakness.

“Very good, Hunter. Harden your heart,” the fake Julie said. Then my girlfriend was gone and it was my father. “You always were weak, soft; it’s good to see you man up and take care of business. Come on, fatty, show me what you’ve got.”

I balled up my hand into a fist and slugged the doppelganger in the face. My whole body shook with the impact. “That’s the spirit, boy!” It laughed with my father’s voice. Then he was gone and it was Mordechai Byreika, old and frail. “Boy, what are you doing! Why do you hurt me?”

It’s not him. He’s dead.

“Smart you are, boy. But proud, and proud will hurt everyone you love.”

“It won’t work!” I spat.

Then it was Julie again. “It doesn’t have to. I just want to enjoy the damage you’re doing to your soul,” it hissed. “Beat your wife, Hunter. Come on. This is what I do for fun.” Then it shifted into the form of a little girl. “Owen, don’t let them hurt me! Don’t let them take me away. Not again!”

I paused. I had no idea who this was. She was probably seven or eight years old, with dark hair in a ponytail and blue eyes. “So, is this like a test to see if I’m willing to beat little kids or something?”

The little girl stopped her crying. “You don’t remember me?” she asked incredulously.

It had to be a trick. I had never seen this kid before.

The girl giggled. “You really don’t. You, the Chosen with the ability to see everyone else’s memories has his own locked away . . . How ironic. So much power but too stupid to use it,” the little girl said. “Past, future, it is all so linear to you pathetic mammals.”

“Who are you supposed to be then?” I asked.

It read my hesitation. “Apparently that’s a secret. Too bad for you. It’s really a sad story.”

“Z,” Holly spoke. “It’s messing with you. Step back.”

“I’ve got this!” I shouted.

“Step back,” she said again.

“Fine!” I stomped away, seething. This stupid monster was pissing me off.

Holly stopped in front of the doppelganger. The little girl face studied her. “Now you . . . you’re dangerous,” it said. “Your edge, it is not an act. There are two sides to you, human. Burning hot or freezing cold and somewhere in the middle innocence dies. Delicious.”

“You can read minds?” Holly asked.

“Sure can, kiddo,” it replied. Now the doppelganger was an older man with wispy hair and the flushed face of a terminal alcoholic. “You’re never gonna amount to nothing. You’re just like your mom, the tramp. No-good slut—”

Holly cut it off by slamming the ridge of her hand into its throat. The creature coughed and wheezed, writhing against the duct tape, like the old man was having a heart attack. “You gotta try harder than that,” Holly replied. “I’ve watched episodes of Doctor Phil that were more emotionally wrenching.”

It changed again. Now it was a young woman. It was hard to tell what she looked like because every inch of her was coated in dried blood, dirt, and filth. “Holly, you bitch. You left me alone in the pit. I’m dead because of you.”

My teammate snorted. “Worked through that, chief. Cindy died because she gave up. Vampires killed her. I didn’t do it. Is this supposed to make me feel guilty?”

“Guilty? You should. You could have taken me with you! Whore!”

The doppelganger began to thrash, swearing and crying hysterically. Holly turned to me and shrugged. She went back to the creature, walking a slow circle around the chair, studying the mirror image of somebody who had apparently been a fellow prisoner in the vampire feeding hole. “I think that we’re going about this all wrong,” she said slowly.

The creature continued to curse her. I couldn’t tell if the fear was genuine or fake at this point. Holly paused in front of it and pulled out her folding knife. The Benchmade flicked open with a snap. “Let me test this theory.” The creature flinched and thrashed away. “Hold still, or I’ll really screw this up.” She slowly poked her blade into the creature’s face. A clear fluid began to bleed from the cut. The woman screamed. I turned away involuntarily.

The screaming stopped. I risked a peek. Holly was holding up the dripping knife. “Yep, just like I figured. The tissue is all soft underneath, malleable. Like the fingers Julie blew off.”

Holly had carved a chunk out of the thing’s face. The flesh underneath had the consistency of raw dough and was leaking a viscous juice down its neck. “Oh, gross.”

The doppelganger hissed. “You think you’re so clever.”

“Yes. Yes, I do,” Holly responded. “See, I don’t know how your biology works, but I’m sorta like what passes for a medical professional around here now, so I’m just going to keep cutting pieces off until I find something important.”

It had reverted back to the form that it had been in most of its stay at the compound: the Newbie, Dawn. The young woman looked terrified. “Please . . . please don’t hurt me. Owen, don’t let her hurt me.”

“Hurt you? You killed Billy Tanner in the control room. Slashed his throat wide open. You set up an attack that cost us I don’t know how many more Hunters dead and injured. You tried to assassinate my boss.” Holly smiled maliciously. “Hurt you? Dawn, you can read minds, so I want you to read what I’m thinking about doing right now.” Holly closed her eyes.

The creature flinched.

Holly’s smile was terrifying. “Think that’ll hurt?”

“Okay, okay.” Dawn blinked, and her eyes were suddenly clear orbs. Her entire face went slack, the color seemed to fade, the features just sloughed away, leaving a blank mass of goo where the head had been. The hair retracted as those ice cube eyes watched us. There wasn’t even a mouth, just an indentation in the doughy mass. It puckered inward as it spoke with Dawn’s voice. “So, you want to see what I really am?”

“What the hell?” I muttered.

It was some sort of . . . well . . . I didn’t know, doughy asexual humanoid blob, utterly pale and damp. It seemed to shrink inward, as if it had been artificially inflating itself to reach correct human proportions. The fingers exposed from the end of the tape were stubby little white sausages that wiggled like hooked nightcrawlers, except the end of each one terminated in a hard yellow point. “Happy now?” Its voice was utterly bland, toneless, accentless, neither masculine nor feminine.

“Yeah, that’s much better,” Holly gagged.

“Maybe you should go back to the beauty queen,” I suggested. How had this . . . alien made it through the warding? Damn, the Pillsbury Doughboy had come on to me.

“Shove it, human,” the doppelganger said, hissing bubbles through its face. One crystal eyeball swiveled to study me, bulging out of the lumpy head, independent of the other. Apparently it had read my thoughts. “Your ward meant nothing to me. I was born on Earth. There are more of us here than you expect. We’re everywhere, preparing the way for the great and inevitable return of—”

“Shut up, Gumby.” Holly silenced it by shoving her knife against the creature’s chest. “Where’s the real Dawn?”

“Dead,” it answered. “Replaced not long after Harbinger and Shackleford made her a job offer. We did not even know of this one at the time.” It twitched one eye at me. “I was just to observe. The High Priest believed that MHI might pose a future threat to his plans.”

I stepped forward. “Where is this High Priest? Where’s Hood?”

The creature shook as it laughed. The sound was utterly emotionless. “He’s with your brother.”

What? Holly and I exchanged glances.

“I hid during the initial assault. My attempt on Harbinger had failed and I waited for an opportunity to redeem myself rather than return to the Exalted Order in shame. I sensed the presence of the acolyte known as Torres. So I freed him. In his wisdom, he suggested that I take your form so we could get close to one of your loved ones. Torres will go far in the Order. I found your brother and asked him to follow me to the basement. Torres led him into the tunnels. They are gone now, surely reunited with the High Priest by now.”

I stumbled back in shock. Mosh? Gone. I could envision this creature leading him away. Mosh would have trusted what he thought was me. He would never have even guessed. It had to be lying. Mosh had to still be upstairs. “You bastard. I don’t believe you!”

“Believe it, hairless monkey. I’m sure he will be contacting you soon. I returned here to try and finish my assignment. I was to neutralize Harbinger. When I found that the High Priest had already dealt with him, I fled. That’s when you caught me.”

It was telling the truth. Mosh was gone. They’d taken my brother. Rage darkened my vision. My boot collided with the doppelganger’s chest. It flew back, crashing violently into the floor. The creature emitted a high-pitched squeal. I kicked it again, shattering the back of the chair against the concrete. “Where?” I put the boot to it, stomping the monster over and over. It felt spongy, but something hard cracked on the inside. “Where’s my brother?”

“Z!” Holly shouted. “Calm down. We don’t know what kind of abuse this thing can take.”

“Where’s Hood?” The impact of my steel-toed boot slid the doppelganger across the floor. I kicked it again.

Holly grabbed one of the straps on my vest and tried in vain to pull me back. “Stop it!”

I paused, fists clenched tight, breathing hard, seeing red, stomping back and forth, hot air blowing through my nostrils. This thing had my brother.

Slumped on the floor, it laughed at us one final time. “Go suckle your warm-blooded young, filthy mammal,” it hissed. “My work is done.” It made a rattling noise and the protruding eyes flopped limp.

Unclenching my fists, I glanced at Holly. She looked back at me, shocked. “Did I kill it?” She shrugged. It was more like it had just given up the ghost after taunting me. “Oh crap . . . what do we do now?”

There was no time to contemplate that question. The door flew open with a bang. It was Sam Haven. Trip was right behind him. “We’ve got a problem,” the burly Hunter said quickly. He didn’t even seem to notice the doughy monster lying dead on the floor.

“Sorry, Sam, I think I killed it,” I responded.

“No. Some of the cultists survived. They’ve regrouped the remaining undead.”

But that didn’t make any sense . . . with the ward in place they couldn’t touch us.

Trip was panicked. “They’re burning the orc village!”

Chapter 18

A horn was blowing.

The sound echoed across the compound, a plaintive wail, coming from the direction of Skippy’s village. The sun was rising over the hills and a thick plume of black smoke was rising from the nearby forest. I leapt into the back of a waiting pickup truck. Trip, Holly, and Sam were right behind me. I slammed my palms down on the truck roof and shouted, “Go! Go!” to the unknown Hunter who was driving. The truck lurched forward, threatening to knock us down. We tore across the red dirt, dawn’s first light turning us into long shadows. Dust hung in the air from vehicles that had left moments before us.

I stared at my companions. All three of them were dazed. An attack on us was one thing, but the orcs? There were children there. We bounced onto a narrow forest road, forcing all of us to duck to avoid the stinging branches.

Sam caught my glance. “A bunch took off as soon as we heard the war horns. Skippy and their warriors weren’t home. They were helping us,” he shouted. “Cheating, rat-bastard sons a bitches!” Furious, he slammed one meaty fist against the side of the truck.

The tribe had lived with MHI for years, they could have settled inside the boundary of the compound and the protection of its warding, but they were too uncomfortable around humans to ever live inside our walls. Their people had been persecuted for generations, and even though they considered themselves part of our clan, they preferred solitude.

They just wanted to be left alone.

The air smelled like smoke.

The orc village was just a circle of simple prefab houses, decorated with antlers, animal skulls, and feathers. It was where Skippy’s people lived under the protective umbrella of their adopted clan, MHI. They had come here as refugees, and Harbinger had taken them in. They had made this their home, safe from the world that saw them as freaks and monstrosities. I had been here many times. I’d eaten their food, drank their drink, played with their kids, and listened to their music.

It had been a peaceful place.

Not anymore.

The truck locked up the brakes as we entered the clearing. I leapt over the side before we had even slid to a stop, Abomination ready to dispense some vengeance. The wooden homes were burning, crackling as the flames devoured everything in their path. A giant warg lay dead at my feet, eviscerated by steel claws. Hunters were moving around the houses.

There were more corpses near the homes. Most were Hood’s automatons, as even orc women and children knew how to defend themselves, but some of the crumpled bodies were smaller and dressed all in black.

“Status!” Sam shouted.

A Hunter, so covered in soot, ashes, and blood that I couldn’t even recognize who it was, stepped forward. “Undead destroyed. A handful of cultists are escaping through the forest. We’ve got men after them.”

“Casualties?”

His name tag read southunder. “I . . . I don’t know how many people lived here, but it looks like most of them escaped into the woods. But some tried to stay and fight. They . . . they . . .” The Hunter couldn’t finish his sentence. He had a Utah County MHI patch on his arm, a werewolf with a gun. I’d heard that our Utah team had an orc volunteer on it too, someone who’d grown up in this very village. “I can’t believe this.”

“There were probably two dozen kids that lived here,” Trip said slowly.

I stumbled toward the bodies. Other Hunters were efficiently chopping the heads off the undead and checking for survivors. There weren’t any so far. The smoke was burning my eyes, and involuntary tears cut a path down my cheek.

This was my fault.

A warg and rider tore into the village. The black-clad figure leapt from the beast’s back and ran, tripping, and sprawling next to one of the dead. The orc clawed his way forward, lifting the lacerated little body into his arms. He let out a howl of anguish.

It was a massacre.

“Survivor!” a Hunter bellowed from the far side of the clearing. She was carrying a small form in her arms. Holly, who was a decent medic, ran to help. I watched helplessly as she applied a tourniquet to the young orc’s leg. The foot was just gone.

In an utter state of shock, I found myself trying to assist. Someone pressed a plastic five-gallon bucket into my hands. We managed to use the orcs’ well to douse the flames. I kept throwing water onto the fires in a complete daze, bucket after bucket, in a futile attempt to do something.

The warriors and healers who had come to help at the compound returned, all of them in various states of despair, fury, and grief. Skippy immediately began to bark orders in their hoarse language and the others responded quickly, fanning out into the trees to search for more survivors.

They were a simple people. Brave, good, strong, kind . . . They didn’t deserve this. No one deserved this.

There was a shriek as someone made a discovery in the trees. One of the wargs had picked up the scent and tracked down some of the fleeing orcs. A figure came out of the forest, waving at us, and I could tell it was a female only because of the burkha. A group of short, stubby children emerged behind her. Some of them had lost their masks, and tears rolled down their green cheeks. They were terrified, disheveled, clothing torn and dirty from their flight through the trees.

Skippy ran forward and engulfed her in his arms. One of his wives had led most of the children to safety. Three of the kids charged forward and hugged Skippy’s legs. I tossed one more bucket of water onto the smoldering ashes. The fire was under control, but it was too late for the once-proud village. My injuries were just a dull background throb over the hurt in my soul. My brother was gone, Julie was cursed, Earl was dying, Skippy’s people were decimated, and all because of one fanatic on a mission. All because of me.

Sam grabbed me by the arm and pointed back toward the road. “Feds are coming.”

“The orcs have been through enough. I’ll keep those assholes out of here,” I spat as I threw the bucket on the ground. A black Suburban was pulling into the clearing and I moved to intercept it. The last thing these people needed was the presence of an entity that terrified them—the government.

The passenger door opened and Agent Myers stepped out. It took every bit of self-control I had not to snap Abomination to my shoulder and pump a round of buckshot into his face.

“Pitt! What’s going on here?” he demanded.

“Turn around and get back to the compound,” I ordered. “Now.”

Archer got out of the driver’s seat, obviously shocked at the carnage. Myers glared at me. “My men are in control of the compound. This is an official investigation, and I need to know what’s—”

I got right up in his face. “Get out! Don’t you get it? These people are scared of you. They’ve got more important stuff to deal with right now.”

“Stand down,” Myers said, eyes narrowing dangerously.

“No! You stand down!” I shoved him back into the Suburban. Myers was shocked that I dared to lay hands on him, and the evidence was in the two soot-black handprints on the breast of his cheap suit. “I’m done standing down, asshole!”

Archer moved his hand to his gun. Sam cleared his throat, and the skinny agent glanced over his shoulder to see the big Hunter standing there with a .45-70 cradled in his arms. “Let’s let those two settle their beef. Know what I mean, kid?” Archer nodded slowly as he let go of the butt of his Sig.

Myers tried to dust the ash off his suit. He failed. “I can understand the anger, but if you touch me again, I’ll make sure you go to prison forever. Do you understand me?”

I jerked my thumb toward the grieving orcs. “This is your fault. You took your problem and made it ours, you coward. You lied to us, used us . . .” I was enraged, shaking. I shoved him again. He collided with the Suburban. Myers flinched on impact. “Torres, the asshole scumbag you brought here, he took my brother. My brother! You—”

Despite his mild appearance, Myers was shockingly fast on the draw. The barrel of his revolver appeared under my chin. I froze. He cocked the hammer. “Calm down.” The muzzle was cold against my skin. I was breathing hard, nostrils flaring with each breath as I contemplated snatching his gun and killing him on the spot. The hardness in Myers’ eyes indicated that I would fail. “Listen to me very carefully, Pitt. This isn’t a game. You think I wanted this? You think I wanted these creatures to get hurt, for your family, for MHI to lose men? Of course not. But this is bigger than that, bigger than you, bigger than me. You have no idea how hard the choices are that I have to make.”

“Only when you choose wrong, you’re not the one paying the price.”

“I’ll pass that along to Agent Herzog and my men who died at the amphitheater.” He slowly removed his Smith & Wesson 610 from my neck. A crowd of orcs were regarding us warily. I had no doubt that if Myers had shot me, they would have torn him limb from limb, and he knew it too. He carefully lowered the hammer. “We’ll leave your precious monsters alone. I know I’m their bogeyman. Take a walk with me, Pitt. I think you need to understand what’s at stake here.”

Myers and I stopped at the entrance to the clearing. It was quieter here, but I could still hear the lamentations of the tribe. I was furious. Myers holstered his revolver and pulled out a pack of smokes. He offered one to me. Resisting the urge to cave his skull in, I shook my head.

“I’m trying to quit,” he explained as he lit the cigarette. “Ironic. It was working with Earl that got me hooked on these stupid things. The good old days . . .” Myers chuckled. “Looks like they’ve come back to haunt us.”

“You know about Hood, then?”

“Franks briefed me.” He shook his head slowly. “I can’t believe it.”

“Well, you better.”

“No . . . That’s impossible. Marty Hood was a good man.” I could sense the consternation in his voice. He really couldn’t wrap his mind around the truth. Myers continued, “He was my friend. Nothing like this cult leader. The Condition is brutal, efficient, psychotic. They’ll stop at nothing to reach their goals.”

“So that’s why you stuck one of their acolytes with me?”

He shrugged. “I saw an opportunity and took it. There were only a handful of my men who could have sold out Agent Patterson. Investigating them turned up nothing. If I questioned them outright, then they’d know I was onto them, and we’d lose our opportunity. But I knew that they wouldn’t be able to resist taking a shot at you.” He waved his hand across the clearing. “I just didn’t expect this level of response.”

I had to fold my arms across my chest. Every fiber of my being wanted to murder him. “You just expected them to pop me. Not a full-on assault.”

“Correct.” Myers said, stone-faced. “Don’t look at me like that. You would have done the same thing.”

“No. I still have my soul.”

Myers tossed his smoke down and ground it out with his wingtip. “When the President himself tells you to stop a death cult, no matter what the cost, then your perspective changes a bit. The Condition is getting ready for something big. Something devastating, called Arbmunep. We don’t even know what it is, some sort of secret weapon, but it’s coming soon. All our intel indicates that this is an Extinction Level Event. Do you know what that even means?”

I shrugged. It sounded pretty bad.

“Poof. Done. Mankind’s done. We’re like the dinosaurs. I’m personally responsible for the defense of my country, and I’ve got the things from Lovecraft’s worst nightmares knocking on the door . . . A soul? You say I don’t have a soul? That’s a luxury for people who don’t have my responsibilities. People who live in the suburbs and take their kids to Little League and walk their dogs have those. I can’t afford a soul.”

There was more yelling from the direction of the village as some of the Hunters returned with more survivors. “What are you going to do about my brother?”

“My men are interrogating some of the surviving cultists now. I’ve got others tearing apart the trucks and undead looking for forensic evidence. All this material came from somewhere. We have access to the best intelligence databases in the world. The Condition’s tipped their hand. You can’t stage an operation of this scale and not leave clues. We’ll track them down for sure.”

That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I wanted results now. “Earl will be gone by then. Mosh will be dead.”

“I’m sorry about them, really I am. But we’re doing everything we can. I can promise you this: we will bring these people to justice.”

“Justice isn’t good enough.”

There was a sudden commotion from the orc village. A group of Hunters walked out of the trees, dragging a few robed cultists behind them. Myers perked up. “Good. More people to question.”

There were three prisoners. Their black robes were torn and muddy. One of them was obviously injured. The Hunters stepped aside as several orcs approached. One of them had a pair of swords on his back, so I recognized Edward immediately. One blade flashed from its sheath as Ed stalked forward with single-minded determination.

“You want to question them, you better hurry,” I suggested. Edward looked like he was about to do the slice and dice.

“Stop! Stop right there!” Myers shouted as he ran back toward the village. “Stop that orc!” Edward either didn’t hear him or didn’t care. The sword sang through the air and one man went down in a spray of blood. Ed was a super-efficient killing machine, but that wasn’t his goal today. The cultist dropped to his knees, one arm missing at the shoulder. He started to scream and Ed took his other arm. “I need them alive!”

Ed paid him no heed. He drove his blade through the pelvis of the next cultist. These men had hurt his tribe. He was their best warrior, and default executioner. The Hunters understood this and stayed out of the way. That didn’t help me get Mosh back though. Ed jerked steel through bone, grinding his sword back and forth, before tearing it violently free. That cultist fell, thrashing.

“Skippy, stop him,” I bellowed. Skippy’s goggled head dipped once in agreement. He raised his gloved hand and Ed complied immediately, perfectly still, sword tip inches from the last cultist’s nose.

“Make this . . . good . . .” Skippy grunted.

I reached them a moment later. Myers was hesitant to get too close to Ed, who was like a statue, one sword unmoving in the last standing cultist’s face. A single drop of blood fell from the tip of the steel. The one with no arms had passed out in a puddle. The other’s bowels had been opened in half a dozen places. He was still crying, and probably would for quite a while.

Myers addressed the last uninjured man. “Tell me where to find your High Priest, or I’ll give you to these . . . creatures.”

He was a young man who looked more like a frat pledge than a cultist. His eyes flicked nervously to his dying companions, to the faces of the impassive Hunters, and then to the masked and circling orcs. Obviously terrified, he stammered, “I . . . I . . . can’t.”

“Yes . . . can,” Skippy stated over the screams of the dying. The orc chief glanced down at the disemboweled cultist. The cries were annoying him. “Quiet bad human.”

Edward responded instantly. His sword swung down, severing the injured man’s head cleanly from his body and sending it bouncing across the dirt. The blade returned immediately to its space before the young cultist’s nose.

Skip looked down at the twitching body. “Not mean for kill him, Exszrsd.” He finished the sentence in his own incomprehensible language.

Ed shrugged, as if to say whoops. Ed was a literal kind of guy.

“Okay, don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me!” the cultist stammered.

“Talk!” Myers shouted. “Where is he?”

“If I tell you, he’ll hunt me down. You can’t stop him. He walks through the shadows! He owns the night.”

“We can protect you,” the senior agent said calmly. “I represent the government. We’ve got places that even he can’t go.”

There was a glimmer of hope. “You . . . you do?”

“Yes,” Myers responded soothingly. “You help me and I can help you. What’s your name, son?” Myers was a sly one, but then again, he had plenty of practice playing good cop to Franks’ bad cop.

The cultist was terrified. His eyes crossed a bit as he looked down the length of the sword. “Chad. My name’s Chad. I didn’t know what I was getting into. You’ve got to believe me.” He began to babble. “Some other guys told me about this church, and they could do all sorts of cool stuff, and if you did what they said, then you wouldn’t ever die! And I saw it with my own eyes. You’ve got to believe me. I just wanted to have that power. But then they were doing all sorts of crazy stuff. I was scared of the High Priest, so I went along. I never wanted to hurt anybody.”

Skippy shook his head. I had serious doubts that no matter what Myers promised, Chad was not going to leave this village alive. I almost felt bad for the guy. He was probably younger than me, inexperienced, stupid, and suckered into something way over his head. I noticed that he had a squid necklace, like a smaller version of the one Hood had been wearing. Maybe it was just the light, but it seemed slick and alive.

Myers continued, being as unthreatening as possible, which for him was saying a lot. “I understand. Chad, I give you my word. You give me a location, and I’ll get you right into protective custody. I promise. Okay?”

Chad had started blubbering. “Okay.” He nodded, obviously broken. Watching Edward mercilessly chop two of his buddies into bits probably helped. “I’ll tell you everything I know.” He took a deep breath and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “There’s a place in New—” Chad looked down in sudden confusion. He tried to speak, but no sound came out. He clutched at his throat.

The squid amulet’s chain was shrinking. “The necklace! Get it off!” I shouted. Chad stumbled, fingers trying to get under the chain. I grabbed the cultist by the neck and tried in vain to grab it, but it slipped right through my fingers. He fell, eyes bulging out of his head, skin turning blue. He began to jerk as all the oxygen was cut off from his brain. The chain was slicing through the flesh of his neck like piano wire. “Damn it!”

It just kept tightening. The squid seemed to wilt and die. A few seconds later, the convulsing stopped. Chad’s muscles tightened in one final spasm, then it was over.

I was on my knees next to the cultist, surrounded by Hunters and orcs. “What happened?” Sam Haven asked.

“Non-disclosure agreement from hell,” I responded. Disappointed, Ed poked the cultist in the leg with his sword. No reaction. I knelt at his side, pulled my glove off, and felt for a pulse. He was dead.

Myers was rubbing his face in his hands. “He was about to talk.”

“Apparently,” I muttered. “You better warn your men before anybody else gets somebody to roll over.” The senior Fed pulled out his radio. “Hood is in New something or other.” I glanced over at Holly and Trip. They were looking to me for ideas, and I was fresh out. “Call headquarters. See if they—” A terrible pain tore up my arm and I shouted in surprise.

Chad’s dead eyes were staring at me. His mouth was clamped onto my left hand. Blood was gushing past his teeth as he rent it from side to side. My blood.

“Aarrgh!” I jerked my hand away, tumbling to the ground. The zombie began to rise. Edward cleaved the top of his head off in a cloud of red and white.

“Z!” Holly screamed. I grabbed my hand. Blood drizzled down my arm. Trip tore my hand away and began dumping a bottle of water on the wound. There it was, clear as day, a serious bite mark.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. “Oh man . . .”

“Skin’s broken!” Trip shouted. “Gretchen! Help!”

Zombie bite. One hundred percent fatality rate.

The healer pushed her way through the crowd. I started to rise, but she pushed me down with shocking strength. I could see the reflection of the wound in her mirrored glasses.

Impossible. It can’t be.

“Can we cut his arm off?” the Utah Hunter asked.

“Oh, hell,” I whimpered. But it beat the alternative.

Edward stepped forward, sword in his hand. I cringed, knowing that with that two-foot razor blade I wouldn’t even have to take my armor off. The orc warrior looked to Gretchen for wisdom. If she gave the go-ahead, there would be no hesitation.

Gretchen shook her head. Ed lowered the sword.

“Amputation doesn’t work,” Holly said, her voice flat. I knew that she had an eerie ability to fall into a state of utter calm when she was really freaked out. “Just causes blood loss that kills the subject faster. The contamination spreads instantly through the nervous system.”

I was hovering between disbelief and panic. Such a stupid Newbie mistake . . .

Sam kicked the body. “Maybe it wasn’t a zombie,” he said hopefully. “I’ve never seen a zombie animate that fast after death.”

There was laughter. It seemed strangely out of place. The crowd around me all turned toward the unnatural sound. The group parted enough that I could see. The cultist with no arms was sitting up. “Of course you haven’t seen anything animate that fast, fools.” The squid amulet on his chest was glowing. His eyes were open but rolled back sightless into his head. “You’ve never dealt with my art before. Well, well, well, now isn’t this just a happy bonus.”

Hood. Somehow he was channeling himself through the dying cultist. Multiple guns lifted to eliminate the new threat. “Hold your fire!” I screamed. The Hunters didn’t shoot, but they didn’t lower their weapons. “What do you want?”

“I warned you, Pitt. Now you’re coming into my world, whether you like it or not. The plague is in your blood now, chap. Game over.” The voice came from the cultist’s mouth, but the lips didn’t move.

I struggled to my feet. “Liar!”

“Your body will try to fight it at first. As we speak, your temperature is rising, trying to battle the infection. Within a second of introduction it began taking over, traveling down every nerve, every vein, artery, and fiber. Your very DNA will be torn apart. Once your brain tissue is overwhelmed, the transformation will be complete. Your heart will stop and the only thing that will matter then is finding your next raw-flesh meal . . . Welcome to the family.” I stumbled toward the cultist. “Look at that, dead man walking.” Hood laughed again.

“Marty?” It was Myers.

The lolling head turned vaguely in the direction of the Fed. “Hello, Dwayne.”

“No, it can’t be,” Myers sputtered. “What are you doing?”

“Fulfilling my destiny. You were my best mate once and one of the few who truly mourned me. I appreciate that. I always will. But you’re in my way now, so you’ll step aside if you know what’s good for you.” The cultist’s head flopped forward, chin against his chest. “Nothing personal.”

Hood wasn’t here just to gloat. “What do you want?” I asked.

The body jerked, throwing the head back hard on the neck, rolling around on the shoulders. “Perceptive. I’ve won, but now the question is, to what degree will be my victory? Killing you, especially in such a horrid way, fulfills the letter of my orders, but I want to also fulfill the spirit. I have a covenant to live up to, and I don’t make promises lightly. Come to me, Pitt. That way I can turn you over to the Great One itself. In exchange, I’ll return your brother.”

“How do I know he’s still alive? I don’t even know you’ve got him for sure.”

The blood-soaked mud before the cultists ignited in a small flame. The flame traveled in a circle, like an old-fashioned dynamite string. The flame reached its starting point, forming a tiny circle. There was a pop and a splash in the mud. The flames flickered and died in the breeze. There were several small objects resting in the puddle.

Fingers.

“I’m sure Dwayne can print those for you if you like, but trust me, they belong to your brother. And he certainly won’t be playing the guitar ever again. I never liked that kind of music; too—oh, what’s the word I’m looking for?—Brash? Offensive? I prefer the classics. . . . Your call, Pitt. Die alone, hiding in your compound, or die for something useful. Give your life in one final act of mercy to free your brother and slake the thirst of my impatient god.”

My pulse thundered in my ear. My face was flushed with heat. “Where?” I hissed.

“Return to this place in exactly one hour. It will take that long to prepare a portal large enough. Do not attempt any trickery. Only one person will be able to pass through the portal. Don’t bother sending through a bomb—I’ll see it coming and not open the gate on my side. Personally, I won’t be close enough to the portal for it to matter anyway. I’ll only open the portal for you. And as punishment I’ll send your brother to the other side for the amusement of the Dread Overlord in your place. Do you agree to my terms?”

I was going to die. Mosh didn’t have to.

“See you soon,” I answered.

The cultist dropped limply to the ground as Hood’s consciousness left him. Just to be on the safe side, several Hunters shot the body in the head.

It was quiet for a long moment as everyone in the clearing stared at me. It was just starting to sink in. I’d been bitten by a zombie.

“You can’t do this,” Sam said. “It’s suicide.”

Agent Archer joined us, pushing rudely past the orcs. He had a device similar to the blood sugar testers diabetics used in hand. “Hold still,” he said as he pushed the needle against my neck. It made a hissing noise at it stabbed me. He pulled it away and studied the little screen, biting his lip. The whole group was totally silent, watching Archer and his little box for about thirty painful seconds. My stomach hurt from the fear. All I could hear was my breathing. A little red light began to flash on the tester. I lowered my head as the group began to murmur.

I’m dead.

Strangely, I was calm, staring at the mud. “No such thing as suicide if you’re already dead, Sam. How long do I got?” I asked. The Hunters exchanged glances. “How long?” I shouted.

“Calm down, Z. Maybe it was . . . something else.” Trip said. “Maybe it’s wrong.”

Archer cut in. “It’s not a lycanthropy test. The zombie infection tester is always accurate.”

My mouth was totally dry. I was so terrified it hurt to talk. “How long?”

Myers spoke up. “The longest a healthy person has ever lasted after being bitten was five hours. Most are done in under two depending on the severity of the . . . well, you know . . .” He wouldn’t look me in the eye. He studied his shoes. “Sorry.”

The old Hunter, Cody, carefully picked the fingers out of the mud. He also pulled up a short piece of rope. It had to be related to how the Condition’s teleportation magic worked. “Maybe we can use this somehow?” I had no idea how, but he carefully stowed the rope too.

It was settled. “I’m going after my brother. Can you put a tracking device on me?” I suggested. Maybe my sacrifice didn’t have to be in vain.

Myers pointed at my armor and then at my shotgun. “Already done. That’s why we gave your gear back to you in Mexico.”

I should have known. Any act of kindness from them had ulterior motives. “Well . . . hell . . .”

My friends were scared. They all knew that I was doomed. Nobody knew what to say.

“Let’s get back to base. I’ve got an hour. I’m not going out without a fight.”

*   *   *

Time was running out.

MHI had taken a beating. Several Newbies had died during the attack, as well as one team lead, Williams, out of Kansas City. We had six others with serious injuries and over a dozen with various degrees of damage. The injured had been evacuated to the hospital in Montgomery. We were also missing our most experienced Hunter, since Earl was down with a demon trying to devour his mind. A group of us had gathered in the conference room to come up with ideas. Frankly, I didn’t have any. More Hunters arrived every second. Word had spread quickly.

I hadn’t even had a chance to explain to Julie what had happened, but by the time I had gotten back to the compound, somebody had already informed her of the zombie bite. She hadn’t left my side since. It was a good thing that we were so preoccupied, because I honestly had no idea what to say. Sorry, honey, gonna die soon. Gotta go take care of some business. Sorry you’re cursed by evil.

Instead I was standing at the front of the room while Milo used black electrical tape to tie row after row of green glow sticks to my armor.

“Telekinesis keeps taking out flashlights, but if he pops one of these, it just covers you in more diphenyl oxalate and hydrogen peroxide,” Milo explained.

“Glowing crap,” I said.

“Yes, glowing crap. Remember, you’ll need to crack and shake when you need them.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“Roll around or something.”

“You look ridiculous,” Sam said.

“Got a better idea?” I snapped. Knowing that you’re counting down toward certain death makes you tense.

“Three hundred pounds of C4 shaped into a giant Owen doll,” he muttered.

“Hood won’t go for that. Nothing big or elaborate. We’ve already shot him, burned him, and blown him up. Even if he sees I’m armed, he’s cocky. He’ll think he can take me, so he’ll let me in. Then maybe I can figure out a way to kill him.” It was stupid, but it was the best that I had, and going quietly wasn’t my style.

Holly had cleaned the bite, applied a bandage and wrapped my hand. It was an utterly useless gesture. What was I going to do, get an infection?

“Has anybody ever lived through a zombie bite?” asked Trip.

“Never . . .” Julie said. “I’ve never . . . never heard . . .” Her voice broke badly. “Sorry.”

I reached over and squeezed her hand. I only had to be strong for an hour. She had to be strong the rest of her life. I was trying to not show it, but I was already feeling the effects of the bite. My stomach ached and my head hurt. My eyes grated in their sockets as they moved. It was like I was coming down with a bad flu.

The small length of rope was lying on the table. I had no idea where the fingers had ended up. On the bridge at Buzzard Island, Bia had thrown a bigger piece of rope on the ground, and it had turned into some sort of portal. That piece had also apparently led back to the shadow man’s lair. Esmeralda was studying the cord intently.

“Do you really think we can figure out how to activate that thing?” I asked.

“Maybe,” she replied. “I’ve heard of these things before. I read about them somewhere in the archives a long time ago. Where’s Lee, already?”

“I’m coming,” he shouted from the hallway. Our librarian hobbled in a moment later. He dropped a heavy book and a bunch of half-burned papers on the table, so preoccupied that it was as if he didn’t even notice the rest of us. “I’ve got it. I cross-referenced it under dimensional gates.” He opened it with a thump. “It works on the same principle, like a portable version of the door in DeSoya Caverns.”

“That’s awesome,” Sam responded. “Can we turn it on and dump a strike force in the bad guy’s lap or not?”

Esmeralda held up the rope and touched the ends together. It only made a tiny circle. “You got a team of attack leprechauns around here I don’t know about?”

Sam punched the wall. He wasn’t taking this very well. I was still strangely calm. Julie’s little brother entered the room. He paused long enough to nod at me, but then looked away uncomfortably. It was like being a guest at your own funeral. A lot of people were struggling right now.

“The damaged papers are what’s left of Ray Shackleford’s notes that got burned during the Christmas party. There were things in there about portals. And this old book has a section on them too.” Lee began flipping pages. “I’m trying to figure out if we can tweak this one, make it bigger or something, or even if we can turn it on, but this book was written hundreds of years ago. It’s not exactly easy to understand, and I’m having to use a computer translator, unless any of you guys speak Renaissance German.”

Milo looked over. “At least that one’s got pictures . . .”

There were other pictures before Lee got to the magic rope section and one of them looked familiar. “Lee, stop. Go back a few pages . . . There. Milo, check that out.”

Milo looked up from his glow sticks as he bit the end off the tape roll. “Hmmm . . . that’s kind of like our ward stone.”

Lee looked at it, puzzled. “That’s what that is?”

Of course, he had never seen it. “Yeah, that’s it. What book is that?”

Lee flipped it over. “If I’m reading this right, Principles of Alchemical Artifacts and Unnatural Philosophy. It has stuff about teleportation, animating corpses, alternate dimensions, immortality potions, that kind of thing. . . . It was written by somebody named Konrad Dippel.”

That name rang a bell.

Julie might have been in a state of shock, but she was also our best historian. “He was an alchemist, one of the really talented ones, a peer of Isaac Newton. It’s possible that he would know how to make this teleportation thing work, if we could just decipher his notes.”

“That’s just awesome trivia, but it doesn’t help us save Earl,” Sam spat. “Sorry, Z, I appreciate what you’re doing. Futile noble gesture, man, but I can’t stomach letting you do this on your own.”

“I know, Sam. If we’re lucky the Feds’ tracking device will work and you can come avenge me.” I grimaced. I had to hang in there; everybody here needed me to stay tough. I couldn’t break down yet. “Wait a second.” I raised one hand. That disturbed Milo, who was busy shoving road flares in every pouch on my back. “Why’s that name familiar? Dippel?”

Julie thought about it for a moment. “Well . . . Dippel’s experiments on cadavers were carried out at the castle with the same name as the doctor in the book. A lot of people think he’s the man who inspired Mary Shelley.”

“Who?” asked Holly.

“The woman who wrote Frankenstein,” Trip answered.

It clicked.

“Get Agent Franks.”

We located Franks at the hangar where the Fed choppers were currently parked. The MCB had taken over the building and turned it into their command post. This pissed off a lot of Hunters, but the Feds played by their own rules and we were in no shape to argue. The main doors were open and I barged directly past the guards there. One of them moved to stop me.

“I need to see Agent Franks.”

He automatically looked back into the open space. A twenty-foot-wide white tent had been put just inside the hangar door. There were figures moving around on the other side of the thin fabric. “I’ll have to check.”

A voice came through the fabric. “Let them in.” Myers appeared around the corner of the tent. “How are you feeling?” he asked awkwardly. Knowing that I was ready to kick the bucket any minute had at least made him slightly humble.

“Oh, I’m just peachy. Thanks for asking.” The dead automatons had been stacked neatly on the hangar floor in rows. Multiple agents were ripping them apart, looking for clues. “Where’s Franks?”

Myers studied me for a moment. “He said you knew . . .” Then he glanced at the half-dozen or so Hunters standing behind me. “They wait here.” Julie stepped up to my side. She didn’t need to say a word as she gave Myers a look of utter coldness. He nodded once, understanding that she wasn’t ready to leave me yet. “Fine, but what you’re about to see is classified way beyond top secret. You have to take this to the grave with you.”

“At least that won’t take me long!” I exclaimed sarcastically. Julie visibly flinched. It made me feel guilty.

We followed Myers into the hospital tent. Several gowned and masked individuals were clustered over an operating table. Around them were beeping machines and a cart with various clean red organs stacked on it. The medical team parted as I approached. Franks was on the table. Myers had to look away.

The big man was a mess. His chest was cracked wide, held open with some sort of stainless steel device. A doctor stepped back, holding what appeared to be a damaged lung. Shockingly enough, Franks was awake and propped up on pillows. The fact that I could see his internal organs didn’t seem to bug him any.

He slowly turned, eyes lingering on the bandage encircling my left hand. “Looks like I failed.”

“Yeah, you did,” I responded. “But let’s make it count for something.”

Franks dipped his head slightly. That was probably the closest thing he’d ever made to an apology.

“I need someone to help Lee and Esmeralda figure out how to reactivate Hood’s teleportation device. We have a book that talks about that kind of device, written by somebody named Dippel. I have a feeling that you know something about his work.”

The big man closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, I could see that they were still different colors, the blue one probably donated by some poor sucker from the concert. “Know his work? I am his work.” Franks then addressed the doctor. “Wrap it up.”

“But, sir, you still need another kidney, and you’ve also sustained damage to several major muscle groups. We need more time.”

Franks looked at my hand again. He knew we were out of time. “Start stapling.” The medical team complied immediately. Before they folded his chest closed, I noted that his physiology diverged wildly from anything I had ever seen in a biology textbook. There appeared to be extra organs and his ribcage was more of a hardened plate with flexible bits than separate bones. It was seriously weird. Franks caught me staring. “The taxpayers paid for some upgrades.”

“So that’s what you are . . .” Julie said. “You’re Frankenstein’s Monster.”

“More than that,” Franks snorted. “I hate that book. I’m no whiner.”

I glanced at my watch. I had about forty minutes before I had to be back to the village. “Do you know anything about the magic teleportation rope?”

“No. But I understand his writings. Had to figure them out to stay alive. Good alchemist . . . Terrible father.”

“It looks like he might have been the guy who built our ward stone too.”

“Hmmm . . .” Franks frowned. That had thrown him off. “I didn’t recognize it. I remember all the doctor’s codes . . . Even the offensive ones.” His thick brow furrowed in thought as the medical team literally screwed his chest together with terrible cracking noises. My already-nauseous stomach threatened to empty. “Sir, I have an idea.”

Myers looked up from his corner. He was holding a handkerchief over his mouth. “You can’t be serious.”

“What are you thinking?” Julie asked. “Is there a magical way to save Owen?”

Franks’ face was impassive as he squashed Julie’s hope. “Nothing I know can help Pitt.”

“I know what you’re getting at. . . .” Myers stepped forward, surprised. “The wards were manufactured as focal points of reality, deadly to other dimensional creatures. Isaac Newton and the alchemists created them to protect mankind from the Old Ones and . . .” He trailed off. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying, Agent?”

“A ward is a shield and a sword,” Franks said simply.

Whatever he was suggesting rocked Myers, the man who had once ordered a nuclear bomb dropped on Alabama. “That could disband all cohesion!”

“Exactly,” Franks responded. Whatever the hell that meant. Slowly he raised one big hand and held it out to me. “I can avenge you.”

I shook his hand. He was unbelievably strong. “Kill them all.”

Less than thirty minutes left.

Franks, Lee, and Esmeralda were working on the magic rope. MHI and the Feds were surrounding the village just in case. I had just enough time to make a few final preparations. I was strapping on every weapon in my arsenal when Milo lifted one final item from the table.

“This one is exactly like the one we used earlier when I fried Hood’s butt,” he explained as he pushed the sack into my hands. “You know those nasty little things kids use on the Fourth of July, the little hockey pucks that flash like a strobe light and hurt your eyes? Think of this as one of those on steroids from hell, only angrier. Don’t look at it directly, or you will go blind. Well, it is pretty close to what we used earlier, so there should be about a twenty-second flash, but I was kind of surprised that one was actually a controlled burn and didn’t just explode and roast us.”

That made me feel particularly safe as I put the satchel over my armor.

Milo paused awkwardly. Then he hugged me. He patted me on the back a few times before breaking away. He looked like he was going to cry. “I’ll go get the rest of your gear.”

“Yeah, thanks, man.”

Julie and I walked into the hall. My mind was reeling. This was the end.

“You okay?” I asked. It was an idiotic question.

“Of course not,” she answered. “But it is what it is.”

We stood there for a few seconds, huddled together in silence, which is an eternity when your remaining life is measured in minutes. But we were Monster Hunters. It wasn’t like either of us hadn’t ever thought about this before. I had always figured it would have been sudden though, with no time for long good-byes. This was much harder.

“There’s something I have to tell you,” I said softly. “In Mexico, when I talked to your mother, she warned me about the mark on your neck.” Julie stiffened against me. “She said that it was going to kill you eventually. I didn’t say anything because I was scared and I thought that she was just lying to us again . . . But with what happened last night . . .” I couldn’t help but think about the three new marks. There was something terribly wrong, and I wasn’t going to be around to help her through it.

Julie gave me a pathetic smile. “You’ve got other stuff to worry about right now, Owen. I’ll take care of it.”

I knew she would. Julie was strong, far stronger than me. No matter what happened, she would always find a way. That was just her nature. The year that I had known her had been the best year of my life, and I had somehow believed that it would go on like that forever. I held her tight as my heart ached.

Unable to contain it any longer, Julie began to sob. “I’d trade with you if I could.”

“I know . . .”

In a little while, I would be dead and she would be alone, but I knew that she would survive. She would get on with her life without me, and someday, she would be happy again.

And knowing that gave me the strength to go on.

It was time.

Hunters were standing in a line down the hallway to see me off. Everyone was somber. Julie’s grandfather saluted me with his hook. “Good luck, Hunter.” I paused in front of the memorial wall. I was going to have a plaque up there soon.

Shit. I didn’t want to die. I wasn’t ready to have a plaque yet. This wasn’t fair. I tried to think of something memorable to say, but didn’t have the words. “Thanks, everybody. I’ll try not to let you down.” It was stupid, but it would have to do.

My mom came out of nowhere and intercepted me. She almost took me down in a tackle. She was totally hysterical, and her accent was extra thick when she was this freaked out. “What are you doing?” She pointed at my shotgun. “Where are you going with your Abominator?”

“Abomination,” I corrected her. “Never mind. Look, Mom, I’ve got to go after Mosh. It’s me for him.”

“They told me you’re dying, that something poisonous bit you. Why can’t we go to the hospital?”

“It doesn’t work like that, Mom. I have to do this.”

She wouldn’t let go of my arm. “No! Owen, please.” Hysterical tears streamed down her cheeks. “No, son, please, no.”

I wasn’t tough enough to do this. I grabbed my mom by the shoulders. “Listen. I’m doing what I have to do. If I had any other option, I would be doing that instead. I’m already dead, but Mosh isn’t. I’m going to get him back.”

Then Dad was there. He took Mom in his arms and guided her away. He studied me while Mom screamed and thumped her fists into his chest.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” I said.

“Don’t worry. It isn’t your time yet.”

He was delusional because of that stupid letter. But at least he was calm while he kept Mom restrained. “I love you, Dad. I love you, Mom.”

“We’ll talk about it when you get back. Bring your brother home.”

“I will,” I promised. I just wouldn’t be with him.

There was a grumbling noise off to the side. Gretchen was standing there, a tiny black shape squished between the hulking Hunters. Her totem stick was in hand, dangling feathers, beads, and small animal skulls. I had no idea why she wasn’t with her people in their time of need. She spoke directly to Julie. It must have been something too complicated for Gretchen’s poor English.

“Gretchen says we’re part of the clan too . . .” Julie seemed puzzled, trying to keep up with the rapid-fire Orcish. She actually gave a very sad little smile. “Thank you, honey. That’s really sweet.”

“What’s she saying?” I asked.

Gretchen switched to English. “Marry.” She shook her totem stick. “Marry. Sad to die . . . alone.” She reached into her burkha and pulled out a sheet of paper. She unfolded it. The notarized letter bore the state seal and declared that Gretchen F. Skippywife was an ordained minister in the state of Alabama.

“She’s offering her services as a priestess of Gnrlwz,” Julie nearly choked trying to say it correctly, “the orc god of war, to perform a wedding before you go.” It took me a moment to digest. It was so absurd, so sudden, that despite everything else, all the fear, anticipation, and dread, I actually laughed. Julie started to giggle along with me. “You want to?”

It was just the kind of thing that Monster Hunters would do. Even when death was staring us right in the face, we’d still give him the finger. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

Julie shrugged. “Well, this isn’t how I imagined it at all . . . Do your thing, Gretchen. Grandpa, would you do the honors of giving me away?”

The old man stepped up, proud of his granddaughter. “Of course. And I was worried I’d have to wear a tux for this . . .”

The Hunters gathered around us in a circle, seemingly just as surprised as I was. Gretchen hissed and the crowd fell silent. Trip stood just behind me and off to the side, appointing himself as my best man. Holly, apparently, was Julie’s maid of honor, only instead of flowers, she had a .308 Vepr carbine.

Ironically, this was the spot where we’d shared our first kiss, right under a Latin phrase warning about the dangers of fleeting glory.

Gretchen had us get on our knees in front of the wall of memorial plaques. I took Julie’s hand. This wasn’t how I’d expected it either. My mom started to cry even harder and my dad put his big arm over her shoulder. Gretchen tapped us both on the forehead with her stick as she started grumbling something memorized and incomprehensible. She kept it brief. Orcs weren’t big on ceremony.

I glanced over at Julie, she looked back at me, eyes shining bright. I loved her. And that one split second was exactly how I’d imagined it, and that made everything okay.

Gretchen thumped me on the forehead with the stick. “Grok?”

“I do.”

Gretchen thumped Julie. “Grok?”

She looked into my eyes. “I do.”

Gretchen raised her stick high overhead and screamed her devotion to the god of war. It was actually almost musical. She slammed the tip of the short staff hard into the floor, the impact resonating through the entire hall. I think that was when she pronounced us man and wife. She took the stick, pointed it at my nose, and gave me an order. I didn’t understand a word that she was saying.

“She says that it is orcish tradition that the more you love your wife, the bigger the thing you need to kill for her as a wedding night offering,” Julie translated. “She says Skippy killed a seventy-foot lindwyrm for her.” Gretchen said more and Julie giggled again. “So she bore him many sons.”

And just like that, I was a married man. I couldn’t kiss the bride, because I was infected by a zombie, but other than that, it was actually a pretty happy moment. One of the Hunters even thought to take a picture.

Somebody started clapping. The two of us made our way through the cheering crowd. Dorcas was at her desk. I had never seen her cry before. She blew her nose with a sound like a trumpet. “Congratulations, I guess. See you ’round, Z.” I got outside before anyone could see me completely break down. A mess of other Hunters were going to follow us to the village to provide backup. There was a car waiting.

Trip and Holly were riding with us, of course. I held the door open for my new wife. Trip reached over and thumped me on the arm. Holly gently rested her hand on my shoulder. Trip put the car in gear and we headed for the village. “It’s been an adventure, guys,” I told my best friends.

“It isn’t over ’til the fat lady sings,” Holly stated.

“Why all the tears then?” I asked.

“I always cry at weddings.”

I stood in the spot where the last teleportation effect had taken place and checked my watch. Hood better not be late. I wasn’t feeling very well. My head had started throbbing in the car and wouldn’t stop. Cold sweat was leaking from every pore.

The orc village was deserted. The tribe had retreated to the relative safety of the compound. A dozen Hunters had formed a perimeter around the village and were just waiting. MCB agents had massed in force at the entrance.

My friends didn’t want to let go of me. Trip had started to babble. “Dude, we’ll be praying for you. I know that you’re going to come back. It might take a miracle, but it’s not like we haven’t seen miracles before. God’s on our side, man.”

Holly was tougher. “Be strong, Z.”

I stumbled away. Saying my farewells to the Amazing Newbie Squad of Yesteryear had been particularly painful. Trip was hurting. Holly was too, but she kept it bottled up behind a stoic mask. I noticed Trip starting to shudder, and Holly took his hand as they walked away.

Now it was just me and Julie.

“No matter what happens,” she said. “I’ll always love you.”

“You were the best thing that’s ever happened to me, you know that, right?”

“Yeah, I know.” She tried to smile, but failed. “I can’t . . . I don’t know what to . . .”

“It’s okay,” I assured her. I stroked her face. My hand was trembling.

The earth shuddered. A few feet away, flames erupted from two points in the dirt, quickly burning outward, forming a circle just big enough for me to stand in. The ground inside seemed to disappear into darkness.

This was it.

“I love you.” I couldn’t even kiss her good-bye.

I broke away from Julie and stepped into the circle. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

Chapter 19

Now I was alone.

I fell immediately as I entered the portal. It was as if the world just vanished, leaving me in a violent freefall. I hit the ground on my side, cracking a bunch of glow sticks. I lay there disoriented for a few seconds. Gravity seemed to be coming from a different direction, and it took me a dizzy moment to orient myself.

The circle I had stepped through was there, but instead of being above me like it felt it should be, it was off to the left. A beam of sunlight came through the hole, like a window into a pitch-black room. Wherever I was, it was nighttime, and we were outside. There were stars in the sky, and I was no astronomer, but I could tell I was nowhere near Alabama. I lumbered to my feet. “Hood! I’m here. Let Mosh go!”

“You’re armed I see. I expected no less from someone so stubborn, but at least I am a man of my word.” The voice of the shadow man came from all around me. “Free the brother.”

Lights ignited atop several tall lampposts. I was on an asphalt path through an old cemetery. The mausoleums were gray and crumbling. Every path was surrounded by ornate wrought-iron fences, speckled with rust. Mosh was there, and directly behind him were two hooded acolytes. My brother was shaking, held up by the cultists. His left hand had been wrapped in a towel, but he’d already bled through it. The acolytes pushed Mosh toward the hole.

“Dude? What’s going on?” he cried. He looked terrible, pale from blood loss.

Relief flooded through me. At least he was still alive. “I’m trading myself for you. Go through the portal.”

“I can’t leave you, man. These guys are nuts. They cut my fingers off! They’re going to kill you.”

“I can take care of it. Go.”

One of the cultists shoved Mosh. He tumbled forward and simply disappeared when he hit the hole. It closed behind him, taking the sunlight with it.

That left just me and the crazies. Monster Hunter Solo.

“Come with us, please,” one of the cultists said nervously, glancing at my shotgun. “The High Priest awaits.” There was a large building at the end of the path. It looked like a really cozy house, but somehow it had an industrial feel at the same time. I scanned in every direction. There were no other lights anywhere near us. Hood was nowhere to be seen. If I made a run for it, I’d die from the bite before I made it very far.

“Does he await over there?” I nodded my head toward the building.

“Yes, please allow us to escort you.”

“Naw, I think I can get there myself.” I flicked off Abomination’s safety as I raised the stubby weapon. BOOM. I blasted a round of buckshot into the chest of the first cultist, then jerked the muzzle onto the next one. BOOM. Both of them went down like the sacks of crap that they were.

“It’s on now, Hood!” I shouted as I stepped over the bodies and walked toward the building. I was missing my honeymoon for this.

The lights all died at once. His voice came from the air itself. “Of course. I’m impressed that you’re still able to walk. Usually by now the bitten is nearly comatose. I can see it though. The fever is burning you up. Your muscles are weakening. You’re bleeding internally. It won’t be long now.”

I’d managed to smash most of the glow sticks by the time I reached the manicured front lawn. I activated the brilliant flashlight attached to my shotgun’s rail and swept it over the front of the building. There was a sign: mortuary.

“Oh, that just figures,” I muttered, clambering up the steps.

“Yes, I own twenty of these around the world, as well as several dedicated crematoriums and livestock-rendering factories. It gives me plenty of raw materials. Art supplies, if you will.”

The double doors at the entrance were beautifully carved wood and stained glass. I smashed them open with my boot. I moved through, my shotgun light pulsing. I checked to see if the flashlight was malfunctioning, but I realized it was because of how badly my limbs were shaking. It was a nice waiting room. Large displays of flowers were set in vases under the stained-glass windows. Nothing moved in here. My illuminated green reflection bounced back from the glass.

His voice came from just ahead of me. “Nice glow sticks. Are you going to a rave?”

The chapel was one of those bland, nondenominational types, but with one obviously recent addition. The flashlight beam illuminated a giant golden squid idol tied to the wall. I swept the light back and forth. The room was huge and there were deep shadows everywhere. The tremors in my legs were making it difficult to move quickly. I had to pause and lean against a pew to catch my breath. Something hot and wet dripped down my face. I wiped it away, then studied my glove under the glow sticks. My nose had started bleeding.

“Show yourself!” I screamed.

“Certainly,” the response came from directly behind me.

I turned, whipping Abomination around. There was nothing there.

“Why must we fight, Owen? Why do you rage against your destiny?”

“Face me,” I hissed. “Let’s finish this like men!” A finger tapped me on the shoulder. I spun and blasted a round of buckshot through a stained glass window. A curtain moved and I shot it too. “Damn it!” There was movement overhead, a massive shadow slinking across the ceiling.

I raised my gun as it dropped. The light caused the shape to shrink. Jerking the trigger, I managed to pump several rounds upward before impact. It slammed me into the carpet. I kept firing. The shape rose. My flashlight beam cut a path through the shadow, leaving nothing but a man in a robe. I shot Hood repeatedly in the chest, silver buckshot tearing right through him. I kept on shooting even as my flashlight exploded.

He disappeared into the darkness.

Now all I had was the pale green glow coming from my armor. I dropped Abomination into its sling. “You killed me, Hood. I’m going to return the favor!” I reached for the pouch on my back and pulled out a pair of road flares. They ignited with a hiss of flame and sparks. “I’m gonna burn this motherfucker down!” I laughed maniacally as I tossed the flares to the far end of the room and reached back for more. Once I had thrown a flare into each corner I drew another magazine from my chest rig and reloaded my shotgun. One of the curtains was on fire and the carpet had caught at the far end. Now that was more like it. Flames licked up the wall, casting flickering light across the chapel. I glanced back and forth, searching for my target.

“Monster Hunters are always hell on the furniture,” he whispered in my ear. I turned, too slow, and he blocked my shotgun. Hood’s sneering face was inches from my own. He head-butted me. Stars exploded in my vision. Then he hit me, once, twice, fists colliding with my face, robes snapping around his arms, and finished it off by kicking me brutally hard in the stomach. I collided with a pew, flipped over it, and landed on my back.

Gasping for air, I started to crawl. I was so weak. Water began to fall from the ceiling. Fire sprinklers. I coughed uncontrollably. My body was tearing itself apart.

“You have any idea what this’ll do to my insurance?” He leapt onto the top of the pew I had gone over, and crouched there, watching, enjoying my plight. The light from the flares was dying, extinguished by the sprinklers. As the light dimmed, Hood seemed to blur and grow. I flipped Abomination to full auto and emptied an entire magazine through his body. He leapt from the pew, splinters flying in every direction, and vanished back into the shadows. I rolled onto my stomach and clawed my way across the carpet beneath the other pews. It wasn’t like I could hide. I glowed in the dark.

“I defeated Earl Harbinger and Agent Franks simultaneously. What exactly do you think you’re going to accomplish? Part of me exists in a dimension beyond your understanding. You couldn’t stop me in broad daylight on your best day, let alone half-dead and in the dark.”

I found an open space between rows and rolled into it, whacking my head in the process. I reached for the satchel with Milo’s super flash-bang. I could barely feel my hands and they blundered about clumsily like they were asleep.

“You still haven’t wrapped your brain around what’s really going on! Come on, Owen, don’t disappoint me like this.”

It hurt to move, but I raised my head and looked. I could make out Hood, in human form, leaning against the far wall, arms folded. “Okay, then why don’t you educate me, asshole. What’s your master plan, besides feed me to your stupid god?”

“That’s the spirit.” He chuckled. “As you learned last year, it’s a real chore for an Old One to enter our world. They exist in a reality different from our own. The rules of our existence are fatal to them. The few trapped here are dead yet dreaming. Their spawn can only exist inside a body created in this world or as disembodied spirits. The Elder Things are far too great to lower themselves in that way. For them to exist in this plane they must first bend our reality to match their own.”

“Yeah, I know, and they need somebody like me to do that for them.” I had to keep blinking. I didn’t know if it was because of the sprinklers, or if my eyes had started bleeding. No time to worry about it. I had to focus. When I set this thing off, I would only have a few seconds to take him out.

“Very good. You’re a very special man. Preordained before your birth to wield the key to the planes, the Avatar of Chaos himself, blessed with powers beyond that of any mortal man.”

“Blah, blah, blah,” I gasped. “Get to the point. I ain’t got all day.”

“That’s your gift, your curse. Lord Machado was the last, but he was too weak. But then you were too strong. You have no idea how jealous I am of you.” He pushed away from the wall and walked casually down the aisle toward me. “If only I had been born with your blessings . . . If only you knew . . . But I do go on, and your time is so very short. To achieve my life’s work, I needed something to appease the Dread Overlord. Sacrificing you will suffice, and I needed the means to control his gift, which in a way, your side has also provided me.” He snapped his fingers. “Torres, my son, would you bring in our guest, please?”

There was the sound of doors opening. I jerked around toward the front of the chapel. It had opened into a viewing area. Fifteen feet away, half a dozen robed acolytes stood beside an ornate coffin.

“Anthony . . .” I hissed, raising my shotgun, my feverish mind forgetting that it was empty. The former Fed dipped his head at me. There was a hint of madness in his eyes. They opened the casket’s lid, revealing the occupant. Falling water beat a cadence onto the silk.

Julie?

My laboring heart skipped a beat.

No. It wasn’t her. The figure was perfectly still, hands folded peacefully across her chest, just below where someone had driven a wooden stake through her heart.

Susan . . .

“Susan Shackleford stole the artifact. She took it from DeSoya Caverns after you so carelessly discarded it. She kept it, like a common thief, stupidly thinking that she could learn to use it for herself. It was mine. I earned it. I was the one who should have inherited the key after Machado failed. Who was this stupid vampire to think that she could take my honor? She’d made herself unbelievably strong by feeding on unholy monsters of every kind, stealing their precious lives, their energy. The ghastly hag. I offered her an alliance, but that wasn’t good enough. No! Susan dared think that she could take over the Condition, the church that I built with my own hands, the flock that I’d tended! She thought she deserved my glory!” Hood’s voice was bitter. “That’s why she came to you with a piece of the key. She knew she was no match for me, but my dear old friend, Ray, believed that you, one of the Chosen, might actually have a chance. He’s as big a fool as he’s ever been, thinking he could keep it from me.”

“The artifact?” I gasped. It was too powerful. I couldn’t begin to imagine what it could be used for in the hands of a loony like Hood. “You have it?”

“After Susan dared to interfere in Mexico and then again in Cazador, I tracked her down and took back what was rightfully mine. She escaped Earl only to run into me. I’m not done with her yet, either. I’ve never been able to use such a powerful vampire in my experiments before . . . She’s always been beautiful, but I could improve her.”

He was closer now. He reached into his robes and pulled out the small piece of stone. About the size of a pack of cards, it looked innocuous enough, but I knew that it held the end of the world inside. “With you, with this, my dream will be complete.”

It wouldn’t do him any good. The big gate could only be opened once every five hundred years. He couldn’t let the Dread Overlord in. “You’re too—” I had to stop as a fire rippled up from my abdomen, burning through my throat, and bloody vomit spilled involuntarily past my lips. I retched and cringed while Hood waited patiently for me to finish. “Late . . .” I finally gasped.

He was only a few feet away. “Of course. This isn’t about letting them in. I’m trading you for something special. I’ve proved my worthiness to awake the Arbmunep, and the artifact will allow me to utilize it to its full potential.”

Myers had said that name. “What now, you sick freak?”

Hood grinned. It was terrifying. “Eternal night. Beautiful eternal night. The world will wilt and decay until they surrender to their rightful king.”

“You’re insane.”

He didn’t like having his sanity questioned. “I’m the Lord of Shadows!” he shouted.

I was growing weaker by the second. I didn’t know if I could do this. Cold water rained down on my face. The giant flash-bang was in my lap. It was now or never.

Gathering up what strength I had left, I pulled the cord and tossed it. The Frisbee-sized chunk of lethal chemicals sailed down the aisle toward Hood. Sparks shot from the top as it landed on the sopping carpet at his feet. He frowned at the device. “Delaying the inevitable with a mere distraction,” he said as he raised his cloak to shield his face. “Pathetic.”

I forced myself upward as it ignited. Scalding light burned across the room. The cultists covered their eyes and cried out as the light bombarded them. The chemicals burned with an unholy screech. Blind, desperate, I drove myself forward. I had to reach my target.

Maybe it was the water soaking the explosive into mush, but this one didn’t last nearly as long. Hood, unfazed, lowered his cloak, grinning. “You didn’t even reach me.” He stopped when he realized where I had gone. “Oh, bloody hell.”

“Ha!” I responded, still blind, but I had found what I was looking for. The wooden stake embedded in Susan’s chest brushed my numb fingers. I forced my hands to curl around the shaft and I tugged. It grated against her ribs.

Stakes through the heart don’t permanently kill vampires. They just shut them down, their supernatural regenerative abilities unable to heal as long as the foreign object is there. When the stake comes out, the vampire heals. I wasn’t strong enough to do this on my own. I needed help. She was evil incarnate, but the enemy of my enemy was my friend.

“Stop him!” Hood bellowed at his blinded minions.

The stake wrenched free with a sickening pop. Someone crashed into my back, taking us both to the ground. I rolled over, weakly trying to defend myself. A cultist was on top of me, trying to hold me down. I got one arm free and slammed the stake upward. The man made a terrible gurgling noise as the sharpened wood pierced his throat.

Susan rose from the coffin with shocking speed, perfectly straight, the hole in her chest still closing. The vampire was eerily still for a long moment, arms demurely folded, false rain cascading around her. Her dress was torn and filthy from the flight through the forest. Her black hair hung like a veil over her pale face.

One of the cultists moved.

Her eyes opened, a sick shade of red. One delicate hand swept down, cleaving like an ax through an acolyte’s face and out the back of his skull. The other cultists retreated. Susan growled at them, raised her hand, and licked the blood from her fingers. It took a second for Susan to get oriented, taking in me on the ground, the huddled nut jobs, and her nemesis.

The Master vampire growled at the necromancer. “Marty . . .”

“Susan,” the shadow man responded.

“We have a score to settle, you and me,” she said, showing off her fangs.

“Indeed we do. You thought you could best me, take over the empire that I built. That was your last mistake.”

“And your first was having me turned into a vampire to begin with, you limey bastard.” Susan stepped out of the coffin and floated to the floor.

I shoved the dying cultist off me. “Get him, Susan! Kick his ass!” I shouted. I tried to sit up, but was too weak, and sank back to the floor.

For a second, I thought we might just have a chance. She was powerful, mean as hell, but then Susan shook her head. “Sorry, hon. I tried that once, didn’t work out. That’s why I hired you, remember? Thanks for saving me though. Much appreciated.” Then she was just gone.

“No! No! Damn it! Damn it!” I screamed in frustration. The tattered dress hit the floor, empty, as a white mist rolled across the ground and out the broken window. Stupid! So much for that idea. Never trust the undead. “You better run, you bitch!” It figured that the last thing I’d accomplished in my life was to save the life of a vampire. Way to go, idiot. I collapsed into a pathetic coughing fit.

Unbelievable pain shuddered through my body. The undead curse was shredding my cells. As a reminder of things to come, the cultist with the wooden stake jammed in his neck sat up, corpse already animated. Struggling to rise, I made it only a few feet before falling on my face. I was just too weak. A boot splashed right in front of my nose.

“Somebody shut off the sprinklers already,” Hood ordered. Strong hands landed on my back and rolled me over. I tried to reach for my pistol. That same boot collided with the side of my head. “Determined bloke, isn’t he? Disable the tracking device.”

“I’ve been jamming the signal since he came out of the portal.” Somebody took my shotgun. Someone else began pulling on the side of my armor. I was too feeble to do anything about it. “What now?” Torres asked.

“Watch him. I’ll prepare the sending. Young Mr. Pitt has a very important appointment to keep.”

Consciousness returned in tiny bits. First came the terrible aching in my bones. My body felt like an old garment that had been eaten thin by moths. Next I became aware of the taste of blood, my own blood. I gagged. My head rolled to the side so it could spill out. My eyes opened. Everything was blurry.

“Well, look who’s awake.” Torres was sitting across from me. One of his eyes was bruised and swollen shut. That’s what you looked like when Agent Franks knocked you out. “How are you feeling?”

I couldn’t respond. My face hurt too much.

“Figured as much. Well, you look like shit.” He was leaning back in his chair, enjoying himself. He had Abomination resting on the chair next to him. “In fact, let me show you.” There was a small mirror on the table between us. He picked it up and held it so I could see my reflection.

My skin was utterly pale. There were red blotches on my skin from blood vessels breaking just under the surface. The whites of my eyes had taken on a sick yellow tone and they were circled by blackened sockets. The fresh wound on my cheek from the werewolf was festering and leaking pus.

I closed my eyes. I had killed zombies that looked healthier than that. Not too much longer now.

Torres put the mirror down. “You were always ugly. Hell, I wondered how somebody like you wound up with a hot piece like that Shackleford chick. But now? Damn, you’re ugly. About to get uglier too. But don’t worry, the High Priest says that you’ll hang on long enough to make it to the other side.”

I tried to tune out the pain but it was all-consuming. I had no idea that it hurt this much to turn into a zombie. All I could feel was agony. One part of my body would just hurt, until another part started to hurt worse, and that would briefly take my attention, until the next bit topped it. The traitor continued to drone on. He was really enjoying himself. There were three other men in the room with us. They would occasionally laugh at something Torres said. I fixated on him. I failed to take out Hood because of my stupidity. Trusting Susan . . . What the hell had I been thinking? Not only was Hood still alive, which meant Earl was doomed, I had also managed to let loose another devil into the world. Maybe I could partially atone for that and somehow take this piece of trash with me.

I forced myself to pay attention to my surroundings. It was a comfortable but plain apartment, probably attached to the back of the mortuary. There was one closed door and a curtained window off to the side. I was in a heavy wooden chair. They had put down a tarp to protect the carpet. My wrists had been tightly bound to the chair arms with orange twine. The cord was frayed, but strong, and had already cut deeply into my flesh. Looking at my hands made me sick. Blood was seeping around my fingernails.

“I will say this for you, Pitt. You’re a man after my own heart, somebody who can appreciate the finer things in life. Good-looking women, good-looking guns.” He lifted one of my .45s. “Just so you know, I’m keeping your gear. Don’t worry. I’ll give them a good home.” The others laughed. “And look what else I’ve got.” He stuck out his chest. He had pulled the Velcro MHI patch off my armor and pinned it to his robe. The happy face with horns didn’t mean much to him, but he knew it did to me. “I figure I played Monster Hunter long enough to earn this bad boy. Pretty sweet, huh?”

“Screw . . .” I was too tired to finish the sentence.

“Poor Pitt. You’ll be on the other side, suffering for an eternity. And we’ll be here, living like kings, running the new order.”

“The dark new dawn,” said one of the cultists.

“Amen, brother,” Torres replied. “And we owe it all to Owen Pitt.” He pushed the .45 into my forehead with a sneer. “Don’t we, you zombie fuck?” He pulled the gun away and snickered. “Don’t want to get a bunch of scabs on my new gun. I want to keep this baby nice. I’ll probably use it to put a bullet into some of your friends. We’re not done with MHI, oh no. When the sun doesn’t rise tomorrow, the payback begins. We clean house, and nothing will be able to stop us.”

“You’ll . . . die . . . too . . .” It took a moment for me to register that the horrible scratchy noise was actually my voice. I sounded worse than an orc.

“Unbelievers are already dead, they just don’t know it yet. The faithful will live forever.” Torres slouched in his chair, carelessly gesturing with my gun. “We’re not as crazy as you think. The master’s one smart dude. Look at me. He’s been grooming me for years, knowing that he’d need men in the MCB eventually. I worked hard, got into federal law enforcement. He arranged a monster encounter for me to survive, bam, and next thing you know, I’m one of America’s finest . . . Don’t worry. We’re not shutting the sun off. Just blocking it until everyone’s ready to fall in line. But it’s going to get real cold and people are going to get real hungry before they have the sense to do that.”

“Convert or die,” recited another cultist.

“Holy shadows will engulf the earth. Nations that convert will get to see the light, pardon the pun. Those that don’t . . .” He shrugged. “Too damn bad for them. We’ll animate their starved dead and turn them loose on the survivors. When it’s over, we’ll build a perfect society from scratch.”

Torres kept talking. He was really enjoying himself. These lunatics were actually going to go through with this. It sounded preposterous, but I had seen the gate that had opened over Alabama. After that, I could believe just about anything. The Old Ones could do it.

I closed my eyes. I just wanted the suffering to end. Maybe if I hurried up and died, then Hood’s squid god wouldn’t be satisfied with just a zombie. I found myself wishing for death, and death drew even closer, like a black wall. I touched it.

“Poor boy. Hurt to look at,” a familiar voice said. “It makes an old man’s heart hurt to be seeing such pain.”

It took a second to recognize the voice.

“Mordechai?” I whispered.

“What?” Torres asked. When I opened my yellow eyes, Torres was regarding me suspiciously. “What did you say?”

I ignored him and tried to lift my head higher. “Mordechai? Is that you?”

It was. Old, bent, leaning on his cane, small glasses perched on his nose, Star of David hanging in front of his battered shirt. He was not young and healthy like the last time I had seen him, but in the form from the time of his death in 1944, just like how I’d gotten to know him originally. He was standing directly behind Torres, between two of the cultists. They didn’t appear to notice him.

“Yes, boy, I am here for help,” he said with a slight smile. “Others felt you need some wisdom. They say, boy very strong, but not always smart. Others can be mean like that.” His Polish accent was as thick as ever.

“But . . . you moved on . . . I freed you.”

He shrugged his bony shoulders. “Eh . . . what can say? I moved on, but veil is thin for you now. Close enough to death that we can talk so easy. Not exactly a long trip for me to get here! This more important now, so I come back. You need smarts.” He tapped his finger on his temple and smiled. “I have smarts. You have guns and magic. Should blow up many crazy people together.”

Was he really here? Had he come back to help me again? “Are you an angel?”

Torres turned back toward his henchmen. “He’s hallucinating. Get the stimulant, now. We can’t afford to lose him yet.”

The ghost of Mordechai Byreika lifted his cane. It looked exactly like the one I’d driven through Jaeger’s torso. “This look like flaming sword to you, boy? Of course is not angel. Angels? They’re more formal. Kind of, how you say, stuffy. Now listen close. Time is short.”

“Too late.” I tried to show him the bandage on my hand, pulling repeatedly, forgetting that I was tied down. “Dead . . . soon.”

Torres took my jerking against the bonds as a seizure. “Hurry with that potion, damn it!”

“No!” Mordechai admonished sternly. “You not die yet, boy. More work to do. For something more important than you. Not like this.”

I tried to speak, but the pain was too great. Nobody has ever been bitten by a zombie and lived.

“You are not nobody, boy. You are somebody. You are one picked to finish fight. Good has said you are their champion. Bad’s champion is waiting for you. Champion of Good not die because of stupid zombie! That’s crazy talk.”

I can’t. Dying.

A cultist had removed a vial from his robes. He shoved a syringe into it and began pulling out a thick red liquid. “Give me that!” Torres ordered as he snatched the syringe away.

“You not die until I say so,” Mordechai insisted. “Listen to your elders, boy. You have power to fight off zombie bite, just like you fight off werewolf when we met first time.”

That was different. That was something I could fight with my hands. I was never infected by the werewolf.

“Of course not infected, because you are not monster now. You are Monster Hunter. Quit being stubborn and listen. Werewolf can’t turn you. Zombie can’t turn you. Vampire can’t turn you, if stupid enough to get bit by vampire too you are. Regular Hunter, yes, but you? Different you are. You only turn if you give up.”

So I can’t die until I give up?

“No, that’s just dumb. Turn, not kill. They can kill you just fine. Cut head off or blow up or set on fire, maybe shoot you in face, you die.” He spread his hands as if balancing the scales. “Sploosh. Dead. Just like everyone else. But you are Chosen. Harder to kill Chosen unless he is being big baby. Certain things only you can do. Old Ones not realize who they’re fighting with.”

Torres jammed the huge needle into the nerve bundle between my ear and jaw and slammed the plunger down. The thick clump of liquid burned. Every muscle in my body automatically contracted with brutal force. The legs of the chair slammed back and forth on the floor. “Hold him!” Torres and one of the others grabbed me by the shoulders to keep me from flopping over.

Mordechai walked right through Torres as if he wasn’t there, and I suppose in the twilight spirit world that my old mentor currently inhabited, he probably wasn’t. Mordechai leaned close to my ear and whispered, “Don’t give up.”

The drug, or potion, or whatever the hell it was they shot me with pummeled my central nervous system like a jackhammer. The now-familiar black lightning was not just in my vision. It was colliding back and forth between the very fibers of my being. My body was a battleground, an undead virus was my enemy, and the prize was my soul.

“Never give up.”

I won’t.

“I know. That’s why you are one who drew short straw.”

Then I died. I think.

I’d done this kind of thing enough times that nothing could really surprise me at this point. I was standing in the ornate ballroom at the Shackleford family estate. I was either in the past, before we’d blown it up and set it on fire while trying to kill Susan, or in the future, when we’d finally gotten it fixed, because the room was absolute perfection. The walls were covered in mirrors, giving the illusion that it was much larger than it really was, as each view doubled and tripled onto itself. The massive chandelier reflected the sunlight from the tall windows, causing the crystals to sparkle brilliantly. The hardwood floor had been polished until I could see my bedraggled reflection in it.

There was a man waiting for me in the center of the room. I did not know him. He was a head shorter than I was. The stranger was lean, but muscular, with long brown hair, muttonchops, and a mustache that extended to the end of his square jaw. He was in his forties. His uniform was made of creaking leather, with thick protective pieces over the torso and wrists, and a guard that pulled up over the throat to shield from bites, similar to our modern suits. While his archaic armor was battered, his guns were not. He had a pair of Colt Peacemakers with ivory grips holstered on a heavy-duty gun belt. The ammo stuck in the cartridge loops of the belt shined with old-school silver bullets.

The way he carried himself seemed vaguely familiar. “Who’re you?”

“Somebody who’s been sent to help. Mordechai kindly asked that I not let you pass.” He had a very pronounced old Southern accent. “You ain’t done yet. There’s a mess of folks counting on you.”

“I know.”

“You best not fail them.” He glanced around the ballroom, as if taking in something familiar. “I never liked this room. It felt snooty. It was for bunches of rich folk, gallivanting around in their fancy clothes, telling each other how important and pretty they were.” He snorted. “But you know that it was always the most special to her, ever since she was a wee little thing.”

He was talking about Julie. This was her favorite room in the old Shackleford plantation house. This was where we were supposed to have gotten married. The stranger hadn’t picked this backdrop. I had.

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked.

“Damned if I know. Get back there and take care of business I suppose.”

“I’m dying. I got bit by a zombie.”

The stranger shrugged. “Cheat death then.”

“Cheat?”

“If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying hard enough. That’s what I always say. So pull your head out of your rear, get righteous mad, and get to killing.”

“I will.”

“Then what’re you doing giving up and dying?” He pointed for the door, not that I’d walked in, but I got the idea. He was sending me back. “Them monsters ain’t gonna kill themselves! You a Monster Hunter, or not?”

“I’m a Monster Hunter!”

“Good!” The ghost had a mischievous grin. “My boy always had a good eye for talent.”

Okay. I was back. I inhaled for what seemed like the first time in eternity.

“Hang on,” Torres said. “He’s still breathing.”

I wasn’t normal. I knew that. That point had been driven home a long time ago. I had no idea what I was. All I did know was that I didn’t want to die. Especially not like this.

The pain returned like a crashing tsunami. It was like being on fire and electrocuted and drowned at the same time. The virus, an incomprehensible curse from outside the boundaries of this world, pushed one last time to finish me. I screamed at the top of my lungs, a combination of fear, agony, and fury. My thrashing increased in intensity. The joints of the chair cracked. “Get help!” Torres cried as he tried in vain to restrain me.

The black energy swept through my body like a flash flood, burning, purging, cleansing, only this time I was the one in control. The lightning clashed with the virus. Then as quickly as it started, it was done.

The war was over.

The shaking stopped. My head flopped limply onto my chest.

“Wait!” Torres commanded.

The pain was still there. But now it was different, the fever had passed. I flexed my hands on the arms of the chair. I could feel again.

“Is he dead?” a cultist asked hesitantly.

“If he is, it’s your fault for not getting the needle fast enough,” Torres snarled. Fingers stabbed my neck. “Wait . . . I’ve got a pulse. And . . . it’s really strong.”

Thanks, Mordechai.

He was still in the room, waiting patiently. “Don’t thank me yet, boy. Life ahead of you is hard one. Much work to do. Much sacrifice to make. Sometimes I see what’s coming, and I feel very bad for you. No, no thanks for me. Someday you probably curse me for not letting you just die.”

I heard the door open. It was a young woman’s voice. “It’s time. My father needs the sacrifice.”

“Yes, mistress,” Torres responded.

“What happened here? What was that noise?” she asked with a very proper, high-brow English tone. “Did you harm him?” That one question held a lot of menace.

“No, but we had to give him the shot your father gave us. Pitt was beginning to turn. He’s passed out now.”

“Lucky for him, pity for us. Come along then. Time is short.” The door closed.

What now?

The ghost laughed. “Do what you do best, of course!”

“Come on, guys. Let’s go.” The chair lifted from the ground. There were three of them carrying me, and since I’m a big boy, they were still struggling. “Great Dagon, this son of a bitch weighs a ton.

“Careful,” Torres admonished. “If you piss off Lucinda, she’ll skin us all. Get the door.”

Mordechai?

But there was no answer. He was gone.

I could think again. Had he even really been here? Had I been hallucinating? Had I really died again? Had I beaten the zombie infection, or was I just feeling better because of the shot?

Hell if I know. But I was about to get FedExed across the universe to be dissolved for eternity by a creature so evil that just saying its name caused madness. I had to move now. My eyes were closed and my head was lolling side to side as they carried me, boots dangling. They were too sure of my weakened, soon-to-be-zombified state to bother with securing me that well. Their mistake. I just needed a chance to get my hands free. The chair was solid, but I could probably break it. What I needed was a distraction. “Anthony . . .” I croaked. “Wait . . .”

“Hold on,” he barked. He was holding the chair on my right side. “He’s awake.”

“Did you take Myers’ treasure?” I kept my voice weak. “He told me to . . . keep it safe . . . from you.”

“What treasure?”

“Some powerful . . .” I mumbled something else, too faint for him to hear. He leaned in closer. I risked a peek. He was at bad-breath distance. “Can you hear me now?” I whispered into his ear.

“What did Myers say?”

I bit his ear. I really chomped down on it as I jerked my head away. Torres screamed. The chair toppled, sending me crashing to the floor. Spitting his ear out, I jerked violently against my bonds, pulling with every bit of strength I had. The twine held, but I tore the arms right off the chair. I was free.

Cultist on my left, one behind me, one at the door. I swung my left arm, leading with a big chunk of splintered wood, and slammed the nearest bad guy in the crotch. He doubled over and I threw an uppercut into his throat. My fist never contacted, but the chair arm did. He went down, choking.

A weight collided with my skull. I was too furious to slow down. I was up, driving my shoulder into the next cultist, taking us both across the room. I threw the smaller man into the wall, crushing him into the paneling. I slammed him in again, breaking his ribs. The last cultist rushed me, but ran directly into my boot as I side-kicked him in the stomach. Since I was twice his size, the kick put him on his back.

All four of them were hurt. I had to press my advantage quickly. Even as experienced as I was, there was no way I could take on multiple assailants in my sorry state. The one against the wall was wheezing, gasping for breath. I brought the chair arms down on his skull with terrible force, striking until the wood was nothing but splinters. The man I had struck in the throat didn’t look like he was moving, but the cultist I kicked was trying to rise. Abomination was still sitting where Torres had left it. I scooped it up and charged.

He reached for his squid necklace, either to signal for help, or to activate some sort of magic, but I never found out what exactly, as I flicked open Abomination’s silver bayonet and slammed it through an eye socket and into his brain. I yanked the bayonet out and he toppled, twitching to the carpet.

That just left Torres.

He was crawling across the floor, panicked, disoriented, holding his hand against the side of his head, blood streaming between his fingers. There were still loaded magazines in my pouches, so I reloaded, worked Abomination’s charging handle, and put a round of buckshot into the chamber. Torres wasn’t currently a threat, so I risked a quick peek out the curtained window. We were on the third story of the mortuary, overlooking the back of the graveyard. It was dark, but I could see quite a bit of the cemetery below. There was a lot of movement, robed figures with torches and flashlights moving between the mausoleums. Something big was going down out there. I let the curtains drop and got back to business.

“Hey, Anthony,” I said, my voice cold and detached. My pistol was on the ground. He had seen it and was trying to reach it. I didn’t plan on letting him. “Stop right there. Yeah, I’m talking to you.” He kept crawling, making a kind of whimpering noise. Furious, I walked ahead of him and put my boot down on his hand. “Try listening with your good ear.”

“How . . . how did you . . .” he gasped. Apparently that kind of injury was very disorienting. “You should be . . .”

“Dead?” I asked, as I tugged the cords from my wrists. “Eventually, but I’m busy right now. What’s your boss up to?” I ground down on his hand. He cried out. “Start talking”—I put my bayonet against his back—“or I start stabbing.”

Torres raised his head. He looked pathetic with one ear. “You can’t stop us.”

“Maybe, but I bet I can kill a whole mess of you in the process.” There was a groan. I glanced over. Two of the cultists were stirring. Apparently every member of the Condition animated as an undead as soon as they expired. The one that I had stabbed in the brain wasn’t going anywhere, ever, but the other two were going to be an issue here pretty quick.

“See . . . already my brothers are rising. The Exalted Order will never stop—”

I swung Abomination over and blew both zombies’ heads off. The blasts were deafening in the small room. “They look stopped to me.” If that didn’t raise the alarm, nothing would. I bent down, grabbed Torres by the back of the neck, and jerked him to his feet. My strength had returned. In fact, I was feeling pretty damn good. Good . . . and violent. “I’ve just got one question, Anthony. Why? Why’d you fall in with these people? Why’d you betray your friends, your country? Why?”

His eyes were windows into insanity. “I had a revelation. I saw the majesty of the Old Ones. I heard their songs. Their mysteries were—”

Screw this. I squeezed the back of his neck harder as I dragged him across the room. “Yeah. You know what? Never mind.” I paused long enough to rip the MHI patch from his robe before shoving him against the window. The glass shattered, and he tumbled headfirst and screaming out of sight. There was a tearing noise and the screaming stopped abruptly.

I stepped forward. The damp night air was refreshing. The curtains billowed around me. Torres’ crumpled body was impaled on multiple fleur-de-lis tops of an iron fence. Several other surprised Condition members had rushed to the body. One of them looked up and pointed my way. “It’s the Monster Hunter!”

“Damn straight,” I responded as I stuck the Velcro patch back on my armor. “That’s more like it.” Then I shoved Abomination out the window and fired the 40mm grenade launcher directly into them. Everything in the blast radius was torn apart by shrapnel. I turned away from the window, picked up the rest of my gear, and headed for the door.

I wasn’t done yet.

Oh, no, not nearly done. I was just getting warmed up.

Chapter 20

Several Condition members tried to stop me inside the mortuary. I cut them down without remorse. Compared to monsters, whack jobs were soft targets. There was a phone in the hallway but it was as dead as the cultists. I was rocking another magazine into Abomination as I cleared the stairs and reached the back door. The cemetery stretched before me. A fog was rolling in and mist was collecting between the mausoleums. Spotted throughout the fog were bobbing lights, cultists moving to intercept me, and who knew what else was out there. The smart thing to do was probably run and hide, maybe find a phone and make a collect call to the Department of Homeland Security. Anything but go out there where the unkillable Hood and his minions were lurking.

But at the same time, if Mordechai had just been a figment of my feverish imagination, and the only reason I was operating at this tempo was that shot Torres had given me, that meant that as soon as it wore off, I would go back to joining the ranks of the undead. For all I knew, I was going to keel over any second. I had to take my chances. Whatever Hood meant by eternal night was already starting.

I went straight forward with no real strategy in mind other than shooting anything that moved. And there was lots of stuff moving. The grass was thick and wet, sliding around under my boots. The names on the tombstones seemed English, but I still had no idea where in the world I actually was. It was cool, but not cold. Looking at the stars, they were weird enough that I figured I was in the southern hemisphere, not that it mattered now. I was on my own. I headed in the direction with the most lights. Hood could see in the dark but most of his followers were human and could not.

Shapes appeared through the mist and then retreated from view as I swung to face them. I knew that things were watching me from behind every stone wall. I could only imagine what kinds of horrid beasts had joined up with the Condition for their big moment. It made perfect sense. In a world without daylight, the creatures that we hunted would have an absolute vacation.

But nothing attacked. Cultists and creatures both hung back.

I reached the lights. They were the giant, portable construction kind. Some huge project was taking place in the middle of the old cemetery. Bulldozers, dump trucks, and backhoes were parked off to the side. A giant hole, at least as big across as a football field, had been dug here, and it was obviously a rush job, completed recently. The ground had been churned into mud. Tombstones had been carelessly smashed into bits. The machines had cleaved right through the earth and I could see where they had just dislodged or cut cleanly through old coffins. Skeletal limbs were discarded and forgotten like bits of trash.

I approached the edge of the hole and looked inside. The mist was swirling in weird patterns. Strange insects cast giant shadows as they flew in front of the huge lights. There was something in the hole, something odd, but it was still covered beneath loose dirt and broken coffin bits.

Hood was standing in the center of the hole, waiting for me, arms folded. Standing at his side was a young woman, also wearing intricately decorated robes. Both of them had put on elaborate golden headpieces with all sorts of squiddy goodness and were wearing amulets that just felt unbelievably ancient.

“You didn’t have to get all dressed up,” I said.

“Those who mock shall mourn, unbeliever!” the girl shrieked. She was the one who had bossed Torres around. She was actually kind of cute, if you disregarded the whole diabolical, crazy fanatic thing. “Your fate is sealed. Your time is done!”

Hood smiled and patted her on the arm. “You must forgive my daughter. The exuberance of youth, you know.” She scowled but he ignored her with parental smugness. “Lucinda, my heir, meet the man who’s been a thorn in my side. I’m happy to see you came here voluntarily. So you’ve decided to fulfill your destiny?”

“If my destiny is killing you, then yeah, guess so.” There was motion behind me. Things were circling, surrounding the hole on all sides. I risked a glance over my shoulder. Cultists had approached from behind. The fires that I had earlier thought were torches had been other teleportation devices. All of his worldwide church had gathered for this event. “Nice hole. You dig this for me?”

He shook his head. “No. Sending you back to the Old Ones will be simple enough. There are thirteen small gates scattered around this world and we are fortunate to have one at this sacred place. It is already prepared.” He pointed to my left.

I took a few steps to the side to see better. Some of the excavation had unearthed a stone circle. A sick red light flickered from the hole and unearthly music drifted forth. The notes made my sanity hurt.

I turned away. “Oh, I thought maybe this construction project was some sort of secret weapon so you could finally defeat me,” I said sarcastically. “For somebody who’s supposed to be so friggin’ bad, you’ve certainly sucked at it.” I lifted Abomination and launched a grenade at them.

Hood extended his hand and the 40mm shell detonated on an invisible wall, temporarily obscuring them in a cloud of smoke and fragments. They were untouched. He smiled. “I could kill you with a fluffy pillow, Pitt.” He gestured around the giant hole. “This is an ancient living device. The last time it was used was before man even walked the Earth, in a war beyond your comprehension against the mighty Yith. I’ve known about this place for years, but lacked the ability, the permission to use it.” The shadow man reached into the sleeve of his robe and pulled out Machado’s artifact. “With this, I can guide it. With the Dread Overlord’s blessing, I can awaken it.”

I heard hundreds of voices raise a cheer around me. I looked up from shoving another grenade into Abomination long enough to mutter, “Shit.”

“Awake and arise, my legions!” Hood raised his voice to shout at his followers. The sound reverberated across the cemetery. “Let there be NO LIGHT! Rejoice, my children, for THE DARK NEW DAWN BREAKS!”

His followers roared in excitement.

The earth shook. The dirt beneath the sod rolled like the waves of a turbulent ocean. The tremor increased in intensity. My equilibrium was gone and I fell to my knees. The shaking grew in intensity. I had lived through some decent earthquakes, but this was just crazy. This was something way off the Richter scale. The earth screamed in protest. I had to scramble away from the edge as dirt began to cascade downward, the pit widening. The old mausoleums cracked, blocks shattered, and they collapsed on themselves. Levees of dirt erupted upward in places and wide cracks spread outward from the epicenter. The creatures and humans in the dark cried out in fear.

Something was coming out of the hole.

A hundred yards wide, dirt falling off in streamers, a tower rose. It was misshapen, twisted, unnatural, and it continued to grow higher and higher into the air. Hood stood on top of it, laughing maniacally, his daughter clinging to his arm in sudden terror. The two of them were lifted upward, riding the surge of something completely alien.

It was a structure, but it seemed to be organic, living, a sick, green, mottled thing. It stopped climbing, and then the top began to flow outward, snapping and unfurling. Branches stretched laterally overhead, raining dirt down against our upturned faces as the thing filled the night sky. It was part plant, part insect, and something that the human mind had never been meant to comprehend.

The earthquake subsided. The towering entity shuddered, freed from a million years of slumber. It seemed to click and twitch, pulsing with an unnatural life. I couldn’t even estimate how tall it was, but it was like standing on the sidewalk and staring up at a high-rise.

It was the tree from Hood’s utopian vision. It was the tree from the grimoire Carlos had taken from him. It was sick, wrong, and bad, and it was right here, right fucking now.

“BEHOLD. I GIVE YOU ARBMUNEP, TREE OF ETERNAL NIGHT!” Hood cried from a platform three hundred feet in the air. A cone of utter darkness began to grow from the branches, climbing into the atmosphere. It spread like a canopy, blotting out the sky. The cloud grew rapidly, like some sort of festering cancerous sickness.

“Mighty Arbmunep will consume the radiance of the heavens. We will blot out the light, darken the sky, erase the dawn. The night will rule. No sun, no moon, no stars. Only utter darkness. Absolute night, my children, and in it, I will rule. WE WILL RULE!” Hood screamed as the cloud grew larger. It wasn’t just blocking the light, it was eating it. Arbmunep was alive and it was hungry.

There was a sound from the portal to the Old Ones’ universe. Something was laughing. It was like running fingernails across a chalkboard multiplied a billion times and then driven through your ear hole with a variable-speed electric drill. I clamped my hands over my head involuntarily. The Dread Overlord was watching, fueling the monstrous tree, and it was positively giddy. Denied entrance to our world, it could at least enjoy the destruction of that which it couldn’t possess.

Even something that incomprehensibly vast could be petulant.

“Thank you, noble and great master, for this ultimate gift. I will not fail you,” the Shadow Lord cried.

The Condition came out of the shadows, hundreds of them. All had donned the ceremonial robes and raised their cowls. I couldn’t tell what they were, most were certainly human, but there were many that felt unnatural, various types of intelligent undead probably, and several of the robed shapes were too large, too cumbersome, too wrong to be people. Stitched-together automatons stood guard in the background, unthinking killing machines, simply here to observe. The cultists went to their knees or whatever else their equivalent was, and prostrated themselves before their false god and its blasphemous tree.

The shadow man spread his arms wide and leapt from his perch, plummeting toward the ground like a missile. At the last possible instant he stopped, then stepped lightly to the earth, his cloak settling around him. He walked straight at me. “Ready for your trip?”

“Ready to die?” I responded, my pulse quickening, adrenaline and energies I didn’t understand flowing through my veins.

“Get in the portal, Pitt.” He was getting closer. The Dread Overlord laughed. Someone killed the generator powering the portable lights, leaving us with nothing but the red light coming from the portal and a faint phosphorus gleam of the Tree’s skin-bark as it fed. “I will not tell you again.”

I gripped Abomination tighter. I had no clue what I was doing. I bellowed incoherently and charged. Hood lowered his head and did the same. His human form disappeared and a twelve-foot shadow took his place. The shadow bore down on me, cheered on by his followers and the king of pain itself.

I opened fire, the shells nothing but a futile gesture. The shadow crashed into me, knocking me down, and slapping me incoherent. Now, at his triumphant moment, there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to hurt Hood. He grabbed me by one foot and dragged me through the dirt toward the portal. My fingers tore through the ground but I didn’t even slow him down. He was going to toss me into that hole. Panic ripped through my guts. “You’ve been a worthy adversary, I must admit. I have no idea how you defeated the virus. I wish I could put you under a microscope and figure out just what it is that makes you tick but this is much more important.”

I had survived the zombie’s bite.

I had somehow found the strength to do the unthinkable. I had survived something that no human ever had before. I had generations of dead Hunters rooting for me. I was special, damn it! There had to be some way to hurt him. “No!” I rolled over and pulled my kukri from its sheath. Now he was just pulling me along on my back. I swung the blade through the black mass holding my boot. The knife ripped through with no effect. I kept swinging. The stone circle was only a few feet away. I could see down into the red light, coalescing shapes and impossible geometries, songs of dead civilizations and abstract realities.

The Dread Overlord was waiting.

The shadow man lifted me into the air. I was still thrashing, kicking, screaming, cursing, swinging my knife, all to no avail. I was upside down, blood rushing to my head, suspended over the portal, the Old Ones below, the Tree blotting out the stars above. The Condition members edged closer, chanting in unison, excited to see me, their Lucifer, thrown to his eternal condemnation.

Hood paused, leaving me dangling over the portal. Something vast shifted on the other side. “Dread Master, accept this humble sacrifice. I will prove worthy of your power.”

“Arbmunep F’thagen. Arbmunep F’thagen,” the cultists chanted, hundreds of them, increasing in volume and intensity. Hood raised his shadow arm triumphantly, holding me up as a trophy as I continued to swear and hack at him. “Arbmunep F’thagen! Aaiii!”

Then Hood paused, letting me dangle. “Oh, what now?” he asked in exasperation. I glanced up from the Dread Master’s realm. The shadow shape moved and I could see what had attracted his attention.

Some distance away, probably where I had first teleported in, there was a tiny flicker of fire in the dirt amongst the Condition. The minions were stepping aside to get out of the way as the portal opened. It was only a foot across as the two small flames intersected. The dirt disappeared and a brilliant shaft of daylight pierced upward. A head popped through the hole, wearing round, bug-eyed aviator goggles with a long red beard underneath and a stubbly cranium. I recognized the interloper immediately. “Milo?” I asked in disbelief. The head swiveled around, casually studying the various monsters and cultists, took in the unbelievable alien tree, then focused in on me upside down in the air and the shadow man that was holding me.

“Hey, Z. Hang on just a second,” Milo responded from Alabama, as if this was a totally unremarkable circumstance. His goggled head bobbed back through the hole and disappeared. I could still hear him as he shouted. “It worked and it’s outdoors. See, I told you we’d figure it out. Let her rip!”

There were two more flickers of flame. They ignited and spread outward in a circle, just like before, only this time they were traveling in a much wider arc. This circle was going to be huge. A bunch of cultists belatedly realized that they were standing in the area of effect and rushed to escape, tripping in their clumsy robes, or getting knocked down by their fellows in a panic to escape. MHI must have not only figured out how to make the magic ropes work, but they had stitched together one hell of a big one in the process.

“You guys totally rock!” I bellowed.

Within seconds the two flames met and with a horrendous air-suctioning pop a giant circle of dirt disappeared. Several cultists simply vanished. My eyes had adjusted to the bleak dark of the cemetery and underside of the Tree, so it was painful when a massive blinding circle of Alabama daylight appeared. A portal doesn’t just let matter through; it is a direct doorway to someplace else, and this particular place was sitting under the afternoon sun. Light exploded all around us.

Hood’s mighty shadow form wilted and shrank under the onslaught. The alien Tree shuddered and actually screamed as the light struck it. The undersides of the branches were now shockingly well lit. Vampires amongst the crowd of cultists burst into flames, screeching as their flesh bubbled and melted off.

There was a terrible mechanical wail, growing closer and louder by the instant. It was a rhythmic beating noise, and accompanying it was a loudspeaker, blaring music at such impossible decibels that it could even be heard above the noise of the approaching rotors. A red-and-white dragonfly shape blasted through the portal, pointed so that it was shooting straight up into the beam of light.

Up in our current location was apparently sideways in Alabama, and the MI-24 Hind attack helicopter blasted skyward. The nose jerked down as MHI’s crack pilot immediately adjusted. Wind tore at us as the blades fought the new direction of gravity. Within seconds Skippy had oriented the chopper so that it was moving predatorily under the branches, surveying the graveyard. The painted shark jaws swiveled in a circle, taking in the target-rich environment.

The speakers were blaring “More Human than Human.” It cut out long enough so that Skippy’s gravelly voice could come over, electronically amplified until the orc was as loud as Hood had been when he had activated his evil Tree.

“MONSTERS . . . TASTE VENGEANCE . . . OF SKIIIPPPYYY!”

Skip had broken the FAA regulations about arming MHI’s helicopter. Rob Zombie came back on just as the GE 7.62 miniguns mounted on both sides of the Hind opened up at 6,000 rounds per minute, stringing lines of tracers into the cultists; 20mm cannon shells thundered into the creatures as Skippy rotated the flying tank’s nose gun. Rocket pods ignited like chains of Roman candles and bits of undead were flung everywhere. Winged beasts leapt into the air to attack the chopper and Skippy scythed them down methodically.

It was terribly impressive.

Another helicopter flew out, then another—MCB Apaches—ready to add to the carnage. There was noise and fire from the portal as Hunters and Feds poured out over the edge, guns blazing. Flamethrowers ignited, spiraling out napalm in swaths of burning destruction. Apparently the Condition’s ceremonial robes weren’t fire-resistant either. Stop, drop, and roll doesn’t work with napalm.

“Protect Arbmunep!” the shadow man screamed. “Stop them! Protect the Tree, damn you!”

Julie stepped into this place, M14 at her shoulder, hair blowing in the fire-laced wind, screaming orders like some sort of Amazon warrior queen, blasting monsters left and right. She saw me, saw Hood holding me over the portal, and a look of fury so intense and pure crossed her face that even I was afraid.

“You’re screwed now!” I shouted at Hood.

The shadow shape was twisting, wilting in the light. The side of his face toward the MHI portal was human, the side in the red light of the Old Ones’ portal was demonic. “But so are you,” he hissed.

Then he dropped me.

Screaming, I caught the edge of the pit, rock tearing my fingers, body jerking past, wrenching my arms in their sockets, my legs dangling downward into red infinity. Hauling myself up to my elbow, I flipped my kukri around in my hand and slammed the tip into Hood’s foot, anchoring it to the ground. He bellowed and jerked back, his boot parting like smoke around the blade. I used the knife to leverage myself away from the hole.

Deprived of his prize, the Dread Overlord let out a terrible wail.

I rolled to my feet and swung the giant knife through Hood. He grimaced as the steel parted his robes and whatever served as his flesh. The sunlight from Alabama was enough to allow me to damage him.

Hood sensed that as well. He leapt back through the air, away from my blade. “Destroy that portal!” he ordered as he levitated out of my reach. “Kill the light!”

The cemetery plunged into utter pandemonium. Monsters were everywhere, throwing themselves at the flaming circle of Hunters. The pillar of sunlight was our only hope. MHI had formed a perimeter around it, hunkering down behind broken tombstones, piles of earthquake dirt, and collapsed mausoleums, lancing bullets outward, cutting down targets with every burst.

Hood was retreating toward the Tree, trying to marshal his forces. I started after him. “Owen!” I jerked my head toward the sound. Julie and a squad of Hunters had fought their way to me. She had Trip, Holly, Sam, her brother Nate, Cooper, and a couple of Newbies I recognized as the Haight brothers. They immediately surrounded me, crouched down, and started firing their weapons at the approaching automatons. “You’re alive!”

Holly must have thought I didn’t look very alive. She stuck the muzzle of her .308 close enough to my face that I could feel the heat rising from the metal. “Say something!”

Smiling made my face hurt. “Took you guys long enough.” I sheathed my knife. The Hunters exchanged glances. There was no way that I should still be moving, unless I was undead.

“But . . . how?” Holly asked.

“I’m the Chosen One, remember?”

“I told you there were such things as miracles,” Trip shouted over the chattering bolt of his subgun. He glanced over into the still-open chasm to the Old Ones. “Is that . . . Hell?” All of the Hunters looked in, then looked away just as quickly. You didn’t stop to gawk at that kind of thing.

“Close enough. Come on, Hood went that way.” I pointed toward the Tree. We had to get him before they could kill the sunlight.

Julie was surely glad to see that I was still alive but right now was not the time to celebrate. She got on her radio. “Skippy, this is Command. My team’s heading for the big . . . tower thing. Cover us.” She didn’t have to wait long. Within seconds the Hind dipped from its position over the pillar of light and headed right over us, expending hundreds of pounds of munitions in the process. Dirt rained down as rockets blasted through the cemetery. “Go!”

I led the way, firing Abomination, lumbering forward through the clouds of smoke. An automaton rose before us, probably something that had been a troll once, but was now covered in spikes. I pumped several rounds into it before I had to duck under the swing of one arm. Cooper stepped past me and slammed the steel butt-plate of his rifle into the off-balance body, taking it down. The Haights were on it in a split second, jamming their weapons through the unarmored joints and hammering it to bits.

One of the brothers shouted in pain as something struck him in the back. There was a noise like angry bees buzzing through the air. “Down! Down!” I shouted as the bullets zipped past us.

“Son of a bitch shot me!” the Newbie bellowed as he slid behind some rubble. Nate picked out the muzzle flash and returned fire.

There was a line of cultists moving through the dust ahead of us, covering Hood’s retreat. There had to be dozens of them and judging from the volume of fire coming our way, they were heavily armed. Our squad of Hunters took cover behind whatever was available. Bullets ripped through the dirt between us.

“Surrender, Hunters!” one of the Condition ordered as the gunfire tapered off. “You’re outnumbered.”

Sam Haven bellowed back from behind the safety of a marble headstone. “How many of you fucking lunatics do we have to kill before you get out of our way?”

The same cultists responded. “The Exalted Order stands as one! Even in death, we shall live to fight. We—”

Sam cut him off. “Well, you could have just saved some time and said all of y’all.” He lowered his voice and spoke into his radio, “Skippy, targets at the base of the tower, twenty yards ahead of our position. Waste ’em.”

Almost instantly there was the thunder of an airborne minigun as Skippy tore the bad guys to pieces. Tracers zipped back and forth ahead of us until nothing could possibly live. Julie stood. “Keep going.” The Hunters were up and running in seconds.

Something strange was happening. There was chanting, growing in intensity. I immediately recognized Hood’s amplified voice, speaking in an incomprehensible language. The alien limbs overhead began to twitch, clicking in their unnatural joints. The Arbmunep emitted a keening rattle, like a swarm of cicadas, as it began to move. “Tell Skippy to watch out!”

But it was too late. One of the segmented branches crashed downward. Somehow Skippy saw it coming and jerked the chopper out of the way, narrowly missing the rotor. The branch creaked in protest and rose back into place, moving with a lumbering ferocity. One of the Apaches wasn’t as lucky, and a limb slammed through its rotor. The chopper spun wildly through the air, billowing smoke, and crashed onto its side near the portal. The blades snapped off and flew through the army of monsters.

“What the hell’s that?” Sam shouted.

Before I could answer, the ground beneath our feet surged, hoisting all of us into the air. Some of us went tumbling down, others managed to hold on. I was in the center where it was relatively flat, and was barely hanging on when the hill started to move. Julie was next to me, and went tumbling over the edge as the ground disappeared. I grabbed her wrist and held on for dear life. I was twenty feet over the ground, the other Hunters being knocked away, before I realized what was happening. The Arbmunep was moving.

The entire world was spinning, shaking, and there was a vast tearing noise. Trenches and hills were exploding up through the dirt all around us. Nate Shackleford disappeared into the ground as a crevasse opened up beneath his feet. Julie screamed something incoherent. The hill we were on lurched forward twenty feet, screeched to a halt, almost dislodging me, then surged again.

Roots. The giant tree was mobile. And it was heading right for the portal and the Hunters who were defending it. I pulled until Julie scrambled up beside me.

The other Apache was torn in half in a cascading gout of fire as a limb crashed through it. Skippy was staying just ahead of the shockingly fast branches, zipping about in a way that was surely impossible for the bulky chopper, clouds of ancient dirt falling with every swing. Explosions ripped across the trunk with no effect. He should have gotten the hell out from under it, but he was still firing, trying to provide cover for the humans on the ground.

“Skip, get out of here! Fall back!” Julie ordered. Another branch struck, and Skippy barely avoided it. The next sparked against his tail rotor, blowing it to bits. The Hind began to rotate violently, puking smoke, and it sank out of view into the cemetery. “No!” There was a terrible crashing noise.

I was barely hanging on. The root we were on top of would rise quickly into the air, then slam back down seconds later. There were dozens of these appendages, all driving the Tree onward, each movement surely shaking the earth for miles. As it neared the portal, whichever Hunter was in charge was smart enough to order everyone to retreat back toward the mortuary. The dirt we were hanging onto dislodged and Julie and I tumbled to the ground.

“Move!” I shouted as we hit, still holding onto her wrist, trying to stay ahead of the giant flailing appendages. Each root was as big around as a car, and they slammed around us with terrible impacts. Both of us were knocked on our faces as another root landed behind us.

The Tree shifted as it hit the portal, slamming its roots into the ground, breaking the magic cord and severing the connection to Alabama. The pillar of light disappeared and we were plunged back into absolute darkness. The Tree was still.

It was silent except for our frantic panting in the dusty air, and then an insectile chattering noise as the Tree settled into its new position. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. It took us a moment to catch our breath. “Come on,” Julie hissed. She grabbed the front of my armor. “We’ve got to go back for Nate.”

I could barely make out her figure in the dark. Then three dozen bright white eyeballs opened in a wall behind her. “Shoggoth!” I raised my gun and triggered my flashlight. One tentacle impacted my chest, pinning my weapon and crushing me down. It encircled my arms and cinched tight. It was immensely strong. Another tentacle zipped around Julie’s waist and hoisted her into the air. She swore at it. More eyeballs blinked in my face as I struggled helplessly.

“CAPTURED SACRIFICE,” it wheezed in an impossible bass from half a dozen mouths. It was so loud that wherever Hood was, he had certainly heard it. The amorphous blob seeped across the ground, Julie held in the air, me dragging along on the dirt, disoriented, but seemingly going back in the direction we had come from. No matter how hard I fought, I was stuck. I tried to yell for help, but a wet appendage slapped shut over my mouth. It smelled like hot tar.

It dragged me for about a minute, only slowing when the light visibly turned red. The shoggoth had brought us back to the portal to the Old Ones. It spilled us to the ground, leaving us both coughing and gagging in a puddle of ooze, our arms still leashed to our sides. The necromancer was standing there, waiting, a giant undead automaton flanking him on both sides. The hole to the Old Ones’ universe stretched before us, cloudy and red.

“You’re dead, Hood,” I gasped. “The Feds know where we are. They’ve probably got nukes inbound already. They’ll never let your stupid Tree live.”

He nodded. “Obviously. But this is just the first of many. On my own, I was barely strong enough to unleash one. In return for your sacrifice, my Lord will awake the others. This is the first and greatest, but there are hundreds more seedlings buried across the world.” Hood smiled. “And even then, an attempt to cleanse the mighty Arbmunep with nuclear fire will just end up bathing this entire part of the world in a cloud of perpetual night. The Yith made the same mistake sixty-five million years ago.”

“You’ll never get away with this,” Julie said. The wall of eyeballs turned on her, blinking suspiciously. “My men will make sure of that.”

“Well, little Julie Shackleford is all grown up.” Hood laughed hard. “Your men? That’s a good one. Your Hunters are running for their lives, my minions at their heels. And even if they do manage to interfere, it won’t do you two any good.” He clapped his hands. “Great shoggoth, send these mortals to meet your almighty maker!”

But the blob didn’t toss us into the portal. It hoisted Julie with one dripping arm and turned her upside down, studying her with lots of curious eyeballs.

“What are you waiting for?” Hood demanded. “I command you to put them in the portal!”

Julie’s hair was dangling in the tar. It was like she was having a staring contest with the blob. “Mr. Trash Bags? Is that you?” she asked quietly.

The eyes all blinked at once. “CUDDLE BUNNY?”

Julie grinned. “It is you!”

I could feel the surge of emotion through the dripping tentacle as Mr. Trash Bags remembered. This time the dark lightning struck like a bomb.

“Hi,” said the grubling. “I’m Julie.”

“FILTHY MAMMAL,” the Exile replied. The mammal grubling was to be devoured. The Exile was shamed. The Exile had failed—TERRIBLE SHRIEKING DOOM—the Exile had come here to devour the mammals that had battled the other servants of Horde. The Exile would please the master and no longer be Exile. Again it would be Number 786 of Horde. “CONSUME!”

“You’re funny,” said the grubling. Air passed over the grubling’s vocal cords and made a melody, not unlike the shrike-hounds of the howling gates and it made the Exile feel stop. New sound, word list on mammals called it giggle made the Exile feel not to devour the grubling. The grubling held up with its opposable thumbs an image of a tiny earth beast, made of cloth, stuffed with fibers. “This is Cuddle Bunny. Want to play?”

“CONSUME?”

“No. Play, silly.” The grubling used its pathetic leg limbs to hop away. “Come on. You’re my friend. You’re like a big trash bag.”

The Exile was confounded. The other mammals were made of hate and burning. The master—TERRIBLE SHRIEKING DOOM—was made of pain and orders. This grubling was of not kill. Suddenly the grubling changed to the Exile’s current eyes and the Exile saw that this mammal was made of stars.

Confused. The Exile followed. The Exile became Friend.

At the time I had thought that the gnome’s memory had been slightly alien. Mr. Trash Bags had just shown me what a real alien was. My head ached with haunting sounds, thought bubbles that popped like dynamite, and the lingering image of a tiny, perfect, glowing angel, with pigtails and a stuffed rabbit.

“Destroy them!” Hood shouted at the hesitating shoggoth.

“NOOO!” The simple beast remembered what was probably the only thing that had ever loved it. Two tentacles cracked like whips, splitting the automatons flanking Hood in half. The limbs tore through the shadow man, pulverizing the ground at his feet, but he merely re-formed in place.

Snarling, he extended one hand. “Traitorous amorph!” A bolt of fire leapt from his amulet, down his arm, and from his hand, bursting into the shoggoth, engulfing it in flames. “How dare you!”

“PROTECT CUDDLE BUNNY,” the shoggoth thundered as it carelessly tossed Julie behind it. The burning blob surged over me, across the portal, and at the shadow man. I was released, and spun wildly through the tar. The flaming beast collided with Hood, burning bits flying in every direction. Already it seemed to shrink as it turned to ash. I slid through the goo, trying to get to my feet. The blob hardened and shattered into burning shards. There was a terrible piercing squeal as Mr. Trash Bags exploded.

Hood dusted the ash from his robe. “Never trust a blob to do a man’s work.” He took three steps and leapt across the portal, landing effortlessly beside me. I fired my shotgun into his head and he merely swatted it aside before grabbing me around the throat and lifting me off the ground. Half man, half darkness, the hole in his face quickly closed. “We already said our good-byes.”

There was a mighty yell. “Pitt!” I glanced up in time to see Agent Franks sprinting toward us, leaping between the massive roots. He would never make it in time.

“Too late,” Hood said as he heaved me into the center of the portal.

Chapter 21

I broke the surface.

Time was different.

It was difficult to comprehend. Our existence doesn’t really encompass this kind of experience. Time passed, but in different directions simultaneously. My brain hurt just trying to function.

My eyes still worked. The light was primarily red, but didn’t seem to come from any particular source. It was utterly strange, alien. The air entering my lungs wasn’t made of what I thought of as air, but it didn’t matter, as enough time hadn’t passed yet to breathe. I was floating in place, in a haze, almost like being on a cloud in some alternate hellish version of heaven.

Which, according to the Condition, I probably was.

A creature made entirely of eyeballs floated past. It was tiny, but then I realized that with no scale, it might have been miles away and the size of a subway train. It was eating hornets made of razor blades and steam, but it didn’t matter, because time wasn’t passing. It just was.

Oh God. I’m scared.

The whole universe moved. It was the Dread Master blinking. A yellow slit appeared through the red. It was looking at me.

Time wasn’t right, but at the same time I could see a million years in the past, and a million years into the future, and in other directions into dimensions that I couldn’t comprehend, and I was going to die repeatedly through all of them, forever. This epic thing honestly believed that I was the first mortal being to ever harm it. I just knew that this being had waged millennia of war between stars against things even more diabolical than it was, but somehow a mere human had hurt it. And I was going to pay for that. A lot.

“That whole thing with the nuke, that wasn’t me. The guy you want to talk to is Dwayne Myers. That’s Special Agent Dwayne Myers of the Monster Control Bureau. M-Y-E-R-S.” I didn’t know if I just thought that, or if I could actually speak in this place, but even if I could, I’m sure my pitiful utterances were like a mosquito buzzing around its ear.

That giant eye kept regarding me. I could feel it in my mind, poking around as it figured out what would hurt me the most. I was a bubble of linear time in this ageless place, an oddity. My universe was poison to the Dread Master, but consuming me would be the equivalent of a healthy person eating a single jelly bean. Not exactly good for you, but it wasn’t like you were going to notice.

Then it spoke. The entire universe thundered with its incomprehensible voice. All I could understand was the pain. The message itself was beyond me. But it didn’t matter, because this was how I was going to spend eternity.

A few minutes in this place had shattered Ray Shackleford’s mind before Earl had pulled him out. Ray had never been the same. For the first time, I had nothing but pity for him. The Dread Master said something else. I experienced agony beyond anything I had ever imagined. Turning into a zombie was Christmas at Disneyland with all-you-can-eat ice cream and a free ride on the space shuttle in comparison.

When it was done, I floated there, wishing to die.

I was mortal at home. Here I was an infinite chew toy. It hadn’t even started yet. It got closer. Ten thousand feet of sleek carapace attached to millipede tentacles crackling with electricity. The eyeball creature was snagged by the forest of limbs and absorbed, digested for eternity to fuel the fires of chaos.

Then, in the abyss of confusion, there was a presence of something familiar, another bubble of familiar reality. A blue light intruded into the red, and it was as if time began to move again. It was coming from the opposite direction of the Dread Overlord. “I’ve never failed a mission,” the presence said as I turned.

“Agent Franks?”

He was different here. The physical body was just a shell, housing a spirit that was clearly not that of a normal human, but rather something simpler and older. The recycled organs, bones, and sinew that served as Franks’ avatar showed me the ward stone. It boiled with the power of pure reality. “Won’t start now.” There was a clear trail of energy connected to the ward stone stretching back to our universe.

Julie had explained it to me. As far as I understand how the ward works, it’s basically a focus point for our reality. Like a magnifying glass under the sun. Undead are an unnatural thing in this world, so it just blasts them. Things from outside this reality can’t take the heat. And now that I could see what it really was, I could tell that it was far more powerful than any of us had realized. The ward was huge, crackling with potential. The alchemists of old hadn’t just created a defensive device. They’d created a doomsday weapon. It was like the seventeenth century’s version of Mutually Assured Destruction.

If our reality was poison to the Old Ones, then Franks had just brought a keg of VX nerve gas into their living room.

The Dread Master assaulted us both with hate. As alien as we were to it, it probably didn’t even understand what was going on, but it didn’t like it one bit. Terrible visions and alien memories pounded my psyche. Bombarded by pain, Franks still pushed toward me, finally shoving the ward stone into my waiting hands. “Break it,” Franks ordered. “I can’t.”

Of course not. It had been built by a human, for humans.

The Dread Overlord propelled itself forward.

In this place, I could see the stone for what it really was, a mere shell, a container, harnessing a violent reaction of raw physics and possibility. Four hundred years ago, a combination of dark wizardry and powerful alchemy had bound it to the shell, letting just enough leak so that it could be used as a shield against the forces of the other side. Franks had prearranged all of the numbers on the sphere using his creator’s mathematical codes. It was ready.

The Dread Overlord was right on top of us. I would never make it in time.

My fingers sunk into the stone as I wrenched it apart. The field fragmented and energy lanced through the spreading cracks. I let go of the stone and it floated away from me, power building toward a cataclysmic reaction.

“Take my hand!” Julie . . . She had come after me. I reached toward her voice. “Hurry!” Then she grabbed me, pulling me down the chain, back to the real world.

The container shattered. Unleashed, a blue tidal wave of linear time invaded the reality of the Dread Master. If consuming me was a jelly bean’s worth of bad health to it, then this was the equivalent of suck-starting a double-barreled 12-gauge. The yellow eye focused on the approaching wall of deadly reality. Incompatible matter collided, splitting atoms and releasing energy in an algorithmic multiplying fury. Ageless infinity broke. Every bit of the ancient squid god became disjointed, fractured, down to the subatomic level. The galaxy quivered.

The Dread Master simply . . . ruptured.

The explosion billowed outward, consuming planets.

I gasped for air.

There was dirt under me, real honest-to-goodness dirt. Flat on my back, lying in the center of the now-solid stone circle, the Tree blotted out the sky above. Gunfire and explosions came from all around. A ten-foot-tall ogre lumbered past, on fire. I was never so glad to be home.

One of my arms was stretched out. Someone was holding my hand. My head hurt and I was so dizzy that it took me a moment to roll over and see who it was.

“Julie?” I whispered. She was lying facedown, perfectly still, but she had a death grip on my hand. “Julie?” Slowly, she took a deep breath, then finally raised her head. Tears stained her cheeks. “You came after me. . . .”

Julie smiled weakly. “Well, duh.”

“Thank you,” I croaked.

She just pulled herself closer, resting her head against mine. “Don’t ever make me do that again.”

I didn’t know if she meant the portal, or having me abandon her so I could sulk off to die. She’d had the courage to follow me someplace that nobody should ever have to go and had dragged me back out. “Deal.”

“Ever again . . .”

Something stirred at my feet. Franks sat up abruptly. He looked around slowly before staggering to his feet. “Never killed anything that big before,” he said, sounding almost, but not quite, proud of himself. “It was . . . satisfying.”

We had killed an actual Old One. We’d blown up the Dread Overlord!

“Is it really dead?” Julie asked.

Franks didn’t answer. He just pointed.

Illuminated only by the burning remains of the shoggoth, Hood was on his knees. His cowl lifted, revealing black-oil tears leaking from his eyes and dripping down his face. “Oh, Master, what have they done to you?” he cried. Behind him, the undead automatons were not moving, frozen perfectly in place like statues. Then one by one, the joints began to give away, and they toppled, metal screeching, into the dirt. The High Priest’s body seemed to wilt as the shadow energy dissipated from him.

With their animated troops falling apart and the source of their magic gone, the Condition forces were done for.

I got shakily to my feet and picked up Abomination.

My nemesis seemed to be choking, clouds of flies spewing from his mouth with every heave. He retched, and a dead leech thing fell out of his mouth, fading away into nothingness on impact. Shadowy shapes rose from him like steam, red eyes blinking, before drifting off in fear. Hood was being abandoned by all of the Old Ones’ servants. I stopped directly in front of him. Above us, the Tree still loomed; the gunfire suggested MHI was still battling the now outmatched cultists, but this part here was my job to finish. “Why?” He looked up, black fluids leaking from his nose and ears. The substance that had kept him immortal was dissipating. “Why has he forsaken me?”

“Because he’s dead.”

He gagged on the demon oil. “Impossible.”

I shrugged. “Shit happens.”

Hood was sobbing, shaking. He knew I was telling the truth. “I studied them for so long. They couldn’t be defeated. Their victory was inevitable. Inevitable! I couldn’t stop them, nobody could. I sold my soul to protect this world.”

“You got a bum deal.”

“Then you come along . . . so stupid. So nonchalant about the ultimate gift you’ve been given. I had to work for my gifts. I had to bloody sacrifice. Fight and scrimp for every last bit of knowledge.” It was like his body was breaking down as the realization of defeat hit him. “Your way could only end in blood and fire. My way led to utopia. I did what I had to do.”

“You’re no martyr,” I said, cradling my shotgun. “Don’t tell me you did what you had to do. You did what you wanted to do.”

“Curse you, Pitt!” He surged to his feet, stumbling at me. His hands landed on my shoulders but his black eyes widened in surprise as Abomination’s silver bayonet was driven through his chest. “I . . . I . . .”

He rested his head on my shoulder and bled down my armor.

The funeral was on an appropriately rainy day. Grandmother stood at my side, never letting go of my hand, as Father and Mother’s caskets were put in the dirt. The caskets were closed, since the acid of the thing inside the pentagram had burned their faces into nothing but strands of meat and jelly.

The priest continued his litany, droning on, saying the same thing that his ancestors had said since Martin Luther himself had last stuck men in the ground. Eventually he was done, and the sky over Birmingham erupted into a downpour. The pitiful few who had gathered for the ceremony bolted for safety.

The two of us stayed, watching the fresh dirt churn into mud. One old crone and one twelve-year-old child dressed in black, pathetic in the rain.

Grandmother bent down and whispered in my ear. “Let them go, Martin.”

I shook my head, water running down my face.

She squeezed my fingers hard. “Listen to me, child. Your father trifled with things beyond his understanding, and he paid dearly. Don’t make the same mistakes he did. Let it go. I know he educated you in his dark ways and his dark books, but he was a fool.”

I thought about the thing coming out of the basement floor. Grandmother was the fool, not Father. He understood what was out there and he had passed that information on to me. The Elder Things didn’t need to be feared, they just needed to be understood. And understanding could lead to control.

I could control them.

“Your parents reside with the devil now because of their terrible sins.”

“Yes, Grandmother.”

“I tried to burn your father’s evil book, for your own good, of course, but it wouldn’t burn. So I gave away all his things to those Americans who destroyed the creature. They said that they would put them someplace safe, where nobody else would meddle with them.”

Those were mine. “Yes, Grandmother. What were those brave Americans called?”

“Monster Hunter International. You owe them your life, you know.”

“I know.” And they owe me my father’s book . . . I vowed then on my father’s grave that I would regain my birthright. Someday I would find these Monster Hunters and take back what was rightfully mine. “Can we go home now, Grandmother? I’m very cold.”

“Yes, Martin.”

I jerked the bayonet out in a flash of red human blood.

Martin Hood let go, stumbled back, and pressed his hands against his chest. The blood just kept coming. He sank slowly to his knees, staring at me in disbelief.

“I . . . forgot what pain . . . felt like . . .”

Pain was a burning village littered with orc bodies. Pain was what the families of his innocent victims were feeling. Pain was what my brother felt when his fingers had been sawed off. Pain was one of the many things he had stolen from Carlos. Pain was what G-Nome had felt when the doppelganger had ripped into him. Pain and death and suffering were all that Martin Hood had left in his wake.

Pain was his legacy.

“Sucks, don’t it?” I whispered.

Then the High Priest of the Sanctified Church of the Temporary Mortal Condition fell on his face and died.

I stood over him, bayonet dripping. Julie approached with a limp, raised her M14 and mercilessly ripped an entire magazine of silver .308 into the body. I hate to admit that I flinched at the blasts. “Just in case,” she said.

“Of course,” I responded.

The Tree above us shuddered, insect limbs cracking. The blackness above the branches slowly dissipated on the wind, revealing stars. The nearby roots went from green, to brown, and then finally to gray within a matter of seconds, leaving the mutation with the consistency of cold stone. Mighty Arbmunep was finished, returned to the same hibernation that it had existed in for all of recorded history. Deprived of their magic and their undead war machines I knew that the cultists were now going to get the ever-living hell kicked out of them by a bunch of pissed-off and heavily armed Hunters.

Franks stepped up to the pulped body and thumped it with his boot. “Looks like shadow boy wasn’t as bright as he thought he was.”

Julie and I exchanged glances. “Bright?” I responded. “Look, dear, Franks made a joke.”

“Fascinating,” she responded, but she was mostly listening to her radio earpiece. “Sounds like the Condition is retreating, but our people are scattered and trying to regroup. A bunch are missing where the roots landed.” I knew that she was thinking of her little brother. “We’ve got to find them.”

There still had to be bunches of monsters lurking out there. Any Hunter who was alone was vulnerable. “We’d better hurry.”

Franks rolled Hood over and began patting down the bloody robes. I knew immediately that he was looking for the artifact. I unconsciously stepped back. The Dread Overlord itself might be dead, but who knew what else that little thing was capable of. “Keep that damn box away from me.”

The big man scowled. “It’s not here.”

“Looking for this?”

The three of us spun toward the voice. It was the girl, Lucinda, Hood’s daughter. She had lost her ceremonial headpiece and her black robes were in muddy tatters. She was crying as she held up the artifact. It glowed with an unnatural black light in the fog. She was barely an adult.

“Drop it,” Franks ordered as a 10mm Glock materialized in his hand.

“You killed him . . .” she wailed. “You murdered my father!”

“I did,” I responded slowly. “And you’ll die too, if you don’t put that box down and step away from it.”

“You’ll pay for this. All of you will pay! He was a good man,” Lucinda cried. “The Exalted Order will rise again and come for you.”

“Gonna be hard since we just blew up your god.”

“Lies!”

“Your father was an idiot. Now give up before you get hurt.” I really didn’t want to see Franks blow away a girl who was probably still a teenager. “Listen to me.”

“My father was a good man!”

“Your dad was a complete psycho. Listen, girl, I can relate,” Julie responded coldly. She had family missing out there amongst the roots. “But I really don’t have time for this. Franks, you got the shot?”

“Affirmative,” Franks responded. He put his front sight between Lucinda’s eyes.

“Drop her,” my wife said.

There was a gunshot. The bullet slammed into the dirt at Lucinda’s feet. I turned in time to see a look of confusion cross Frank’s square face, then his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed in a heap.

Ray Shackleford stood over Franks, blood-soaked hand open in front of him with a length of spinal column resting in his palm, torn cleanly from Franks’ back. The vampire smiled as he dropped the vertebrae on the ground. “Well, that worked perfect! Hey, kiddos.”

“Dad!” Julie gasped. She dropped her empty M14 and went for her pistol.

Lucinda Hood screamed. I jerked my attention back to her, only to see Susan Shackleford standing where she had been. The girl was scrambling away leaving a trail of blood behind her. Susan held up something and laughed. It was Lucinda’s petite hand, torn clean off at the wrist, still holding the artifact. “About damn time!” Susan exclaimed as she examined the device.

“You’ll all pay!” Lucinda whimpered, holding her bloody stump against her robes. She pulled out a length of rope and dropped it. The portal activated in a burst of flames and she fell headfirst through the opening.

“Hey, honey, you forgot something,” Susan said as she tugged the severed hand off the artifact and tossed it casually through the portal. The opening snapped close behind. “Kids these days, I swear . . . Speaking of which . . . how’re you guys doing?”

Julie and I stood back to back. She aimed her .45 at her father and I kept Abomination on her mother. If they attacked at this range we were dead meat. Susan was unbelievably powerful for a vampire of such young age and could move so fast that it was hard to watch.

“Been better . . .” I responded slowly. “We had a deal, Susan.”

“Stay back!” Julie shouted.

“Whew!” Ray said as he raised his shoe and smashed Franks’ torn-out spine. He ground it fiercely into the dirt until it broke with a sickening splatter. “Good thing he was distracted. Franks could totally have whupped my ass.”

“Yes, we had a deal,” Susan smiled, showing her pointed teeth. “You were supposed to take care of the necromancer for me. Check. Killing an actual Old One, though. I’ve got to hand it to you, that’s impressive. Seriously, that’s like some sort of record. My chief rival is dead, and I owe you one for saving me from his service. No, we’re not going to kill you, Owen. I’m just here for what‘s rightfully mine.”

“What do you want with that thing?”

“Oh, this little trinket unlocks all sorts of ancient goodies, and until the Others pick a new Guardian to protect it, I’m going to milk it for all it’s worth.” Susan shrugged. “But that’s not what I’m talking about. Like I said, I’m here for what’s rightfully mine . . . Like my children. Julie, honey . . . come with us.”

“Never,” Julie hissed. Her father shifted a bit and she tightened the grip on her gun. “Don’t come any closer.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

Ray twisted his head and smelled the air like the predator he was. “Hunters are coming . . . I can’t tell how close. This stupid Tree messes with my senses. I smell . . . Copenhagen.”

“Come with us, Julie. Your little brother is out there in the dark, hurt and scared. Only I can save him now.” Susan’s eyes were glowing.

“I should have left that stake in you,” I spat.

“Your mistake,” she smiled. “Take them, Ray.”

We both opened fire, but the vampires moved so quickly that it didn’t do us any good. It was like Susan just stepped between the shotgun slugs. I perforated her heart and lungs, but the wounds closed instantaneously. She slammed her open hand into my armored chest, launching me back into the circle of stone. I crashed into a rock and the air blasted from my lungs.

My head swam as I tried to rise. Julie screamed.

Susan had her.

Filled with rage and fear, I pushed myself to my feet. Ray intercepted me. Our bulks collided, and he engulfed me in a bear hug, crushing my ribs. “Stay out of this, kid. This is family business.”

I head-butted him in the face. His nose shattered. I hit him again, my forehead the only weapon available. Ray let go. He had superhuman strength and speed. I had desperation. I drew my .45 and shoved it into his chest, jerking the trigger as fast as I could. Ray looked at me in shocked disbelief as I tore his heart into silver-laced confetti. He grabbed me by the throat, hoisted me into the air, and then slammed me back down with a roar.

Susan had a handful of Julie’s hair and had jerked her head back, exposing her throat. Julie was fighting, struggling against the iron-hard claws. Her mother’s face distorted as she opened her mouth impossibly wide, razor teeth gleaming.

I shoved myself up, putting my shoulder into Ray, trying to drive him back. He clubbed me in the back with a blow that should have crippled me for life. I went to my knees. The vampire’s mouth descended toward Julie’s neck. Time slowed to a standstill. I could see the terror in her eyes, the pulse in her carotid artery, the unnatural black mark on her skin as Susan’s fangs pierced her flesh.

“NO!” I jerked my kukri from its sheath and slammed it through Ray’s stomach with all my might. He looked at me in shocked disbelief as I lifted him off the ground, blade tearing through half his torso. I hurled him over my shoulder, screaming the entire time.

Susan looked up, hot blood streaming from her mouth. Animal face contorted, she hissed. Julie’s eyes were closed, her pretty face twisted in a grimace of pain. “She’s mine n—” The vampire suddenly jerked, hands flying to her face, releasing Julie. Red steam rose from her open mouth. “What’s happening? Her blood burns!”

Ray was pushing his guts back in as he struggled to rise. “The mark! The Guardian’s curse!”

Susan clamped her claws down over her lips. Acid smoke was pouring from her face. The flesh on her chin and lips was peeling away, leaving nothing but exposed teeth. She tripped back, shrieking.

I leapt forward, trying to protect Julie, blade held high. Julie’s eyes flashed open, and for a moment, they seemed to be pure black, but then she blinked, and they were normal. There was no wound on her neck, nothing. There was nothing on her skin except for the Guardian’s mark. It flickered briefly with its own living movement, then it was still.

“I’m okay,” Julie whispered.

Susan was shaking, in terrible pain. She lowered her hands. The bottom half of her face was nothing but glistening bone. “I can’t . . . can’t turn you . . .” the vampire stuttered, confused. “Why . . . why isn’t it healing?”

Ray cried out. “Susan!”

“I’m not regenerating.” She rubbed her fingers across her exposed jaw. “What have you done to me? I’m hideous!”

I rose from Julie, blade extended. It was time for Susan to die.

“Damn it.” Susan raised one hand, pointing the artifact toward us. It crackled with black energy. I knew it was going to consume us both. “If I can’t have her, nobody can.” The air around the artifact swirled into a vortex.

“No!” Ray shouted. “Don’t kill her!”

Then the artifact dropped harmlessly from Susan’s stunned fingers.

Susan stumbled forward, white oak stake sticking out her back, black blood drizzling out. Sam Haven brutally slammed another stake into her. Heart ruptured, Susan went to her knees, paralyzed. “Leave them alone!” He backed up a step, raised his boot, and kicked the stake right through her.

“SUSAN!” Ray bellowed as he leapt right over Julie and me.

“It’s over, Ray!” Sam yelled as he drew his bowie knife. He jerked Susan’s head back as the blade came down.

Ray slammed into Sam. The two of them crashed and rolled across the dirt. I went after them. Ray was up first, his form twisting, muscles snaking across his vampire frame as bone talons burst from the ends of his fingertips. “Get away from my wife!” Ray struck with supernatural desperation. Struggling to rise, Sam grunted as the bone claws tore right through his armor and sent him sprawling.

The vampire hesitated, looking down at his former friend, then at the blood dripping down his arm. “I’m real sorry, Sam.” Ray bent down, grabbed the stake from Susan’s back and yanked it free.

With a cry, I swung my blade for the base of Ray’s head. The blade struck and a tremor ran up my arm. The steel came to a stop most of the way through his neck. Black fluids came welling slowly out the cut. Ray stood there for a moment, his vampire features gradually softening, returning to a semblance of normalcy. He smiled slightly. “Good shot, kid. . . .”

I cleaved the blade the rest of the way through his throat. Ray’s head fell from his shoulders and bounced away. His body dropped a second later.

“Ray!” Susan cried. “What have you done?” She stood behind me, hole in her chest sealing shut, her lower jaw still nothing but white bone. She took a step forward. “What have you done?”

I spun my knife and got ready for her charge. “My job.”

My father-in-law was dead. Ray’s flesh was softening, turning to ooze, and dripping from his skeleton. I’d finally done him the favor that I should have fulfilled last summer.

Susan hesitated, shaking, looking down at her husband’s body, then her red eyes locked on mine. “Oh, now I’m mad.”

“Dad’s free, Mom,” Julie said as she rocked a magazine into her rifle. There were flashlights approaching from all directions and the shouts of Hunters. Julie pulled back the charging handle and let it fly forward. “You’re done here.”

“Not yet, I’m not.” Susan bent over to pick up the artifact, but Julie’s bullet knocked it flying away from her hand. Susan snarled. “So that’s how it’s going to be?”

Julie took careful aim. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

The bullet passed through nothing. Susan’s bloody clothing fell to the ground as a thick gray mist rolled across the ruined cemetery. Within seconds the mist had mingled with the fog and rolled out of sight.

“Are you all right?” I shouted at Julie.

“I’m fine. Check Sam.”

The burly Hunter was sitting down, pressing his hands against his side. I squatted next to him. “Sam? You okay?”

“Naw. . . .” He moved his hands. Torn sheets of Kevlar parted, and I could see inside his chest cavity. Desperate to protect his wife, Ray’s blow had been so powerful that he’d cleaved right through the armor. Sam coughed violently and blood drenched his giant walrus mustache. “Shit, that hurts.”

“MEDIC!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. Julie spoke into her radio, calling desperately for an orc healer. I wrenched open my first aid pouch and pulled out a pack of bandages. I ripped them from the package and stuck them against him. It was soaked useless almost instantly.

“Gotta lay down,” Sam wheezed. I put my hand on his back and gently lowered him. “We . . . win?”

“Sure did, man.”

Julie knelt at his other side, shining a flashlight at the wound. The vampire’s claws had torn four terrible lacerations deep through him. Blood was pouring out. I was shocked he was still conscious. Julie looked up at me, a terrible knowledge in her eyes. “Hang in there, Sam. Gretchen’s coming.”

Sam’s strong hand grasped mine. “It’s all good, guys.” Other Hunters surrounded us. A group of Feds found Agent Franks and called for a stretcher.

“Not Sam,” Holly cried when she arrived. I glanced around the assembled Hunters. None of us could do a thing. Sam could have taken an injury like this in an emergency room and still not have had a chance. Holly began desperately cutting the rest of Sam’s armor away. There was no way she was going to stop the bleeding in time.

“Figures it would be Ray. He always was a dick.” Sam closed his eyes. His breathing was rapid and shallow. “I taught you kids good, though. Where’s Milo?”

“Right here!” the little man shouted as he sprinted up to us. “Oh, Sam, no . . .” Milo dropped down beside me. “What happened?”

His eyes opened. “No biggie.” Sam coughed. “Listen . . . brother . . . I . . .”

Then he was dead. The great heart simply quit beating. The hand grasping mine was suddenly still . . . just like that.

“Sam?” Milo asked. “Sam?”

We were all quiet. Finally Milo, trembling, reached up and closed Sam Haven’s staring eyes.

Chapter 22

The mortuary became our temporary headquarters while we regrouped and figured out what was going on. Myers had not accompanied his men through the rift from Alabama but was in contact. With Franks incapacitated, Archer was in command. The thin man was pacing back and forth in the mortuary chapel, speaking excitedly into a satellite phone.

“No, sir. I don’t see any way that we can cover this up. Negative. It’s like twenty stories tall.” The agent stalked back to the window. When the sun comes up, the town below us would surely see the giant alien tree. It was a secret agency’s worst nightmare. Archer nodded as Myers gave him instructions. “Yes, sir. I’m on it.” He closed the phone and started yelling orders. “Johnson, contact British MI4. They have an office in Auckland. They’ll have to evacuate the town before dawn. Have them make up something about . . . anthrax or plague or something . . . hell, I don’t know, maybe an outbreak of rabid sheep.”

I was standing in the doorway, waiting. “Auckland? We’re in New Zealand?” That would explain why my watch was saying that it was afternoon in Alabama; it felt like we were getting close to sunrise. That, and it had seemed unseasonably cool.

Archer glared at me. “What? I’m busy.”

“Yeah, Myers sure does make it look easy, doesn’t he? Keeping all those lies straight and all that. The man has a gift,” I said. Archer frowned, waiting. “I was wondering if Franks . . . is he okay?” We had blown up a god together, after all. Now that’s male bonding.

Archer actually smiled. He really wasn’t a bad sort. “Franks will be just fine. It takes more than getting his spine pulled out to kill him. He probably won’t even take sick leave. I’ll tell him you asked.”

“Thanks.” I turned to leave.

“Hey, Pitt . . .” He stopped me, suddenly uncomfortable. “Just so you know, man. I was just doing my job. I didn’t know about Torres. I really was just trying to protect you.”

I nodded once, then left the young Fed to his damage control.

The Feds had taken the comfortable waiting room, leaving MHI the soaking wet and partially burned chapel. Our people had moved in to tend to our injuries and check our gear. The mood was chaotic and somber. Julie was sitting on one of the pews, wrapped in a wool blanket. She looked haggard, with big dark circles under her eyes. She gave me a weak smile when she saw me. I flopped down next to her.

“I just got some good news,” she said. “Nate’s going to be fine. He broke his leg when he fell down that hole and took a good whack on the head, but other than that, Gretchen’s not worried about him.”

“Good thing Shacklefords are so hard-headed,” I responded.

She didn’t laugh. “I haven’t told him about Dad yet.”

“Oh . . . okay.” That was going to be hard. This would be the second time they would have to deal with his death, only this time, it was permanent. “Have the Feds found the artifact yet?”

Julie bit her lip. She seemed deep in thought. “No . . . not that I know of.”

“Well, when they do, they better stash it someplace that nobody will ever find it. That thing’s too dangerous. I hate the idea of them even having it, because eventually somebody is going to use it again. Anything else?”

She shook her head. “Amazingly enough, we’ve got a ton of injuries, multiple gunshot wounds, and one Newbie lost a foot, but we only had the one fatality. The Feds lost two pilots, but the other two lived.”

“How’s Skippy?”

“He’s good. He managed to put the Hind down right side up. Not bad considering the tail rotor was gone. Minor injuries on the orcs running the door guns, but that’s it. Skippy even thinks that we can fix it, provided we can ship it home.”

“We’re in New Zealand,” I pointed out.

She nodded. “We checked GPS as soon as we stepped through the portal. By the way”—she pointed at my armor—“your patch is upside down.” Sure enough, I had stuck it back on wrong after tearing it off Torres. I had been a little preoccupied at the time. “Will you look at that? Upside down, it’s a penguin . . . swimming right at you. Never noticed that before.”

Milo arrived and sat down next to me. He looked even worse than Julie. He and Sam had been friends since Milo had joined MHI as an orphaned teenager. He was holding together right now, but that was only because there was still work to do. “I checked. The magic rope’s toast. Half of it is still stuck under that stupid tree, so I don’t think I can turn it back on. Don’t have the ward stone to juice it up either.”

“How did you do that, anyway?”

Milo shrugged. “Couple of clever people, a killer deadline, and a mutant that happened to be familiar with the inventor’s work. Esmeralda figured out how to turn it back on, and I said, why not splice it into a couple hundred feet of climbing rope and fly some attack helicopters through it . . . Seemed like the reasonable thing to do with a magic teleporter thingy. Then we took volunteers to go through it, and that turned out to be just about everybody who wasn’t already banged up.”

“Well, you guys saved my life. I’ll never forget that.”

“Don’t ever forget Sam.” Milo sniffed and blew his nose into a handkerchief. “Darn, I must be allergic to penguins or something, making me tear up and stuff. Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to see about arranging transport out of here. I’m assuming most of us didn’t bother to bring passports.”

Milo walked away. I corrected my patch. “Does New Zealand have penguins?” I asked.

Julie shrugged.

The British Supernatural Service, commonly known as BSS, working in conjunction with the U.S. Monster Control Bureau of the Department of Homeland Security, was gracious enough to provide lodging and transport for the forty-some-odd members of MHI stuck in Pukerua Bay, New Zealand. Mostly I think they just wanted to get us out of the rapidly disintegrating situation. The small town had not been evacuated quite in time, and many photos and even cell phone video of the massive Arbmunep had been taken and dumped on the internet. People were freaking out. The Feds were scrambling to come up with a plausible cover story.

Not my problem.

Skippy had refused to leave until Archer had agreed to have the Hind crated up and shipped back to Alabama. I didn’t know if Myers would allow his subordinate to keep that promise, but if he didn’t, I figured the orc would probably just hunt him down, and it wouldn’t be pretty. That chopper was Skippy’s baby.

I was riding business class on a transoceanic flight when I got the phone call. My phone was still sitting at the bottom of the Alabama River, so Earl had finally managed to get ahold of Julie. She woke me up with a poke to the ribs and passed the phone over, violating the hell out of the airline policy about using electronic devices in-flight.

“You did it,” Earl said. “As soon as the link with the Dread Overlord was broken, Rocky said he was done and went home.”

“Rocky?”

“You know, Rok’hasna’wrath, devourer of worlds and all that crap. We spent a lot of quality time together, so we’re on a first-name basis now. I think he was surprised to find that I was a little tougher than he initially figured. I didn’t give up anything without a hell of a fight.”

“Any permanent damage?”

Earl was quiet for so long that I thought I had dropped the connection. “Well, I lost a few things . . .” He didn’t specify further. I remembered the terrible fate of Carlos, and was just glad that I had been able to spare one of my friends from that. “Thanks, Owen. Thanks for everything.”

“I’m sorry about Sam.” If I hadn’t freed Susan . . .

“Don’t be. Sic Transit Gloria Mundi. Sam Haven was a hero and one of the best friends I’ve ever had. He died how he lived, brave as hell, saving lives, and getting the job done. That’s exactly how he would have wanted it.”

“See you in a few, Earl.”

The day after our return, I had been summoned to a meeting at one of the miscellaneous federal buildings in Montgomery. I was to come alone. It had not been a request. Apparently the MCB had a few questions they wanted answered about the events of the last few days.

I wore my only suit, which was normally reserved for funerals and weddings. There was still a very good possibility that I was going to be prosecuted for the various things that I had done. There was also the much smaller possibility that they were just going to make me disappear for being a general nuisance. My gut feeling told me that was unlikely though. If the government ever decided to just pop me, I knew that they would just send Franks.

Myers had requisitioned an office near the courthouse during his stay in Montgomery, and the receptionist pointed me in the correct direction when I got off the elevator. There was a single chair outside the office, and it was occupied by a fidgeting Grant Jefferson.

I paused, waiting.

He stood, adjusting his suit, which was much nicer than mine. He looked a little nervous, which was understandable, despite the fact that I’d had to go through a metal detector in the lobby. “I wanted to talk to you before your meeting.”

I waited. I didn’t really have anything I needed to say to him.

But he apparently felt the need to get something off his chest. “When you asked me why I came back, I wasn’t lying when I answered.” I didn’t respond, so he gradually continued. “I did feel like a failure. I hated knowing what was out there, and I felt like a coward for not fighting anymore. I was bitter. I felt like MHI had let me down, not the other way around. When Myers approached me, I saw a way that I could do the right thing. I could protect people, serve my country . . . I saw a way that I could make a real difference.”

A difference? Hiding the truth, killing people who talked too much? All while deluding yourself that you’re a hero? “Why are you telling me this?”

He shook his head. “I . . . I don’t really know. I just thought you should understand.”

“You done?”

He stuck his hand out to shake. I just glanced down at his waiting hand. It would be a cold day in hell before I accepted his pseudo-apology. Finally, awkwardly, he lowered it back to his side. “Never mind then.” He brushed past me and walked quickly down the hallway, footfalls echoing on the granite. I put my hand on the doorknob. Grant paused and glanced back. “One last thing, Pitt.”

I waited.

“Be good to her. She deserves the best.” Then he walked away.

Agent Myers was waiting for me on the other side of a desk. He had a file with my name on it sitting open in front of him. His fingers were steepled together and his elbows were resting on the desk. His cheap suit was wrinkled and I was willing to bet that he hadn’t gotten much sleep over the last few days. “Have a seat.”

I pulled up a chair.

He got right down to business. “The necromancer is dead. His plot to utilize the Arbmunep weapon, defeated. All of our intel indicates that the Condition is collapsing without him. There are a few splinter groups holding together, and one young woman claiming to be his successor—”

“His daughter, Lucinda.”

“Correct. But we will find her before she causes too much trouble, so don’t worry about that. I’m not too worried about a teenager with one hand and a shattered organization. That’s not why I called you in here.” He lifted the top page in my file. “In the last week, you’ve threatened one of my agents with lethal force, failed to cooperate in a federal investigation, lied to investigators, and hindered an ongoing operation. These are all very serious charges.”

“I also killed one of your agents with a grenade launcher,” I pointed out, “which I think I should get bonus points for, and not to mention that Franks and I blew up the Dread Overlord itself.”

“I’m aware of that, and Agent Franks will be reprimanded accordingly. He was not authorized to enter another universe or to attack an unknown entity. The Congressional Subcommittee has ruled it an act of self-defense, however, so Franks will not be terminated.”

Did that mean fired or dismantled? “You know that’s absolute bullshit, right?”

Myers, unfazed, continued. “Even more troubling is that it seems like you’ve been keeping secrets from me. I have evidence here that you have some sort of psychic powers and that somehow you are the only person in recorded history to have survived a zombie bite.”

“That’s impossible,” I said with no inflection.

“Indeed,” Myers said. “Because that would mean that your continued existence could prove to be an important national security issue.” I did not respond. If Myers wanted to just make me go away it was certainly within his power. “But I’m really doubting the accuracy of this report,” he said as he waved the paper.

“Why’s that?”

“Because this same intel indicates that the Condition’s Shadow Lord was really a man named Martin Hood, who died quite some time ago. See, I happened to know Martin Hood, we were actually close friends, and I would hate to see his good name slandered.”

I nodded. “And it would also call into question the judgment of the interim head of the Monster Control Bureau if it turned out that one of his oldest friends was really the leader of an evil death cult.” Myers was concerned about his association with Hood coming back to haunt him . . .

Unless . . .

Could Hood have also approached Myers about working together, like he had with Carlos? It was a definite possibility. They had been best friends. Had Myers known just what kind of craziness Hood had been dabbling in? Had he known about Hood’s father’s book? Had he known, but protected his friend anyway?

I had to know. “Can I see that report?”

Myers extended it to me and I reached out and touched his hand instead. It wasn’t so difficult to use the ability this time. After all, the memory was just sitting there, floated to the top by the pressure of Agent Myers’ buried guilt.

Ray Shackleford was furious. His face was turning a shade of red that was normally reserved for when he was chainsawing a monster in half. He shoved the chubby Hunter against the wall, enraged. “Damn it, Marty! What the hell were you thinking? I told you not to screw around with this stuff anymore!”

Ray was such a brute that Marty’s feet dangled a few inches off the floor and the big man didn’t even notice that he was holding him up. But the smaller Hunter was undaunted. “Don’t you get it? I figured it out! I’ve learned the language of the book. I’ve read the entire Skia Thanatou! I can control the dead. There’s no limit to what we can do now,” Hood gasped, trying to breathe past the meaty hands clamped around his throat. The wall of Shackleford family portraits was at his back. The family estate was packed with Hunters but we had this room to ourselves.

“You were animating zombies, you idiot, and Carlos found out, and in the morning when Earl wakes up human, he’s going to know too.” Ray let go and Marty dropped, gasping. “I got you transferred so you would quit dinking around with the magic shit in the archives. You weren’t supposed to sneak the evilest book down there with you!”

“It was my book to take,” Marty snapped. “It belonged to my father, and his father before him. You didn’t think it was such a bad idea when I used it back here and was making us millions in bounties!”

Ray rubbed his face in his hands as he stomped away. “What are we going to do? Does Carlos know anybody else helped with your research?”

“Of course not,” Marty snapped. “You think I’m stupid? Now lower your voice, or the whole house will know. I’ll handle this. I’ll tell Earl that it was all me. I’ll take the heat. What’s he going to do? Kill me?” Marty snorted.

“Yes,” Ray snapped. “My dad and grandpa are a lot of things, especially old-fashioned, but they’ve got principles. They won’t tolerate a Hunter using dark magic. One of these days, I’ll be in charge, and that’ll change. We all know that this stuff can be harnessed for good, but until then, we were supposed to keep our mouths shut.”

Marty’s fat face opened in a wide grin. “Don’t worry, mate. I’ll handle this. If there’s one thing I can do, it’s keep a secret. Nobody ever has to know who helped me.”

“Damn right,” Ray snarled, poking him in the chest. “We’re done tonight. In the morning, you’ll come clean and beg Earl for forgiveness. You’re going to take your lumps. Earl will probably fire you, but at least he won’t eat you, and it beats all of us going to prison, right, Myers?”

“Agreed,” I said, speaking up for the first time. I hated myself for ever getting involved. It had been stupid, playing with evil for the greater good, and my best friend had taken it too far. We had been fools.

But I did know how to keep a secret.

Only a second had passed. I was getting better at this. I studied Myers’ face for a moment. He still looked like a community-college English professor, not like the interim leader of a top-secret government agency tasked with protecting the United States from all supernatural threats. He was an easy man to underestimate, but now I knew why he was so doggedly determined in his work. Myers was seeking atonement.

“It would probably ruin your career if it also turned out that your best friend was animating zombies and studying the darkest of mysteries while you guys were hanging out. Some of the good congressmen might even get the crazy idea that you were somehow involved,” I said.

Myers smiled nervously. “Yes, no need for the Subcommittee to even worry about such preposterous allegations. I think that it would be for the best if this erroneous report never saw the light of day, wouldn’t you?”

“Martin Hood died in 1986. Werewolf accident,” I said.

“And Owen Zastava Pitt is just an average man, with no magical gifts or anything absurd like that.” Myers nodded. “That seems fair enough.” He neatly stacked all of the papers, put them all back into the folder, and fed the entire thing into an industrial shredder next to the desk. We both waited for it to quit grinding. “Now that‘s behind us, I do sincerely hope that we never have to work together again. In fact, I damn well better never see your name come across my desk, ever again. You should just stick with normal monsters. It seems like every time I get a case that’s almost impossible to cover, it somehow involves you. No more world-altering events, time travel, portals to the Old Ones, or giant super trees. Is that understood?”

“Of course, Agent Myers.” I stood. “I can show myself out.”

We held the funeral services three days later. The dirty but necessary work had been done immediately, so this part was only for the living, not the dead. During the attack on the compound we had lost a team lead, Adam Williams, and three Newbies: Drew Foster, William Tanner, and John Newton. We had lost Sam Roger Haven under the boughs of the Tree, and we were also honoring the sacrifice of Carlos Alhambra.

Everyone had gathered.

There was a small cemetery in the forest outside the compound and the place was packed. The only Hunters who were buried here were the ones who requested to be. Most were cremated and then sent back to their families with some sort of fabricated cover story. It was sad, but it was how we had to operate. There was only one person actually being buried here today, and that was Sam, because his only family had been his fellow Hunters. The casket was closed, as we had already cleanly removed his head. It was something that we all had to do eventually.

We had set up a little podium in front of the hole in the ground. Milo Anderson had been tasked with saying a few words. The little man looked terribly uncomfortable in front of the crowd, glancing nervously about the entire time. He had dressed up in his best purple suit and had carefully braided his beard.

The orc tribe had buried their dead in their own private ceremony, but three solemn representatives had joined us. Skippy, Gretchen, and Edward held back, uncomfortable around so many humans, but feeling the need to acknowledge their connection to us, their adopted tribe. Their people had suffered because of their friendship with us, and I felt like it was my fault.

Yet they didn’t see it that way. The orcs had welcomed me back as the hero who’d avenged their village. Gretchen had been impressed that I’d provided Julie the biggest wedding night offering ever, and she had warned my new bride that she was now obligated to provide me many strong warrior sons. Given how big an Old One was, Gretchen estimated three dozen sons would be sufficient.

Every Hunter that wasn’t currently in the hospital was here, and even a few of those had managed to limp in.

My family had stayed for this. They would be leaving this afternoon. They could have left sooner. The Condition was broken, their members scattered, their leader and their lord dead. But my father had insisted on being here for this. After all, he was a man who understood sacrifice.

I still wouldn’t speak to him about his dream and I refused to take his letter. Yes, I was curious, but I’d be damned if my curiosity was going to kill him. Dad glanced down the line of Hunters directly at me. In his opinion I was being a coward by not reading his letter. That may be the case, but I felt like I actually understood him for the first time. He had been trying to do his best the whole time. Dad’s tough love had enabled me to survive, and as a result I’d found my calling in life and the woman I loved. My father had done his duty. I would do the same, and that meant keeping him around as long as possible.

My brother had also stuck around and was standing next to Mom. His career was ruined. His left hand was still wrapped in a massive bandage. Cody had saved the fingers and after Mosh’s return they had been surgically reattached. The best he could hope for was a tiny fraction of the strength and dexterity he had once had. His days of being the best guitarist in the world were over. The Feds had publicly smeared him as the person responsible for the Buzzard Island incident. The official story now was a load of nonsense about special effects gone astray while under the haze of illegal drugs that had left a lot of people dead. It was utter crap, but somebody had to be blamed, and the flood of lawsuits was going to leave him bankrupt. He could maybe hope to someday play again, but Mosh was like me, and if you couldn’t be the best at something, why do it at all?

Yet another life ruined because of me . . .

But Pitts are flexible, he hid his bitterness behind an impassive mask, and besides, Mosh had seen the real world. He had approached me just this morning, curious about what it took to become a Hunter. He also said that if he joined, and that was a big if, he had dibs on Team Rock Star once he inevitably became the greatest Hunter alive. I had been glad to put in my recommendation to hire him.

The Feds had felt the need to send representation for some reason. Maybe Myers understood that this whole thing was his fault, or maybe he just wanted to tweak us because he was such a petty man. Two agents had been sent to represent, and judging by who had been sent, I was assuming it was out of pettiness. Grant Jefferson looked painfully awkward in his expensive Italian suit. Grant actually would have made a good Pitt. If he couldn’t be the best, why bother? I had no doubt that he would be a very effective Fed, since being a lying, self-righteous bastard came naturally to him. He shifted nervously, as Hunters cast the occasional cold glance at him. But at the same time, he and Sam had been teammates. Maybe Grant hadn’t been ordered to come. Maybe he had volunteered. I would never know.

Agent Franks was the other government representative. He was chewing gum. I was sure that he would much rather be somewhere else, killing something. I did not understand what made Franks tick. He had kept his word, though, and fulfilled his mission.

The other Hunters listened to Milo patiently. He wasn’t the most eloquent of speakers, but he spoke for all of us. Grandpa Shackleford sat between his father, Raymond Shackleford the Second, whom we all knew as Earl Harbinger, and his grandson, Nate, who had a large cast on his leg. The Shacklefords had another person to mourn. One of their own turned to the other side had finally been set free. Raymond Shackleford the Third, or Boss as I called him, had cornered me the day I had gotten back. His only words had been, “Thank you for killing my son,” and he had been sincere. It had made me cry.

Julie came from solid stock. The wall of family portraits had confirmed my suspicions, but even if I hadn’t been able to recognize the very first Raymond Shackleford from his painting, seeing the generations of Shackleford Hunters here today would have clued me in. They all carried themselves with that same solid determination. The ghost who had sent me back had been Raymond “Bubba” Shackleford himself. The founder of MHI was still keeping an eye on things.

Holly was torn up, taking Sam’s death hard. Trip put his arm around her and pulled her close, trying in vain to comfort her. The others looked away. They had been there for me. The threat had been against me specifically, but Hunters stood together. I was the least of them, but I knew that every single one of them would lay down their lives for me, and I would do the same for them. I loved them like family. Hell, they were family.

I was in the front row, uncomfortable in a black suit and tie. The day was beautiful. The sky was clear. The spring air was clean. Birds were singing.

Julie was at my side, wearing a black dress. She hadn’t spoken much since we had gotten home, and I knew that she was still in shock about the final death of her father. She had a lot on her mind. The marks on her neck and abdomen had not changed since that night, but they were an indication that something was happening. While Milo told stories, I reached out and took my wife’s hand. She gave me a nervous smile. Whatever was coming, we would face it together.

When Milo was done, he stepped away from the podium. Earl Harbinger stood, and without a word, placed two patches on top of the casket, a happy face with horns and a walrus with a banjo. The few of us who had been asked, helped lower the casket into the earth.

A baby began to cry. Milo moved to his wife, who was gently bouncing the squalling infant. Shawna Anderson had given birth the day after Milo had gotten back from New Zealand. It was a healthy baby girl.

They named her Samantha.

Epilogue

The powerful demon crouched, unobserved, in the top branches of a distant tree, silently observing the Hunter’s funeral below. It remained perfectly still, claws sunk deep into the bark to provide a stable platform as the breeze caused the branches to sway. The creature’s third eye, etched deep into the plate of its skull, was able to clearly record the event for its distant master.

The mewling of the human infant caused the demon’s belly to rumble with hunger, but meat would have to wait. Today it would watch. Tomorrow it would kill.

The four have gathered, the master projected his thoughts directly into the creature’s mind. Can you feel them?

The demon scanned the crowd. It was said that four of these fleshlings had been to the Old Ones’ dimension and returned alive. That alone was remarkable, but three of them had actually destroyed an Overlord. That was impressive, even by the demon prince’s immortal standards.

The first was easy to pick out. It was one of the fallen, cloaked in a suit of flesh, animated by the Elixir of Life. Unlike most of its kind, this one pretended to be a man, living as a human. But even then, the demon could see the aura of violence this particular fallen wore like a cloak. It could play at being a human, but it would never succeed.

They call him Agent Franks now, the master confirmed. He went to the other side out of a sense of duty.

That made no sense to the demon. The fallen had no duty, no allegiance. They were damned for eternity, regardless. They had nothing to lose, no stake in this war.

And that’s why he is dangerous.

The second was the werewolf.

Harbinger entered the Old Ones’ world to save his grandson several years ago. The grandson was chosen to be the champion of man, but he was weak, manipulated by the necromancer, Hood. He fell to the vampire and has been replaced.

The demon could tell this was no normal lycanthrope. He was ancient by mortal standards and no stranger to battle, having hunted down nearly every type of beast. Killing that one would be an honor.

Many ghosts shared this forest. They too were watching. The demon was royalty amongst its kind, but the Hunters’ unquiet dead left it nervous. These spirits had picked their side in the upcoming war. Many of the dead would not ally with his master this time. A particularly angry ghost was circling the tree, trying to pick a fight. It ignored the spirit and concentrated on the master’s task.

It took longer for the demon to spot the next of the four. It was a young woman sitting in the front row. A Guardian? It couldn’t be, but as the third eye refocused, it could see the black marks of the Others beneath her clothes.

Yes, the master said. She crossed over to bring back her lover. She is a brave one.

The demon prince scoffed. The last Guardian had been an unstoppable warrior, finally killed only through treachery. This little girl would be easy prey.

Do not underestimate her, child. Even now she has hidden the sacred artifact. The Others do not choose a new Guardian lightly.

The last was the hardest to find. All of the Hunters at the funeral were dangerous, special in their own way, fearsome, honorable, creative, ruthless, or courageous. It recognized a few of them from prior battles, but none were the champion.

There.

The demon fixated on the young man holding the new Guardian’s hand. He was a warrior, that much was certain, but the demon prince could not understand what was special, why this one had been chosen above all the others.

He is the only one who did not cross over willingly, but even forcing him to do that ended the wretched Overlord. Before that the Old Ones could not tempt, coerce, nor trick him to do their will. When he destroyed the vampire Raymond Shackleford, the prior champion of man, he unwittingly took that mantle upon himself.

It took a great deal of effort, but the demon began to really see. This human had been picked for a reason. It was in his blood. For generations the factions had steered events to this place, this intersection in time, for the great unsealing.

This is the one who woke me. He who has broken time. He must be the champion. I will use him, then I will destroy him.

Sudden forces shook the tree. Energy struck the demon in the chest. Claws tore through bark as it was knocked from its perch in the tree. Spreading leathery wings, it glided to the ground silently. Landing, hunched, it tucked its wings in tight and waited. The living Hunters had not heard the commotion.

A flickering ghost appeared before the demon, dressed in the leather armor of a turn-of-the-century Hunter. The spirit was ready to battle. “Y’all ain’t welcome here. This is a private ceremony,” he ordered.

The demon prince recognized the dead man. They had fought long ago. It spoke for the first time as it drew itself up to its full height, towering over the ghost. “I know you. I helped kill you.”

The dead man gave a slow nod. “I reckon you did, but don’t you worry your pointy little head on it. My folks will even up that score eventually.” He pointed to the northwest, the direction the demon had come from. “So get off my land.”

It weighed the options. There was not much that a lone spirit could do to harm it. Yet, the nearby Hunters with their physical bodies and silver weapons could prove troublesome. More ghosts had appeared and the prince realized it was badly outnumbered.

It is not time, child, the master warned. The end of the world is near, but it is not yet upon us. Leave the Hunters to bury their dead for now. There is still much to prepare.

Frustrated, the demon dipped its curled horns in acknowledgement to the gathering army of spirits, turned and stomped away, leaving nothing but a trail of cloven prints in the red soil. Along the trail, it passed the shimmering ghost of a bent old man, leaning upon a wooden cane. The dead Hunter was studying the intricate symbol branded on the demon’s chest.

“Seen that sign before,” the ghost said with a thick accent. “Drawn in the dirt by father of my friend, just the other day.” He pushed the glasses back up his nose, hawked, and made a big show of spitting on the ground at the demon’s hooves.

“We are not done here,” the demon hissed.

“No. We’re just getting started,” the old man replied with a smile.

Monster

Hunter

Alpha

Prologue

The night that Deputy Joe Buckley got disemboweled by a werewolf had started normally enough.

The patrol car’s radio chirped just after one in the morning. It was dispatch, reporting a 911 call. Buckley laughed when he heard the description. Something was scaring Nancy Randall’s horses. It sounded like a complete waste of his time, but since Nancy held a seat on the county council, she became the priority call of the evening. Buckley, being the nearest available deputy, took the call.

The Randall farm was up 26, way out on Cliff Road. Since it was raining and the roads were slick, it took nearly twenty minutes for him to get there from Copper Lake. When he arrived, the farm was dark and quiet, shrouded in the miserable freezing drizzle. Buckley left the warm comfort of his Crown Vic and hurried for cover of the front porch.

Nancy answered the door with a shotgun. She stuck her head outside and glanced quickly in both directions. “About damn time you got here, Joe.”

What did she expect? Copper County only had a handful of deputies and she lived on the tail end of nowhere. There was nothing out this way except for a few abandoned mines, scattered farms, and a whole lot of trees. “Easy, Nancy,” Buckley chided. Though she had a reputation for being levelheaded, Nancy was pale and shaking right then. “Just put the gun away and calm down.”

“You calm down! Did you hear anything on your way in?”

“Like what?”

“Growling,” she answered, watching over his shoulder.

“Growling? What kind of growling?”

“The scary kind . . . And screaming. Lots of screaming.” Buckley laughed nervously, but Nancy was dead serious. “At first there was some crashing and banging, then they started screaming. I thought somebody was hurt behind the barn, crying for help, but when I went to look I heard . . . something else . . . Hell, I don’t know what it was. So I herded the kids to the back room and called 911.”

“Probably nothing out of the ordinary.” Buckley sighed. Some regular old animal probably got caught in something, got scared, maybe hurt, and made a racket. It could sound spooky enough. Calls like this weren’t too unusual, though he expected better from a longtime local. “I’ll check it out.”

“Just be careful.”

Buckley bid Nancy a good night and went to work, expecting to find evidence of either a raccoon or petty vandalism. Surprisingly, he discovered that the horses in the barn were freaked out about something, snorting and kicking at their gates. Their genuine fear was a surprise and made Buckley think that maybe Nancy wasn’t completely wrong to be concerned.

He did a sweep of the property. It was too dark and wet to spot any tracks, and none of the equipment looked like it had been disturbed. After wandering fruitlessly around the barn in the dark with only his flashlight for illumination, poking around, tripping over things, and getting generally soaked and frozen in the rain, Buckley decided to call it a night. Whatever had been out there was gone now. He returned to his Crown Vic to call in, thankful that it had a good heater and a thermos of hot coffee.

There hadn’t been any snow yet this year, but this was northern Michigan, which meant that when it came it was sure to be extra nasty. Moisture fogged the windows solid within seconds. Turning on the defroster and jamming his hands deep into his pockets, he decided to wait until his teeth quit chattering before calling dispatch.

The Crown Vic suddenly lurched on its shocks. He looked up, but with the windows fogged, he was blind to the outside world. Puzzled, his initial suspicion was that someone was screwing with him, but then there was a thud as something big struck the hood.

Screeeeeeech.

The sound sent an involuntary shiver running down his spine. Something had just scratched the hell out of his paint. He reached for the door handle. “Son of a—”

The windshield ruptured, pelting him with safety glass. Black limbs shot through the hole. Buckley yelped in surprise as black fur engulfed his face. Stunned, he tried to jerk the door open but was torn away and pulled against the steering wheel. His hands were swatted aside as long claws flailed, tearing him open. Blood struck the dash as nails sliced through his scalp. Paws clamped down on both sides of his head, and squeezed until his skull cracked.

He was dragged thrashing through the glass, down the hood, and hurled into the cold mud. The claws released, and Buckley shoved desperately against the mass of heat and hair, splashing and rolling in the muck. He ended up on his back. The thing towered above him in the headlights, and Buckley knew that he was going to die. Terrified, he struggled to get his gun from its retention holster as blood poured down his throat.

The animal seemed to smile six inches of razors as the Beretta came out in slow motion. The pistol disappeared into the night as a claw laid Buckley’s arm open from elbow to palm. Then the animal was on him, and Buckley watched in shocked disbelief as it drove its long snout under the bottom edge of his Kevlar vest and bit deep into his abdomen. Fire lanced through him as the animal wrenched its head back and forth.

“That’s enough.”

The animal tore its bloody head free, something red dangling from its teeth. In shock, Buckley stretched out both pieces of his hand, as if to ask for that bit of himself back, but the creature was already retreating out of the headlights. He tried to speak, but all he could do was cough on the blood in his mouth. He felt as cold as the puddle he was squished into.

A figure walked into the light. He was saved! Somebody had chased off the animal. The man would call for help. He just needed to hang in there.

But this man didn’t seem upset. He didn’t call for help. He didn’t tell Buckley to stay calm. Instead he just squatted next to him in the mud. His features were obscured by the shadow of a wide-brimmed hat, but somehow his eyes were visible, glowing like molten gold. The stranger studied the giant hole in Buckley’s stomach and frowned. He made a tsk-tsk noise, and behind him the animal let out a mournful howl.

Buckley had lost too much blood to be afraid. He was just very cold. The man plucked the gold name tag from his shredded uniform shirt and studied it. “My apologies, Deputy Buckley,” the stranger said. He tossed the nametag into the puddle with a little plop. “I doubt you’re going to make it. The pack could’ve used you. Maybe I’ll be wrong, but that doesn’t happen too often. For now I leave you to the vulkodlak.”

The stranger rose, adjusted his overcoat, and walked from Deputy Buckley’s darkening vision.

PART 1

The

Monster

Chapter 1

I’ve been shot one hundred and fifty-three times. Stabbed, cut, or bit so many times I’ve lost count. I’ve been blown up, electrocuted, frozen, buried alive, set on fire, and was once hit by a train. I’ve fought in both world wars and a few others. I’ve killed men on all but two continents. I’ve killed monsters on them all. Other dimensions? Twice.

I guess you can say I get around.

Husband, father, grandfather, and now great-grandfather, I’ve seen whole generations come and go. I’ve loved, protected, and watched over my family, the Shacklefords, for decades. With a couple of notable exceptions, most of them have turned out pretty good. Which is important, because in the grand scheme of things, the Shacklefords are a very special bunch. This particular journal is not about them.

I run Monster Hunter International, the best outfit in the business. You work for MHI for very long, and you’ll see some things. I’ve run into some of the weirdest beings in God’s creation and killed a whole mess of them. You wouldn’t believe the shit we’ve fought. There are a lot of innocent folks alive right now only because one of my Hunters stepped up and did what had to be done. The bravest men there have ever been look at me to be their leader, and that’s a humbling thing. But this journal ain’t about them, either.

I’ve already written those things down. Now I need to focus on the hard part. This is the third journal I’ve attempted to write. If you are reading these words, then I can only assume that you know the truth about me. This book is about things I’d rather not share, things I’d rather have forgotten. But no one lives forever. I’m hoping that some of the things I’ve learned might help after I’m gone. A wise man once told me that we’re no smarter than the Hunters that came before us. The only reason we’ve got a clue is because those guys bothered to write stuff down. So here goes.

I’m a werewolf.

You’ve got no idea how remarkably hard that was to write. I stare at those words and want to tear the page out and burn the evidence. We tend to be a secretive bunch.

See, I bear a curse. You learn to deal with it, or it deals with you. Crying about it won’t change a thing. Embracing it will destroy you. I have stared into the face of evil, and I’ve been the face of evil. I’ve done some bad things in my life. Good thing I’ve lived a long time because I’m still trying to even that score. Some folks would call it penance. I call it my job.

I am a Hunter. I am a Monster. I was born Raymond Earl Shackleford Jr., son of the greatest Hunter who ever lived, in the year 1900. I’ve held many names since.

Today they call me Harbinger.

*   *   *

“Well, ain’t you Mr. Melodramatic?” Earl Harbinger muttered to himself after rereading the first page of the journal. Frankly, it was surprising that he’d managed to fill so many pages in it already, and reading through them had given him something to keep occupied while waiting for the meeting. The leather-bound book went back into an internal pocket of his battered bomber jacket and a pack of Marlboros came out. Shaking one loose, he put it to his lips while pondering on the book.

Writing his personal history had been Julie’s idea. Originally he’d been resistant to the idea of chronicling his life, but the fight with the demon Rok’hasna’wrath had cost him dearly. Earl pulled out his Zippo and lit the cigarette. The lighter was a perfect example of the damage the minor Old One had inflicted on Earl’s mind. The Zippo had been engraved with the MHI logo, and he knew it had been a birthday present, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember when he’d gotten it or who it was that had given him the gift. It was one of hundreds of little things he had lost. Random memories had been ripped from his mind and swallowed whole or torn into indecipherable shreds and scattered. Rocky, devourer of souls and reaper of worlds, had been a real asshole that way.

There were gaps, blank spots, fuzzy bits where the original events were lost but he could recall telling the stories to others, like a weird secondhand report. He didn’t even know the entirety of what was missing. The journals had been started as tools to find out just what had been taken away. He’d written one chronicling the Shackleford family history and another about Monster Hunter International. The realization of the sheer number of events he could not recall had been a slap in the face.

Thinking about it left Earl bitter. It was too bad that Z had driven Abomination’s bayonet through Hood’s black heart. Martin Hood had gotten off far too easily for Earl’s tastes. Rocky had robbed him, but that creature had only been summoned to perform the job. It had been at Hood’s bidding, whereas his old friend had wanted to make it personal.

Ironically, the thing that had brought him here was also about personal business. Once again, the past had come back to haunt him, but when you’re over a hundred years old, you build up an awful lot of past.

The bar was kept purposefully dim. It hid the grime, and once the crowds came in the evening, would help mask the unattractive. There was an old-fashioned jukebox playing country music. He had picked a table in the back. It was still early in the day, so the only other inhabitants were the solitary types with nothing better to do than down a couple of beers before lunch. Earl took a slow drink of his. It was just the kind of out-of-the-way dive that somebody like Conover would pick for a clandestine meeting.

It had been decades since they’d last spoken, but Earl had not hesitated to drop everything when he’d gotten the message. Making up some excuses, he’d told the rest of his team that he was taking some vacation time—which had shocked everyone—promised he’d be back before the full moon, loaded some gear in his truck, and driven the six-hundred-some-odd miles to rural Illinois.

Earl didn’t like lying to his people. Hunters lived or died based on trusting their team, but this wasn’t MHI business. And if it was what he feared, then he definitely didn’t want to involve them.

He studied the other patrons, normal working stiffs, just regular Joes. A tired bartender was watching the TV on the wall and eating stale pretzels. There was one almost-but-not-quite-pretty waitress wiping tables. His heightened sense of smell confirmed that everyone here worked for a living. They stunk of chemical fertilizers, truck cabs, engine grease, and French fries. Earl could usually tell what someone did for a living long before they opened their mouths. If any of them were undercover Feds here to snoop on his business, they were extremely good at it. Considering the kind of work that he’d once performed for Conover, he’d fully expected the place to be bugged and surveiled by all sorts of government types. Instead, the most interesting scent was the fry cook, and that was only because Earl was hungry.

The captain’s message had been short. He hadn’t elaborated on what business they needed to discuss, but it sure as hell wasn’t to reminisce about the old days. There could only be one reason. The Russian was back. Earl took a long drag from his cigarette as he stared off into space. The single baddest son of a bitch Earl had ever had the sad displeasure of squaring off against. Sure, he’d won last time, but a lot of people had died in the process. Good people. Sadly, Rocky had left most of those memories, the spiteful demon prick.

The Russian had dropped off the grid years ago. Earl had hoped that he’d had the decency to just die, but had known that was wishful thinking. There was only one reason he could think of that would bring Nikolai Petrov to America, and Earl had known the time would come eventually. Driving all night had given him time to think about what it meant, and it had made him glad that he was doing this on his own. His Hunters had faced some terrifying things, but Nikolai wasn’t just another monster.

This time was going to be different. He wasn’t going to play Nikolai’s games. Things had changed since Vietnam. No contest, no bullshit, no hide-and-seek. This was going to be a straight-up, old-fashioned execution.

Thoughts of revenge were interrupted as a sudden rectangle of daylight appeared at the front of the room. A tall, stately gentleman with silver hair entered. He was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, but somehow he even made that look a little too professional. Kirk Conover had arrived. The man stepped into the room, subtly breaking the bar into quadrants and scanning each one for threats like the trained operative that he was. Conover’s head dipped briefly in acknowledgment as he glanced at Earl’s table. Satisfied there were no obvious watchers, the former liaison officer of Special Task Force Unicorn started over.

Earl was distracted by a female voice. “You can’t smoke in here.”

He looked up to see the almost-pretty waitress standing over him, hands on her hips, disapproving. He let the cigarette dangle from the edge of his lip. It was only half done. “We’re in a bar. . . .”

“No smoking,” she said sternly.

“Seriously?” The frown said she was serious. He didn’t think he could use the excuse that he had a medical condition, either. Saying that the nicotine helped keep him from massacring everyone in the room in a fit of bestial rage, though partially true, probably wouldn’t help his case. “Please?”

She shook her head. “It’s a state law. Sorry. We could get fined.”

“That’s a stupid law,” Earl muttered. Everywhere he went now there were laws stacked on top of other laws until there was a mountain of laws ready to collapse in a giant avalanche of meddling. “Fine.” He flicked his tongue, put the lit cigarette in his mouth, swallowed hard, and ate it. It burned going down. “Happy?”

“Gross,” the waitress said as she quickly retreated.

“Hey, get me a drink too, honey. Whatever that cranky bastard is having,” Conover called after the waitress. He stopped in front of Earl’s table. Conover had aged, as was to be expected, since they hadn’t spoken since Vietnam. The fighter-pilot-turned-spook had always been tall, several inches over Earl’s average height, and in good shape. Now he was approaching old age and didn’t seem quite so tall anymore, but still very fit for a senior citizen. Kirk had aged, but he’d aged well. “Well, you’ve still got a way with the ladies, I see.”

“You were the lady’s man, not me.” Earl gestured with his bottle of Sam Adams. “Have a seat, Cap.”

“I retired as a colonel,” Conover replied as he pulled up a chair. “And that was a while ago. But damn, Earl . . . You look nearly the same. . . . Well, you did get a shave and a haircut.”

“A couple since then, I suppose.”

“Good thing, too. You looked like a filthy hippie.”

Earl shrugged. “You kept us awful busy to worry about the state of our grooming.”

“Things were crazy there at the end.” Conover gave a little chuckle.

He hadn’t meant it to be funny. Earl and the other special members of the task force had been one step above slave labor, and this particular air force officer had been their overseer. Earl studied his old boss. Conover watched him back, and the two sat in uncomfortable silence for some time. People always told Earl that he had an unnerving way of looking at people, but Conover had been one of the few that had always been tough enough to look him in the eye. At least that hadn’t changed.

The waitress came back and left another bottle on the table. To be fair, Conover had been as decent a sort as could be expected, given the circumstances, and had actually looked out for the monsters, mutants, and misfits under his control. The Perpetual Unearthly Forces Fund was as blind as lady justice and far less merciful. If your kind were on the list, you were fair game. An individual had to earn the right to be PUFF exempt, so the government always had some special volunteers. After fulfilling the terms of the government’s agreement, Conover had kept his word and made sure that Earl’s name had been put back on the exemption list.

His former boss may have gotten old, but he hadn’t gotten soft. Conover stared back at him, unblinking. There was no guilt there. This was a man given hard orders who’d done his duty, that was all, and that was something Earl could respect. They hadn’t spoken since the last evacuation, and he was curious about the other survivors. “Have you seen Sharon Mangum?” Earl asked finally.

Conover smiled, still with that lopsided way that the Saigon bar girls had found so charming. “We got married not too long after your tour was over.”

“I’m shocked,” Earl said, perfectly deadpan. The two of them had a thing there going toward the end. The fraternization rules sort of went out the window in an oddball outfit like theirs. “I figured that might happen. Extremely late congratulations are in order.”

“Best thing that ever happened to me. The agency bounced us all over the place afterward. She hated that part, as you can imagine. But we settled down finally when I got stationed in DC. Moved out here when I retired.”

“Family?”

“We’ve got a son and three daughters.”

“Human?” Earl asked.

“Mostly.”

“Good to hear, Cap.” With Sharon’s condition, it could have gone either way. “She was a fine girl. Saved my bacon a few times.”

Then Conover let out a long sigh. “She died last year,” he said. “Car accident.”

It had to have been a bad accident to kill a half-siren. “I’m sorry. I know how you feel.” So much for trying to be cordial. “I’m guessing you didn’t send me that mysterious letter just so we could shoot the bull over some beers?”

“It did get your attention, didn’t it?” Kirk gave a sad little laugh before taking a long drink. “Old times . . . We were never really buddies, were we, Earl?”

Conover had been a decent man to work for, considering the circumstances, but Earl had still been there against his will. He didn’t mind war. In fact, he was rather good at it and would have gone if he’d been asked rather than threatened. “I like to think of us as business associates with a relationship based on mutual respect. Well, and the fact that I’d have gotten executed if I disobeyed your orders.”

“Smart-ass. You know, when you got assigned to me, your file said you had authority problems and I’d probably have to terminate you.”

“Aw, they were still just sore because of that time I punched out Jimmy Carter.” Sure, he’d only been governor then, and that little stunt had cost MHI some business, but he had deserved it.

“You always were the lone wolf, weren’t you?” Kirk asked rhetorically. “Well, back to business. I’ve still got people who owe me. When certain things pop up, I hear.”

Men like Conover tended to accumulate a lot of favors. “Nikolai’s back, ain’t he?”

“Afraid so. Last we’d heard he’d gone freelance. Mercenary werewolf for hire. Worked for various bad people eating other bad people, and then all of a sudden, nothing. He just disappears. Until this week. Any idea what would bring him out of the woodwork after all these years?”

Earl shrugged. “Nikolai’s a badass Russian. Badass Russians only have three emotions: revenge, depression, and vodka. Where is he?”

“It isn’t that easy, Earl. First I’ve got a question about what happens when you find him.”

“You know exactly what’ll happen when I find him.”

Conover nodded. “Yeah, stupid. I contacted you, remember? You’re about the most determined killer I’ve ever met. Once I set you on Nikolai’s trail, that bastard’s good as dead. I’d swear you’re not part wolf. You’re part bloodhound. Not the what, Earl. I want to know the why. I’m retired. This isn’t going in a report. You can level with me.”

Earl paused. How was he supposed to answer that? Nikolai was dangerous. He was everything bad about werewolves rolled up into one exceedingly ruthless and intelligent package. He was the big bad wolf. He was evil, but there were plenty of evil people in the world, and he didn’t go around hunting them all down. “Revenge is as good a reason as any, I suppose.”

“You can do better than that.” Kirk leaned back in his chair and studied him. “That was war. We did what we had to do.”

Since Kirk understood monsters better than most people ever could—hell, he’d married somebody that technically was one—Earl figured he might as well level with his old commander. “There’s something else . . . There are certain rules, ways of doing things. It’s been the same since the beginning. There’s always one who’s the strongest. He sets the rules.”

“They form packs once in a while, that’s about it. You trying to tell me that there’s some werewolf society with rules? Werewolf law? I must’ve missed that briefing.”

“Not in the way you’re thinking of it,” Earl answered. “Maybe rules ain’t the right word, but it’ll do. New werewolves break them because they don’t know better. Most folks, when they turn, they go right to doing whatever urge strikes. For the ones that live, though, after a while, they’ll sense what the rules are, and they either obey them, or somebody like me comes along and takes them out.”

Kirk studied him for a moment. “Somebody like you, meaning a Hunter, or an Alpha werewolf?”

Earl nodded at the terminology. As usual, Kirk knew more than he revealed. “Same difference.” Even though it wasn’t. “Some old werewolves break the rules, but most know better than to piss off the strongest. When he finds out, then there’s hell to pay.”

“What’re the current rules?”

“There’s only a couple. But basically, leave humans alone. They live by the rules, and regular people never even know we exist.”

From the look on his face, it was obvious that Kirk’s suspicions had just been confirmed. “I thought so. You know, I’ve learned a few things about werewolves since we last worked together. Most of them don’t care. They do whatever they want, regardless of what some old guy says.”

“I didn’t say it worked well, but you don’t want the world’s werewolves instinctively following the example of a real aggressive leader. The way it is now is better.”

“What happens if there’s a new boss?”

“They’ll all sense it. The rules will change . . . and you don’t want somebody like Nikolai setting the rules. He doesn’t see us as people who are different. In his mind, we’re superior and humans are prey. The curse will spread. Packs will grow. You do the math.”

Kirk nodded thoughtfully. “I figured it was some sort of monster psychology like that.”

“So why does the Russian have to die?” Earl leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. His minotaur-hide coat creaked. “Because I’m the king of werewolves, and I said so.”

Apparently, that had been the answer Kirk was looking for. “Nikolai is in America.”

“Figured that was the case. Where?”

“North of here. Middle of nowhere, Michigan. He was spotted arriving in the US last week. Intel says he was heading for a town called Copper Lake. Heard of it?”

“Can’t say I have. How do you know all this?”

“I’m retired. Not dead. I’ve still got friends in the business who like to keep me informed.” The nebulous answer indicated that he was not ready to give up all his secrets.

“Are the MCB planning to take him out?”

“The Monster Control Bureau doesn’t even know he exists. When the task force was shut down, we passed most of our files on, but not everything. Back then the MCB were just glorified cops and damage control. Our op was national security on a need-to-know basis. They didn’t need to know.”

“Good. They’d just complicate matters.” The last thing Earl needed was Myers’s goons getting in the way. “So, I answered your question, Kirk. Now you answer mine. Why’d you bring me in on this?”

Conover’s beer was half empty. He swirled the remainder around and stared at it. “You and me, we’re the last surviving members of the task force.”

“Turns out the Destroyer is still alive,” Earl pointed out.

“Really? Pitt the crazy Green Beret? Huh . . . Didn’t know that. He must have gone on to something so classified that even my department didn’t get a whiff of it. Well, Nikolai was our problem, and I don’t like leaving problems unsolved. I’m too damn old now. I can’t take him. Hell, I couldn’t back in my prime. You, on the other hand, can. Sure, I could call the MCB. They’d go crazy if they knew Stalin’s pet werewolf was roaming around their turf, but I’d like this to stay in the family.”

Earl could tell there was more. “And?”

Conover studied the tabletop, mulling over his answer. “Sharon used to have bad nightmares, all the time, our entire marriage. And it was always the same thing. Golden eyes and white fangs . . . The Russian would come for her, and he’d take our kids, too, just out of spite. She never had closure. He killed most of the task force. She always felt that he’d come back to finish the job.”

Nightmares. Earl didn’t have nightmares. He gave them.

“That son of a bitch stole years of Sharon’s life, and I couldn’t protect her. Now that I know he’s alive, I need you to destroy him, Earl, absolutely destroy him. I want him to feel how she felt. I’ve seen what you can do. Do it for the task force. Do it for her. And when you’re finished . . . Then I can go to Sharon’s grave and tell her it’s finally over.”

Earl raised his bottle. “For the ones that didn’t make it.”

They clinked their beers together. “To lost friends and a shitload of dead communists.”

Earl Harbinger could drink to that.

Chapter 2

The morning after the first night I changed I woke up naked in a pool of blood. None of it was mine. I was in a farm house, a little pueblo on the river. The flimsy door had been ripped off the hinges and was lying in the yard surrounded by pecking chickens. The farmer’s family was spread from one end of the place to the other, splattered on the walls, dripping from the ceiling, and turning the dirt floor into mud. I could still taste them in my mouth. Bits of them were stuck in my teeth.

It’s a hard thing to explain. The memories while I’m changed are different. They’re difficult to put into people words. It was like waking up from a dream, one that I could only partly remember, but I knew exactly what I had done to them. MHI hadn’t known much about werewolves back then. It was all a mess of myth and old wives’ tales, but now I understood how the curse was transferred. A simple bite one month before. That was all it took to end my life.

I found the farmer’s old Navy Colt tossed halfway to the well. Though I could still feel where a slug had punched through my ribs under the caked-on blood, there was no wound now. The hazy memories told me that the bullet had just driven me into a frenzy. The Colt hadn’t done the farmer a lick of good, but under that bright morning sun, I prayed to God that it would work for me now. I destroyed monsters. I would not become one. I put the muzzle under my jaw and angled it to take the back of my head off.

The others would surely find this place soon enough. They’d probably already seen the gathering vultures. Hunters would learn from what happened to me and not make the same mistakes. That was the last thought I had before I dropped the hammer.

I came to later with a splitting headache. Like I said, back in those days we hadn’t known much about werewolves.

*   *   *

Heather Kerkonen didn’t have to work the night shift. She had enough seniority to claim days, but had always been a night person by nature. Working nights ruined any chance she had for having a social life, but excepting the occasional accident, bar fight, or somebody doing something stupid, nights were usually quieter, almost peaceful.

Last night had been an exception. It had been one call after another. The state police had found some drifter wandering around a campground, screaming about the end of the world, and had put him in the closest lockup, which happened to be Copper Lake, where the nut had promptly bit a chunk out of the jailer’s hand when they’d tried to restrain him. Heather had just come on duty and took care of the problem with a liberal dose of pepper spray and an ASP baton. After that she’d gotten a call about two hikers who hadn’t made it back to their camp yet, but that turned out to be Baraga County search and rescue’s problem. Then she’d had to check out a missing-person call because Mr. Loira had never gotten home from work—probably passed out drunk again somewhere—but all that had been interrupted when she’d heard that Joe Buckley had been mauled by a bear.

Sure, they had bears in northern Michigan—wolves, too—but nobody could remember the last time one had actually attacked someone. Heather had been incredulous when she’d heard the panicked call over the radio. It had to be a mistake. She’d driven like a madwoman to get out to Cliff Road, but by the time she’d arrived they’d already loaded Buckley into the ambulance. The early prognosis was grim, and when she saw the deep red of the puddle they’d lifted him out of, she knew that her friend was surely going to die.

Nancy Randall had found him. The poor lady was in shock. She’d been telling the other deputies about how she’d heard howling, but that was absurd. No wolf could do something like that. There were claw marks that actually pierced the metal of the patrol car’s hood.

She and the other deputies had been joined within half an hour by two representatives from the Department of Natural Resources and some volunteers with a few good hunting dogs, but they’d found no sign of the bear. The dogs wouldn’t cooperate. They’d sniffed around Buckley’s damaged car only to retreat with their tails between their legs. No amount of coaxing could get them to go back.

Heather had grown up hunting in those woods, less for fun than because they’d been poorer than dirt and the only meat that ended up on the family table had come from things that she had shot herself. However, she had no idea how to track an animal. Sitting in a tree stand and waiting for a deer to walk by doesn’t exactly make you Davy Crockett. She’d taken the Winchester shotgun from her cruiser, loaded it with heavy-duty slugs, and set out anyway. The wet ground had been so churned by clumsy footsteps at that point that she couldn’t spot a thing with her flashlight. Sunrise hadn’t helped either, and though more volunteers had arrived, the damn bear had gotten away.

The place was covered in fish cops, and the sheriff himself had taken command of the scene by the time Heather returned. Kai Hintze had been sheriff since Heather had come back to Copper Lake from Minneapolis. He was fifty years old, fifty pounds overweight, and a hardcore sci-fi nerd, so Heather hadn’t expected much from her new boss, but Sheriff Hintze had turned out to be a good leader who watched out for his men and his county. He kept getting reelected because he honestly cared about the people, and compared to his incompetent predecessor, the county loved him.

The sheriff was talking to one of the DNR men. The game wardens weren’t very popular amongst the independently minded types that lived in places like Copper Lake. She’d had a few run-ins with game wardens back in her teens, when she hunted game regardless of season—the squishy environmentalist types were the worst. But this particular one conducted himself like an old pro and seemed to know what he was talking about. Heather approached from behind and didn’t want to be rude and interrupt.

“I’m telling you, Sheriff. There is something seriously wrong here. Colleague of mine out of Washington State, Terril Erion, he had a case like this a while back. Animal attack that didn’t seem to fit, just like this. . . . A particular government agency got involved. Do you know the agency I’m talking about?”

Sheriff Hintze was nodding his head. “Every sheriff in the country gets a vague briefing and a number to call in case of something weird. You really think there really are . . . Naw. That’s ridiculous.” He realized Heather was standing there and abruptly stopped. The DNR man looked away, sheepish, like they’d been caught talking about something naughty. The sheriff coughed. “Deputy Kerkonen. Any luck?”

“Nothing, sir. Any word on Buckley?”

“Not yet.” He took in her soaked and muddy appearance. “How long have you been out here?”

“Since we got the call.”

“You look beat, and your shift was over hours ago. There’s really nothing else you can do here.”

“Sir, I—”

“I understand. Joe is my friend, too, Heather. Why don’t you go see him?” Before it is too late.

She waited until she was a mile down the road before she screamed in frustration, swore her head off, and punched the steering wheel until her hand hurt. Her department had lost people before, but to things that made sense, like a meth head or a car wreck. . . . Who got killed in the line of duty by a damned bear? This wasn’t Alaska. This was Michigan.

It didn’t make sense. Winter was coming. She was no zoologist, but shouldn’t the stupid thing have been hibernating? The attack had occurred during a freezing rain: why was it even out and about, and why would it attack a car? Heather had no idea, and now her hand was sore, and she chided herself for the tantrum. She had always struggled with her temper.

Why couldn’t she have been the one to take the call? Maybe if it had been her instead of Buckley, he wouldn’t be dying right now. Maybe she could have done something different. . . . She knew it was stupid to blame herself, but Heather had always been protective of anyone she deemed to be her people. That attitude had always made her popular amongst her coworkers, but had gotten her into trouble a few times with her superiors in her last department. Copper County was different. This was her town, her people, and this department was family. Only now one of them was dying, there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it, and it was really pissing her off.

It had been several hours after the Buckley call that she had finally made it back into Copper Lake. Half the staff of their tiny department and several family members had gathered in the hospital waiting room. Buckley was a popular and beloved man. By some miracle he was alive, which had absolutely amazed the doctors, but they said that it was too early to tell what would happen and too risky to airlift him someplace better. Heather didn’t like hanging out, nervous and emotional, in hospitals. She had done far too much of that in her life already, and though her shift was over she had volunteered to head into the office to see if she couldn’t help out for a bit. She was still too fired up to go to sleep anyway, and it wasn’t like there was anyone waiting for her at home except for her dog.

Back at the station, hungry and cranky, Heather had not been surprised to find that nobody had bothered to put on more coffee. She bought a Diet Coke and a package of expired chocolate doughnuts from the office vending machine instead. She didn’t think that doughnuts were supposed to be crunchy, but they had sugar, and that was the important thing. She knew that despite religiously hitting the treadmill every day, if she kept up her junk-food addiction she ran the risk of turning into another Upper Peninsula “snow cow,” but that was a risk she was willing to take.

“Did you see Joe, Kerkonen?” asked Chase Temple, one of the new road deputies from days. Heather didn’t know him that well yet, just that he had recently gotten out of the Navy and was taking correspondence courses from Northern Michigan University toward a political science degree. His youthful enthusiasm made her feel ancient. She had just turned thirty-six. “I’d heard he was bad off.”

She had to pause to not talk with a mouth full of doughnut. She didn’t really know what to say anyway; it wasn’t like she knew any more than anyone else. “I didn’t see him myself, but yeah, the doctors said it was bad. Broken skull, massive lacerations to the abdomen, a lot of blood loss, missing a few feet of intestines . . .” Even if Buckley lived, he would be crippled and miserable the rest of his short life, and that left her feeling even more depressed. She changed the subject and pointed in the direction of the holding cells. “How’s our favorite guest?”

The Copper Lake station was a small building, so Temple knew whom she was talking about right away. “Bill was ticked after that nut bit him,” he said, referring to the deputy that had been manning the station last night. “He needed five stitches. But I heard you really walloped the guy for it. Pow! Right in the face! That how you guys did it in the big city?” Heather didn’t respond to his idiotic grin, so he quit smiling and tried to be professional. “Didn’t mean anything by it. I’ve just heard you’ve got a reputation is all . . . Keeping it together when the shit gets real.”

Heather shrugged noncommittally. “I just did what I was trained to do.”

“Whatever. I heard about—”

“Kid needed protecting. I was the only one around to do it. No big deal.” One crazy case involving a sex-slavery ring could get you quite a rep. One sloppy gunfight later, she’d been publically cited for bravery, privately reprimanded for stupidity, and been on the fast track to a promotion to detective until her family’s health issues had brought her back to her hometown. It didn’t matter now. Copper Lake was a much quieter place than Minneapolis. She made sure to change the subject so obviously that Temple would know better than to bring it up again. “We got an ID on our biter yet?”

“Every time we ask for a name, he just stares off into space and mumbles about something humming. Still no idea who he is yet, but we’re still checking.”

One of her friends had just been eviscerated. She wasn’t in the mood for dealing with random stinky lunatics, but the U.P. was virtually the edge of the world. Lots of crazy people ended up here for some reason. It’s like they wandered out of Chicago or Minneapolis and walked through the woods until they hit Lake Superior, where they became her problem. “Anything else going on?”

“Those hikers down in Baraga are still lost.”

“Probably eaten by the same bear,” she muttered. Lost hikers weren’t any sort of surprise. Except for a few clusters of small townships and farms, northern Michigan was thickly forested hills. It was easy to get turned around if you got off the trails. The locals loved the tourists’ dollars, but finding lost suburbanites got old quick.

“Other than that, well, some federal agent called from Washington, wanting to know about the bear attack.”

“Who?” Heather asked. That was fast. The Department of Natural Resources guy must have passed it up the chain to whoever it was he’d been talking to the sheriff about.

“I don’t know. The guy was named something Jefferson, real snooty type, but I kicked it over to the sheriff. They were asking if there had been any other animal attacks or any unexplained disappearances, that kind of thing. They said they wanted to send some people to interview Buckley if”—he corrected himself—“when he wakes up. I told him he better hurry if the weather reports are accurate. Huge storm coming in tonight. He was real adamant that we call if anything else unusual happens.”

Unusual? The little black bears that were native to the area normally stuck to knocking over trash cans, not smashing their way through car windows to eat healthy, armed men. Unusual was an understatement.

Agent Doug Stark of the Monster Control Bureau of the US Department of Homeland Security answered the ringing phone on his desk. He had already had a busy day, seizing a camera and video files from some teenagers who’d blundered into a Type 2 Unnatural devouring a homeless guy at the bottom of a drainage culvert. Stark didn’t necessarily enjoy the part of his job where he intimidated witnesses and survivors into keeping their stupid mouths shut, but he was extremely good at it. “Agent Stark,” he answered sharply.

“Hello, Doug,” said the voice at the other end, and he recognized it immediately. Washington was calling. Damn it. Washington only called when something was wrong, and he had been hoping to get off early so he could catch his daughter’s trumpet recital. “This is Grant Jefferson.”

Stark didn’t like the new guy—he was too smooth—but Director Myers thought Jefferson walked on water, had taken him under-wing, and had delegated all sorts of responsibilities to the former MHI man. Grooming him for leadership, probably because Myers had come up from the private sector, too. . . . Just like those contractor bozos to get all the money, glory, and then come into his bureau to take all the promotions. “Mornin’, Grant. What can I do for you today?” he asked with zero sincerity.

“There’s been a potential attack in your region. The profile fits a lycanthrope, but that’s currently unknown. One survivor.”

So much for getting off early. Regulations said they had to check it out as soon as possible. “Bitten?” Stark reached for a pad of paper and took a pen from the pink clay mug labeled “#1 Dad.”

“Probable, but unknown. You should assume the worst. Take a test kit. You may need to eliminate.”

Stark grunted in acknowledgment. Who was this upstart punk to tell him something so obvious? As a rookie MCB agent recruited straight out of the SEALs, Stark had learned how to take care of witnesses from the holy terror himself, Agent Franks. Stark was old-school MCB. Back when he’d run the Phoenix office, he’d once had a family of four get torn apart by reptoids, and he had managed to blame the entire incident on coyotes. Stark was still bitter he’d been given the Chicago SAC job instead of the interim director position that Dwayne Myers had scored. Myers had been Dallas SAC before the promotion, so they’d been equals, the jerk. “Location?”

“Copper Lake, Michigan,” Jefferson said.

“Where the hell is Copper Lake?” He leaned back and studied the laminated US map on the wall. The office chair creaked under his weight. Though no longer in his prime, Stark still loved pumping iron and had biceps as big around as most men’s legs. He took pride in the fact that he could still keep up with agents half his age.

“Up by Lake Superior . . . I think,” Jefferson said. “Hang on, I’m pulling up Google Earth.” It figured. Not only was he going to have to work today, he was going to have to drive to the damn U.P. and probably freeze his ass off in Yooper country. “Wait a second, Agent Archer is here with me.” There was a pause. “He says that he grew up right down the road in Calumet. . . . He says to pack a coat.” Grant laughed.

Just like those headquarters assholes to have a laugh at his expense, Stark thought. He’d been doing this for nearly twenty-five years. He knew more about this business than Director Myers did. Who were they to laugh at him? Stark idly wrote down the details as Grant kept on talking, but Stark’s mind was somewhere else. He glanced at the PUFF table tacked to the wall beside the map. Government employees didn’t get to collect PUFF, but those contractors got paid damn good money per lycanthrope . . . and by the time he said his good-byes, he knew exactly what he was going to do.

Like most things that depended on secrecy, the MCB was a relatively small agency. Even the ICE and FBI staff they shared the building with had no clue what the ultra-secretive MCB did for a living. As Special Agent in Charge, he had six agents working under him in the north-central region, and more that he could pull out of Minneapolis, but he’d keep this one close to the vest. He called for Agent Mosher, gave him the lowdown, and told him to get an SUV ready. Requisitioning a chopper was out of the question. The weather was turning nasty, and besides, the key to keeping a monster attack low profile was keeping a low profile. Land a black helicopter at some rural airfield and the locals got to talking, and since the locals were already calling it a bear, why go and mess that up with a Blackhawk?

“Should I put together a team?” Mosher asked. “If it turns out to be a werewolf, that could be dangerous.” Gaige Mosher was the newest agent in his office. He was a tough kid recruited out of Force Recon, but even tough guys didn’t screw around when it came to shapeshifters.

“Naw,” Stark said. “I need to get out of the office. Just the two of us to talk to the witness. My intuition is telling me that it was probably just an animal,” he lied. “And if it does turn out to be the real deal, we’ve got a few days before the full moon. Myers can send out his strike team, and they can use up their budget.” In truth, he just wanted to do the minimum amount of work needed and then get a little kickback on the side. Extra agents could make that a hassle, and Mosher was so eager to prove himself to the experienced Stark that he could be trusted to keep his mouth shut.

Once Mosher was gone, Stark excused himself from the office, supposedly to pick up some snacks for the road trip. He stopped at a pay phone on the way. He didn’t like Briarwood much, certainly didn’t trust them, but a man had to provide for his retirement somehow. His pride wouldn’t let him deal with their competitors. He couldn’t stand those MHI punks, ever since he’d lost a drunken fistfight to that asshole Sam Haven all those years ago at a BUD/S reunion, but MHI wasn’t the only game in town. These new guys were local, hungry, morally flexible, and not above passing him a little cut of the PUFF action under the table.

“Briarwood.” That’s all the receptionist said whenever she picked up. They liked that cool mysterious vibe, like if you didn’t know what they did, then you shouldn’t be calling them.

No names. “It’s me. I’ve got a scoop for you.” Stark glanced around the busy street. This was the kind of thing that could get him fired or worse if somebody like Agent Franks got wind of it. Traditional forms of reprimands kind of went out the window when that guy got involved.

“Your information is always greatly appreciated,” she purred. The Briarwood receptionist had a sultry European accent. Stark had never met her, but he liked to imagine her as a sexy blonde who liked to dress in tight black leather. Stark had always had a thing for European chicks since way back when the Navy had stationed him in Italy.

“My standard finder’s fee applies.”

“But of course,” she said. It was only money, and these private hunters were rolling in the dough. He imagined the hot receptionist working out of some secret posh office on top of some downtown high-rise, all black glass and marble. Twenty percent of the PUFF bounty was nothing to those people, but to a GS-13, it was a few extra mortgage payments. “What and where?”

“Possible lycanthrope. Copper Lake, Michigan. I’ll know tonight for sure. Your boys don’t do shit until I give the word, got it?” Stark hung up before she could respond. It was always good to let those contractor goons know exactly who was calling the shots. Agent Stark then used his cell phone to warn his wife that he would be pulling an overnighter, and he apologized in advance for missing his daughter’s recital.

The offices of Briarwood Eradication Services were on the second floor of a crumbling brick building in a not-quite-terrible-but-getting-there section of Chicago. The first floor was a pool hall, the third was rented by a company that stuffed coupon mailers, and the fourth was untenanted except for the pigeons.

Ryan Horst stopped cleaning his carbine long enough to listen to Jo Ann take the call. She was still doing that Euro-trash voice, which told him that it was probably a potential job. Jo Ann Schneider was from Wisconsin originally and had the accent to prove it but had been working for a phone-sex line when he’d met her. The woman could sound like just about anyone over the phone, which did manage to add a little mystique to their tiny company. Horst knew that success was all about the marketing.

“Ryan! It was that asshole, Stark,” Jo Ann shouted across the large open space. She yanked off her headset and tossed it on the desk. “We’ve got us a big one!”

“About damn time,” he muttered as he finished tugging the boresnake through the barrel of his FAL. He’d assembled a tough crew, but the boys were getting restless. He’d promised that there was lucrative money in this business, far better than what they were used to making for their particular set of skills. Men that good at hurting people weren’t the kind that he wanted to string along. “What’ve we got?” he asked as he pointed the barrel at the overhead lights and squinted at the rifling. The chrome was perfectly clean and shiny as expected. Horst took meticulous care of his weapons.

“A lycanthrope up in Michigan. I think that means werewolf! You know what one of those is worth?” She was practically squealing.

“Of course I do, babe. I am the expert, remember?” he said. Jo Ann stood off to the side, bouncing up and down eagerly, the aesthetics of which he especially appreciated when she wore a tank top. Horst could almost see the dollar signs flashing in her eyes. Even a brand new werewolf was worth at least forty large. The older they were or the more people they’d killed, the more you could make. The sky was the limit on a lycanthrope. Horst had memorized the PUFF tables before those squeamish pansies in Alabama had booted him out of their training camp.

Sociopath. That’s what that broad, Paxton, had called him right before they’d fired his ass. Well, he didn’t need them. Horst had always been an entrepreneur, and he’d always done best on his own. Sure, most of those business dealings had been of questionable legality, but he’d never gotten busted or served time for any of his many ventures. He was far too smart for that.

Horst had filed the paperwork, borrowed some money from his uncle Mickey, got his own PUFF charter, got the Title 13 FFL for the weapons, and recruited his own team of badass killers. Now that he had his own license to print money, all he needed to do was start collecting some fat monster bounties. Even with Stark taking his normal cut, this trip could pay a few bills. So far Briarwood Eradication Services had only taken down a few small, local monsters. Killing a werewolf, hell, any shapeshifter, would launch him into the big time. Horst took his time putting his gun back together. He worked the charging handle a few times. Smooth as silk.

“Good work, babe. Now do me a favor and call in the boys. We’re gonna bag us a werewolf.”

Chapter 3

One of the old wives’ tales about werewolves said that if you could destroy the werewolf that bit you, the curse would be broken. Turns out that’s wishful thinking. We know now that it’s an agent present only in the werewolf’s saliva, that must be introduced in quantity directly into the victim’s bloodstream to cause the mutation to human DNA. But in the 20s, it was all just considered black magic and curses. But after I’d been infected, I was willing to try anything.

It took a magic spell, but I found the werewolf that had bit me. I tracked her for nearly a year. Ten moon cycles, at least three nights each time, and occasionally more if I lost control. I had something of a clue by the time I caught up. I knew that I could keep some semblance of control when I was changed, except for during the full moon, so I figured out how to restrain myself during those nights. I’d learned about the weakness to silver by then, but had developed the hope that I wouldn’t need to use it on myself if I could just catch the evil thing that had inflicted this on me.

She went south, deeper into Mexico. Unlike me, she loved the killing. Whenever the trail grew cold, I’d just stay for a spell and wait for the next tale of mutilated bodies to reach me. It made her easier to follow. I just missed her in Honduras, where I broke the chain I’d used to tie myself to a tree and ended up murdering a goat herder. She doubled back and headed north. I lost her for a while when she went into the Gulf, but I caught her eventually. The thing about werewolves is that once we’ve got a scent, unless the prey knows a few tricks, we’re almost impossible to shake.

Across the sea, I finally caught her in Havana. Killing her was intensely satisfying, but as soon as it was over I knew it had been for nothing. I could still hear the Hum. When the moon was full, it would be back to the same old thing.

I was dead to my wife, dead to my kin. I was dead to my fellow Hunters. Raymond Earl Shackleford Jr. had ceased to exist after that first night. No one knew where I was or what had become of me, all in the hope that I’d be able to cure myself by destroying a single werewolf. I was such a sucker. Now she was dead, but so, still, was I.

Every day was a struggle to stay a man. All I wanted to do was change. Hunt. Kill.

And so at dawn I found myself on the walls of an old Spanish fort in Cuba, with a bottle of fine whiskey in one hand and a Smith & Wesson 1917 loaded with a single silver bullet in the other.

*   *   *

Heather knew that if she went home now she’d have time to get a decent amount of sleep before she had to come back in for work, and she still wanted to stop by the hospital again just as a show of support, but for whatever reason she decided to take one last look at the prisoner.

There were only a couple of cells at the Copper Lake station, nothing fancy. If they needed anything bigger, there was the larger jail in Houghton one county over. They still had no idea who this man was. He wasn’t talking sense, had no ID, and there was no match on his fingerprints. Odds were that he’d be taken in for a psych evaluation by the state and that would be the last that the Copper County Sheriff’s Department would ever see of him.

The prisoner was sitting on the thin mattress, staring off into space. Heather stopped in front of the bars and watched him for a second. He was probably thirty, bulky and a little too well fed to be homeless, pale with dark hair and a scruffy beard. For some reason an uneasy feeling settled in her stomach, and it didn’t feel like the expired doughnuts. “Hey!” Heather shouted, but the prisoner didn’t look up. He just kept rocking slightly.

Something wasn’t right about this one, and it wasn’t just the fact that he was batshit crazy and violent. When she’d heard Bill screaming earlier, she’d come in, yanked the prisoner off, sprayed him good, and then, when he hadn’t sat his happy ass down like she’d asked, she’d pelted him with her baton. On the paperwork, she’d called it a pain-compliance technique, and the first few hits to the arms and legs probably had been, but the last one that she’d put alongside his head had been because he’d pissed her off.

Heather was the only female officer in a testosterone-soaked small town filled with unemployed miners. She wasn’t a bully and actually really disliked hurting anyone, but she’d made a career out of not messing around. She wasn’t nearly as tough as everyone thought she was, but as long as the local troublemakers thought she was tough, it made life a lot easier. Heather tried to avoid confrontation but she never hesitated to get physical if the job required it. That ASP hit to the face had finally taken the fight out of the guy. Since he’d been wrestling one of her friends, she felt that the nasty welt she’d given him last night had been earned.

The prisoner finally seemed to realize that she was there and turned his head slightly to watch her through squinty eyes, still rocking. Something was odd. It took her tired mind a second to realize what was wrong. There was no bruise on his face. In fact, there was no sign that he’d been struck at all, and she’d really nailed him. Heather walked a few more feet along the bars, just to make sure that she wasn’t remembering wrong and maybe she’d got him on the other side. Still nothing.

Weird. She should have been thankful there was no bruise, because with her luck the prisoner’s brother was probably a civil rights attorney or something, but instead she found herself creeped out. She remembered exactly how hard she’d struck him, and there definitely should have been some evidence of it.

“What’s your name?” she demanded. “It’s hard to help you if we don’t know who you are.”

The rocking stopped. The man paused, as if listening to something in the distance. He smiled, and Heather was astonished to see how perfectly white and straight his teeth were. For some reason she’d been expecting him to have bad teeth. The man looked right through her, and the blankness of the gaze was simply unnerving. “You’re pretty.”

In normal, polite company, she might have said thank you. This company was neither normal nor polite. Here, it was simply uncomfortable. Agreeing with crazy people only reinforced the delusions, and disagreeing only got them riled up. It was better just to stick to business. “What’s your name?” she asked again.

The man slowly rose from the bed. The springs creaked. There was something unnatural about the movement, as if he was far too graceful for someone of his size. “You’re lucky to be so pretty. Does he like redheads? I don’t know. We don’t have any redheads. He’ll probably want to keep you for himself. He’s selfish like that.”

She should have walked away and just gone home, maybe stopped by the florist first to pick up a bouquet for Buckley, but she knew that she definitely shouldn’t be talking to this man. There was just a sense of wrongness about him, but the question came out before she could stop herself. “Who is?”

The prisoner cocked his head to the side. “The Alpha, of course. He picked this place special, you know. They’ll all be dead soon. It begins here. The snow is coming, then everything changes. Then it’ll be like an avalanche. You can’t stop an avalanche. You’ll probably be one of the lucky ones that he’ll keep. Everyone else gets harvested.” His nostrils flared as he breathed deeply, tilting his head back, like he was drinking in the air. “But you . . . you smell nice.” His eyes grew wide with realization, and the blank look was suddenly replaced with one of desperation. “Your scent! You’ve got the same blood as the one he’s looking for!” Heather stepped back instinctively as the prisoner flung himself hard against the bars. “Where is it? He has to have it!” Spittle flew from his lips as he reached for her. “Koschei’s treasure! Where did the thief hide it? Where?”

Having finally had enough nonsense for one day, Heather turned and left the cells. The lunatic continued shouting at her, but she just kept on walking, mentally damning bears and crazy people, both.

Agents Stark and Mosher arrived in Copper Lake before sunset. The hospital had been easy enough to spot as it was one of the larger buildings in town. They’d used some of their many fabricated government IDs to lie their way in, take their sample, and get back out.

“What a hole,” Stark muttered as they walked outside. It was miserably wet. The weather report said it was going to turn to snow. Sitting in the Suburban for the long ride had made his old knee injury, received while chasing a stupid Bigfoot, act up. He unclipped the CDC ID from his coat and stuck it back in his pocket.

“I don’t know,” Mosher said. “This place used to be a lot bigger. They had a thriving mine business up here. The town used to have a lot more people, but then there was a big accident. The mining company went out of business. Lots of people lost their jobs. Everything kind of dried up after that. The place never really recovered.”

“How do you know this crap?”

“I checked the Internet after you said where we were going. And the people here do seem really friendly. The town has just had some hard times.”

Just like a jarhead to stick up for a bunch of hillbillies. “It’s a shithole,” Stark pronounced with finality. This was the kind of place that he hated working in. When he had to cover up activity in a city, it was easy. People disappeared or died violently there all the time. Out here, it got tougher. Everybody knew each other, and they all liked to talk. Good thing there were wild animals to blame things on.

Agent Mosher was young and not quite educated on when to shut up. “Well—”

“Shithole!” Stark snapped. He was in an especially foul mood because Grant Jefferson had neglected to mention that the victim was a cop. Offing a regular infected was one thing, but offing a cop was something entirely different. For one thing, it caused more paperwork. “This part of the country is only good for growing trees and gambling at the Indian casinos.”

“Yes, sir,” Mosher replied as he got into the driver’s seat of their government Suburban.

The primary responsibility of the MCB was keeping the existence of monsters secret. Most survivors could be intimidated into staying quiet. The stupid were taken care of in various ways, either through making them look like crackpots, or, if that didn’t work, then through more extreme measures. MCB agents were granted a lot of flexibility in dealing with that kind of problem. Stark liked to call it his license to kill.

So if this Deputy Buckley was infected by a werewolf, then Stark had every legal right in the world to put a silver bullet in him. But then the three other cops that had been sitting in the waiting room would probably end up shooting him. Which meant that if the test came back positive, he’d have to go talk to the sheriff and fill him in about the complete mission of the MCB, which would require paperwork, and then go kill the deputy, which would require even more paperwork. Stark hated paperwork.

He studied the glass vial in his hand. It was a werecreature field-test kit. The solution was a pinkish red from the drop of Buckley’s blood dissolving in it. It took up to a few hours for the chemical reaction to work. If it stayed red, then the deputy was clear, and if it was a false alarm he would only have to do a little bit of paperwork. If it turned blue, he’d have to do a lot of paperwork.

Stark had been doing this a long time, though. He’d looked at the extent of the unconscious man’s injuries and had spoken briefly with some of the cops who’d been to the scene. His gut told him that it was a werewolf. Which meant that there was one in the area, and since there were clear bite marks on the victim, on the next full moon there would be two.

Maybe he was thinking about this the wrong way. . . .

If Briarwood were to kill two werewolves, then Stark stood to make a lot more money, and if he didn’t have to pull the trigger on the deputy himself, that would save him from doing all that bothersome paperwork. He bounced the vial in his hand a few times. These tests aren’t always reliable. Nobody at headquarters would bat an eye if the test came up negative but the deputy turned anyway. That kind of thing had happened before.

“So, where to now?” Mosher asked, tapping his hand on the steering wheel.

If it turned blue, he’d just call Briarwood and then tell Mosher that it had come up negative. The werewolf would still get popped, society still got protected, only Agent Stark would actually get paid what he was worth for once. “Let’s see what there is to eat in this dump,” Stark ordered. He was feeling better already.

*   *   *

Earl Harbinger had driven another hundred miles after leaving Conover before parking at a truck stop, pulling the brim of his ball cap over his eyes, and grabbing a few hours of sleep. He’d need his wits about him when he arrived.

Werewolves dream, just like anyone else. Yet he’d found that the closer it was to the full moon, the more his dreams turned to the fevered images of his animal state. Maybe it was early this time because of the nature of his current mission, but Earl awoke to the memory of running through the trees, hunting, killing, perfectly in his element. He took that as a good omen.

Back on the road, hours passed, fields turned into city, then back into fields, and then the view turned to trees. He had never been to upper Michigan before, but found it pretty. Hills and forest, just like home. But Alabamans were smart enough not to live someplace that got this damn cold. It seemed like whenever there was a break in the trees, there would be another abandoned mine hoist building, splintering wood and rusting steel constructions. Some of them were surprisingly tall. The industry of the area had fallen on hard times.

The clouds were thick and rolling in hard. Lights from the ground reflected against the snow in the air and gave the whole area a pinkish tint. It was just itching to snow hard. The hour was late by the time the GPS told him he’d reached his destination. The sign said that it had a population just over two thousand. There was a main street with one stoplight. The downtown area was made up of two- and three-story buildings, mostly brick, constructed back in the boom days. Many of them were empty now. There was a vast, pointy Lutheran church across from the surprisingly big, ugly Sixties-era high school. The cars parked along the street were humble. The people who lived here worked hard for a living. It was typical small-town America.

It positively stunk of werewolves.

Chapter 4

I didn’t want to die.

I had never been a quitter. That’s one of the things that made me such an effective Hunter: sheer absolute stubbornness.

Sure, I’d tried to do myself in that first morning when I’d woken up with a stomach full of human flesh. What sane man wouldn’t? But I’d managed to live with the curse for nearly a year, driven by a desperate mission of revenge, and the truth was, I didn’t want to die.

But it was my duty. I’d sworn an oath to my daddy that I would fight monsters to the end. The possibility of becoming one hadn’t really entered my mind, but then again Bubba Shackleford’s Professional Monster Killers had never come up against any werewolves before the one that got me. Undead were different. If you turned into an undead, that didn’t count; you weren’t a person anymore. Undead are just shells, with no souls, just going through the motions of living. But here I was, changed, the foulest of murderers, but I still considered myself human. I still felt like a person, but I knew the truth. I was a monster. And monsters had to be destroyed. By the time that bottle of whisky was half empty, the decision had been made. And this time I had a silver bullet to do it right.

The crumbling fort was isolated, but I heard the footsteps on the stone steps long before I saw whom they belonged to. I was polite enough to not want to share the sight of my fresh brains with some random passerby, so I put the Smith back under my shirt.

But the stranger wasn’t just passing through. The man was tall and very thin, with a beak nose, not too old but nearly bald, and wearing a black suit with a padre’s collar. He looked suspiciously vulture-like, but then again I was rather drunk. The priest said that he’d been sent to find me and that he was in dire need of my assistance.

“No offense, Father, but I’m a little busy right now,” I told him.

He bobbed his wispy head in agreement. “Of course. You were trying to have a contemplative moment before shooting yourself. I understand, but if I could have but a moment of your time first?” He looked like a local, but his English was excellent, hell, better than mine for sure.

“Is it that obvious?”

“Yes, but I have been watching you for quite some time. I know exactly what you are.”

I was certain that I’d never seen or smelled him before. I’d come here trailing a werewolf. I had been the predator. I had been the one running the night through the streets of the old city. If anyone had been following me, I would have seen them for sure. “Really? And what would that be?”

“Someone who bears a curse.” The priest dusted off a spot on the stone next to me and took a seat. “Someone who bears the mark of Cain.” He stopped, as if waiting for me to argue. “I’m sure you are aware that what you are contemplating is a terrible sin.”

“Yeah, yeah. Add it to the list. I’m going to hell. You got a point?”

“My impression is that you are a decent man who has had an unfortunate turn of events. I do believe that if I were to throw my life away, I would do it in a manner more useful to my fellow man. There is great nobility in sacrifice.”

I was drunk, but not that drunk. “I’m not really fit to become a man of the cloth. I’ve killed a whole mess of people. . . . Ate a few of them.”

“Oh no, oh my, no.” The priest laughed until he started to choke. I’d never seen a vulture laugh before. “That is not what I had in mind.” It took him a moment to catch his breath. Apparently the idea of me finding that much religion was downright hilarious. He watched the sunrise with me for a while before making his pitch. “I know of a village in need of help.”

“What kind of help?”

“The kind that will almost certainly get you killed in the process.”

*   *   *

Heather was just getting ready to go to work when she was startled by a knock at the front door. She had just finished securing the Velcro straps of her much-hated bulletproof vest. Hated may have been a strong word for something designed to save her life, but the vest was uncomfortable, annoying, and made her look dumpy. It was also mandatory. At least it was a princess-cut vest, which was a nice way of saying that it didn’t squish her breasts like the one she’d been issued in Minneapolis. Heather threw on her green uniform shirt and started buttoning.

Even though the old Kerkonen family home was right in the middle of town, she didn’t get very many visitors, and on the rare occasions that she did, Otto usually warned her a long time before they got up the driveway. Normally her old, three-legged, retired police German shepherd would be bouncing around the living room, shedding everywhere, eager at the prospect of company, but he was nowhere to be seen. “Some guard dog you are,” Heather muttered.

There was a fearful answering whine from under the kitchen table. She spotted her dog backed into the farthest corner, his head down, ears flat, obviously afraid. His black eyes were fixed on the front door.

“What’s wrong with you?” Otto hadn’t been a particularly well-trained K9 even before he’d been retired. Copper County never had much of a budget, so when the chief decided they needed a dog, they’d bought Full Otto the Über Hund from a second-rate trainer. He’d been relatively useless to the department, except the kids loved him at the DARE events. She’d kept him ever since he’d chased a tennis ball in front of a snow plow and ended up as Otto the Amazing Tripod Dog.

There was another knock, and Otto whined a little louder, almost as if he was begging her not to answer it. He was a little goofy, utterly loyal, too friendly for his own good, but Heather had never seen him scared before. He may have had only three legs, but he was still eighty pounds of righteous Teutonic muscle. It was so unlike him that she found it a bit unnerving. “Chill out, dog, jeez,” she admonished as she looked out the peephole.

The bulbs on the porch didn’t cast much light, but enough that she knew she’d never seen the man before. Otto let out a low, out-of-character growl. The security chain was still in place, but she’d worked enough break-ins to know how useless those things were. Heather put one hand on her issue Beretta as she opened the door a crack, just enough that the visitor could see her uniform. The “No Soliciting” sign was more effective against annoying people when there was somebody with a badge in the doorway.

“Good evening,” the stranger said politely.

“Can I help you?” Heather had a lot of practice scanning people and recording the pertinent facts. Caucasian male, a pretty good-looking guy, remarkably handsome, actually, probably around her age, dark hair cut short, neatly trimmed goatee, six foot, hundred and seventy, athletic, dressed nicely, with a white button shirt and a wool overcoat, hands in his pockets. The car parked on the street was a newer model BMW M3, silver. The Beamer stood out on the street full of pickup trucks and older cars. Her initial thought was that he was probably either going to try to sell her something or he had the wrong place.

His smile was rather disarming, or would have been to most women. Heather was too jaded to be swayed that easily. “Why, I hope so. My name is Nicholas Peterson. I’m sorry to bother you so late, officer.”

He looked nice enough, but Heather had inherited her family’s Finnish heritage of being sullenly suspicious of anything new. “And?”

“I was given directions at the library. I’m looking for someone.” He had just a little bit of an accent. Heather couldn’t place it, but he certainly wasn’t from around here. New Yorker? “And I can see from your name tag that I’ve found the right place. Do you know an Aksel Kerkonen?”

Great. Somebody else Grandpa owed money. She had thought that she was past dealing with this kind of thing. The first year had brought a long line of creditors out of the woodwork, but it had tapered off eventually. “That was my grandfather, but he’s passed away.”

“I’m terribly sorry to hear that,” he said. “My condolences.”

“It’s been a few years. What do you want?” She got ready for the invoice to come out, because if there was one skill that Grandpa had been good at, besides drinking, fighting, gambling, and mining, it had been absolutely driving the Kerkonens into poverty.

“Perhaps you may still be able to help me. You see, I’m a historian by trade. I’m doing some research for a book that I am writing. Your grandfather immigrated here from Finland in 1947, correct?”

“Something like that,” she replied suspiciously. There really wasn’t anything about her grandfather that a historian would be interested in, unless it was the history of random drunken knife fights of the Great Lakes region. “Lots of Finns around here, though. You’re probably looking for someone else.” Heather was Irish on her mother’s side and didn’t really know much family history either way.

“Did he fight in the Winter War?”

Grandpa had. He’d been some sort of sniper, in fact, but he hadn’t spoken of it much. Up until the year he died, he’d been a crack shot with his old Nagant rifle and could still move like a ghost on cross-country skis. It was only when he got to drinking that he’d started referring to Russians as “game animals with no bag limit.”

When she nodded, Peterson pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. Instead of the expected bill, it was a photocopied drawing. “Did he have a medal like this?” He held the picture up. “About an inch across, relatively flat. It may have been on a simple chain. As you can see, the workmanship is very rough. It would be silver in color.”

Her first instinct was to wonder if it was supposed to be valuable, as there were a few scams that started that way, but most hustlers were smart enough to prey on widows and the stupid, not suspicious cops. She gave the picture a brief look. It was shaped like an animal track, only comically distorted with three long claws. A facsimile of a human hand was carved into the center. “Sorry. I’ve never seen that before. I can’t help you. Look, Mr. Peterson, I need to get to work.”

“I’d be willing to pay a large sum of money for it.” The stranger was insistent. “Perhaps he would have left it to your father?”

Heather really wasn’t in the mood. “He’s dead, too. So is everyone else, and if my grandpa ever had anything that might have been worth something, it would have ended up at a pawnshop a long time ago. Good night.” She started to shut the door, but he quickly jammed his foot in the way before she could close it.

Heather looked incredulously at the leather dress shoe blocking her doorframe. The nerve. “Are you kidding me? Listen—” But when she looked back up, the stranger’s manner had subtly shifted. His head was tilted a bit too far to one side, and he was studying her intently through the crack. There was something not quite right about the way his eyes reflected the porch light, and suddenly Heather realized that Otto was right behind her legs, growling and shaking. A shiver ran up Heather’s spine as her hand automatically tightened around the butt of her gun.

The man studied her for a moment. Even his voice was different, deeper. “She is telling the truth. . . .”

There was a noise from the street. A group of teenagers was walking down the sidewalk, laughing and screwing around. Peterson’s eyes flicked away for just a split second toward them, and Heather could have sworn that she actually saw the pulse in his neck. He turned back to her, just the slightest smile visible at the corner of his mouth.

Heather shouldn’t have been frightened. She was armed. She’d stood her ground physically against men far scarier than the historian—back in Minneapolis, she’d had a gun stuck in her face by a lunatic sex offender and had stayed cool until the situation was under control—but for some awful reason that slight bit of smile scared the hell out of her. She tried to keep the tremor out of her voice. “Get your foot out of my door, or—”

And just as quickly as his manner had changed to threatening, it returned to normal, almost meek. His posture changed, the strange gold reflection gone from his eyes so quickly that Heather wondered if she’d imagined the whole thing. The foot retreated. “I apologize,” he said, dipping his head. “This is just very important to me. If you happen to remember anything about the amulet, I will be staying at the Boddington Inn for a few days. I’m sorry to have troubled you, officer.”

Without another word the stranger turned and walked down the steps. He crossed the sidewalk, got into his car, and drove away without looking back. Heather watched until the taillights of the Beamer disappeared around the corner. She closed the door and realized that she’d unconsciously opened the retention hood on her duty holster. Her hands were shaking.

What the hell? She’d been in life-or-death fights, and those hadn’t affected her like the dude who had just stood on her porch. Heather took a seat on the couch. He’d stuck his foot in the door and smiled; he’d been rude. That was it. No one would have ever accused her of being a wimp, and she wasn’t the type to freak out. Maybe it was the stress from Buckley’s attack. Maybe it was the insomnia. She was just on edge. She was seeing things that weren’t there.

But even as she thought it over, she knew that there was something wrong about the mysterious Mr. Peterson. When he’d tilted his head, there had been a feeling, something primal, something terrifying. He had unnerved her.

Otto whimpered. There was a fresh puddle on the carpet. Apparently her dog was in agreement.

We should have killed her.

“Shut up,” Nikolai said. He turned the blinker on and turned right onto Copper Lake’s Main Street. Nikolai was always careful to obey all the traffic laws of whatever country he was operating in.

Took her. Hurt her. Murdered her. Ate her. I like redheads.

“She did not have the amulet. I will not jeopardize the mission for your good time.” There was only one stoplight in the whole town, and unfortunately Nikolai had caught it. The BMW pulled to a stop behind a truck. “Violence will only attract attention, especially against one of the authorities.”

Too late for that.

Indeed it was. He had heard about the attack on the other deputy. There would be others as well that these people did not yet know about. The vulkodlak were being gathered. It was already starting. A single fat snowflake landed on the windshield. He watched it for a moment as it sat there, not even bothering to melt, taunting him. More flakes joined their brother. Within seconds his view was peppered white. Time was running out.

It would have served her right, spawn of that treacherous, thieving Finn.

Nikolai shook his head. It had become far more demanding lately. It made it difficult for Nikolai to think clearly. “Focus.” There was still much work to do, people who had known Aksel to interview, places to investigate. These were problems that could not be solved with tooth and claw, nor with the rifle in the trunk, for that matter. “We must be discreet.”

Do you smell that?

He did. “Wolfsbane . . .” The scent coming through the heater vent was distinct, barely detectable, and only recognized because Nikolai was used to its effects. Its presence served as a general warning, though the herb would cloud his normally acute senses and mask the precise location of the most important thing of all, other werewolves, specifically the one that was wearing it.

Harbinger.

The light turned green. Nikolai activated the wipers and knocked away the collecting snow.

The Quinn Mine had been closed for years. Operations had already been winding down from the glory days when it had been the region’s largest employer, so that by the time the tragedy had occurred the Quinn Mining Company had been but a shadow of its formerly great self. Only two of the company’s dozen shafts had still been in operation, pulling copper from the bowels of the Earth on the day when a rock burst had trapped twenty miners at the base of Shaft Number Six. Over the next seven days, the rescue attempt proved fruitless and was finally called off when two rescuers were killed on the surface by a malfunctioning piece of equipment. It had been the final nail in the coffin of the financially struggling Quinn Mine.

Surrounded by forest and isolated by hills, most of the buildings still stood. Equipment that had been caught up in the ensuing lawsuits had been abandoned to rust. Volunteers from the Copper County Historical Society conducted a tour a few times a year, and some of the faculty from MTU would do the occasional field trip, but otherwise the warren of offices, rock house, hoist building, and warehouses remained empty and decaying.

Ethan Pedde had been a miner there when the Quinn had finally shut down and had been working as the night watchman ever since. Usually the most interesting thing he got to do was chase off teenagers looking for somewhere to screw around or to scare themselves silly in a place that everyone in town said was haunted by the ghosts of trapped miners. Last year he had even let in a group from a cable TV show that had come in hunting for ghosts with a bunch of cameras and recorders. They hadn’t found anything, but Ethan still knew that the place was haunted.

For example, the building he was currently strolling through, that stood on top of Shaft Six, always gave him an eerie feeling. It was several narrow stories of splintering wood and hanging tin, home to rats and pigeons. The wind always made the whole place creak and cry. There was a hole under his feet that went down five thousand feet, farther than God ever intended man to go, an inclined nine thousand feet of tunnels, all coated in red iron dust, and somewhere in a pile of rocks under all that wet red hell were the skeletons of twenty of his best friends who’d asphyxiated in the pitch black. Oh, yeah, if anyplace was truly haunted, it was the old Number Six.

He’d taken a few days off for Thanksgiving, then took a sick day because of a nasty cold. The broken chain lying in the snow at the gate had told him that somebody had snuck into Number Six while he was away. Damn kids. They were probably long gone by now, but if they weren’t, braining one of them with his nightstick was mighty tempting.

Ethan saw the gleam of a flashlight bouncing ahead of him before it disappeared down the stairs, and it ticked him off. Because it was the source of the legends, Number Six was where the morons liked to break in to impress their girlfriends, so Ethan always made sure he walked through it at least twice a night, even when it was piercing cold, like tonight. Though he wasn’t a religious man, Ethan thought of Number Six as a tomb, and therefore sacred, and not to be broken into by idiot teenagers.

Kids looking for a scare . . . They didn’t know what scared was. Scared was going back down that hole, even while the rock was screaming around you, ready to break again, and trying to cut your way to men who any sane person knew were probably already dead while choking on clouds of dust. Ethan had gone down twice, working twenty straight desperate hours. The really brave one had been that madman Aksel Kerkonen, the supervisor of Number Six, who’d gone down by himself one last time, even once they’d called the rescue off. That stubborn old bastard hadn’t known when to quit.

The footprints were visible in the dust. These kids were braver than most. They were going right down to the shaft entrance, following the crumbling railroad ties. The steel tracks had been pulled up and sold for scrap years ago. Ethan lost the prints on the metal catwalk.

Ahead and below were the twin giant spools of cable that raised and lowered the cars. It would take a particularly stupid teenager to go down there. It was pitch black, and there were lots of sharp bits of rusty metal to bang into. The holes had been covered with heavy grates for safety. Although the shafts themselves had crumbled during the cave-in, leaving them choked with broken ledges that you could barely crawl between, even the shortest drop was still a couple hundred feet.

Ethan had stopped to pull the cobwebs from his hair when he heard the crunching. At first he thought it was boots on the gravel around the top of the shaft, but this was different. It was too loud, and it was more of a snapping that was echoing down the brick walls. Ethan wasn’t sure what he was hearing. It would be dangerous for someone to actually try to climb down the shaft. Even if they squeezed past the ledges, most of the bottom levels had flooded with seeping water as soon as the pumps had quit running. It would be easy for someone to get trapped down there and drown.

Once he was back on solid floor, Ethan played his light around, looking for more prints. There were prints with boot tread, others from athletic shoes, but then there was something else: drag marks. Now he was really curious. He kept watching the floor as he approached the noise. The dust was really disturbed in this area. Maybe some vagrant had moved into Number Six. . . . Maybe a crazy vagrant . . . Ethan suddenly realized how dark it was outside of his flashlight beam, and since company policy forbid security guards to have guns, all he had was a nightstick. Maybe he needed to just back out of here and call the sheriff’s department and let them deal with it.

There was a whiff of something rotten. Ethan saw something that made him wonder if the cold medicine was making him hallucinate. It was a paw print, only it was about the length of his size-ten shoe. He turned in a slow circle. There were paw prints everywhere. And then he saw the strangest track of all. It looked like a bird’s track, with three long toes and a spur on the back like a chicken. Only it was ten inches wide and two feet long.

The beam of light rose, shaking, and he saw what was making the crunching noise.

Bones. They glistened red in the beam of light. There were big living things in the shadows, and they were cracking bones.

“Oh, dear God,” he whispered.

The whisper that came over his shoulder almost made the night watchman leap out of his skin.

“He can’t help you here.”

Chapter 5

The padre was the kind of man who kept his cards close to the vest. He didn’t say too much about this supposed job, except that my odds of living through it were infinitesimally small, and who better to fight a monster than a monster? He would not say how he’d found me, how he had managed to avoid being detected while he’d watched me, or how he even knew what I was to begin with.

The last night of the full moon had passed. I had time. I had nothing better planned except catching the express train to hell, so why not go along for the ride?

We traveled across the big island. There was a small fishing boat waiting on the south coast. It took us to a little island named Cayos de Tiburon.

“There is a village on the other side of the island. My church is there. My people have been terrorized by something from the sea. It has carried off many of us. We are a simple folk, who make our living from the ocean, but since the creature has come, the fishermen are afraid to go out. It is slowly killing our village.”

“Why don’t you just get a few men with rifles and wait for it to show up?” I asked.

“We’ve tried. It is too clever. It only comes onto dry land when it can attack the unarmed and helpless. Apparently it has felt the sting of bullets before and does not appear when we are ready. It looks like a dumb beast, but it is very clever. It is huge, with the head of a shark and the tentacles of a squid. It is savage and pulls its victims apart before devouring their flesh, unless it carries them off to its underwater caves. The Indians call it the luska.”

“So, you want me to wait on the beach for this luska thing to show up to eat me, and I kill it with my bare hands, or at least injure it enough while it’s eating me so that it don’t come back?”

“That would be most helpful.”

That silver bullet was sounding better and better.

The beach was tranquil. For the first time in what felt like forever, I was totally at peace. I was about to die, but it was with a purpose. The moon was bright overhead, just a sliver off of full, but enough that the Hum was only background noise. I took off my boots and my shirt, and crouched on the edge of the surf, crunching sand between my toes and waiting. I’d left my revolver with the padre before he’d sailed away. We’d see how smart this critter was. My heightened survival instincts were balanced with that burning desire for the challenge of the hunt. I’d found balance.

It didn’t take long for the luska to spot me, a single, helpless meal. I could sense it in the waves, studying me. I was alone and seemed feeble. My nose picked it up first, just a hint of ocean rot, a bit stronger than its surroundings. It was old and terrible. It watched me for half an hour, recognizing that I wasn’t the same as its regular prey but not understanding just what a werewolf was capable of, even in man form.

Finally the luska made the decision that I was food. It hurled itself out of the surf and onto the sand, a giant black glistening mass. The front end was that of a giant shark, mouth chock-full of gleaming teeth and a little red eye on each side of its great big head. Its rear half was a mass of squid tentacles. The two longest tentacles ended in jagged barbs that looked almost like long-fingered hands. The hands were used to pull its huge weight forward, while several of the smaller tentacles shot back and forth, propelling it up the beach right at me.

Now that was a death worthy of a Hunter.

Heather had only been on her shift for a few minutes, still preoccupied with thoughts of the strange Mr. Peterson, when a big, black, jacked-up Ford truck had blown past her, doing at least forty-five in a twenty-five and ran right through a stop sign without even a flicker of brake lights. Back to work. She’d automatically turned on the siren and pulled out behind the truck.

It had started snowing. Gently so far, but the thick sky told her that it was going to be a real dumper. The roads were still okay, but it was always the assholes in the biggest trucks who assumed that four-wheel drive gave them the magical power to drive too fast on slick roads, physics be damned. The truck had Alabama plates, of all places, so it was probably somebody who had no comprehension of how to drive on ice, either. Damned tourists. It was either ticket the jackass now or pull him out of a ditch later.

She’d already called in the plate number by the time the driver saw the red and blues flashing in his mirror. The truck pulled over at the corner of Quinn and Red Jacket. She got out and approached the driver’s side window cautiously. Copper Lake was a quiet town, but she prided herself on being a professional.

The window was already down. Somebody must like the cold. The driver was an average-looking guy. Caucasian. Early forties. Light-colored hair, groomed short from what she could see sticking out from under his hat. Average build. Beat-up leather jacket. Hands on the steering wheel. The truck put him up rather high, but if he had gotten out she was willing to bet that he would stand just over six foot. She’d been doing this a long time. He turned his head toward her with a polite nod. A few days of stubble. Some gray in there. Hard jaw. Not much fat on this one. Lean. Impression of a tough guy. Eyes an odd shade of blue. Mildly annoyed expression. “Evening, officer. Was I going a little fast?”

He even sounded like he was from Alabama, nothing overt, but the accent was there. Heather kept her tone firm. “Yes, you were. Are there any drugs or weapons in the vehicle you need to inform me about?”

“Negative, ma’am.”

“License and proof of insurance, please. Did you even see that stop sign you just ran?”

The man sighed. “No, ma’am.” His hat had a green happy face with horns on it. Probably some Alabama sports team she’d never heard of, but the only sport she ever watched was hockey, and she doubted very much that Alabama had hockey. After a moment of rummaging through the center console, he passed over the paperwork and his license. “I suppose I was a bit distracted.”

“Well, Mr.”—she glanced at the license—“Harbinger, you need to slow it down and pay more attention.” Thanksgiving had only been a couple of days ago. People were still eating leftover turkey. Since she knew just about everyone in the county, she probably knew whom he’d been visiting. “What brings you to Copper Lake?”

He had a real strange look on his face when he responded. “I’m passin’ through. Never seen this part of the country before.”

“Uh-huh . . . Wait here.” Heather returned to her car to run the stupid tourist’s license.

“Damn it,” Earl muttered to himself after the lady cop sauntered off. He’d been driving around, sniffing the air, trying to pick up a trail. The falling snow was damping the multiple scents, plus the wolfsbane in his pockets wasn’t making it any easier to get a fix. He’d let himself get distracted.

But one thing was for sure . . . He watched the cop in his mirror. She was certainly human, but she had the smell of werewolves on her. One was stronger but unfamiliar, but the other . . . She’d been near Nikolai earlier. It was really faint, but it was there. He hadn’t touched her—it would have been stronger then—but he’d been close recently. The scent brought back memories. It felt like there should have been a flood of memories, but because of Rocky, it was only a trickle and a sense of absence, loss, and a burning desire to tear Nikolai’s throat out.

He watched the cop car in the mirror until snow covered the glass. Not a bad-looking woman as far as he could tell, with her so bundled up against the cold. He did have to chuckle at the stupid question about if there were any drugs or guns in the vehicle. Were criminals dumb enough to actually answer that truthfully? Earl had brought plenty of both. Out of view under the camper shell he had enough weapons to overthrow a Third-World nation and narcotics sufficient to knock out an elephant. The tranquilizers were in case he was out around the full moon and couldn’t make it into the time-locked steel cage that took up half the truck’s bed. Neither option was as nice as his cell back at the compound, but the portable cage beat the hangover from the sedatives.

The cop came back a minute later and handed over his license and a yellow carbon copy that read violation in big black letters across the top. “So much for getting off with a warning.”

Her uniform coat was a giant puffy green monstrosity with an embroidered yellow badge. A black knit cap hid her hair, and her cheeks were rosy from the cold. She was already coated in falling snow. “I only cited you for the stop sign. You’re lucky you caught me in a good mood. I can throw the speeding on there too if you want. Twenty over is a pretty hefty fine,” she stated flatly. The cop had fine features, a nose that was a little too big to be perfect, green eyes, and the hair that had strayed out from under the cap was a dark red. He decided that she could be pretty if she actually smiled, but she didn’t strike him as the smiling type. Human scents always told a story. She wore the smell of workaholic stress, was healthy despite a lack of sleep, lived alone, had a dog, and had eaten Oreos and Diet Mountain Dew for dinner.

Asking where she’d bumped into a former KGB assassin was out of the question. Nikolai could be masquerading as anyone. By most standards, Nikolai spoke better English than Earl did. “You get many strangers in these parts?” he asked.

“Not usually, until it’s good snowmobile weather, but lately we seem to be swimming in them.”

“Really . . . What for?” Where did you meet him?

But apparently she wasn’t the small-town type that liked to gossip about strangers. The cop just shrugged. “Just slow it down. You’d better be more careful. Your behavior could hurt somebody.”

That was the general idea. But he just nodded politely. Knowing where she’d met his enemy could be a real advantage, so he tried one last time before she had a chance to walk away. “What do you say I buy you some dinner and you tell me more about your lovely town?”

She paused, incredulous. “You realize that never works, right?” Then the deputy surprised him with the barest hint of a wry smile. “And you’re not my type. Good night, sir.”

“Type?” Earl muttered to himself after she was gone. “Hell, girl. I ain’t your species. . . .” Earl stuck the new ticket in the center console with the others. Owen got mad when he didn’t save his receipts. Brushing the snow off the mirror, he watched her walk back to the cop car. At least she made those uniform pants look good. Must work out a lot. He waited for her to drive away and even waved as she went by before putting it in gear and heading back to the main street.

The last hour had been spent getting a feel for the area, but now he was starving, and Earl wasn’t inclined to hunt down his nemesis on an empty stomach. Plus, he wanted to talk to more of the residents. There were definitely strange things going down in Copper Lake. The presence of multiple werewolves suggested that Nikolai was up to something unexpected.

The Russian had always been like Earl, a loner. It wasn’t like him to run with a pack. Task-force intelligence had believed that Nikolai had gone so far as to refuse to create others of his kind for his controllers. Stalin had been the last leader that Nikolai had held enough respect for to bow to that command. Not that having fewer werewolves was a particular loss for the Soviet war machine, since the vast majority of them turned out just as dangerous to friend as to foe.

Kirk Conover had always felt that Nikolai had avoided creating others because he liked being special, being the only werewolf that the KGB could count on. Earl had known it was because Nikolai simply hadn’t wanted the competition. It had been a long time since the USSR had collapsed and Nikolai had gone missing, but Earl had just assumed that some things wouldn’t have changed. It smelled like he had been mistaken.

There was an open-late diner down the road a short distance from the hospital. It looked like it had been around for a while, the kind of small-town place where crusty old locals would sit and smoke and talk to whoever was willing to listen about anything that was new or out of place. It was exactly the kind of establishment where a Hunter could grab a cold beer and a hot steak, shoot the bull, leave a huge tip, and get some intel on what was actually going on. In other words, it was Earl’s kind of place.

Which was probably why the sight of the Suburban with the government plates in the parking lot immediately made him mad. Earl swore to himself as he parked the MHI truck behind the black vehicle. It might have been from some innocuous federal agency, but the number of extra antennas and dark window tint in a town teeming with werewolves just screamed Monster Control Bureau. “Well, ain’t that my luck?”

If the Feds were here because they knew about Nikolai, they’d surely screw it up. The Russian would go to ground and disappear for another decade. Earl took his time deciding on a course of action. He could get back on the road and drive around looking for werewolves or he could go inside and try to listen in on the Feds. Odds were that it wouldn’t be anyone who’d recognize him, and if that were the case, he might actually be able to overhear something useful from them. His sense of hearing was better than a normal man’s, so it was worth a shot.

Worst-case scenario, if it turned out to be a familiar Fed, he could try to pick an argument with them to see if they might slip up and say something they shouldn’t. MCB loved to throw their weight around, and one of his favorite hobbies was provoking the easily provoked MCB agents. The thought of confrontation was so tempting that Earl almost left his MHI hat on. Discretion finally won out, and he left it in the truck.

The diner was warm and smelled of good cooking inside. The place was relatively busy for how late it was, but it was a Friday night. Earl took a spot at the bar with a few older gentlemen who were busy complaining about politics. A teenage waiter with hair covering his eyes had a menu in front of Earl a minute later. The Feds were easy enough to spot in a corner booth, being the only customers wearing ties. Ties stand out even more when almost everyone else is wearing flannel. The younger of the pair was unfamiliar but had that typical MCB look, being an intense, muscle-bound, square-jawed specimen of ass-kicking and witness intimidation. The senior one had his back toward the bar, but that raspy bass voice was familiar. The senior agent was a thickset man, totally bald, with jowls and a big nose. What was it? Storm? Stork? He’d been Franks’ partner years ago. . . . Sam had punched his lights out once at some Navy thing. . . . Stark. That was it. Stark was a prick. So much for not being recognized.

The Feds were talking. Like most men who’d spent a lifetime around gunfire, Agent Stark spoke with the unconsciously raised volume of someone with some hearing loss. He was complaining about the weather, the locals, and the audacity of Copper Lake for not being Chicago, but nothing of any use to Earl. The waiter came back, and Earl surprised the kid by ordering two sixteen-ounce T-bone dinners, extra rare, extra everything. The waiter asked if he was expecting a guest. He just smiled, said that he’d been blessed with a fast metabolism, and went back to listening.

It wasn’t the Feds’ conversation that caught his attention, though. It was one of the locals.

“The thing must’a been a monster. I heard it was bad. Like it clawed him to bits.”

“Damn straight. I never seen the like. It ate part of Joe’s stomach. That boy’s lucky to be alive.”

Earl turned toward the two men sharing the bar to his left. “Sorry to interrupt . . . But did you say that somebody got eaten?”

“By a bear,” the first man replied. “Can you believe that?”

Earl whistled. “That happen a lot around these parts?”

“Only never, far as I know,” said the second, who seemed all too eager to share the story. “Everybody in town’s talking about it. My nephew works at the hospital, told me all about it.”

“Where you from?” asked the first suspiciously. Earl recognized the accent from when he’d worked a case in Finland. “You’re not from around here. You talk funny.”

“Alabama. Where bears don’t eat people, it don’t usually snow, and it’s customary for the new guy getting told the tale to buy the drinks for the men doing the telling.” Earl knew from experience that you couldn’t ask for a better bunch than the Finns, once they warmed up to you and decided you weren’t in need of a stabbing, at least. Tough climates bred tough temperaments. “Name’s Earl.”

“That’s a fine tradition there, sonny,” nodded the first approvingly, and he held up three fingers for the waiter. “I’m Aino. That’s Henry. Up on Cliff Road, one of the local deputies, Joe Buckley, was in his car, bear came along and pulled him out the window and ate part of him.”

“He was where the Randalls keep their horses,” supplied Henry. “Other side of the hill from the old Quinn Mine. I used to work down there, ya know, back ’fore the big cave-in.”

“Dark day for Copper Lake,” Aino muttered.

Earl didn’t know if the old immigrant was talking about the bear or the mine collapsing. “Did they catch the bear?” he asked, and he had a sneaking suspicion on what the answer would be. Both of the old timers shook their heads in the negative. “I’m a professional hunter by trade. Maybe I could help.”

“Maybe.” Aino scratched his grizzled chin. “They looked for it, didn’t see nothing. Joe Buckley’s a good boy though, so you see any bears, stranger, you do us a favor and pop it dead.”

The waiter came back with three beers. “I got a few rifles in my truck,” Earl responded, and few was an understatement. He took a bottle and tilted it toward the gentlemen. “And I’m a fair shot.”

The waiter snorted derisively and blew the hair away from his eyes. “People like you put guns on our streets.”

Earl looked at the teenager in disbelief. “And people like you put the fries on my plate.” He waved toward the kitchen dismissively. “So hop to it, boy.”

The waiter stomped away. Aino gave him a big grin. That was a new record for Earl befriending a Finn. Apparently living in America took the edge off.

Stark couldn’t believe his eyes, but who should be sitting there at the bar other than the head contractor scumbag himself, Earl Harbinger.

The entire time he’d been eating his chicken-fried steak and talking with Agent Mosher, Stark had kept checking the test vial under the table. Once it turned blue, he’d told Mosher he needed to take a leak, and he’d gotten up with the plan of calling Briarwood to get their butts up here to make them all some cash. Seeing that pain-in-the-ass Harbinger joking and drinking with some old bastards floored him.

MHI is here. Stark let loose with a long string of profanity under his breath. Those jerks would swoop in, kill the werewolves before Briarwood could, steal the PUFF bounty, and, worst of all, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. He couldn’t even pull jurisdiction and toss MHI out, because that required paperwork, and he sure as hell couldn’t justify that if his official story was that the test kit had come back negative.

He hated Harbinger. Not only was he rich and successful beyond any public servant’s wildest imagination—the guy kept senators in his pocket like most people kept change—he was also a balls-out fighter. Rumor in the MCB was that Harbinger had actually kicked the snot out of several members of Director Myers’s strike team and gotten away with it. Which was another example of why Myers needed to be replaced. If Stark was running the show, there was no way that any MCB would ever be disrespected by a filthy werewolf.

That was the crux of it. Harbinger was a werewolf, a disgusting, stinking lycanthrope, no better than the trash that Stark had devoted his life to destroying. All the Special Agents in Charge knew about him. Those yokels were unwittingly sitting there next to a vicious animal, and Stark wasn’t even allowed to do the sensible thing and go pump a silver bullet into the monster’s head. Non-PUFF applicable creatures were out of his jurisdiction unless they went off the reservation and were caught up to no good. Sure, the second somebody like Harbinger screwed up, MCB owned their ass, but in the meantime his hands were tied. Nobody in the MCB knew exactly why Harbinger was declared off-limits, but Stark was sure that it had something to do with Monster Hunter International throwing big bags of money at spineless politicians.

He had to do something and quick. Harbinger would go to talk to the bitten deputy. That’s how he got his new recruits, after all: sweet-talking survivors. Being a werewolf, Harbinger would definitely recognize that the deputy was infected, probably smell it or something, and then MHI would get that bounty instead of him.

Stark made it around the corner to where the bathrooms were without being seen. Luckily for him, the place still had a pay phone installed—good thing that all these backwoods types got bad cell reception—which meant that he didn’t have to use his government-issued cell to call Briarwood. You couldn’t be too careful in this business.

The sultry European sex goddess picked up on the fourth ring. “Briarwood.”

He cut right to the chase. “If your boys can get here in time, you’ve got two bounties. But they had better hurry. There’s been a complication. Some of your competitors are here.”

“Competitors?”

“The boys from Alabama, if you get who I mean. One bounty is at the hospital. He won’t turn until the full moon, but if you get him early, the blood test will justify the PUFF.” Stark neglected to mention that the place was crawling with cops. That was Briarwood’s problem. “The one that bit him is around here somewhere. How soon can you be on-site?”

There was a long pause, like she was covering the phone and asking someone a question. “Our team is almost there.”

Stark glanced at his watch and swore. It was going to be close. “Head straight for the hospital.” He slammed the phone back into the cradle.

When Stark came around the corner from the bathrooms, Harbinger, who didn’t seem surprised in the least, was staring right at him. Stark froze. From across the room, the Hunter actually had the nerve to raise his beer like he was giving Stark a toast. So much for getting out without being seen. Stark walked up to the bar to confront the obnoxious Hunter.

Earl Harbinger didn’t look like anything special up close, just average. But there was something intimidating about the way he watched you, like he was trying to decide whether to eat you or not. But Stark was MCB, and MCB wasn’t easily intimidated, even by a werewolf.

“Hey, Agent Stork. Been a long time,” Harbinger said, sounding friendly as could be. That redneck-confederate-illiterate-goat-molester-country-music accent made Stark even angrier.

“Stark,” he corrected. “What’re you doing here, Harbinger?”

“Vacation. These gentlemen were just telling me about the quality fishing they’ve got in these parts. Damn fine steaks here, by the way. You?”

“Official business. And you better stay out of it.”

Harbinger smiled. “I’d have to take a significant pay cut to make your business worth my time.”

“Screw you,” he said automatically, but then Stark felt a brief touch of panic. Had Harbinger heard him talking to Briarwood? He paused, thinking it through; there was no way he could have, but it was still a sore spot for the agent. “Listen up, asshole. You want to—”

“Whoa there,” interrupted one of the yokels. “What’s your problem?”

“Shut your face, old-timer,” Stark snapped. “This doesn’t concern you.”

“Damn, Earl. Who’s this dickhead?” asked the other local.

“Somebody who’s about to get his ass beat,” said the first old bastard in a thick accent. He got off his stool but only came up to about Stark’s neck. “You got a problem, fatso?”

“Easy, Aino,” Harbinger said, putting one hand on the man’s arm. The guy had to be in his sixties, and he was ready to throw down at the perceived insult, but at least the grizzled old man returned to his seat, glaring the whole time. “Me and Stork here have met before. He’s just a little high-strung is all. . . . So, how’s life been since you were released as Franks’s jockstrap carrier?”

Mosher had heard the raised voices and come over. The junior agent had no idea what was going on. Stark pointed one thick finger right between Harbinger’s eyes. “Funny guy, huh? Well, funny guy, one of these days you’ll screw up, and then we own you.”

“Uh-huh . . .” Harbinger took a long, nonchalant drink. “And when that day comes, I’ll make sure that whatever I did was absolutely worth it.”

Stark may have been angry, but he was smart enough to know that Harbinger was just goading him. Besides, slugging Harbinger’s drunk hillbilly friend in front of witnesses would probably cause him some trouble. “Come on, Mosher. Let’s get out of this dump. Remember, Harbinger, stay out of my way, or you’ll regret it.”

“See ya’ round, Stork.”

“Better keep walking,” said the one with the accent.

Fists clenched, Stark made it back to the Suburban, Mosher asking him the whole time what that was all about. Stark was fuming, but the sudden cold air had helped clear his head. He’d made up his mind. “Get us back to the hospital,” he snapped. Briarwood better get here soon, because he’d shoot the deputy himself and deal with the paperwork before he gave MHI the satisfaction of stealing his money.

Chapter 6

Since I had been bitten, I had learned about the obvious physical changes. I was stronger, faster, more agile, though at that early stage I hadn’t realized just how much better I’d become. My hearing and sense of smell were more acute. I could see better at night. But the main difference was that I could heal at a phenomenal rate.

It made sense. Since my body was now capable of completely breaking itself down and reforming into a new shape in a matter of minutes (it was minutes then; it is seconds now), reforming broken pieces of my anatomy was an excellent side effect. Though exhausting, injuries caused by anything other than silver mended themselves almost instantly. Though it wasn’t until I fought that luska that I really discovered what I was capable of.

I grabbed the first tentacle hand as it snaked in close. The fingers had the consistency of a thick crab leg. I snapped one off and stabbed the luska with its own claw. For some reason I laughed as it tried to bite me in half, but I moved out of the way faster than the luska could react. It followed me up the beach, farther onto the sand, tentacles swinging like crazy past its big shark head, cracking like bullwhips. Each time a barb hit, it cut right through my skin. Regardless of how fast my skin knitted back together, it still hurt like a son of a bitch, every single time. But once I caught one of the big tentacles, I ripped it right off and beat the monster over the head with it.

For being so damn heavy, luskas are lightning quick. It finally caught up and overwhelmed me beneath its body, crushing me right into the sand. I can still smell the rotting fish. Dragging me out with a tentacle around my leg, it swung me around to its jaws and bit me. Teeth punctured halfway through my body, from my shoulders, through my ribs, through one lung, through my stomach, and cracked my pelvis in half. It shook me back and forth like a terrier with a rat until my spine broke. When I finally hung limp, it slithered back down the beach for the black water.

Then I got really mad.

That was back in the days before I’d learned how to hold off the change. Now I only change when I let the Hum take over, or on the full moon when I have no choice. Back then, if I was in enough pain or anger, I couldn’t help but change.

The luska had just reached the crashing surf when it realized that the thing in its mouth had suddenly gotten a whole lot fiercer. My spine popped back together as every fiber of my body twisted toward a new shape. I reached up with one rapidly lengthening thumbnail and scratched one of that luska’s little red eyes in half. The jaws unlocked, and the teeth pulled free of my body.

The next few minutes were blurry, but as I changed, I managed to reach down the luska’s throat to tear out great bloody chunks of meat. That disoriented it. I shoved its jaws apart until the bones broke. I ripped into it, spraying monster all over the beach. I bit and tore and clawed until the monster flopped and rolled away, trying to escape. So I grabbed on to one of the big tentacles and dragged the thing that was at least five times my size back up the sand. Confused and losing blood, it sprayed me with ink, but that just pissed me off more.

The holes in my flesh sealed. The blood loss weakened me, but fury filled the gaps. The holes in the luska squirted red blood, and that just egged me on. The beast was terrified now, bellowing in pitches that human ears could never hear, warning the others of its kind to avoid this island.

Finally I remember crouching on top of the mighty body, dripping black ink from my fur, claws sunk deep into blubber, as I howled at the moon in triumph. I ripped the creature apart, needing to feed, to replace the mass and energy that I’d just burned.

Luska tastes kind of like ahi tuna, only chewier.

*   *   *

After Jo Ann had gotten the call from Agent Stark, Horst had told Lins to step on it. They were already speeding, but Horst wasn’t going to pass up a free shot at a werewolf.

“I don’t know. The roads are getting nasty,” Lins said.

The driver was right. The snow was getting heavier. But they were in a Cadillac Escalade with good tires, were almost there, and he wasn’t about to let those Alabama pricks come into his neck of the woods and start moving in on his business. Not that this part of the country was anything at all like the Chicago streets he was used to. All those trees made him uncomfortable. There was something wrong about all that land, just sitting there, completely unpaved.

“Don’t be such a punk, Larry,” said Kelley from the backseat, where he had been loading magazines the entire time. By this point Horst wasn’t even sure how many mags he had stacked back there, but whatever kept the bearded brute distracted was fine by him, because he was hard to shut up once he got going. “Have faith, and put the hammer down.” Kelley was a strange combo, a devoutly religious hooligan criminal. Horst’s first clue was when he’d noted the many prison tattoos on Kelley’s thick arms were all biblical verses, but he had come highly recommend.

“Jesus isn’t going to tow us out of a ditch, Robb.” Jo Ann was looking for a fight, as usual.

“Zip it, cow.”

Horst just held up his hand, indicating he wasn’t in the mood. They both shut up. Robb Kelley might have spent a lot of time breaking the knees of people who’d picked the wrong people to owe money to, but Horst knew that Jo Ann Schneider actually had more useful experience than anyone on the crew except for Horst himself. She had served the most time, run every con imaginable, probably offed the most people, and she was certainly fine in a voluptuous kind of way, which came in handy when working with the public.

Loco was in the front passenger seat, staring quietly out the window as usual. As talkative as Kelley was, Loco was quiet. They didn’t call him Loco because he was crazy, though Horst thought he might be, at least a little. Loco was just short for Lococo. Jason Lococo was huge, ugly, with a shaved head and one glass eye that never pointed in quite the same direction as the other. The giant also bench-pressed close to five hundred pounds and had served five years of hard time for killing someone by accident. He’d punched the dude once. The reason Horst had hired him was pretty obvious.

“Hey, it’s slick,” Lins insisted. “I’m doing my best.”

He didn’t have time for this. Lawrence J. Lins, or Larry to his friends, was the oldest man on the Briarwood team and had been a major hitter for some gangs out of Cleveland. His uncle had also recommended Lins because of his reputation. He looked like a gray-haired biker, no-nonsense-take-care-of business type, and was not the sort to get jumpy just because they were facing something supernatural.

Horst hadn’t been at MHI very long, but long enough to see that the kind of people they recruited were too soft for this kind of business. Sure, they’d survived a monster attack, and got all high and mighty, but they weren’t nearly as bad as they thought they were. MHI’s Hunters were just regular Joes pretending to be heroes. After monsters ate the wannabes, they were left with a decent-enough crew as far as he could tell, but the core of MHI was still soft. Instead, Horst had surrounded himself with hard cases. This bunch would kill anything without hesitation. He was the only one on the team without a record, and that was only because he was smart enough not to get caught.

But right now Lin’s caution was going to cost Briarwood a bunch of money, so it was time to take charge. Horst’s response was cold. “Listen. This is our shot at the big time. Killing a werewolf gives us money, a name, and a line of clients a mile long. I told you about those people I used to work for. They own fucking helicopters. Helicopters! That’s the kind of scratch I’m talking about. You want to go back to knocking over liquor stores?”

“No. I’m done with that,” Lins said.

“Then quit being a bitch and drive faster,” Horst ordered.

Lins just grunted and gave it more gas. Horst prided himself on his management skills.

The hospital was one of the newer buildings in Copper Lake. It wasn’t the biggest in the region, but it was a decently capable, bland, two-story concrete square, and it served all major needs of the many small towns in the rural area. They’d decided that Buckley had been too injured to risk transporting him to the bigger facility in Houghton until he’d stabilized, which everyone doubted would actually happen. Then Buckley had surprised everyone by not dying. Word around the office was that Dr. Glenn had been speechless when he’d seen how well Buckley was doing. Heather figured that the initial severity of his injuries must have been exaggerated.

Heather decided to poke her head in for a visit. Buckley was single, no girlfriend, no close family. They had actually eaten Thanksgiving dinner together just a few days ago in the station’s break room. As usual, the unattached had volunteered to work on the holiday so their coworkers could be with their families. He was an affable guy, but kind of a loner. Heather had always liked him. He was a straight shooter, friendly to everyone, and an all-around good guy you could count on in a tough situation. It broke her heart to come here.

There was a waiting area for friends and family on the second floor. Heather knew it all too well. She’d slept many nights on that couch right there. Her mom had died here, sick but never alone. Then her grandpa had spent his last days here after his stroke. Shortly after that her dad had ended up here. She’d gotten to know this particular couch during all their stays. Yep, she and that couch were old friends.

It was late, and there was no one else in the waiting room. The nurse on staff recognized Heather and waved her through to go straight to Buckley’s room. Sure, it was after normal visiting hours, but small towns could appreciate when rules needed to be applied and when they needed to be overlooked. Buckley had gone through another surgery this morning, and normally they wouldn’t have let anybody other than immediate family stay with him, but they were making an exception for the sheriff’s department.

Buckley was lying there, covered in bandages, looking terrible. His normally handsome face seemed sunken, and his broken skull was wreathed in white. His torso was covered, but one arm was wrapped in a giant bundle where they’d tried to piece his hand back together. There were flowers everywhere. The people of Copper Lake loved Joe and had tried to show their support the best way they could. Heather had debated picking up some flowers but had decided that it seemed kind of silly. It wasn’t like Joe was the kind who appreciated flowers. Anything else at this point would have just been a waste. They would all be wilted and dead by the time he woke up anyway.

There was nothing official about it, but the entire department had rallied to make sure that there was always somebody with Buckley, and the sheriff, being a good and kind-hearted man, had decided that one of his people had better damn well be there when Buckley woke up. Tonight it was Chase Temple sitting in his regular clothes on the recliner in the corner of Joe’s room.

Temple put down his political science textbook and stretched. “Hey, Kerkonen.”

“How’s he doing?” she asked quietly.

“Same. Hard to tell . . . I don’t know.” Temple stood. “If you’re going to be here a minute, I need to step out and grab a smoke. That smell’s killing me.”

“Smell?” Heather asked. “The flowers?”

“No, the hospital antiseptic. Can’t you smell that? This place smells like sick people.”

She shrugged. It was a familiar smell. She hadn’t noticed. “You hungry?”

“Cafeteria’s closed.”

“They usually leave some sandwiches out behind the counter. There’s a coffee can for you to put money in. It’s on the honor system. Bring me a doughnut if you don’t mind.”

“You and your junk food . . .” Temple cracked a smile. “That stuff will kill you.”

Ethan Pedde huddled in terror on the floor as the thing that looked just like a petite, young, naked woman squatted next to him sucking the marrow out of the end of a human femur. His flashlight had rolled across the floor, and in the shadows her eyes seemed gold.

The girl was half his size, but her grip had been like iron. She had backhanded him to the ground, tossed him around like he weighed nothing, and dragged him screaming by one leg down to the bone and meat pile, and left him there, quivering. The things in the shadows were hairy. The steam rising from their bodies warmed the space. They didn’t bother to look up from their meal. The naked girl seemed at home with the terrifying animals. Ethan turned his head far enough to see that what was left of the body was wearing jeans and running shoes.

It smelled of musk. He was surrounded by huge carnivorous animals. He knew that if he tried to get up they’d attack. Two of them began to wrestle and snap at each other over a severed arm. That made the girl smile.

“Who . . . who are you?” he managed to whisper.

“The pack,” she answered simply, then went back to gnawing on the bone.

Since it was dark, and the girl was coated in dried blood, her hair a matted tangle of dust and filth, it took him a minute to recognize her as one of the checkout girls from the Value Sense Grocery. She had always been friendly as could be, with a ready smile and a good attitude. If he remembered right, she’d even been a Copper Lake cheerleader a few years back. “You’re the Langleys’ girl, aren’t you?”

“Not anymore.”

Ethan understood that the thing squatting there amongst the terrifying beasts wasn’t the friendly local girl he’d known. No longer human, she was something wild, feral, and dangerous. “What’re you going to do to me?”

“If it were up to me, you’d already be in my belly,” she replied. “So shut up. The witch’s things are still searching. They don’t need to breathe like we do down there, but don’t you worry, we’ll be gone soon. The Alpha said they almost had it.”

The girl was talking crazy. “Please, I’ve got a wife and kids. Let me go,” Ethan begged.

“Humans are such whiny little bitches.” There was a clanking noise from the shaft. Her head snapped around, and she peered into the darkness of the entrance. “He’s coming. You better not piss him off, or you’ll regret it.” The girl took a few fearful steps back and disappeared into the darkness.

Ethan tried to make himself look as small and nonthreatening as possible. The closest animal was sitting only a few feet away, crouched on its hind legs, its torso upright. One of its hairy forearms was sitting in the beam of light, and Ethan realized that it had fingers with pointed nails like black claws, but they were fingers. Not a paw. Fingers.

Every creature in the room moved, long heads shifting toward the shaft entrance at the same time. Their heads dipped submissively. Ethan couldn’t see what they were looking at, but suddenly there was a man’s voice in the darkness.

“The diggers have found it.”

All of the animals howled in unison. The sound reverberated through Number Six. Ethan curled into the fetal position.

The man got close enough to the light that Ethan could just make out his silhouette. He was wearing a big black coat and wide-brimmed hat. His face remained in shadows, but his eyes seemed to glow like the girl’s. He had a mud-caked box in this hands. The man got closer, put the box down, and then sat cross-legged on the dusty floor behind it.

“Who are you?” the man asked, noticing Ethan for the first time.

His mouth was so dry it hurt to talk. “The night watchman,” he managed to answer.

“Oh . . . I thought I recognized you. I took the tour once.” There was a long sound of inhalation. The stranger was smelling him. “You’ve been down below. You left your fear down there before, during the cave-in. I could taste it on the walls. You knew Kerkonen?”

“I knew him,” Ethan croaked. What did old Aksel have to do with this?

The big black hat nodded up and down. One hand came to rest on the box. “It can’t be destroyed. I know he must have tried. Can’t break it, burn it, or melt it. They don’t build things like this anymore. That’s why he tried to hide it. He was scared of someone like me coming along. He thought if he buried it deep enough, I wouldn’t find it. He buried it in the deepest hole on Earth and then filled it with water. It was a brilliant try. I’ll give him that. It took me years to find this place.”

It was a stainless-steel lockbox. The stranger broke the clasp and rusty padlock off with one hand. The box creaked as it opened for the first time in years. The creatures all crowded in closer to see. Ethan could feel their body heat.

The stranger lifted a rotting cloth from the box. Water drizzled out to puddle with the blood on the floor. “Behold, my children . . .” The stranger was eager. The rags fell apart. Something silver gleamed in the light; a chain spilled away from it and swung. The man’s smile was visible in the dark. His teeth were too sharp. “The amulet of Koschei the Deathless.”

The excitement could be felt coming from the horrible creatures as the man removed his hat and placed the chain over his head. He shuddered when the amulet hit his chest. The golden eyes closed. The pack drew even closer. It was almost as if the animals were holding their breath, waiting to see what would happen.

The man began to mutter under his breath, as if reciting a memorized prayer. The guttural language was unfamiliar. The prayer grew in intensity. The creatures let out fearful whimpers and dipped their heads further. The air seemed to bend around them. The light from the flashlight flickered and died.

The terrifying stranger finished in English. “Let the heavens cry their tears of ice. Let the rivers flow with blood.” He exhaled slowly and reopened his eyes. Gold had turned to bright, glowing red. “Let the great hunt begin.”

Ethan Pedde’s screams died in his throat as several sets of jaws ripped him apart.

The Hum came out of nowhere.

Earl had to grab the bar to keep from falling off the stool. One hand convulsively knocked his dinner onto the floor. The plate shattered. The sudden clatter got the other patrons’ attention.

Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. For a split second he thought the change had come on him. Visions of blood; he’d kill everyone there. They’d never have a chance.

Aino’s hand landed on his shoulder. “You all right, buddy?”

Teeth gritted together, Earl tried to steady himself while his ears rang and all the hair on his arms stood on end. He shrugged the hand off. It was like the days leading up to the full moon had been compressed into a single moment with the density of a brick and then smashed over his head.

Luckily, the sensation was already passing. The Hum was fading to normal levels.

“I’m okay. Give me a second.” He took a deep breath. What the hell was that? Earl shoved himself away from the bar and took a few halting steps, swaying, dizzy. The other patrons were staring at him. Beads of sweat were rolling down his clammy skin.

The annoying waiter approached. “Everything okay, mister?”

“You need a doctor?” Henry asked.

“Naw . . . I’m good. Gotta go clear my head. Fresh air.” Earl got his wallet out, pulled out two hundreds and stuffed them into the waiter’s shirt pocket. “Sorry about the mess.” Head still swimming, Earl staggered for the exit.

Outside, the sky broke open and snow thundered down. The howling of wolves could just be heard over the howling of the wind.

Heather started to form a response to Temple about how she wasn’t going to get lectured to by a guy in his twenties about her doughnut addiction, when Joe Buckley groaned loudly and startled them both. The machines by the bed beeped wildly. Buckley suddenly jerked, his face contorting in a grimace of pain. “Get the nurse,” Heather ordered. Buckley gasped and opened his eyes. He appeared to be in terrible pain. He looked around in confusion, then let out a blood-curdling scream. “Go!”

Temple sped from the room. Heather went to Buckley’s side. “Joe, can you hear me?” Buckley began thrashing, his hands curled into fists and drawn up to his chest. He tried to sit up, but screamed again and fell back, only to try to rise again. There was a cracking noise, and Heather had no idea where it came from, but she could have sworn that it had come from inside of him. Scared that he was going to rip open his stitches, Heather put her hands on Buckley’s shoulders and tried to restrain him. “Joe! Calm down!”

Suddenly, Buckley fell limp. The heart monitor began to sound a high-pitched alarm.

Buckley was looking right through her. Dead.

“Oh God. Not you, too, Joe . . .”

Then he blinked.

Veins grew large beneath the skin of his forehead and neck. A sudden heat emanated from his body, so intense that it felt like his flesh was about to burst into flames. Beads of sweat materialized and flowed freely down Joe’s face. He screamed and kept screaming until he ran out of air; then he gulped more in and screamed again. Saliva flew from his lips and hit her in the face, but she still tried to hold him down. She’d never seen someone in so much pain. “Help! We need a doctor!” she shouted out the doorway.

When she looked back down, the whites of Joe’s eyes had seemingly filled with blood from broken vessels. His pupils had turned a metallic gold. The screaming stopped, but then it was replaced with desperate panting. With a shock, she realized that his skin was actually burning her hands. She gasped and let go, backing away as Buckley’s back arched, lifting most of his body off the bed. Other machines began squealing madly as tubes and sensors were ripped out. He kicked violently, the blankets flew across the room, there were more crackling noises, like bones breaking, and Buckley’s body slammed back down.

Buckley looked at her, panting, foam coming from his lips, and gasped, “Kill me, please. Hurry.” His voice was too deep. His teeth were bleeding.

Temple returned with Dr. Glenn and a nurse right at his heels. The doctor was shouting orders. Heather raised her hands and covered her mouth, backing away slowly until her back met the wall. Mad with pain, Buckley’s fists unclenched, and he began tearing at his gown with fingernails that were far too long.

*   *   *

Nikolai was driving down the snowy highway, cursing his bad luck and planning his next move, when the surge struck. It rolled over him, through him, like a tidal wave. It was as if the moon was suddenly there, not just calling him but screaming in his ear. He managed to gasp “No!” as his blood ignited.

Yes! Yes! the Tvar screamed inside.

He tried to fight the transformation. His muscles locked up and he helplessly jammed the accelerator to the floor. A spastic twitch cranked the wheel to the side. The BMW spun directly into the oncoming headlights of the other lane. An orange shape was hurtling at them in a billowing plume of dirty snow.

“Govno,” Nikolai muttered as his body unclenched.

The snowplow’s blade slammed into the car with a thunderous bang. The front end crumpled in two directions. Glass and metal filled the compartment as the world shifted into a sudden reverse and the BMW was lifted from the road. Nikolai, not wearing his seat belt, was hurled through the windshield.

Earl stood in the parking lot, face lifted toward the sky, eyes closed, open mouth filling with whipping snow, and he breathed it in, filling his lungs with ice. The cold cleansed him, cooled his burning skin. Something was terribly wrong. In all the years since he’d been cursed, he’d never felt anything like that.

The moon’s humming was still there. It was always there. He could feel it to the core of his soul. It waxed and waned, more regular than clockwork. But now there was another Hum, an unnatural vibration, and it was coming from something other than the moon. Earl lowered his arms and opened his eyes. The wind ripped at his coat. A full-on blizzard had sprung out of nowhere. He turned in a slow circle, watching as the lights of the town were blotted out of existence by the shielding snow.

The new Hum, the false moon, it called to him. He could feel it. He could follow it like a beacon. There was something else that he could sense, too, much closer. He turned toward the squat concrete shape of the nearby hospital. An awakening . . . In a crowded public building packed with innocents. “Damn you to hell, Nikolai. What’ve you done?”

Investigating the new false moon would have to wait. Earl reached under his coat for the comforting shape of the Smith & Wesson 625 holstered on his right hip. The .45 was loaded with 230-grain MHI-issue silver bullets, and he guessed that he’d be needing them real quick. He set off at a run.

Chapter 7

“Impressive,” the padre told me the next morning. “Even for a werewolf. Especially for one so young.”

I woke up inside the luska carcass, using its liver as a pillow. I was absolutely stuffed, stunk like fish blood and oil, was extremely sore, and human. I stumbled out of the canopy of ribs to go wash off in the surf. The priest followed me. I asked him if he was an expert on werewolves as I used sand to scour the ink from my skin.

“Why, yes, actually. I am.”

I paused and sniffed the air. He wasn’t like me. That was obvious. “Keep talking.”

“My name is Father Santiago. I was not always a simple parish priest. As a young man, I held a special assignment at the Vatican. Were you aware that the church has its own group of Hunters?”

For the record, I was raised Southern Baptist at my mother’s insistence, but me and religion hadn’t ever paid each other much mind. There were other rival organizations, even back then, but we’d never run into any churchy ones. Everybody we’d ever competed with had been in it for the money, same as us. “Makes sense, I suppose.”

“Your organization started in 1895. Ours started in the twelfth century,” he continued. “I was an archivist, so I know a few things about werewolves.”

I betrayed my lack of schooling. “What’s an archivist?”

“Someone who keeps records. But as I was saying, I know werewolves. For example, I know that you are certainly an oddity.”

“Why’s that?”

“Most would be sitting in that luska’s belly, but not quite so comfortably as you were. I do believe that luska should be digesting you, not the other way around. Also, most young werewolves are extremely erratic and easily provoked into rages, and you have not even attempted to kill me once.”

“Eh . . . I’ve been busy. I figured I’d get around to it.”

Father Santiago was carrying his shoes to keep from filling them with sand. He put his toes in the water. “What if I were to tell you that I know of a few cases in history where a lycanthrope with similar strength of character was able to control their curse enough to live a long and productive life?”

Nobody had ever accused me of being a quitter. “I’d say I’m listening.”

*   *   *

The cell phone had lost its signal. Agent Stark glared at the display. He had managed to call his office and do his mandatory check-in for the night, but it had cut off when he’d tried to get his wife. She always got bitchy when he didn’t check in. She said it was because she worried, but he knew it was because she was a control freak who wasn’t happy unless she was nagging him to death.

“Probably interference from the storm,” Agent Mosher supplied helpfully.

“Think so, Einstein?” Stark gestured out the front window of the Suburban. The snow was pounding down. The other cars in the hospital parking lot were quickly beginning to resemble white lumps. He would have sworn that it had dumped two inches in the last ten minutes. The wipers were going full blast just so he could still keep an eye on the parking lot. Stark tried his phone again, but it had gone from three bars to a big fat blinking No Signal.

A minute of uncomfortable silence passed. The junior agent could tell that his boss was in a bad mood. “Shouldn’t we head to the hotel?” Mosher suggested. “Why’d we come back here? You said the test was negative.”

“Intuition,” Stark lied. He was just waiting for Briarwood or MHI to show up. If it was Briarwood, he could go get some sleep. If it was Harbinger, he was going to go shoot himself a deputy. “Trust me, kid. I’ve been doing this a long time. Sometimes an agent just has to trust his gut.”

Mosher just nodded. The junior agent knew that Stark had been trained by the legendary Agent Franks, so if Stark said that was how it was, then you’d better believe that was how it was. There were certain bragging rights in the MCB that came from serving with Franks. That dude had killed everything. The new rumor was that he’d actually used some gizmo built by Isaac Newton to blow up an actual great Old One, but Myers was keeping the details of the New Zealand op top secret.

The deputy was on the top floor. Some of the lights were on up there. Stark could see a few people moving around, but overall the place seemed pretty quiet. This might not be so bad after all. Maybe the cops would have gone home for the night. Hospital staff were far easier to deal with, and there wouldn’t be too many of them. Stark scowled. However, there did seem to be some activity in the room directly above them. The blinds were partially open, and there was definitely movement. If he was remembering the layout correctly, that would have been the deputy’s room.

Stark checked his phone. Still no signal.

Mosher managed to stifle a yawn. “So, we’re here. What do you think is going to happen?”

“Something . . . I guess.” Stark returned his attention to the window just in time to watch it explode outward in a shower of sparkling glass as a man wearing blue scrubs was launched through. He tumbled wildly through the air, face-planting onto a car parked in the front row. The body came to a sudden stop hard enough to bend the roof.

“Did you see that?” Mosher shouted.

“Kind of hard to miss.” There was no way. It was too early. The full moon wasn’t for a few days, but the limp body staring at him upside down, turning the snow pink, wasn’t lying. “Come on,” Stark ordered as he opened his door.

“Damn, sir, you are good,” Mosher exclaimed as he followed.

Heather couldn’t back any farther into the corner, but she wished that she could. The doctor had tried to do something to Buckley, but Buckley had just swung at him and the doctor had just been gone. She looked up, following the trail of blood splattered across the ceiling, and tracked the trail with her eyes to where it terminated at the shattered window. The blinds were hanging in tatters and a freezing wind pushed snow into the room. He’d swatted poor Dr. Glenn right out the window.

Buckley was sitting up in bed. The screaming had ceased. He was still panting, but he seemed calmer somehow. His golden eyes locked on hers as tears of blood rolled down his cheeks. “Kill me . . . please.” It was as if his tongue was too big and he had a hard time forming the words. His hospital gown was torn, and his body was covered in hair. Buckley looked down at his hand. It was dripping, and each of his fingers ended in a red point. “Please . . .” His mouth opened too wide, as if it was hinging farther back.

Deputy Temple was too shocked to move. The nurse took two steps back, tripped over something, and fell on her rear. Heather drew her pistol. “Joe?”

“Do it!” he roared. Another wave of pain hit Buckley, only instead of a normal human scream, out came a terrible howl. His entire body was rippling, skin pulsing. Heather couldn’t believe her eyes. The howl tapered off. Then the lights flickered twice, and they were plunged into darkness. The wailing of the machines stopped. An ominous silence fell as the background noises of the hospital died.

The only light was an eerie reflected white from the broken window. Heather raised her gun. Buckley’s bed rattled hard. “Joe?”

There was no answer, only heavy breathing. Heather had a painful knot in her stomach. It took all of her conscious effort to take a step away from the wall. A few seconds later, the emergency generator turned over. The fluorescents flickered to life at half strength. The light was dim and twitchy.

Buckley was gone. Something had taken his place in the bed. He—it—was staring at her. Her mouth tried to form words, but no sound came out. It was still Buckley, sort of . . . Skull cracking, his face had twisted into a horrific snout. Yet as he looked at her again, she somehow knew that it was no longer Joe inside there. Joe was gone. He rose from the bed, twisting and gasping, his gums stretching past his splitting lips.

The nurse cried out and started crawling for the door. The noise caught Buckley’s attention. His lengthening head whipped around, attention fixed on the woman. The attempted flight set something off. He leapt from the bed.

“Stop!” Heather cried, but she was already pulling the trigger. She didn’t even remember aiming the Beretta or flicking the safety off, but the glowing front sight was right there on his center of mass, just like she’d been trained. She pulled the trigger again as his feet hit the floor and then again as he pounced on the nurse. The woman screamed as Buckley’s teeth sank into her chest and his fingers into her neck. Buckley shook his head back and forth. The nurse was flung about helplessly, limbs flailing, crying, as Heather kept on shooting.

Buckley jerked as Heather shot him repeatedly in the back. He released the nurse, head rising, mouth spraying blood in a wide arc, and Heather shot him in the throat. Buckley got up, made it a few steps toward the exit, and then collapsed in a heap into the hallway.

Heather was shaking. The slide was locked back on her pistol. The Beretta 96 held eleven rounds in the magazine. Somehow she’d fired them all. The adrenaline had made the gunshots sound like insignificant pops. She realized she’d been holding her breath.

Focus, Kerkonen. Buckley wasn’t moving. His feet and legs were still in the room, only they weren’t shaped like feet anymore. She broke out of the tunnel vision. The nurse was coughing up blood. Her collarbone was visible. Temple was frozen. Heather reached for another magazine as she moved to the injured woman. It took her two tries with her suddenly clumsy fingers to get the new mag seated in her gun.

Heather squatted next to the nurse. The wound looked like she’d been hit with a chainsaw. Blood was pumping down her shirt. Buckley had bitten a chunk out of her. Terrified, the woman was trying to speak. “It’s okay,” Heather lied. Thumbing the safety down, she reholstered her pistol, just like she’d been trained. “Just stay calm. We’ll get you some help.” That’s what they’d taught her. Tell the injured that everything was going to be okay, even if you knew they were screwed. Freak out in front of them with a bunch of Oh man, you’re all messed up, you’re gonna die, and it was just like you’d killed them yourself. However, this was so far beyond Heather’s first-aid knowledge that she had no clue what to do. She tried to put direct pressure on the biggest hole. Blood came spurting between her fingers. But it didn’t matter. The flow dropped in intensity, then stopped. The nurse was dead. Heather didn’t know her name. She must have been new here.

Scrambling back, blood up to her elbows, Heather tried her radio, but there was no response, only static. She moved to the phone at the bedside, but it was dead, too. She needed help. People were gathering in the hall, a couple of mobile patients roused by the gunfire, and the final member of the skeleton crew of the night shift on this floor, and all of them were stopping and staring at Buckley’s mutated hairy body, facedown, bleeding out on the carpet.

Finally another nurse stepped gingerly over Buckley’s body and came to help his coworker. Heather recognized this one. Bailey Something, and he’d been nice enough while her grandfather had been dying here. “What happened?”

“Buckley . . . ate her,” Heather tried to explain.

“Where’s Doc Glenn?”

She awkwardly pointed at the window. Some weird shit had just gone down. Bailey went to work, though Heather knew it was too late. Heather tried to stay cool. Need help. “Chase?” The other deputy was still standing there, mouth agape. The young man didn’t respond. “Deputy Temple!” she shouted. “Draw your fucking sidearm!”

He jumped. “Yes, sir,” he finally responded, coming back to reality.

“Watch Buckley. If he moves, shoot him in the brain. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

Cringing, she passed over Buckley’s body while trying hard not to look at him, pushed past the patients, and made it around the corner to the nurse’s station, keying her radio the entire way, getting nothing but static, and found that the main phone was dead as well. Not even a dial tone. The power, phones, and radio were all down. “Damn it all to hell.” What else could go wrong?

Then the people behind her began to scream as Temple started shooting.

*   *   *

Luckily the power went off right before Agent Stark stepped into the elevator. Being trapped in an elevator with the power out while a werewolf was eating people would have been really embarrassing, the kind of thing that would become MCB lore. The other agents would never have let him live it down.

Mosher had his flashlight out in a split second. The brilliant Streamlight lit the entire lobby area. “Stairs?”

“Stairs,” Stark responded as he drew his Glock 20. “Go.” He’d gotten his own tac-light off his belt and clamped on to the dustcover of his 10mm by the time they found the stairwell, but by then the power had come back on. He jerked the door open and was greeted by the echo of gunfire.

They surprised a janitor on the stairs. The man just stared at the two armed men in suits. “Evacuate the building,” Stark ordered. “You’ve got a . . . uhm . . .” He paused, not having thought the cover through yet. He’d figured he had plenty of time until the full moon. Cleaning this up was going to be a royal pain in the ass. “There’s an escaped lunatic ax murderer upstairs. Run for your life!”

A patient hopped past her, one leg in a cast, crutch forgotten somewhere. He was terrified. Heather counterintuitively ran toward the danger. An older woman in a bathrobe was right behind the hopper. She screamed something incoherent, hobbled back into her room, and slammed the heavy door. Heather rounded the corner and skidded to a halt. She bit back a cry.

It was a bloodbath.

The hallway had been painted red. She’d only been gone for a few seconds. It looked like the scene of an industrial accident. Is that one body? Two? She wasn’t sure, and she couldn’t really tell now. There was just a jumbled mass of limbs in a pile. Unconsciously she started walking backward, toward safety.

Someone screamed inside Buckley’s room.

Her boot clicked on the linoleum, and Heather realized that she’d been retreating. She stopped. Despite her best judgment, all reason, and logic, Heather knew her job, and nobody had ever accused her of not doing her job. “Crap, crap, crap.” Drawing her Beretta, she flicked the safety off and raised it in both shaking hands, walking toward Buckley’s room.

Temple flopped into the hallway, slipping onto his hands and knees, scrambling madly through the blood. Shirt rent open, he was bleeding from several deep lacerations. “Help me!” He had made it a few feet toward her when a black mass of hair bounded into the hall at his heels. It was unbelievably fast, and it certainly wasn’t human. The animal grabbed Temple by the foot and in one smooth motion dragged him back into Buckley’s room. Her fellow deputy disappeared, a look of shocked disbelief on his face.

There was a drag trail through the blood. It had happened so quickly that Heather hadn’t even fired a shot. What was that? “Buckley?” Temple bellowed in agony. Heather forced herself forward. “Hang on, Chase! I’m coming!”

Then the beast moved back into the hall. It came so quickly that it just seemed to materialize. It saw her, and there was no hesitation. Growling, it charged on all fours. Heather yanked the trigger repeatedly. It covered the distance in a split second. The creature leapt high. There was no time to dodge. She shut her eyes before impact.

There was a bone-jarring bang, but the expected hit never arrived.

Heather opened her eyes. The creature was sliding down the floor away from her, wearing what she could have sworn was a too-human look of surprise on its awful canine face.

A man in a leather jacket had come out of nowhere and was standing protectively in front of her. He was shaking his right hand loose as if he’d just struck something hard. “Stay behind me.”

“Did you . . . Did you just punch that thing?”

“Seemed like the thing to do,” the stranger grinned, winked, and that’s when she recognized the annoying Southerner from the traffic stop earlier. “Any chance I can get you to rip up that ticket now?”

The animal came off the floor, roaring, and charged. “Look out!”

Nonchalant, the man turned back as a big stainless revolver appeared in his hand. He fired so quickly that the shots sounded like a continuous crackle. Every bullet struck home, right into the animal’s head. Blood and fur splattered the walls. It collapsed, limp, forward momentum sliding it onward. The man opened the cylinder of his revolver, punched out the spent casings, and slammed in a bundle of six more so fast that his gun was reloaded by the time the creature reached them. He casually raised one boot and put it down on the body, stopping it in place.

“How? What? How?” Heather stammered. The thing under the stranger’s boot was bizarre, unnatural. One of its claws had come to a stop only inches from her foot. “Ack!” She kicked the hand aside.

Taking his time, he put one last shot right between the animal’s eyes. Heather flinched. “Silver bullets,” he explained. He stuck his gun back into his holster, then took a cigarette out of his coat and put it in his mouth. “Your regular ones won’t do shit to a werewolf. I’ll give you a B for effort, though.”

Heather was stunned. The fearless weirdo showed up, punched a giant animal down the hall, shot the hell out of it, and now he was talking about werewolves. “Huh?”

“Grading on a curve, obviously. I’ve got to reserve the A for this kid that works for me, killed a werewolf with his bare hands one time. Got another with a pool cue.”

“Werewolf?”

“Yup. That there’s one dead-ass werewolf,” he explained, gesturing at the body. A Zippo appeared in his other hand, and he lit up. He took a long drag then blew out a cloud of smoke. “Name’s Earl. Earl Harbinger.”

She was still staring at the animal. “Uh. Yeah.”

The new guy was completely calm, not even bothered that there were fresh brains on his boot. “That would normally be the part where you tell me your name, Deputy . . .”

“Kerkonen.” Could that thing really be Joe Buckley? Harbinger had called it a werewolf, but that was just absurd.

“Talkative, ain’t ya? Well, Deputy Kerkonen. Congratulations. You just survived a monster attack. Welcome to big-boy town. Now, how about we go see if there are any other survivors?”

“Temple!” She stepped over the animal’s arm. Heather refused to think of it as a werewolf or Joe Buckley. She couldn’t think of that thing as Buckley without endangering her sanity. “There were others in that room.”

“Let’s go then,” he said, removing his boot from the animal.

She took one last look at the dead body. It had been mere inches from pouncing on her. “Thank you,” Heather stammered as she realized just how close she’d come to being torn apart. Pistol in hand, she started for Buckley’s room.

The two of them had only gone a few feet when the beast rose up behind them like a great black shadow and sunk its fangs into Heather’s shoulder.

Deputy Kerkonen looked at Earl with an expression of complete surprise as the teeth pierced her. The disbelief turned into realization, and she cried out as the pain hit. The werewolf lifted her off the floor, shook her, then hurled her down the hall. The cop hit hard and went skidding away. The werewolf turned toward Earl, bloody jaws wide.

Earl reacted and slammed his fist into the werewolf’s snout. Bones cracked. Teeth went flying. He slugged the werewolf again with a blow that would have surely killed any human, and then, as the werewolf staggered back, Earl kicked it in the stomach hard enough to knock the werewolf through a heavy wooden door and into the room beyond.

Impossible. He’d put multiple silver bullets into the new werewolf’s skull. There was absolutely no way that it could be alive. None. All werewolves were vulnerable to silver. Earl followed it into the room. There was an old lady on the bed, watching the creature on her floor in surprise. She took the oxygen mask away from her face to point and screech incoherently about wild animals waking her up.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” Earl said politely. The new werewolf was rising. Earl slammed his boot into the back of its head and put it back down, holding it there. He drew his Smith, then paused. “Would you kindly cover your ears?” He waited for the old lady to comply. Then he pumped the remaining five rounds into the werewolf’s head. It made a ghastly mess on the floor. The patient began mashing her button to summon a nurse. “I don’t think anybody’s coming, ma’am.”

“What kind of lousy hospital is this?” she wheezed. Grumbling, she got out of bed, grabbed a cane, and headed for the door.

As the patient slowly fled the room, Earl watched the bullet wounds pull themselves closed. He took a moon-clip from his belt and checked it before reloading. Sure enough, it was standard MHI ammo; a silver ball sealed into a regular jacketed lead hollow point. The werewolf should be assuming room temperature, not twitching its way back up to ruin his day. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

The regeneration time was remarkable, faster this time than the first go around, almost like it was adapting on the spot. It was already rising. Strong, too . . . Earl was shoved back as the muscled beast forced itself from the floor.

Claws lashed out. Earl barely moved aside as they cleaved the air where his head had been. Too fast. Jaws flashed, and Earl calmly fed the werewolf his right arm. Teeth clamped down on his jacket and shook him from side to side. He could feel the intense pressure through the leather, but hardly anything on Earth could pierce minotaur hide. He kept a small Entrek fixed-blade knife at the small of his back for just this sort of occasion. Calmly, Earl pulled the blade free with his left hand and drove it between the werewolf’s ribs.

The werewolf let go, surprised. Earl moved in a blur, slashing the blade across his enemy’s throat. The werewolf stumbled, gurgling, brain temporarily deprived of air, but Earl was already doing the math. The kid was too fast, too strong, and already healing. Earl wouldn’t be able to outfight him in human form, and it was too dangerous to invite a change with all these bystanders around. Unexpectedly, he had a real fight on his hands, and this kid needed to be put down before he hurt anyone else. The bigger weapons were in the truck, and he hadn’t thought to stick a hand grenade in his coat before dinner.

Then Earl spied the abandoned oxygen bottle and had an idea. As his daddy, Bubba Shackleford, the greatest Monster Hunter who’d ever lived, had always taught: when all else fails, kill it with fire.

Heather came to, flat on her back, looking at the dimly buzzing florescent lights. Her head throbbed from the impact. There was a warm slickness coating her chest. I’m bleeding. Disoriented, she reached up, pulled open her ruined shirt, and felt around her shoulder. The strap of her vest had stopped most of the damage, but there were several ghastly punctures in her skin, trickling slowly. It hurt, but nothing felt broken. Mostly her head ached from bouncing off the floor. Lucky. She could have ended up like the nurse. A wave of nausea hit as she stood. There was crashing and banging coming from a nearby room, probably that Harbinger dude getting killed, but Heather was focused on Buckley’s room. Chase Temple was injured and needed help. She had to get him out of here.

There was a path of giant red paw prints leading back to Buckley’s room. The blood on the floor made it slippery. She had to use the door frame to steady herself.

There was a man standing in the center of the hospital room. He was tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a black suit, and had his back toward her. There was a pistol in his hands, and something about his demeanor just screamed law enforcement. Help had arrived. Thank God.

Temple was on the floor, alive but hurt bad. Bailey was upside down in the far corner, obviously dead, nearly decapitated. The man was standing over Chase and asking, “Were you bitten? Did the creature bite you?”

“On my leg,” Chase answered through gritted teeth. “It’s bad. Help me, please.”

Heather caught the man’s profile as he shook his head sadly. He was young, beefy, with a buzz cut. “I’m really sorry, man.”

“What?” Chase reached out plaintively. “Just get me out of—”

The suit raised his pistol and coldly shot Chase twice in the chest and then once in the forehead.

The world dropped out from under Heather. Her mouth fell open in shocked disbelief, but no sound came out.

The murderer lowered his weapon and shouted, “Clear!”

Heather stumbled back, reaching for her Beretta, but her holster was empty. Her gun was somewhere back where she’d landed. Still dizzy, she tripped over a severed arm, slipped in the blood, and fell. The killer heard her and came into the hall, pistol trained on her face, finger on the trigger. “Don’t move! Agent Stark. Hallway. I’ve got another survivor.”

A different man appeared from a side room, also in a suit, also pointing a gun at her. This one was even bigger than the first, older, bald, and looked like he meant business. “Shit. Local cop . . . This is gonna mean a lot of paperwork. Where’s the creature, lady?”

Scared to death, she tried to keep her voice composed. These bastards had just executed poor Chase. She was next. “Back that way. Please. Don’t shoot.”

“Were you bitten? Did it bite you?” the murderer demanded.

He must not have realized that she’d witnessed what happened when he’d asked Chase that same question. “No! I’m fine,” Heather exclaimed. They’re going to kill me. She knew that if she made a sudden move they’d shoot, but she had to do something. She wished that she’d worn her backup gun, but the little .380 she’d bought for that purpose was sitting in her sock drawer because she’d gotten lazy.

She had other tools on her belt though. . . . Steady.

The older man got closer, gun still carefully trained on her, grabbed the tattered remains of her coat and pulled it back. She cringed as the fabric pulled at the wound. Biting his lip, he studied her bloody shoulder for a moment and then turned to his partner, shook his head, and stepped out of the way.

“Wait! I’m fine! What’re you doing?”

“I’m sorry. This is for the best,” Deputy Temple’s executioner apologized as he aimed at her heart.

“She’s wearing a vest,” corrected the older one.

“Oh, yeah.” He shrugged. “Didn’t think of that.” The muzzle rose toward Heather’s forehead.

Then the hospital exploded.

Chapter 8

My new home was a tiny black rock in the middle of the ocean. There were some trees, a beach, and a shack. I could walk across the whole island in two minutes.

“Nice place,” I said, glancing around the shack that had been tied together out of the remains of an old shipwreck. “How’s the neighbors?”

Santiago chuckled. “Far enough away that you won’t be sorely tempted to devour them.”

It took a while to help move the supplies ashore. He would return to visit once a month.

“There was once a knight commander of the Order of Christ by the name of Bartolomeu Zarco Cabral. He was bitten by a lycanthrope, but after spending some time cloistered in meditation on top of a mountain, he was eventually able to control his nature and became a fearsome warrior for good. He even protected Prince Henry the Navigator from a master vampire once. He was a fascinating man.”

I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the knight or the navigator. “Uh-huh . . . And how much time did he spend meditating on that mountain?”

“Twenty years before he was able to not fly into berserker rages,” Santiago said but then tried to reassure me. “But you strike me as a fast learner.”

*   *   *

Nikolai saw the fireball rise in the distance. It was barely visible as a flash of orange through the haze of windblown snow, but he’d seen many explosions in the snow over his long life, dating back to Stalingrad during the Great Patriotic War, and he knew immediately just from the sound and color that it had been small, and from the time for the sound to travel exactly how far away it had been. Considering the strange events that were culminating in this small town, it was certainly no accident.

Assessing the explosion was the first coherent thought he’d had since the accident. It took a moment for the Tvar to return direct control to him. It was jealous, but it knew that now was the time for careful strategy. Ruthless savagery would surely have its turn, but for now Nikolai needed to be the one in the driver’s seat.

A poor analogy.

“Silence,” Nikolai wheezed.

The lights along the road were out. In fact, most of the lights in town were dark. The taillights from the snowplow were visible fifty yards away. He realized that he had struck a tree. Three ribs were broken. One lung was punctured and had subsequently collapsed. Pressure was building in the cavity as blood filled the space. That was the most pressing injury. Compound fracture of the femur. Left tibia broken. Armani coat, absolutely ruined.

Nikolai grimaced as he drove his thumb into his side and pulled out the rib. He palmed the jutting bone back into his leg. Impediment removed, the flesh immediately began to reform as the cells burned energy to return themselves to their normal station. Nikolai understood the science. A werewolf had two separate biological settings. Through horrendous amounts of physical energy, it was able to rapidly change between the two patterns. As a side effect, any deviation from those sets was quickly corrected.

Nikolai understood that, but even after eighty years, watching his flesh reseal before his eyes still seemed like magic.

What was that?

There was only one thing that could have that kind of powerful effect upon them. “The amulet is free,” Nikolai explained to the Tvar. The false moon was still there, but not as strong now. The direction was unclear. He sniffed the air. “But . . . No vulkodlak yet. There’s still time.”

Harbinger must have it.

“Do not be a fool.” Nikolai stood, bent over, and hacked up a great clot of blood. His breathing slowly returned to normal. He felt much better already. “Do not let your hate make you stupid. If that nye kulturny svoloch’ had it, we would already be dead. One of Harbinger’s minions must have retrieved it. We have to intercept him before he can activate it.” He then noticed the dead body cooling in the snow. “What’s all this?”

Driver of the snowplow. He came to help us. I struck him to protect us. We should eat him now.

Regeneration took fearsome energy. Nikolai’s stomach rumbled, but he knew that human flesh would only inflame the Tvar and make it intolerable. “There is not time for your foolishness.” Nikolai limped away. By the time he reached the remains of the BMW, the limp had corrected itself and he walked with purpose.

The rental vehicle’s boot was crushed, but he was able to get his fingers into the crack, break the hinge, and pry the lid open. Fortunately the rifle he’d picked up at the safe-drop was undamaged. The suppressed Val was a favorite of Russian monster exterminators. It stood to reason that they knew what they were doing. The crash had shattered the glass in the Cobra optic, so he pulled the locking lever, slid it off, and tossed the scope away. The iron sights were robust and would be sufficient for his needs. He put on the blue camouflage vest full of spare twenty-round 9x39 magazines, then folded the Val’s metal stock and slung the weapon under one arm. He found a spare overcoat and put it on, not that he desired protection from the cold, but just in case there was a need to be discreet.

I think the time for that is past.

Nikolai ignored the Tvar. The rest of his baggage could be left behind. Everything was clean and untraceable. The car had been rented under a false identity. The time for careful investigation was past. He had to find and neutralize Harbinger before it was too late. Now he just needed new transportation. Nearby, the snowplow’s engine was still running. It would do.

The hunt begins.

The pack had gathered in the trees. The darkened town stretched before them, defenseless, soft, and ready to be harvested. The power had been cut. The witch assured him that all electronic communications with the outside world were blocked. The storm was upon them. He had placed teams on each of the roads out of town. To all intents and purposes, the humans of Copper Lake had been cut off from the safety of their herd. By the time the rest of mankind knew what happened here, it would be too late.

The amulet of the Deathless was a warm weight against his bare chest. It had been asleep for a long time, but it had been dreaming, and the dreams had led him here to fulfill his mission in life. It seethed with power, but it hungered for more. There were two others like him here, worthy enough to satisfy the needs of the amulet, drawn like moths to the flame, slaves to their own instincts, directed here through treachery and deceit.

He turned to the pack. Most of them had only been turned in recent months and were therefore expendable. The core of the pack had been with him for some time. He had turned them, taught them, and kept them under control; a difficult task to do in utmost secrecy. It was exciting to think of what they could do when given such absolute freedom. “There are two strong werewolves here tonight. Either one will do, but I absolutely must have one alive. Everyone else, turn them, devour them, or harvest them for the vulkodlak as you see fit.” Studying the fearsome predators crouched in the snow, he could almost taste the coming slaughter. “Run free, my children. Run free.”

The werewolves let forth a triumphant howl and leapt from the tree line, loping downhill to where the unsuspecting humans were waiting. The prey would never see them coming. He watched his children go, anxious for them, as any good father should be.

The witch was observing quietly. She was bundled in a fur coat, which made her slight form seem far larger than it was, only her gleaming eyes visible under the hood and scarf. She was flanked by her two diggers; giant, gangly, unnatural things that stood with perfect stillness. Their abnormal forms were difficult to make out in the blowing snow. The witch stank of excitement, with just a touch of apprehension. “You really believe that your children will be able to bring you Harbinger or Petrov?”

“Bring them? Of course not . . .” Already he could hear the sounds of breaking windows as the pack reached the houses on the periphery. “My children will slaughter the sheep of this town, but none of them is a match for the hunter or the assassin. I expect the pack will flush them out, force their little game, bring them to each other’s attention. The survivor will be weakened. Ready to harvest.”

The witch fidgeted inside her massive coat. Now there was nervousness in her scent, nearly as strong as her regular smell of fanaticism. Maybe now that the moment of truth was upon them, the fearsome nature of their adversaries had fully sunk in.

He chuckled. “You really don’t need to worry. I could have taken either of them before. With this”—he gestured at the amulet—“they won’t be able to touch me.”

“They’re bloody unpredictable,” the witch insisted.

Unlike your father, I’m not enough of a fool to underestimate Harbinger. The thought went unspoken. It would only anger the already sensitive witch, and he needed her focused. “I have it under control.”

There was a long, icy silence before she responded. “Very well.”

His children howled from below. Prey had been cornered. It made him want to change, to glory in the hunt himself, but he had other responsibilities to attend to. Years of preparation came down to this one night. “Just be ready.”

“Don’t worry about me.” The witch was as dedicated to this mission as he was, but for entirely different reasons.

The screams of the dying haunted the wind. He clutched the amulet tightly.

*   *   *

Stark realized that with Briarwood almost here, Agent Mosher was about to cost him a whole bunch of money by plugging the injured cop. That was one easy bounty, and he wished he’d caught Mosher before he’d popped the other one. He was just forming the words when the whole hospital shook. Orange fire spilled from a room down the hall as Stark hurled himself to the floor. Most of the flames disappeared quickly, rising into the ceiling tiles, leaving only smoke and choking dust. It had been a small explosion, but it had certainly gotten his attention.

“What the hell?” Mosher shouted as he uncovered his head.

Stark coughed as the dust settled on them. He rolled over and got up. “I don’t kn—” There was a small pain in his shoulder and another in his side, and then he nearly bit his tongue off as a horrible, jittery, twisting bolt of white-hot pain surged through his entire body. His muscles involuntarily clenched as he collapsed back to the floor. Except for a buzzing twitch, he couldn’t move, couldn’t even scream.

Then as quickly as the pain had come, it was gone. “What the hell?” There was the injured cop, sitting there, pointing something at his chest, and then Agent Stark realized there were skinny little wires leading from his body back to the thing in the cop’s right hand. “Son of a—” But then she hit him with the Taser again.

Mosher bellowed incoherently and grabbed his face, rolling and thrashing across the bloody floor as the cop jumped up and ran for her life. She disappeared into the smoke just as Stark regained enough coordination to raise his Glock and crank off several wild shots after her. With disgust he reached down and yanked the Taser barbs out of his body, wincing as the little fish-hooks tore skin. “Mosher!”

“My eyes!” Mosher shouted. “I can’t see a thing!” Then Mosher began coughing uncontrollably as his mucus membranes kicked into massive overdrive. There was enough residual pepper spray in the air that Stark nearly choked. Even looking at Agent Mosher made his eyes water. The cop had hosed his partner good, coating his face in sticky orange-dyed foam.

How dare you? Enraged, Stark got up and ran after her. He reached the burning room and turned quickly, looking down both hallways. The cop was nowhere to be seen. “Come back here!” he shouted.

“Hey, Agent Stark,” someone said from behind him. He turned to see the outline of a man walking through the smoke. “You’ve got a crispy werewolf in there.” Earl Harbinger jerked his thumb at the fire. “He was immune to silver, I shit you not, so I roasted his ass. I think all the surviving patients have hightailed it outta here. You see a fire extinguisher around here, anywhere? Figure I better put that out.”

The filthy, stinking werewolf had the audacity to stop there, right in Stark’s face, and pull out a pack of smokes. Harbinger paused after putting one in his mouth. He held out the pack. “Want one?”

Stark clenched his teeth together. MHI was here. Harbinger had stolen his kill. He was going to ruin everything. The MCB agent was so furious that he could feel his face turning red. He’d just been embarrassed, tasered by a Yooper cop, and now he was getting mocked by a bloodthirsty monster. Stark lifted his Glock in one big hand and pointed it right at Harbinger’s smug werewolf face.

“So . . . You don’t smoke?”

“You’re under arrest,” Stark spat.

Unfazed, Harbinger raised an eyebrow as he lit the cigarette. “What for now?”

“You had something to do with this! You damn werewolves stick together.”

“Well, that sure explains why I just burned one to death.” The smoke from the fire finally activated the emergency sprinklers around the fiery room. Harbinger glanced up in annoyance and took the now-sodden cigarette from his mouth. “It never fails . . .”

The water must have been sitting in the pipes for a long time, since it was as dark and foul as Stark’s temper. The agent blinked as it got in his eyes, but he kept the gun on the sneaky werewolf. “You’re coming with me. You’ve got some questions to answer.”

“Listen, Stark.” Harbinger seemed a little perturbed. “I ain’t got time for your MCB power-trip nonsense. There’s something weird going on here, something bad, and I need to figure it out before any more innocent folks get hurt.” The two of them stayed there, glaring at each other in the artificial rain. “All right, let me try this again. We just had somebody turn into a werewolf for the first time, and not on the full moon. That don’t happen. It can’t happen. And he was immune to silver. Doesn’t that strike you as odd? The lights are out all over town, and I can hear more werewolves howling for blood. There’s something else out there, something evil, and I can feel it coming. We ain’t got much time.” The Glock didn’t move. Harbinger sighed. “So I suggest you lower that heater ’fore I cram it up your ass sideways.”

Stark’s eyes narrowed. “You . . . You’re threatening me?”

“Well, I ain’t asking you to the prom,” Harbinger answered impatiently. “What’s it gonna be, Agent? Let me do my job, or we gonna have us a problem?”

Stark was shocked that Harbinger had the audacity to threaten him. The MCB agent had been intimidating people for so long, and never the other way around, that it took the words a moment to sink in. “Who do you think you are?” he sputtered.

Harbinger moved faster than Stark could possibly react. He smacked the gun aside. His other hand wrapped around Stark’s thick neck and slammed him hard into the wall. Stark’s shoes left the floor as Harbinger hoisted him into the air.

“Who do I think I am?” the Hunter snapped as he yanked the Glock away. He held two hundred and fifty pounds of Stark several inches off the ground without so much as a muscle tremor. “I’ve been kicking monster ass longer than you’ve been alive. I’ve eaten men that would make you look like a pussy on your best day. I’m Earl Harbinger, motherfucker.” Stark gasped for air. Harbinger let go of his neck, dropping the MCB agent. Harbinger released the mag from Stark’s pistol, racked the slide to eject the chambered round, and then tossed the pistol down the hall with a clatter. “And you damn well better not forget it.”

Stark went to his knees. Harbinger had absolutely manhandled him. There were a few things that Special Agent Doug Stark of the Monster Control Bureau just couldn’t handle, and one of them was being pushed around. He was far more angry than afraid. “You just signed your death warrant,” he rasped.

Water was pouring down Harbinger’s face as he growled at the agent. “Take it up with Myers.” He spun on his boot and walked away through the forming puddles. “Just keep out of my way. This one is way out of your league.”

By the time the half-blind Mosher found Stark sitting on the floor, cursing in the sprinklers and rubbing his bruised throat, Harbinger was gone.

There was no cellular signal and no dial tone at the hospital, so Earl had started back for his truck. Originally he’d planned on playing this alone, figuring that it was just his old nemesis Nikolai here for some personal business, but this was something entirely different. Earl prided himself on being stubborn, but he wasn’t stupid—well, except for when his temper got the better of him around bullies. Something strange was afoot, but a man had to know his limitations, and a whole pack of werewolves and some sort of dark magic certainly fell into that category. He’d use the satellite phone to contact Julie. She could have the closest teams rolling in no time, and knowing her, the Cazador team wouldn’t be far behind.

Stark would probably have the place crawling in MCB as well now.

They’d been especially jumpy since the photos of the Arbmunep incident had hit the Internet. That, combined with the Five Minutes, had really shaken up the status quo. Lucky for the MCB, most of the conspiracy types were saying that the Arbmunep had been an alien spaceship, and it was old hat for the government to make the UFO people sound crazy. But there were cracks in the wall now. It seemed like it was getting harder every year for them to keep the lid on the secrets. Earl didn’t mind that at all. If the truth actually got out, it would make his job that much easier. Just imagine how much business MHI could do if they were actually allowed to advertise? As a bonus, maybe Dwayne Myers would have a heart attack from the stress.

Earl understood the MCB. That didn’t make him hate them any less, but he could see the reason behind their tactics. They were utterly ruthless when it came to protecting the country. For example, that cute deputy that he’d tried to help, Kerkonen, she was as good as dead. She’d be found by MCB and exterminated. Nothing he could do about that. He’d failed her by underestimating that young werewolf, though he knew there was no way he could have guessed that he’d be immune to silver, but he’d do his best to protect everyone else.

The storm had grown in intensity. Visibility was down to a few feet. Ice crystals in the wind rubbed his skin like frozen sandpaper. It was enough to put a chill on even a werewolf’s hyper metabolism. He’d heard that this part of the country had terrible winters but suspected that this particular storm was related to the strange phenomenon from earlier. His suspicions were confirmed when he tried the sat phone in his truck and couldn’t get anything on it. Earl had paid top dollar for that unit. It had been developed for Delta Force and should have been able to pick up a satellite from the dark side of the moon. The regular radio turned up nothing, either. He was on his own.

Earl sat in the cab and listened to the blizzard pound the windows and rock the truck around. He could now safely add the power outage and communications blackout to the list of oddness. Nikolai had really opened up a can of worms this time. Without reinforcements, that meant that he needed to stick with his original plan. Find Nikolai and kill the shit out of him.

But where to start? He took the wolfsbane from his pocket, sealed it back into a plastic bag, and put it in the center console. It would make him a bigger target for Nikolai, but he had to take the risk. His own senses needed to be uninhibited—well, besides the smokes, obviously. He wasn’t about to give those up. Earl rolled down the window and was instantly pelted with stinging ice. He breathed deeply, taking in the smells of the town.

Blood’s been spilled.

It wasn’t from the hospital, either, but it was close. Earl put the truck into four-wheel drive and set out after the scent of death.

Chapter 9

I told time by the strength of the Hum.

No one knows why the phase of the moon has the effect on us, but it does. We can hear it. It is always there. When it becomes too much, we change.

When I change while the Hum is weak, I still possess some measure of control over my actions. But when the Hum becomes too strong, I’m at its mercy. It is like there is another thing that lives inside me, a whole different being, and on the full moon, it takes charge. During the nights of the full moon, I become something else. I become the animal.

Every month spent on the island, I got a little better, a little stronger. I missed my wife. I missed my children. I dreamed about them every night. I wondered if they’d moved on. Part of me wished for their sake that they had, but the selfish part of me hoped that they were waiting for me. I promised that I would do this for them, so that I would return as the man they’d loved.

It sounds crazy, but I’d hurt myself on purpose, exposing my body to ever greater stress, until even the most unbearable pain wasn’t enough to force a change. I flung myself from the cliffs, over and over, to land on the rocks below. A werewolf can fall pretty far and live. The worst part was that regeneration uses up calories, which meant I spent a lot of time hungry. I ate so damn much fish that I couldn’t stand the sight of one for about thirty years afterward.

Santiago was as reliable as the tides. Every month he would come with supplies and stay on the island for a few days. Mostly he taught me the things he’d learned from the libraries that he missed so much. He was well read and extremely well educated. I had only three years of schooling, but I did know how to read. I was relatively uneducated, but that didn’t mean I was stupid. Quite the contrary. It was just that most of my education had been on the finer points of monster killing.

I was terrible at chess, but Santiago was worse at checkers. I think I seriously unnerved him the time that I showed I could drive a filet knife through the palm of my hand and out the other side, held it up, and said, “See? Not even twitching.” He was a crafty one, though. I noted that he’d kept that last silver bullet, just in case I turned out to be a failed experiment.

Santiago had not been able to take the old scrolls and books with him when he left Europe, but it didn’t matter. If he didn’t have a photographic memory, then it was damn close enough. He had learned every story pertaining to lycanthropy there was, and he passed on that knowledge to me.

We started at the beginning. No one knew for sure where the curse had begun. There were theories, some of them branching into the downright absurd. There were myths and legends, half of which I knew to be false just from personal experience. From Romans eating their own kids to deals with the devil, it was all a bunch of bunk.

But there were some nuggets of truth in the old stories. I found out how Santiago had managed to avoid detection in Havana as he’d followed me. A small bit of wolfsbane worn on your person can mask your scent from a lycanthrope. You can smell the wolfsbane, but it distorts everything else around it. I’d learned that he’d been told of my presence by a Haitian diviner who knew of Santiago’s past life. Apparently a diviner with actual talent could sense when one of my kind was near. This was information that would prove useful many times over the ensuing years.

One day the two of us were in the shack, perched over a game of checkers. I was beating him soundly, but he’d gotten better over the last year. He was telling me about how in any given region there was always a supreme lycanthrope.

“Well, I ain’t met him yet.”

“How do you know it is a male?”

“It just is,” I answered truthfully.

“Interesting . . .” he said, pondering on my answer. “We know there is a hierarchy. There is an order. This is something that we’ve learned over time. Anywhere there are many lycanthropes, they will naturally form groups—packs, if you will. One will always become the leader. And yes, every time this has been encountered, it has been a male.”

“The most dangerous will be in charge,” I said, not knowing why.

“Apparently. But there are others, like the men that I’ve told you about, like Sir Cabral, or Monsignor Ratton. They, too, shared the curse, but by not giving into their beastly natures, they were packless, lone wolves. Often they were attacked by other lycanthropes. They are despised with that special hatred reserved for traitors. When you return to the real world, you must be prepared for this. You will be on your own, and therefore, you will be a threat.”

*   *   *

“Power must be out.” Kelley stated the obvious from the back of the Caddy. “Place looks like a ghost town.”

It was true. The emptiness of the roads was expected, since it was nearing midnight and snowing like crazy, but all the street lights were dark. Even the businesses’ signs were dead. Everything was coated in white. Drifts had piled up on nearly every wall. When it snowed in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, it really snowed.

“Anybody with any sense is going to be inside trying to stay warm,” Lins said. “Like we should be.”

“Yoopers don’t feel cold.” Jo Ann snorted when she laughed. “They’re too dumb.”

Horst had to wonder about the chick with the strongest Wisconsin accent he’d ever heard insulting the locals from one region over, but he was a city boy. They all seemed backwoods to him. “Everybody zip it,” he ordered. “You’re giving me a headache. Where’s this stupid hospital, already?”

“I don’t know. The GPS lost signal a few miles ago,” Lins said, reaching over to tap the box that was showing nothing but a blue screen.

Horst swore under his breath. He’d disabled the OnStar, so they couldn’t even fall back on that. He hadn’t liked the idea of the government being able to listen in on his conversations whenever they felt like it—or shutting the engine off, for that matter. His cousin was serving some serious time after the FBI had gotten a warrant and used his OnStar to listen in while he’d been having a conversation about dumping a body in a Jersey landfill.

Horst reasoned that if he ever did anything that would cause him to float to the FBI’s attention, they should at least have to do the work of putting an actual bug on his car. Not that he had to worry about that anymore, since he was a fully legitimate businessman now, which was sort of hilarious since he’d never had this kind of hardware when he’d been running errands for his uncle. And by errands, he meant putting a bullet in someone’s ear or hitting them with a bat until they were smart enough to not want to blab to the authorities anymore.

“There,” Loco said softly. That made Horst do a double take. It was the first time he could recall that the big man had spoken since they’d left Chicago. The hospital had lights, the only sign of life since they’d hit the city limits. There were emergency vehicles in the parking lot, including a single fire truck, its red flashers barely visible through the caked-on slush.

Lins visibly hesitated when he saw a parked police car, barely even visible under the collected snow, but then he relaxed. Instinct would’ve told him to avoid the police when driving around with a car full of machine guns, but it was like Horst said. It was hard to come to terms with the idea that this kind of awesome shit was actually legal. They slid to a stop behind the fire truck that had copper county volunteer fire department painted on it in big letters. A few windows on the top floor of the hospital were broken and blackened, like there’d been a fire.

“I think we might be a little late,” Jo Ann said. “Too bad Larry drove so slow.”

Lins turned around. “You better shut your mouth, Jo, or I’ll shut it for you.”

Horst scowled. “You guys stay here. I’m gonna check it out.” He zipped his coat up to his throat and got out, leaving his crew free to yell at each other. If he was lucky, nobody would get stabbed or shot while he was gone.

It was so unbelievably cold that he almost jumped back inside. Ice crystals instantly flowed up his sleeves, down his neck, and cut right through his jeans. He was shocked that anyone was tough or crazy enough to live here. This made the Windy City feel like Maui. Horst hurried for the front door, but slipped on some ice and fell on his side. Getting up and dusting himself off, he glanced back toward the Caddy, because if he saw anybody laughing at his expense, he was going to cut their face off. Lucky for them, nobody was laughing.

It appeared that everyone in the hospital had been evacuated to the lobby. Most of them were dressed like they were patients, in bathrobes or wrapped in blankets. Some, in scrubs or sweaters, looked like they worked here, and there were a couple of guys in black-and-yellow rubber fireman’s coats. Two men stood right in the entrance, like they were trying not to be overheard by everyone else. One of the firemen was arguing with a tough-looking, big, bald man, dripping wet, in a suit and tie. Horst came through the door partway through the disagreement.

The fireman noted Horst’s arrival. The sudden blast of freezing air was hard to miss. He turned back and continued his argument. “I’m not moving those bodies anywhere until the sheriff says so.”

The dude in the dirty suit poked the fireman in the chest with one meaty finger. “Listen very carefully, asswipe. See this?” He pointed at the ID pinned to his lapel. “That says Department of Homeland Security, and we’ve got ourselves a terrorist incident. I am the law, and I say I want all those bodies stacked in one room. I want the door locked, and nobody messes with them until my people get here, or I will make it my personal mission in life to ruin you in ways that your little brain can’t even comprehend. You hearing me, dickhead?”

The fireman was obviously ticked off, but also unsure of himself. “I want to talk to somebody from the sheriff’s department first.”

“Well, feel free to try and find one,” the government man answered. “They aren’t exactly picking up the phone. Until then, get your ass up there and start stacking bodies, and I want all the pieces kept together, too. I don’t want so much as a toenail missing or I’ll toss you headfirst in a jail so deep and dark that your lawyer will need a spelunking expedition just to find you. You will not talk to anyone about what you see. You say one word about anything, and I will descend down on your head with the full weight and authority of a giant government that fully does not give a shit and will crush you like a bug. Capisce?”

Defeated, the fireman stomped off toward the stairs. Looking smug, the dude in the suit turned to Horst. “Who the hell are you?” he asked.

Horst put on his most professional business-type smile, crossed the distance, and stuck out his hand. It was all about authority and presentation, or at least that’s what the self-help books said. “Agent Stark, I presume? Ryan Horst, Briarwood Eradication Services.”

Stark nodded, looking at the proffered hand, but didn’t extend his own. “You’re late.”

“Better late than never.” Horst kept his hand out, still smiling. The Fed was annoyed, but grudgingly shook Horst’s hand anyway. Stark had hands the size of boxing gloves, but Horst wasn’t the type that was intimidated about such things.

Agent Stark released Horst’s hand and glanced over to make sure the firemen had gone upstairs like he’d ordered. “Somebody saw the explosion and ran over and woke them up. Local PD is missing. Some of them are dead upstairs, and it wasn’t like they had too many to begin with.”

“What’ve we got here?” Horst asked, because that sounded like the logical thing for a professional monster hunter to ask.

“A real mess. Multiple casualties, infected running free, no comms, no idea where the creature that started all this is, and . . .” His head swiveled on his pot-roast neck, checking for listeners. “I’ve got another issue you might be able to help me with. I’d prefer for my partner not to know you’re here. It’s a sensitive issue. Walk with me, Mr. Horst.”

Horst followed Stark to a side room, which turned out to be a large storage closet. Stark closed the door behind them. Horst realized that the lights must be on emergency juice, because the lone lightbulb in the narrow space was remarkably dim. Stark was sweating. “How high up are you in Briarwood, Mr. Horst?”

I own it, stupid, he thought, but Stark didn’t need to know how small they were. “Management. I’m a team commander. I’m authorized to make any necessary decisions or business arrangements, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“You’re younger than I expected.”

Horst was twenty-six, but it wasn’t the age, it was the mileage, and he’d done things that would curdle the blood of men twice his age. “Let’s just say that I’ve been promoted because of my exemplary record. I get results, Agent Stark.”

“Good.” Stark leaned on a shelf and took a deep breath. Once past his hesitation, the agent plowed ahead. “I’ve got a business idea for you. Way beyond my previous arrangement with your company. I’m talking about something big. Something that could make both of us a ton of money. What I’m about to suggest doesn’t leave this room, you got me?”

“I’m listening,” Horst answered. He knew that Stark was dirty, completely untrustworthy, and if it wasn’t for the extremity of their circumstances he would have assumed that this was some kind of elaborate setup. It was doubtful that Stark was wearing a wire.

“Do you know what the PUFF would be for a werewolf over a hundred years old?”

The Perpetual Unearthly Forces Fund bounty tables cut off way before that. The amount would be astronomical. “Is that a joke?”

“What if I told you there was a century-old werewolf here in Copper Lake, right this minute?”

Horst played it cool. Stark had gone mad. “If I was talking to anyone other than a respected senior MCB agent . . .” I’d call you a liar and curb-stomp your head in. “I’d say you might be exaggerating.”

Stark smiled. “You think I’m full of it, huh? Understandable. I had the same reaction the first time I heard about him. He’s only alive because he’s been granted PUFF immunity for some top-secret reason.”

“If he’s got immunity, then where do I come in?” Horst folded his arms. This sounded like a load of garbage. He’d pulled sharper cons before he’d hit puberty.

“He’s only immune if he obeys the rules, which means acting like a regular human and no crazy werewolf shit. But I’m afraid that our werewolf has gone on a rampage. He’s the cause of tonight’s troubles. He created another werewolf, and who knows how many others. He attacked me and escaped before I could apprehend him. If I could get word to the rest of the MCB they’d come down on him like a ton of bricks. We’ve been itching to get the green light to take him out forever, but our hands have been tied . . . If somebody were to take him while I was unable to get hold of the MCB, they’d be heroes.”

There was no such thing as hundred-year-old werewolves. That was ridiculous. Werewolves were just too crazy and violent to live a fraction of that time. They didn’t exactly have a lifestyle well suited to longevity. “Well, why don’t you just point me at this super werewolf, and we’ll take care of him for you?”

Stark paused, fidgeting, as if he was scared to continue. His beady eyes shifted nervously in his jowly face. Finally he blurted, “I want half!”

This whole trip had been a waste. Stark was an idiot. At best, he was looking at a normal werewolf, at worst a new one or a barely infected, and there was no way he was going to split that fifty-fifty. “Forget about it.”

“But the PUFF would be in the millions!” Stark insisted. “There would be plenty to go around.”

Putting his hand on the doorknob to leave, Horst addressed Stark as politely as his growing temper would allow. “Millions, assuming that this superwolf actually exists. If that were the case, you’d get half. Regular creature, regular cut.”

“Trust me. He exists.” Stark reached out and grabbed Horst’s coat sleeve, pulling him conspiratorially close. “His name is Earl Harbinger.”

Harbinger . . . Horst froze. He knew that name all too well. “Chain-smoking redneck, sounds like he should’ve been in Deliverance?”

“So you’ve met.”

“Oh, we’ve met. Hang on. You’re trying to tell me the leader of Monster Hunter International is a werewolf?”

Stark nodded. “Yes, and he’s here.”

“Dude . . .” Horst trailed off, but it made a certain kind of sense. Harbinger’s exploits were legendary. Even the seasoned MHI members he’d met had talked about Harbinger like he was some sort of supernatural monster-smashing demigod. Some of the things they’d attributed to him had sounded far-fetched, like the kind of BS stories guys from the old neighborhood had spread about themselves to build street cred, but the MHI bunch had seemed too jaded to believe tall tales.

The stories of impossible battles would be a little more plausible if he was a werewolf. Plus, Harbinger had stood by Paxton’s decision to kick Horst out of training, just because Horst had the balls to do what needed to be done. Harbinger had been a right smug bastard when he’d called Horst into his office that last time. They only talked a big game about their flexible minds, but when it came down to it, they were just as weak as any other regular mark.

Come to think of it, if Briarwood took down the baddest Hunter ever, what did that make Briarwood? He’d be a legend, able to write his own ticket. Why hire those fags at MHI when you could hire Briarwood, the company that smoked MHI’s top gun like a cheap cigar? Buckets of money, plus the satisfaction of seeing the look on Harbinger’s mug when one of his former Newbies took him out? Perfect.

“He’s the oldest known werewolf in the world. It’s like winning the lottery. I’ll handle the MCB. They’ll know that it was a legit kill. You get PUFF. Everybody wins.”

“Except Earl Harbinger.” Horst felt the beginnings of a honest grin form on his frozen face. This was going to be righteous. “You’ve got a deal, Stark.”

Horst returned to the Caddy and briefed his team on the new mission parameters, telling them about the new primary target but leaving out the part about Harbinger supposedly being over a hundred. First off, Horst had no idea if that was even possible, and secondly, if it was, there was no reason he needed to share that kind of ridiculous bounty with his crew. An adult werewolf with a mess of kills was still worth a considerable sum, so they’d still get paid more than expected. The infected redhead cop chick was a bonus. Stark said that he didn’t even care about getting his regular cut on that one, just as long as she died.

They were eager. Kelley and Lins were in this for the money, and this was more cash than either of them had ever come close to earning in their lives of violent crime. Jo Ann was a danger junkie, and as long as Horst kept buying her shiny things and nice clothes in addition to letting her kill things, she was happy. Everyone except for Loco was pumped. The big man just sat there, quiet as always, as he seemed to mull the new information over. Loco was so quiet that sometimes Horst wondered if he was all right in the head. He knew that after Loco had gotten out of prison, he’d gotten his skull caved in during some super-illegal pit fight. That was the same fight that had cost Loco his eye, and considering how scary Loco was, Horst couldn’t even imagine what the other behemoth must’ve looked like. But it didn’t matter if the guy that had broken Loco’s skull had given him brain damage, too. Horst had hired Loco for his brawn.

Stark had somehow gotten the idea that silver might not work on some of this town’s werewolves. Personally, Horst thought that sounded like more paranoid nonsense, as even the MHI people had sworn up and down in their fancy classes that silver always worked on lycanthropes, but he shared it with his crew anyway. If only he had MHI’s budget, he’d have some of those fancy flamethrowers and flaming chemical grenades on hand. Briarwood would someday, but right now they’d have to improvise. Buying a single case of a thousand composite silver 5.56 rounds that an MCB agent had “misplaced” had already cost him an arm and a leg.

“So, our silver bullets might not work, but you said that Stark burned one to death in there?” Kelley asked.

“Sure did. Place smelled like burnt hair,” Horst said. “Sounds like you got an idea.”

Kelley’s face lit up like it was Christmas. “There was a little convenience store back that way. Lots of glass bottles, and we can siphon gas out of some of the cars, if you get my drift.”

“Way to go, firebug,” Horst answered, having forgotten that Kelley had once made his living as an arsonist, terrorizing Boston industrial sites that didn’t pay their protection money. “Good thinking—” The front passenger door opened, letting in a sudden blast of freezing air. Loco got out. His hulking form headed straight for the fire truck.

“What’s that moron doing?” Jo Ann asked. “Close the door! I’m freezing.”

Loco was quickly covered in snow and took on the appearance of a yeti. He rummaged around the back of the fire truck and returned a moment later, the wicked fire ax looking comparatively tiny in his massive hands. His eyes were too small for his big round head, but he met Horst’s gaze squarely. Horst gave the ax one look and nodded in approval. The big man got back in the Caddy.

Old Earl Harbinger would never even know what hit him.

Chapter 10

There are a few psychological changes that go hand in hand with the physical change of becoming a lycanthrope. Unfortunately for most of us, one of those changes is that it will turn even the most saintly personality into a bloodthirsty killer. Maybe it was because I was such an effective killer already that I was able to keep those instincts in better check than most. For me, the desire to kill wasn’t really anything new. I had killed my first monster when I was ten years old, and had just kept on ever since. I took a break from monster killing for a few years when I’d volunteered to fight in the Great War, as we called it then. Though I did manage to squeeze in some monster killing in France when General Pershing found out that he had someone in the ranks who knew how to smoke out the ghouls that were attracted to the mass graves.

After the war I’d gone back to Hunting. It was all I had ever known. All I’d ever been good at, and I was really good at it. For most folks, the new super-honed predatory instinct of the lycanthrope pushes them into straight-up bug-nuts crazy territory. For me, it was a natural fit. It was like putting brass knuckles on a boxer.

The other immediately noticeable change is a drastic increase to your survival instincts. Werewolves are survivors. Usually by the time someone realizes what they’ve become, by then it is nearly impossible to find the will to end the curse yourself. The urge to live overcomes everything else.

You feel stronger, faster, smarter, healthier, tougher, sexier, everything. Basically, it feels good to be a werewolf. But at the same time, there is always this glimmer of smugness, a dangerous feeling of being better than humans. You exist with them, but separate. It is real easy to start gloating in your superiority, and from there it’s a real short trip for most of us to start looking at them as objects instead of people, weak things to be used for our amusement . . . as food, as prey.

Combine unbelievable physical power with a new sense of ruthless superiority and a burning, insatiable desire to hunt and kill and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

The key is being greater than your urges. I spent the next few years living on that little island in the Caribbean learning to understand and control my new nature. Rocky took many of those days away from me—the quiet reflection and meditation, watching sunsets, swimming in the ocean, sleeping on the sand, hours of reflection and study. But Rocky had planned on eating my most painful and brutal memories last, and had been stopped before he could finish his meal. So my most important lessons remained.

Santiago had given me hope.

*   *   *

The sheriff’s department was quiet. The lights were off here as well, and Earl could barely see the squat little concrete building from the street. This was the source of the blood scent. Though it wasn’t the only one in the air tonight, just the closest.

“This ain’t gonna end well,” he muttered to himself. The power, the communications, and apparently the authorities, all neutralized simultaneously. This wasn’t following the pattern of a leadership challenge; this was more like a coordinated attack. Nikolai was more than capable of that. Earl had seen that up close and personal across Southeast Asia, but it made no sense to do it here. The only thing a werewolf gained through this kind of action was attention, and attention brought Hunters.

Like any good Boy Scout or Monster Hunter, Earl had come prepared. He’d stopped long enough to change out of his wet clothes into his MHI-issued body armor. Milo had just gotten him a new suit, since the last one had been ruined by the acid saliva from a nasty flock of helicopter-spiders they’d found in Albuquerque. As always, the brilliant Milo had listened to Earl’s feedback and made improvements. Earl’s personal kit was a little less bulky than the standard suit, utilizing material that wasn’t quite as loud when he moved. Earl reasoned that he valued speed, mobility, and stealth a bit more than the average Hunter and could afford to sacrifice some protection.

Plus, Milo had thought ahead and put some quick-release buckles on the side so that Earl wouldn’t inadvertently ruin anything should he change in a hurry. Milo said he was tired of ordering replacements, and Owen kept bugging him about budgets. Even the boots had a zipper down the side so he could kick them off in a hurry, though he found himself regretting that neat feature as cold slush leaked through onto his socks. The new armor material was a mottled gray, which Earl had to admit he found aesthetically pleasing.

The snow was past his ankles as he trudged toward the front door. The drifts to the side were already far taller. His breath came out in clouds of steam, freezing his lips, before it was ripped away by the howling wind. It had crossed the point of discomfort, and for the first time in many years, Earl was actually cold.

Pausing at the entrance, he cupped his gloved hands over his eyes and peered through the glass. The place was still. He had a seventy-year-old Thompson submachine gun in hand and a few grenades wrapped in silver-wire on his vest and other assorted goodies in pouches. If there were any more cops in here, they might be a touch jumpy about seeing someone so heavily armed looking in the window, but the blood and viscera smell he kept catching on the wind suggested that wouldn’t be an issue. The stencil on the door told him that it was past regular business hours and to dial 911 if there was an emergency. Luckily the door was unlocked.

He kept the Thompson at his shoulder as he entered. It was an antique, weighed a ton, and some of the younger Hunters gave him crap for choosing something so archaic, but he’d first shot one clear back when that jerk Woodrow Wilson was president, and the .45 caliber M1 Thompson ran like the proverbial sewing machine. Hunting monsters was hard on guns, but Earl was in no danger of running out of spares despite the fact they hadn’t built any new ones in decades. In 1946, he’d found a navy chief petty officer who owed him a favor, charged with disposing of surplus war weapons by pushing them overboard into the Atlantic. Several pallets of weapons had been pushed overboard all right, onto the deck of a boat chartered by MHI. Earl had always hated government waste.

The death smell was stronger in here, as was the stink of werewolf. A male had marked his territory toward the back of the building. The scent battered his senses and offended him on an instinctive level. There were several overturned metal benches in the waiting area. There was a reception desk. Blood was splattered on the darkened monitor, but the body that had been there had been dragged to the back to be consumed in privacy. He moved forward, silent as a ghost.

It was pitch black inside the station. Unlike the new guns that most of his Hunters used, which were covered in rails for everything from flashlights to lasers to wind socks and cheese graters, the Thompson was utilitarian bare wood and Parkerized steel. But then again, most of those Hunters couldn’t see in the dark, either. Unless he was at the bottom of a really deep hole, Earl didn’t need a flashlight to see. When his eyes adjusted to the dark, the world turned into a gray place where the tiniest bit of motion screamed for attention.

Past the reception desk was a semi-open area with a few workspaces. There were dozens of spent shell casings littering the hardwood and bullet holes puncturing the walls. Kneeling, he picked up a case. It was .40 S&W, a pretty standard police caliber. Whoever had been manning the night shift hadn’t gone out without a fight.

There was a hallway at the back of the main room leading to the jail cells. It didn’t take Earl’s sensitive hearing to pick up the sound of eating. Apparently the werewolf hadn’t heard him yet. Amateur. This was his opportunity to get some answers, so Earl quietly slung his Thompson and stuck one hand into his medical pouch.

There was movement at the corner of his eye, a reflection against a window. There was a flashlight moving along the outside wall of the building, probably somebody heading for the back door. The wind was taking the smell away from him, but he sure hoped it wasn’t Stark coming to interfere. He really didn’t have time for that, and if a senior MCB agent got eaten, Myers would probably become extra meddlesome.

The chewing noise stopped. Earl froze. But the werewolf hadn’t heard him; it had seen the gleam of the newcomer’s flashlight. Earl swore to himself. Now he had to hurry before the werewolf ripped apart their visitor. Still crouching, Earl moved between the desks and took cover.

There was a noise as the knob was tested. The side door was locked. A low growl came from the darkness near the cells in response. Within seconds a shadow moved along the floor, low-crawling on its belly, approaching the door. The deadbolt rattled as someone inserted a key.

As soon as the door opened, the werewolf would leap on whoever it was. They’d be dead before they even knew what had hit them. Earl removed the hypodermic from the pouch and pulled the plastic cap off the needle with his teeth. It would still take some time for the horse tranquilizer to knock out a charged-up werewolf, and during that time he was going to have one hell of a wrestling match. He might as well take advantage of the distraction.

There was a sliver of white and a sudden gust of freezing wind as the door cracked open. The werewolf surged from the floor just as Earl let out a roar, stepped onto a desk, and launched himself across the room.

Earl hit the surprised werewolf with his shoulder. Momentum sent them crashing into a vending machine, shattering the heavy glass. Earl ended up on top, briefly, before a hairy claw struck him in the chest and sent him sailing back. Earl hit a chalkboard hard enough to crack it and the wall behind, but he’d gotten what he wanted.

Roaring, the werewolf knocked the empty syringe out of its neck. The drugs would act rapidly. Earl had an idea and was already covering the distance when the side door opened with a bang. Howling wind flooded the room with snow, flinging every loose bit of paper chaotically across the office. Not having time to see who the newcomer was, Earl grabbed the vending machine and tugged hard. A toe claw caught him in the calf, and he grimaced at the hit, but the armor protected him.

The vending machine toppled over as Earl jumped back. The werewolf let out a painful squeal as the vending machine landed on it with a terrible crash. Candy bars and packages of doughnuts spilled across the floor.

The werewolf howled and thrashed but couldn’t get out from under the vending machine. “That should hold you,” Earl said as he stepped away. All four limbs were hanging out the edges, clawing wildly. By the time he got out from under there, the drugs should have kicked in. Earl turned to see who was at the door and had to shield his dark-adapted eyes from the sudden scalding light.

The bitten deputy, Kerkonen, was standing in the billowing snow with a 12-gauge shotgun with a big flashlight on it aimed right at his head. Wearing an angry expression, she pumped a round into the chamber.

“Whoa there,” Earl said, raising his hands.

“Down!” she ordered.

Earl heard the rustle of fur and felt the flash of warmth as a second werewolf rushed from the cells. He threw himself aside as Kerkonen pulled the trigger. The shotgun thundered in the enclosed space. She pumped the shotgun and fired again. The werewolf shrieked but kept coming. She shot it a third time as Earl quickly drew his 625 and shot the werewolf right through the brain.

He managed to hit it five more times, had risen, reloaded, and reholstered, before the werewolf hit the ground. Sure enough, it was already healing. Not taking any chances, and only needing one prisoner to question, Earl landed on the werewolf’s back, heavy Bowie knife already in hand. He drove it through the beast’s neck so hard the blade struck the tile. He started slicing. “Hold still, damn it!” Hot blood sprayed up his arms.

“Oh, that’s nasty,” the deputy said, gagging.

A few seconds later the head came free in a great pumping mass. Earl rolled off the body and sat on the floor. Still illuminated by the shotgun’s flashlight, he looked down at the red mess on his brand-new armor and asked, “You got any paper towels around here?”

“Who’s Marsters?” Harbinger asked as he came out of the jail-cell area. He tossed a gold name tag on Heather’s desk.

With one giant animal with a severed head on the floor, an unconscious one squished under the vending machine, and the bodies of two more of her coworkers dismembered in the back, Heather had needed to take a seat. She’d picked her regular desk. It was familiar, and therefore slightly comforting.

“Bill Marsters was one of our deputies.” She picked up the name tag. It was splattered with blood. “They got Bill, too?”

“More like Bill got them,” he answered. She’d found one of their battery-powered camping lanterns, and that gave an even measure of light. The unnerving man who fought like something out of a superhero movie stepped from the shadows in front of her desk and pointed at the decapitated animal. “That is Bill.”

“Bullshit,” she stated, opening her bottom drawer and taking out a box of shotgun shells. She furiously thumbed more slugs into her Winchester. “Absolute bullshit.”

“You’ll see in a minute.” He pulled up a rolling chair and took a seat. His strange armor creaked as he put his boots up on a desk. She was about to tell him not to do that, but what did it matter? That desk had belonged to Chase, and he was dead, just like everybody else.

“Why? What’ll I see? Is it like the wolfman movies? Once they die they turn right back into people?” She laughed angrily.

“Naw. That’d be silly. It takes a bit. Well, unless you mortally wound one, and it has time to calm down. Then it’ll return to human form before kicking the bucket. But that’s pretty rare. Sure, as the body cools off it’ll start to look human. That’s one reason they can keep lycanthropes secret. No forensic evidence. But we ain’t got all night. I’m talking about this other guy.” He jerked his thumb at the unconscious creature under the vending machine. “Judging by the way the cell door was smashed out from the inside, I’m guessing this dude was locked up.”

“We had one crazy prisoner. State troopers found him wandering around a campsite preaching about Armageddon.” She had just assumed that he’d gotten eaten like the others when the strange creatures had invaded, but then she chided herself for being in denial. She’d seen Buckley change. Girl, you don’t know what you’ve seen.

“He was planted here,” Harbinger stated, looking thoughtfully at the ceiling. “Interesting.”

She got her older Beretta 96 out of the bottom drawer along with a few spare magazines and a box of .40 Speer Gold Dots. Loading magazines was therapeutic. “What the hell are you?” she asked finally.

“Mind if I smoke?” he didn’t wait for her to respond before he’d already lit up. “Well, I’m with a company called Monster Hunter International,” he replied. “I kill supernatural critters for a living.”

“So this is all in a day’s work for you.”

He shrugged. “It’s got its perks.”

That didn’t explain how he moved twice as fast as anyone else she’d ever seen. He sat there smoking, which was an obnoxious habit, but he didn’t offer any further explanation. Once her mags were loaded, she stood. “I need a doughnut.” Luckily there were a few packages that had spilled clear of the unconscious creature, because even as much as she needed sugar, she didn’t need it bad enough to get close to that thing, sleeping or not. She found some old-fashioned crumbly doughnuts and returned to her desk.

“How’s your shoulder?” he asked finally.

After running from the hospital, she’d gone into a gas-station bathroom, rinsed it out, and taped a bandage over the punctures. It itched and felt unnaturally hot. The sensible thing to do would be to get tested for rabies, but then sensible didn’t take into account the strange men with guns trying to murder her. She could still see the little red hole appearing in Chase’s forehead and how the back of his head had come off every time she closed her eyes. She didn’t trust this Harbinger. For all she knew, he was with the same outfit as the murderers. “None of your damn business.”

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” he said softly. “I ain’t your problem. Those men were from the government, and I’m afraid they won’t stop looking for you until you’re dead. They’re very persistent. I’ll give them that.”

“Screw them,” she said as she shoved a doughnut in her mouth and crunched the wonderful staleness. She was terribly hungry all of a sudden. “Why?” she asked with an impolite mouthful. “Why did they try to kill me? Why’d they shoot Chase?”

Harbinger took his feet off the desk and placed his hands on his knees. Talking about this seemed to pain him. “I’ll be straight with you. You’ve been bitten by a werewolf. Which means you’re cursed. You’re gonna turn into one of them.”

“That’s probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I’m telling the truth.” He let out a long sigh. “At the next full moon, you’ll turn into a werewolf. You’ll be completely out of control, and you’ll kill anyone unlucky enough to get in your way. But odds are that you’ll descend into a homicidal psychosis before that, though. It ain’t pretty.”

Heather laughed—until she began to choke on the doughnut. Then she couldn’t help but start to cry a bit, because the men who’d shot Chase sure believed it. “You actually believe that?”

“Sorry,” he answered sincerely. “It’s on my head. If I’d been a little faster, you wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

Get a hold of yourself. She hurriedly wiped her eyes and strengthened her resolve. She was not going to cry in front of this weirdo. “Look, Harbinger, is it? This town’s in danger. Somebody needs to warn everyone about these things. I’m going back out to do my job. If I see those assholes, I’ll deal with them.”

“You’ll feel it soon. The hunger first, then the strength, then the urges.” He shook his head sadly. “Your injury will be gone soon. By then, the change is in full swing. You don’t believe me. I suppose it’ll take some time for this to sink in . . .” He trailed off, looking at her strangely.

“Oh, what the hell now?” she asked.

“Time . . . Hey, your buddy at the hospital, how long ago was he mauled?”

“His name was Joe Buckley.” Time seemed so compressed. It seemed like forever. “Just over twenty-four hours ago.”

“And Bill, did he get injured recently? A bite or a scratch?”

“Not that I know of.” She paused mid-doughnut, thinking of the crazy prisoner biting him during their wrestling match. “Wait. The prisoner did take a chunk out of his hand yesterday.”

“Yesterday? Impossible.” Harbinger scowled. “And he must have been in human form . . . Holy shit. That’s bad news.”

“Why?” she asked, but Harbinger was distracted, looking toward the vending machine. He got up and walked to the now-stirring monster. “Is he awake?” She didn’t realize that she’d switched from it to he.

“Sorta,” Harbinger said, slinging his stubby weapon, then bending over and picking up the vending machine. It had to weigh a couple hundred pounds, but he didn’t so much as grunt as he put it back upright. Crap, he’s strong. Snack foods cascaded down onto the hairy form.

Heather picked up her shotgun as she got up. “Careful.”

There was a crinkle of cellophane wrappers as the pile of snacks seemed to compress, only Heather realized that it wasn’t the plastic moving: it was the body under it seemingly shrinking. She watched one twitching paw. The fur didn’t seem so thick now. When she blinked, it seemed more like the hair on a man’s arm. The long black claws seemed to retract. Their color lightened, turning white. The skin around the nails seemed moist, pliable, almost squishy.

The head was obscured by wrappers. Heather was nauseous, but she had to see. “His face. I need to see his face.” Harbinger nodded, then squatted down, knocking away the packages. She recoiled in disgust.

The head wasn’t exactly canine, but it was similar. The animal had long jaws, but instead of a nose like a pad, it was more like the nostrils on the end of the snout were holes in the skin stretched tight over the bone. The skull wasn’t low and flat like a wolf, but rounder, like a human. As the covering mask of dark hair receded, individual hairs crawling back into the skin for their proteins to be reabsorbed, the skin beneath went from gray to sick pink. Heather shuddered at the sound of cracking bone.

The flesh was covered in beads of sweat. Lips peeled back in an unconscious grimace of pain as the jaws seemed to shrink, finally disappearing into the skull, leaving a cartiligious lump where a human nose would be. The skin was loose, dangling and wet. It slowly retracted until the nostril holes were in the right place, and the thing sucked in a great pained breath.

Heather stepped back, biting a knuckle. The worst part was the terrible grinding noise and the moans of suffering. The nearly human parody of a face opened its eyes. One was gold. One was brown. He looked around, terrified, his mouth open, teeth still sharp. They’re real. Heather felt a sudden urge to vomit.

Harbinger drew his revolver and placed it against the werewolf’s forehead. “Easy there, partner. No need to make this awkward.”

She could recognize him easily now. The prisoner’s voice was horribly slurred, far too deep. “What’ve you done to me?”

“Pumped enough drugs into your system to date-rape a yak. We’re gonna have us a chat.”

The eyes closed as the prisoner continued panting. There was a horrid scraping noise from his teeth, like fingernails on a chalkboard, that made Heather shiver. Gradually his breathing slowed. His glistening skin turned to a normal shade. When his eyes reopened, they were both brown. “You’re the Harbinger,” he stated, voice at near human tones.

“One and the same,” he answered, cigarette dangling from the edge of his mouth. “Let me in on a little secret, friend. What’s Nikolai here for?”

The prisoner tried to sit up, but was too drugged. He collapsed back into a heap. He began to laugh. It was a horribly distorted noise. “Nikolai’s here for the same reason you are.”

“I want straight answers, or I start hurting you. Trust me. You can torture something that regenerates forever.”

“You’re both fools, slaves to the old ways. You’re slaves to your instincts.”

Harbinger frowned. “That ain’t a very nice way to talk about your leader.”

The prisoner growled. “Nikolai’s no more worthy to lead our pack than you are, traitor. We answer the call of the Alpha. He doesn’t lock himself in a cage like a coward or keep part of himself chained inside his own head! My father is the king of all werewolves!”

Harbinger glanced at Heather. “Hmm . . . I must’ve missed that memo.” He went back to the prisoner. “Tell me about this Alpha. I’d love to meet him sometime.”

“Oh, you will.” The prisoner giggled madly. It was an unnerving sound. “He’s coming to take your soul. He’ll use it to give life to the vulkodlak.” The word was guttural, slurred.

“What’s a vulk-odd-lack?” Harbinger asked. His pronunciation wasn’t even close.

“Oh, you’ll see!” he exclaimed with glee. “They’re beautiful angels. Just beautiful. They’re going to usher in a new age. The one-handed witch has revealed the way! But for them to be born he needs a perfect soul to give them life!”

Harbinger rolled his eyes. “Metaphysical bullshit. I swear, it’s always some sort of metaphysical bullshit with these guys. Plug your ears, Kerkonen,” he told Heather. She barely had time to comply before he pointed his gun at the werewolf’s kneecap and blasted it into shards of bone and meat. Screaming, the prisoner grabbed his leg. “Okay, now that I’ve got your attention, get all poetic on me again, and you lose the other one. Got it? Why’s your pack in Copper Lake?”

Grimacing, he pointed one bloody hand at Heather. “We’re here because of her blood!” Harbinger moved his gun to the other knee. “Wait! No, really! One of her ancestors, the Finn, he stole something valuable from our people. He hid it here.”

“Grandpa?” Heather asked.

“He’s a thief! He’s just lucky he got the chance to die before the Alpha tracked him down. But this whole town will pay for his sins!”

“What?” Harbinger shouted, then punched the man in his damaged knee. “What did he steal?”

“All right, all right.” The prisoner whimpered. “The amulet of Koschei the Deathless. Man, that hurts!”

“I hate magic. That must be the source of the surge. What’s it do?”

“It makes our kind invincible. The bearer can’t die, just like Koschei of old. The moon no longer matters! The wearer’s children receive blessings, too. It makes us all stronger. The birth of the vulkodlak are another. The pack that has the amulet can never be defeated.”

“Where’s he hiding?” Harbinger’s voice was a low growl. Heather took an unconscious step back.

The prisoner began to laugh. “You think he’s hiding? You think he brought you here so that he could hide? To hide from the Russian? No! Our time living in the dark is over. We’ve been set free. Tonight the pack is going to feast and grow strong. He’s coming for you! He’s coming to take your soul!” The laughter continued, bubbling off into insanity.

“That’s enough,” Harbinger stated, and Heather could sense the grim finality in his voice.

“Harbinger, don’t,” Heather pleaded. This was wrong. She was a peace officer. This man was in her custody.

“What? Gonna lock him up? Figure enough blood’s been shed already and let him go? You become the animal, you cross that line, you get no mercy. It don’t work that way.” Harbinger turned his attention back to the prisoner. “I don’t work that way. Any last words, asshole?”

“The Alpha will take your soul!” the prisoner screamed. “All of your souls!”

This wasn’t right, but she looked at the decapitated corpse that had been one of her friends, and she didn’t say another word.

“Ears.” Harbinger stated. Heather complied and this time Harbinger shot the prisoner in the chest. The insane laughter gurgled off into a long groan.

Harbinger stepped away, examining the wound he’d just inflicted. “Interesting. Silver still works on werewolves created before that surge just fine. It’s only the new ones that are immune.”

The prisoner was in obvious pain, but fearless in his devotion. “Fool. I’m of his pack. He’ll sense my death and come for you.” His voice trailed off.

Earl nodded. “Good. Let’s hurry him along then,” he said as he shot the dying man in the face.

The sudden death of the child stung him. It was not a true physical pain, more of a sense of loss, an empty space in the bonds of the pack. The pack had just been made less. His child’s blood called from the dust for vengeance.

“Your sacrifice was not in vain,” he whispered to the wind, then turned to the witch. “One of the pack has fallen.”

“Which one got him?” She didn’t seem surprised. “Harbinger or Petrov?”

“What does it matter? Come on. It is almost time.”

The witch’s nod was barely perceptible inside her great fur hood. He set out through the deep snow at a speed her weak human legs could never possibly match. One of her diggers gently extended a metal hand, and she gratefully climbed into its arms. The digger held her close, like a mother would hold a child, only in this case the reverse was true. The diggers set out after the running Alpha.

Disgusted, Earl holstered his revolver and stomped away from the corpse. This was a nightmare scenario. An entire pack of werewolves had declared war on mankind.

Packs formed occasionally, and when they did, they’d often hunt, but always on the sly. They’d kidnap runaways and homeless, take them out to the sticks and chase them down, then melt away to do it again later. Every time he’d discovered this, he’d made sure that MHI had tracked them down and eliminated the rogue pack. This was different. This pack were assaulting an entire community. The town was cut off from the outside. People were isolated in their homes, unaware of what was coming. It would be a slaughter.

Werewolves lived on the periphery. Outright war with mankind was insanity. It would take an incredibly strong leader to force this kind of counter-instinctual behavior onto his followers. That level of suicidal loyalty was bizarre. This was unnatural, a perversion of the natural order of things. It broke his rules.

And that really pissed him off.

The deputy was still staring at the body, probably just now realizing that he hadn’t been lying, and that she was destined to that same fate. “Kerkonen,” he said. It took her a second to focus. “You said you were gonna warn everyone. What’s your plan?”

“I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

“The pack will work its way inward, probably from multiple directions. They’ll kill the ones they think are threats first, while they’re not expecting it. Like this.” He gestured around the damaged station. “They’ll save the remainder for when they’ve got the time.”

She went back to staring at the body. “How do you know all this?”

“Because that’s how I’d do it. Wake everyone you can. Reliable folks first. Have them start spreading the word. Get into groups. There’s safety in numbers. Individuals and stragglers are easy to pick off. Is there a secure building in town? Something you can fortify?”

“A couple of the churches are pretty solid . . .” she began.

“Too flammable. They look like animals, but they ain’t stupid. They’ll burn you out.”

“The high school. The population used to be a lot bigger before the mines went away, so they built a giant gymnasium.”

“Why? That doesn’t sound very good.”

“Not this thing. It’s huge, its solid, and the windows are all up high. There’s even an old civil-defense bunker under it, because it was built back in the Sixties, and there used to be an Air Force base down the road back then. They still use the bomb shelter under the gym for storage. There’s only one way in, and it’s all concrete. Even the roof is metal. It’d be hard to set on fire.”

Earl nodded. That was good thinking. “Start moving people there. If space is limited get the women and kids inside and lock it up tight. And if anybody has a bite or a scratch, or you even suspect that they’ve got one, don’t you dare put them in that vault. I’ve got cases of silver ammo in three calibers in my truck you can have. Regular ammo will work, but they’ll heal quick, so hit them again while they’re down. Cut their heads off, remove their hearts, or set them on fire. No mercy.”

“We can do that,” she promised. Earl nodded approvingly. These U.P. folks had spine. “Where will you be?”

“Doing what I do best. I’m going on the offensive. The most effective thing I can do for your town is to start picking them off. The more I kill, the less your people have to worry about.”

“How many of these things are we talking about?”

“Unknown,” he answered truthfully. That probably would have been a good question to ask the dead guy, but it was a touch late for that. But from the complicated smells when he’d first arrived in town . . . “At least a dozen, maybe twice that.”

The more troubling question was, what about the new ones? Normally it took weeks for the metamorphosis to take place and the power of the full moon to unleash it. He’d already seen two cases of the change happening in less than a day, and they had both been set off because of that unnatural surge.

He glanced at Kerkonen suspiciously. She was a ticking bomb and didn’t even realize it yet.

He’d tried to help others who’d been cursed, but Santiago had been right. It was almost impossible to learn to control the curse. It wasn’t just a physical mutation, it was a change at the most fundamental of psychological and philosophical levels. Over the years he’d had several of his Hunters end up bitten. They had each been a warrior, tough, hard as nails, but in the end every last one of them had failed. He’d tried to help dozens of the survivors that he’d met over the years. He’d had young werewolves instinctively seek him out, looking for guidance. . . . All of them were dead now. Most eventually by their own hand, or if they lacked the strength, by Earl’s.

Mastering the curse took more than locking yourself behind impenetrable walls a few nights a month. It made you into a perfect killer every single day. And it made you want it.

This was the hard part. “I need you to listen to me very carefully, Deputy Kerkonen. What I’m about to say is gonna be difficult. You’re infected. I need you to deal with that. These people need you right now.”

“Infected?” she asked incredulously. “Like a disease? What do we do?”

“There’s no cure. There never has been. Believe me, a lot of really smart folks have tried. Bites are always infectious. If you start to change, you’re gonna become part of the problem.” He drew his backup gun, a snub-nosed 625, spun it around in his hand and held it out to her, butt first. “This is the solution.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

“It’s loaded with silver bullets. If you start to change, stick this in your mouth and pull the trigger.”

“That’s—”

“Necessary,” he stated coldly. “Otherwise when you change, you’ll murder everyone around you. You’ll kill, and kill, and kill again, until you’re bloated on blood, and then you’ll puke it up and go back for more. The first time is always the worst.”

“I don’t believe you,” she insisted, louder this time.

“Yes. Yes, you do.” The Smith & Wesson stayed there, between them. “Take this. I’ve got a spare.”

Finally, she asked, “Is there any other way?”

He had the portable time-lock cage in the truck, brought specifically just in case he was stuck out during the full moon. . . . But he’d brought that for himself. It barely fit one. If that surge came back any stronger, it was his life insurance.

Kerkonen was terrified, but trying not to show it. She put on a tough act. Earl could only tell because he could smell the fear on her skin. Her hand closed around the gun, and she took it from him hesitantly.

At least he would have a chance of controlling himself if the surge came again. She didn’t. The drugs were unreliable and a safe dose might not work fast enough. Enough to knock her out for sure was enough to kill her. Silver bullets hadn’t worked on the other new werewolf, so they might not on her, either, and he really didn’t want to kill the poor scared girl himself. He wasn’t some heartless MCB executioner.

Damn it . . . He made up his mind. “There is something. If you can secure yourself, you can wait it out. It’s got to be extremely solid, though. You saw what he did to your jail cell. Your strength goes through the roof. But I’ve got a box in the back of my truck that’ll hold a werewolf.” He pulled out his key ring and passed them over. “Take my truck. Get in there if you need to. Pull the lid shut behind you, and it’ll lock.”

“How do I get out?” she asked suspiciously. “Because that sounds like some creepy serial killer–type implement to just have in your truck there, Harry Houdini.”

“It’ll open automatically in eight hours.” He smiled. “So I’d suggest going to the bathroom first.”

She groaned. “I still think you’re full of shit . . . but assuming, just assuming that you’re not completely insane, how will I know it’s time?”

When the burning gets so bad that eating that .45 sounds like a great idea. “Oh, believe me, you’ll know. . . . We better move out. Good luck out there, Kerkonen.”

“Heather,” she stated flatly as she tried to stuff the big revolver into her coat pocket. “My name’s Heather, and if you’re lying to me, you’ll regret it. See you at the bomb shelter.”

Chapter 11

Santiago’s last regular visit came in the spring of 1929, my third year on the island.

“How long have you known?” he asked me as we sat on the rocks with our fishing poles.

“Months ago,” I answered truthfully. I’d been tipped off by some of the tonics Santiago had started taking. The cancer was in his bones. I could smell the sick from a mile away. It was natural for a predator to sense weakness. “I figured you’d talk when you were ready.”

“Sic transit gloria mundi . . .” He saw my confused expression. “Latin. It means the glory of man is fleeting. Such is life, my friend. The church has already sent a replacement, and he seems like a good enough man. My people will be cared for. I suppose my work here is done. I have done my best, and I go to the Lord with a heart that is free in that knowledge. Are you ready to return to life?”

I wasn’t sure. I asked what he thought.

“You’ve sat on top of this rock and let hurricanes buffet you. I’ve seen you do your very best to torture yourself into changing inadvertently. You have read the Bible seven times, absorbed everything I know about werewolves, and have spent many hours in quiet contemplation. I do not know what else you can do here. My opinion is that it is time to move on. Your curse could be a powerful tool in accomplishing the Lord’s work. Besides, I won’t be around to bring you supplies for much longer, and you are a terrible fisherman.” He reached around his back and drew a familiar revolver. He opened the cylinder and ejected a single cartridge before handing it over. “I believe this belongs to you.”

I took the silver bullet, all alone in its half-moon clip. “You know, I could give you the curse. You’d be healed immediately. Werewolves don’t get sick. You’re a strong man. You could learn to control it, better than me for sure.”

“Do not tempt me, Raymond. I am less afraid of dying than I am of failure. . . . Do you know why I was exiled here?” When I didn’t respond, Santiago continued. “My best friend was a Hunter as well, recruited to our group because of his bravery against the devil’s legions. One day, he was bitten by a werewolf. I was ordered by our knight-commander to end his suffering, but I lied and hid him instead. I tried to help him much as I have tried to help you. I studied everything in the Vatican about lycanthropy. I became our leading expert. However, I still failed. My brother could never control himself. He was eventually consumed with evil. Many innocents died. I was forced to take his life. I was shamed, an outcast to the order, and was banished to live out my days here in a place where I could cause no more trouble.” He turned to look at me, and his sad eyes cut through me harder than my sharpest knife. “I am counting on you to make my life’s work mean something.”

I gave him my word.

*   *   *

Nikolai maneuvered the snowplow through the empty streets of Copper Lake. It was actually a rather beneficial vehicle, considering the present conditions. It was huge, the cab sat up high, and a dump-truck bed full of sand added significant weight, and therefore traction. The amulet was out there, somewhere, but he couldn’t pinpoint its direction. The false moon was maddening, always just beyond the reach of his senses, and it felt like it was moving.

The storm was hurting his concentration. The scents were muddled and confused, quickly buried under pounds of snow. Past the plow’s rapidly beating wipers, the town had taken on a surreal form. They were on a suburban street, nearing the center of town. The only lights from the windows were from battery-powered lights or flickering candles, but almost everyone was asleep. Every edge and straight line constructed by man had been rounded; several feet of snow had already piled up against the small homes. Even the street signs looked like giant white lollipops. There was nothing soft about this snowfall. It was icy and brutal, harsh and unforgiving. Winter had come to smother the life from this place.

Reminds me of home.

“Shut up,” Nikolai said. “I need to concentrate.”

However, the Tvar was right. It was just like home. Their early years together had been spent in the Siberian woods, hiding by day, hunting by night, always staying one step ahead of the NKVD Hunters that had so ruthlessly pursued them. They’d raided the small villages, usually eating livestock or, if the Tvar was in control, people, often children. The Tvar preferred children, said they tasted better. Sometimes the lines blurred and he could not remember which one of them had committed the latest atrocities.

It had been a hard time for Nikolai, the idealistic young man whose life had been destroyed after he’d been mauled by a werewolf, but he’d come to understand the new part of himself and had brokered a peace between the two entities that lived inside the same body. They had come to terms, and that had made them truly dangerous.

Many of Stalin’s finest Hunters had died after underestimating them. Eventually, after a chase that had taken them across the most unforgiving terrain in the motherland to a valley high in the Altay Krai, the NKVD had finally cornered them.

Strangely, rather than a silver bullet, they had been offered a pardon. Impressed by reports of the chase, Stalin himself had decided that young Nikolai Petrov would be a remarkable asset to the cause. The man of steel had a fearsome old werewolf serving him and had decided that Nikolai was to be his protégé. In one fell swoop, Nikolai had been given a mission, a mentor, and a purpose.

You miss it.

“Sometimes,” Nikolai answered truthfully. The mission had ultimately been a failure, their mentor a madman. Yet Stalin had given him something greater than himself to believe in. The loss of the Soviet Union and its subsequent desecration had left him empty and selling his abilities to the highest bidders in a world without purpose. Nikolai was a fatalistic man without a bit of optimism in his soul.

Yet, surprisingly, he had found a purpose again, a reason to live. He’d found a human girl who did not fear him. It had seemed so impossible. Lila. She’d demanded the best from him and loved him despite the things he had done. So he’d silenced the Tvar. Oh, how it had fought, but in the end, Nikolai had won. They had built a life. Nikolai had lived as a man. They had been happy, for a time. . . . Before Harbinger had recently ruined everything.

So Nikolai had chosen to set his other half free. It had become so much more demanding since then. It made it difficult to think clearly.

I smell killing.

He stomped on the brakes as a figure ran into the street ahead and fell. The giant vehicle weighed many tons and slid to a gritty stop, inches from crushing the man beneath the plow.

Nikolai took the Val rifle in hand and stepped out of the truck. He dropped into the snow and walked around the front. The man was already scrambling to his feet and had put one hand on the ice-crusted plow blade to steady himself. Clad only in a pair of blue coveralls, he was shivering uncontrollably and stunk of fear so badly that Nikolai could actually taste it on his tongue.

“We’ve got to get out of here!” the man cried, looking back over his shoulder, terrified.

Nikolai’s nostrils twitched. Another werewolf was closing fast. She had been tracking this man, and it was easy to understand how, since his fear stink was like a beacon. Nikolai could not hear the female’s approach over the rumble of the truck’s diesel engine and the howl of the wind. The headlights illuminated only a small patch of road, and the snow was so thick that it was as if the air was filled with hissing static. Nikolai put the Val’s stock to his shoulder and deactivated the safety. The metal was ice cold against his cheek. It gave him clarity.

The werewolf hurled herself through the static. The man-prey screamed and fell against the plow as Nikolai calmly lined up the sights and pulled the trigger of the suppressed rifle. The only sound was the metallic clack of the action flying back and forth and the sharp thwack of the bullet’s impact. The werewolf stumbled as the heavy projectile pierced her leg, just as he’d intended. She kept coming, but Nikolai stepped forward and slammed his palm into the inferior creature’s snout.

She squealed like a pup and landed on her back. Rolling through the snow, she retreated on all fours, crying, leaving a bright red trail behind.

Finish her!

“I know what I’m doing,” Nikolai said.

A hand fell on his coat. “Oh, thank you! Thank you!” the prey cried pathetically, as he got out of the snow. “You saved my life. That thing tore Bud apart. It ripped his throat right out, and then it came after me! There’s more of them there, a whole bunch! We’re all gonna die!”

The human’s sobs sickened him. It was hard to imagine that he’d once been that soft and pathetic himself.

You were. Until I came along.

“Control yourself,” Nikolai ordered. “Where are the creatures?”

Still shaking uncontrollably, he wiped his eyes. His name tag read Stevenson. Besides fear, he smelled of petrol and cigarettes. “At the grocery store. Bud was unloading his ice-cream truck. I went in to fire up the generator. Power’s out,” he explained as Nikolai cocked his head to the side. The young werewolves would have been attracted to the noise and activity. “Have to keep the heat on or the veggies wilt.” Shivering, he folded his arms in a vain attempt to stay warm. “Thanks, buddy. My name’s Justin. You saved my bacon. We better get out of here, though. There were at least two more of tho—”

Nikolai reached up, grabbed a handful of hair, and brutally drove Justin’s face into the thick metal at the top of the plow blade. There was a sickening crack as teeth shattered. Nikolai let him flop limply into the snow.

Excellent.

For a moment he wasn’t sure if that impulsive action had been his, or the Tvar within. Sometimes it was hard to tell. Nikolai decided to accept responsibility. “His whining annoyed me.”

He walked over to where the other werewolf had fallen. The blood splatter was bright and easy to spot on the snow. He got on his knees and drank in the scent, then picked up a handful of slush and put it in his mouth, rolling it around, savoring the arterial blood and the smoky taste of bone marrow. She was young and had not been one of them for long, a few months perhaps, but long enough to be a valued member of the enemy pack. Particles of silver began to burn his gums, so he spit the blood out.

Badly wounded, unable to regenerate from the poisonous silver, she would surely retreat to her Alpha to die amongst her pack.

Clever and ruthless. I like this side of us.

Justin moaned incoherently as he returned to the truck. Nikolai climbed back into the cab, ground it into gear, and drove, trapping and dragging the weak human beneath the plow blade. The body was dislodged within half a block and crushed beneath the tires. The bump barely registered. Nikolai rolled the window down as he drove slowly, savoring the painful cold and following the scent of blood.

Not knowing who else in her small department was still alive, Heather had tried Sheriff Hintze’s home first. It was near the station, by itself at the end of a long driveway, but Harbinger’s truck was barely sufficient to get even that far without chains. No one who lived in Copper County was a stranger to snow, but this storm was absurd, even by Michigan standards. The only reason the roads were still passable at all was because the howling wind was pushing most of the accumulation off the flat spots. There had to have been two feet in the last hour.

The lack of radio and phone was infuriating. Help was as close as the next county over, but there was no way to reach them. As soon as she had some help, she’d send somebody on a snowmobile, but until then she was on her own. She had left a note at the station, just in case somebody else came in, but she doubted that anyone would. Copper County was a relatively unpopulated place and had a correspondingly small sheriff’s department. There weren’t that many deputies to begin with, and she knew that almost half of them had been killed in the last few hours. Heather had a bad feeling about the others.

Heather knew that she was too late as soon as she arrived at the sheriff’s house. His front door was wide open, already lodged in place by a fresh drift. The beam of her flashlight found what was left of Sheriff Hintze right inside the front hall, wearing pajamas and missing most of his neck.

A few hours ago, that sight would have scared her, perhaps even made her nauseous. Now she just felt anger. She crouched next to the body, with her Winchester 1300 ready to blast anything that moved, but the house was quiet except for the creaking of old boards. The thing that had done this was long gone. She caught herself sniffing the air, shook her head, and retreated to the porch.

Harbinger had said that it was a coordinated attack. Of course they had eliminated the sheriff. Her boss had been a sharp man and would have stood in their way. Yet why did she believe Harbinger? He was a mystery. And if she were to believe what Harbinger told her about the attack, then why shouldn’t she believe him about the other things he had said? Her shoulder itched, but it didn’t even hurt in the slightest. She was scared to look at it.

The night had already been so emotionally draining that the sight of her dead boss hadn’t even disturbed her. Heather simply returned to the still-running pickup truck and set out for her next destination. She was so hungry it hurt. Heather could smell the food in the backseat and dragged Harbinger’s cooler around. Barely slowing to rip the packaging off, she started stuffing her face, not even caring what it was, as she drove back down the sheriff’s driveway. Regardless of what Harbinger told her, she still had responsibilities to attend to. She’d taken an oath to protect and serve, and she took that oath very seriously.

A few lights were on at the corner grocery.

It was a relatively small building. The kind of locally owned, overpriced, but convenient place that managed to hang on despite competition from big chain stores. It had already been decorated for Christmas. The signs said this place was called Value Sense Grocery, six-packs of Dr. Pepper were on sale, and there was a werewolf noisily devouring the contents of some poor sucker’s chest cavity right inside the front door by the shopping carts.

Earl crouched behind the oblong block of ice that he suspected was concealing a mailbox and watched the windows. He was downwind, and even if it suddenly shifted, as it kept on doing, he’d put the wolfsbane back into a pocket. Other than the one visible target, there was at least one other member of the pack in there. He wanted to make sure he got as many as possible, as fast as possible. Anything that ran meant he would have to chase them down, and that would take time. Time spent chasing was time that could be better spent proactively killing these upstart punks before they murdered too many innocents.

The dark brown fur of a second enemy was briefly visible as it moved past the cash registers and a plastic Santa Claus. It joined the first, lighter-colored werewolf over the human remains. The two began to snap at each other, competing playfully for the tastier bits. The lighter-colored one was dominant, and the newcomer moved to the other end and started chewing on a leg.

“Enjoy that last meal, boys,” Earl said to himself as he came out of the snow and walked for the front door. Lifting the Thompson, he waited until he was just on the other side of the heavy glass door and couldn’t possibly miss.

Seeing those two there, just having a good old time, really irked him. He’d worked hard for over eighty years to make up for his own early mistakes, and these youngsters thought that they could come along and do whatever the hell they felt like. Earl realized he was grinding his teeth together. Wanting them to see their punishment coming, Earl raised the muzzle of the Thompson and banged it hard on the glass. “Hey!”

The two heads snapped up instantly, dripping blood and chunks of flesh, glaring at him.

The Tommy gun roared as Earl mowed them down. He worked the subgun back and forth, emptying an entire stick magazine of silver .45 bullets into the two werewolves, a continuous stream of hot brass flying out the side. A row of soda bottles behind them exploded as the monsters jerked and twitched. The werewolves fell as Earl ducked under the door rail and through the broken glass, already yanking the spent mag from the Thompson.

The light one was dead. The dark male was trying to crawl away, its body perforated multiple times. The wounds were closing. “Oh, a new guy, huh?” Earl shouted as he pulled the bolt back on a fresh mag. “I guess nobody told you about the two rules?” The werewolf had reached the check stand and was using it to pull himself up. Earl let the hot subgun hang by its sling as he drew his bowie knife.

The werewolf turned, snarling. Earl swung the heavy blade, cleaving through half the throat in one mighty swing. The werewolf fell back, blood squirting everywhere. “And rule number one is no killing”—Earl raised the blade again and slashed it through the other side; the werewolf’s head spun free and landed, bouncing down the rubber belt of the check stand—“innocent people!” The body tottered for a second before falling. It hit the floor with a dull thud, one leg kicking spastically.

Earl lowered his dripping knife. He could hear a generator running in back. The lights over the check stands were on, giving him a good look. The now-headless body still had the tattered remains of a red grocery apron tied around the midsection. Another poor sap, turned today. Earl spat on the floor.

“What’s rule number two?”

Raising the bowie, Earl turned toward the voice. It had come from the middle of the store, somewhere between the aisles, but he couldn’t see anyone. Most of the store’s lights were still off. “Who’re you supposed to be?” Earl asked evenly.

The voice was calm, almost friendly, and oozed confidence. “I’m the one you’re looking for.”

It wasn’t Nikolai’s voice, that much was certain. Earl wiped his knife off on his leg and returned it to the sheath on his belt. He took up the Thompson. “You the leader of this pack?”

There was a jovial laugh. “I’m the leader of all werewolves.”

“Uh-huh. And if I had a nickel for every asshole that told me that . . .” Walking to the side, Earl peered down the next shadowed aisle. They were perpendicular to the check stands. Even in the dark, he’d be easy enough to spot. He’d find this guy, shoot him full of holes, and finish this.

“Those were mistaken. I don’t make mistakes. I’m the king of werewolves, the next step in our evolution. The future, if you will. I am the Alpha.”

The voice seemed to be coming from the left side of the store. Earl kept walking, gun up. He had to keep him talking. “Why are you doing this? Seems kind of stupid to pick a fight you can’t win with humanity.” Next aisle. Clear.

“Don’t assume man will win this one. Perhaps, the better question is, why are you here, Harbinger?”

Next aisle. Clear. “I came here looking to finish Nikolai Petrov. I figure once I clean your clock, I’ll go kill him and be back in Alabama before supper.” There were only a few aisles left.

Oddly, Earl’s superior hearing couldn’t pin down exactly where the voice was coming from. “Yet you don’t know why Nikolai’s here, either, do you?”

Clear. “Can’t say that I do. . . . Something about a magic necklace, I gather.”

“Amulet,” the voice corrected. “Of Koschei the Deathless, to be exact. It’s why I lured you both here. Only the soul of the most powerful of werewolves can awaken the amulet. Lesser souls gets lesser results. Only the fiercest will do. That would either be you or Petrov.”

Clear. “That’d be me.” One last aisle. Earl’s hand tightened around the Thompson’s grip. “Obviously.”

“Historically, it would seem to be a draw. Your truce was inconvenient to me. Ideally, I wanted the two of you to meet to decide the victor before I harvested his soul. I wanted only the best of the best for this moment.” His voice had an almost youthful pitch to it, but it was hard to tell with a werewolf. Earl didn’t sound like a smoker. “But with both of you murdering all my children . . .”

Last aisle. Earl swept around. Damn it. The aisle was empty except for another mutilated human corpse spread from one end to the other. He had to be hiding behind one of the end caps. Earl moved quickly, silently, down the aisle toward the back of the store. His wet boots barely made a sound.

“I’ve had to expedite matters.”

Earl reached the other end and peered around the corner. Nothing was moving in the shadows of the meat and dairy section. He sniffed the air. The intruder had to be wearing wolfsbane as well. Earl couldn’t pick up anything over the delicious smell of all that raw meat. “You want to challenge me? Let’s go then.”

It was impossible to isolate the source of the voice. Magic? “One doesn’t challenge his inferiors, Harbinger.”

“How about you come out and face me? King of the werewolves and all that, or you just talking a big game?”

“I’m more than a werewolf, more than you can comprehend. And either way, as I’ve said, I’ve had to expedite matters. I’m afraid you have another challenge to face first. Then I’ll deal with whichever of you proves worthy.”

Earl froze. The doors on the dairy cabinet had started to vibrate. Something was coming.

“Before I go, though, you’ve piqued my curiosity. What’s rule number two?”

The front of the grocery store lit up as headlights flashed through the glass. The vibration turned into a rumble as a powerful engine revved. The lights grew in intensity as the vehicle rapidly approached.

“Stay off my bad side,” Earl muttered as the giant truck’s steel snowplow blade crashed through the front of the store.

The truck exploded through the wall in a shower of glass and cinderblock fragments, barely even slowing as its heavy steel plow obliterated several checkout stands, displays of food, and three rows of tall shelves. Seemingly unstoppable, it came right down the center of the store. Cans, bags, and boxes were flung in every direction as the truck plowed everything aside. More shelves collapsed, causing a domino effect, in a cascading wave of destruction.

Earl moved quickly, dodging to the side, heading for the back corner, swearing the whole way but unable to hear himself over the terrible racket of breaking tile, shattering glass, and roaring engine. He dove to safety just as the orange snowplow collided with the back wall of the meat department with a thunderous crash. The plow caught a heavy steel pillar, causing the truck to lurch to a stop so suddenly that the dump-truck bed lifted a foot off the ground, spraying sand everywhere. The truck’s impact tore the steel support beams right out of their concrete foundation. The entire building shook at the hit, and twenty feet of ceiling collapsed into the interior.

The Value Sense was a wreck. Dozens of jugs of milk had been knocked out of the dairy case and popped open on the floor. The center of the store had a furrow dug through it, and only a few outer aisles still had their shelves standing. The big diesel engine was still running hard, but it was stuck, plow driven halfway through the back wall.

“Son of a bitch,” Earl muttered as he picked himself off the floor. The unbroken lights were flickering, and sparks shot from a crushed electrical box on the back wall. Fresh snow came flooding through the hole in the roof. Lifting his Thompson, he focused in on the cab of the truck. “Nikolai . . .”

Better safe than sorry. Earl fired a magazine of .45 ammo into the cab of the truck, puckering bullet holes through the door as he approached. Earl replaced the stick magazine in the Thompson as he ran up the side of a collapsed shelf, kicking bags of chips out of the way. He stuck the barrel through the driver’s side window. Empty. Something had been jammed down on the accelerator. “Shit.”

He glanced toward the ruined front of the store but could see nothing out there in the swirling storm. The engine was so obnoxious indoors that he could barely hear himself think, and the exhaust was pumping out a noxious cloud. Annoyed, he jerked the door open and reached down for the knife that had been used to wedge down the gas pedal.

Surprisingly, the blade had been stabbed through one of his own MHI patches. What’s that doing here? He pulled the familiar happy face with horns off, noting that the patch was an old one, stained with dried blood. There was a backpack sitting on the seat, unzipped. Something wrapped in black electrical tape was visible inside the pack. Then Earl knew what a colossal mistake he’d made. “Shit!” he exclaimed, diving away from the bomb.

He didn’t quite make it.

Chapter 12

I spent that last full moon free on the island. It was a frustrating place for the animal to be let free. There was nothing interesting to hunt. No animals larger than a seagull to kill. My other half was frustrated, angry, and, if I had my way, it was going to remain that way forever.

That next morning, I had sat on the rocks of my nameless island, waiting for Santiago’s boat to arrive to take me back to Cayos de Tiburon with all of my earthly possessions, which consisted of a satchel of worn-out clothes, the books Santiago had given me, a few supplies, and my Smith & Wesson .45.

Something was wrong. Different. There was a sensation in the air. I could feel it, but I couldn’t describe it. At the time I chalked it up to the excitement of returning to the world.

It was the same boat as usual. They were downwind, so I saw before I smelled it, and immediately I knew something wasn’t right. Instead of one passenger, there were three. By the time I recognized the other werewolves’ scents over the diesel stink of the engine, it was too late.

The male was far taller than me, African, wearing a loose cotton vest over a torso made of solid muscle. He actually grinned when he saw me coming down the sand. The female was strikingly beautiful, Latina, with long black hair and a nice shape under her formless white shirt, but then again I hadn’t seen a woman in three years.

Then I saw Santiago crumpled on the bow. Dried blood coated half his face, and fresh blood was still leaking from his nose and mouth. He’d been beaten to a pulp. Hemp ropes had been tied around his arms. He looked up at me through swollen eyes and mouthed the words I’m sorry.

The African, huge and intimidating, effortlessly hoisted Santiago by the back of the neck to better show him off. “Greetings, my son.” The werewolf’s voice boomed, and somehow I knew that this was the leader. “I’ve come a long way to find you. I’ve sensed you for some time.”

“Let go of my friend,” I ordered as I pulled the Smith from behind me. I cocked the hammer and aimed at the stranger’s face. I only had one silver bullet. “Let him go right now.”

“Now, you know that isn’t how it’s done,” the stranger said, his accent thick. “What foolish lies did this old priest put in your head?”

“Kill him!” the female shrieked. “Kill him like he killed my sister!”

I turned the gun on her. Her sister? “Lady, I don’t know who’re you’re even talking about.”

“The one that made you. I made her. So that makes you mine. You are of my pack, upstart,” the stranger said as he passed Santiago over to the girl. She immediately put a long knife to my friend’s throat. The male hopped out of the boat and onto the sand. “I am Seamus. This”—he gestured at the island and the ocean—“is all mine. I lead. Many follow.”

“Kill him,” the girl said again. Santiago grimaced as the blade cut into his neck. “For Maria!”

“Hush, girl,” he ordered, not even bothering to look back. He was getting closer. “You can feel it, can’t you? You know that I am the father.”

I could see now that his eyes were wrong. Too bright, an almost luminescent shade of gold, and I realized that I didn’t know what mine looked like when I was about to change. It wasn’t like I had spent much time looking in the mirror lately.

“My children must do as I say. Live as I would have them live. Let me teach you. Not the lies of this priest. Let me show you real freedom, what it is to run free, to join the hunt, to live as gods.”

I hadn’t shot a gun in a very long time, but I’d gotten plenty of practice in my life and some things you don’t forget. The front-sight blade barely quivered as I spoke. “Let him go or you’ll regret it.”

Seamus laughed at my folly. “You will not best me, upstart. That’s not the way. Join the pack or die. Which one will it be?”

Nobody had ever accused a Shackleford of being the hesitating type. I pulled the trigger.

*   *   *

The huge explosion rocked the grocery store, blowing out every remaining window inside, and most of those in the surrounding buildings as well. Car alarms went off on nearby streets. The town may not have heard the evening’s gunshots over the noise of the storm, but that certainly would wake them up.

“Not what I expected,” the Alpha stated matter-of-factly. He, the witch, and her two servants were sitting unnoticed on the roof of a house across the street from the grocery store. They had the best seats in the house. The witch’s magic assured that they would not be seen as Nikolai Petrov sprinted across the parking lot, following the tracks of the snowplow. “I’d assumed that this would be a more traditional contest. This is cheating.”

“I told you they were unpredictable,” the witch insisted. “You assumed these men would still be caught up in the old ways. They’ve evolved, just as you have. Petrov is far too ruthless to play games, even more so when it is personal. It appears he’ll be the one whose soul we harvest.”

“Perhaps you’re right.” The Alpha clutched the amulet of Koschei to his chest. Like him, it was hungry. It would have to be fed soon, regardless of the outcome of this battle. He watched as Nikolai took cover at the hole in the wall. The Russian risked a quick peek inside at the flaming chaos, raised his rifle, and entered. “But I wouldn’t count the Hunter out so easily.”

The witch smirked. “Ten quid says Petrov annihilates him.”

The Alpha wasn’t sure what a quid was in dollars, but he knew from secondhand experience that Harbinger was an extremely difficult man to kill. “You’re on.”

Heather had been going from house to house, waking people up, and had been trying to convince Mrs. Valikangas that she needed to grab her deer rifle and get to safety when the explosion rocked the town.

The retired elementary-school teacher had been incredulous and had told Heather that she didn’t look well, that she needed to come inside to warm up by the fire, and that she was worried about her. Heather had grown more frustrated by the second. Her stomach was growling as badly as her disposition when she’d heard the concussion. They were quite a way down the street, but the shockwave had shaken the Valikangases’ front porch hard enough to dislodge chunks of snow from the roof. It took a second for the rumble to subside.

She had run down the steps, head turned in the direction of the blast. Heather reasoned that the storm must be letting up, though it certainly didn’t feel like it, because she could hear much better now. See farther, too.

“What was that?” Mrs. Valikangas screeched.

“The Value Sense just blew up,” Heather snapped. It was obvious. “Are you blind?”

The woman just stared at the curtain of falling snow between them and Main. “How can you—”

“Be quiet,” she hissed at the woman that had been her fifth-grade teacher. Heather had the sudden and uncharacteristic urge to smack the obstinate lady in her stupid mouth. A seething anger bubbled up inside, and Heather wanted nothing more than to jump up on that porch and—

Calm down. Heather forced herself to take a deep breath. The angry feeling passed. “I told you. We’re under attack by a bunch of creatures.” It sounded asinine, but Heather didn’t have time to argue with every person in town. “Wake up your family and get your guns. Head for the bunker at the high school or stick around here and get eaten. I don’t care.”

Not waiting for Mrs. Valikangas’s reaction, Heather stomped back to the truck, tossed her shotgun on the passenger seat, and climbed in. Mrs. Valikangas was shouting, but Heather ignored her; it was something about how Heather’s eyes were strange. But then she slammed the door and cut off the old teacher’s ramblings. The tires spun but found enough traction to get her moving toward the grocery store. The sight of multiple flashlights in her rearview mirror told her that at least somebody she’d contacted had listened.

She’d found the silver ammo that Harbinger had told her about, and one of the cans had been 12 gauge, so she’d loaded the Winchester 1300 with it. Strangely enough, Heather was no longer afraid. It was the weirdest thing, but she was actually looking forward to finding one of those monsters. She fantasized about blasting the creatures into bloody bits with her shotgun. They’d killed her friends, attacked her town. This was her territory. She’d blow their heads off. Rip their hearts out. Then she would eat them.

“What?” Heather hit the brakes and stopped in the middle of the street. “What are you doing?” Her gloves were on the steering wheel, vibrating uncontrollably, and it wasn’t from the engine. She had just been daydreaming about killing a monster and eating its still-beating heart. She was breathing too fast. Her heart was pounding in her chest. “Keep it together. Keep it together.”

Surely it was the stress. It was from seeing her friends die. It was from having the men from the government try to murder her. It was from being attacked. It was just stress.

The stress was making her hungry. “I’m starving.” Harbinger had packed the cooler with food, and she hurriedly removed a package of lunch meat, yanked open the plastic, stuffed it in her mouth, and started chewing. “Crap. I’m starving and I’m talking to myself,” she mumbled around a mouthful of roast beef. “I’m falling apart.”

The protein calmed her down. She still had work to do. Heather got the truck moving again. Something was going down at the Value Sense, and it was her duty to help. Agitated, distracted, and increasingly erratic, Heather still had a purpose, and by the time she got to Main Street, she was focused on that.

There was only one thing that was still bugging her. Where is that damn humming noise coming from?

Now, that hurt.

Earl tried to roll over, but couldn’t. Something was wedged against his side—correction—in his side. All he could see was a red haze. His eyes had been pulverized. He gasped in a partial lungful of dust, and that immediately set off a painful cough thick with blood. It took him a moment to remember where he was.

Nikolai, you sneaky son of a bitch.

Anger gave Earl purpose. He had to move quickly. The Russian would be coming for him. What am I stuck on? His limbs didn’t want to respond at first. The bones in his right hand had been crushed and wouldn’t close into a fist, but he was able to leverage his left around, though it caused a terrible pain to radiate up his side as he turned. He found the source of his problem: he’d landed on a broken piece of shelving, and a jagged chunk of metal had been driven through his armor. Well . . . damn.

Putting his hand flat against the shelf, he shoved himself up. Six inches of painted steel slid out from between his ribs. The pain was ridiculous. He was thankful for the ringing in his ears, because he was certain that pulling himself off that thing would have made an awful noise.

He flopped down the shelf, rolling onto the floor into a pile of broken glass bottles. Vinegar? At least he could still smell. He’d landed in the pickle aisle. Earl hated pickles.

Keep moving. Blind, he staggered upright. His body was already healing, reordering his cells back to one of its two distinct templates, but healing would take time that he didn’t have. Instinct told him to give in to the pain and the anger, to let the wolf free. But Nikolai had just used a bomb, which meant that he’d mop up with a gun, which meant that Earl needed his brain more than he needed his ferocity. If he was going to change, he needed to find a safe place to do it.

Can’t see. Explosive concussion was hell on the soft jelly of the human eyeball. Hell. Nikolai was coming. He had to get to cover. Despite bleeding freely from his eyes and ears, Earl was perfectly calm as he quickly ran through his predicament. Smell. He inhaled more dust. The truck was smoking, but it wasn’t burning. It was a distraction, but under that . . . Milk. Meat. Escape. That way. Hurry. Coughing, Earl staggered for the back of the store. He made it three steps, tripped, fell, but forced himself back up again. His right ankle had snapped, so he dragged that boot along behind him.

The blast had crippled him. Earl could feel the blood gushing from his body in great hot rivulets. He’d been torn open in multiple places. Bones ground unnaturally against each other. The pain would have rendered a lesser man incoherent. Groping blindly, Earl smelled milk as his boot dragged through the puddle.

Earl fell against the coldness of the dairy case. The rips in his flesh burned as the skin pulled tight over them, pinching off the leaks. Clumsily, he touched his face and then cringed as he discovered that his cheek was hanging off, dangling slick and wet. He shoved it back over his exposed teeth. Nikolai would smell the blood and track him easily. Blind, he wouldn’t stand a chance. Hiding was out of the question.

Use your head. Earl forced himself up, knowing what he had to do. He needed to be smart. He hit the back wall, smearing bloody handprints across the glass doors. By the time he found the swinging double doors of the stock room, the bones in his hands had reformed enough to make a fist.

Blood. Nikolai’s nostrils flared. Beneath the smoke, thousands of competing food, chemical smells, and dust was the smell of fresh blood. There were dead werewolves and humans inside, and the plow blade had smeared at least one body across half the space, further confusing matters, but Nikolai could smell Harbinger, and the smell was one of injury and weakness.

No fear, though. Come to think of it, Nikolai had never smelled Harbinger’s fear.

Got him. We got him! We’ve finally got him!

The Tvar was eager. Nikolai’s pulse increased, his breathing came faster. The truck was in the back of the store, the dump bed full of sand barely visible beneath the collapsed ceiling tiles. He ran down the open path left by the plow, scanning back and forth, searching for Harbinger. The instant he saw him, Nikolai would put a silver round into his enemy’s head.

It wasn’t sporting. It wasn’t fair. It certainly wasn’t the way that instinct demanded, but there was no time for such niceties. The amulet had been freed, and such a potent device could never be allowed to fall into the hands of a monster like Harbinger.

Before he could even reach the back of the truck, the Tvar practically screamed inside his head. There!

His other half, with its simple animal cunning, often noticed things far quicker than his analytical human mind could. Then he understood the reason for the excitement. There was where Harbinger had landed. A massive smear of warm blood was on a broken shelf and a thick trail of droplets led away from it. Nikolai turned to the utterly demolished cab of the truck and noted how the sheet metal had been peeled and twisted by the explosive. The blast had hurled Harbinger twenty feet. He should have brought more explosives.

A jagged shaft of metal was coated in blood, bits of flesh still clinging to it. A handprint showed him where Harbinger had forced himself up. There were bloody boot prints, but only from one foot; the other was a drag mark. Nikolai couldn’t tell if it was him or the Tvar, but one of them was extremely excited. Harbinger was vulnerable. Revenge was within his grasp. He lifted the Val and followed the trail.

Harbinger had fallen and stopped here for a moment. Nikolai crouched next to a waist-high refrigerator unit filled with butter, studying the signs quickly. So much blood had been lost that Harbinger would be extremely weak, but Harbinger had gotten back up, and the droplets were fewer and farther between. Now there were two boot prints instead of a drag mark. His foe’s healing speed was impressive.

Hurry. Kill him! Kill him!

The Tvar was correct. He had to strike while Harbinger was weak. Nikolai moved faster; the trail was still easy to follow through the debris. Blood never lied. Harbinger had crashed into the glass doors of the dairy case, dragging himself along, and then he’d gone—

He’s hiding in the back!

There were two bright red handprints, one on each of the swinging doors to the stock room, clear as day, as obvious a sign as could be given. Driven by the Tvar, Nikolai kicked the doors open and stepped through . . .

And saw nothing.

The lights were on. A large generator was in the rear, chugging away. There were rows of shelves on both sides, but the blood trail had just stopped. . . . Fragments were strewn everywhere, and part of the truck’s plow was stuck through the wall, but there was no place for Harbinger to hide.

No! No! Where is he? You should have let me do it!

“Shut up!” Nikolai snapped. He knelt to smell the floor. Harbinger hadn’t come in here. He’d left his smell on the door . . . and backtracked. The blatant handprints on the door had been a trick. The blood hadn’t lied—Harbinger had. “Yob tvoyu mat’!” Nikolai stood, turning back to the store, just as a cloud of grit hit him right in the eyes.

Nikolai was blinded by the fistful of road sand. Earl could still barely see anything himself. His opponent was nothing but an angry red blur, but Earl could see well enough to know that the long tubular thing in Nikolai’s hands was a rifle, so he knocked it away. The rifle clattered across the floor. With a roar, Earl grabbed Nikolai by the coat and hurled him out into the ruined grocery store.

Earl had needed time to regenerate, and that meant a place to hide. After touching the back doors, he’d leapt as far as he could manage toward the truck, hoping the spilling diesel smell would temporarily cover his tracks. He’d found the cold metal of the truck bed and, not seeing any alternative, had climbed in and buried himself in the sand. Most of his bones had knit back together, the bleeding had mostly stopped, and he could hear, and even see a little, but he was still terribly weak, disoriented, and now had sand stuck in every crevice of his body, and was therefore in a really bad mood.

Nikolai hit a shelf and went to the ground on his back. Earl was right behind. He landed on Nikolai and slugged him in the face. The Russian got his hands up, trying to shove Earl off, but Earl knocked the hands out of the way and hit him again. Then he got his weight onto Nikolai’s chest, and Earl’s fists were flying, one after another, slamming Nikolai’s head over and over again, beating his face into a bloody mess.

“Cheatin’ asshole!” Earl roared as he cocked back another right and tried to drive it through Nikolai’s face. Nikolai’s hand shot up, and he managed to hook his thumb into Earl’s eye. The Hunter bellowed as Nikolai gouged it deep into the socket, but he didn’t let up. Earl took Nikolai’s head in both hands, raised it, and slammed it into the floor repeatedly. The second impact cracked the tile; the third, Nikolai’s skull.

Gasping for breath, Earl raised his fist to strike again but stopped as a terrible pain shot up his side. He rolled off, cursing, reaching for the source of the agony, found the hilt of a folding knife sticking from his kidney, and jerked it out in a spray of blood. Nikolai raised one leg and kicked Earl in the chest, sending him crashing against the truck.

Blinking through the blood, Earl stepped forward. His opponent had already risen and had picked up a can of creamed corn. Earl threw the knife and missed. Nikolai threw the corn and didn’t. The can smashed Earl’s nose flat.

Nikolai used the moment to his advantage and charged, throwing his knee. He managed to hit Earl twice in the side while the Hunter’s hands had involuntarily flown to his broken nose. Each hit lifted Earl off the ground before he was able to shove Nikolai away.

The two moved with incredible speed, striking, blocking, each impact sufficient to kill a normal man. Nikolai grabbed Earl by the straps of his armor and rolled, throwing him down the aisle. Earl landed hard on his shoulder, but his hand fell on a weapon. Nikolai came in fast, but Earl slammed the wine bottle over the Russian’s head. The thump echoed through the entire store. Earl tried to club him again, but the bottle shattered across Nikolai’s raised forearm. Wasting no time, Earl drove the jagged remains directly into Nikolai’s abdomen. Nikolai’s responding snap kick launched Earl through a snack display.

They met in the next aisle. The two circled, breathing hard as their bodies healed.

“You’ve gotten slow,” Nikolai said, holding the contents of his stomach in with one hand.

“You’ve gotten sloppy,” Earl snapped. “I can’t believe you fell for that.”

“You’re the fool picking up booby traps. . . .” Nikolai wiped the blood and sand from his face. “You snuck up on me. You could have changed first. You could have torn me apart. Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t need to be a werewolf to kill a punk like you. We’re in a town full of innocents,” Earl answered, blinking as his eye popped back into place. Everything was much clearer now. “How dare you bring a challenge here?”

For a moment, Nikolai’s expression changed. His voice was suddenly too deep. “This is no challenge. You want a challenge? Let’s—” Then he grimaced, gnashing his teeth together. When he spoke again, his voice had returned to a normal pitch. “No . . . Not yet. You’re a nuisance, Harbinger. A scourge.”

“You ain’t right,” Earl said. The Russian was nuttier than he remembered.

“I’ll never let you have it.” Nikolai closed his eyes and shuddered. The other voice came back. “Enough! We end this my way.” Nikolai’s eyes flashed gold. The transformation had begun.

“We can’t do this here!” Earl took a step back. “You lunatic. You psychotic fucking lunatic. We’re in a town. People live here.”

“Their mistake!” Nikolai growled.

A transformation was incredibly risky, but he had no choice. Nikolai was changing, and if he didn’t, he stood no chance. Earl knew that he’d just have to destroy Nikolai and then maintain enough control to get away from civilization until the blood lust died down. He unbuckled his armor. “You could’ve done this the old-fashioned way, and nobody else had to get hurt.”

Nikolai’s strange voice roared, his hands curling into fists, teeth visible, every vein in his neck standing out, as he fought . . . something. “You have no room to talk!” The first Nikolai shouted. “You killed her! She was innocent, defenseless!”

“I’ve killed a mess of folks. You’re gonna need to be more specific.”

“Lila!” Nikolai was enraged. Bloody spit flew from his lips. “You murdered her. You murdered my wife.”

Earl paused, scowling. “I’m drawing a blank.”

Nikolai screamed as he leapt.

“I told you we’d have a good fight,” the Alpha said. The witch glowered at him, then went back to watching the battle. She didn’t like being proven wrong.

He was pleased to see that he’d made the right choice. Harbinger and Petrov were both unbelievably fearsome while still in human form. He could only imagine what they would do in their purified state. Certainly, he could defeat either of them in a challenge, but he was beyond such things. No slave to the old ways, he would set his own path, forge a new way for all of their kind. Harbinger’s foolish rules dictated that they were only men, nothing better, just different, and that they needed to live in humanity’s bloated shadow. On the other hand, at least Petrov understood that they were superior beings, super predators, but even then, he was content to remain a mere tool for human ideologies and lacked the imagination to do what needed to be done. Petrov had a slave’s mentality. Neither of them had the vision necessary to lead their kind into the future.

His superior senses told him that many humans were coming out of their homes. They’d heard Petrov’s explosion. Some of them had realized that they were under attack and were spreading the word. The streets were coming alive. His children were confused. The magical storm had reached an unbelievable intensity. But none of that mattered. The important thing was which of the mighty werewolves below would be the one whose soul would power his ascension.

It was a perfect struggle. Nature had selected these two as the ultimate predators in their sphere. One would die. One would live to feed his hunger. Which would fuel his metamorphosis? The excitement was unbearable.

The witch pointed at the street below with her flesh hand. “We have visitors.”

A black SUV was sliding into the parking lot of the Value Sense. The driver was clueless in the snow, and they gently collided with a light pole. The doors opened and five heavily armed humans got out. “MCB?” he asked. There should have been no way that they could have arrived through the storm. In fact, they wouldn’t even know about the slaughter of Copper Lake until morning.

“Worse,” the witch muttered. “Hunters.” She held a very special hatred for monster hunters.

“Harbinger’s men?” That seemed odd. His intelligence had said that Harbinger surely would have come alone. He would never involve his human pack in werewolf business.

“No . . . not even close. I’d know if they were. MHI has a certain . . . swagger. Nothing would make me happier than the arrival of MHI,” the witch grumbled as she extricated herself from the thick snow of the roof. “Enjoy your show. I’ll handle these intruders.” She made a clicking noise, and one of her diggers stepped forward, ready to serve. Eight feet of armored monstrosity bowed before its witch. This time she pointed with her artificial hand. The steel gauntlet seemed disproportionately large sticking out from the sleeve of her fur coat. “Destroy those humans.”

The massive digger leapt from the roof and fell silently to the ground two stories below. The Alpha nodded approvingly. The unnatural things were nothing if not efficient. It would eradicate those vermin. His attention returned to the grocery just as an ear-splitting howl rose into the night. The main event had just begun. “Beautiful.”

“Look what you did to my Caddy!” Horst shuffled through the three feet of freshly accumulated snow to where the Escalade’s front bumper was crunched into the light pole. It actually didn’t look too bad, but Lins had screwed up. Sure, it was hard to drive through slush, but that was no excuse for scratching his ride. “Is that a dent? That’s a dent. That’s coming out of your pay, moron.”

Lins was livid as he got out. “Screw you, Ryan. What do you expect in a blizzard?”

“Shoulda let me drive,” Jo Ann said. “I’m at least—”

The sound that cut her off pierced all of the Briarwood team to their cores. It started as the cry of a man, filled with anger and pain, only impossibly loud, but as it went on the cry changed, becoming deeper, fiercer, seeming to linger far after any mortal lungs would have run out of breath, until it slowly mutated into a full-on animal howl. A primal, terrible cry, instinctively more terrifying than anything that could ever emanate from a natural creature. The storm had frozen Horst’s skin, but that howl froze his blood.

The staff of Briarwood Eradication Services was actually quiet for once. Horst looked to his employees. Every one of them except for Loco was staring back at him with wide eyes. Their big man just grunted and went back to pulling his machine gun out of the Caddy, probably too dumb to be scared.

“I think I just pissed myself,” Kelley said.

Jo Ann turned toward the grocery store. “What the hell was that?”

That was an actual monster. The other things they’d run into were nothing compared to that. The fear ran deep. It wasn’t any sort of conscious, logical thought. It was deeper, coming from the lowest part of his brain, warning him that they needed to get away before that awful thing consumed them all. Horst forced himself to speak, and tried to sound as confident as possible. “That’s the sound of money, baby.”

Then there was a second howl, even louder than the first, and somehow Horst instinctively knew that this was a different werewolf. Lins jumped. “There’s two of them? You didn’t say nothing about two of them!”

They were chickening out. “Shut up!” he shouted. “Everybody shut your stupid mouths.”

“This isn’t nothing like those zombies we killed,” Kelley exclaimed. “I’m outta here.”

Jo Ann and Lins were babbling, too, as the three of them started getting back in the Caddy. His dreams were falling apart right in front of his eyes. His people were scared senseless. None of them were cowards, but they hadn’t been expecting this. That howl was just wrong, and the answering one was even worse. He understood now that Stark had been telling the truth. This wasn’t a normal werewolf; that thing in there was ancient, and therefore worth a huge PUFF bounty. They couldn’t back out now. There was a reason the government had to pay such stupidly large bounties for this level of creature, because no sane person would willingly go looking for one.

Somehow, Horst found his courage. He was the leader of an elite company of monster hunters. If he walked away, it would be like all those stuck-up MHI chumps would be laughing at him. Ryan Horst had vowed that he was never going to be a nobody again.

He needed to do something quick. He thought back to his brief time with MHI. What would they have done? Those bozos were always motivated. What would Earl Harbinger have done? He would have gotten his crew fired up. I can do that. Horst reached into his coat, unsnapped his shoulder holster, and drew his FN 5.7 pistol. He hoisted it into the air and yanked the trigger.

The sudden bang got their attention. Horst realized how stupid that had been as soon as he’d done it, because the insides of his right ear suddenly felt like someone had hit it with a hammer. “Listen up!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs, waving his gun toward the giant hole in the grocery store. “This is what you signed up for. Pull yourselves together, damn it. Each one of those hairy bastards in there is worth at least fifty large. Fifty large! We came all this way to kill these things. We got guns. We got silver bullets. What do they got? Teeth? Shit. They got nothing! I am not going home until I got one of these bastards as a rug. You hear me? We’re Briarwood, and we’ve come up here to show these animals who’s boss.”

The three mutinous members of his crew turned their heads sheepishly, afraid to look him in the eye. Damn right. Lowering his piece, Horst glared at them. After chewing them out, Earl Harbinger had always softened his voice when he was trying to make a point to the MHI Newbies, like they weren’t worth raising his voice over, but it forced you to listen extra hard. So Horst tried it, speaking quietly, but firmly. “So get your shit together and let’s go. We can do this.”

They actually surprised him then. His people responded and went to work. There were a series of metallic clacks as weapons were readied. A smirk crossed Horst’s face. Damn. I’m good.

Nikolai was on him in a flash, claws erupting from the ends of his fingers. Earl moved aside easily, the change pumping massive amounts of adrenaline through his system. His body was flushed with heat. Despite the freezing wind blasting through the gaping wound in the store, sweat rolled from every pore. Time slowed as Nikolai tore at him, Earl swung with all his might, hand open, fingers wide, and was rewarded with a spray of blood as his nails ripped through the Russian’s flesh.

His enemy stalked away, circling. Four lacerations crossed his heaving chest, having cleanly sliced through his ammo pouches. Nikolai ripped the canvas off and tossed it aside. “MURDERER,” Nikolai roared, his jaw already distorting. “I’ll rip you apart for what you did to her.” Nikolai leapt at him.

Earl caught his opponent in midair, using the momentum as a weapon, and hurled Nikolai down the aisle. Earl got one ear sliced nearly in half for the trouble.

Nikolai hit the floor, rolled, and slid on his knees to a gradual stop. The change was fully upon him now. “You die now,” Nikolai gurgled. He said more, but it was unrecognizable as he tore off his shredded clothing. “Die for thing you done.”

Earl had a hard time forming a response. His mind changed along with his body. Words became hard to understand, even harder to use. “Try me,” he answered, his voice a distorted growl.

After the heat came the pain. It started in the bones and radiated out from there. It was part fire, part grinding, all horrible. The pain in his jaw grew as bones twisted, cracked, stretched, and reformed. Blood leaked between his teeth as they changed, new sharp edges slicing through gum tissue. Heart rate elevated, breath coming fast, Earl cringed as his old skin ripped.

Nikolai was a mirror image as he went through the same process, matching cracking bone for cracking bone. Dark gray hair grew rapidly across the Russian’s body.

Clothing. Constricting. Earl pulled off the rest of his armor and kicked off his boots. The change wrenched through him, ten times faster than when he’d first been cursed, but the pain was all still there, just accelerated. Burning. Twisting.

Earl took a step forward. The soles of his feet were hard as leather, but he screamed as they hit the floor, bones cracking, heel separating. His toe claws dug through the garbage. Earl took another step, the pain traveling up his leg, joints tearing, burning, reforming. Muscles hardened, becoming tighter, and it was only because of long exposure that he was able to keep moving. He fell onto all fours, but as the geometries changed, that didn’t matter.

Earl scratched his claws into the floor and howled. The challenge had begun.

Earl was angry. Hungry.

Nikolai raised his face, showing his teeth in a vicious snarl. Earl wanted to eat that face.

As his mind descended into chaos and visions of cascading red, Earl’s last rational thought was a desperate plea. God. Help me now. Keep me sane. Kill enemy. Hurt no people. Amen.

Chapter 13

If I had used my one silver bullet on the Alpha, then Santiago would surely die with a knife through the neck. So I shot the girl. I was rusty, so it went right through the cheek, just under her left eye. It still killed her instantly though, and she went right over the side of the boat and took Santiago with her.

Seamus charged. He was already changing, faster than I could comprehend. He hit me harder than I’d ever been hit in my life. And I found myself halfway down the beach. I came up with a mouthful of sand, four lacerations that went clear to my ribcage, and a transforming werewolf coming right at me.

He called me a fool for challenging him. The voice had changed, the last word tapering off into a growl. He threw off the vest, and black hair was already growing across his body. His eyes were glowing, fingers were getting longer, bones were cracking. Within seconds the most fearsome werewolf imaginable was towering over me. It was unbelievably smooth compared to the clumsy twitching suffering I went through.

He could have torn my human head right off then, but instead he stopped and cocked his head while his fur rippled in the breeze, crouched on all fours, claws feeling the sand, while he waited for me to catch up. I was a challenge to his leadership. And though I didn’t understand it at the time, a challenge was supposed to be met on equal terms. If it wasn’t, then your victory didn’t mean anything.

I could feel the animal inside, screaming to get out. It was angry. Angry at me. I had kept it locked up, only let it free when I had to. I’d mistreated it, but now I was calling on it to save my life. Furious, it could have denied me, left me to die, but it was part of me. And we both wanted to survive.

Let me tell you, the pain is fire. The jaw clenches spasmodically tight. Blood thunders in your eyes. Your muscles pulse with electric shocks of agony, clenching, unclenching, clenching again, so tight that at each surge you wish for death. You change. Down to the level of individual proteins, and you feel every single bit.

It hurts like a stone-cold motherfucker.

It didn’t matter that there were no witnesses. He waited. That was the way it was done. To kill me unfairly would make his victory meaningless. We were werewolves, creatures of instinct and a strange tradition. One would die. One would live.

The pain ends, and then there is the euphoria. I was whole. Beast and man, one. I became We. Then the other werewolf attacked us with a ferocity that had never been imagined. Bigger, stronger, faster, more experienced, the enemy tore into us. Within seconds the sand was soaked red with our blood. We should have lost. Rolling, tearing, snapping, thrashing, and then our teeth were in his neck and hot arterial blood flooded our mouth.

He tried to shake us off. Claws opened our stomach, spilled the stinking bowels, but it was only pain. Pain was nothing compared to the blood in our mouth. We got a better angle and chomped harder, cracking vertebrae and slicing meat. The tearing continued as our enemy grew weaker and weaker, until the claws dropped away from our eviscerated stomach and lay twitching, grasping futilely.

Somehow, we’d defeated our better. Then the beast was gone, leaving me alone with the pain.

It was the first time I went through a challenge. It would not be the last.

*   *   *

Lins held out his lighter, and the gas-soaked rag stuffed into the bottle caught fire. Kelley took that bottle and used it to light the one in his other hand. “Awesome!” the bearded firebug shouted as he started toward the grocery store, flaming Molotov in each hand. “I’ve got them now.”

“Cover him,” Horst ordered as he ground the butt of his rifle against his shoulder. The other three got their guns up, ready to shoot as Kelley hurried down the relatively cleared path left by the crashed plow, the dump-truck end of which was visible at the opposite end of the building. Kelley was cackling maniacally as he got within throwing range.

“What if there’s some bystanders trapped in there?” Lins asked quickly, realizing that they hadn’t talked through that possibility.

“Screw ’em,” Jo Ann spat. “I’m not going in there.”

Horst scowled, but his girlfriend had a point. They hadn’t thought that far past “burn it down and shoot anything that comes out,” but listening to the racket coming from in there, the idea of survivors was doubtful. “Sucks to be them, I guess.”

Lins didn’t seem to like that, but he went back to looking through the Aimpoint on his carbine and didn’t speak up.

They’d divided up their one case of silver 5.56 ammo. Horst had bought everyone their own full-auto and then done just like that four-eyed geek Cooper had done during MHI training and yelled at them to only shoot semi-auto, and at ten bucks a pop for the Fed’s “misplaced” ammo, he could understand why MHI only used the good stuff on missions. Horst had kept his FAL, along with a few mags full of silver .308 he’d managed to sneak out of Alabama when he’d left. Everyone except for Loco had gotten an M-4 carbine. He’d given him the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, because it seemed logical to give the biggest dude the heaviest gun.

The plan was simple. Burn out super werewolf. Hose it down. What could possibly go wrong?

Their arsonist was in range. Kelley chucked the first Molotov squarely through the front of the store. The glass shattered, and gasoline ignited across the broken shelves. Kelley had said that if they had more time he would have made up a better mix with other petroleum products, because that would have really made it stick, but judging by how fast the fire spread, there was plenty of flammable material inside there already.

With a crazed gleam in his eyes, Kelley pumped one fist in the air, then switched the other Molotov to his throwing arm. He cocked back his arm to throw this one deeper inside, but then stopped, his head jerking to the side as something startled him. Trying to see what had distracted his man, Horst squinted, trying to figure out what the tall, narrow thing coming through the windblown snow was.

It was way too tall to be a person, and unless MHI had totally lied to him, it sure as hell wasn’t a werewolf. Thin, its lump of a head bobbed rhythmically, and what looked like its baggy clothing swayed back and forth as it approached Kelley. Its pace would have seemed almost leisurely if each of its long, spindly steps hadn’t covered such a massive distance.

“What is that?” Lins shouted.

Horst had no idea. He must have gotten kicked out of Newbie training before the day Paxton got around to giant, gray, metal, scarecrow robots. “Damn if I know.” It caught up to the scrambling Kelley in three big steps. Screaming his head off, Kelley ran for it, flaming bottle sloshing dangerous and forgotten in his hand. The thing’s arms were so long that they dragged through the snow. The creature lifted one arm, and Horst could see that the block that passed for a hand ended in three big points, like a mighty garden trowel. “Shoot it! Shoot it!”

The four of them opened fire. His earlier instructions about “rapid, aimed, semi-auto” went right out the window as everybody started shooting like mad. Holes puckered in the snow, sparks flashed off the monster, and Kelley looked down in disbelief as a plug of goose-down erupted from his coat as one of his teammates accidentally shot him through the chest.

“Don’t shoot our guy!” Horst shouted, but it didn’t matter. The creature swung its metal claw, striking Kelley in the arm. The bottle shattered as he went down, showering gas all over the burning rag and Kelley’s coat. There was a flash as fire tore across their arsonist’s body. Letting out an ungodly cry, Kelley thrashed and flailed away, flopping into the snow and rolling like mad as the fire melted clothing to skin. Within seconds he was engulfed in black smoke and orange flames. The tall creature stopped to watch.

“It killed Robb!” Jo Ann shrieked.

By the time Horst’s gun was empty, Kelley had quit screaming. The monster watched for a moment, as if assessing whether Kelley was dead or not. When it was obvious that stop, drop, and roll hadn’t worked out, its misshapen head swiveled up on its too-long neck and it emotionlessly started toward them.

Everyone else had run dry except for Loco, because he had a two-hundred-round belt in the SAW and was actually firing it in short, controlled bursts like he’d been told. Even with one eye, Loco was the only one that seemed to actually be hitting the monster. “Reload! Reload!” Horst shouted as he struggled to get another magazine out of his pocket.

The creature was closing fast. Its giant legs pumped methodically, leaving a trail of huge, three-toed, birdlike footprints behind it. Most of their panicked shots were missing, and the ones that did hit didn’t seem to have much effect.

Closer now, its head was round, featureless. It had no eyes, no nostrils, just a long slit from one side to the other that had to be a mouth. The neck was abnormally long, and the front of its neck swung back and forth with a jiggling mass of loose skin. Parts of it seemed to be made of a rough metal shell, but the joints looked like gray meat. What he’d thought had been loose clothing was actually skin, swaying rhythmically. It was like an obese man that had lost tons of weight, way too fast, leaving a skeleton inside a sack of drooping skin, and then the devil had crammed the whole mess into a suit of rusting metal armor. “Slow down and aim!” he shouted. “Aim for the soft bits!”

Taking his own advice, he put the sights on the bulbous mass of a head. Horst had used guns his entire life, mostly cheap ones fired out car windows while driving past the homes of people who owed his uncle money, but it was MHI that had actually taught him to aim. Turns out that he was pretty decent at it.

The bullet hit the monster right between the eyes, or would have, if it’d had eyes. It stopped, a plug of meat dangling from its face, leaking green slime. Jo Ann stepped past him, shouting, “How you like that! Huh? How you like that!” as she shot at its head.

She got her answer a second later when the creature lumbered over to her, its gash of a mouth stretching wide open. Its two huge hands landed on her shoulders, trapping her. Jo Ann’s head disappeared into its mouth as its metal hands scooped her up. “Holy fu—” she screamed as the creature lifted her and reared its head back. Her lower half was visible as it choked her down, her feet kicking wildly. The flap of loose skin under the monster’s neck stretched, like a pelican eating a fish, as it swallowed her whole. Her shoes disappeared as she travelled down its long throat. The skin stretched in places, Jo Ann’s body visible through the slick membrane as she rolled around and fought inside the pouch.

The creature lowered its head and closed its mouth gash. It rumbled around, towering over Horst. The skin stretched madly as Jo Ann kicked, like a kid playing under a blanket. Her muffled cries could barely be heard as the now-full pouch dangled across the front half of the creature’s body.

A giant, chicken-footed, faceless scarecrow-robot-pelican monster had just eaten his girlfriend. “Fuck this. Retreat!” Horst said as he turned and ran like mad. Lins was already twenty feet ahead, sprinting for the road.

Fury boiled Earl’s blood. Nikolai landed on him, teeth taking a chunk of meat and pale hair from his snout. Earl swatted him off, and one claw cut Nikolai’s nose in two. They clashed again, both reaching for the other’s throat, hind claws searching for soft guts to pull out, teeth snapping for jugulars.

They crashed through the human garbage, spilling blood. Earl was weak from before. His muscles quivered. His body was a furnace, burning itself to stay alive. Moving so fast. Apart again. Circling. Attacking again. Slashing. Earl’s chest was torn open, but not deep through bone. Nikolai’s claw flashed again, but Earl was ready. His teeth pierced flesh!

The taste of blood. Nikolai’s arm ripped open, his wrist torn, and he retreated. Weak.

Nikolai attacked, his teeth grinding on bone, but it was shallow. Earl’s claws opened Nikolai’s guts. He retreated, fell. Earl bit again but missed the neck, snapping bones in Nikolai’s shoulder. Claws raked Earl’s back. Claws slipped on his guts. He could taste his own blood.

But the enemy was weak, trying to get away. No escape for him. Must kill. Only kill. Earl howled.

Nikolai was dying. Earl tore into him and blood sprayed. Meat filled Earl’s mouth. Filled his belly. Earl’s hunger cried out. Claws ripped. Ribs broke! There was Nikolai’s beating heart.

Distraction. Glass shattered and fire spread.

FIRE.

It burned Earl, his hair on fire. Nikolai screamed as fire burned him, too. Earl pulled away, and the fire was between them. Human garbage burned black. Nickolai’s heart still pumped. Red. So close. Earl tried to pass through, but the fire burned too hot.

Earl retreated, his body still on fire. RAGE! Nikolai fled. Ran. Nikolai’s fear stink was strong. Earl never stank of fear. Earl howled so the world would know his anger.

Circle. Pounce. Nikolai couldn’t escape. Earl moved away from the fire, to the safety of the cold. The snow melted as it hit the burning, and the water cooled.

There was movement outside the store: Guns. Humans in the snow. An unknown threat stalked them . . . Hunters? My Hunters?

The human Earl forced his way to the top. The moon was not here. The Hum was not loud. Earl could still think. He could smell nothing over his own burned hair, but Earl knew these were Hunters. Hunters were his pack. Nikolai was forgotten. Hunters in danger. No one messes with my Hunters. Earl hurled himself out into the snow.

The monster swallowed a human. That made Earl mad. He forgot about Nikolai. Closer now. He could see better. These were not his Hunters. But they were Hunters, and that was enough for Earl.

The monster smelled of deep earth. Of ground and mud. It stank of Old Ones. Rot. Corruption.

Earl covered the space in a few bounds. Tall. He hit it low, diving into its legs. Its shell was very hard. But Earl sensed flesh at the gaps, and flesh was weak. Slashing, he searched for tendons. The skin was thick, hard to cut. But Earl was mad, and the skin broke, blood-pus coming out. Tendon-meats snapped.

The monster fell. Earl was on it, ripping. He never stopped ripping. The top part had less metal, more soft, easy to hurt. It had a long neck, and that long neck was weak. Earl bit the weak neck. His mouth filled with the blood-pus. POISON!

Earl spat it out. It burned his mouth. He leaped away and gagged in snow.

The monster rose silently. One leg was crippled but there was no fear smell. Skin moved on monster’s front. The human was still alive inside. Earl circled, chewing snow to clean poison from teeth.

The monster opened its slitted mouth and vomited the human into the snow. The human female moved weakly, covered in the blood-pus. She smelled like she’d live.

The monster was lighter with pouch empty. Faster now. Ready for Earl. Claws were metal, made to rend. Monster was old, grown strong, deep in the ground. Monster reeked of dark magic: Hood’s magic. Earl was weak and his muscles quivered. He was cold and sluggish. Nikolai had hurt Earl. The monster was made of metal and death.

But Earl was mad.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have our winner.”

It was Harbinger that emerged from the burning grocery store. His lighter-colored fur was easier to identify, even scorched and soaked with blood. Despite the fight, he still moved with blinding speed, covering the length of the parking lot in a split second. The witch watched, fascinated, as Harbinger effortlessly took down her massive digger. “It appears you were right.”

“I’m always right. Pay up,” the Alpha said.

Harbinger made the mistake of biting the rancid flesh of the digger and had to back away from the vulnerable kill. The Alpha marveled as the digger rose and disgorged the woman. The Old Ones’ servants were remarkably sturdy. Harbinger, on the other hand, was ragged. Nikolai had almost taken him, but almost wasn’t good enough when dealing with a wily killer like Harbinger.

“Sorry. I left my purse at home. Are you ready to harvest his soul?”

The time had come to unleash the full power of the Deathless. His army of vulkodlak were begging to be born. It was time to finish the job that evolution had started. “Take him.”

Earl was focused on killing the monster. He paid no attention to the large human male until the ax was planted between his shoulder blades.

The ax bit deep. Earl screamed.

The Hunter wrenched the ax out. Earl fell.

Confusion. Blood filled his lungs. The human thought he was enemy. The ax rose. Earl wanted to strike, but the Hum was weak. So Earl could think. No.

Earl spared the Hunter’s life. The ax came down. Earl caught it in his claw. The Hunter was strong, but no match for Earl. Earl took the ax away, took it in both hands and snapped it like a twig. He swatted the Hunter down, careful not to lay him open. The big Hunter scrambled back, the fear stink present, but the smell of determination stronger. Earl tossed the ax bits aside, growling. The Hunter knew death had come, but stood to fight anyway.

“Loco . . . Help . . .” the female cried from the snow.

Fists raised, the Hunter hesitated. Go. Earl dipped his head at the Hunter, dismissing him, then turned to face the real threat.

The monster had not moved. Another monster approached. Two monsters faced him now. Earl coughed blood as he healed. His body burned, weak but full of hate. The big Hunter got close enough to the monsters to scoop up the female Hunter. The monsters ignored him. They’d come for Earl. Earl waited for the humans to flee. Then he charged.

FIRE!

But it was not fire. It was light. So bright it burned like fire. The light came through him. He saw his bones through his flesh. Weak, shaking, Earl roared as he pushed on.

“Impressive, isn’t he?” Voice familiar. From before. The pretender. The false Alpha. “Hold him.”

The light was a pillar, shooting straight into the sky. The snow melted. The air was thick. Earl could barely move, but he did. He would kill this challenger. Rip him apart. The light burned hotter, and Earl was blind. Cold metal hit him on both sides. Iron fingers locked together around his arms. Earl kicked and thrashed, snapping his jaws, but only filled his mouth with more of the poison blood-pus.

“I’m ready,” a female said.

“Do it, Lucinda,” the false Alpha shouted.

She began to chant. The sound of Old Ones’ magic.

The human part of Earl forced itself to the top. Concentrate. Get out of here. Can’t fight dark magic.

A human hand grabbed his throat. Earl tried to bite the arm off, but the other hand squeezed his jaws shut. The hands were strong. “I’ve waited for a long time for this, Harbinger.” The chanting was louder. Louder than the wind. Louder than the light that burned. The pretender shouted in his ear. Earl could smell him now. It was familiar. Long ago, but not quite right. “I brought you both here because the two of you were the finest of our kind. Nikolai would have done just as well, but I want you to know I’m glad it’s you. I’m glad you’re the one.”

Earl felt the light burning through him, pulling him apart. The pain was worse than changing. With his muzzle crushed closed, Earl choked on his screams of agony.

“You feel that? Do you taste it?” the pretender asked. “That’s your power being consumed. You need to understand how much this means to me, how much this means for our people. From your soul will be born a mighty army. In future generations, when our people rule this world, your sacrifice will never be forgotten.”

Something is wrong. Though his body was changed, Earl could think clearly.

Chaotic images flashed in his mind, one after the other, each one tearing through his head like the shuffling of cards. He could reason, he could remember everything, and he followed along as the magic cataloged his entire life. For one split second Earl’s mind was complete, the werewolf and the human, truly one, and Earl saw. The werewolf spirit travelled across generations; each life appeared for an instant then vanished. The visions came faster and faster as the pain grew to a crescendo.

Then the visions stopped, and Earl witnessed the beginning of all werewolves.

The agony pulled Earl back to the present. Wracked with horrific pain, it was as if his body were being unraveled like a great rope by the burning light of Old Ones’ magic. The rope split into cords. The cords split into smaller strings. Again and again, as he was spread through the light. The werewolf side broke away, and the ancestral memories disappeared with it. There was a sucking vortex on the pretender’s chest, absorbing every other string. Leaving some, harvesting others.

The vortex ended in a three-fingered claw.

I’m dying. For the first time, Earl smelled his own fear.

The false Alpha drew close and whispered in Earl’s ear. “Thank you, Father.”

Earl felt his life end.

The chanting reached a fevered pitch. The light consumed everything. A sudden concussion rocked the world as the vortex was filled.

The pathetic human body hung between the two diggers. The Alpha rested his hand on the side of Harbinger’s blood-soaked head. There was no pulse. No breath. The amulet of Koschei had been fed. A great man had fallen.

“It’s done . . . ,” the witch gasped. She took a few halting steps, then sank to the ground, exhausted. Her metal hand made a clanking noise as it hit the bare asphalt. The spell had blown the parking lot clear of snow.

He should have felt triumphant, but instead he was plagued with a sense of loss. It made sense, he supposed. For a new age to begin, an old one had to come to an end. The Alpha removed his hand from Harbinger’s head and wiped the blood on his pants. “Release him,” he ordered the diggers softly.

The witch made a clicking noise with her tongue. Her creatures immediately complied. The joints of their metal claws snapped apart, dumping Harbinger’s body in an unceremonious heap. “Gently!” he bellowed, outraged at the lack of respect.

The snow had been temporarily burned from the sky by the amulet’s power. It began to fall again. Softly this time. In the distance his children howled as they continued their assault on the town. They were answered by gunfire. The prey were fighting back.

The witch placed her human hand on his arm. “There’s still much to do,” she suggested. “Our time’s short.”

He took one look at Harbinger’s still form, crumpled there. She was right. They needed to have everything in place by dawn. His mission depended on it. “I know,” he answered as he walked away. The witch was a few steps behind. Her diggers, one walking, and one limping, followed silently.

If the MCB didn’t slag this place with nuclear fire before the night was through, the Alpha promised that he would return to this spot someday and place a statue in Harbinger’s memory. He had been a hero to the werewolf race.

As a young man, I’d often been accused of thinking I was invincible. I took risks that others found mad, but I kept on surviving. As a boy I disobeyed my daddy’s orders and tagged along on all sorts of dangerous things. It was a game to me. I joined the AEF and survived bullets, disease, poison gas, and suicide charges across no-man’s-land. I came home and killed things that sane men couldn’t even comprehend. After a while, folks all said the same thing. I was either crazy or invincible or both. I suppose I even started to believe it myself. God had given me a mission, and that mission was to kill monsters. Becoming a werewolf was like God sending me a message.

“Yes, my son. You are invincible. Now get back to work.”

“Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen—”

So cold . . .

“Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen—”

There was pressure on his chest as someone pushed down in rhythm with the counting.

“Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty—”

It was freezing. He was lying on the ice.

The counting stopped. Hands tilted his head back and opened his mouth. The soft lips that were placed against his were either feverishly hot or he was so cold that they just seemed that way in comparison. Breath was forced down his airway into his lungs. The warmth left him . . .

And returned to desperately pushing on his ribs. “One. Two. Three—”

I’m alive. Well, don’t that beat all?

Earl gasped and began to cough. The pressure left his chest. He cracked open his eyes. A woman was hovering over him. The thick snow falling past her created the illusion of a halo around her flaming red hair. “Harbinger, can you hear me?”

Heather . . . Why couldn’t he smell her? He tried to move. The blood splattered all over his naked body had frozen into slush, and his back was stuck to the pavement. He was dizzy. His hearing was muffled. Everything seemed dark, like his eyes were cloudy. Why was he so cold?

The Hum was gone.

“Harbinger.” Heather waved a hand in front of his eyes. “Stay with me.”

For the first time in over eighty years, the Hum was gone. The world had gone silent.

He was pretty sure that the moon hadn’t exploded. It was impossible. There was no way that could happen.

“What? What’re you saying?” she leaned closer and put her ear close enough to hear.

His voice was barely a whisper. “I’m human.”

I was mostly human by the time I was coherent enough to shove my guts back in.

Silver isn’t the only way to kill a werewolf, just the easiest. We heal at a remarkable pace, but it takes energy, and there is only so much available. Outpace that, and we die. Lose enough blood, and you shut down, or inflict enough damage, and we’re done. Or you could end up like Seamus, his head only barely attached to his body by a handful of bloody fibers. Apparently that worked, too.

Despite having his hands tied behind his back, Santiago had somehow managed to struggle ashore. He was hurt bad from the beating, bones broken, bleeding internally, I could smell the death building up in his tissues.

Santiago was delirious by the time I got him back in the boat and we set out toward help, the pathetic little motor running as hard as it could.

His eyes were unfocused. “You’re alive . . .”

“We’re going to get you some help.”

“I knew you could do it. I knew you could control the monster. God told me you would. He sent me to you.”

He was incoherent. “Just hold on, Santiago.”

“He has given you a gift. You—” He began to cough. I could hear the bones in his chest grating. “A great and terrible gift . . . Use it for good . . .”

Those were his last words. I was alone except for the sound of the motor and the noise of the tides. The ocean was a stark and endless blue that I’ll never forget.

PART 2

The

Hunter

Chapter 14

It was early spring when I arrived in Okinawa, only one month after being given the option of serving my country again or losing my PUFF exemption. It wasn’t the first time I’d been drafted. Each time was the same. There was always some new government asshole who had to lord it over me that I was a werewolf, and therefore at their mercy. I would have gone if they’d just asked nice.

This wasn’t like when the Axis had been dabbling in black magic and the OSS had created their first special task forces to deal with it. What better way to fight monsters than with monsters? They’d pulled me in early for those. Originally, I’d thought I was going to sit out Korea, but they’d brought me in as a “consultant” when the Chinese had starting dabbling in the supernatural. I had developed a reputation as a go-to guy in certain circles.

Over the last two years I had been hearing about some strange things the commies had been doing, and I was frankly surprised that it had taken this long for the government to put together another special task force. It only stood to reason that I’d eventually end up in Vietnam.

It was an air-force captain that met me as I got off the chopper. As a “civilian consultant” I didn’t merit a salute, and I’d only been a corporal in the AEF, but he gave me one anyway. I just scowled and asked what that was for.

His name tag read Conover, though I was certain that probably wasn’t his real name. He was an athletic young man, wearing enough cologne to really grate on a werewolf’s nose. “I was told about your OSS record. Very remarkable. North Africa, Paris, Berlin, and then all over the Pacific.”

“Don’t ever salute me again . . . Snipers, you know.”

He looked around, confused. “We’re in Okinawa.”

“And it’s much nicer than the last time I was here. No flaming samurai demons.”

Captain Conover tried to be as welcoming as possible. He even attempted carry my bags, but he was only human and ended up having to drag one of them to the waiting jeep. We rode across the base until we came to a small concrete building. “Welcome to Special Task Force Unicorn.”

“Unicorn? Really? What Pentagon dipshit makes this stuff up?”

“Everybody knows there’s no such thing as unicorns, Mr. Wolf.”

I hated the new code name.

*   *   *

His dreams were of the beginning. The fiercest beast in the world had been captured, chained, tortured, and mutilated. Then mankind made a terrible mistake, all in hope of making a weapon.

The dream broke and faded as conciseness returned. He couldn’t remember how the dream ended, but it hadn’t been pretty.

At first he thought the Hum was back, but it was just the buzzing noise of the big circular lights hanging from the ceiling. He woke up under a basketball hoop. A blue banner that read GO BULLDOGS was on the wall behind the hoop. The place was crowded, echoing with voices, some scared, some excited, nervous, angry, confused, and under that was that most common refugee sound of all: children crying.

He was so hungry that it bordered on nausea. Every spare ounce of fat on his body had been consumed to fuel the change. It took him a minute to piece together that he was lying on a blanket on a hardwood gymnasium floor, somehow alive, tired, weak, sore, in desperate need of a smoke, and by some miracle, not a werewolf.

I’m human. Thank you, Lord, I’m a man again.

Earl Harbinger was a big proponent of having a flexible mind and adapting quickly, but having an unbreakable curse broken was going to take a bit to sink in. He’d long ago accepted that he would die a werewolf. There was no cure, never had been. Yet the mystery Alpha’s magic amulet had sucked the werewolf right out of him.

The amulet had been shaped like a claw, but with only three fingers and a thumb. Inside of it had been carved a normal human hand. Already, he couldn’t remember the dream, but the amulet had been in it. It had been important way back then, and it was important now that this other Alpha had it.

As for the Alpha, he’d called Earl father. That made no sense. Earl knew his kids. He was a devoted family man, and even in the many long years since his wife had passed, he was pretty sure he’d have known if he’d sired any more. Earl might not have been as fundamentally devout as his saintly mother had wished, but he wasn’t the kind of man that left a trail of bastard children behind, either.

That left one other possible use for the word . . . .

But first things first. He needed to assess the situation. Grimacing, Earl sat up, feeling a deep ache in his chest where Deputy Kerkonen had pummeled his ribs doing CPR. It had been a long time since he’d borne that type of pain for more than a few seconds. He’d forgotten about the concept of lingering. Other than the soreness and the hunger, everything seemed to be in one piece.

There were at least two hundred people milling around the gym. Most of them had taken the time to get dressed, but several had arrived in their PJs. At least half the adults were armed. The sight of so many guns, mostly deer rifles and duck guns but with a smattering of black rifles and riot shotguns, made him glad that this was going down in a rural area where people still had their heads screwed on right about personal defense.

There was a knot of people conversing a few feet away. A raven-haired woman in a red parka saw him watching and stomped over in a pair of giant snow boots. “You’re awake. Good. About damn time. Deputy Heather said you knew what was going on.” She was rather tall, probably in her mid-forties, and struck him as the kind of person used to being in charge. The men she’d been talking with followed her over. “Well, spill it, mister.”

He would’ve gotten up, but realized that under the blanket he was buck naked, and there were children present. “Who’re you?”

“Nancy Randall, Copper County Council.” She glanced around the gym. “Only surviving member, as far as I can tell.” The men flanking her regarded Earl with blatant suspicion. One had a Mossberg 500 and the other had an AR-15. Neither was overt enough to actually point their guns at him, but he could tell they thought about it. He couldn’t particularly blame them, either. It had been a stressful night, and he was an outsider and therefore suspect. “And since I personally saw a hairy wolfman rip the mayor’s head off, and Heather said the sheriff lost his neck, I suppose I’m sort of in charge of this mess. So, what’s the deal?”

“Name’s Harbinger. I’m a Monster Hunter.” She seemed like the type to appreciate brevity, so Earl didn’t beat around the bush. “Well, Nancy, your town’s being attacked by a pack of werewolves. They’ve got you isolated, and I figure they plan on slaughtering everyone here by dawn.”

The two men exchanged glances. The one with the Mossberg was fat, bald, and sweating. The one with the AR was thin, young, and nervous.

“That’s insane,” the thin one said.

“Zip it, Phillip,” Nancy ordered. “Werewolves . . . That’s exactly what Heather said you’d say.”

“I shot one in the head. Point-blank,” the fat one said. “I blew its brains out! Then it got back up and jumped out a second-story window and ran away like nothing had happened. I’ll believe anything right now.”

“Yes, Steve,” Nancy said in the most patronizing manner possible. “We’ve all heard about the brains thing already. Blah, blah, blah. Give it a rest already.” She turned back to Earl. “So, what do we do about these damn things?”

He could mount a defense against the werewolves with these people. They were a sturdy bunch, but wasn’t so sure about the mystery Alpha, the Old One’s minions, or the black magic. He needed a chance to ponder on what to do about those. “Any of you got a smoke?”

“There’s no smoking on school grounds!” Phillip exclaimed.

Nancy rolled her eyes. “If you haven’t noticed, it’s the end of the world. Pull that stick out of your ass and go get this man some clothes.”

“There should be a pack in the backseat of my truck. Is it here—big black Ford?”

“It’s in the lot,” Phillip grumbled and then stomped off. Nancy took a pack of Virginia Slims and a disposable lighter out of her coat pocket. “Forgive my friend. He’s the principal of our fine high school. Phillip is normally a gentleman to a fault, but it’s been a stressful night.”

Earl took the proffered smokes. Kind of girly by his standards, but he knew that if you bit the filter off, they would do. “What’s your status?”

“We lost a few folks on the way in. They’re like ghosts in the snow. Invisible until they’re on top of you. Then some tried to get in behind us, but we shot the hell out of them and they ran off. I’ve got people clearing out the old shelter so we can shove all the kiddies in if we need to, and I put ten men on the roof with rifles. And believe me, I picked everybody I ever suspected of doing a little poaching and spotlighting and stuck them up there.”

Earl liked this town. “How many people do you have that can fight?”

Nancy looked at the fat man. “This is Steve, county controller. So I put him in charge of organizing. How many people do we have?”

The fat man shrugged. “I don’t really know. A bunch, I guess.”

“I’d suggest you go count them.” Earl would gladly have traded this guy for his personal accountant right then, but Earl had been stupid and assumed that this was just about him and Nikolai. An MHI team would have made a great early Christmas, but if Earl couldn’t have a group of professional Hunters, he’d put together some amateurs. “There’s special .308, 12 gauge, and .45 ammo in my truck. See who’s got guns in those calibers and divvy it up.”

Nancy nodded quickly. “Heather already passed out the bullets, said that it would work better on these things.”

“Good.” The deputy was reliable, and she’d been busy since they’d split up. Alert and organized, this town might have a chance yet. “Where’s Kerkonen at?”

Steve answered. “She got together a few groups she trusted, some to go house to house and one to secure the hospital.”

“Lots of injured,” Nancy said pointedly, like that was somehow Earl’s fault. “It’s a nightmare out there.”

Earl scowled as he lit the cigarette. Dark magic and that stupid amulet were changing the natural order of things. People were changing too fast, immune to silver, and even unbreakable curses were getting broken. It was threatening his calm. Those injured could turn rapidly, but he couldn’t worry about that now. Hopefully, Kerkonen had briefed the men she’d sent there to be ready for that possibility. . . . Hell, she was the same possibility. It was like everyone around here was a werewolf except him. Suddenly, he coughed. It turned into a hack as the cigarette smoke burned his lungs. “Damn it,” he croaked.

“Those things will kill you,” Steve pointed out.

Earl removed the smoke from his lips. “Shit . . . Now they can. Nuts!”

Nancy had no idea what he was talking about and just regarded Earl like he was simple.

You disgust me.

Nikolai had lain hidden in the shadows between the dumpsters, waiting, but for what, he was not sure. Exhausted, it had taken quite some time to crawl to safety. If Harbinger or even one of the lesser werewolves had found them in their current state, they wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Failure. You’re a failure. You are weak. Pathetic.

The berating had continued for quite some time. The sad thing was that Nikolai agreed with the Tvar’s assessment. If it hadn’t been for the distracting fire, Harbinger would have torn his heart out. Harbinger was stronger, faster, superior. Nikolai hated himself for failing to avenge his Lila.

That is twice. Twice you’ve let him win. You failed your unit. You failed your precious motherland. He embarrassed you once before. Mocked you like a dog. Coward. Imbecile. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be dead. You should be dead. I should be in charge. I would’ve drunk his blood, ate his bones.

His body was wrecked. Ribs pressed through his skin. If he had not let the snow cover him, he would have appeared nothing more than an emaciated corpse lying there. The spare flesh had been burned away to feed the furnace of regeneration. He needed desperately to eat but lacked the strength to care anymore. Perhaps it would be better to just let the cold carry him into the bleak.

This is what you get for imprisoning me for so many moons. You weakened us. We should have been strong. Ready. But no, you tried to be a man. You are no man, Nikolai. You were deluded. All to please your little human bitch.

“Silence,” Nikolai gasped. Snow fell between his lips as he spoke. The little bit of moisture cooled his parched throat. “Never speak of her.”

We owned the night. Everything feared us, but you chained me. Chained me for her! You betrayed me, your one true friend, for a soft human girl! Then, when you need me, you come begging back. Look at us now. Are you happy? She deserved to die. She died because she made you weak.

“Enough.” Finally provoked, his voice was louder that time.

I wonder what Harbinger did to her. I know what I would’ve done. How many ways did he hurt her first? Did she cry? Did she beg? I bet she begged for death. She’d have promised anything to make him stop. Anything.

It had been late when he’d returned from the hunt, where he’d banished the Tvar, only setting it free on the frozen tundra north of Sklad when the cycle of the moon required it. As had become his custom over the previous years, he had been gone for five days, one to travel, three to hunt, one to return, as far from humanity as possible. The Tvar had despised him for it, but Lila loved him even more for the sacrifice. His sweet wife was always there to welcome him back, yet when he’d returned for the final time, he’d found his home desecrated.

The safe had been blasted open. The files he’d taken from the disintegrating KGB had been scattered. Only one was missing, but it wasn’t until later, when he realized which one it was, that he understood just how serious the break-in had been. The file contained everything they’d gleaned about Koschei’s murderer, including the name of the American town he’d immigrated to.

They’d left his wife’s body upstairs. Lila had been in the bedroom, tortured, executed. A small green patch had been left on her forehead as a calling card.

I could have protected her, but I was degraded to chasing reindeer. She’s dead because you were weak.

A fist exploded from the snow. “I said enough!” Nikolai roared. He grabbed the cold metal of the dumpster and pulled himself up. Legs wobbling, he waited for the dizziness to pass. He’d lost too much blood. He needed energy to repair. Hearing movement, he flung open the lid of the dumpster. The rat never stood a chance. One hand shot out and snagged it before it could flee. The rodent managed to scratch his thumb before he crushed it and shoved the entire flea-ridden thing in his mouth and chewed. It was hot with blood and therefore delicious.

You listen to me—

“No.” Nikolai choked down the rat and wiped his filthy face with one filthier forearm. He needed more energy. Then he needed his rifle. “You listen to me. You will not speak of Lila again, or so help me, I will end us both. Do you understand?”

You wouldn’t dare.

“I dare . . . ,” Nikolai whispered, recalling the message that had been left on his bedroom wall, scrawled in his wife’s blood. It had read TRY TO STOP ME. Leaving notes for each other, just like old times. A monster like Harbinger could never be allowed to possess the amulet. “I only have one thing to live for now. Mark my words. He will die for what he’s done. You will not stand in my way.”

Agent Stark was running out of both ideas and places to stack bodies.

At first he’d decided to hang tight and let Briarwood make him some money, but that was before he realized just how badly this place was infested. As the night had gone on, more injured and dying had turned up at the hospital. Hit-and-run strikes were occurring all over town. The remaining staff were doing their best, but the situation was an absolute disaster. The volunteer firemen had placed the dead in rows with sheets thrown over them on the still-damp second floor, until they too had come to the realization that the town was under attack and had snuck out the back to get to their families.

Luckily the other bitten had all died soon after arriving, because if he started shooting survivors now, he doubted the Yoopers would let them out alive.

Mosher had fetched their armor and rifles from the Suburban. Comms were still down, there was no word from Briarwood, weather was still awful, and the number of people who were now aware that something paranormal was occurring was growing by the minute. The giant beam of light that had temporarily made the place look like noon shooting up from the center of town an hour ago hadn’t helped matters, either.

“Anything yet?” Mosher asked as he approached. The kid was fully geared up with an F2000 with all the fixings, including a 40mm grenade launcher, and he was obviously antsy, ready to get out into the action. Stark was glad he had a hard charger to watch his back, but he was really wishing he’d brought a full team. He’d seen what a single werewolf could do. Taking on a whole pack of the bastards? Screw that.

Stark lowered the sat phone. “Nada. We’re still on our own. By the time we get help we’ll be at a full-on level-five containment. We haven’t had one of those stateside since Myers’s clusterfuck at that concert in Montgomery.”

The junior agent’s face was still stained orange, and he kept blinking away involuntary tears. Pepper spray was the gift that just kept on giving. Mosher took a long look down the hallway full of sheet-draped corpses. “Sir, we can’t keep waiting for a signal. I’ve got Amy Lee ready to go.” He patted his rifle. Stark had no idea why Mosher had named his firearm. “We’ve got to do something.”

“I know,” Stark answered. “Best bet is to snag some transportation out of this mess so we can alert headquarters to send in the cleaners. If we don’t get them here before the power comes back on, these yokels will be blabbing all over the Internet, and I do not want a level-five break on my watch.”

Mosher nodded slowly, still looking at the orderly row of bodies. It was obvious that the kid didn’t like the idea of running. “Permission to speak freely, sir?” Stark grunted his assent, and Mosher continued. “These people are getting slaughtered. The monsters are just going door-to-door. By the time reinforcements show up, this town will be toast. We need to hit back, now. We need to protect them.”

Stark had been afraid of this. Apparently young Agent Mosher had a conscience. He clucked approvingly and tried to speak like the wise mentor/father figure that he was. His own mentor, Agent Franks, would have agreed with Mosher, and would probably be out there snapping werewolves in half over his knee, but sadly, unlike Franks, he and Mosher were eminently mortal. “That’s really brave of you, Gaige, thinking about these poor folks.”

“Uh . . . thank you, sir.”

“No, no. Thank you. You’re keeping a moral perspective. That’s valuable. But you’re forgetting something important. The most important thing of all.”

Mosher was confused. “What’s that?”

Stark had a gift. He was a remarkably loud man, and he turned it up for effect. “That’s not our job!” Mosher flinched. Stark closed in, still shouting. “MCB protocol is to contain first and foremost. You think one pissant town matters in the grand scheme of things? We’ve been commissioned by the highest authority in the land to keep a lid on this kind of shit. Men way smarter than you set that mission for a very specific reason, which I know you’ve been taught! What is the First Reason, Agent Mosher?”

The importance of the MCB’s mission was absolutely beaten into every new recruit’s head during training. “The more people who believe in the Old Ones, the more powerful they become!” Mosher stammered his response. “Sir!”

Stark had no idea if the First Reason was even true, but it was institutional doctrine, and every sane government in the world thought that the more people who knew about and therefore had faith in the Old Ones’ existence, the more those aliens would be able to meddle in human affairs. Sure, it was unknown if lycanthropes were even related to the Old Ones, since no one actually knew where they’d come from originally, but the rules were there for a reason, so all monsters got lumped under the MCB’s umbrella mission. “We go out there and get eaten, then who’s going to be the ones to get word out first? These people talk before we get a wall up, and it’ll spread like wildfire. Do you want to be the agent that failed his entire country? Do you want to be the agent that destroyed a hundred-year perfect track record?”

The junior agent stood at attention and stared straight ahead. “Negative, sir.”

“Damn right, Agent Mosher!” Stark lowered his voice. No need to keep pushing when the kid had already fallen in line. “This is what we’re gonna do. We’re going for help. We’ll head south until we get a signal or hit the next town. Once headquarters is warned, then I promise we come back and fight these bastards ourselves until reinforcements arrive,” he lied. “But the mission has to come first.”

“I understand, sir.”

Good, because Stark didn’t. He had no intention of throwing his life away for nothing.

The sickness came upon him unexpectedly.

Fueled by the harvested energy of Harbinger’s mighty werewolf soul, the Alpha had felt strong, triumphant. It was unknown exactly what effect Koschei’s amulet would have on his body, except that all the legends spoke of virtual immortality and invincibility. By most reckoning, Koschei himself had been seven hundred years old before his pride had led to his downfall at the hands of the Finn.

The initial surge of power had left him near giddy. Every sense had improved, until he felt bombarded with new information. Vision had taken on a surreal quality as his eyes had adapted further into the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums. The smallest sounds were audible, and there were noises that he’d never heard before to interpret, and the smells . . . Every living thing for miles, every chemical, every mineral, every pheromone, they were all there, an endless stream of data.

It was too much to process. The Alpha was overwhelmed. He was blinded by too much sight. His skin burned at the slightest change in air pressure. Individual hairs tingled as they felt shifts in the Earth’s electromagnetic field. It was not pain, yet it was. “What’s happening to me?” he growled.

“You’re changing,” the witch explained patiently. “It will take time for your body to adapt. When the metamorphosis is complete, you’ll have been purified. This is not unexpected.”

It may have not been unexpected in the logical sense, but the actual experience was much worse than what he’d imagined. He had hoped to revel in the slaughter of this town and to bring about the birth of the vulkodlak. But he could barely control his own body, let alone hundreds of new soldiers as well. He needed time. Swaying, the Alpha made his decision. “I must rest.”

The witch did not seem surprised. “Shall we return to your home?” She was exhausted. He needed to remember how draining the dark spells were, especially for someone so young. Lucinda Hood was talented in channeling the forces of her newly adopted dark god, but it would take time for her to harness even a fraction of the power her father had before MHI had ended his life. “I need to warm up.”

The Alpha’s new senses created a virtual live map of the entire town. His children were scattered, operating alone or—the younger—in pairs as they picked off stray humans. Meanwhile, the people of Copper Lake had formed armed groups and were patrolling for other survivors, having, in a way, formed their own packs. One such pack was in his neighborhood, near his house. Despite the feeling of newfound strength flowing through his limbs, he was unsure of his abilities and not confident in testing them just yet. “No. The way isn’t clear.”

“Bloody hell . . .” She gave a long sigh. “Back to the mine, then? Very well. One of my diggers is injured. They’ll be glad to return to the dirt. That’s what gives them their strength.”

The Alpha wasn’t fond of retreating when his goals were so close at hand, but unlike the werewolves that had come before him, he was not a creature of instinct. He was a man of logic and planning, and he would do what it took to lead his people into the future.

Chapter 15

It was appropriate that the military acronym for my new unit was STFU. Because Shut The Fuck Up was also the primary directive in our security briefing. The task force was so beyond top secret that I didn’t even know if there was a word for the level that we occupied.

There were two teams on Unicorn. One human, one not so much. Since I looked normal, I got to attend both briefings.

First squad consisted of a collection of mortal ass-kickers, loaned from regular units to MACV-SOG, and then loaned to us. Even though it was obvious who was in charge, they had no official rank hierarchy. There were a lot of people with the rank of Mister. Their names were whatever was assigned by Conover’s unknown bosses or whatever nickname stuck. I was introduced as Mr. Wolf.

The most experienced man on first squad was a giant Polynesian that the others called Destroyer, or Augie to his friends, which I was not. He was ugly as sin, quietly judgmental, with a zero-tolerance policy for bullshit and arms that suggested he bench-pressed jeeps for fun. He smelled like a Green Beret NCO, and it was obvious he didn’t like me from the second we met. Many years later I would end up hiring his son, so it is a small world after all.

They were to provide our security, transport, and any other duties as assigned. They were not to look too hard at anyone on second squad. They were not to speak to second squad unless spoken to, and they were definitely not allowed to ask questions. I think it was all that enforced secrecy that made Destroyer dislike my team. After that, Conover herded me out of the room. I was guessing he didn’t want me to hear the part about how they were supposed to kill anyone on second squad who didn’t obey orders. There was no need. That had been standard operating procedure for this kind of unit since 1942.

Even though there were only three of us, second squad got their own, separate briefing. It was the first time I’d meet the others that I would be working with for the next year. As soon as we entered, I could smell trouble. The girl stood out. It’s hard not to when you’re supernaturally beautiful. Her skin almost glowed. She was so unnaturally perfect that you ached just looking at her. I pegged as some sort of divine-human cross. She was introduced as Sharon Mangum, code name, Singer. She gave me a polite nod, but didn’t speak.

It’s a pretty strong comment on Sharon’s looks that I noticed her before the thing sitting next to her. It had the head of a bull and the body of a man. It took me a moment to understand that it wasn’t just some stuffed cow head on a really big dude wearing huge green fatigues. His fur was dark brown, and his black eyes studied me with obvious intelligence.

It was the first time I’d seen an actual minotaur. I’d heard of them, big-time PUFF bounties, but I’d never seen one before. They were supposed to be solitary, rare, and deadly berserkers. Since he didn’t immediately charge and tear me into bits, they were obviously not as bestial as the stories indicated. “Howdy,” the minotaur said. His voice was very deep. “You must be the werewolf.”

“Yep. I’ve never met a minotaur before.”

“Minotaur?” The monster stood suddenly. He was over seven feet tall, and his horns stuck out a foot on each side. The floor creaked under his weight. I took an unconscious step back. “Do I look Greek to you, asshole?”

It is always best to assert dominance in these kinds of situations. “You best take it easy, or you’ll look like a steak dinner and a new pair of boots.”

The minotaur bared his blunt white teeth. “Why, you little mother—”

“Easy, Travis,” Sharon suggested, placing one hand on the minotaur’s massive hairy arm. Her voice was like soothing music. Even I felt a sudden sense of peace.

“Apologies, Ms. Sharon.” The minotaur slowly returned to his seat on the floor.

“No offense intended, friend,” I said, shaking my head to clear it. “It was a long flight.”

“And you didn’t have to ride in cargo. . . . Look, buddy, minotaur’s got all sorts of bad connotations.” Travis snorted. It was a thunderous noise. “My tribe’s from Texas, by God, and we prefer to be called Bullmen. I’m Travis Alamo Sam Houston of the East Texas Bullmen, and I’ve come to prove our loyalty to the US of A.”

“Don’t use your whole name,” Conover pointed out.

“Yes, sir. Sorry, Captain,” Travis responded. Looking back, that was kind of pointless. Were we worried spies might mistake him for a different six-hundred-pound bull-headed mythological monster? “I’m here to earn a PUFF exemption by putting hoof to commie ass for my country. It won’t happen again, sir.”

Conover just sighed. I kind of felt sorry for the kid. This was going to be a tough assignment.

*   *   *

Earl had showered in the men’s locker room, scrubbed off the blood, and gotten dressed, so he at least appeared semi-presentable to these people, even though he’d gone in three holes on his belt and probably looked like Famine from the Four Horsemen. He combed his hair and made sure his teeth weren’t stained red with blood. It would help to not look like a complete lunatic before giving this particular pep talk to a town of regular folks.

He finished his speech on werewolves. It was a condensed version of what he’d usually say at Newbie training, but it would have to do. “Any questions?” About a dozen hands went up. Those were the polite ones. The others just started to shout questions at him.

There were fifty men and women sitting on the wooden bleachers in front of him. The gym was even more crowded and noisy than it had been when he’d first woken up. The generators were running full blast, so they had light, heat, and a continuous trickle of townsfolk. Nancy Randall had gathered those that she said “had a clue,” and Phillip had taken a quick poll to find all the military veterans, gun nuts, and hunters; this being northern Michigan, that was a very healthy percentage. Heather Kerkonen had cherry-picked twenty people for her rescue patrols earlier, and they hadn’t returned yet, and they had more shooters on the roof and around the windows and doors. Earl liked the numbers, he just didn’t like the attitude.

“Are you nuts?” a burly man shouted from the highest row.

Earl shrugged. “Is that a question or a statement?”

“Both, asshole!”

He was used to dealing with Hunters. Even his greenest Newbie was a proven survivor who’d already made that leap of faith necessary to realize they didn’t know crap about how the real world worked. There was more shouting as those that had seen the werewolves, loose-skinned armored creatures, or dark-magic beam of light argued with those that hadn’t. Earl knew that he had to rein this in real quick if he was going to turn them into a coherent force. “Zip it!” he bellowed. His voice echoed through the entire gymnasium.

Turning human hadn’t cost Earl’s command voice any of its power. The crowd shut up.

Pacing back and forth across the half-court line, Earl kept his voice raised. “I don’t care if you think I’m full of it. That don’t matter. What does is that something’s killing your town. You can all agree on that. If I’m right, then you need to work together to beat them. If I’m wrong, then you still need to work together to beat them.” There was a general murmur of assent. The people who hadn’t at least seen some mutilated bodies were a distinct minority. “If you want to live ’til dawn, you’re gonna have to fight.”

“Why don’t we go out there now, then?” a young guy on the front row asked. Earl guessed from his out-of-season tan and the fact that he seemed to be in really good shape that this was one of their recently returned vets. “Let’s go get them!”

“Because there’s like a thousand of them and they move so fast you can’t hardly see them and then it’s too late!” someone called from behind. “I say we stay here and let them come to us.”

Earl nodded. He had two distinct personalities here, offensive and defensive. Both were necessary. If they all went out there, just like in nature, the weak would be culled from the herd. If they all sat here, eventually they’d be surrounded, and then they were sitting ducks. “We do both. The creatures will mostly be working alone, but as the night goes on and they’ve got fewer targets of opportunity, the bloodlust will attract them to the survivors. We leave enough here to defend the women and children—”

“That’s sexist!” a girl exclaimed.

“Figure of speech,” Earl responded. “Grown-ups are talking, so cram the PC bullshit. The fallout shelter under this gym serves as the base. We hold it at all costs. We leave a force here to fend off the monsters. The rest of us form squads and take the fight to them. You go out there alone, they will pick you off.” Before he’d started, Nancy had explained how several individuals had set out in search of their loved ones. None of those had come back yet. “It don’t matter how tough you are. You can only look in one direction at a time, and they’re faster than you.”

“I saw one hop clear up to the roof of the bank!”

“Uh huh . . . ,” Earl said as everyone else started babbling about what they’d seen. It wasn’t the werewolves that they’d seen that he was really worried about. It was the other things that were out there in the storm. Their capabilities were a mystery. He let the group work itself up with anecdotes about their night. Hearing it from their neighbors would convince the doubters far better than anything Earl could say himself.

“What about the injured?” a lady half-way up the bleachers asked.

“You can’t trust ’em,” Earl stated coldly. “Bites for sure, and maybe scratches. They’re infected and could turn on you.” As expected, those words caused a terrible uproar from the crowd. This was exactly why he always let Julie handle the negotiations. He was always too blunt.

Nancy Randall especially didn’t like it. “What?” The woman had enough of a reputation that as soon as she started speaking, the angry group quieted down. “Those are our friends, family. There’s no way.”

“Take my advice or leave it. Your call. I’d keep them isolated if I were you. If they start to change, do what you’ve got to do,” Earl said. Already, he could tell that most of them didn’t believe him. Sometimes the ugly truth was just too damn ugly.

Nancy scowled hard, mulling it over, but she held up her hand to silence the objections. “We’ll talk about that more later. Deputy Kerkonen said that she saw you kill a few of these things and that you were some sort of professional. How’d you know they were coming?”

“And why didn’t you warn us?” cried a different man. A friend put a comforting hand on his shoulder, but he kept on. “My wife might still be alive.”

“Easy, Stan,” Nancy cautioned. “Well, Harbinger, answer the man’s question.”

They already didn’t believe him about werewolves, period; he wasn’t going to try to educate them on the finer points of lycanthropic society and the fact that Nikolai had just needed a good murdering. Luckily, before he could think of an answer, one of the guards at the main hall entrance shouted that they had movement in the parking lot. Everyone grabbed for their weapons but relaxed as word spread that it was one of the groups returning. Most of the doubters went back to cursing Earl.

The patrol came in brushing snow from their coats and stomping it from their boots. All of the scouts were shivering except for the one in the lead. Kerkonen was barely recognizable. She’d ditched her ragged sheriff’s department coat and found a big black parka. When she flipped back the hood, the difference was shocking. His human senses were weak; he felt blurry, slow and hungover, but he could already tell that she was well along the change. Her eyes gleamed just a shade too metallic, her skin was flushed, her movements too fluid. The others might not be able to tell, and she probably didn’t know it herself, but he recognized the signs from experience. Heather Kerkonen was a full-on werewolf.

And that change had occurred in a matter of hours . . . Normally it took weeks. Earl swallowed hard. That ain’t good.

“What’d you find, deputy?” asked Nancy.

“A lot of dead people and even more empty houses. But we found a few more survivors. They’re in the foyer getting checked for bites before I let them in,” she said. “The werewolves are on the move out there. We don’t need any in here.” That statement struck Earl as particularly ironic.

This time it was Phillip, the high-school principal, that interjected. “Not more of this werewolf nonsense. There’s got to be a rational explanation.”

Deadly serious, Heather put her shotgun over one shoulder and scanned the crowd. “I figured you might be having this conversation. I’ve got something everyone needs to see. . . .” She motioned two men forward. Each was carrying one end of a tarp-wrapped object that was very clearly a body. “Show them.”

“Heather, there’s kids here,” said the man supporting the narrower end of the tarp. “Maybe we should—”

“They need to see it, too. There’s no time for doubt,” Heather said as she pulled her gloves off and eyed Phillip coldly. Earl had seen that look before. She was probably wondering what he tasted like. “Unwrap her.”

The two men dropped their burden. It hit the wood with a dull thud. As they pulled the blue tarp away, the crowd gasped. A few looked away.

“Look at it,” Heather ordered.

The werewolf was female. Deprived of his sense of smell, estimating age was out of the question. Gold eyes open, the lips were pulled back over bloodstained teeth. The cause of death was obvious, since the ribcage had been broken open and the heart was gone. That would certainly do the deed. Even for the fiercest skeptics in the crowd, the mostly humanoid creature was a slap in the face.

“It must be some sort of undiscovered animal,” Phillip sputtered. “A cryptid! Or some genetic experiment that escaped.”

“Yep. There’s lots of money in crossing gorillas and timber wolves.” Earl snorted. “Those science types are downright full of wacky fun.”

Heather squatted beside the corpse, roughly grabbed one wrist, and lifted it without saying a word. The braver members of the front row got up and approached. The young vet was the first to notice Heather’s point. “It’s wearing a wedding ring.”

The skeptical faction turned to the principal, who had somehow gotten himself appointed as their leader in the last few seconds. “Somebody must have put a ring on the animal.”

“Crap. Why, Phillip?” someone shouted. “Are you retarded?”

Heather glared at Phillip. Then she roughly dropped the limb and reached for the gaping chest wound. “I noticed this while I was cutting the heart out before it could regenerate.”

There was a cluster of people around the werewolf now, looking almost like a football huddle. The soldier spoke again. “What are those bags?”

“Well, Matthew, those appear to be breast implants,” said Nancy as she stepped away from the huddle, rubbing her eyes. “Well, apparently this thing had a boob job.”

Phillip had no response to that revelation.

“There’s more,” Heather said. “Anybody recognize this?” There was a long moment of silence. The people in the circle all exchanged glances. The audience was struggling to see. Several of the witnesses began to swear.

“Rose Greer had that same tattoo, same place. We used to work together at the substation before she went to nights,” said one of them.

It was Nancy that spoke up again, loudly. “Phillip, can you think of any reason somebody would stick a wedding ring on a wild animal, give it breast implants, and then tattoo a little rose on its neck?”

Phillip, obviously, had no response. Earl was about to make a comment about the kind of weird stuff you could find on the Internet, but now was not the time for sarcasm.

Heather walked away from the body and turned to the bleachers. Her voice echoed through the entire gym. “Look at it. Look at her. Yesterday that thing was Rose . . .” She let that sink in for a moment. “After she killed everyone at the power company and wrecked the place, she walked home. I caught her eating her husband. That is what we’re facing. There’s more of these out there right now. Some of them are strangers, like the man who tore up our jail. Some of them are our friends, or neighbors, or people you see at the store, or people you go to church with. But not anymore.”

The huddle had broken up so that everyone could see the twisted corpse.

“Now they’re something else.” Heather walked over, angry, shotgun still over one shoulder, and kicked the dead werewolf, brutally hard, right in the snout. Blood flecks splattered down the tarp. Earl tensed a bit, but remarkably Heather seemed to be keeping it under control. “They’re the enemy. And we have to destroy them before they get the rest of us.”

The atmosphere in the room had changed. They were committed now. Heather, a local, had swayed them where he, an outsider, could not. Heather risked a quick glance Earl’s way, as if to see how she’d done. He nodded approvingly. She looked away, almost embarrassed, but not before he caught the flash of gold in her eyes. Tough, to the point, Heather would have made one hell of a good Hunter.

Too bad he was probably going to have to put her down before the night was through.

The volunteers left ten minutes later. There were three smaller teams, one for each way out of Copper Lake. Earl had made sure that each team had some of his silver ammo and some MHI phone numbers. Using snowmobiles and moving quick, they might have a chance. He suspected that this Alpha would have set some impediments in their way, and would have loved to go with them, but he was needed on offense. Two bigger teams were heading out momentarily to cause trouble and find survivors.

Heather joined Earl as he was strapping into his older suit of armor. It was pocked with burn marks and holes, but he was glad that he’d packed the spare. His leather coat fit over it, too, and he needed the added warmth. Humans got cold really easy. They were in the shadows of the main hall; the lights were out to conserve the juice. Heather stopped, folded her arms, and leaned against the trophy case. She watched him for a while, but didn’t speak.

“This suit has seen better days,” Earl said, trying to make conversation. There was a holster on each hip, gunfighter style. He removed an S&W .45 Nightguard from the bag, checked to make sure the revolver was loaded, and stuffed it into the left holster. “I’m going back out there.”

“I know. And by the way, saying thank you for me saving your life would be nice. You look pretty healthy for someone who didn’t have a pulse an hour ago.”

Actually, he was feeling all right. Clumsy, slow, less capable than he was used to, but healthy. He had a sneaking suspicion that he should be dead, but that either something had gone wrong, or that amulet had left him alive for some unknowable reason. “Thanks,” Earl answered. “Seriously. Thank you.”

She bit her lip as she summoned her courage. “Harbinger, level with me . . .”

He already knew what she was going to ask. “You’ve been cursed.” He kept his voice low so it wouldn’t carry into the auditorium.

“You sure?”

He took out the second .45, opened the cylinder, confirmed it was loaded, snapped it shut, and holstered. “I’m positive. Sorry.”

She nodded slowly. “I just thought maybe . . . never mind.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “It’s not fair.” Heather stepped away from the trophy case, hands curled into fists. “Shit!” She slammed her fist into the heavy cabinet. The wood splintered, the glass shattered, and trophies and plaques spilled out. It made a terrible racket. Heather drew her hand back, shocked at the hole she’d put through the case. “How—”

“You’re gonna have to be a little more careful with your temper,” Earl suggested. “Super strength and hitting stuff when you get angry don’t go well together.”

Half a dozen townsfolk led by the principal converged on the noise within seconds, ready to blast the intruders. Earl waved them off. “Sorry. Kicked your case,” he explained while Heather hid her damaged hand behind her back. Phillip already didn’t like him, so he wasn’t out much taking the rap. “By accident . . . so back off.”

“Well, when this is over, you owe us a new one,” Phillip muttered as he stomped away.

When they were alone again, Earl went over to Heather. “Let me see your hand.”

Reluctantly, she held it out. “I didn’t hit it that hard.” Sure enough, the scratches were already pulling closed. Her hand was quivering. “I can’t believe this. This is just too much.”

On a purely technical level, Earl was astounded by the regeneration rate of the werewolves created since the surge. On a strictly practical level, he was holding the injured hand of a woman whose eyes were welling up with tears because she’d just realized that her life was over. “It’ll be okay.”

“No, it won’t.”

“Yes, it can,” he insisted. “You don’t have to end up like them. It can be controlled.” And if you can’t control it, I’ll have to kill you. Earl quickly dismissed that unpleasant thought.

“How do you know?” she sniffed.

He was not good at comforting. It was hard to say, but he didn’t think it mattered now. “Because I’m a werewolf, too.”

Surprised, Heather jerked her hand away. “What? Get away.” Her nose crinkled as she instinctively smelled to see if he was telling the truth. “No. No, you’re normal . . . Oh shit, what did I just do?” Her eyes widened. “I’m smelling people now! Oh God!”

Earl raised his hands apologetically. “Well, I was a werewolf. Up until that big magic light sucked it out of me.”

“Why? How? And why the hell do I believe you?” Heather asked, taking another step back. She folded her arms defensively. “That’s why you’ve got that cage in your truck. That’s how you moved so fast back at the station. But, but why aren’t you . . . evil?”

So she was getting the urges already. She was hiding it well. “Listen, Heather.” He took a step closer. “I know what you’re feeling right now. You aren’t what you think, you’re what you do. You can fight it.”

“But I want to kill everybody!” she hissed, then looked around to make sure nobody could hear them. She lowered her voice. “I want to just tear their stupid faces off. I want to break their bones with my bare hands.”

“That part doesn’t ever really go away, but it does get easier to tune out. The guy that helped me learn this stuff suggested prayer and meditation. So I took up smoking. That seemed to help. Crap . . . I might have to be one of those annoying people that tries to quit and then whines about it,” he muttered. “I hate those people.”

“You said you were cured by magic.” Heather’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. It did sound ludicrous, even by Earl’s standards. “Hell, why not? I didn’t believe in werewolves, either, so why not magic, too? But you said at the station that there was no cure. You said that people have been looking forever!”

“What can I say?” Earl shrugged. “Up until an hour ago, I didn’t think there was one.”

She responded with a sad little laugh. “You know that running joke, about how when a girl talks about her problems, the man just wants to solve the problem, and the girl doesn’t want it solved, she just wants to talk about it?” Heather wiped her eyes. “Screw that noise. How do I solve this?”

Earl hadn’t thought of that as an option. A cure had always seemed like such a pipe dream, it was either endure or die, but now he was living proof that there was a way. Could that amulet actually cure other werewolves? The possibilities took his breath away. “That amulet, the one your prisoner talked about. That’s the key. It cured me. We’ve got to find it.”

Having been given some small bit of hope, Heather latched on with both hands. “I can kind of feel it, I think. It’s like this weird buzzing noise that won’t go away.”

As a regular man, Earl could no longer sense the real Hum, let alone the false one. He was groping blind. The only way he was going to find that thing was with Heather’s help. There was still the matter of the Alpha and his forces to deal with, but Earl had been a damn effective Hunter before he’d been cursed. He still had a few tricks up his sleeve. “We’ll head out with the teams, then break off and follow the trail right to that amulet. We find it, and we find the asshole behind this.”

“Cure me, waste him, save the town. Sounds like a plan.”

Chapter 16

The Russians had started it this time.

Sure, there was a war going on. An awful one, by all accounts, but it was the Soviets that had to go and bring a supernatural element into a normal, shitty human conflict. Let’s say that operations that didn’t actually exist, conducted by hypothetical units, across the border into countries that may or may not have actually been involved, had been too successful. And the Soviets had loaned a specialist of their own to their allies to deal with it. As you may have guessed, there are certain specifics that I’m not allowed to ever get into, especially in a journal.

A lieutenant colonel with no name and an old man in a shirt and tie with no name gave us the final briefing during the flight into Vietnam. If the communists wanted to escalate on the supernatural front, we were supposed to respond in kind. STFU’s mission was to be put into a location where Americans were not supposed to be, and then kill the shit out of the enemy. Move and repeat.

I did not like jobs like this. Not that I wasn’t good at them. In fact, I was really good. I’d come to terms with the fact that I was a monster, but I had to be careful just how much I let the animal out to play. Even monsters have rules. Well, some of us anyway.

Ideally, our actions would attract the attention of the Russian “advisor.” It was hoped that we would then be able to neutralize him. The men without names said that he was known as Nikolai.

So we went hunting.

*   *   *

After running from the monster, Horst and Lins had climbed over a chain-link fence and broken into a storage unit, where they hid, freezing, until they decided it was probably safe to return to their vehicle to make a run for it. Though scared, he was careful not to show it to Lins as the two huddled in stony silence and listened to the werewolves howl. This situation was so far out of Briarwood’s league that it was depressing.

The walk back to the Caddy took forever. He’d gotten turned around while running, the snow wasn’t helping matters, and he wouldn’t admit that he was lost. Their odd route was explained away because walking down the open streets seemed like a great way to get picked off by werewolves, so they’d gone through the backyards. After twenty minutes of hopping fences, they’d reached the scorched grocery store and his Cadillac. Horst had been surprised to find that any other members of his crew had survived.

Jason Lococo was sitting on the hood, scanning for threats. Having burned through his share of silver ammo in the SAW, Loco had taken Jo Ann’s M-4 carbine, which looked like a toy in his hands, to keep watch. Horst almost said something to him about scratching the paint, but the giant looked like he might just open fire, so he refrained.

“Loco, I’m happy to see you,” Horst said, glad that their big man had been too dumb to flee. Loco just grunted an acknowledgment. “I thought you were toast.”

“Whew. I’m just glad you didn’t take the car!” Lins exclaimed.

It was obvious Loco wasn’t happy. “You had the keys.” He hopped off the Caddy, and the shocks sprang up in relief. “Let’s go.”

“Let’s get out of this stinking town,” Horst agreed.

“No. We’ve got to get to the hospital,” Loco said as he went around and opened the rear door. “It puked her up.”

“Jo?” Horst got yet another surprise to find that his girlfriend was still alive. Loco had put her in the back of the Escalade. With the third-row seats put away, there was just enough room for her to lie down. The big man had done his best to clean her up, all of their bottled waters had been emptied, and he had thrown a blanket over her.

The inside of the Caddy reeked. That new-car scent had been replaced by the stench of monster puke. Jo Ann was shivering. Her face had taken on a sickly grayish-yellow tone, and she was soaked with sweat. Clumps of her long hair had fallen out, leaving purple blotches on her exposed scalp.

“Ryan?” Jo Ann asked. Even her voice was scratchy. Her eyes were closed, and Horst cringed when he saw they were matted shut with a film of green boogers. “That you?”

His initial reaction was to tell her that she looked like death warmed over. “Yeah, baby, I came back for you,” Horst said instead.

“I knew you would,” she said. “Oh, I don’t feel so good.” Then she gagged and threw up all over the carpet. Horst took an involuntary step back.

“Oh, dude, she’s messed up,” Lins exclaimed, covering his mouth with his shirt. “She’s got a disease from being in that scarecrow’s stomach.”

Jo Ann Schneider was seriously ill. Horst tried to remember back to Newbie training. That hot blonde, Holly Newcastle, had run them through a big lecture on all the horrible things you could catch from monsters and what to do about them. Unfortunately, he’d spent most of that lesson ogling Holly and not paying attention. That stuff had mostly been aimed at the eggheads destined to end up in support roles, and Horst had known that he was destined to be a team leader instead. Only now Jo Ann was like melting or something, and it might even be contagious.

“She’s running a fever,” Loco said. “I thought about carrying her, but figured the monsters would’ve smelled her and got us. She needs antibiotics or something.”

“Antibiotics won’t fix that, man. That’s like Ebola or AIDS!” Lins insisted. “Bitch’s got Ebola-AIDS. I’m not getting in there with her. No way. No fu—”

Lins flinched as Loco reacted with surprising speed. One huge hand encircled Lins’s throat. He let out a pathetic squeaking noise as he was dragged eye to glass eye. “Then you can walk.” Loco didn’t so much as raise his voice, but it was obvious that Lins was seconds from getting his windpipe crushed. “Gimme the keys, Larry.” Eyes wide, Lins reached into his coat and pulled out the jangling ring of keys. Loco snatched the keys away, then held him there for another second, like he was contemplating just squeezing a bit harder, but then let go. Lins stumbled away, coughing.

Loco looked at Horst next. “You got a problem, boss?” Those too-small, not-quite-pointing-in-the-same-direction eyes were crazy. He certainly lived up to his nickname.

Embarrassed that he was scared of his own henchman, Horst just shook his head.

“You getting anything?” Harbinger asked her for the third time in as many minutes.

Heather thought about it, but wasn’t sure of how to answer. That buzzing noise had been stronger a little while ago, but it had faded out. “It’s weird. It was strong, but then it tapered off. Now there’s another one, like a background noise. It’s not as loud, but it seems bigger, if that makes sense.”

“That’s the moon,” Harbinger explained as they turned onto another familiar street. The snow chains were making a huge difference in traction, and despite her earlier assessment of Harbinger’s status as another stupid tourist driver, he actually knew what he was doing.

“So I can actually hear the moon?”

“Sorta. It’s complicated.”

“Well, I should probably learn it, don’t you think?” she replied. “Duh.”

“No need for sarcasm. I can spend our limited amount of time teaching you about werewolf minutia that I learned from dusty old books that are probably wrong, or I can stick with the important bits about how not to turn into a complete raving cannibal. Entirely your call.”

“Anybody ever tell you that you’re not a very likable person?”

“Once or twice.” Harbinger relented. “Well, near as I can figure, the Hum isn’t actually the moon itself, but the lunar cycle causes whatever makes it. That’s the Hum that we hear. It’s a low-frequency sound, stronger in some places, though nobody knows why. Even some humans can hear it once in a while, but it doesn’t affect them like it does us. Maybe it’s magnetic fields, and we’re just more sensitive. Maybe it’s something magical. Hell if I know, but whatever it is will trip our internal switch, guaranteed, right along with the full moon. You’ve got three nights a month where you will not be able to control it.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad.” She could deal with three lousy nights. Harbinger just scowled and watched the road. “What? There’s a catch. There’s always a catch.”

“It’s complicated . . . Three nights you have to change, but you’re going to want to change all the time. Like a dog, when something runs, they want to chase it down. That’s us, only worse. Something pisses you off, you want to kill it. You want something, you just take it. Something turns you on . . .” He stopped himself, glanced over at her, and began to blush. Heather was surprised, but Harbinger seemed downright old-fashioned. “Sorry.”

“I’m a cop, Harbinger, not a nun. I started on a big-city department, and the attractive ones always get loaned out to vice on prostitution stings.” Heather had never thought of herself as beautiful, but she knew that she at least qualified as pretty. “You’ve got assets, you work them. Thirty-six D, baby.”

Harbinger coughed politely. “Gotcha.”

Mr. Tough-guy-monster-slayer hadn’t struck her as a prude. “I’ve seen things that would blow your mind. Just a word of advice: The hooker with all her teeth? That’s the undercover cop.”

“Ahem. Well, let’s just say it can get ugly. New moon, with some practice, you can control yourself, even changed if you have to. The closer it is to the full moon, though, the harder it gets, and on the full moon, it’s tough as a human, and changed, not a chance. I’ve had years of practice, and I still lock myself into a vault on those three nights. . . . Well, I did. I’m still not used to thinking I won’t have to do that anymore.”

Heather went back to looking out the window. They were covering a lot of ground, but it was all neighborhoods where the scouting parties had already checked. She’d taken a map and a marker and had split Copper Lake’s tiny neighborhoods into sections for the other groups to check. Nobody had questioned her authority when she’d given out the assignments. Apparently, if you acted as if you were in charge, everyone just assumed you were. “Turn left up here.”

Harbinger complied. “You getting something?” he asked hopefully.

“Confused. That’s about it.” Heather was feeling pretty good right then. The bouts of rampaging hunger had settled down, as had the out-of-nowhere anger. She didn’t feel too different, though every light on the dash seemed too bright, the engine was too loud, the air flow from the heater was obnoxious against her exposed skin, and she was being assaulted with so many confusing smells that she could taste the air. “Level with me, Harbinger. How hard is this going to be?”

“That depends entirely on you,” he answered, completely evading her question.

“Don’t be such a chickenshit. Give it to me straight.”

Harbinger didn’t respond for a long time. This seemed really difficult for him. She started to say something else, but he cut her off. “You need to know I am, or was, I guess, a rare one. Honestly, there’s only been a handful of us ever to control it. It takes an iron will. It gets easier, but I’ve worked at this for a really long time. Almost everyone turns pure evil. Most that keep it contained, it ain’t because they want to. It’s because they’re afraid of someone like me coming along to take them out, so they keep it low key. I’d say ninety percent are dead within a few months of getting turned, another nine percent make a year, tops . . .” he trailed off. “That one percent left, though, they’re the dangerous ones. Most of them don’t give up the hunt—they’re just clever enough to hide it.”

“And then there’s a few like you.”

“I suppose. We’re an odd breed.”

Heather wasn’t the quitting type. The trophy case she’d broken back at the school had held a bunch of items with her name etched on them. She’d made the boys’ hockey team out of spite just because somebody had once told her girls couldn’t play. It was similar reasoning that had caused her to become a police officer. Life had beat her down at every opportunity, but she still sucked it up and got along. There had been plenty of opportunities to give up. She’d lost so many people, so quickly. After the personal tragedies of the last few years, nobody would have batted an eye if she’d just given up, but having inherited an Irish temper and Finnish stubbornness, she was just too damned obstinate to let life win. So, if Harbinger could beat this curse, so could she.

“You said that you’ve been doing this a long time?”

He chuckled as he glanced over at her. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. . . .” She didn’t blink. “Hell. All right. I was born in 1900.”

“And?”

“Nineteen and nothing. One-nine-zero-zero,” he explained. Heather stared at him blankly. “Nineteen hundred A.D. You know, the one after 1899. I fought in World War One. I’ve got grandkids older than you. You’d like this one great-granddaughter of mine, though. I think you two would probably get along great. She don’t take no crap off nobody, either.”

Heather closed her eyes. If it wasn’t for the fact that she’d watched a cut on her knuckles heal in four seconds in addition to a bunch of other weird supernatural goings-on, she would just have assumed that Harbinger was stoned, but at this point, anything seemed plausible. “So, werewolves don’t age?”

“No. We still age. Just really slow. The transformation is a rejuvenating process, like a monthly tune-up. Plus, you heal faster and you don’t get sick. I haven’t had a cold since the Twenties. If it wasn’t for the uncontrollable bloodlust, this curse does have its good side. I’ve smoked about a million cigarettes, but got fresh lungs every full moon. Oh, your fillings will fall out when your teeth change into fangs, but you don’t have to worry about cavities ever again.”

It was insane. “That’s just so . . . Wow . . . Hell. I don’t even know.”

“Transformations burn calories like running a marathon. So we eat a ton. When we go to buffets, my team always teases that I don’t get full, I just run out of time. I try to fatten up every month. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised after the beating I took earlier if I didn’t lose thirty pounds today alone.”

“Wait!” Heather came out of the seat so suddenly that Harbinger stepped on the brakes. The truck slid in the snow.

“What? Do you sense the amulet?” he asked quickly, scanning back and forth for threats.

“No. Not that. You mean that I can eat whatever I want, all that I want, and I can’t ever get fat?”

Surprised, Harbinger stammered his response. “Well, of course.”

It was a remarkably exciting idea. “Doughnuts, cookies, chocolate? Oh my God. Pie?” Heather asked. Harbinger just nodded along through the list. “Seriously . . . Pie?”

“Hell, you can do all that and wrap it in bacon if you feel like it.” Harbinger waited for a further outburst, but none came.

Heather sat back, deep in thought, wearing a giant grin. They got moving. About half a block later, she spoke again. “If I’d known that, I would’ve gotten bit by a werewolf years ago.”

“Well, there is all the murder,” Harbinger pointed out.

“I know, but all-you-can-eat pie!” Heather chose to look on the bright side. Besides the temper, she’d also inherited her mother’s sweet tooth. Unfortunately, Mom had gotten fat and developed type 2 diabetes by the time she was forty. Heather loved to eat and hated to work out but exercised religiously because she had vowed not to end up like her mom, fat and with amputated toes. “Pie, Harbinger. That’s awesome.”

Harbinger just shrugged. “If I said anything, I’d be a hypocrite. If R.J. Reynolds has a corporate jet, I probably paid for it.”

They reached her street. It was eerily quiet, cloaked in fluffy white and completely dark. “Pull over up there. The blue one. That’s my house.” Not that the color mattered, since every house was plastered in snow. “I just thought of something.”

“Snack run?” Harbinger asked, only partially in jest.

“We live until morning and I’m going to eat an entire birthday cake and wash it down with a Super Big Gulp. No. Something that the prisoner said about my grandpa earlier got me thinking.” The truck stopped, and she hopped out quickly, dragging the Winchester along. Harbinger left the engine running and followed with another one of those old tommy guns of his. She had to shout to be heard over the wind. “Somebody else came by asking about my grandpa, too, looking for a necklace. He said his name was Peterson.”

That got Harbinger’s attention. “Handsome fella? Little shorter than me?”

“Yep. He seemed nice at first, but there was something off about him.”

“That was Nikolai Petrov, Stalin’s favorite werewolf.”

“Friend of yours?”

“I’ve almost managed to kill him twice now. I caught his stink on your clothes earlier. You’re lucky to be alive.”

They started toward the house. Harbinger kept moving his head side to side, always searching. Heather couldn’t explain it, but she knew that there were no werewolves near. They were close, but not close enough to be an immediate problem. The whole weird sense thing was kind of cool. She heard the other engine long before she saw the lights. “There’s somebody coming.” Heather pointed down the road.

Harbinger had to squint for a long time to even see it. He swore. “I feel like I’m blind.”

It was an SUV, a Cadillac with all the extra chrome, spinning rims, and obnoxious bling. Heather immediately noted the Illinois plates. More tourists. Which meant that she needed to warn them. She started waving.

*   *   *

The roads were barely passable. Visibility was awful. Loco was driving. Lins was in the passenger seat with the window rolled down, more worried about catching whatever Jo Ann had than frostbite. Horst had the middle row to himself, trying to figure out how he could salvage what was left of his company, and Jo Ann was in the back, making strange wheezing noises. Risking one glance, Horst winced when he saw that she was faring even worse, her face a mottled purple and gray, like one big spreading bruise, and her sweat had taken on a thick, mucuslike sheen. Little bubbles formed on her nostrils and popped every time she exhaled.

After that, he kept a scarf over his nose and mouth, and his eyes forward.

Most people would think it strange that he felt not even the slightest bit of concern for Jo Ann’s well-being. Sure, he liked her okay. She was easy on the eyes and helpful to have around, but Ryan Horst didn’t really like anyone. People were just kind of there. Some benefited him, others didn’t. If she died, it would be really inconvenient, but that was about it.

The thing that was really bugging him was that this job was a total failure. His company, and by extension, he personally, would look bad. Horst didn’t really care about people, but he sure did care about what the important ones thought about him. Kelley was dead, Jo Ann was probably going to die, and he figured that Lins and Loco would bail on him now that he wasn’t going to be able to pay them. At this rate, he would never make it big.

They were close to the hospital when he saw the headlights. It was the first active vehicle they’d seen since sliding out of the grocery-store parking lot. A large pickup was parked on the side of the road, lights on, the exhaust cloud indicating that it was still running. Two figures were clumping through the snow by the truck. Horst swiveled his head as they crunched past. It was a man and a woman, both bundled up, both carrying guns. The woman was trying to flag them down, probably to warn them that her stupid town was covered in monsters. Loco just kept on driving. The man gave them a slow appraisal, then a cold nod as they passed on by.

Recognition slapped Horst right in the face. “That’s Earl Harbinger,” Horst said. He’d hit the jackpot. “Stop the car.”

“We’ve got to get Jo help first,” Loco stated.

“Stop the car, idiot. Harbinger’s the werewolf,” Horst exclaimed, but they didn’t so much as slow down. “Loco, listen to me. He’s worth a fortune.” Horst spun around. Harbinger and the woman were already out of sight. By the time they got Jo Ann dropped off, they’d lose him.

And Horst would lose millions of dollars.

He turned back. “Stop the car. That’s an order. We need to pop that guy, right now.”

Loco didn’t budge. He was too stupid to listen to reason. “She’s dying. We don’t have time.”

Shit! “Harbinger’s the oldest werewolf in the world. The PUFF on him is huge, and he’s getting away.”

Lins looked over the seat, suspicious. “Why didn’t you tell us that before?”

Because I was going to keep most of it. “Because I didn’t want you distracted. But I got the intel right from the government.” Well, Stark, anyway. “Harbinger’s head is worth at least a million bucks.”

Lins’ motives were easy to understand. He didn’t even have to think about it for long. “You heard the man, Loco. Pull over.”

“We’ll go back for him once we get Jo some help,” he insisted. “The hospital is just over there.”

“Screw that!” Lins shouted. “I didn’t come up here to get some disease, I came up here to get paid!”

“No,” Loco said with more force.

Horst glanced out the back window. Harbinger was sure to drive off in the other direction, taking all that ridiculous PUFF with him, and there was no way he was going to admit defeat that easily. Loco was a moron. Horst reached into his coat and unsnapped the thumb break on his shoulder holster. He turned forward, voice low and deadly as the FN Five-seveN cleared nylon. “Last chance. Stop this car or else.”

“You gonna shoot me? Kill me and Jo both?”

“She’d want us to catch him. She was committed to this company.”

Loco laughed. Horst had never heard him laugh before. It was a mirthless sound. “You’re a real piece of work, Horst.”

Decision made, Horst pushed the muzzle of the FN deep into the seat ahead of him and said, “Larry, grab the wheel,” then pulled the trigger. The concussion of the 5.7mm was sharp in the enclosed space. Stuffing flew from the hole in the fabric. Loco bellowed as the bullet slammed into his back. Lins went for the steering wheel and tried to jam his foot over the brake. The big man was tough, though, and got a hold of Lins’s shirt, so this time Horst lifted his gun and shot Loco in the back of the head.

Lins got control of the vehicle as Loco’s heavy skull hit the steering wheel. They slid to a stop, sideways, in the middle of the road. The safety glass was broken, and there was blood on the dash. Loco moved slightly and groaned in pain. Horst must have only winged that big noggin and would gladly have pumped a few more rounds into it, but Lins was now blocking the shot. His only remaining employee reached over, found the door handle, and spilled Jason Lococo out into the snow.

Chapter 17

We owned the night.

The other side was tenacious and damn tough. The nefarious bastards were in it to win it. That just meant that we had to kill more of them before they got scared.

Travis was a wrecking ball. It turned out that Bullmen were extremely robust. Their hide is nearly impenetrable, and they heal at an astounding rate. Not as quick as a lycanthrope, mind you, but one day Travis could soak up half a mag from an AK-47, and the next he’d be anxious to go out again. He did get shot a lot, though, because he wasn’t very fast and was too damn big to make very effective use of cover. We had to keep him way ahead of the vulnerable mortals of first squad, because Travis tended to fly into fits of rage. Charlie began to tell campfire stores about him, as something that translated roughly into “Furious Water Buffalo.”

Sharon was a surprise. Singer was her assigned name, and she’d received it because of her talent. Her father had been a sailor. Her mother had been a siren. That particular relationship had worked out better than normal, with the sailor not being drowned then eaten, and Sharon had been the result, brought back to human civilization and raised to be a civilized young lady. That had mostly worked out, until the government had decided that a half-siren still belonged on the PUFF list.

Ironically, she’d never hurt a fly until the government had helped her find that side of herself. Though she was far stronger than a human, she was not as tough as me or our Texas Longhorn Furious Water Buffalo, but the girl was a terror of a different kind. Her song haunted the jungle. She could get into a man’s mind and twist it so that you couldn’t see straight. Sentries were unaware, patrols got sloppy, and no man could withstand her interrogations. All she had to do was bat her eyelashes a few times, say a few words, and the prisoners would spill their guts. She didn’t even speak the language.

We had to bring on a local from the ARVN to translate. His name was Van. Destroyer had worked with him once before, and said he spoke just about every dialect in the region. His French was better than his English, and his English was better than mine. I was surprised how young he was, but he proved valuable, and the kid was hilarious.

We were very effective. The humans of first squad were as good a bunch of soldiers as I’d ever met. Destroyer was a consummate professional. Even while riding in the close confines of a chopper, sitting across from a hunched-over Travis, disguised only by being covered in a big blanket, the man didn’t ask any questions. He got us in, covered our butts, and got us out. The two of us were never friendly. Destroyer obeyed orders and didn’t talk much. I don’t think he liked the assignment or me.

Conover was a far better leader than expected. He actually cared about everyone under his command. He was one of those rare leaders with real integrity, and after having been recruited for a few of these black operations over the decades, I was thankful we’d ended up with somebody like him. If he hadn’t stayed with the government after the war, I would have loved to have recruited him to MHI. He would have made a superb team lead.

As for me . . . I led the actual missions in the field. Nobody had more experience than me. First squad thought of me as just another human, only one extraordinarily good at stealth and jungle fighting, though I think Destroyer suspected I was something more akin to the blanket-wearing giant and the nearly glowing goddess that forced them to wear earplugs. Three nights a month I was lowered into a pit, and then Travis covered the top with something heavy. Even in a war, there are certain things that shouldn’t be done, not if you want to be able to tell yourself that you’re the good guy.

That would soon change.

*   *   *

Heather stopped at her front door to remove her heavy gloves in order to manipulate the keys. A lot of the older folks in Copper Lake didn’t even bother to lock their doors, but she knew what the actual stats were. Even their small town had enough tweakers to really run up the property-crime numbers. Like every other rural part of the country, there were meth labs out there, and when there was meth, there was thievery. If she was lucky maybe the werewolves would eat some of those scumbags and OD from the chemical cocktail in their blood. It would be like killing two birds with one stone.

There was a series of pops. She froze, listening. “You hear that?”

Harbinger looked around. “Nope. I feel like I’m deaf.” Despite having thrown an old leather coat over his weird armor suit, his teeth were chattering.

“Gunshots . . .” There was the slamming of a car door, the roar of an engine, the spinning of tires. “That SUV is turning around.” A sudden fear hit. It must be the two government men. They’d murdered Chase earlier, and now they were coming back to finish her.

“Get inside,” Harbinger ordered.

Heather found her house key and got the door open just as the returning headlights illuminated the front yard. Harbinger followed her inside and closed the door behind them.

Startled, Otto began barking in the kitchen. To his credit, the German shepherd was ready to repel intruders. Her dog was just a shadow as he moved through the living room, shoulders hunched, head low. “Easy, boy,” Heather said. “It’s just me.” The barking ceased. Otto stopped, tilting his head, confused. It was like he didn’t recognize her in the dark. He barred his teeth and growled. “Calm down, big dummy.” The German shepherd got closer, snarling. Then Heather realized she could smell Otto’s fear. He was scared of her.

Peeking through the blinds, Harbinger studied the road. “Hmm . . . I don’t know who this is. You know ’em?”

Otto was her pet, her loyal companion, but right then he was prepared to go for her throat. Otto may have only had three legs, but he was still an intimidating eighty pounds of Purina-fed muscle. “Harbinger, my dog doesn’t recognize me.”

He didn’t turn from the window. “I should’ve told you. Animals fear us. Dogs especially hate our guts. I hope you’re not into horseback riding.”

Not Otto. He’d been a loyal friend forever. She loved Otto. There was no way. She reached out one hand, but Otto’s brave growl turned into a whimper, and he scrambled for the kitchen, tail between his legs. It broke her heart. “Otto?”

“What’re these assholes doing? Wait. One fella is getting out. Guns. Get down!” Harbinger grabbed her by the sleeve and jerked her to the floor just as the window shattered. Heather hit the carpet hard. There was a crackling noise as a machine gun raked bullets through the walls. Splinters and drywall rained down on them as the gun thundered.

Harbinger rolled on top of her protectively, a purely instinctive move, but asinine since he was only human and therefore not much better than a meat sandbag. “Crawl! Get to cover!” he shouted in her ear before rolling off, raising his Thompson and firing back through the window. He was answered with even more fire, but Heather was already scrambling for the kitchen. She’d just reached the linoleum when the bullet struck. The impact hit like a baseball bat and took her leg right out from under her. Heather shouted in surprise and fell on her face.

It took a second to realize that she’d been hit. She’d never been shot before. It burned. Rolling over, she grabbed her calf and felt the blood pouring between her fingers. The kitchen cupboards were flying apart, so she tried to become one with the floor.

Harbinger had heard her cry. Rising, still shooting, he backpedaled until he reached the kitchen and took cover in the doorway. “You hit?”

“I’m okay,” she responded, but as she spoke, the burning sensation mutated into the worst pain ever. “Oh shit! No, I’m not. My leg!”

Bullets still flying, Harbinger came to her, and Heather almost passed out when he touched her leg, grabbing it roughly in the dark. His hands were firm as he probed the wound. Heather shrieked as her severed nerve endings fired. The pain flipped a switch deep inside. Something deep within Heather awoke. She gasped, but it wasn’t because of the gunshot wound.

“Artery ain’t hit. Keep pressure on it,” he ordered. “And stay down.”

“No kidding!” Heather shouted as the microwave exploded.

Then Harbinger was just gone. He may have only been human, but he was fast.

Earl used his minotaur-hide coat to protect his face as he went through the side window. It was an old, solidly constructed house, and in the excitement, Earl had forgotten that he was no longer a werewolf. That fact was driven home as he slammed his shoulder through the wooden slats and tumbled into the snow in a cascade of broken glass.

“Damn,” Earl croaked as he got up and concealed himself in the deep shadows of the wall. That had actually hurt. The gunfire stopped. Earl was up and moving instantly. Running through the deep snow was far harder than it should have been. His legs were too weak. Reaching the front corner of Kerkonen’s house, Earl crouched and shuffled into the narrow space between the wall and a snow-covered bush. It was dark except for the headlights, which their attackers hadn’t had the forethought to actually point at their target. The light reflected off the snow of the road, illuminating the yard but leaving everything else in deep shadows.

Earl peeked over the edge of the porch. There were two of them. A short white guy with a buzzed head was wrestling with the feed tray on a SAW, obviously not familiar with the weapon. An older man with a mane of gray hair and an M-4 carbine was going up the steps, heading for the blasted front door. The SUV’s windows had been tinted, so he didn’t know how many other targets he had, so he’d start with these two assholes.

It would have been easy to just mow both of the knuckleheads down, but Earl kind of wanted to know why they were shooting at him first. He’d long ago rigged all his Thompsons with single-point slings that clipped to his armor so he could just drop his gun to use his hands, and Earl had always been a hands-on kind of guy. He let the Thompson fall as the first shooter huffed his way to the front door.

“Come on, Ryan! Back me up.”

“The damn gun’s jammed,” the one with the SAW responded, obviously frustrated. “Hang on, Larry. Wait for me.”

The names meant nothing to him. Earl smiled. These two idiots had tunnel vision. They were so fixated on what was inside the house that they couldn’t see the danger right under their noses. Focusing on a perceived threat while losing your peripheral vision was a common effect of an adrenaline rush. That’s why Earl always told his Newbies to keep on scanning.

“Hell with it,” Larry shouted as he raised one boot to straight-kick the door in. Earl reached under the porch railing, grabbed him by the other ankle, and yanked. He yelped in surprise as his grounded foot came out from under him, and then he was tumbling down the icy steps. Earl came around the porch in a flash. He kicked the M-4 carbine off into the snow, then brutally slammed his fist square into Larry’s face, and Earl knew how to knock someone the hell out. Earl grimaced as the shock traveled up the bones of his hand, but Larry was down.

The one named Ryan looked up from trying to clear the malfunction and saw Earl coming right at him, wearing a look of predatory confidence. “Oh shit!” Ryan tossed the SAW, reached across his body, and stuck one hand into his coat. Shoulder holsters amused Earl. They were comfy, but they sucked when your target was right up in your face, which Earl promptly demonstrated by reaching over and easily trapping Ryan’s hand inside his coat. “Shit!” Ryan shouted again, eyes widening, as he realized he couldn’t get his pistol out. Earl smiled, then brutally head-butted the shorter man.

The sound of their skulls connecting made a terrible thud noise. Ryan hit the snow flat on his back. Dizzy, Earl staggered away, holding his forehead. That was another move that worked great as a werewolf, but not so much as a human. “Son of a bitch, that stings.” Everyone loses with a head butt.

But like they say, if an idea’s stupid, but it works, then it ain’t stupid, and Ryan was neutralized, moaning and dazed. Earl crouched there, waiting to see if there were other would-be assassins. Cursing his lack of awareness and the general dullness of human senses, Earl decided that apparently it was just this pair of jackasses.

With headache rapidly forming, Earl removed the pistol from his fallen opponent’s coat. It was one of those oversized Belgian plastic guns that carried half a box of those little tiny armor-piercing bullets. He threw it in the bushes. Larry was still out, but Earl patted him down just in case. This time he found a .50 Desert Eagle, which was probably the single most unwieldy pistol ever manufactured, and to make matters worse, this one was actually gold plated. Grimacing, Earl tossed the gaudy thing onto Kerkonen’s roof, where it would be hidden until the snow melted. He dragged Larry by the leg back to his buddy and dropped him there. Ryan was stirring, so Earl helped wake him up with a swift kick to the ribs.

“Ohhh . . . My head . . .” Ryan came to, saw the Thompson pointed casually at his face, realized what was happening, and immediately began to whine. “Please don’t kill me. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Harbinger. Please don’t hurt me.”

“You’ve got the advantage, then. You know who I am. So, who’re you and why are you shooting at me?” It took Earl a moment to realize that Ryan looked familiar. “Hold on.” Earl reached down, grabbed Ryan by the collar, and dragged him up. Sure enough, it was one of his old Newbies. “Horst? Ryan Horst?”

“Yeah. You remembered,” Horst said, raising his hands defensively. It was obvious he hadn’t been mentally prepared for Earl being the one with the upper hand. “Come on, man, careful where you point that thing.”

“This?” Earl jiggled the Thompson under Horst’s nose. “You’re lucky I don’t ram it up your ass. What’re you doing here?”

“Hunting monsters, just like you taught me.” His voice quaked.

“Taught you? Hell, boy, I fired you.” Earl remembered that Horst had been a low-life hood, but that hadn’t precluded him from being picked for a Newbie class. A couple of Earl’s best Hunters were ex-cons. The important thing was that they were survivors. The problem with Horst wasn’t that he’d survived, it was the how, and when MHI had found out the whole story, they’d immediately booted him. “And I can see I made the right choice, because no decent Hunter would’ve got snookered so easy. Why’d you shoot at me?”

Horst was nervous, his eyes kept flicking down to the .45 caliber hole at the end of the Thompson. Earl remembered that Horst was the kind of sleazeball, know-it-all bastard who thought he could talk his way out of anything. Blood was running pathetically from his nose, but he tried to stand straight and look Earl square in the eye. “I promise I won’t tell anybody your secret if you let me go.”

“How—what’re you talking about?” That took him completely by surprise. He was always careful to make sure the Newbies didn’t know about his condition. Larry groaned, dizzy, bleary-eyed, and tried to sit up, So Earl removed the Thompson from Horst’s face long enough to whack the barrel over Larry’s head. Larry cried out and covered his head protectively.

“You stay down there.” The Thompson’s muzzle returned to Horst’s neck. “You talk.”

He was an excellent liar. “I won’t tell anybody you’re a werewolf. Look, I can give you money. Lots of money. I’ve got a rich uncle. He’ll—” He cringed when Earl slapped him upside the head.

It made Earl’s hand sting in the cold. “Do I look stupid? Who told you I was a werewolf?”

“Agent Stark!” Horst exclaimed, hoping to turn Earl’s wrath against someone else. “Stark told us about how big the PUFF was. He told us you were evil, and that all the killing tonight was your fault.”

Stark. Earl scowled. If the MCB had turned loose on him, he had even bigger problems on his hands than Nikolai, the mystery Alpha, Old Ones, and a pack of werewolves to deal with. The MCB were an obnoxious but dedicated bunch. Ending up on their shit list meant that he was going to have to find a rock to hide under for the rest of his life. “Where’s Stark?”

Horst seemed glad to give that up. It gave Earl somebody else to be mad at. “The hospital, last I saw.”

Earl had an idea. “Stark lied to you. I don’t know why. The guy’s crazy. Watch this.” He lowered the Thompson and pulled a folding knife from his pocket. Earl flicked it open. Horst flinched, surely imagining that Earl was going to carve him up, but instead Earl made a small cut on the back of his own hand. He held it right in Horst’s face as it bled. “See that? It ain’t healing. I’m no werewolf. I’m just a man.” The blood kept on flowing. “You kill me, all you’re getting is a murder charge, not a dime of PUFF.”

“It’s totally Stark’s fault.” Horst nodded his head at the blood. “I was just trying to help. You know, all that saving people, protecting the public, just like MHI. We’re on the same side. It was all a big misunderstanding. I was just doing my job.”

“Job?” Even if they were from a rival company, other Hunters could make a huge difference. MHI was the best, but some of the other companies were pretty damn good, too, and Copper Lake needed all the help it could get. “Who the hell hired the likes of you?”

“Briarwood Eradication Services,” Horst answered quickly.

“Never heard of them.”

“BES? Based out of Chicago?”

“Ain’t ringing any bells,” Earl said. Horst seemed somehow deflated. Larry started to get up again, so Earl kicked him on the shoulder. That time he seemed to get the hint and just stayed still. These had to be the other Hunters he’d saved at the grocery store, where he’d been promptly rewarded by getting an ax to the back. “Where’s your team leader?”

Horst was hesitant as he answered. “I’m the team lead—”

Earl snorted. It figured. Sure, some of the other companies were professionals, but for every one of them, there were five little fly-by-night outfits just trying to cash in on the PUFF. He wasn’t going to get any help from these amateurs. If their attempt on him consisted of hosing half a neighborhood with a belt-fed, then they’d probably be even more of a danger to the locals than the werewolves. Earl leaned in close and gave Horst an order. His tone left no doubt that it was not a suggestion. “Get your team. Get out of town. If you make it, spread the word and get help.”

Horst was wide-eyed and seemed glad to just get out of there with his life. Earl let go of his collar and gestured with the knife at Larry. Horst helped lift his dazed friend, and the two stumbled for their car. “Horst,” Earl shouted after them. His former employee stopped. “As a professional courtesy, one hunter to another, you get one free pass. Cross me again, and I put you in the ground.”

Horst gave him a nod of acknowledgment, but Earl could see the hate in his eyes. This one could be trouble. Earl briefly entertained the thought of just gunning them down and being done with it, but a terrible wail came from the house at his back. It was audible even over the wind. The Briarwood men scrambled for the perceived safety of their car. Earl turned and lifted his subgun. “Damn it, Heather, not now.” He started up the icy steps as the Cadillac fled. He didn’t want to execute Kerkonen, but it didn’t sound like he was going to have much choice.

Where am I?

It took a moment. It was dark, but she could see okay. She was on the kitchen floor, which just raised other questions, like how she’d gotten there. Then she saw the damage. The fridge was open, and the power had to be out because no light was coming from it. The digital clock must be out on the microwave, too, since it was blank. Then, as the clarity of her vision improved, she saw that the microwave was broken open and the fridge door was puckered with holes. Cabinet doors were hanging from broken hinges. The window over the sink was shattered and snow was blowing in. The flimsy curtains around the window were billowing in the wind.

Why am I sticky? Ewww. What is this mess?

Something warm and wet was on her hands, on her face. It soaked her clothes, making them cling to her body. She felt nauseous and feverish.

I must have gotten really drunk.

Slowly the events of the night came trickling back. Buckley, the monsters, getting bitten, running, striking back . . . Then the trickle turned into a flood, and as the dam burst, Heather realized exactly how she’d ended up on her kitchen floor. Lifting one tattered pant leg, she checked, but her calf muscle was whole and smooth. She lay there, breathing hard, thankful to be alive and wishing that it was in fact all a bad dream but already knowing that it wasn’t.

Her senses were too acute. There were voices in the front yard, two engines running. The kitchen smelled of broken containers, freshly disturbed dust, and . . . death? In a panic, she realized that she couldn’t remember what had happened after she’d gotten shot. It had hurt. She’d been scared, but after that . . . What? What had she done? She remembered the inwardly directed fear turning into outwardly directed anger, and then nothing.

Chairs had been turned over. One was broken. There was a darker shape in the shadows under the kitchen table. These memories seemed alien, out of place, but she knew that it had just been hurled there. The blood on her clothing, on her face and hands, had come from it. Hurt, she had lashed out. She remembered instinctively eating so she could recover, and then a sudden shock and revulsion. The other set of memories had tapered off then, leaving her alone.

She crawled toward the table. “Otto?” There was no answer. The shape didn’t move. It was him. Otto was dead. She reached her dog, pulled him into her lap, and started to sob, rocking back and forth. She’d killed her dog, her friend. Heather lifted her head and howled her sorrow with a voice that was more than human.

Otto had been murdered, and she barely even remembered doing it. Tears cut through the blood on her cheeks. This was what Harbinger had warned her about. She was a monster. She hadn’t even changed physically, and she’d eaten her dog.

The steps were audible a long way away. Harbinger walked softly by anyone’s standards, but each boot fall seemed like thunder in her ears. He stopped in the doorway. Her back was to him, but she didn’t need to turn to know that he had a gun pointed at her. “Heather?” he asked hesitantly, surely ready for her to leap up, with golden eyes and fangs to attack him, so he could mow her down without remorse. “Heather?”

“I killed him,” she whispered.

“What?” There was another step. A glass shard ground between his sole and the floor.

“Otto. I killed Otto.” She held the cooling mass of blood-soaked fur tightly in her arms as she rocked back and forth. She’d pulled another one of his legs off. Had the evil part of her thought that was funny? “I killed him and I ate him.”

The Hunter was quiet. Her mind’s eye could see the old gun at his shoulder as he lined the sights up on the back of her head. She’d never see it coming. She deserved it. But instead of putting her out of her misery, he said, “It was an accident. You reined it in quick. That’s a good thing.”

“Shoot me, Harbinger.”

“Only if I have to.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.” There was a metal-on-metal click as Harbinger put the safety on and a creak of a nylon strap as he set the weapon down. There were two more steps and then a gentle hand on her shoulder. His voice was soft. “Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Chapter 18

The memories are murky here. I’m missing days, and sometimes even weeks from this period. Rocky hurt me badly here.

STFU had been working well together for several months when we were sent to operate out of an area known as Salem House. During this time we may or may not have hypothetically entered another country, like say . . . Cambodia, for example. We were inserted by a CH-3, which is a huge and very handy helicopter. All of this riding in helicopters for the last few months had convinced me that MHI really needed a chopper, and I promised myself that when I got home, I was going to buy us one.

A long-range patrol had disappeared. It was believed to be the work of the mysterious Russian. Conover hoped to pin down if this Nikolai even existed, and if so, what he was and how we should best go about killing him.

We found the remains of the patrol in short order. They’d been wiped out so fast that they hadn’t even tried to use the radio. Only two of them had time to fire their weapons. It hadn’t done them any good. I could smell the other werewolf everywhere. He’d left me a note, written on the back of a map and pinned to a dead soldier with his own bayonet.

You kill mine. I kill yours. It is a game. Who is better? Let us find out, brother.

—Nikolai

That was the real beginning of our war.

STFU ambushed a supply train the following day. We killed ten men. I left a note on the leader.

Come out and face me like a man.

Two days later we responded to a raid on a firebase. We were requested by name, which Conover found embarrassing for a unit that did not actually exist. Four men on guard duty had been killed silently, before the intruder had made it all the way to the center of the camp, where he’d left a note on the commanding officer’s cot. He’d taken the major’s head with him. Nobody else had heard a sound.

Dear Mr. Wolf and Special Task Force Unicorn,

You are not trying very hard to impress me. You can do better than this.

—Nikolai

The next night was the full moon. I informed Conover that there would be no need to dig a hole. I was going out alone. He pulled the task force inside the perimeter and issued silver bullets.

*   *   *

Saying that the bridge was out was an understatement. A better description would be that the bridge had been blown to bits. Though rusty, Stark knew his way around demolitions, and he could tell that whoever had taken out the bridge had not known what they were doing, so had made up for it with volume. A few well-placed small charges would have dumped the whole thing into the river. Instead it looked like one really big one had been set square in the middle and detonated. It had worked, though. Nobody would be driving across the scorched remains of that thing anytime soon.

Agent Mosher thumped the steering wheel in frustration. This was the second bridge they’d checked. The first had been just as ruined. “Not again!”

“At least there aren’t any bodies at this one,” Stark pointed out. There had been a pair of snowmobiles abandoned at the last bridge. They’d gotten out to investigate and found where the riders had gone downstream a bit and attempted to cross the icy river at a low spot. The werewolves had picked them off on the far side. A few bloody limbs sticking out of the snow had been the only evidence. Stark checked his watch. They’d be covered by now, probably invisible until spring.

There was one other route out, but Stark had no doubt that it, too, would be covered. Even sitting here, he could tell they were being watched. The trees were thick on each side of the road, surely crawling with werewolves. This was abnormal behavior. Werewolves never showed this kind of coordination or planning. Even the most organized packs the MCB had ever encountered hadn’t shown nearly this level of sophistication.

“Maybe we should try to ford it. It doesn’t look too deep,” Mosher suggested.

The kid’s desire to be the hero was coloring his judgment and making him stupid. “They’d like that, I bet. The river isn’t frozen solid enough yet to walk across. We don’t have wet suits. You fall in that water and you’re in trouble, trust me. And they’ll just be waiting on the other side to pounce, just like those assholes at the last place. Wet, freezing, you’re an easy target.”

Agent Mosher cursed under his breath. It took a while to get the Suburban turned around. Plows weren’t running, and they’d be lucky to make it back to town without getting stuck. “Careful,” Stark ordered. If they got trapped out here, he knew that they were as good as werewolf chow. “Nice and easy.”

“I can drive in this, sir. I’ll get us there. Map shows a third route,” Mosher said. “The next town is to the southwest, and it’s on the same side of the river, so no bridges. Let’s try that next.”

Stark’s contrarian nature made him want to argue. They could easily get stuck or slide off the road, and then they could either walk out and get eaten by werewolves, or they could stay put in the Suburban until they ran out of gas to run the heater, in which case they could freeze to death or be eaten by werewolves. So he really didn’t have any other ideas.

The drive was nerve-wracking. It was a black-and-white, wind-whipping, snow-hurling world outside their windshield. They passed a car abandoned on the side of the road. The doors were open, the interior filling with snow. There was no sign of the driver. Mosher knew better than to even ask about stopping to check. Slowly they made their way through the slippery countryside.

They drove for half an hour. The silence was uncomfortable. Stark missed the constant chatter of the radio. He needed to make conversation. “So, Mosher, how’d you get recruited?”

“Akkadian sand demon attacked my convoy heading out of Faluja.” Mosher laughed nervously as their rear end slipped, but they straightened out and managed not to end up in a ditch. “Though none of us knew what an Akkadian sand demon was at the time. We just thought of it as a giant skeleton-mummy that sand-blasted people to death. Turns out they’re all over the place in Iraq. Official story said we’d hit an IED. A couple of us survived, got recruited. How about you, sir?”

“Deep Ones,” Stark said.

“I hear fish people are nasty,” Mosher said. “We’ve been torpedoing their cities since, what, the Thirties?”

“You don’t know the half of it.” As deepwater imaging had gotten better, every country that could afford subs had gone to work eradicating those vermin. They were down to hiding in tiny settlements off the coast, and the last of their cities were too deep to reach. “Scaly bastards climbed up a cruise ship, ate the men, kidnapped the women. I had just joined SEAL Team Two. We were nearby on a training mission. Small team got inserted by chopper before the sardines could escape. Smoked them all, saved a few hostages, but lost some good men.”

“That’s too bad, sir,” Mosher said.

It had worked out well for Stark’s career, though. Sam Haven had been the senior surviving SEAL on that op. Haven had not been pleased with Stark’s performance, even going so far as to accuse Stark of choking under pressure, but what did they expect? It wasn’t like Stark had gone in there knowing there were fish monsters laying their eggs in tourists. However, Chief Haven had been too honest for his own good, and fought with the MCB over the necessary eradication of the survivors. Haven had been drummed out of the Navy, and Stark had become the official hero of the moment. The rest was history.

The last road out of Copper Lake was also history. Luckily, Stark realized what was going on before they drove into the kill zone. “Stop,” he ordered. Mosher complied immediately. Thankfully, the bright white of the snow gave enough contrast that he could make out the multiple vehicles parked ahead. A truck had been stopped across a narrow, low point in the road, completely blocking it. Some of the cars had tried to go around the truck skirting the forest and had promptly gotten stuck. No one was visible. “It’s a trap.”

“Crap.” Mosher put it in reverse, looked over his shoulder, and sped them back the way they’d come. The first bullet pierced the windshield and center console between them. Other rounds struck the Suburban, hitting with loud metallic pings. “Ambush!”

Stark couldn’t see where the sniper fire was coming from, but he could see the shadows moving between the trees, paralleling them. Werewolves. “Keep driving!” Stark ordered as he rolled down his window, picked up his SCAR-H, and fired the rifle out the window. The stock was still folded, so he didn’t hit anything, but it made the pursuing werewolves think twice, and they took cover.

Mosher got them around the bend, and the incoming fire stopped. The junior agent did a three-point turn, cutting deep new ruts in the snow, while Stark scanned for threats. Don’t get stuck. Don’t get stuck. The werewolves had hunkered down and were just watching now, their mission accomplished.

Stark swore and punched the dash. These things were everywhere.

They were half a mile from the ambush before Mosher spoke. He was flushed with excitement. “We should stop here, try to cut through the forest on foot.”

“Negative. I saw at least two werewolves moving, plus the shooter, who had to be in human form. That’s scary good coordination for these beasts. As thick as that forest is, in these conditions? We’d be dead in ten minutes and never even see them coming.”

“We’ve got NVGs and thermal,” Mosher said.

“And they’ve got a million years of evolution, and that—” Stark waved his hand at the frozen landscape outside the cracked windshield—“is their element. Stalking prey in the woods is what they do! Regulations say that facing lycanthropes in wooded environments requires at least a complete fire team.”

“The next town is only a few clicks,” Mosher insisted. “I could run that in no time. Let me out, you head back to town and I’ll go for help.”

And leave me alone? Oh, hell, no. The kid was brave but incredibly stupid. “Regulations say that we can’t split up.”

Agent Stark wasn’t a coward. He’d done some remarkably brave things . . . when he was younger. This easy little job to earn some under-the-table PUFF had turned into a disaster, and he really didn’t feel like getting eaten for nothing. He’d been like Mosher once, full of piss and vinegar, but years of pushing paper in a soulless bureaucracy had sapped that youthful naïveté. He’d long ago accepted that he wasn’t a hero, he was a bureaucrat. The young guns like Mosher were the ones that got to risk their lives playing hero. Stark was management now.

His young partner must have taken Stark’s lack of response as hesitation. “We need to do something. People are dying!”

Stark sighed. He needed to take a different tack. Mosher was too earnest for his own good. “You’re right, Agent. And getting torn apart in the woods isn’t going to help them. Get us back to the hospital. We’ll do what you suggested earlier and protect these yokels.”

He obviously didn’t like it, and they drove on in stony silence, but like all good MCB agents, Gaige Mosher knew how to obey orders.

Earl Harbinger found himself in a tricky predicament. Normally he wouldn’t be too concerned being around someone newly turned into a werewolf. Worst-case scenario, they’d flip their lid and he’d have to deal with it with some good old-fashioned violence. But he was no longer in a position of strength. Before, if there was a sudden change, and he caught a surprise claw, he’d just tear the upstart’s head off and then heal up in short order. Now, if Heather wigged out on him, he’d probably be dead before he got his gun out. He wasn’t the king of the werewolves anymore. Now he was just another fragile human, and therefore he should do what any sensible human would do in his situation and promptly shoot her dead as soon as her back was turned. Instead, he found himself trying to comfort the distraught young woman turned killing machine because she was upset she’d eaten her dog.

“I’m pretty sure Otto had already been shot before you got to him,” Earl explained. “I’m sure that’s what set you off. He probably never felt a thing.”

Heather had managed to wipe off most of the blood, and she seemed relatively okay after spending the last ten minutes in the bathroom puking. She pushed past him and walked down the hall. “You think so?”

“Sure. Otherwise he would’ve just run from you. Dogs are smart like that. Besides, don’t beat yourself up about it. The first time I changed I ate a family of five.”

“That really doesn’t help.”

He followed her into the bedroom. Heather hadn’t specified what she was looking for, except that it was related to the amulet and the fact that the prisoner had said her grandpa had stolen it. Heather immediately went to rummaging through the back of her closet. With the power out, it was extremely dark back there, but she didn’t bother to turn on her flashlight, and Earl wasn’t about to point that fact out because it would probably just disturb her more.

Now that his vision seemed pathetic, Earl had to use his own flashlight to scan the walls. The room was more feminine than he’d expected for some reason, with frilly pillows, pastel colors, and scented candles. Maybe it was because the entire time he’d known her he’d only seen the tough side of the girl, but it was a little surprising. Also humanizing, but that didn’t exactly help along his thoughts about the potential need to hurry up and shoot her. His light fell on some portraits.

At first Earl thought the lady in the picture with Heather might have been the Queen of the Elves, since she was about the right size, as in morbidly obese, but she had bright red hair. The man standing next to her was dark and thin. “Your folks live around here?”

“Used to. They’re dead,” she answered, not looking.

“Sorry to hear that.”

“It’s been a rough couple years. Mom got sick first, not that she was exactly in good health before that. Dad wasn’t exactly the nursemaid type and really couldn’t handle it, so I ended up quitting my job and moving back here. I got a job at the sheriff’s department. It was supposed to be temporary. Crap.” There was a crash as Heather knocked something off a shelf. “Mom died, but then Grandpa got sick, so I ended up sticking around. . . . Then, right after Grandpa died, Dad . . . well . . . It’s complicated.”

“It’s really none of my business.”

“That’s okay. After Grandpa died, my dad changed. They weren’t close or anything, but Grandpa’s death really did something to him. Messed Dad up. Mom was gone. He started having all sorts of psychological problems, insomnia, and it got worse. He wouldn’t talk about it. He wouldn’t get help. He got really depressed. . . . Shot himself last Christmas. So I guess it’s been almost a year now.”

That was a tough one. “My condolences.”

“Really screwed it up, too. He was in the hospital in a coma for weeks before he slipped away. He really should’ve asked me for advice. Heaven knows I’ve responded to enough suicides to know how to do it right. . . . Wow. That’s morbid. Sorry.”

Earl didn’t know how to respond to that.

“I guess I’m still a little angry at him. Sad, but bitter, too. Well, anyways, everybody is gone, but I don’t know . . . After Dad died, I just felt like I should stay here. I can’t explain what changed. You know, I moved away from Copper Lake as soon as I could when I was younger. I used to hate this place. But somehow I ended up right back where I started.”

“Life’s funny like that.” He moved to the next picture. “This your grandpa?”

Her head popped out of the closet. Heather had discarded her skullcap, and her hair hung in front of one eye. “Yep. That’s the famous Aksel Kerkonen.”

He was a weathered old man, scowling hard at the camera with his wiry arms folded. A gangly teenage girl stood next to him, and it was only the hair color that tipped Earl off that it was a much younger Heather in the picture. “He don’t look friendly.”

“He wasn’t.” Heather went back to looking. “He was a morose, bitter drunk, with an awful temper. He was kind of a local legend, since he kicked the crap out of roughnecks a third his age, got into a few knife fights, and the only reason I think he never went to prison is because everybody in town was too scared of him to testify.”

“You didn’t like him, I take it.”

She came out with a long wooden box and set it on the bed. “Oh, I didn’t say that. I loved Grandpa Aksel. I was about the only person he liked. The guy was a real character.” Heather opened the clasps and lifted the lid. “This was his. He was a sniper during the Winter War.”

Earl shined his flashlight onto the bed. The rifle was an old Mosin Nagant. “May I?” Heather nodded, and Earl lifted the long bolt-action from the case. The wood had been worn smooth by hands and much use. The bolt worked easily for a Nagant, probably polished by a good smith at some point. No scope, which was odd by American precision-rifle standards, but scopes hadn’t been as good back then, and not nearly fog proof, which really mattered when you were fighting in the miserable cold, spitting distance from the Arctic circle. Earl knew his tools and could tell that this rifle had been used hard but well cared for. “M28.” He moved the receiver into the light. “Sako. 1939. The Finnish ones are supposed to be more accurate, I hear.”

Heather was removing items that had been stashed under the rifle and setting them on the bed. “You seem like somebody who knows guns.”

Earl shrugged. “Eh. I got shot by one of these once. Right in the kisser. Pow! That hurt.” She gave him a strange look. “It was a Russian version, though, back in ’45. Race to loot Hitler’s experimental occult bunker . . . Long story. Never mind. What’re you looking for?”

Heather held up a small book. “This belonged to Grandpa, too.” She flipped through the pages until she found what she was looking for. “I’d forgotten about this, but your Russian friend was asking about an amulet that Grandpa might have had. Check it out.”

He traded her the rifle for the book. It wasn’t that different than the little leather-bound journal in his own pocket. Earl held up his flashlight to the yellowed pages. The letters were rough, almost drawn rather than written. “I can’t read Finnish.”

“Me, either, and Grandpa was barely literate anyway, but look at the picture.”

Earl found the little ink drawing she was talking about. Aksel Kerkonen hadn’t been much of an artist, either. “It looks like a pointy blob with a hand in it.”

“That’s what I thought when I first found this after he died, but look at the line around the back. But if that’s a claw, then it’s what I was asked about earlier. Now I’m thinking that line means it’s supposed to be a necklace.” It could be the amulet. After all, Earl hadn’t got the best look at it while it had been ripping him to pieces. The claw in the picture was also short a finger. “And check this out.” She moved in close to him and turned the page. “What’s that look like to you?”

There were a bunch of stick figures, one of which had a gun, a couple of directional arrows, more words in Finnish, and a very cartoonish picture of an explosion. It took him a second to realize what he was looking at. The stick figure’s actions were numbered. “These are instructions.”

“Bingo!” Heather said excitedly. “The prisoner said Grandpa stole their amulet, and I’m betting this is about how he did it. Maybe it can help us get it back, and I can get cured.”

Earl realized that she was standing uncomfortably close, close enough to feel the feverish warmth coming from Heather’s skin. Distracted by the book, she brushed against his chest. Her hip touched his leg. Earl stepped back politely.

Heather caught his uncomfortable reaction and frowned. “Chill out, Harbinger. I’m not going to eat you.”

Though it was a possibility, it actually hadn’t been what he’d been thinking about at that particular moment, but Earl Harbinger had been raised to be a gentlemen. He tried to get back on task. “Know anybody who reads Finnish?”

“A bunch of the old-timers will. We’ve got a pretty big immigrant community here. There were a few at the gym.” Heather placed the archaic Mosin on her bed. “Let’s get back.”

Earl noticed something gleaming in the case. “Hang on a sec.” There was a stripper clip loaded with five rounds of ammunition. He picked up the clip and examined it under his flashlight. It was 7.62x54R for the Mosin, but there was something extremely odd about the projectiles. “Strange. These are sabots.”

“He had a box of those with the rifle. What’s a sabot?”

“An undersized bullet that doesn’t fit the rifling, so it’s held in place by a cup that falls off in flight,” he explained. Heather shrugged; that meant nothing to her. “Pure silver bullets are junk. Stuff’s too light, too hard, and a pain in the ass to make right, so I’ve seen Hunters improvise things like this before. These are silver, but it doesn’t look quite right. They’re too shiny.”

“Let me see,” Heather said, the impatience obvious in her voice. She held out one hand and Earl dropped the stripper clip onto her palm. As one of the bullet tips touched her skin, there was a flash of orange sparks and an audible snap. Heather jerked away and cried out. The ammo went flying. She clutched her hand to her chest. “It shocked me!”

“Let me see,” Earl said. Heather stuck out her injured hand hesitantly. There was an obvious burn mark where the bullet tip had touched her skin. Heather withdrew her hand and put it to her mouth, wincing. Earl picked up the old ammo. “That ain’t normal. Just touching silver should irritate a werewolf, maybe burn a little, but nothing like that. It don’t mess you up unless it’s put inside you, usually at high velocities. What is this stuff?”

Heather took her hand away from her mouth long enough to say “Electric-shock death bullets.”

Earl gathered up the strange ammo. It could come in handy. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Chapter 19

It got dirty from then on. I would change and hunt. Nikolai would respond with a new challenge. I’d kill his side, and then he’d kill mine. The body count climbed. He’d hit a village on our side and arrange the bodies like they were posing for a portrait. I responded by crawling into a tunnel complex and painting it red. Months passed.

He was goading me, pushing me to dark places that I’d thought I’d long ago controlled. I was transforming constantly. It was beginning to change me, to affect my judgment. Santiago would have been very disappointed in my behavior.

But I had to stop him. Nikolai was terrifying. He was everything I was not. He had no reservations, no hesitation, no mercy. Nikolai had to be defeated; otherwise it was like saying that my way was wrong and his was right.

What drives such a man? One part logic and one part savagery. I could not catch him. I couldn’t outwit him, and in order to match him, I found myself doing things that I’d never thought I’d allow myself to do.

I’d not let the animal out to play like this since the island jungles hunting the Japanese. I was enjoying myself far too much. I was free, and I felt justified. Pride made me stupid. I was walking too close to the edge. I would shortly pay the price.

*   *   *

Look at those pathetic slugs. Let’s kill them.

Nikolai crouched in the shadows behind a shed, dressed in clothing stolen from the dead, watching the civilians as they continued their search for survivors. “What would that accomplish?”

They just deserve it. You want a reason? You used to not need a reason. Look where your reasons have gotten us. Fine. They’re weak, they’re stupid, and they’re made of delicious meat. We’re the top of the food chain. It’s our job to eat them.

The voice continued its rant as Nikolai concentrated on the potential threats. There were three trucks working as a convoy, with humans in the back of each and more in the cabs, all armed. Two groups of four were moving between the houses on both sides of the street. He could parallel those, take them out quietly as soon as they got out of view of the vehicles. Then they could pick off whoever they sent after the missing, then kill the remainder at his leisure. It wouldn’t be very hard.

He shook his head to clear out the red fog. Feeling a burst of anger, he once again couldn’t tell if it came from him or the Tvar. Reasoning was difficult. His other half was pushing, becoming more and more demanding. Nikolai knew from long experience that he had to put his foot down or risk losing everything. Killing these men would serve no purpose. “No.”

We’re weak. We’re hungry. They’re right there! Kill them! KILL THEM! DEVOUR THEM!

“Quit shouting at me.” That further enraged the Tvar. Nikolai grimaced against the sudden pain in his head. It was fighting to assume control of their body. It took all of his will to resist the fresh bloodlust pounding in his veins. Three years in desolation had tamed the Tvar, or so Nikolai had thought. He’d been fully in charge for so long that he’d forgotten just how forceful his other half could be. The bones in his hands cracked, and he clumsily dropped his rifle into the snow. Fingernails lengthened into claws. Nikolai curled his hand into a fist and drove the sharp edges deep into his own flesh. “I refuse.”

Don’t deny me. You owe me. Get up. Get up and fight!

Shuddering against the pain, he concentrated, just as his mentor, Koschei, had taught him. Giving in to the Tvar made it stronger, and each time he let it take control he’d be that much more likely to lose himself forever. He never should have let it free, but he’d been so desperate after Harbinger had murdered his wife. Rage had overcome intellect and the Tvar had come back with a vengeance. Being chained had angered it. It would not be put away quietly this time.

The images flashing before his eyes were of slaughter. The Tvar was excited. The delicious hot taste of blood could coat his mouth and quench his thirst. Swallowing hard, Nikolai made himself picture Lila’s face as he’d last seen her alive; eyes as blue as the summer sky. She stood in the doorway of their home, waving, until he was over the hill and out of sight, just as she did every month, proud of his sacrifice yet eager for his return. The image jerked violently to that of her torn corpse. Logically, Nikolai knew the Tvar had done that to anger him, to goad him into changing.

The mission came first. Nikolai’s breath hissed out between his teeth. The cloud of steam clouded his vision just as the Tvar’s anger had clouded his thoughts. He gathered all his strength and pushed the Tvar away from his conscious mind, but it was winning the battle for their body.

It had been a long time since he could think clearly—since Lila’s death, in fact. Blood welled between Nikolai’s clenched fingers. Twitching, he forced his hand open, grasped his rifle, and dragged it against his body. His jaw ached as it began to extend. Teeth ground and cut through gums as they sharpened and grew. He maneuvered the muzzle under his chin. “I warned you.”

No. Wait. If you kill us now, you’ll never have your revenge. Remember Harbinger. Remember what he did to her.

The muzzle of the Val was freezing cold against his throat. “You will be silent.” He was not bluffing. He’d had enough. He would not live as an animal again. She would not have liked that. Lila would be disappointed. Nikolai’s finger found the trigger.

You win for now, coward.

The bleeding claws slowly retracted as the ache in his jaw subsided. Nikolai let the rifle rest against the shed as he sagged, exhausted, into the snow. Bitter, the Tvar retreated from the front of his mind. For the first time since he’d found Lila’s body, his head was clear. He was alone.

Lila had been torn to pieces. The smells had told a story of terrible violence. He’d found Harbinger’s patch, he’d found Harbinger’s message, and the place had reeked with Harbinger’s scent. Enraged, he had broken his sacred promise to his beloved, freed the Tvar, and set out on the hunt.

Lying there in the snow, weakened, freezing, Nikolai thought back to that day. When not distracted by the roiling anger of his other half, Nikolai was a very analytical man, and now he forced himself to remember the details. Every time he’d tried to do that before, the Tvar had interrupted and steered his thoughts back toward revenge. The Tvar had hated his sweet Lila. It had begged him daily to be rid of her so that they could return to their old ways.

This was Harbinger’s fault. Nikolai did not believe in God, and even if he did, he knew there could never be forgiveness for the things he’d done, but for the first time in his long life, Nikolai had found simple happiness. Then the Hunter had forced his hand.

Yet the bastard Harbinger had seemed confused before they had fought. Surely he would have known why Nikolai had come here. Harbinger had unearthed the probable location of Koschei’s amulet and murdered the only person Nikolai loved. Why should he be confused? The purpose of Nikolai’s presence should have been obvious. Perhaps it had been an act to enrage Nikolai before the fight, to distract him from his righteous purpose.

But Harbinger was no actor. Their war had taught him that Harbinger was straightforward, direct. If he’d killed Lila, he wouldn’t have denied it: he would have bragged about it. Harbinger was not devious enough to try to confuse the issue. And despite all of their battles, Harbinger had always avoided harming the innocent. He had a strange respect for humanity that even Nikolai’s human side could not fully comprehend.

The scent was there. The patch. The message. It was obvious. Nikolai shook his head, unsure again who was doing their thinking. Lila had been slaughtered, but Harbinger had not reveled in the slaughter during the war. Even Harbinger’s bestial side had been direct, killing swiftly, without mercy, but then moving on. Perhaps he’d changed, but men like Harbinger didn’t change. Their course was set in stone, and then seen through to their inevitable conclusion.

Why would Harbinger even want the amulet? He never cared for the traditions or the challenges. Harbinger was a king who’d abdicated his throne to live as a man. It made no sense.

The Tvar returned quietly, padding back into his thoughts, sniffing nervously at Nikolai’s suspicions. Enough of this, Nikolai. Please.

It was not like the Tvar to ask. Normally, it only demanded. What did it not want him to know?

There is no time for weakness. There is only time for revenge. For killing. Doubt makes you weak.

“Doubt makes me human.”

Another truck turned onto the road below. The wolfsbane in Nikolai’s pocket threw off his sense of smell, but somehow he knew who had just arrived. Harbinger was here. Nikolai would have his suspicions confirmed, one way or the other. Rising, he took up his rifle and staggered through the snow.

“There,” Heather said, pointing. Earl had to squint hard to even make out the tail lights. “That’s Aino Haapasalo’s bunch. His family immigrated when he was a teenager. He should be able to translate.”

“Grumpy fella, used to be a miner?” Earl asked. “Met him. Nice guy.”

There were a few men bundled up against the cold, huddled in the back of each truck, rifles at the ready, watching. “I volunteered him. He’s a tough old cuss. Used to be Grandpa’s hunting buddy. He’s a good shot, at least when he’s not liquored up.”

Earl smiled. “Is that often?”

“Only at deer camp. Those old timers all loved Grandpa’s homemade booze. It tasted like paint thinner and rusty nails, but it sure did clean out the sinuses.”

She sounded a little better. Earl reasoned that eating your own dog could be rather traumatic. “How’re you holding up?”

“I’m not a quitter, if that’s what you’re wondering. I took an oath to protect this town, and I’m going to keep it.” The words came out with steely determination.

“I’m focused on stopping these monsters, getting that amulet and getting cured. That’s it. Let’s go.”

It appeared the locals were doing as Earl had instructed: using multiple vehicles, keeping them in the center of the road as a kind of mobile fire base, providing cover as another group went door to door, knocking. The trucks had spotlights, but they weren’t using them right now. They could actually see farther without the falling snow reflecting the light back into their eyes. The key to fighting something fast and stealthy was by not putting yourself somewhere it could get a line on you. There were at least two guns pointed at them as they parked. These people were scared, but they were ready to fight. Earl was impressed, and he didn’t impress easily. MHI was going to be able to do a lot of good recruiting in this town, provided anybody survived the night. Copper Lake was keeping it together, but he also knew that if these men came up against the Alpha, they wouldn’t stand a chance.

This street was on the outskirts of town. There were only a few big houses, and behind them was nothing but trees. The squads had probably covered the rest of the town by now. Earl got out, dragging along his Thompson and tugging his coat tight against the freezing cold.

A young man hopped over the tailgate of the nearest truck and headed toward them. “Deputy,” the kid shouted to be heard over the wind. He seemed excited. “We found something! You’ve got to see this. Come on.” Heather looked at Earl, shrugged, and followed. “This was the last house, but man, you won’t believe what’s inside.”

Several sets of boots had crushed a path through an iron gate and up to a large dwelling. It was difficult to tell in the weather, but it seemed like one of the nicer homes Earl had seen in Copper Lake. If it wasn’t considered a mansion, then it was real close. Their guide slipped his way up the path to where two other armed men were waiting at the bottom of the steps. They seemed nervous. The kid pointed them onward before settling in with the others. For whatever reason, he didn’t want to enter the shelter of the home.

The door was open. There was one figure waiting in the shadows at the top of the stairs. Earl barely recognized Aino under his giant wool hat and the scarf that was covering the lower part of his face. The old man seemed huge under all the layers. “Happy to see nothin’s ate ya yet, Heather.” He gave Earl a curt nod. “And, Mr. Earl, glad to see you jump in. I guess this is more fun than huntin’ bears, eh?”

Earl returned the nod. “What did you find?”

“Something odd.” Aino leaned to the side and spit over the railing. “It’s inside.” He stomped his feet on the mat out of habit before entering, leading the way with the beam of his flashlight.

Earl started in, then realized that Heather was standing, frozen. Her eyes were wide, darting back and forth. Something had spooked her.“Werewolves?”

She looked around to make sure no one was close enough to overhear. “Not now, but there was. One of them is strong. He lives here.”

“Who lives here?” Earl asked, already suspecting the answer.

“I don’t know. This is his . . .” Heather paused, smelling the air. “It’s making my head swim. I can’t believe you can’t smell that. Musky. It’s like really strong cologne.”

Earl cursed his pathetic homo-sapiens senses. Conover’s informant had said that Nikolai had just arrived in the country, so this had to be the Alpha’s territory. Their mystery man was a local.

“Come on,” Aino shouted from inside. “Sooner we’re out of here, the better.”

Earl entered, shining his Streamlight along the walls. The place was nice, but unadorned. No pictures, no decorations. It was too clean. Heather followed a moment later, her manner subconsciously meek. Earl recognized the behavior. An Alpha was incredibly intimidating to lesser werewolves, and they were entering his den without permission. He’d always been too stubborn to bow to any werewolf, but he remembered the feeling. Every instinct Heather had was probably telling her not to come inside. Earl understood how much courage that took, even if she didn’t. “Who owns this place?”

His voice seemed to startle Heather back to reality. She swallowed hard. “Used to belong to the Quinn family. The mine owners, before they got sued into oblivion after the big cave-in.” She was gripping her shotgun so hard that her gloves creaked on the forearm. “It was empty for a long time. Then this guy from out of town bought it last summer and fixed it up as a vacation home.” She scowled as Earl shined his light around the mostly empty reception room. “I never met him. He keeps to himself when he is around, lives alone.”

“He got a name?”

“Smith, I think,” she answered as they tracked Aino’s bobbing light around the corner and into the living room.

“Uh-huh. I bet it is.”

“The local girls talked about him a lot. He was single, supposed to be good-looking, apparently rich, day trader or something from back East, but he wasn’t the social type.”

Earl was still thinking about how the Alpha had called him father, but for the life of him, Earl couldn’t recall anyone that he’d ever spread the curse to without having dealt with the repercussions immediately. It was possible that maybe Rocky would have damaged those memories, but there weren’t any gaps in his journal sufficient to explain this. Maybe there would be something here that would clue him in as to who he was dealing with.

The living room was huge, with a vaulted ceiling that opened up to a second floor. Aino was waiting for them by the dead fireplace. “We came through here and spotted a couple of RVs parked round back. The plates were from out’a state, so I figured there’d be guests stayin’ here. Nobody answered, so we broke down the door and came on in. That’s when I saw this. . . .” Aino aimed his light at the far wall, illuminating a monstrosity. Heather gasped and took an involuntary step back.

“Damn.” Earl whistled. “That ain’t something you see every day.”

The skeleton was massive. It would have been too tall to fit in any room with a regular ceiling. The shadow the dark bones cast made it appear even bigger. The teeth gleamed white. One clawed hand was held out, palm open, as if warning them to come no closer. Standing on its rear legs, it towered over them, ugly as sin.

“Mr. Smith had some weird tastes in home decor.” Puzzled, Earl approached the bones cautiously, knowing from experience that just because something was dead didn’t mean it might not try to murder you. Yet it was not some fierce undead, just a bunch of bones held together with stainless-steel rods. It was a museum-quality display. The skull leered at him, grinning with long teeth that, despite their condition, still appeared razor sharp.

“At first I thought this guy had hisself a dinosaur—you know rich folks. But that ain’t no dinosaur, now, is it, eh? It’s got a wolf’s head. Poached and skinned enough of the things to tell,” Aino said. “Oh, don’t give me that look, Heather. What’re you gonna do? Cite me? Look at the skull. That’s a wolf’s skull on a man-shaped body. Sound familiar?”

“It’s a werewolf, all right.” Earl circled the stand, studying how the bones came together. “Just not like any I’ve ever seen.”

“Because it’s the size of a moose.”

“It ain’t just the size. You should see a warg some time.”

“What’s a warg?” Aino asked.

“A real pain in the ass to potty train,” Earl muttered. He lit a cigarette as he paced around the fossil, scowling at the oddity. You can’t study monsters for a century and not learn a thing or two about biology. These looked like werewolf remains, but they were wrong in more ways than just the size. The claws were thicker and too curved. The jaws were longer. The joints were wrong. Though werewolves could run on all fours for short bursts, they were primarily bipeds. Though the stand had this thing upright, it appeared it would be much more comfortable with all four paws on the ground. “I’ve seen a lot of monsters in my day, but I don’t have a clue what this thing is.”

Heather spoke up for the first time. “It’s old.”

“Probably.” Earl examined the creature’s outstretched arm. The bones were remarkably thick. If it had the regenerative abilities of a werewolf, it would have been a nightmare to fight. “Hard to tell when it died.”

“No, I mean it’s really old. I can sm—” Heather glanced over at Aino. “I just can tell. This thing is ancient.”

Earl knew her nose was telling her things far beyond her logical comprehension. “How old do you think?”

“Well, I don’t actually know.”

There was knowledge, and then there was instinct. “Give me your best guess.”

Heather seemed embarrassed. “I’ve got a feeling this thing was hunting wooly mammoths, if you get my drift.”

Not for the first time, Earl found himself missing his werewolf senses. He’d forgotten just how unaware humans were about the world around them. If only he could—Earl caught himself. Don’t be an idiot. After longing to be free of the curse for a lifetime, now by some miracle he’d got his wish and only a few hours later he was whining about it. Hypocrite.

Turning his attention back to the task at hand, Earl followed the creature’s forearm down to the extended claws. Just like a werewolf. This was no paw: it was a hand, fingers, and an opposable thumb. It took him a moment to realize what was wrong.

There were only three fingers. The pinky was missing. It wouldn’t seem so odd, except that the skeleton was remarkably complete. The bone had been sheared off, but he couldn’t tell if that had been before or after it had died.

A fragment of his dream broke loose. The cigarette fell forgotten from his lips. It was as if the dead bones were covered in muscle and sinew, skin and fur. It was a living, breathing monstrosity, thrashing against the thick ropes that bound it to heavy stones. A lone warrior stepped forward to chain the monster’s soul, while an army of men pulled on the ropes, dragging the mighty claw up, for the warrior to place his own palm against it.

He blinked, and the vision was gone. Hesitantly, Earl extended his hand until his palm touched the cold bone and steel rods. It was the image of the amulet. It was the beginning.

“Holy shit . . .” Earl stepped away. He rubbed his face in his hands. This wasn’t some mere museum decoration. This was a sacred object. For the Alpha, this was holy ground.

“What is it, Harbinger?” Heather asked quickly.

“It’s the first one,” he whispered. Just like the images from when the Alpha had torn the curse from his soul; this was the beginning. He turned toward Heather. “This is how the curse started!”

“So, it’s a caveman werewolf?” Heather asked.

“No. This was never a human being. People think of werewolves as a cross between a man and a wolf, but they’re not. The behavior is wrong. The features are wrong. It’s a cross between man and something, all right, but something different from a wolf. Similar, but something older, stronger. Something extinct. Something worse. ”

Aino scratched his stubbly face. “I don’t get what you’re saying.”

Heather instinctively knew. “This thing started as a wolf, but got twisted. Corrupted somehow.”

“There are other shapeshifters out there. All sorts. Man and animal combined, but none are near as savage as the werewolf.” Earl finally stopped and stared right into the ocular cavity of the huge skull. “Look at it! It’s—”

“Beautiful.”

The voice had come from above. Earl spun around as Aino’s light flickered up. Nikolai Petrov leaned over the upstairs railing, haggard, with dark circles under his wild eyes. Earl reached for his Thompson but knew it was too late. The Russian gave a small, fatalistic smile as he casually pointed his strange rifle at Earl’s face. “Place your weapons on the ground. Slowly.”

Nikolai had the drop on them. Earl complied, sliding the sling over his head and putting the Thompson on the carpet. He must have snuck in an upstairs window. Distracted by the bones, none of them had even heard him coming. Heather and Aino were hesitating, but Earl shook his head at them. With Nikolai’s inhuman reaction times, they’d be dead before either could lift their guns.

“Sidearms as well.” Nikolai was wearing a bloodstained coat and a shirt that had been torn to rags. The ribcage was visible through his too-pale skin. Nikolai was little more than a walking skeleton. Their battle had taken a fierce toll. “You should have finished me when you had the opportunity, Harbinger.”

Cursing himself, Earl tossed his revolvers on the floor and slowly raised his hands to a position of surrender. “If somebody hadn’t set me on fire, I would’ve.”

“Yes. Fortunate. I should just shoot you now, but—” Nikolai suddenly grimaced, as if in terrible pain. Earl tensed, ready to go for his revolver, but Nikolai’s gun did not waver. The Russian’s face turned red as he rapidly blinked. “I have to know why. Why did you do it? After all these years, why did you break our truce?”

“I didn’t do any—”

Nikolai jerked, the muscles of his face twitching hard. “Shut up!” he shouted, spit flying from his lips. “Shut up!”

“I was trying to answer your question.”

“Not you, idiot,” Nikolai snarled, steadying himself against the railing. “Him. I asked you a question, Harbinger. Answer me.”

Nikolai’s lost it. “Well, I will if you’d quit yelling,” Earl said, using the calmest voice he had. “Make up your mind.”

Nikolai moved the rifle slightly and blew a hole in the carpet a few inches in front of Earl’s boot. The gun was suppressed, but the sound still made a resounding THUMP in the enclosed space. “No more games. Why did you kill her? She’d done nothing to you.”

“I have no idea who you’re talking about,” Earl said.

“You came all the way to Sklad to rip her apart.”

“Where the fuck is Sklad?”

“It was my home!” Nikolai roared. The next bullet winged Earl’s leg, just barely creasing armor and scratching flesh. Earl flinched. Heather cried out. His minotaur-hide jacket might stop a rifle bullet, but regular Hunter armor wouldn’t. Earl knew the next one was going through something vital. The scratch burned and let loose a thin trickle of blood.

“Never been there, never heard of the place, and I don’t recall going out of my way to kill anybody recently.”

A different sound came out of Nikolai, deep and guttural. “He lies!” Then his voice returned to normal. “I told you to shut up!” Then back to deep. “He’s a trickster. Destroy him!” Nikolai shook his head. “First, I must know the truth.”

Earl glanced toward Heather. She was more confused than he was. Aino mouthed the word crazy. Earl turned back to Nikolai. “I didn’t come into your territory. You came into mine. I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

A scowl creased Nikolai’s face. “He’s telling the truth. But how . . . how did his scent—the patch. Wait . . . You wanted me to believe. You lied to me.”

“I’m not lying!”

“I’m not talking to you, Harbinger!” Nikolai was growing increasingly frustrated. “It was a simple trick. I should have seen right through it, but you let me believe. All this time, you clouded my mind, all so you could run free.”

The Russian was erratic, and the crazier he got, the odds of them getting shot grew. “You were lured here. I think we both were. Lower that gun, Nikolai. We’ve got a mutual enemy.”

The Russian’s face contorted. For a moment he appeared to be an entirely different person. Nikolai’s strange, deep voice intruded. “Harbinger lies! I would never betray you.”

“I’ve been framed. Can’t you see? We’re both being used. Me, you, and . . . you. Both of you have been set up.”

“Don’t patronize me. I should kill you where you stand . . . but you’re telling the truth. You do not have the amulet. I would be able to feel it. In fact . . .” Nikolai sniffed the air. “Impossible. The wolfsbane must be corrupting our senses. I can smell the female, but I can’t smell you. It’s as if you’re just one of them.”

He knows. Perhaps if he could get Nikolai off guard, he’d have a chance. “Your real enemy used that amulet to remove my curse. I’m only a man. I’m no longer any threat to you, but the other Alpha is. He’s powerful, too powerful, and he’s up to no good. He’s got dark magic and minor Old Ones helping him. Help me stop him, Nikolai. He’s the one that hurt your woman, not me.”

Nikolai went quiet, deep in thought. Standing perfectly still, they waited for nearly a minute. Despite the cold, Earl felt a single bead of sweat roll down his forehead. His arms were starting to quiver from holding them up. Nikolai seemed to breathe again. His next words dripped with weariness. “I know now what I must do.”

Then, with incredible speed, the Russian acted. The sudden movement surprised Earl, but rather than using the rifle, Nikolai tossed it aside as he leapt over the railing. He landed effortlessly, crouched in the living room. Earl’s hands flew downward to snatch a revolver from the ground. Nikolai charged as the Smith & Wesson filled his hand, but Earl knew he was too late. His human reaction speeds were too slow. Nikolai was just too fast.

One skeletal hand locked around Earl’s wrist like a vise. Nikolai’s gold-flecked eyes were staring into Earl’s, so close he could smell the Russian’s breath. Yet Nikolai stopped, only inches away. Slowly, Nikolai released Earl’s gun hand and took a step back. The two watched each other, Earl knowing that Nikolai could easily strike him down before he could raise his gun. What’s he doing? Nikolai gave the slightest hint of a nod, like a gunfighter at high noon, and Earl tensed, waiting for the killing blow.

No attack came. Instead, Nikolai bowed.

Earl speed rocked the revolver into position. They were so close he didn’t even need to aim. He drove the muzzle into the top of Nikolai’s skull.

Nikolai spoke, calm for the first time since his arrival in the Alpha’s home. “I yield.”

Finger on the trigger, Earl hesitated. “Huh?”

The tone was humble. “You are the superior werewolf. I submit to the will of your pack.”

“What?” A few more ounces of pressure and Earl would put a silver bullet through the top of his enemy’s head. “What . . . What are you doing, Nikolai?”

“Surrendering. I challenged and failed. Do with me as you will.”

Dumbfounded, Earl just stared at the man kneeling at his feet. “You miss the part where I’m not a werewolf anymore?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Nikolai said, lowering his forehead until it touched the floor. “I need you. I’m not strong enough to hold him much longer. The Tvar, the beast inside me, believes in the old ways. He will follow. He has to. Instinct demands it. You won. We lost. I pledge myself to your pack. Do with me as you will . . . Kill me, but let me help you find the man that hurt Lila first.”

Clack. Earl thumbed back the hammer of the Smith. Cocking a double-action was a totally unnecessary movement, but it made him feel more confident for some reason. “You’re insane. You had me, and you do . . . whatever the hell this is?”

There was no response. Plea made, Nikolai waited patiently for his sentencing.

“What’re you waitin’ for?” Aino shouted. “Shoot him already!”

But for the first time in his life, Earl Harbinger was actually too surprised to kill someone.

Chapter 20

There are many gaps in my memory here, and for once I think I might actually be thankful to Rocky for taking something from me. Some things are better forgotten.

I’d changed and gone out alone, hoping to find his scent, but Nikolai was too clever for that. I happened on some Viet Cong setting booby traps. I killed them and then followed their trail back to their base. It wasn’t an armed camp. It was a village.

I can try to justify what happened next. These were the enemy. This was where they lived. There were families here, but it was my enemy’s fault for hiding behind them. This was war. Nikolai shouldn’t have pushed me. . . . But the excuses are hollow. They’re human excuses, human justifications. I was a werewolf, operating on instinct, and I was doing what came naturally.

We found a new note several days later.

Mr. Wolf,

Playtime is over. Now we are getting down to serious business. I have been looking for a suitable challenge, and it seems I have finally found one. With respect.

—Nikolai

It seems all werewolves are searching for something.

*   *   *

The Alpha awoke suddenly. Fevered dreams had haunted his sleep, plagued by visions of the lesser werewolves that had come before. Strange energy hummed through his body. The becoming was complete.

He’d taken refuge inside Shaft Six. The witch had buried her two diggers at the entrance to guard as he’d slept, vulnerable. Lucinda was upstairs, resting next to a propane heater. His senses could pick her up easily through several floors. The prisoner he’d had Lucinda’s minions gather was secured in another room to be dealt with later. A few members of his pack had returned to the relative safety of the mine building to lick their wounds. Two were sleeping on the ground nearby, having returned to human form, recuperating from multiple gunshot wounds.

The amulet of Koschei rested on his chest, burning with the heat of Earl Harbinger’s werewolf spirit. Taking it in his hands, the Alpha could feel the spirit inside stir. It was powering him, giving him greater vitality and strength, just as the first of their kind had robbed the mighty forerunner to become so much more than human.

Since the time of his ascension was at hand, it was time to raise the vulkodlak. The whole thing was very exciting. They would be an unstoppable wave, crashing across the Earth. Koschei had been too frightened to set them free, but he had been a fool, an immortal with no ambition, which made for a remarkably sad creature. The Alpha, on the other hand, was a man of vision.

It was simple, really. The vulkodlak would spread like wildfire. This isolated town was just a practice run. The humans would probably be able to contain this first wave, but the Alpha had been planning for this moment for a long time.

The MCB would try to contain them in silence at first, but it would be too much. The vulkodlak reproduced far too rapidly. The Alpha knew exactly how the MCB would respond, because he had studied their doctrine. Copper Lake would be cut off from the world and burned clean. This place was just a test, and a deserving one at that, since it had unwittingly sheltered the man, Aksel Kerkonen, who’d dared to steal the birthright of an immortal.

The hiding place of the amulet was sparsely populated and about as isolated as anything in the continental United States could be. It seemed a waste to unleash the vulkodlak here. Copper Lake, the tiny community where he’d lived off and on for the last year while searching for the amulet, was just to get the bugs worked out without the MCB leadership getting too nervous. They’d cover it up and assume it was some sort of isolated event. Similar things had happened before and would probably happen again. It would be just another monster-related tragedy in a long list. By the time they figured out what had happened, he’d be ready to launch the second wave.

The big show would come later. He’d analyze the results of tonight’s mission and adjust accordingly. There was a steep learning curve involved whenever ancient magic was utilized. He knew this, but he liked to dream big. The next wave would be far more impressive. He had children staged in huge, densely packed cities all across the country. He’d run the simulations himself using MCB-designed software. If everything worked as predicted, eighty percent of the population of Chicago would be overrun in eight hours. New York in six.

Humanity would not last under that onslaught. They were an evolutionary dead end. The select would become werewolves. Those that fought would be harvested for the vulkodlak. The remainder would be kept as prey. He reasoned that entire regions would become game preserves. The Alpha was going to hit the reset button for the world.

Harbinger’s life was more than strong enough to raise the local vulkodlak, but the Alpha didn’t want to squander such a spirit just yet. The amulet had been created with dark magic to enslave and bind the spirits of monsters. He understood that now. It burned life as fuel. Every use drained it. It would need constant replenishment: the stronger the werewolf, the better. If he’d realized that before, he never would have let Harbinger kill Petrov. He would have harvested both of them instead. He hated being wasteful.

There were others that he could use instead. They were his pack, but most of them were expendable.

Strange, the Alpha thought to himself as he selected his victims. He’d loved his pack once, but their lives no longer mattered. Only an hour ago, these had been his beloved children, but now they were just more fuel. The two here would suffice. For some reason, he could no longer remember their names.

He raised his voice and shouted for Lucinda. The entire shaft shook. He would need the witch’s help for the awakening. The thunderous noise startled the other werewolves awake. Frightened, they tried to creep away, but he coaxed them back with a gentle word, using the full power of his voice, and they meekly returned. He reached out and took a female by the neck.

The harvest had begun.

Nikolai took a seat on the leather couch at the far end of the Alpha’s living room. He seemed rational now, but Earl wasn’t taking any chances. The Hunter stood at the far end of the room, his Thompson shouldered and trained on the Russian. The safety was off, and Earl’s finger was already inside the trigger guard. At the slightest movement, Earl would hose him down.

The giant skeleton sat there, watching from the shadows. Heather had given her grandfather’s journal to Aino to try and to decipher, and the miner had gone back to the relative safety of the convoy to read. Earl had asked Heather to explore the rest of the house to search for anything interesting. She was not a trained Hunter, and probably wouldn’t know what to look for, but Earl had wanted to question Nikolai alone. Earl planned on killing Nikolai as soon as they were done talking. Witnesses seemed to cheapen that. Though evil, Nikolai was a warrior and deserved at least some dignity in death.

“I always suspected you would be the one that finally killed me,” Nikolai began.

“I had that thought about you a few times myself,” Earl answered. “I can’t say I ever imagined you’d just up and commit suicide, though.”

“I died the day I found Lila dead. The weeks since have been nothing but a bad dream.”

“I didn’t do that,” Earl stated. “I give you my word.”

“I know that now. Tvar has relented. I can see clearly again.” Nikolai shook his head. “They must have had something of yours and used it to spread your scent at the scene. I should have seen right through the ruse, but he capitalized on my anger, confused me so that I would let him run free. . . . I don’t know how you do it. . . . How do you keep yours chained so well? He is so demanding. Always interrupting, only letting me think when it suits his purposes.”

It was the first time the two of them had actually had a conversation, and Earl was mildly surprised to discover that he didn’t understand his old nemesis nearly as well as he’d thought. “That’s not really how it works for me.”

Nikolai’s werewolf side had broken off and become a separate personality. Earl’s was, or had been, just a shadow in his mind, jumbled urges and anger. He shuddered at the thought of it actually talking. If anything, Earl’s inner werewolf had been the strong, silent type.

“Lucky you,” Nikolai said. “I’d contained it. The longer I was strong, the quieter it became, until finally it was silent except for when the moon was full. Someone helped me find peace, but when I lost her, it came rushing back to fill the void. . . . But enough about that, comrade. Will you accept my service?”

“I’ve not come to a conclusion on that point just yet,” Earl lied.

Nikolai knew the truth. “I understand. Do what you will, but just know this: until you pull that trigger, I am your man. I have sworn my loyalty to you. The Tvar was winning. I could not allow that. It must obey the instincts, and the instincts demand that the superior werewolf leads. It will follow.”

“My distinct lack of werewolfhood might cause a bit of an issue there, when he decides to come out and eat me and all.”

“You have my word that I’ll deal with that should it arise.”

“You were a KGB assassin. Forgive me if I don’t get warm fuzzies about your personal integrity.”

Nikolai smirked. “Believe what you will. I will answer your questions to the best of my ability until my time comes. The Tvar is confounded for now. All I ask is that you avenge Lila. The one who bears the amulet of Koschei must be stopped at all costs.”

“Who is it that has the amulet?”

“I’d thought it was you, of course. I do not know his identity, but he must have been remarkably strong to even wield it. It doesn’t matter now, though.”

“And why’s that?”

“The amulet will have changed him by now. Whoever he was before will have been erased. It is a powerful artifact.”

Earl was getting tired of holding up the Thompson. Being a werewolf, he’d forgotten how darn heavy these things were, having been made back in the good old days when everything was made of solid wood and machined steel. “Tell me about it.”

“Do you know of Koschei?” Nikolai asked. When Earl shook his head in the negative, Nikolai continued. “He was my mentor. The oldest of all werewolves. He’d pledged his loyalty to Lenin, and Stalin after that, though neither realized just how old he really was. They believed him to be just a mere werewolf, willing to serve in exchange for legitimacy and protection, which sounds a bit familiar. . . .”

Earl didn’t let the jab upset him. “Man’s gotta eat.”

Nikolai continued. “Since Koschei wore the amulet, he was virtually immortal. He kept a low profile, doing their bidding but never rocking the boat. Before the Soviet Union, he had served the tsars, and before that the Rus. Before that, who knows? He was a follower, not a leader. Koschei was a figure of myth. They called him the Deathless, yet he rarely indulged in using the amulet’s powers. I believe he was afraid of it. I had become like a son to him before he even revealed it to me. Not even he knew where it had come from, only that it was old, and that it granted terrible powers.”

Earl nodded toward the skeleton. “This fancy amulet look like that thing’s hand by chance?”

A moment passed as Nikolai silently studied the three-fingered claw. “In fact, yes. Though I do not know what this creature was, it calls to me. Can’t you hear its song? No, of course not, I forget, your Tvar has been silenced. Believe me, Harbinger, these bones are special. This is a shrine.”

“You mentioned terrible powers. What’re we talking about here?”

“The amulet feeds on the life energy of werewolves and bestows it on the bearer. Koschei only used it sparingly to keep from aging. For someone who was supposedly a loyal Communist, he had an inordinate fear of the afterlife. However, near indestructibility is not the ability that worries me. Have you heard of vulkodlak?”

The prisoner in the county jail had spoken of them before Earl had put him out of his misery. “Only in passing.”

“I first heard it from one of Stalin’s Romanian necromancers. When Koschei learned that the Motherland was experimenting in such things, he became distressed. I suspect that he even sabotaged the project. Well, perhaps sabotage is the incorrect word, since the outright murder of several necromancers is a bit stronger than sabotage. Koschei had lived for seven centuries, and nothing caused him greater worry than the idea of the vulkodlak. I do not know the specifics of such beings, only that they are related to werewolves and death magic, and that they struck fear into the heart of an unstoppable man.”

“Well, I’m guessing somebody stopped him, otherwise his fancy necklace wouldn’t have ended up in Michigan.” Earl finally gave up and sat on the carpet, leaning his sore back against the wall. He was careful to keep the subgun on Nikolai the entire time. “Do you know how he went down?”

“I was not there. Stalin sent him to fight in the Winter War. Koschei was lost in battle. Intelligence discovered who had been given credit for the kill, a young rifleman named Kerkonen. The amulet was never recovered, but since I was the only one aware of the amulet’s significance, I did not pursue it.”

“Why not?” Earl asked. “Something like that could have been mighty handy for you Commie bastards.”

Nikolai’s smile was unnerving. “If you knew my Tvar, you would understand. He could never be allowed such a toy. It was for the best, for all of us.”

This confirmed what Earl had already learned. Heather’s grandfather had somehow defeated an immortal werewolf and then brought its magic talisman to America. Why hadn’t he just destroyed the damn thing? Why come here at all? Had he realized what he had? The rough pictures in the journal indicated that he had at least some idea of its significance.

“Who else knew about the amulet?” Earl wondered aloud. “It’s no coincidence that a powerful werewolf who just happened to have the bones of the great-granddaddy of all werewolves moved into this house in the town where the amulet was hidden.”

“Perhaps it was fate?” Nikolai suggested.

“Me and fate don’t get along, and coincidence ain’t exactly my friend, either.” Earl kept his right hand on the Thompson’s grip as he fished a cigarette out of his coat with his left. “Want a smoke?”

“Do I get a blindfold, too?”

Earl chuckled. “Like you’d want one. Don’t worry, you’ll see it coming. That’s only fair. . . .” Earl lit up and took a long draw. He blew out a cloud. Hopefully the Alpha didn’t smoke and Earl was at least stinking up his fancy living room. “So, how do I kill this asshole?”

“I do not know, but I would like to help. It helps when I have a purpose. If you order me to help, Tvar will have no choice but to obey.”

“Nikolai, I’m afraid you’re broken inside, and I don’t trust you at all. I’m trying real hard to decide what to do with you right about now. I don’t suspect you’ll like what I’ve come up with.”

“I can be of assistance.”

“I’m sure you could. . . . One question?” Earl took another puff, savoring the smoke. He was going to miss those regenerating lungs. “How many innocent people have you killed? Not in total, because we both know it would take all night to make that list. How many have died just since you’ve gone on your latest rampage?”

Nikolai looked down at his hands. “Too many.”

“One is too many, comrade.”

There was a polite cough as Heather came down the stairs. “Am I interrupting something?” she asked.

“Nothing of significance. Just my trial,” Nikolai said, taking his eyes off Earl for a moment. “My, my, Deputy, aren’t you the lovely specimen. The curse suits some of us more than others. I bet you feel simply wonderful right now. You’re quite the butterfly compared to the little caterpillar I met this afternoon.”

“Stuff it, weirdo.” Heather walked as far around Nikolai as possible. “The place is mostly bare, Harbinger. Everything is neat as can be. Clothes are clean and folded. No ID, no papers, no personal effects, no decoration, nada. There’s a Mac on the kitchen table. We can plug it in at the school and see if there’s anything useful on it.” She held out something to Earl. “This is the only thing out of place in the whole house, other than Mr. Bony, obviously. It was in the dresser drawer next to the bed.”

“Cover him for me,” Earl suggested as he took the photograph. Heather aimed her shotgun at Nikolai.

“I assure you, there’s no need for that, my dear.” Nikolai spread his hands innocently.

Heather cocked her head to the side. “I’m guessing people have probably told you you’re a charming man, Mr. Peterson.”

“Why, yes, they have.”

“They lied. Now shut the fuck up.”

The photo was crinkled and falling apart with age. Earl flicked open his Zippo and studied it with the light cast by the flame. It was yellowed and discolored to the point that it took him a moment to realize that he knew these people.

It can’t be . . .

Suddenly, everything made sense.

He must have made a noise. “Harbinger?” Heather asked, the concern evident in her voice. “Are you okay?”

No. I’m not. The Alpha had called him father. He couldn’t remember spreading the curse, but the evidence was here. Earl didn’t understand how he’d been tricked, but with dark magic involved, there were ways to deceive the senses. The smell had been wrong, the voice had been wrong, but he and Nikolai had both been lured here, not just because of their strength, but because of their personal connections. Earl had been lied to by someone he’d considered a friend, and there was nothing he hated more.

Earl touched the photograph to the flame. It caught quickly. He held it out as the flames consumed the paper. Finally, as it began to sear his fingers, he tossed it to the carpet and watched it burn. It was sorely tempting to let the fire spread to the whole house, but he rubbed it to ashen bits with the toe of his boot. “Heather, wait for me outside.”

“But—”

“Now!”

Heather hurried for the exit. Earl waited until she was gone before resignedly setting his Thompson on his legs. He closed his eyes, and for a moment didn’t really care if Nikolai charged or not. Apparently, the werewolf meant to try and keep his promise, and stayed seated on the couch. Nikolai sensed the change in Earl’s demeanor. “What is it?”

“It’s just like the old days, Nikolai. . . . We’ve been used. Just like the old days.” Tired, Earl rubbed his face in his hands. He should have been angry, but it just hurt. The last time he’d felt this way was when he’d learned about Martin Hood’s betrayal. Earl was getting mighty sick of people lying to him. “Remember our war?”

“How could I forget?”

“I did. I forgot a bunch of it. Not by choice, but it was taken from me.” Earl opened his eyes. “Apparently, I lost more than I’d thought.”

“I do not understand,” Nikolai said hesitantly.

“It don’t matter. A lot of good men died fighting you.”

“I did not hold a monopoly. Good men died on both sides.”

“What can you tell me about the last time we met in Vietnam?”

“I led an assault on your base of operations. Both sides took heavy casualties. We severely injured each other, and both of us were evacuated.”

“Did I . . . hurt, maybe give the curse to anyone on my side?”

Nikolai seemed confused by the question. “No. You were an honorable adversary.”

Earl smiled as he stood. “Wish I could say the same for you, but you were surely the most dedicated son of a bitch I ever crossed.” He reached to his belt and pulled out one of his Nightguard revolvers. He opened the cylinder and ejected the moon clip. “Scary, mean, downright ruthless, but dedicated.” Earl put the moon clip in one pocket and rummaged around until he came out with another clip holding six rounds. Holding it up, he studied it, squinting in the dim light. Earl ran his thumb over the bullets and nodded. “I can respect that. So I’m giving you a chance.”

“What’s that for?”

“You want me to trust you? Well, after the things you’ve done, you’ve got to earn my trust.” Earl pulled one cartridge’s rim free of the sheet-metal moon clip and studied it. Apparently satisfied with the round of ammunition, Earl dropped it into the cylinder and gave it a hard spin before closing it. “You say your life’s worth nothing and that you’re willing to follow the old ways. Well”—Earl tossed the gun in a long arc across the room—“prove it.”

By the time the revolver landed at Nikolai’s feet, Earl had already lifted his Thompson to cover him. “Really? Russian roulette?”

“Appropriate, don’t you think?” Earl gestured with his subgun. “Pick it up. . . . And you so much as twitch in my direction, I’ll cut you in half with silver bullets. You’re fast, but you ain’t that fast.”

Nikolai slowly lifted the Smith & Wesson. His expression was blank.

“Put it against your temple.”

Hand quivering, Nikolai did as he was told. It took him a long time to respond. “The Tvar is not happy with this development.”

“Your ta-var is a whiny little bitch. Tell him the king of werewolves says to quit his crying. This is how it’s gonna work. I’ll ask a question. Each time you answer wrong, you pull the trigger.”

“I hope this is a short quiz.”

Chapter 21

Sharon was the first to speak to me. We’d been working together long enough that she knew me well. She approached me one day while I sat, exhausted, unshaven, and haggard, smoking and glaring at the jungle. Even my human hours were spent filled with anger. Conover’s superiors had been pushing him, so he’d been pushing us. She told me that she was worried about me.

“I’m just doing my job,” I told her.

“You’re changing, Earl. There is a darkness growing. I can feel it in you.”

It took everything I had not to lash out at her. She was right. I was having a hard time staying in control. “Don’t read my mind. You really won’t like what you find.”

She had a lovely laugh. “That’s not how it works, but I don’t need magic to understand the emotions I can read right off your face. You are not him. He is not a reflection of you. Nikolai is a monster.”

“Look around you. So are we,” I snapped. She put a gentle hand on my shoulder. It was like all of a sudden my cares were less. Happy memories filled my head. Sirens have powerful magic. “Sorry. You’re not. You’re a decent girl with questionable parentage. Travis ain’t a monster, either. Scariest damn thing you’ve ever seen, but he’s basically a big hyperactive teenager. . . . But me, I’m something awful.”

“You do what you have to. You don’t enjoy it like Nikolai does. We’ve all seen what he leaves behind. You’re starting to think that you two are the same.”

“Not anymore. We are the same. Killing . . . It’s all I want to do. It’s all I can think about.”

Sharon then asked something that has stuck with me ever since. “Why does it mean so much to be human when you’re not?”

I didn’t have an answer.

“Oh, Earl. Just think about it. You’re far more human than most humans I know. You have to make a choice. You have to try. Let me help you,” she offered. “I can soothe you. I can quiet the monster inside.”

I laughed at her. “You coming on to me?”

Sharon blanched. “Ugh, no. Really, no offense, but I’m descended from Achelous. My nearly immortal mother fell for my father because he was the most perfect man she’d seen in hundreds of years. Once I get out from under this PUFF thing, I’ll probably go be a model or marry somebody stupidly rich. I’m really, really, really out of your league. If I turn on the charm, men would commit suicide to be with me. You’re kind of . . . plain. And, well, frankly you’re very average. And you’re not very tall. Your accent is horrid, too.”

“Wow. Don’t hold back, honey.”

“And it would be like kissing an ashtray. No, Earl, what I meant was that I can calm you with my magic. I can help you find your focus again. Let me use my voice.”

And she did. Let me tell you, there’s a reason mariners drowned themselves trying to reach a siren.

It turns out that there really is something to that old adage about music soothing the savage beast. Santiago taught me that as well. There are different tools for different times, but the Lord always provides a way for man to control the beast inside. Sometimes, the only way left may be death, but even that is acceptable to the alternative.

*   *   *

Get up! Get up and fight!

Despite the screams of desperation and the muzzle of the big American revolver pressed against his head, Nikolai was strangely calm. The Tvar was helpless. The voice was fainter, and he knew it would stay that way until the moon pushed it to the top. In the meantime, Nikolai was in control. It had no choice but to obey. It would fight, but now it was nothing more than a petulant child.

He’s not even a werewolf anymore. Harbinger is a pathetic human! He’s food. Food can’t lead.

Stalin had only been human, too.

Silence.

The Tvar had no response to that. Nikolai smiled inside. After being captured by the NKVD Hunters, he’d declared his loyalty to the Soviet Union. It was strong. It had beat them, and therefore it had become his Alpha, and the Motherland, his pack. Instinct had been satisfied, and Nikolai had functioned well that way for a long time. Nikolai craved order. Despite its protests, the Tvar needed structure. Having someone else make the decisions for them gave them both purpose. It was only when they were on their own that they struggled to see who was in charge.

We always made a very good soldier. Nikolai was not sure which of them had thought that.

Harbinger was a man of convictions. There was no doubt that if Nikolai failed this test he would die. Death was a frightening prospect, as werewolves desired survival above all, but Nikolai was a man of his word, and he knew that Harbinger, despite his ruthlessness, was not without mercy. He’d thought of that as weakness before, but now he needed that mercy. They would prove themselves, then he would avenge Lila, and the Tvar’s fury would be quenched in the blood of Harbinger’s enemies.

“First question, did you kill Van Huong?”

Nikolai did not know that name. “Who?”

“Wrong answer,” Harbinger stated. “Pull the trigger.”

When not fighting for control, his human mind was extremely analytical under stress. One in six. A seventeen percent chance. It was a reasonable sacrifice to make for peace.

CLICK.

The hammer fell on an empty chamber. He slowly exhaled. His finger creeped forward, and the trigger reset.

“Van was my translator. Disappeared during your attack, was listed as MIA. Ringing any bells?”

Nikolai remembered now. They’d put together an extensive dossier on all of Special Task Force Unicorn, supernatural and normal, before the assault. “Yes. I did. I killed him myself.”

Harbinger’s eyes hardened behind the iron sights of the old Thompson. “He was a good kid.”

“If it is any consolation, I snuck up on him and snapped his neck. It was quick. He never felt a thing.”

“Neither will you. Wrong answer. Pull the trigger.”

“But that wasn’t even a question—”

“Pull the trigger!” Harbinger bellowed.

Two of six. Thirty-three percent. Or to look at it another way, one of five remaining chambers was loaded. Twenty percent. Nikolai held his breath.

“Pull the trigger,” Harbinger ordered. “Or I will.”

He could hear the cylinder rotate. CLICK.

Harbinger sounded grudgingly impressed. “Who betrayed us? How did you find the task force?”

It wasn’t like it was a state secret any longer. “We brought in a Kazakh orc tracker. All orcs have a specialty, and nothing could elude this one. It took him some time to acclimatize to the terrain, but once he did, he led us right to you. ”

“Orcs sure can be talented. I inherited a bunch of Uzbeks. Good folks.”

“You still gave us quite the chase.”

“That we did.” Harbinger’s lips turned up slightly, in a semblance of a smile. “It was a hell of a fight.”

“Admit it, you enjoyed the challenge.”

“A bit.” Harbinger chuckled, then he grew deadly serious. “Oh, and by the way . . . wrong answer.”

Third of six. Fifty percent. Even odds of death; flip a coin. Or one live round in the remaining four chambers. Only a twenty-five percent chance.

That is not helping.

Nikolai’s voice cracked a bit. It made him ashamed. “I am beginning to believe there are no right answers in this test of yours.”

Harbinger shrugged. “Maybe.”

Enough of this. This is madness. Turn it on him! Kill Harbinger! Kill them all—

CLICK.

He was shaking badly. His mouth was dry. His stomach ached with nervous acid. Going back was not an option. Only Harbinger or the other Alpha could defeat them, and the other Alpha had murdered Lila. Masterless, he was nothing but an animal. Death was preferable to failure. Nikolai forced himself to speak. “Next?”

The nub of Harbinger’s cigarette dangled from his lip, forgotten. “Impressive. I want you to know that. You may be an evil man, Nikolai, but you’re an impressive man. I’ve got one last question.”

Four of six. Sixty-seven percent chance that this question would bring a silver bullet. Or one in three remaining possibilities. Thirty-three percent.

“What do you regret?”

It seemed an odd question, but not to someone like Harbinger. He was, above all, a creature of moral absolutes. He pondered on the answer. Nikolai Petrov had taken so many innocent lives over the decades that numbering them seemed like an impossibility. He’d committed atrocities, followed madmen, murdered, burned, tortured, destroyed, and wrecked his way across half the world. He’d fed the gulags, hammering down the nails that stuck out. He’d killed the dissidents, ripping them from their homes and leaving the half-eaten corpses in the streets as a warning to the others. A cog in the greatest death machine ever, he had lived a life free of mercy, compassion, or accountability. And most of that had been done with the full complicity of his human mind. He couldn’t even blame it on the curse.

You named me Tvar, the word for feral beast, but which of us is the real animal?

There was only one true answer. “I regret only one thing. . . . I regret meeting Lila. She showed me a world that I never belonged in. I tried, oh, how I tried for her. I am a corrupter, but I was loved by an innocent. How many like her did I hurt throughout the years? I do not know, but one, just one good person forgave me. Only . . .” Nikolai’s voice fell to a whisper. “Only, by becoming part of her life, I condemned her to death. It would have been better if she’d never known I existed, or perhaps it would have been better if I had never existed at all. . . .”

Nikolai did not wait for Harbinger’s judgment. He pulled the trigger.

“I don’t know what Aksel was goin’ on about. I can read the first part, it’s about being in the war, but this . . .” Aino gestured at the section about the amulet. “This is mostly gibberish. The words seem made up. Maybe it’s a secret army code or something, eh?”

A gunshot rang out. Heather looked up from her grandfather’s journal. The noise had come from inside the Alpha’s house.

“You hear something?” Aino asked.

“Clear as day,” she answered. It was hard to believe that he hadn’t heard that, but Heather had to remind herself: she wasn’t normal anymore. “I’ll be back.”

Heather took her shotgun, got out of the truck, and slammed the door too hard behind her. The biting wind felt refreshing after the artificial warmth of the laboring heater. Quickly, she went up the icy steps three at a time, not even realizing that she did so. The others had to lumber along, lifting each leg high to clear enough snow to walk. Heather forced herself to slow down so as to not look suspicious.

She found Harbinger standing in the living room, the giant skeleton looming behind him. Nikolai Petrov was still on the couch, only slouched forward, and for just a moment she thought that nothing had changed since she’d left. But the smell of exposed brains and blood told her a different story.

How do I even know what brains smell like? Go figure. “What’re you doing?”

Harbinger walked over to the body and picked up one of his big snub-nosed revolvers from where it had fallen on the couch. “Looking for something to write with. I told you to wait outside.”

Blood was leaking out the side of Nikolai’s cracked skull, dripping down his face, and pooling on the carpet. She should have felt something—revulsion, maybe? But she didn’t. It was more habit than any real feeling that made her speak. “You’re a monster.”

“Correction. Monster Hunter.” Harbinger reloaded his revolver and stuck it back under his coat. “I’m only a monster when I have to be. You got a pen?”

The Alpha opened his eyes. He was standing in the center of the bottom level of the Shaft Six building. The walls were covered in blood. Confused, he studied his hands. They were red up to the elbow. He looked up to see Lucinda Hood standing at the top of the catwalk, her mouth agape. It must have been bad, because it took quite a bit to shock a necromancer. “What have you done?”

He looked down. Two of his pack were at his feet, so brutally mangled, more bone than flesh, that they were barely recognizable. The amulet burned even hotter against his chest. It had been fed. He had been fed. “It is time to free the vulkodlak,” he explained.

The witch raised her artificial hand and covered her mouth. Her eyes were wide with fear as she nodded.

Chapter 22

I quit playing Nikolai’s game. We just fulfilled our missions with precision and got back out. His notes kept coming, but I ignored them. Sharon had helped me put the animal back in its place. I would not let him draw it out. We continued fighting, and we accomplished much, all without a single casualty.

A few weeks passed with no communications left by Nikolai. Conover said intelligence from his chain of command suggested that the Russian had been called home. We were told to stand down and await further instructions.

A week later, it was confirmed. Nikolai had returned to Moscow. President Nixon had agreed to draw down any supernatural assets in country. Apparently we weren’t alone, though we’d never met any of the other special task forces in operation. Preparations would be made. First squad would be returned to their regular units; second was going to be flown home with thanks that could never be talked about and a renewed exemption from PUFF. We celebrated.

Nikolai hit us the next evening. Werewolves are sneaky like that. They get you when you least expect it.

*   *   *

Stark paced down the line of stacked bodies. There were far more at the hospital now than when they’d left to go for help. The senior MCB agent muttered and swore under his breath as he stepped between the heads.

“We started it, but the other survivors have been dropping bodies off here, too,” Agent Mosher explained. “The guards posted downstairs said that the town has fortified the school and then formed patrols to fight the monsters and gather people. . . . Kind of like I suggested hours ago.”

Mosher was still bitter. Stark knew that it was because he was too stupid to realize just how much trouble they were going to be in once headquarters found out just what a clusterfuck of a containment this was going to be. Stark was too old to recover from this. This line of bodies and the number of people that knew about them was a career-ending event.

“Don’t get lippy with me, kid.” Stark stopped his pacing at the last corpse in the line. It was the body of that first infected deputy, Joe Buckley. It was uneven from the rest. Stark knelt and pulled back the sheet. Burning to death was always unpleasant. The skin was all crispy and black, except for where it had split open to expose red muscle. This one was even worse, since he was all twisted up, mostly shaped like a werewolf but not quite all the way there. The unevenness was caused by one hand sticking up, like it was reaching for him, claws all curled up from the heat.

It bothered Stark quite a bit, like the stupid monster was still being defiant despite the fact that it was dead. Why wouldn’t monsters just fall into line, like everybody else? Stark stood, put his boot on the forearm and pushed down. It wouldn’t budge. Stark grunted and put more weight on it. Ash flaked off and the bones made a sick cracking noise, but the arm finally went down like it was supposed to. Stark nodded and covered the body back up. “That’s more like it,” he whispered.

Mosher sounded worried. “Are you feeling all right, sir?”

Stark walked away without responding. He wandered down the hallway, still muttering, bubbling with impotent rage. There was a strange noise, for just a split second. It was barely audible, kind of a hum, but then it was gone. It left his ears ringing and added to his growing headache.

“You hear that?” Mosher asked nervously.

“Probably nothing.” Stark ignored his partner. He found a break room with a soda machine in it. At least the generators were running here. He pulled his wallet out from under his armor and thumbed through it.

Mosher had followed him in like a lost puppy. “Sir? What are we going to do now?”

“I’m going to get a Dr. Pepper. . . . You got any dollars? All I’ve got is a twenty.”

This was just like the Pacific Star. One helicopter load of SEALs against an ocean liner full of Deep Ones. There had been so damned many of them. They came out of the walls, through the floor, through the ceiling. They climbed up the sides to slide their slimy heads through the portholes. Every time they’d turned around there were more fish men. All but two of them had been wiped out during the first contact. The fish men had numerical superiority and fucking Dagon on their side. Magic, claws, and ancient mutants against two SEALs? What had Chief Haven expected? Of course Stark had hid. . . . That was the smart thing to do. Hide, and wait for reinforcements.

But no. Not Sam Haven. Mr. Big Shot Hero. He had to go all balls out and kill ten dozen fish men all by himself and then poke an ancient deity in the eye. Well, who’s dead now, asshole? Yeah. You, Sam. You’re dead, and I’m management.

“No . . . I . . . I mean . . .” Mosher was so confused, he was beginning to stutter. It was unbecoming in an MCB agent. “What are we going to do about the situation?”

Stark was getting a headache. He was sick of Mosher’s whining. He was starting to stick up like that crispy werewolf’s arm. “I’ll think of something. . . . But right now I’ve got other problems.” He put his big hands on the soda machine and shook it. Stark had managed to fix other people’s problems and always kept from getting into anything over his head. He was an ideal government employee. It wasn’t his fault werewolves had taken over a whole town. He kicked the hell out of the soda machine, but it still wouldn’t cooperate.

The door closed behind Mosher. “Sir, look at yourself. We’ve got more important things to worry about. People are dying out there!”

This was not an insurmountable problem. Special Agent Douglas Stark of the Monster Control Bureau was a professional. He would get his Dr. Pepper. Failure was not an option. Stark leaned his SCAR rifle in the corner. Studying the machine, he formulated a plan of attack. Drawing his thick SOG knife, he jammed the point in by the lock and began forcing it in, using it as a pry-bar. They’d just blame the property damage on the werewolves. Stark chuckled at his cleverness.

“Agent Stark? Stark! Are you kidding me?” Exasperated, Mosher slammed his fists down on a table. The noise barely distracted Stark from his important task. “What are we going to do?” A gloved hand landed on Stark’s broad shoulder and spun him around. “Look at me, damn it—”

Stark lost it. He slammed his armored forearm into Mosher’s chest and drove him back across the break room. Mosher crashed haphazardly into the wall. Stark pressed his elbow against Mosher’s throat and the combat knife against his cheek. Mosher’s face turned red as he struggled for air.

There are two distinctly different reports at the end of the mission. In the first, a group of SEALs is ambushed in a rescue attempt, until only two remain, a chief and a new officer on his very first assignment. The officer spends the night hiding in a laundry hamper while the chief goes on a one-man suicide mission to save as many hostages as possible from the amphibian servants of an elder god. Except, that lone warrior didn’t like it when the responding MCB cleanup team unnecessarily torched the uninfected survivors. He caused quite a fuss. That makes the first narrative difficult for official channels to swallow.

“You listen to me, dipshit. I’m not going out there. I’m not getting eggs laid in me.” Stark pushed the knife just enough to break the skin. “And you’re not going out there, either. We stick together. Those are the orders. You hear me, Haven. No eggs!”

On the other hand, story two says that the SEAL team defeated the Deep Ones, but lost most of their men in the process. Afterward, an MCB cleanup team responded in a professional capacity, following regulations to the letter. One of the surviving SEALs acted in a very irrational manner and made unsubstantiated allegations that the MCB killed some uninfected survivors, probably due to post-traumatic stress.

Forcibly retire one. Recruit the other to the MCB. “I won.” Stark smiled broadly. “And I’ll win again, because only the survivors get to file the reports.”

It took Stark a second to realize that it wasn’t Sam Haven he was holding against the wall, they weren’t on a cruise ship, and he couldn’t smell fish. He was strangling Monster Control Bureau Special Agent Gaige Mosher, in a crap town filled with werewolves, and the cold thing pressed against his ear was Mosher’s 10mm Glock 20. Mosher managed to hiss. “Let. Me. Go. Asshole.”

Stark removed his elbow, withdrew the knife, and stepped back. Mosher lifted his pistol in one hand and kept it on Stark. “Easy, Gaige. That’s insubordination.” Stark carefully lowered the knife to his side. “Come on now—”

“Stay back,” Mosher ordered. He put one hand on the doorknob. “You’ve gone insane. I can’t believe this. You’ve cracked under stress.”

Stark laughed. “That’s absurd. I was just messing with you. We’ll work through this together.”

“Bullshit! I’m done with you, Stark. If this is how the MCB works, I’m done with it, too!” Mosher was furious. “I’m done sitting around with my thumb up my ass while people are dying. You chicken-shit, I can’t believe you. We’ve got guns. We’ve got training. We’re supposed to be the heroes. Not janitors. Our duty is to protect this country from monsters.”

He’d be damned if he was going to get yelled at by some corn-fed Iowa junior jar-head. “Don’t you dare lecture me on duty, boy. I was—”

“You’re a bureaucrat. You’re a lazy, washed-up, good-for-nothing hack. You push papers, go to meetings, sign the reports, but you’ve forgotten what the job was!”

“This is the end of your career.”

“Career? You’re still thinking about that? I’m talking about our job. Our job is to be heroes. That’s what I signed up for. Ass-kicking, monster-killing heroes. You can sit here and dick around with your pop machine, I’m going to go do my job.” Careful to keep the Glock on Stark, Mosher opened the door. “See you around, Agent Stark.”

Stark’s eyes flashed to what was standing in the doorway. “Oh shit.”

Mosher frowned. “I’m not falling for that.”

The charred, blackened, twisted form that had been Deputy Joe Buckley rose behind Mosher. The werewolf’s hair had been burned off, exposing thick muscles that cracked and bled as he moved. Ruined lips parted in a snarl of jagged teeth, dripping a slurry of bloody ash. Mosher heard the sound and turned, armor creaking. The agent and the werewolf stood nose to nose.

And then Joe Buckley bit Mosher on the face.

Stark blinked as blood splattered him. Mosher screamed and kicked as Buckley dragged him into the hall. There was a series of loud bangs as Mosher ineffectually fired his pistol. Stark hurried and kicked the door shut, but not before he saw that all of his neatly stacked corpses in the hallway were getting up.

“You suck at this,” Lins told Horst.

“Screw you,” Horst muttered, lacking the energy to argue. Plus, it was taking all his attention to maneuver the Escalade without getting stuck.

“No, really, man. You need to go back to whatever it was you did before, because you’re a really lousy monster hunter.”

They’d gotten lost again. Sure, it was a really small town, but Harbinger had knocked him senseless, maybe even given him a minor concussion, which was making it hard to concentrate, and everything looked the same when it was covered in snow. This was what the stupid GPS was for, but according to it their car was in the middle of a giant blue field.

There was a terrible moan from the back of the Caddy. Horst cringed, wishing she’d just hurry up and die or something. Jo Ann sounded really bad. He hadn’t checked on her for a while, since the last time he’d looked she’d been so puffy and slimy. She probably should’ve died already, but she was hanging on for some reason, being a pain in the ass.

“What if she mutates into one of those giant pelican robots?” Lins asked, risking a glance over his shoulder. The side of his head was swollen and purple from Harbinger’s beating.

“Well, we don’t know what those even are. I figure she’ll either die, or maybe they can fix her. So if she does . . . mutate . . . then we collect the PUFF on her, I guess.”

Lins stared at him. “Now that’s some cold shit right there.”

Horst had lost one employee, murdered another, and had another one poisoned. It had been a really tough night. Right then, he’d have collected PUFF on his own mother. “There’s the hospital.”

“Maybe we should just dump her and get out of here,” Lins suggested.

“Who’s cold now?”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“Trust me, Larry,” Horst said. His only surviving employee snorted. “There’s a method to my madness.”

“Oh, what’s your brilliant plan now? We’re down to what, two guns? How much silver we got left? Your million-dollar werewolf isn’t even a werewolf. What’re we gonna do now, smart guy?”

Horst smiled. “Remember how I told you it smelled like burned hair when I went in there earlier? That’s because they’d burned a werewolf upstairs. We know Harbinger’s busy, so he probably hasn’t collected it. All that PUFF money, just sitting there. . . .”

Lins nodded slowly, then grinned. “I take back what I said. That’s good thinking. And we only have to split it two ways.”

The smile on his face was forced now. “Yeah, totally.” Maybe he should have shot Lococo and Lins at the same time. It wasn’t like he’d been particularly useful.

How did MHI make this stuff look so easy?

The lights were on, which meant the generator was still running. At least it would be warm inside. This place was brain-numbingly cold. There were a bunch more cars this time, and he could see people standing in the entrance, and this time they had guns. They didn’t look like Feds or Hunters, though, just regular people, probably standing guard over their injured. “Well, here we are.”

“What’s that?” Lins asked, pointing toward the second floor.

His eyes flicked over just in time to see the window slide open as a large man dressed in black crawled through. “What’s that moron doing?” The man fell from the wall into the snow drift. It was a pretty significant drop. “Weird. Wonder what’s got into him?” The man immediately popped up out of the snow and limped toward them. “Stark?”

“Who?” Lins asked.

“The MCB guy,” Horst began to explain, but Stark turned, raised a pistol in one hand, and fired off several quick shots at the window he’d just jumped from. “Shit!”

Horst threw it into reverse. The tires began to spin on the ice. He looked over his shoulder, clear, and then spun back around. He nearly jumped out of his skin when Stark crashed face-first into the driver’s side window. Stark banged on the glass. Another shape came out the window, only this one didn’t even try to slow its descent. It just dived out, head-first, and disappeared into the drift.

They began to roll backward; Stark ran alongside. He was shouting something that looked like Help me. The black shape came out of the snow. Stark turned and fired several times. The shape went back down. This time Horst could hear him clearly. “Let me in!” Stark reached the back door and began tugging on the handle, but it was locked. “Let me in, you pricks!” He began to fall behind. “Pricks!”

“Ryan, look!” Lins shouted.

The glass front doors of the hospital were now coated in red. . . . But there’d been men standing there just a second ago. . . . “Whoa.” One door swung open, and a man in a big floppy wool hat spilled out, running for his life. He slipped and fell as a woman followed him out the door. She was moving weird, all crouched over, but fast. Her clothing was ripped apart and hanging off. She was on him in a second, raking him with her fingers, only they weren’t fingers at all. They were black claws. The snow all around them turned pink. “Whoa,” Horst repeated.

Fixated on the sight, he drove their back bumper right into the side of a parked truck. They lurched to a sudden halt. Horst whacked his chin on the steering wheel.

Agent Stark caught up. He shattered the backseat window with his pistol, and then reached through to unlock the door. He slid inside. “Drive! Drive, you idiot! Drive!” Horst put it in gear and gunned it. Unable to gain traction, the wheels just spun. “Not like that, damn it!” The thing that had been chasing Stark was up and coming after them. Stark shoved both hands out the window and started shooting. The gun was right behind Horst’s left shoulder. It was extremely loud.

Lins was saying something. “—slow at first. Get it rolling.”

More things were coming out the front of the hospital. One door was open, but they just crashed through the glass of the other and kept on running. They looked like people, but they weren’t. Some of them appeared more like the werewolf pictures he’d been shown in Newbie training, but not quite. It was like they were stuck in between the two forms, all ungainly and messed up. They weren’t hairy at all, though their skin seemed too tight, like you could see the color of their muscles through it, but they had claws and they had fangs and they were coming this way fast.

“Drive, or I’ll kill you myself!” Stark shouted in Horst’s ear while he reloaded his pistol.

It took all his self-control to do it correctly. He gently fed the Caddy gas. Easy. Slowly. Which was difficult when a horde of shrieking lunatics were heading right at you.

A tire caught, they started forward, and then they were gaining traction and speed. Horst began to laugh, but it turned into a shriek as one of the monsters landed on the hood. He was wearing a black armor suit and had a short rifle slung across his chest, though the thing seemed totally unaware of the fact it possessed a gun at all. Most of the face was missing except for a long strip of scalp dangling across the bright red skull. He still had both eyes, only they were impossibly wide, milky-white, and utterly dead. The thing opened a mouth full of long, pointy teeth but made no sound. The half-werewolf slammed a gloved fist into the windshield, shattering it right between the front seats and obscuring their view.

“Mosher!” Stark shouted. He leaned forward and stuck his pistol between Horst and Lins. He cranked off at least half a dozen deafening shots before the thing disappeared from the hood.

“What’s a Mosher?” Lins cried.

“My partner.” Stark was panting. “Was my partner. He already changed into one of them! Infection to transformation in seconds; death followed by almost instantaneous reanimation. . . . Oh, this is bad. This is bad.”

They were on the road. Horst checked his mirror. The monsters were running along behind, and they were keeping up. The first man that had come out of the hospital was convulsing and twitching on the ground. A second later, he popped up and ran after the rest of the pack.

Chapter 23

We were in a supposedly safe area, farther to the south. It was an actual town, with paved roads and everything. I couldn’t pronounce the name to save my life. Van had mocked me, and done a pretty good imitation of my accent in the process. There were a hundred marines stationed next door, so it was about as secure as we’d been in months. Unicorn was relaxed.

We’d picked an evacuated two-story hotel to stay in while awaiting new orders. It was ratty, but sleeping under a roof was a big improvement. As usual, the two squads had been broken up, with first being downstairs and us upstairs. It was rather silly at this point, because most of first had seen Travis, and as Destroyer pointed out to Conover, even when Travis was in “disguise” under a big blanket with eye holes cut out, he left giant hoofprints everywhere he went. But orders were orders, and Travis was honor-bound to impress the government enough to get his tribe taken off the PUFF list. Bullmen were big on the whole honor thing. I’d come to love the big shaggy goofball.

Despite Sharon’s protests about average human males, I’d often caught her batting those big eyes at Conover. They’d been spending a lot of time alone together, and the scents didn’t lie. He was a good-looking man, and unlike many of the people I’d gotten stuck serving under, I actually had a lot of respect for him. Half-siren or not, she could do a whole lot worse. Conover was a rising star in the intelligence community; for all I knew, he was just seeing if they wanted to keep working together. Uh-huh . . . My commanding officer had hooked up with our love-goddess. I was willing to bet that didn’t make it into the official report.

Travis and I were talking that night. I had asked if he was offended that humans ate beef. He thought that was stupid, and asked if I would be offended if he ate a monkey. That of course led into an interesting discussion on theology, since I figured I had no particular relation to monkeys. I ended up asking about the biology of the Bullmen, particularly their females. Okay, so if they’re like a half-girl, half-cow . . . the whole udder thing? How’s that translate over? Up high like on a human, or down low, and if so how would they walk? And are we talking two or four? Travis had told me that I needed to head out to Texas for a visit, and that if I called his girlfriend a heifer at any point, he would be honor bound to duel me to the death.

We’d had a lot of conversations like that. Travis was like a younger brother to me. A giant, monstrous berserker younger brother, but you get the idea. He kept score. He said that I’d saved his life seven times. He’d only saved mine twice. He said that he would never rest until we were even. Bullmen are odd like that.

It hurts to remember what happened next. The first memory is clear, the rest not so much. I remember how it began, and I remember how it ended. Rok’hasna’wrath took much of the rest.

It began with an explosion.

I found out later that it had been a truck bomb. Several tons of explosives detonated between us and the Marine encampment. One moment I was playing cards with the Bullman, and the next the hotel collapsed on top of us.

*   *   *

Heather was just glad to get out of the Alpha’s home. The place had reeked of him, and those bones had filled her with a terrible dread. It was like they were looking at her, angry, and declaring that she wasn’t worthy. Harbinger was a few steps ahead, slipping and sliding his way down the icy steps.

He’d been so graceful earlier, it was a shame that now Harbinger was so slow, weak, and human. He was still a remarkable man, though. And if she’d met him in other circumstances, she might have been interested in getting to know him better.

Heather sucked at dating. Her track record was dismal. She knew she was one of the prettier girls around Copper Lake, but she’d had zero luck meeting anyone decent. She’d even tried Internet dating for a while, but had just felt dumb and lonely paying money to meet bozos from the next town over and had given up.

She’d not met anyone like Earl Harbinger before. Not that she would have thought to tell eHarmony to match her up with a chain-smoking Southern monster hunter. He had an iron will, but at the same time he was still a gentleman. Plus, he wasn’t bad looking. Though he was wearing bulky armor, she could sense the muscles of his legs tighten as he tried to find his balance. Even if he wasn’t a werewolf, he was still strong. She could totally mate with that.

Mate? Who actually used the word mate? Heather stopped herself. She was actually lusting after Harbinger. What the hell? Focus, girl. Psycho werewolf chick or not, I’ve got standards. She shook her head to clear it. It was just like he’d warned her. Fight the random impulses, stay calm, don’t eat anybody, don’t eat your dog, and don’t rip anyone’s clothes off. I can do this. She took a deep breath. He’s got to at least buy me dinner first.

“You get anything from the journal yet?” Harbinger shouted at Aino as they reached the trucks. Aino started to respond, but Heather couldn’t hear the rest because of the terrible humming noise that suddenly slammed into her head.

Hands clamped over her ears, she cried out as she went to her knees. It was like that background hum she’d been hearing all night, only a thousand times worse. Pain like a railroad spike pierced her skull. The sound was killing her.

Harbinger grabbed her by the coat and held her upright. “What’s wrong?”

She tried to answer, but her jaw hurt too much to form words. Maybe she screamed; she couldn’t tell. Heather grabbed the straps on the front of Harbinger’s armor and clung to him. The pain got worse, radiating from her head down her spine and from there out to her bones. Something cracked inside her as a joint realigned, and this time she knew for sure that she screamed.

Harbinger’s mouth was moving. He was yelling orders. She focused on her hands, curled around the fabric pouches on his chest. Blood was coming from around her fingernails. The pain moved down her face to her teeth. Closing her eyes tight, she tried to make it through the pain, but beyond the pain was terror, and the pain actually felt better than the terror.

When she opened her eyes, the world had changed. Colors were different, faded. Only life and shadows to hide in stood out. She could see the blood pumping in Harbinger’s neck, and she wanted nothing more than to reach up and set it free. He was still shouting. “You, pop the tailgate on my truck. Unlatch the big stainless box. Move!” He turned back to her. “Come on, Kerkonen. This way. Hang in there.”

“What’s wrong with her eyes?” The voice sounded too slow, like when you play a video at half speed. The action of a gun was worked. “They’re yellow. She’s one of them.”

“Calm down,” Harbinger said, and it seemed to take forever. “Get out of my way.”

“Shoot her!”

At some point, in addition to the pain in her bones, she must have caught on fire. Her hands were burning. Instinctively, she jerked them away from Harbinger. Bewildered, she watched them, turning them from back to palm. They weren’t on fire at all, but her fingernails were so long. She bit her nails. It was a terrible habit, so she’d never had nice nails before. Too bad they were on fire and bleeding.

“I said, get out of my way,” Harbinger growled at the unseen roadblock.

“Do what Earl says.” Aino sounded scared.

A fresh wave of pain, somehow even bigger than the last, came, this time from her rib cage. The sound of breaking bones was audible even over the humming noise. It twisted her down. She had to drive her hands into the snow to keep from falling over.

“Step aside, stranger.” Distantly, Heather recognized the voice. Something Prescott. She’d cited him for DUI once. He was a real asshole. He seemed really frightened, though; it was probably because of all that screaming. Oh, wait, that’s me. “I’ll shoot you both. I mean it.”

“I ain’t got time for nonsense.” There was a sudden movement ahead of her, and a thud, but Heather couldn’t focus enough to lift her head. Somebody hit the ground. “Any of you other slack-jawed idiots get in my way, you’ll get the same,” Harbinger said. “You, boy. Do what I told you. The rest of you, get out of here. Now!”

The fire spread. Now it was a competition between the skin fire and the bone pain to see which would rend her apart first. It was worse than anything she’d ever imagined. The fire was winning, though. The heat kept getting worse. She ripped her coat off and fell into the snow, but it didn’t help. A hand wrapped around her duty belt, and suddenly she was being dragged through the snow.

“Hang in there, Heather. You can do this.”

A tremor ran down her legs. The bones of both feet broke simultaneously. She kicked out involuntarily and collided with something. Harbinger went sprawling. The burning wouldn’t stop. She began tearing off the rest of her clothes. Her belt buckle fought her. The complicated thing was too confusing, so she curled her hands around each side and ripped the leather in half. She tried to let the pain out through her mouth, but the screams weren’t taking much pain along with them.

“The first one’s always the hardest,” Harbinger muttered in her ear as he lifted her from the snow.

He sounded like he was in pain. I’m sorry! she thought, but now, behind the pain, the burning, and the fear, was something else. Excitement. It beckoned to her. If she could make it past the first three, the last one called. Harbinger’s hands felt like ice blocks on her naked shoulders. He was steering her toward something. It was a silver box. Inside was darkness.

Don’t go into the hole. There is only death in the hole.

She shoved him away. Her push was enough to send him flying across the street. I’m really sorry! In horror, she looked down at her hand again. It was covered in red hair. Fire was red. The burning was leaking out of her skin. Her nails had turned into knives.

Harbinger sat up in the snow, ten feet away. There were new tears down the front of his armor. He winced as he felt the blood. He looked over at Heather and lifted his gun. “Aw, damn it.”

I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! She reached out to him, but then her pelvis snapped. Her spine pushed her skin to the bounds of elasticity. Teeth sawed through her gums. She fell again, screaming. But the scream had changed, this was a new scream, and it let out much more of the pain. No, this was no scream. This was a howl.

Looking up, there was Harbinger, standing over her, bleeding. “I’m sorry,” he said. She saw nothing but meat.

Now she understood why Joe Buckley had begged her for death. She understood why Harbinger had given her the gun—forgotten in her coat—with the silver bullets. The change was starting to feel good.

Kill me! Please! Hurry.

Harbinger lifted his gun.

She lowered her head. Kill me before I kill you.

Everything went black.

A single tiny candle flickered on top of the pathetic little cupcake.

Happy birthday to me.

Happy birthday to me.

In a mine shaft with a bloody werewolf,

Happy birthday to me.

All across Copper Lake, dead bodies rose, powered by the waves emanating from the amulet of Koschei. Anyone that had been killed by one of the Alpha’s pack was born again as one of the wretched vulkodlak. They were remarkable creations; undead lycanthropes, caught somewhere between man and werewolf, nearly mindless, driven only by a single instinct: the need to spread their curse. They would never tire. They would never stop. Smelling prey, the creatures were already surrounding the survivors clustered at the school.

They would kill, but not feed on the flesh. The vulkodlak were vampiric. They would rend the flesh, drink the blood, and within moments the deceased would become one of them. Once the last of the survivors was turned, the vulkodlak would set out in every direction. They were swift on foot and could cover many kilometers before the magic driving the storm died off.

Lucinda knew that the American government would never allow the vulkodlak to spread. Northern Michigan would be burned to ash before they’d let that happen. But the Alpha had thought ahead. Before the government bombs fell, she would use her magic to whisk herself and the Alpha to another prepared location. She had a portal rope tied around her waist, just waiting to be activated. Werewolf-killed corpses had already been prepped and hidden across the country. Vulkodlak would arise elsewhere. Chaos would ensue. Her new god would be pleased.

The plan was brutal and blunt. Her father would not have approved. Martin Hood had been discreet; he’d wielded magic like a surgeon’s scalpel. He’d planned his every move years in advance. In contrast, the Alpha’s plan was like a sledgehammer.

Martin Hood had served the Dread Overlord with the utmost devotion, but in the end, it had been for nothing. MHI had killed her father and her god. Her church had fallen apart, and her hand had been torn off by that super-bitch vampire. Alone, she’d built a new hand with magic and steel, and set about recovering much of her father’s work. It had been a depressing time.

Then she’d found a new god, or rather, he had found her, and a world of new possibilities had opened. She had been the one to introduce the Alpha to her new god. The Alpha had already been working with the Sanctified Church of the Temporary Mortal Condition. They had even traded two of his pack for two of her father’s diggers, to aid his quest to find the amulet of Koschei. The two werewolves had been lost in the assault against the MHI compound, killed by that damned Owen Pitt and the disgusting thing known as Agent Franks, but the Alpha had understood that their deaths had been for the greater good.

She had respected the Alpha at first. It was difficult to admit, but he’d almost become a father figure since Pitt’s bayonet had ended up in her own father’s heart. He was charming, not just because of the gifts he’d inherited from birth, but there was also a certain nobility to his purpose in protecting the werewolf race.

Only, the Alpha was becoming increasingly erratic as the night went on. The amulet was changing him. He had devoured several of his own children in the last hour and hadn’t seemed to notice. Despite knowing that he needed her knowledge of magic to complete his plans, she was becoming frightened of the Alpha.

However, her new god seemed pleased by their progress, and she would do what he commanded. Her new god was not as ancient as the Dread Master; in fact, he’d only recently been awakened from millennia of slumber. But he was far more interested in the affairs of humanity than the distant Old Ones she’d grown up serving.

The new god felt that it was time for the defenses of man to be tested. The Alpha was to be his instrument, and she was to be his prophetess. Today was her nineteenth birthday. She’d packed a Hostess cupcake in her kit along with a single candle and a lighter, because it was a celebration, after all. She’d stuck the candle in the little snack and lit it. Singing to herself seemed a little odd, and everyone else at Shaft Six was either being eaten by the Alpha or hiding from him. The diggers weren’t much for singing, or communicating in general. So, once again, she was on her own.

Lucinda Hood rested her tired head against the cold steel of her artificial hand and watched the snow falling beyond the double-paned glass of the window. There were only a few hours left until dawn. After making a wish, she blew the candle out.

I do not recall what happened next. Rocky destroyed the memory of my final confrontation with Nikolai. He ripped it apart and spread the fragments. All I got are glimpses.

When I began writing this journal, I already knew I was missing that part. The real first memory I have after the battle was stepping out of a chopper onto the deck of an aircraft carrier. Six men of first squad had been killed, and one was missing. Every other man had been injured.

The huge body of Travis Alamo Sam Houston was unmistakable under his blanket, now soaked with blood, as the corpsmen laid him on the deck. Conover and Sharon had both been injured, Conover not too badly, but Sharon had suffered a severe laceration and had been rushed away. We’d been left unsure as to her fate. Conover had cried on my shoulder.

The memories would have been blurry anyway, since I knew that we’d clashed as werewolves. I still know that there was a truce between us, but I don’t know how we got it.

STFU was disbanded. We were instructed not to speak about it and not to contact each other. I was sent home. A few months later, I got a fancy letter stating that I was once again PUFF-exempt, along with an anonymous note telling me that Sharon had survived, but no other details.

A Bullman came to visit me in Cazador a year after I’d returned. My Hunters almost attacked him before I was able to get them to stand down. He was a holy man. He told me that Travis Alamo Sam Houston had earned a PUFF exemption for the Bullmen of East Texas, and that in his final message to his people, he’d spoken of how he’d declared a werewolf to be his brother, and therefore of his tribe. The shaman had brought me a gift. It was a leather hide.

I damn near blew a gasket when I found out it was Travis. The shaman explained. The greatest honor a Bullman could bestow was to give his body in the service of his tribe. It was their way. I suppose it was like Travis telling me that death wasn’t about to keep him from watching my back. It would be a huge dishonor on all Bullmen not to use the gift. Plus, the shaman was Travis’s father.

Turns out Travis’s letters to his tribe had detailed how he still needed to save my life several times before we were even. The shaman explained that this was the only way that Travis’s spirit could get a proper rest in Bullman heaven. Together, we crafted the hide into a coat—broke a mess of needles in the process—and the shaman enchanted it with the Bullmen’s strongest medicine. I’ve used it ever since. It was the nicest gift anybody ever gave me.

I’ve not heard from Nikolai since Vietnam. He’s out there. Waiting. I know there will come a time when we meet again. I can only pray that I’m stronger and wiser this time. I have to rise above.

Nikolai reminded me what a true werewolf was. It’s not the claws or the fangs. It isn’t just the physical manifestation. It is the darkness that lives inside us all, left free to roam. The Hum awakes the evil inside. The only difference between us and everyone else is that we can’t keep our evil bottled up like everyone else. We have to face it. We have to overcome it. In Vietnam, I failed. I let myself become like him in order to fight him.

If I could have one wish, it would be to take this curse from me. I dream of being a man, and nothing more than a mortal man. How would it be? Freedom? I can’t even remember what that was like. But even if somehow this curse was lifted tomorrow, I’d still have to pay for my sins. Besides, being cured? That can’t ever be. It’s stupid and vain to wish for the impossible. So instead I will live every day trying to atone for the things I’ve done. It’s the best I can do.

Santiago was wrong. He thought I was a good man. I’m not. I can never be worthy of that title. My father was a good man. Santiago was a good man. Travis was a good man, though he’d be insulted if I called him a man. The men of first squad and the hundreds of Hunters I’ve helped set in the ground have been good men. No. Not me. The best that I can ever aspire to is kicking evil’s ass at every opportunity, until eventually it wins and I die.

Then I can look God in the eye and say that I did the best I could with the hand I got dealt. A werewolf can’t ask for much more than that.

PART 3

The

Harbinger

*   *   *

STFU was operating out of a firebase in the highlands when I found my new name.

Let me explain. As a werewolf, you age very slowly. Having the same Shackleford running MHI for too long could get suspicious, so I’d started picking a new name every generation. I planned on restarting again after getting back from Vietnam, and Mr. Wolf certainly wouldn’t do for a proper name.

One morning Van came and woke me up. He said that an important man had come to the village and wanted to speak with me. You’ve got to understand, we were in the middle of nowhere, so I wasn’t sure what kind of important person would end up out here, but our young translator was adamant. So I followed him down to the Degar village.

I liked the Degar. Montagnards or “Mountain People,” The French called them. So most of the Americans called them Yards for short. They were on our side, and they could fight like nobody’s business. The locals had been guiding Destroyer and his boys and had been feeding intel to STFU.

Van took me to a hut on stilts with a really tall roof. It appeared that all of the local warriors had formed a perimeter around the hut. They were showing a lot of deference to whoever the mystery guest was. Inside the smoky, dark, hot dwelling was one of the oldest men that I’d ever laid eyes on. He was blind, wrinkled, could barely whisper, and was playing with a plate full of chicken entrails.

“What’s the deal, Van?”

“He’s a holy man, Mr. Wolf. He’s come a very long way to find you.”

“No. I mean with that chicken.”

“He’s telling the future.”

Van was an earnest fellow, and I’d never known him to be the superstitious type. The old man whispered something. Van had to lean in real close to translate. “An animal gave its spirit to a man. The spirit was tricky and thought it could change the man. The spirit had always changed the man. But this man would not change. Instead, he made the animal spirit change its ways.”

My condition was not to be spoken about. “I’m sure hoping you didn’t tell him anything classified, Van.”

“No, Mr. Wolf. I didn’t tell him. He said the mountain spirits told him you were coming.” Flexible mind, I preferred to think that this old man’s mountain spirits were whispering to him rather than my translator was talking about things that could get him in trouble. The old man kept on whispering. “He says that the animal spirits have waited . . . I don’t know the word . . . A very long time for one that could change them. The animal spirits will listen to you . . . the mountain spirits will help you . . . in the war.”

“Tell him thanks. In a war, you’ll take whatever help you can get.”

Van told him. There were flies buzzing around the chicken, and the hut was so humid it made Alabama seem frosty. The old man kept on in a monotone whisper. Van looked confused. “Not this war. The big war.”

“This one ain’t big enough?”

“No. The coming war . . . Sorry, I don’t understand. The mountain spirits told him it is coming. The war to end all things. You are one of the four.”

“What’s that mean? Four what?”

The creases of the old holy man’s knuckles were filled with dried chicken blood. “The Mountain Spirits won’t say. Before you can lead the animal spirits, you have to teach someone. Make them ready for the war that will end all things. You have to prepare the way. . . . There will be many battles. Many changes. If you fail, the animal spirits will fight on the enemy’s side instead. When the time is right, you will announce the war, and all the spirits will follow you into the dark place.”

“None of that makes a lick of sense.”

“He says you are the one that prepares the way. . . . I don’t know the word. One that prepares the way. . . . A harbinger? Yes. The mountain spirits say you are the harbinger.”

The holy man fell silent. He scooped up the plate of guts and tossed it out the door to the dogs. He was done. He’d delivered the message from his mountain spirits. We were dismissed.

Harbinger. I liked the sound of that.

*   *   *

Chapter 24

The Briarwood company Cadillac was stuck. “On three,” Stark ordered. “One, two, three!” He threw all his weight against the bumper. The tires spun uselessly in the snow. “No! Damn idiot! You’ve got to rock it! Rock it!”

Ryan Horst stuck his head out the window. “I’m trying, okay? Quit yelling at me.”

Stark stood up with a grunt. His back was killing him, having wrenched something during his jump from the hospital window. They’d managed to lose the zombie-werewolves right before Horst had spun them off the side of the road into a ditch. The other Briarwood Hunter, Lins, was trying to help push the front end of the truck out. It was hopeless. It would probably take a tractor to drag them out.

The two of them stopped to take a breath. Stark looked back the way they’d come. The monsters were bound to catch up any second, but he couldn’t even see far enough through the snowfall to tell how much time they had left. “All this shit on here and you don’t have a winch? You’ve got rims that spin, and no winch? Are you kidding me?”

Lins shrugged. “Weren’t expecting none of this, man. This was supposed to be a cakewalk.”

“No heavy weapons. No clue. It’s amateur hour.” Stark glanced around. His parka was back at the hospital, and the wind was cutting right through the seams of his armor. He needed to warm up, but if they hunkered down the monsters would tear them apart. There had to be something they could use, somewhere they could go. “I can’t believe I trusted you idiots.”

“Hey. Look at that.” Lins pointed at something in the distance.

Squinting, Stark could barely make out the lights. “I think that’s the high school. I drove by there earlier.”

“You got a better place to be?”

Stark’s face burned from the cold. His ears were probably going to turn black and fall off. Odds were there was nobody worth a damn at the high school, either, but if they had lights, then they had a generator, so at least he could die warm. “Better than being out here.” He slammed his fist on the hood to get Horst’s attention, then regretted it immediately as the impact stung his frozen hand. “Come on, stupid. Let’s go.”

Horst gave him a sullen glare as he got out, but he was smart enough not to say anything. Stark wasn’t in the mood.

The three of them gathered around the back of the Cadillac so Stark could take stock of the situation. Horst and Lins both had rifles, but there were only a couple of mags left between them. Stark had his issue Glock and a combat knife; that was it. He had pouches full of SCAR mags filled with composite silver 7.62, but his rifle had been left leaning against the wall during his hasty escape from Deputy Buckley. To make matters even more embarrassing, there was a Suburban full of top-of-the-line MCB equipment sitting in the hospital parking lot surrounded by zombie-werewolves.

“Before we make a run for those lights, you guys have any more cold-weather gear you can spare?” Stark asked through chattering teeth.

“If we did, I’d be wearing it,” Lins answered sharply as he sat on the Caddy’s bumper. Balancing his M-4 carbine between his legs, Lins pulled his sweater up over his mouth and nose, then shoved his hands into his armpits. “What’re we supposed to do about Jo?”

A slimy hand landed against the interior of the back window. A horrible visage rose behind the hand. The face was slack and pale, dripping sweat past bloodshot eyes. Drool spilled out as the mouth opened wide. The monster’s face hit the glass with a wet thud.

“Threat!” Stark shouted as he went for his sidearm.

“No, wai—”

BANG.

A hole appeared in the glass. The horrible face disappeared.

Lins fell off the bumper. “Son of a bitch! You shot Jo!”

Stark slowly lowered his Glock as the hand slid down the glass until it also disappeared from view. “Jo?” He looked to Horst, but the lead Briarwood man was just standing there, mouth hanging open, apparently in shock. “Who’s Jo?”

“That was Jo Schneider,” Lins said as he got to his feet. “She’s with us. She’s Horst’s girlfriend! Shit, man, you just capped our secretary!”

It took his numbed hand a few tries to get the Glock back into the holster. “The one with the sexy voice?” Stark mumbled. “Well . . . Huh. I pictured her as better looking.”

“She was, before a giant scarecrow robot puked her up,” Lins said.

Horst stepped forward without a word and opened the back of the Cadillac. Stark looked past Horst’s shoulder. The woman had been wrapped in a blanket and appeared to have been in really rough shape even before the gunshot wound. He’d seen healthier looking zombies. “In my defense, she looked like a monster.” Jo Ann was still alive, but probably not for long. Stark’s bullet had punched through her shoulder, and from the amount of blood, he assumed that he’d severed the axillary artery. “Well . . . Shit. Sorry, I guess.”

Jo Ann squinted at Horst. She was having a hard time focusing. “I . . . I was just gonna . . . tell you I was feeling . . . better.”

Lins urgently tapped Stark on the shoulder. “We got company.”

He turned around. There were dark shapes moving against the white backdrop down the block. The undead were back. They weren’t running this way yet, but they would be soon. “Time to go, Horst . . . Horst?” He turned back to find Horst still staring at the woman. Stark leaned in and whispered, “We don’t have time to be sentimental, kid. If you want to put her out of her misery, do it quick and don’t make too much noise.”

Shaking his head, Horst stepped back. “Naw. I’m cool.”

“Ryan?” Jo Ann croaked.

“Nothing personal, baby, but my pop used to say that if you’re being chased by a bear, you don’t need to outrun the bear, just your slowest friend.” Horst’s expression was as cold as their surroundings.

Jo Ann reached out for Horst as he turned away. She managed to snag his coat sleeve and held on for dear life. “Don’t leave me.”

Horst jerked his arm out of her grasp without giving her so much as a glance. “If we’re lucky, they’ll slow down for a snack. Come on. Let’s go.”

Stark whistled. That was harsh, even by MCB standards.

Earl swung the locking bar shut on the stainless coffin before stumbling away, wincing at the pain. He could feel the burning of the fresh cut across the top of his chest. Heather had sliced him good. A little higher and he would have lost his throat, so he’d gotten lucky, but he still needed to tend to the injury quickly before it became an issue. He always kept an extensive first-aid kit on hand, though it was normally for his Hunters. It had been a real long time since he’d needed one for himself.

Earl addressed the only other person remaining in the street in front of the Alpha’s house. “Everyone else had the sense to run. You’re a stubborn one.”

“I ain’t seen nothing like that before.” Aino had made the decision to help, and had even had the guts to help lift the unconscious Heather into the box. “Her grandpa saved my life, pulled me out of a collapsed mine. I thought you aimed to kill her; figured I owed Aksel to see that to the end. Surprised me when you picked her up instead. . . . You’re bleeding. Let me see that cut.”

Earl opened his coat. Heather had managed to tag him just above where it had been fastened, and one claw had made it through the Kevlar beneath. “Just a scratch,” he lied.

It wasn’t fair to blame Heather. It wasn’t like she’d done it on purpose. Earl reasoned they were probably even, because he’d smashed the Thompson’s steel butt-plate over her head until the stock had cracked. Just shooting her would’ve been the safe move, but she was a good girl. Even though the odds of her beating the curse were near zero, she deserved a chance. Santiago would have done the same for him. Though Heather was going to be mighty surly when she woke up inside that dark little prison box.

Once safely back in the truck, Earl turned on the interior dome light, found his first-aid kit, and unbuckled his armor. Heather had scored a solid laceration just over his collarbone. A flap of skin was dangling, loose, leaking blood in a wide circle. “Damn. That’s ugly.”

“Just a scratch, huh?” Aino grunted.

“It’s wide, but shallow. It’s the depth that gets you.” Earl shoved the skin back into place, wiped it with iodine, and applied a pressure bandage. As soon as he had a spare minute, he’d give himself some stitches. It was too big to glue. The hard part would be keeping an eye on it at that angle. Since the last time he’d given himself stitches had been in the 1920s, he was a bit out of practice. “Turn up the heater, would you?” Earl asked as he closed his eyes and leaned back against the head rest. “Why do people live someplace this damn cold?”

“Keeps out the riff-raff. . . . This was a quiet town, ’til recently.”

“Got me there.” Earl lit a cigarette and got back to work, having decided that thirty seconds was too much sitting around. He could bleed later. “I need you to figure out what that journal says, and I need it fast.”

“I can do that. What about Heather?”

“Through no fault of her own, she’s one of them now. Locked up, she can’t do no harm, but if she gets out . . . She’s not the girl you knew before.”

“Is there a cure?”

Surprisingly, there was. If that amulet could cure Earl, then it could cure anyone. He had a sneaking suspicion that it was the same device that had started the curse to begin with, so it reasoned that it could end it, too. Not just for Earl and Heather, but for all werewolves, everywhere. If he could get his hands on that amulet and figure out how the magic worked . . .

The truck lurched. A terrible grinding sound came from the back, claws against steel, followed by an enraged roar. Heather was awake, and not surprisingly, she was a fierce one.

“There’s a cure,” Earl said with renewed determination. He had accidentally created the monster that was terrorizing this town, but he could make that mistake right and in the process end the curse forever. “And I know who has it.”

The storm was finally breaking up, having transitioned from blizzard to horrible snowfall in the last hour. That should have made Horst happy, but instead that just meant that the werewolves could see them better. Sadly, sacrificing Jo Ann hadn’t seemed to slow them very much. The awkward creatures weren’t much more agile in the deep snow than the Hunters they were chasing, but they didn’t seem to be getting tired, whereas Horst thought his heart was about to explode. The monsters were gaining on them.

“We’re almost there!” Lins shouted. The only other remaining Briarwood Hunter turned out to be the fastest on foot, and was a good twenty feet ahead of the other two when he stopped to urge them on. He raised his M-4 and popped off a pair of shots at their pursuers. “Come on.”

Horst was gasping for breath as the frigid air scorched his lungs. Agent Stark wasn’t doing too much better, since the MCB man looked a little too old to be sprinting through uphill snowdrifts, but the mass of undead werewolves behind them was one hell of a good motivator. It was tempting to shoot Stark in the leg to give the werewolves another distraction, but they still had a couple hundred yards to cover. He’d save that option for later.

There was a fence at the top of the hill. Passing Lins, Horst reached the chain link. It rattled as he struck, knocking snow from the metal. Horst had gotten a lot of practice clearing fences tonight, so it only took him a second to sling his FAL and clamber over. He landed softly on the other side and took off without waiting to see if the others needed help, but the clank from behind told him somebody was following. He made it down a narrow lane between concrete bleachers and onto a long white field. The vaguely goalpost-shaped blobs at each end told him they were running across the football field. The lights of the gym were on the other side. On the roof were the spotlights they’d seen earlier. One of them flashed over to blind him. Horst began waving his arms madly overhead, too out of breath to call for help.

Keep running. Almost there. You can do it. He’d despised all that running that MHI had made them do during their stupid Newbie training, but right then he was really wishing that he’d kept up the regimen. I’m doing good. I can make it. Then Lins passed him by again. Shit! Lins just had longer legs.

There was a horrible sound from behind. Horst was too terrified to look, but knew he had to. He craned his neck around to witness a sea of half-mutated bodies, some hairy, some naked, mottled red and black, crashing over the fence like an unstoppable wave. The first of them hit the ground running wildly. It was charred and twisted, like a burn victim.

Agent Stark raised his pistol and shot the burned monster repeatedly. It slipped and crashed against the bleacher. Other monsters passed it by and didn’t even slow. Stark emptied his gun into the crowd, but none of the creatures seemed to notice. Terror gave him renewed stamina as Horst turned back around and ran for his life.

There were harsh buzzing noises overhead. Bullets! The men on the roof of the gym were shooting at the monsters, too. Maybe it would buy them some time. There was another fence, but luckily there was an open gate. Lins reached the brick wall of the gym, but there was no door on this side, just drifts piled waist-deep against the wall, and windows that were far too high to reach. “What do we do now?”

“Get to the front!” Stark shouted as he caught up and slammed the gate shut. Furious, he reached over and snatched away Horst’s rifle. “Give me that if you’re not going to use it!” Stark shouldered it and began shooting across the football field. “Up yours, fish-men! You’ll never take me alive!”

Horst had no idea what fish-men Stark was shouting about, but the monsters were closing in fast. Lins had run for the front corner of the building, so Horst followed. He’d made it another fifty yards after Lins before the other hunter came back around the corner, wildly firing his M-4 from the hip. “They’re attacking the front door, too! Go back. Go back!”

“Back where?” Horst asked desperately. He started back the way they’d come, only to realize that Stark wasn’t there. “What? How—”

“Up there!” Lins shouted, grabbing Horst by the arm and dragging him along. Somebody had opened one of the side windows and tossed out a rope. Stark was pulling himself up, boots pressed against the walls. The dude wasn’t much of a runner, but he sure could climb fast. By the time they got close to the dangling rope, helping hands had reached out from the window, grabbed Stark, and hoisted him inside.

They had to get up that rope. It was their only chance. Monsters were crashing into the fence all around them, and others had followed Lins from the front corner. Others smashed down the gate and poured through. They were surrounded. Horst reached into his coat for his FN, having forgotten that Harbinger had stolen it. “I’m out of guns!”

“Get to the rope,” Lins said as he stepped in front. “I’ll hold ’em off. Go!”

Horst was actually impressed by the bravery. He hadn’t thought Lawrence J. Lins had it in him.

A monster charged. This one was mostly werewolf but was wearing a fuzzy bathrobe and pink curlers in its hair. Dead white eyes bore into him as it opened its mouth in a soundless roar. Lins raised his gun and put a silver 5.56 round right through its nose. Another followed, and Lins cranked off four rounds before it fell. Horst jumped over the body and grabbed the fat nylon rope. Another monster was closing fast, but Lins stepped in the way and slammed the barrel of his carbine into its face and knocked it into the drift.

Horst climbed with a strength born of adrenaline and desperation. Then the unseen people above were hauling the rope in, and it was as if he were flying up the wall.

“Come on! Come on! Bring it!” Lins could be heard shouting between gunshots. The shooting stopped. Lins’s gun was empty. Then he began to scream, but Horst was too scared to look down. There was a terrible snapping noise, and the scream trailed off into a gurgle.

There were knots tied in the rope every foot. It gave him something to hold on to. It had probably just been the rope for PE class that somebody had cut down and thought to dangle to them. Here he was, the leader of an elite group of monster hunters, and his only lifeline was a PE rope thrown to him by some country bumpkin. His entire team was dead. He was a failure. Everybody was going to laugh at him.

A monster leapt. The claw struck the side of his boot. Horst squealed and drew his knees up to his chest, squeezing his eyes closed extra-tight as the people above hauled him in. He was so terrified yet glad to be alive at the same time that tears were flowing freely to freeze on his cheeks.

Now he knew how that girl had felt.

He’d done what he’d had to do. He’d been trapped in a warehouse with a shipment of drugs and the ghoul had eaten almost everybody else. The girl had belonged to one of the mules. Maybe eight or so, she didn’t even speak English. He needed to draw the thing out, so he’d done the logical thing and used bait. His Spanish was lousy, but he’d lied and told her he was tying the rope to her so he could lower her to safety. She’d been terrified but happy for a chance to escape. Happy . . . at first. Then he’d waited for the monster to show up so he could nail it.

That’s why they’d fired him. Who was MHI to judge?

There was a blast of warm air as he reached the window. A hand latched onto his coat and pulled him tight. “Oh thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

“Hey, boss.”

Horst opened his eyes. He blinked away the tears. “You’re dead.”

Loco nodded slowly. There was a thick white bandage wrapped around his big head. It was stained bright red on the side where Horst’s bullet had struck. “Not quite.”

His heart was beating so hard that it was hard to talk. “I . . . I shot . . .”

“Man, this just isn’t your night. Bullet grazed my skull. The other one tore a nasty little hole through my love handle. It hurt a lot, but didn’t hit nothing important. These nice folks patched me up when they found me . . . where you left me to die.”

The fabric on Horst’s coat made a crinkling noise as Loco dragged him in nose to nose. Horst stared deep into those dark eyes, one glass, one just angry, and for the first time, he realized that he’d drastically underestimated some of his employees. “You got anything to say?”

Twenty feet below, the monsters snapped and howled as they fought over Lins. “I’m sorry?” Horst squeaked.

A woman called from inside the gym. “Any other survivors, Mr. Lococo?”

Loco shouted down to the floor below. “Afraid not, Mrs. Randall. They didn’t make it.”

“Wait—” But then Horst was falling backward through the air.

He hit the snow flat on his back. The drift cushioned the impact. Too scared to breathe, too scared to look, Horst lay still in a cloud of white. All that could be heard were the sounds of rending and chewing.

I’m dead. He slowly opened his eyes. The monsters surrounded him. Their bodies were cold. No breath clouds formed around their jagged mouths. Milky eyes studied him, curious about what had just fallen into their midst. Lins was lying off to the side. The monsters had torn off his lower jaw and eaten one ear. Lins opened his eyes, and they too were blank, white, and dead.

Horst did not want to end up like that. Lins’s carbine was there in the snow. He just needed to get it long enough to shoot himself in the head. His hand slowly moved until it landed on the gun. He dragged the muzzle toward his chin.

A foot landed on the gun and pinned it down. Horst’s eyes tracked slowly upward, across the familiar body, wrapped in a tattered, bloodstained blanket, across the slimy, dripping face, and into the dead eyes of the zombie-werewolf thing that had once been Briarwood Eradication Services’ secretary, Jo Ann Schneider.

Horst managed to say “Karma’s a bitch” before Jo leaned down to give him one final kiss.

Chapter 25

The MHI truck stopped just shy of the parking lot of the Copper Lake high school. Heather had begun to cry. It was an eerie sound, and one that Earl was certain he’d never heard a werewolf make before. Something was wrong. He’d left the interior lights on so Aino could read Aksel Kerkonen’s journal. Reaching up, Earl shut off the dome light so he could see outside better.

“Hey, I need that. I just found where Aksel was talking about getting these magic words from a Baba Yaga to . . .” He looked up. Muzzle flashes indicated the shooters Nancy Randall had placed on the gym’s roof were firing like mad. Their spotlights were bobbing back and forth, illuminating hundreds of shapes moving along the perimeter fence. “What the hell?” Aino asked, squinting. “All those werewolves?”

“Can’t be. There’s too many. There’s no way they could turn that many people so fast.” The snow had let up enough that Earl could actually see a fair distance, so he retrieved his binoculars from the center console and stepped out of the truck.

What he saw took his breath away. Some were more werewolf-like than others, but none of them were fully changed. It was like they were stuck mid-transformation. Their movements were jerky, and there were many obvious injuries, including missing limbs. Experience told him that these were some type of undead. Dozens of them were piled up against the front doors of the gym. It was a seething pile of fury. If they got inside . . . Earl hurried and got back in the truck. “I think these are the vulkodlak everybody’s been talking about.” He passed the binoculars over to Aino. “I’ve got to stop them before they break in.”

“What’re you gonna do?”

Walking in, guns blazing, would be a noble but futile gesture. The explosives he had in back would damage the gym, too, and probably create an opening for the surviving monsters to get through. “I don’t know. I’m only human,” Earl said bitterly.

“Those are my people in there, buddy. You better think of something fast.”

The vulkodlak’s abilities and vulnerabilities were an unknown. Some undead were dumber than broccoli, like zombies, while others, like a lich or a vampire, were just as smart dead as they were alive. Some types had special abilities, like the paralyzing touch of a wight, the death wail of a banshee, or the crippling glance of a night-shade. Some were easy kills and others were walking tanks . . . .

A tank! Now that would be just the ticket. They were all clustered together tight, with plenty of room to maneuver a big, squishing vehicle back and forth. The entrance to the gym was even inset a bit, with walls on each side that would create a fatal funnel. “You guys got a National Guard armory around here. Maybe an army tank?”

“No. Why the hell would we have a tank? That’s the stupidest—” Aino slowly lowered the binoculars. “Wait a sec . . . I get you. Hang a right up there. Come on! Drive. What’re you waiting for! It’s only half a block that way. We’ll grab a county snow-cutter.”

Earl didn’t know what a snow-cutter was. He was, after all, from Alabama, where there were very few things with “snow” in their names, but it had better be good.

The inside of the gymnasium was pandemonium. The place was literally packed with people. They were crammed together, standing room only. A good portion of the town’s population had survived to make it here. At the very back, a group of women was herding crying children downstairs into some sort of basement. The was a continuous echo of gunfire from the windows and through the roof, but audible even above that was the general noise of nervous chatter, rough swearing, and fervent prayer.

Special Agent Doug Stark’s first thought was that this was going to be a very difficult event to contain, but then, after listening to the crashing noises coming from the barricades at the front of the gym, he realized they were probably all going to die anyway. Making containment sort of irrelevant.

At least it was warm. In fact, after the death run through the snow, it was stiflingly hot. This many bodies packed together, it was downright muggy. Stark took another, slower look at the packed crowd. Considering how fast Mosher had been turned, a single one of those creatures inside these walls could turn this place into a slaughterhouse.

He’d come down the ladder rather roughly, and it had taken him a few minutes to catch his breath. The run through the snow had taken a few years off of his life. Horst and Lins hadn’t come up after him, so that was the end of Briarwood. He sure wouldn’t be getting any under-the-table PUFF money off this trip! Stark kicked himself. If he’d followed procedure and brought a full unit, this never would have happened. This whole thing was . . . his fault. That caused Stark to pause. He wasn’t used to blaming himself for anything.

Stark made his way through the people, trying to assess the situation. A little girl pointed at him and then at something high behind him, and she giggled. Stark turned to see what the deal was, and saw a banner of the school’s mascot, a cartoon bulldog. It too, was bulky, jowly, and scowling. Strangely, it was a rather good caricature. “Fair enough,” Stark told the kid.

“What’re you supposed to be?” A tall lady in a parka stopped him. She gestured at his armor.

He pulled out his real ID; the time for pretending was over. “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help. Agent Stark, Monster Control Bureau, Department of Homeland Security. Who’s in charge here?”

She seemed relieved. “I am. Unless you brought the Marines, then you’re more than welcome to it. Nancy Randall. Copper County Council.”

“Negative. Just me. I had a Marine, but he got his face eaten.”

There was a small spark of hope. “Is help coming?”

He took her hope and stepped on it. “Probably not. Well . . . Eventually. I’m supposed to report in by oh-eight hundred. When I don’t, they’ll come looking.”

Nancy checked her watch. “That’s hours from now!”

It would actually be far more. All agents on assignment had a mandatory check-in to confirm their status, but just because they couldn’t reach him didn’t mean the cavalry would arrive immediately. MCB would eventually dispatch somebody, but the nearest other agents were hours away. “What’s your status?”

Spark of hope extinguished, she sighed. The woman had been through a long night. Nancy pointed toward the front. “We’re screwed. Question is, how long can we hold them?”

The interior bleachers had been hastily broken down, and the materials had been used to barricade the front doors. It was an impressive pile of jagged wood, but the monsters were relentlessly throwing themselves against it. Clawed limbs were flailing around every gap as the townsfolk hammered at them with axes, shovels, and hammers. Every window had someone perched on it shooting a gun. Luckily there were no windows at the ground-floor level. A bottle with a flaming rag stuck in it was shoved through the windows over the entrance. The resulting conflagration cast the shadows of the men manning the windows onto the ceiling. The flames only slowed the creatures’ onslaught for a moment.

Stark had seen how many of the things were out there. He was guessing much of the local population had been turned, and whatever they were, these undead were extremely resilient. He’d already head-shot a few of them with only a momentary effect. “Yes. You’re screwed.”

Nancy’s patience had run out. “You’re certainly a big old help. I’m glad I pay my taxes.” She kicked the floor. “We’re running out of bullets, and these new things don’t seem to ever die—it just slows them down. Setting them on fire only works for a minute, and the only gas we’ve got left is the little bit left in the generator’s tank. No word from the hospital, either.”

“Eh . . . They’re already dead. That’s where I came from,” Stark said.

“When the ammo runs out, then they’ll be coming in. The best we can do is put the children in the bomb shelter and hope these things can’t get through its big steel door.”

“Bomb shelter?” Stark felt a twinge of excitement. If there was a bomb shelter, then he might be able to survive this until the cavalry arrived. Heck, the MCB would probably just have the air force carpet bomb the place when they found out. That shelter was definitely the place to be.

“There’s not enough room for everyone,” Nancy explained. “The best we can do is protect the kids. And not even all of them. I’ve got some mad parents of older teens to deal with now.”

“Yeah, sure,” Stark agreed, barely listening. That sounded like a personal problem. He’d make sure that he got a spot in that shelter. After all, he reasoned, somebody knowledgeable needed to survive to write the report. But the earlier the monsters got in, the more time they’d have to break into the vault before the MCB could get here. He needed to help keep those things out as long as possible. It was time to get this defense running properly. “Okay, listen up, Mrs. Random.”

“Randall,” she corrected.

“Whatever. I’m running this show from now on. See that? That’s my barricade. See those yokels with guns? Those are my yokels.” Stark folded his broad arms and surveyed his kingdom with a slow nod. “Stick with me, and we’ll get through this.” Someone screamed at the barricade as a claw caught them. “Damn it!” Stark shouted toward the screamer. “Let me show you how to do it!” He strode off to inspect his defenses.

Nancy just watched him go. She was joined a moment later by Phillip, the school principal. “Somebody told me the government was here to take over,” he exclaimed excitedly. “We’re saved.”

“Saved is a remarkably optimistic term,” she muttered.

Stark reached the barricade. He hated to admit it, but these Yooper rednecks were doing a passable job considering their lousy logistical situation, but the monsters on the other side were going to get in, and very soon. Stark peered through one of the cracks. Through the waving limbs, at the very back of the silent pack, stood a creature that he recognized. This one was far more werewolf-shaped than the others, but the charred flesh was what gave him away.

“So we meet again, Deputy Buckley,” Stark said. “You’ve been a pain in my ass all night. Well, come and get me, crispy.”

Buckley and several of the other creatures at the back of the pack stopped and lifted their heads simultaneously, as if they’d heard something. Without making a sound, four of them broke off in a run heading away from the gym. They were going after something. Stark had no idea what, but that was a few less that he was going to have to worry about.

“After the mine collapsed, I got a job working for the county,” Aino explained as he unlocked the padlock and pulled it from the latch. Earl hurried over and lifted the giant garage’s door. He was careful not to make too much noise, but once it got out of his reach, it slid up the rest of the way automatically and made a considerable racket. Earl cringed and looked around the county vehicle yard. There were several school buses, snowplows, and tractors parked inside the fence, but there was nothing moving between them.

Aino ignored the noise. “Only worked part-time, ya know, but I work on these here things. This one was all prepped and ready to go for the storm. It would be out clearing the roads now, except, lucky for us, the safety on the augers is broke. Meaning the blades won’t automatically stop when they hit something solid. Which considering what we’re gonna do with her, I see as a bonus.” He let his flashlight play over the big orange vehicle in the shop.

“It’s a tractor,” Earl pointed out. Earl didn’t know much about farm equipment, but it just looked like a big orange tractor to him.

Aino snorted. “Tractor? This ain’t no tractor, boy. This is a custom-built, top-of-the-line snow cutter. . . . Snow cutter?” Earl shrugged. “No? Guess they don’t have these where you’re from.” The diminutive man walked around one huge, chain-clad tire. “We’re talking two thousand horsepower. She can tear through anything. When snow’s as wet and heavy as around these parts, you need power.”

“And what’s to keep the monsters from climbing into that little glass cab with us?”

“Well, it’s your job to keep them off with all your fancy machine guns.” Aino stopped at the front of the vast machine. He grabbed one edge of a blue tarp and yanked it off. “While I give the bastards this!”

Earl whistled when he saw the wall of blades. There were three vast steel screws, each one reflecting light from the ground-sharp edges. The blades filled a giant scoop that covered the entire front of the tractor. A small car could fit in there.

“She can throw tons of snow an hour, and with no safety I can feed trees into it.” Aino put his light beam on the blades. “Werewolves go in here”—he let the light climb up to a two-foot-wide spigot coming out the top—“and come out here. Only in itty-bitty pieces.”

“Your secret weapon is a really big snow-blower.”

“The biggest,” Aino corrected. “Biggest fucking snow-blower ever in the world.”

“I’d been hoping for an armored vehicle, but we’re out of time, and I don’t have any better ideas. Fire it up, my fine Finnish friend. I’ll go grab some more guns from my truck. Then let’s go rescue your town.” Aino gave him a lopsided, homicidal grin, then went to work.

Earl ran back outside and opened the tailgate of his truck. There was a thump as Heather rammed herself against the lid of the box. The heavy latch barely even budged. There was no way the werewolf inside could get enough momentum to break out unless somebody lifted that bar. Otherwise, it meant waiting for the time lock to open. “Sorry, Heather, but you’ll thank me later.” He patted the box then began pulling out cases.

There wouldn’t be room to use the sniper rifle, so Earl left the .300 Winchester Magnum behind. He made sure he had a revolver on each side and more moonclips than he could count. Chest pouches filled with Thompson mags. Check. Might as well bring some 50-round drums, too. He’d had Milo modify them to work in the old GI-issue Thompsons. And since he was going to be riding, rather than walking . . . He slung the Thompson around his back so he could use both hands to pull out the biggest nylon bag of all.

The Carl Gustav was just in case those freakish creatures that stunk like the Old Ones or the other Alpha turned up. Maybe that amulet granted immortality, and then again, maybe nobody had ever bothered to shoot the son of a bitch wearing it with an 84mm high-explosive round from a recoilless rifle before. Immortality was a relative term in this business.

Heather made a sad whine through the wall of the container. “Yep, I know. I won’t blow him up until I get that amulet for you. I promise.”

Earl grunted under the weight as he got the big nylon bag slung over his other shoulder. It was easy for a werewolf to forget how much good armament weighed, but not so easy for a man. He almost left Aksel Kerkonen’s old Mosin Nagant rifle behind, but decided against it. There was something special about that odd silver ammunition, and it was related to that journal. He might need it. Aksel had defeated the bearer of the amulet once before, and it would be foolish to discount that.

What else? He had pouches for hand grenades. Might as well fill those, too. Inside the shop, the snow cutter’s engine turned over with a roar and a belch of diesel smoke. There was a sudden howl from the box, and Heather began to thrash. “Easy. You’ll be fine here. I’ll be back . . . Probably.” She made the same noise. It sounded familiar. Earl was no longer in touch with his instincts. They were buried too deep on a human. Then she growled, so low and dangerous he could barely hear it over the tractor.

Heather was trying to communicate. She was trying to warn him.

Earl turned just as the vulkodlak swung. Ducking, the claws parted the air where his head had been. He stumbled back, raising the Mosin as it struck again. Claws tore a divot from the wooden stock. Earl retreated as fast as he could without tripping over his own feet.

The vulkodlak had been a young man. He was dressed like he’d been killed in bed. The bites were obvious on his neck and chest. It was as if he’d been brought back to life, and partially twisted into a werewolf, but left trapped in between and awkward. One arm ended in a werewolf’s claw and the other ended in a human hand. His limbs were misshapen and clumsy, and it was only that distorted nature that allowed Earl to avoid being torn apart.

It struck again. The rifle blocked the hit but was torn from Earl’s hands and sent sailing into the night. Before another attack could land, Earl swept his hands down and grasped both revolvers. The twin Smith & Wessons came up spitting flame. The vulkodlak stumbled back as he stitched bullets through its naked chest and into its face, but it didn’t go down. Extending an arm, Earl drove the muzzle right into one of the creature’s eye sockets, squishing the white orb back into its skull, and fired. The expanding gasses of the muzzle blast actually blew the other eye out in a white spray.

It tottered for a long second before dropping into the snow. “Tough bastards,” Earl noted, not that anyone could hear him over the tractor as it came rolling far too fast out of the shop. It was too far to one side, and the edge of the scoop ripped through the wall. Earl had to step away to keep from being run down. The engine roared as it was given too much throttle. The blades began churning with a terrible metallic roar. He couldn’t figure out what Aino was doing, but then he realized that the driver was distracted by the two vulkodlak that were trying to smash their way into the tractor’s cab. Earl couldn’t hear the words Aino was shouting but could recognize that he was angrily cursing the monsters that were trying to eat him.

Shrugging out from under the heavy Carl Gustav, Earl stuck his partially empty revolvers back into the holsters and ran after the tractor. The tractor spun around in the county yard, sucking up snow in the whirling blades and spraying it in a magnificent arc across the sky. Earl swung his Thompson around and took it in both hands.

The snow cutter clipped the side of a school bus hard enough to shove the entire thing a few feet. Yellow metal was torn apart in a shower of sparks as soon as the blades touched. The tractor veered to the right as a vulkodlak drove its fist through the window of the cab. Aino threw himself to the floor to avoid the claws, but the creature forced itself against the spreading safety glass. Aino would be dead in seconds.

Earl shouldered his Thompson and took careful aim. Blood puckered up the vulkodlak’s side, forming pink mist clouds before the tractor’s lights. It lost its grip and tumbled down the moving tractor, only to disappear under the rear tires with a sick crunch. The tire kept on turning, painting the snow red behind it.

One more. But it was on the other side of the cab, and Earl didn’t have a shot. The wheel had been turned. Aino was no longer steering, and the snow cutter turned back toward the shop, scraping and tearing its way along the county vehicles. Earl ran, trying to position himself for a clean shot. The snow-cutter continued doing a doughnut around the yard in a widening arc, and Earl realized it was heading right for his truck.

“No!” It slammed the edge of its scoop directly into the Ford, t-boning it with a wall of spinning blades. “Not my truck!” The MHI truck didn’t even slow the snow cutter. The truck was lifted and shoved sideways, then crushed and scraped along the garage building, slowly levered upward until it rolled free onto its side. “Awww! Son of a bitch!”

The edge of the snow scoop hit the cinder-block wall of the county garage. The tractor lurched to a violent stop, and the other vulkodlak was dislodged from the cab and flung into the snow. Earl opened fire on the run. The creature didn’t even have time to rise before he’d nearly decapitated it with a long burst of silver bullets. He stopped long enough to shoot an additional five or six more rounds through the vulkodlak’s head. “I was fond of that truck!”

The tractor was stopped, but still running. His truck was toast. There was no movement inside the cab. “Aino! Are you ok—” Earl didn’t see the final vulkodlak until it was too late. It crashed into him, shoulder-checking him to the ground. He hit hard enough to punch through the cushion of snow to impact the hard pavement beneath.

It was on him in a second, claws flashing. He raised his forearm and felt the bone-jarring impact as the claws struck minotaur hide. His other hand raised the Thompson into the beast’s belly and force-fed it a string of .45 slugs. The vulkodlak swatted the muzzle aside as it rolled away.

Struggling to his feet, Earl tried to lift the Thompson, but the creature circled back and hit him again. Claws struck his side, bouncing off the coat, but the impact staggered him back. The monster darted away.

Disoriented, Earl searched for the target. This one was quicker than the others. There! It was coming around, another shadow flickering in the darkness. This vulkodlak was different from the others, more like a werewolf that had died and been partially twisted back into a human. Its skin was burned to charcoal, and red flesh twisted beneath where the black split open to weep congealed blood. Earl recognized him immediately, because he’d already killed him once before.

Buckley charged. Earl fired from the hip. The bullets took the vulkodlak’s legs out from under it, but it still reached him, taking them both to the ground. Buckley sunk his teeth into Earl’s shoulder. The pressure was unbearable, and Earl shouted as he was shaken. The teeth didn’t penetrate the hide. That’s another one, Travis. Gun trapped between them, Earl drew his Bowie knife and slammed it between Buckley’s ribs, again and again, as Buckley gnashed and ripped with his fangs.

Realizing that he didn’t have a killing grip, Buckley released his jaws and leapt aside. Earl clambered to his feet. It was a rematch, only now Buckley was the strong one and Earl was the weak. Buckley looked down at the new gashes through its torso, then back at Earl, understanding that this prey could bite back. Buckley began to circle.

Earl lifted the knife protectively. The Thompson was dangling against his chest, but the bolt was forward. It was empty. There was no time to reload. Steam hissed from Earl’s mouth as he shouted to be heard over the roaring blades. “So, Buckley, how many times does somebody have to kill you before you stay dead?”

Arms spread wide, Buckley leapt. Earl stepped aside as he lashed out. The thick Bowie sliced Buckley’s bicep to the bone. The vulkodlak didn’t seem to feel the steel. Buckley’s momentum carried him away, but he immediately turned back to charge again.

He’d been tagged. Earl blinked as he felt the sudden burn where a claw had sliced across his cheek. Blood rolled down his face. “That the best you can do?” Earl wiped it away. He moved a few feet, trying to get the blades directly behind him. They were close enough that he could feel their artificial wind. Vulkodlak were tough, but hopefully they weren’t very bright. “Better monsters than you have tried to take me, boy. Come on!”

Buckley charged. Earl sidestepped as he stabbed, hoping to get Buckley closer to the snow cutter, but the vulkodlak had anticipated the move and adjusted. One solid forearm caught Earl’s chest, and both of them went down hard. The side of Earl’s skull slammed into the steel edge of the snow cutter’s scoop.

The impact nearly knocked him out. Earl was facedown in the snow. Head swimming, only a foot from the whirling death blades of a tractor that was only not rolling forward because one corner was jammed into a building. Groaning, he rolled over. The animated corpse of Deputy Joe Buckley was standing over him. The hilt of the Bowie knife was sticking out of Buckley’s neck. Blood ran down the vulkodlak’s cracked chest and splattered onto Earl.

Buckley’s claw wrapped around the knife handle. Blood leaking sluggishly, he jerked it out and tossed it into the snow. Buckley cocked his head to the side, white eyes gleaming. This time it was going to bite something unarmored, and that would be the end. Earl got ready. The least he could do would be to shove them both into the blades while it was distracted eating him. “Nobody eats me and gets away with it.”

Something moved in Earl’s peripheral vision. It took a moment to focus past Buckley’s gleaming teeth to see that the stainless-steel lid of the prison-coffin was dangling, broken and open inside the rolled-over pickup. Earl had never seen a red werewolf before.

Buckley didn’t know she was there until it was too late. Claws flashed from the right, from the left, flaying Buckley’s back open. He turned, stepping off Earl, as Heather cleaved him twice more, crossing an X of lacerated flesh clear through his ribs. He raised one arm, and she batted it down. The other came up, and she took it off cleanly at the elbow. Buckley’s hand spun off into the night.

A vulkodlak was no match for a real werewolf.

Heather lashed out, spraying blood across the yard. Buckley was crumbling, falling, but that wasn’t enough. Heather was out for murder. She slashed his throat clear to vertebrae, then sunk her fingers into his neck, down, until she caught his sternum, and using it like a handle, hurled the vulkodlak into the roaring blades. Buckley simply exploded. One instant he was there; the next he was replaced with a rapidly expanding cloud of meat. A second later blood belched out the top spout, spreading a fine mist of Buckley into the air.

The werewolf stood, heaving, a dark red that was visually striking against the snow. No longer recognizably human at all, Heather turned toward Earl and bared her teeth.

Earl went for his gun.

She effortlessly caught his wrist, claws curling around it, hard. Her fangs were inches from his neck. His other hand was pinned beneath his body. She had him. Earl sighed. “Better to die by your hands than some filthy undead.”

Her nose pressed against his bloody cheek. He knew that she was smelling him, checking for the fear smell of prey.

But Earl Harbinger had no fear, just acceptance, as he closed his eyes and waited for death. There would be no reasoning, no begging. He’d be gone, but hopefully he’d made a difference. He was dying as a man, free of the curse, which was far more than he’d ever dreamed of.

Hopefully, she’d do better than he had. He spoke as clearly as possible. “Listen, Heather, you might remember my words later. No matter what happens. I know you can beat the curse. There’s a journal in my pocket. I want you to have it. It’s what I’ve learned. Maybe it’ll help you. If you remember, come back and get it off my body when you’re you again.”

Her breath was hot against his neck. The coarse hair abraded his skin. It would be over soon. Lips peeled back, and he could feel the teeth against his neck.

She licked his cheek.

Uncertain, Earl cracked open his eyes. Heather stepped back and growled. Her eyes were shining gold, the same as his would have, only there was something different there that he’d not ever seen in another werewolf. Something surprising.

Reason.

“I’ll be damned.” He could have sworn that the terrifying werewolf actually nodded. Heather took another few steps back, lifted her head, and howled in triumph. She’d destroyed Buckley, so she’d earned that.

“Earl, look out!” Aino shouted.

Earl turned to see Aino aiming down the sights of the old Finnish rifle. “Wait!” Earl cried, but it was too late. Aino fired. “No!”

Heather studied him quizzically and seemed to shrug. Then she turned and ran from the yard, barely even slowing to leap over the fence to disappear into the snow.

Aino hadn’t shot Heather? Earl rolled over. So what had . . . Oh. His target had been the first vulkodlak that Earl had shot in the eye. It had gotten back up, and he hadn’t even heard it coming over the tractor. Judging from what that odd silver bullet had done to the vulkodlak, the projectiles had to be magic. Fully half of the creature’s torso was gone, spread across ten feet of the shop’s wall.

His head was throbbing as he got up, but being close to those moving blades was just plain unnerving. “I thought you were going to shoot Heather.”

“Why would I do that? She seemed friendly enough. Did you see that shot?” Aino asked, limping up. “Voi kyrpa! Son of a bitch blew up!”

Earl stumbled over. “Nifty. Gimme that rifle. We’ve got a town to save.”

Chapter 26

There was blood on the carpet. He stared at the floor and the congealing puddle between his feet before he realized that the blood had come from the interior of his skull. The pain had subsided, but he could only vaguely recall the sensation of his head coming apart. There was something hard in his mouth, crunching and rolling between his teeth. Clumsily, he spit it into his hand. It was bone and lead fragments.

What happened?

Fully awake now, Nikolai took stock of the situation. They were in the living room, sitting on the Alpha’s couch. Harbinger was gone. His nose told him the house was empty except for the stink of the Alpha and the unnatural stink of the tar-soaked skeleton. He remembered pulling the trigger, the sudden flash, then nothing.

Why aren’t we dead? And why did you shoot us? Fool!

“Now you know I mean business. Do not question me again.” That silenced the Tvar. Nikolai could sense its fear. “Cower. I’ve shown what will happen if you disobey me.”

But why were they alive? He had played Harbinger’s game and lost. Nikolai lifted the bullet fragments to his nose. Lead. It hadn’t been a silver bullet.

But you thought . . . You would have killed us. . . .

“Lying to me, tricking me. You deceived me. That will not be tolerated again.”

Standing took a moment; he was weak with hunger. His body had stripped itself of every spare molecule in order to heal. A folded piece of paper had been shoved into the remains of his shirt. The edges were jagged from where it had been ripped from a small notebook. Aching eyes were barely able to make out the handwriting in the darkness.

Nikolai,

I used a frangible lead round. They make a real mess and take a while to regenerate from, but you’ll live. I needed to know if you were telling me the truth. Nothing personal. I think I understand you better now. I’m impressed. That could have been silver, but you did it anyway. There are only two ways for this to go from here. If you changed your mind, you got one chance to walk away. But if you’re a man of your word, help me find this Alpha and kill him. Help me save this town. This is not their fight. They were dragged into this because of our kind. Help me make this right. Either way, know that I’m sorry about your woman. I swear to you that I had nothing to do with her murder. We were both lured here by him. He needs to pay. He needs to be stopped.

Harbinger had shown him an unexpected mercy. The quest to silence the Tvar should have killed them both. His Val rifle had been left on the floor. There was food in the kitchen. It would not take too long to heal enough to hunt.

What do we do now?

The Tvar was actually asking for direction, and meekly at that. It was not shouting at him, nor telling him what to do. Nikolai was not used to such a tone.

“I have won,” Nikolai whispered. He’d begged Harbinger for assistance, but it had been Nikolai who’d demonstrated that he had the courage to take control. Harbinger was a trickster, but he was no longer the king of the werewolves. Nikolai did not need a master. Harbinger was not nearly as clever as he believed himself to be. Nikolai had just demonstrated to the Tvar who was the master. Harbinger’s continued existence was nothing more than a liability.

“We came here for revenge. That has not changed. We find the Alpha werewolf and destroy him.”

What of our nemesis?

“First we avenge Lila. Then we settle old scores.”

The snow cutter was faster than it looked and they reached the perimeter of the Copper Lake school grounds in three minutes. Aino stopped the tractor so Earl could survey the scene. “Think they heard us coming?” Even though the driver’s seat was only a foot away, Aino still had to shout to be heard.

Between the two of them and all the extra guns crammed into the cab, it made for a tight fit. Earl had smashed out the rest of the side window for a place to sit, straddling the edge, with one leg dangling over the tire, and the windchill had damn near froze him.

“Just ’cause they’re dead don’t make them deaf.” Earl lowered his binoculars. Some of the vulkodlak were already moving to intercept, but the vast majority were still concentrating on attacking the gym. “Here they come. Head straight for the front door while they’re still bunched up.” Aino let out the clutch, and the tractor crept forward. Both men put on safety glasses taken from the shop. This was about to get extremely messy. “Remember, if you see somebody out there that you know, it’s not them anymore. Run them down and try not to look at the faces.”

“Eh . . .” Aino shifted gears. “I don’t really like most folks anyway. Like ’em even less when they’re trying to eat me.” They were about to use the devil’s personal blender to make an undead smoothie, but Aino did not strike Earl as the type of man destined to end up in Appleton in need of psychiatric care afterward.

Earl adjusted so that he could lean farther out the window. Several vulkodlak were running right toward the tractor. Aino and Earl weren’t in danger of breaking any speed limits, even in a school zone, but they were going fast enough that it would be difficult for the vulkodlak to simply climb onboard. His job was to make sure that didn’t happen.

The fifty-round drum made the Thompson feel ponderous in his hands. Snow puckered around the vulkodlak as Earl struck the first few down with a burst of .45 ammo. Earl stuck his head back into the cab. “Fire it up!”

Aino pulled a lever, and the blades began to turn with an ominous series of clanks. Within seconds the noise had grown into a roar. The first of the vulkodlak he’d shot came out of the snow just in time to hit the blades. They were yanked in, thrashing until they disappeared. The ones on the outside edge were clipped, instantly dismembered, and launched spinning through the air.

“Hot damn!” Earl exclaimed as a severed leg flew over the scoop to strike the windshield. “That would even impress Milo.” Aino just spat on the floor and turned the windshield-wiper speed up a level. Earl stuck his head back out the window and started shooting at anything that moved.

The vulkodlak at the back of the crowd surged toward them in a wave. Earl mowed them down until the bolt flew forward on an empty chamber, so he automatically yanked the cumbersome drum and slid in another. The drums were much slower to get into place, and by the time he was ready they were in the midst of the creatures. Aino jerked the wheel to the side and caught another vulkodlak in the scoop.

“Head for the big group!” Earl shouted as he pulled the safety pin from a frag grenade. “I’ll get the stragglers.” He chucked the grenade out the opposite window. It detonated a few second later, ripping the vulkodlak with prefragmented silver wire.

They were moving too slowly. Now that the creatures knew what was going on, they were dodging the blades and swarming up the sides. Earl kept shooting. Putting a distracting burst into one target before quickly switching to another. His second drum was finished too quickly and he threw another grenade. Before it had even exploded he’d had to draw a revolver and shoot a vulkodlak off the back of the tractor. “Can’t this thing go any faster?”

Aino shifted gears again. Black smoke belched from the exhaust as Earl locked in another drum. A vulkodlak made it between the tires and came up the side. Earl barely had time to cock the Thompson before it was onto the hood. Earl fired through the cab and shattered the front windshield. The vulkodlak flipped over the side.

“Well, now I can’t see nothing!” Aino shouted.

Earl knocked the rest of the glass out with the butt of his gun. “Better?”

“Much. Thanks.”

They were surrounded. Some of the creatures were more damaged than others—those ended up in the blades or under the tires—but many of them were nearly werewolf-fast, and those were a severe problem. Earl knocked off another two with his Thompson, emptied a revolver into one coming up the side ladder, and, with his bowie knife, struck the hand clean off an arm that came reaching through the back window, but there were more coming.

Knife in one hand, Thompson in the other, Earl kept on fighting as the tractor’s cab was covered in bodies and reaching claws. He moved from window to window, continuously shooting or reloading, on a violent reactionary autopilot. Their course had been set, Aino had aimed them right for the entrance, and now with his hands free he took up Heather’s shotgun and opened fire. They were a raft floating in a sea of undead monsters. The tommy gun was smoking hot as Earl dropped his final drum and switched to stick mags. The cab floor was filled with spent brass.

Antifreeze and oil were spilling from punctures along the engine cover. Claws ripped through their tires. A particularly agile vulkodlak grabbed the rotating tread and rode the tire up to the cab’s level. It had been a girl, once. She latched on to the driver’s seat and pulled herself inside. A split second before she reached Aino, Earl drove his knife through her head, grabbed a handful of ponytail, and hurled the vulkodlak back out the window.

They crashed into the main crowd with an incomprehensible ripping sound. Earl looked up just in time to see the blades impact the packed-in mass of the vulkodlak pressed against the gymnasium entryway. A sea of white eyes and snapping teeth was fed into the tearing blades, but with walls on both sides, there was nowhere for the vulkodlak to escape. The scoop barely fit between the brick walls. Hundreds of the monsters were trapped.

It was disturbing, even by professional Monster Hunter standards. Earl couldn’t look away. The vulkodlak were simply consumed, like wheat in front of a combine. Some made it over the top of the steel scoop, usually missing their legs, only to flip over to end up under the tires.

The tractor lurched and groaned as the scoop was packed with vulkodlak. “Gotta put her in low.” Aino dropped the shotgun and got back into the driver’s seat. The snow cutter engine groaned as gallons of red material and rags were pumped out the spout and sprayed against the gym walls. It came splashing through the broken windows.

“That is . . . amazing,” Earl said as his safety glasses were hit with spatter. A claw slashed wildly through the bottom of the door, forcing Earl to turn his attention back to keeping them alive. He stomped it with his boot until he was positive that every bone was broken.

It was a painful, gradual approach as the tractor inched forward. The vulkodlak ahead of them scrambled, pushing themselves up the walls to escape, only to be sucked back down as the creatures below them turned into hamburger and were belched out the spout. The ones in the front tried to break through the barricades with renewed frenzy, but they were ineffectual under the crush of bodies behind them.

At the rear of the tractor, the remaining creatures were gathering, slashing at the already shredded tires and scrambling up the bumper. Earl wasted a dozen rounds on one before he realized it was wearing MCB armor and switched to carving its head apart. The dead MCB agent went over the side, but there were too many others at the rear to drop with small-arms fire alone. “Fire in the hole!” Earl shouted as he threw a pair of grenades out the back window. The twin explosions shredded many of the remaining creatures.

The vulkodlak were as savage as any undead Earl had ever encountered, but they weren’t stupid. They knew when to regroup. The crowd behind the tractor broke and fled.

At the front, the last of the trapped vulkodlak was sucked into the blades. The barricade was clear. Aino stood up for a better view over the scoop. “That’s all of ’em.” And not a second too soon, because their engine was spitting and hissing, and several warning lights were flashing on the dash.

The cab was entirely filled with cold, wet gore. The air tasted like blood, and Earl coughed as he tried to breathe against the haze. “Throw her in reverse,” he ordered.

They backed over the crunchy remains behind them. Earl scanned for threats but couldn’t spot anything that seemed worth shooting. Aino put the clutch in, and they rolled to a wet stop, engine rumbling, blades slowing and coming to a stop. The only movement came from the continued twitching of the many severed limbs. Blood dripped from the cab’s ceiling, covered every surface, and formed shell-casing-filled puddles on the floor. The brick corridor leading to the front door was greased with a substance that could best be described as mush. Everything in a large circle around them had been painted a sloppy red, and the snow was a discolored pink for another hundred feet past that.

Earl tried to find some part of his body that was not covered in blood to wipe the safety glasses on but finally gave up and tossed the glasses out the window. Aino shut off the engine, and the tractor gurgled its last. After the mechanical noise and the gunfire, the night seemed abnormally quiet. The only sound was the hissing of air escaping from their punctured tires. Even the snow had stopped falling.

“You know, I’ve been doing this kind of thing a long time. . . .” Earl pulled out a cigarette and lit up. Thankfully, at least it wasn’t red. “I’ve got to say that this is the single nastiest thing I’ve ever seen. And trust me, brother, I’ve seen some crazy shit in my day. Smoke?”

“Yup.” Aino surveyed the carnage. Earl was impressed that the old man didn’t need to puke. They built them tough up here in the frozen north. “So, this is what saving the day feels like, eh?”

“Something like that. Welcome to the exciting world of professional monster hunting. Usually not quite so . . . messy. Well, it’s always messy, but we’ve reached a whole ’nother level on this one.”

It would be dawn soon. The storm was wearing off. The energy used to disrupt local communications was weakening. It was only a matter of time before the MCB found out what they’d done here, and there would be hell to pay. It had been nearly twenty years since this level of supernatural carnage had been inflicted on American soil. The MCB would surely react with overwhelming force.

Yet, the Alpha wasn’t even slightly worried.

Lucinda Hood had mustered her courage and had descended into Shaft Six. The Alpha had been surprised to see her come down into the dark. The witch stank with fear, and it wasn’t the nervous anxiety of earlier: it was actual terror, and it was because of him. “Somehow they’ve killed most of your bloody vulkodlak. It’s stupid to stick around,” she shouted. “This is madness!”

“Fulfilling a destiny isn’t madness,” the Alpha corrected. There was no way he could be upset with her. Her pathetic senses couldn’t see what his could. Even her new god was less than what he was becoming. “We’ll leave in plenty of time, but there’s one last thing to do. He’s coming for me.”

“Who?” Lucinda asked, confused. “Who’s coming for you?”

The amulet had whispered that there was one last challenge to be faced before he was complete. It had become more aware as he’d fed it souls, until it had begun to communicate freely. The spirit of the forerunner was restless, but after being kept dormant by Koschei for so long, it had to know that he was worthy of all its gifts. “I don’t know,” he said simply. “But he’ll be here soon. I’ll prove myself worthy. Then we’ll go.”

“Worthy? Harbinger killed Petrov. You killed Harbinger. Who else is there? There are only a handful of other werewolves of their caliber, and none anywhere near here.”

“Petrov is alive. I can smell him. Maybe he’s the one, maybe not.” Despite the fact that his senses were ridiculously acute, the clues were more confusing about Harbinger. He would surely know if there was another Alpha out there, and he’d seen Harbinger die, the spirit ripped right out of his body, and used to feed the amulet. . . . Yet there was a strangeness in the air, almost like a shadow of Harbinger was lingering.

There was only one other werewolf in range that didn’t belong to the pack, but created by one of his line just this very night, an anomaly caused by the mad fluctuations of the amulet. A woman, and she had the blood of the thieving Finn, but also something else, something odd about her scent. Could it be her? The idea was absurd; she was too inexperienced to be a threat.

At this very moment the female was watching this place from the shelter of the forest, thinking that her presence was unknown. The Alpha had assumed that she had been driven by instinct to come begging for a place in the pack, but instead she’d just stayed there, observing. Perhaps she was frightened to come down. Maybe she understood how he’d fed on his own pack earlier, but he was satisfied now. With the bloodlust past, she would have been safe enough. He was feeling merciful. Yet, though there was a hint of fear on the mystery woman, there was far more resolve.

Lucinda continued to plead with him, but the witch could never hope to comprehend what the amulet wanted. Since putting it on, his understanding had continually increased. He knew now for sure that this was the item used to create the very first of his kind. It was not alive, it was not intelligent, but it had been programmed to search for someone worthy. Now it was telling him all that remained was to confirm he was truly the one. That meant facing one last unknown challenger.

The Alpha had learned about the amulet from intel gathered by the original Operation Unicorn during the Second World War. It had been far before his time, but he had read the OSS reports detailing the mysterious Koschei and his mysterious abilities. It wasn’t until archeologists had uncovered the bones of the forerunner that he’d come to understand his mission in life. The MCB had seized the forerunner’s remains, but not before word had spread to his own organization. The first time he’d touched the bones, he’d known. The spirit of the forerunner had filled his mind with images. The dreams had begun shortly after, and finding the lost amulet had become his sole purpose in life.

Of course it was fate. He was a werewolf, but he’d also started as so much more than a human. It was obvious why the forerunner had chosen him. It was still far beyond his comprehension how or why the amulet had been fashioned through human alchemy and the Old Ones’ lore, and then used to rip the spirit from the fiercest of all monsters to be bonded to a man, but he knew with all his heart that he was the one they had built it for. He was the true Alpha, the one who would prepare the way.

As the Alpha listened to the witch’s protests, the unknown female werewolf left the tree line and loped back toward town. Running her down would have been easy, but the amulet told him to let her go. Apparently, it thought she had some part to play.

Chapter 27

The good people of Copper Lake came out of the gym to check for survivors, then promptly took an ax to any vulkodlak that was still moving.

“I’ll be damned, Mr. Harbinger. I do believe you’ve made an unholy mess of things out here,” Nancy Randall said after she climbed through the barricade. She looked down at the organic slurry under her boots in disgust and then back at Earl with only slightly less disgust. Earl stood his ground. His armor was still dripping blood. She cracked a smile. “If you weren’t so damn gross, I’d give you a hug.”

“Thank you kindly, ma’am,” Earl said as Aino approached. “But the wood-chipper on wheels was Aino’s idea. I do believe the county owes him one hell of a Christmas bonus.”

Nancy looked over Aino, who wasn’t much cleaner than Earl. “I’ll make sure he gets a parade and the keys to the city.”

“Forget the keys. I’ll take paid vacation,” Aino said. “Someplace with no werewolves.”

There was cheering and shouting from inside the gym as word spread about the vulkodlak. “Don’t get too excited just yet,” Earl warned. “They’ll be back. This isn’t enough to account for every dead body in town. The ones I hurt ran, but they’ll be back. The tractor’s toast, but we can use it to shore up your barricade, which should make it tougher to break in. But we’ve still got bigger problems.”

“You’ve got no idea,” Nancy muttered as a large figure ducked under the barricade to join them outside.

Earl frowned. “Agent Stork?”

“Stark,” the MCB man corrected automatically before launching into a spittle-flecked tirade. “Damn you, Harbinger. The only reason I don’t shoot you on the spot is because of all the rednecks with guns in there who think you’re some sort of . . .” He searched for the word.

“Hero?” Earl pointedly looked at the splattered walls and spread his hands. “Well . . . duh.”

Stark’s face was flushed and angry. “Let me tell you something. When we get back to civilization, you’re going down. I’ll make sure—”

“Cram it, fatty,” Nancy said. “Come on inside, boys. It really stinks out here.” She led the way back through the hole.

It was obvious Stark wasn’t used to being told what to do by civilians. He just glared as Earl casually bumped into him, staining Stark’s armor red, but the agent held his tongue. The original doors had been torn to splinters and then replaced with the boards from the bleachers, bathroom stalls, and everything short of the kitchen sink. Judging from the looks of things, they’d gotten there just in the nick of time.

It was much warmer inside, so warm in fact that Earl’s frozen face began to tingle like it was being stabbed with dozens of tiny needles. Despite the blood on his clothing, complete strangers manning the barricade slapped him on the back. Earl was not used to so many people looking at him like that. MHI tried to keep a much lower profile. Frankly, the attention made him uncomfortable. Someone passed him a gym towel, and he used it to scrub his face clean.

“Shoo! Give these men some room.” Nancy ordered. The crowd drew back automatically. She’d obviously established herself as the leader during the night. “You said we’ve got more problems. What else can go wrong?”

There was enough background noise that he wasn’t worried about anyone overhearing anything they shouldn’t. “The man that started this is still out there. I need to find him. If I don’t, he’ll just do this again someplace else.”

“I can send some people with you,” Nancy said. “You’ll need—”

Earl raised his hand. He was going after an Alpha; a mob would just get in his way, and most of them would probably get killed in the process. These people had guts, but they didn’t have training. He needed Hunters. “It’s not safe yet. There will be more vulkodlak coming, and they’re fast and tough to kill. Plus, he’s still got some other critters he could throw your way. You need every shooter you’ve got here.”

“I’m coming,” Aino stated. “There’s nobody to miss me.”

Earl didn’t know how to respond to that. Aino was a sturdy fellow in a fight, that was for sure, but he had to be about the age of Earl’s kids, as in too damn old to be fighting monsters. “You did real good back there, but you—”

Aino raised his voice. “Just mulched half the people I know.”

“No doubting that, my friend. We’ll talk about it, but I need you to translate Aksel’s journal for me first.”

The curmudgeon obviously didn’t like it, but he understood. Aino nodded his blood-matted head once and walked off, determined to get to work.

Stark had to butt in again. “I don’t think you’re going after anybody. I think you’re the one behind this, and I think you’re going to run off to cover your ass. How do I know you’re not going to go destroy the evidence?”

Despite the sheer stupidity of that assertion and the sudden desire to slug Stark in the mouth, Earl just smiled and said, “Well, then, Agent. How about you come along to keep an eye on me? You are, after all, a highly trained professional.”

That caught Stark by surprise. “Well . . . I  . . . I’m needed here for . . . command and control.”

“Not really,” Nancy pointed out. “We had that handled just fine before you showed up.”

“But . . . somebody needs to get in contact with MCB headquarters . . . in case the lines open up.”

Nancy put her hands on her hips. “Don’t forget your phone then. You’ll get better reception outside anyway. I’ll be sure, when the rest of your people show up, to tell them how brave you were to try and protect us poor defenseless types from all those horrible monsters. That sounds much nicer than me telling them about how you were basically useless and spent your time trying to boss yourself into a spot in the basement.”

Earl looked between them. He didn’t know what had transpired, but apparently it was making Stark uncomfortable, and therefore Earl approved. Stark spoke very slowly. “You wouldn’t . . .”

“Whatever you are, you’re still a government employee. And I know government employees, since I myself am a politician. From the way you’re used to throwing your weight around, I’m guessing you’ve got a pretty high-level job, but I’m also assuming a tragedy like this will bring out some even higher-level scrutiny. Regardless of who you work for, I bet they won’t like the fact that you were trying to throw some children out of the bomb shelter to get murdered to make space for your ugly ass.”

“I . . . well, I . . . I mean . . .” Stark looked at Earl and sighed. “Shit.” He’d just been deftly outmaneuvered. “I’ll go round up some cold-weather gear.” Dejected, Stark stomped off.

“You know, I didn’t really want him along,” Earl pointed out as he watched the agent retreat. “I was just trying to shut him up.”

“Better you than me. If he gives you any lip, maybe you could accidentally push him into the snow cutter?”

“Tempting. Well, at least MCB are usually handy in a fight. I could use some real Hunters.”

A very deep voice intruded on their conversation. “Mr. Harbinger?”

Earl turned, and then had to look up. Way up. The man was huge, bigger than Pitt or Gregorius, bigger than his largest Hunters. The man had to be nearly seven feet tall and was built like an NFL lineman. His enormous shaved head was wrapped in a bandage. He had one lazy eye and the facial scarring of someone who’d once suffered a severe cranial injury. Despite the fact that he was an extremely memorable specimen, and Earl was positive they’d never spoken, there was something oddly familiar about the man. “Do I know you?”

“I believe I hit you in the back with an ax earlier. Just wanted to say sorry about that.”

Earl nodded. The other Hunters. “Briarwood, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, sir. I’m the last, though. Name’s Jason Lococo. Most people just call me Loco.”

“Most people are stupid, too. What do you prefer?”

“I . . . Well, Jason would be fine, sir.”

There was no sign of the other Briarwood men that had shot up Heather’s house earlier. “What happened to Horst?”

“Gone.” Jason gave a grim little smile, leaving the impression that it was gone as in dead, as opposed to gone as in left. “Turns out he wasn’t as clever as he thought he was. Is MHI hiring?”

“MHI is always hiring.”

“I don’t have a resume handy, but I can provide references.”

“You managed to hit me with an ax,” Earl said. “I’ve got to say, that’s a decent resume builder. You’re injured, though.”

Jason gestured at the bandage. “Just a flesh wound. Ryan shot me in the head on account of me not wanting to murder you.”

“He sure had a way with people, didn’t he?”

“Yes, sir. I do okay at fighting monsters, and I’ve got a family to support. I can help.”

Earl thought about it for a moment. There was no doubt the man was a Hunter, even if he was from a shoddy outfit. He’d do. “All right. You’re hired, but let’s call this a probationary period. If we don’t die shortly, we’ll discuss salary and benefits. Gather what equipment you can and meet me back here in ten minutes. Move out.”

Jason seemed honestly relieved. “Thank you, sir. You won’t regret this.”

Nancy waited for the big man to get out of earshot. “When we were bandaging him up, he was covered in prison tats.”

Earl shrugged. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d hired a Hunter with a felony record. “I trust him more than Stark already. I’m not hiring him to lead a church choir. I’ll pull his records when I get a chance. If he did something particularly vile, like murdering without a good excuse or hurting women or kids, then I could probably get that snow-blower going again.”

“You’re a man of strange sensibilities, Harbinger. But back to what you were saying. I’ll feel better when the trash behind this is put away. How do you intend to find him?”

There was a sudden banging on the barricade. Men rushed over to peer through the holes. “Where’d he come from?” someone shouted.

“I didn’t see anyone coming!” responded the rifleman guarding the front window. “He came out of nowhere.”

There was more commotion around the barricade. Earl confirmed that his Thompson was ready, then waited. Twenty seconds later, a teenage boy ran over to Earl and Nancy. “Mr. Harbinger, there’s somebody here to speak with you. Says his name is Nikolai.”

“That’s how I intend to find him,” Earl told Nancy. “If you’ll excuse me . . . Oh, and if this asshole tries to kill me, shoot him full of holes.”

Two men moved a chunk of the barricade for him. Judging from the shape of it, it was what remained of the trophy case that Heather had broken. Nikolai was waiting outside, arms folded, rifle slung over one shoulder. He’d found some clean winter clothing, probably from the Alpha’s closet, and appeared much healthier than earlier.

Earl greeted him. “You’re looking sane.”

“You, on the other hand, look like shit,” Nikolai replied, running one thumb under his eye, indicating the spot where Buckley had tagged him. “You’ve received a few marks, I see.”

Everything on him hurt. “You don’t realize just how nice regeneration is, ’til you don’t.”

“It is rather pleasant. I’ve fed. Our mystery Alpha has a penchant for Spam.” Nikolai patted his stomach. He no longer looked emaciated. “Six cans of lard-soaked protein later, and I feel fine.”

“Spam or death . . . Tough call.” Earl took out a pack of cigarettes. “I’m a jerky man myself. Smoke?”

“No, thank you.” Nikolai studied the blood-soaked walls. The largest identifiable object left in the entryway was a heavily damaged pair of work boots. “I like what you’ve done to the place. Very industrial.”

It was surprisingly awkward, trying to be friendly with somebody like Nikolai. “How about we cut the bullshit and get down to business? You with me or against me?”

“You’re still alive. I believe even you can extrapolate an answer from that.”

“Extrapolate? Where the hell did they teach you English?”

“I’m sorry. The KGB did not have classes in cracker.”

Earl sighed. “Can you take me to the Alpha or not?”

Nikolai nodded his head toward the hills. “He’s out there somewhere. I can feel the amulet. It’s been getting stronger all night. I do not know where he is, but I can take us in the right direction.”

“Can I trust you?”

“No, but you will,” Nikolai answered. “You helped me do something that had to be done. I have regained control. I came here to kill the man that took Lila from me. I will not stop until that is done.”

“Fair enough.” There was no trust, but there was enough mutual respect to get them through the mission. Earl held out his hand. “Truce?”

Nikolai sneered at the extended hand. “Do not patronize me, Harbinger. We kill this zalupa first. Then we can define our terms.”

It would have to do. They’d go back to killing each other as soon as the Alpha was out of the way. Earl kept his face emotionless but decided then that when they were done, Nikolai had to be put down. Both of his personalities were too dangerous to live. Nikolai’s expression was hard, and Earl knew that the Russian had probably come to a similar conclusion.

“Agreed then . . .” This pained him to say aloud, but Nikolai needed to know. “I think I know who we’re after. We go back a ways. I believe the Alpha’s a man named Kirk Conover. I don’t know if that’s his real name, but that’s what he went by.”

Nikolai thought about it. “The liaison officer at Special Task Force Unicorn?” He seemed dubious. “Unlikely.”

“I don’t know who he’s worked for since the war, but he was some kind of spook. He’s the one that told me you’d be here. He roped me into this, and I trusted him like a sucker. I don’t know how he hid it, but he smelled human, and he appeared to have aged like normal.”

“We met . . . briefly, but that was long ago. Why would he have attacked my family?”

“He had a special hatred for you. His wife had nightmares about you until the day she died.”

“She would not be the first.” Nikolai scowled. “Who was this woman?”

“Your side would probably have known her as Sharon Mangum. Girl had a human father and a siren mother. She was with me on STFU. I found an old photo of Kirk and Sharon at the Alpha’s home. It was the only personal effect in the whole place.”

“Ah, yes. The Singer. She was right to be afraid. She was considered a very high-value target. Anyone that can so confuse a man’s mind is an extremely dangerous asset.” The Russian seemed unconvinced. “But there could be other reasons the photograph was there. Could it have been planted to throw you off?”

“Maybe, but it don’t feel that way. I don’t know. It’s the only thing that makes sense. I haven’t seen the Alpha yet, but I’ve spoken to him. He broadcasts his voice somehow, probably using magic. He sounded younger, but he talked like he knew all about me. I didn’t get too many details, since you interrupted and drove a snowplow through the wall and blew me up.”

“Yes, that was a good one,” Nikolai said smugly.

“He didn’t sound like Kirk, but he’s using magic, so who knows what else he’s altered. The Alpha said he’d lured us both here. Kirk lured me here. He despised you, knew enough about your history to manipulate you, and had the resources to find you. You got any other ideas?”

“If Conover is the Alpha, then when did he become a werewolf?”

Earl tossed his partially smoked cigarette into the red snow. “I don’t know, but when the Alpha was ripping the curse out of me, he called me father.”

“Ah, now I see.” Nikolai smirked. “So that is why you asked me if you’d spread the curse to anyone during our last battle. It seemed odd that you would not recall having given one of your comrades the curse. . . .” He trailed off, as if lost in thought.

Earl could tell Nikolai was holding something back. “What?”

“You really don’t remember? What’s wrong with you? I did not know werewolves could become senile.”

“Stick it, you vodka-swilling Commie asshole. A demon stole some of my memories a while ago, okay? All I remember is your bomb going off and then waking up on a medevac. I’ve got memories from before, and memories from after, but not those. Quit screwing around. What do you know?”

“Earlier, you asked me if you’d spread the curse to anyone, not if you’d bitten anyone on your side.”

Now it was Earl’s turn to be confused. “What’s the difference?”

“Only humans can be cursed. A divine, or even a half-divine, cannot turn into a werewolf. Only bitten humans can be transformed. Surely you knew that.”

“Of course . . . But . . .” The memories just weren’t there, but there was only one person on the task force that fit that description. “That’s impossible.”

“Now you see. In your injured confusion, you did bite someone that day, but it was not Conover. That event would have had dire repercussions, and surely you would have memories of the aftermath, of costing your leader his life. No, you don’t recall this, because for you there was no aftermath. Instead it was a minor injury against one to whom the curse meant nothing, who could heal rapidly, and had no fear of being turned. You bit the Singer.”

“You’re lying.”

“Tell me, did you associate with your teammates after the war? Did you keep in touch? Tell me, Harbinger, doesn’t Unicorn hold reunions?” Nikolai turned away and gave a cold laugh. “And to think that I’d doubted the reports all this time.”

“That’s enough!” Earl strode over, grabbed Nikolai by the collar and jerked him around, heedless of the fact that the Russian could kill him in the blink of an eye. “What do you know?” Earl snarled. “What happened?”

“You know nothing.” Nikolai met his gaze evenly. “I know now who we face. After the war, we kept tabs on the surviving members of all four of the American special task forces. I know more about the fates of your former teammates than you do.”

That was obviously true. Earl hadn’t even ever had a confirmation that there were any other teams active.

“Of the survivors, most, like you, went on to become PUFF-exempt and lived normal lives, a few were still considered too dangerous and were liquidated, and one went on to become a rather legendary MCB asset. Nothing particularly interesting to my superiors, except that two of the survivors disappeared completely within a few years of your return. One special, one human. They married, had children, and held uninteresting government jobs under an alias. Then one day they just vanished into thin air. It was a precise operation. Their existence was totally scrubbed. But before that, we had watched from a distance—”

“Who are you talking about?” Earl asked, exasperated.

“You must not have received the wedding invitation. The Singer had a child eight months after our last battle. It was a healthy baby boy.”

Understanding came like a kick to the gut. Earl let go of Nikolai and turned away.

Nikolai continued without mercy. “A half-siren? The curse could never take hold in such blood. On a quarter-breed? Perhaps, perhaps not. We do not know. But what of a seed, barely taken hold in its mother’s womb, suddenly introduced to the curse through the mother’s blood? The mother would be fine, but the child . . . Oh, what an awful fate to inflict on a child.”

It was too horrific to comprehend. Normally, small children inflicted with the curse grew sick and died, but if the child was already supernaturally strong, then it was possible they could live through the change. “What have I done?” Earl whispered.

“Can you imagine? A being already blessed with monstrous gifts and a werewolf from birth? Such a creature would be a remarkable asset in the right hands. Surely, when such gifts began to manifest, that would be worth whisking a family off into top-secret obscurity, to be protected, to be . . . cultivated.”

“You don’t know this.”

Nikolai shook his head. “There is no confirmation. Only half-whispered legends. You are not naive enough to believe that your special task force was the last time your government would dabble in such things? Such a being could be very capable if he were to be raised and trained to control his gifts.”

A werewolf from birth, but instead of being tempered by a human side, he would have been a conglomeration of two monstrous halves. “Dear God. What have I done?”

“Now, what if this already remarkable being were to go astray, off the reservation as you would say, and found an ancient talisman that magnified his lycanthropic power tenfold?”

“He’d be unstoppable.” Earl looked at the carnage around them and felt nauseous for the first time. All of this had been caused by someone he’d created. Biting a pregnant woman . . . He’d cursed an unborn child and created a monster. “This is all my fault.”

“Yes,” Nikolai answered. “Now that I don’t need you, I was debating what to do when we are finished with this Alpha. But now? You should live. Knowing that you are responsible for such madness will wound you more than anything I could do. Your curse is gone, but it lives on through the damage caused by your line. No matter what you do, you are damned. You should have known there is no escape for men such as us.”

Nikolai didn’t understand. It wasn’t about escape. It was about penance. Sometimes the best thing a man could hope for was to set things right. Earl looked to the hills, dense forest stretching for miles, and he knew that somewhere out there, this Alpha, his bastard hybrid creation, was waiting.

Chapter 28

Harbinger had lied to her. Being a werewolf wasn’t nearly as bad as he’d described.

Sure, it had been awful at first; mind-blowing pain, incoherent rage, and thoughts so darkly violent that they’d make a homicidal maniac cringe—that part was exactly like Harbinger had told her it would be. But then she’d found her groove. Thinking was hard, but not impossible. It just took more concentration.

At first, in the dark, encircled in freezing cold steel, she’d been scared. Then she’d gotten angry. There was nothing in the world more important than killing everyone for putting her in the box. The black frenzy had blocked out everything else until she’d literally exhausted her anger.

Eventually other thoughts had snuck through the cracks in the madness. Heather had remembered her family. They were all gone now, but they wouldn’t want to see her like this. They’d be ashamed to think of her tearing people’s limbs off. Since she’d been young, she’d thought of herself as a peacemaker. She had always been the one to break up the fights, to kick a bully’s ass, to crack a joke, to try to help someone in need. When she’d gotten older, she’d continued doing the same thing, only more so.

Born with a strong sense of right and wrong, Heather had been an absolutist when it came to doing the right thing. Stubborn, she’d accomplished everything that anyone had ever dared tell her she couldn’t. She’d stayed a peacemaker, then added protector to the resume as she’d gotten older. As a female police officer, she’d had to work twice as hard to be considered half as good. So it had been her nature to work herself to death to be considered one of the best.

Back in Minneapolis, she’d risked her life to save a kid from being sold and disappearing into the underworld. She had been undercover, just supposed to be observing a ‘massage parlor’ for Vice. They’d had no idea what kind of evil really took place there. All alone, the radio failed, no backup, stupidly outnumbered, it hadn’t mattered. . . . Nobody else was there to protect that kid, so Heather had. It had put her on the fast track to detective.

But then her mom had gotten sick, and she’d dropped everything and come home. The decision hadn’t even taken a second thought; someone needed her help. Unfortunately, the only thing she could do was help make her comfortable. Her mom’s death had shaken Heather, and then she’d repeated the process with her grandpa, and then finally with her dad. One after the other. Her grandpa had always been a melancholy and angry man, and when he died it was almost like her dad had inherited that darkness, and then when he was gone he’d passed it on to her, like a family curse. By the time all of the dying was over, she’d been left burned-out and empty. She’d given until there was just nothing left inside, and she’d spent the time since on autopilot.

Then some scumbag had come along and threatened her town. It had awakened that dormant protective nature, and Heather again had a purpose. And she was a force to reckon with when she had a purpose.

The tracks in the snow behind her were paws, but as the distance grew, the tracks changed. By the time they were footprints, she could think clearly again. She continued running through the trees. The ice should have hurt her feet, but there was no pain. The cold should have cut through her naked skin, but she was warm. Faster than was humanly possible, she ran for town, never getting short of breath, never tiring. It felt good to be strong. It would have been so easy to pick a new direction and just keep on running, but Heather focused on the job. People were counting on her, and she couldn’t afford to let them down.

Copper Lake donated several snowmobiles with full tanks of gas to the cause. Nancy said their owners weren’t around to miss them. She’d sent someone to grab them from a local rental place. They were parked in front of the gym, just outside the pink-slush zone. Earl had sent runners to gather every remaining weapon from his overturned truck and was in the process of strapping the cases onto the back of a newer Polaris while Aino read aloud from Aksel Kerkonen’s journal.

“I don’t understand this,” Aino complained. “It’s nonsense words.”

“Repeat them to me.”

“They’re gibberish.”

“It’s a spell.” Earl sighed. He hated magic and had zero talent in that regard, but if you spent enough time hunting, you were bound to gain some familiarity. Earl had intimate knowledge of dark magic’s effects; he’d seen the dead rise, seas boil, and fire rain from the skies, but the idea of invoking it himself was abhorrent. But if it meant the difference between beating the Alpha or not, then Earl wasn’t above dabbling in the black arts. “Read them to me.”

“Aksel wrote that the Baba Yaga walked him through saying these first. I’m no witch of the woods.”

“No, you’re way too pretty.” Earl had never encountered an actual Baba Yaga. They were rare even in the dark frozen corners of Europe they originally hailed from and nonexistent in his usual area of operations, but by all accounts that particular fey was hideously ugly. “Just sound them out, already.”

“Well, Aksel couldn’t spell for shit, so this should be close.” Aino cleared his throat and made an attempt at the words. “Allut tvar mataw.”

Agent Stark, having found some supplies and another weapon, joined them at the snowmobiles. “What’re you doing?” He was livid. “That sounds like Old Ones’ language. You can go to jail just for speaking that stuff.”

“Add it to the list of things you’re going to prosecute me for,” Earl said. “It’s all in that journal, Stark. The Soviets had a badass werewolf by the name of Koschei dealing out a lot of hurt during the Winter War. He was so tough they called him the Deathless, and it was all because he was wearing that damn amulet. They couldn’t kill Koschei no matter how hard they tried, until some enterprising young officer got tired of retreating and cut a deal with a Baba Yaga for instructions on how to kill him.”

“How complicated could it be?”

Aino looked up from the book. “She made some weird magic for them. She killed a bear, and inside its belly was a fox, and inside its belly was a chicken, and inside that chicken was an egg with a silver nugget inside, that she melted into a bunch of needles. Personally I think that part sounds like bullshit she made up so she could charge the army more money. The silver needles, they had to be driven square into Koschei’s forehead. Only place that would do, and they’d only work for a minute. Then somebody had to put their hands on the necklace and say the spell before it could be pulled off.”

Earl pointed at the antique Mosin-Nagant rifle on the back of his snowmobile. “That’s our long-range needle applicator. We find the super-werewolf. Shoot him in the face. Recite a few words. Then go out for coffee and doughnuts. My treat.”

Aino grunted. “I better get some damned sprinkles on mine.”

Stark was unimpressed. “Sure. Magic chicken egg antique silver bullets . . . How’d that work out last time?”

Earl didn’t look up from tying down cases. “Our boy Aksel was the only survivor, but he got the job done.”

“Superstitious nonsense. We should play this by the book. Casting spells is against the law.”

“I know that, but you want to square off against a super-werewolf that the hardest sons a bitches that ever came out of the frozen north couldn’t beat without cheating, be my guest.”

“You get an Old One’s attention, or even worse, bring one here, and we’ll be—”

Earl had never realized just how uninformed a senior member of the MCB could be. Myers, in comparison, was remarkably competent. “Okay, okay. Listen . . .” Earl tried to control his frustration, but since he was resisting the urge to strangle Stark, he considered it a win. “Didn’t they teach any classes at your fancy MCB school besides witness intimidation? Baba Yaga are fey, not Old Ones.”

“What’s the difference?” Aino asked.

“Different dimensions. One’s a whole lot meaner,” Earl explained. “Not that fey are nice, but they tend to keep their unpleasantness to the individual instead of the world-wrecking level. Come on, Stark. Grow a pair.”

“Still . . . It sounds like he just made it all up.”

“He wasn’t an MCB agent bucking for a promotion. Look. I’ll grab the amulet and say the words. You just cover me. Worst-case scenario if the Alpha doesn’t kill me first, which he probably will, is that I piss off some immortal crone and she hops a flight from Finland and comes over here and puts a hex on me. The bitch can get in line.”

Stark folded his arms. “You shouldn’t joke about that. Curses are serious business.”

Earl was the last person that needed to be lectured on curses. “Well, I’m short one, figured I’d collect some more. After this I’m thinking I’ll go desecrate a mummy’s tomb or something.”

“Fine.” Stark relented and climbed onto another snowmobile. “We’ll see who’s laughing when you get turned into a frog. Play with your antique bullets. We need to stop by my car on the way so I can get some modern weapons.”

Earl just smiled at Stark’s ignorance. Sure, he was packing a pair of wheel-guns, a subgun built during the Second World War, and a rifle design that dated back to the tsars, but he also had an 84mm recoilless rifle and enough shells to obliterate half the county. Earl Harbinger was retro-practical. “Aino, would you repeat those words?”

Aino complied. “Allut tvar mataw. Allut tvar mataw.”

The words were harsh, grating, unpleasant on the tongue, but at least they didn’t seem to bend his sanity like the Old Ones’ language did. Earl memorized the words and tried to repeat them. They didn’t feel particularly magical. He was probably going to screw this up.

Jason Lococo joined them a moment later, having borrowed some gear from the locals and unceremoniously dumped it on the back of his snowmobile. Earl had left him the biggest vehicle, an 800cc monstrosity. The giant stopped and silently listened to the words of the Baba Yaga. After Aino read the line and Earl repeated it for the fifth time, Jason asked, “If that don’t work, what do we do then?”

“Anything you can think of to hurt him, and if that doesn’t pan out, run for your life,” Earl directed. “If I go down, somebody needs to stay alive to warn everyone else about this guy.”

Stark raised his hand. “Maybe I should stay here then. You know . . . to report.”

It was an odd feeling, but Earl had never found himself wishing for the professionalism of Agent Myers before. Despite their mutual hatred for each other, at least Myers wasn’t a chicken. In fact, if he was going to be stuck with an agent, he would have traded Stark for any of the other ones he’d met. Sad to admit, but Franks would be especially useful. Hell, Franks would probably just walk up and punch the Alpha to death.

“Oh, come on, Agent Stark.” Jason chuckled. “You were all excited for us to be killing werewolves when you thought you were going to get a cut.”

“Shut up, you idiot!” Stark hissed.

“Huh?” Earl’s eyes narrowed. “Cut of what?”

Stark held up his hands defensively. “I don’t know what this guy’s talking about. Cut? What cut?”

“You didn’t know?” Jason shook his head. “Yeah, Horst gave Stark something like twenty percent of our PUFF. He told us about the infected deputy in the hospital. That was supposed to be an easy kill.”

Stark had called Briarwood? But that meant when Joe Buckley turned early at the hospital and killed all those folks and cursed Heather . . . That all could have been prevented. MCB’s own regulations would have required them to stay with anyone they even suspected was infected until it was confirmed if they were or not. Stark had not only known, he’d left someone newly cursed unattended in a crowded place. Earl’s gloved hand curled into a fist. Sam Haven had warned him about this guy, and apparently Sam hadn’t been exaggerating. He walked toward Stark’s snowmobile.

“That’s nonsense!” Stark shouted at Jason while trying to look indignant and failing miserably. “He’s lying, Harbinger.”

“When collecting on the deputy didn’t work out, Stark told Horst all about you,” Jason said. “I wasn’t there for that conversation, but Horst thought you were worth so much PUFF that it was worth shooting me in the back and leaving his girlfriend to rot to death to try and kill you.”

“You did what?”

“Harbinger, I—” Stark’s nose was smashed flat as Earl punched him square in the face. He fell over the side of his snowmobile. Earl followed him around and slugged him again as he started to rise. The impact hurt Earl’s fist. Stark hit the snow, groaning. Earl took a step back, shaking his aching hand, then changed his mind, came back, and kicked Stark in the ribs.

“I’d suggest that you stay down!” Earl was mad, downright enraged. If he’d still been a werewolf, it would have taken every bit of his self control not to change right then. Stark had violated a sacred trust. Earl had earned his PUFF exemption. Who was this bureaucrat to take that from him?

Stark reached into his coat. Earl no longer possessed superhuman speed, but he was by all reckoning still a very quick man. Drawing his Bowie knife, he grabbed Stark by the hood, jerked his head up before he could reach his pistol, and placed the cold steel edge against Stark’s jugular. That stopped him cold.

A flick of the wrist and the agent would die. “I did everything they asked me to do. . . . Do you have any idea how many people I killed, how many friends I lost, war after war, so that some government flunky could stamp a piece of paper that said I got to live like a man?”

Blood was running from Stark’s nose. “N-no,” he whimpered.

“I’ve seen your kind before, boy. A new generation of assholes comes along, you forget about the sacrifices made by the ones that came before. They mean nothing. To you, we’re all the same. You can’t tell the difference between a man and a monster. Oh, you’ve got your rules, only they never apply to your kind. And their protections only apply to people like me when it’s convenient for people like you.” Earl twisted the bone handle of the razor-sharp knife. Stark yelped as it cut his skin.

A pair of boots stepped into Earl’s field of view. “Am I interrupting something?” Nikolai asked politely.

“Not really. I’m just deciding on whether to slit Agent Stark’s throat or not.”

“I found the scent,” Nikolai said. Earl paused and looked up. The Russian gestured toward the hills.

Earl leaned in close and hissed into Stark’s ear. “It’s your lucky day.” He let go of the hood, and Stark flopped facedown into the snow. Earl stood up and sheathed his knife. “Where?”

“He went north along Cliff Road.”

“The only thing up there are some farms and . . . That’s toward the old Quinn mine,” Aino said.

“The one that Aksel worked at?” Earl asked.

“The same. One of the deepest in the world, ’til part collapsed and killed a mess of us.”

“That sound like a reasonable place to hide a mystical amulet to you?” he asked Nikolai.

“It was on my list of places to look. A mile underground and filled with water. The amulet would have been extremely difficult to find.”

Earl remembered the smell of the creatures that had held him earlier. They’d stunk of the deep earth. “Unless you had some critters that could dig for you. Then it would have just taken time. He’s probably using the mine as a base of operations now.”

Nikolai stopped and tilted his head. The expression was recognizable to Earl now. Nikolai was listening to the voices in his head. “Yes. Yes, I believe he would. . . . Follow me.” Nikolai mounted a waiting snowmobile, fired up the engine, and sped off.

“You trust that crazy?” Aino asked.

“Not at all.”

“I better come with you, then,” Aino said.

“What’re you, seventy?” Earl asked.

“Meh, I’m only twenty. It’s the climate. Long winters. Hard on the skin,” the old man said. “I can help. I know that place. It’s a big facility. And I know the mines, if you have to go down.”

Aino Haapasalo was cantankerous and stubbornly brave, but neither of those traits would keep them alive against what they were facing. “It’s been a long time,” Earl pointed out.

“When a place tries that hard to kill you, you don’t forget it very easy. And don’t you feel guilty about maybe me dying. I shoulda died years ago. I’ve just been passing time since then. Besides . . .” He held up Aksel’s journal. “I’m the only one that can read this. It might come in handy still.”

Regular people never ceased to amaze him. He reached over and slapped Aino on the arm. “All right. Mount up. Follow the crazy Russian.”

Stark rolled over with a groan and pressed his sleeve to his broken nose. He flinched when Earl kicked him in the leg. “What’re you waiting for? Let’s move out.”

“But . . . I—”

“Oh, you thought making me mad might get you out of some honest work? I don’t think so. See, me and your boss go way back. We sure as hell ain’t friends, but he’s a real letter-of-the-law kind of man, and I know he holds his people to the same standards. You, on the other hand, are taking bribes and breaking PUFF exemptions for money. Help beat this Alpha, and I’ll be inclined to forget some of your misdeeds the next time I talk to Myers. Now get your ass up before I change my mind.”

Stark glared at Earl as he lumbered to his feet, but he didn’t say another word as he reluctantly got back on the snowmobile. He flipped down his goggles over his stillbleeding nose. There may not have been any words, but Earl could see the message clearly etched on Stark’s jowly face. You’ll regret this. The snowmobile engine started with a roar, and Stark took off after Nikolai.

“Now, that’s the spirit.” Bringing Stark along might turn out to be a mistake, but he didn’t particularly like the idea of leaving him here to cause trouble, either. So it was either bring him or murder him. When the MCB did show up, it would be nice if he’d have a chance to explain the night’s events before Stark could put his spin on it. But just in case . . . Earl turned to Jason. “Do me a favor. If Agent Stark shoots me in the back, blow his fucking head off.”

“Yes, sir,” Jason answered as he got onto his snowmobile. It looked far too small to carry him. The whole vehicle creaked as he settled in. “You know, I already like this job better than my last one.”

Chapter 29

The forest was eerily quiet in the predawn stillness. The snow had stopped falling. The wind had died. There were still sporadic gunshots coming from town, but they seemed so distant that it was almost peaceful. The fact that anyone was still alive to be shooting seemed like a good sign, while the fact that there was something still to shoot at was very bad.

Somebody was coming. First she heard the engines. Instinctively taking cover behind a tree, she waited for them to pass. The sounds echoed along the hills a long time before the snowmobiles would be visible. There were several of them, and they were coming from town. That meant they were probably on her side, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

Next, she smelled them. The engines were hot, the exhaust was acrid. The lead rider was odd; something about his smell distorted her senses, like an air-freshener covering up something pungent. The effect was probably the wolfsbane that Harbinger had warned her about. It was supposed to mess with a werewolf’s nose. The others weren’t cloaked, though, and she could get a clear fix on them. Some of the riders tasted like fear, others of determination and . . . tobacco?

Heather’s nose crinkled. Harbinger.

Relieved, she stepped out from the cover of the trees and ran for the approaching headlights. There was no problem navigating down to the road, since her vision had changed. Seeing in the dark was easy now. She raised her arms overhead and waved. Someone shouted, and the headlights turned toward her.

She picked out the other individual scents. Aino Haapasalo smelled like high-blood-pressure medications and the beer he’d had for dinner. The government man that had tried to shoot her earlier was the one giving off the most fear. There was a muscular stranger, bleeding and in pain but trying not to show weakness. Now that he was close enough, she could smell the werewolf under the cloud of wolfsbane. Somehow Nikolai was alive, and his scent screamed danger and made a part of her brain shout Run! but she told that part to pipe down. If that lunatic was riding with Harbinger, there had to be a good reason for it.

The snowmobiles stopped in a line. Goggles were lifted. Mildly curious, the big one looked her up and down. “Aren’t you cold?”

It took her a moment to realize that she was completely naked. Shit! She awkwardly tried to cover herself with her hands and mostly failed. It had felt so natural, even in the freezing cold, that she’d kind of forgotten, but now that there were people looking at her, she was suddenly embarrassed.

Earl Harbinger parked the closest. So many ice crystals stuck to his clothing that he nearly shined. He killed the engine, rested one hand on his holstered revolver, and studied her intently, and it wasn’t just because of her lack of clothing. “Say something.”

She hadn’t spoken for a while. Her mouth was painfully dry. “Uh . . . Hi? Now can I borrow some clothes?”

“I’m sure glad to see you.” Harbinger breathed a sigh of relief as he jumped off the snowmobile and headed over. He swept off his leather jacket and draped it protectively over her shoulders. The movement struck her as strangely chivalrous. “How’re you human already?”

“I don’t know. I just . . . changed back when I wanted to.” She pulled the jacket tight. It was warm with lingering body heat and smelled like Harbinger.

“You . . . You what? How—never mind. Jason, hand me that blanket.”

“It’s okay, I’m not cold. Just . . .” The jowly Fed was staring at her. She glared right back. “What? You’ve never seen a woman before?”

“You’re the deputy from the hospital. You’re one of them now.”

“Wow. A brain surgeon. No shit, Sherlock.” The big one gave her a blanket, and she wrapped herself in it and leaned against the back of Harbinger’s snowmobile. “What gave me away? The naked snow-jogging?”

“Are you okay?” Harbinger asked. “Did you—”

“Hurt anyone? No,” she answered quickly. It seemed very important to her that Harbinger knew that. For some odd reason, his opinion mattered. “I got away from town so I wouldn’t be tempted.”

“You did good. First time’s the hardest. If you can keep your head through that, you can do anything. I’m impressed.”

That made her blush. “You sure know how to flatter a girl.” She caught herself grinning uncharacteristically. Harbinger gave her a hesitant smile in response.

The others dismounted and gathered around. Movement seemed to stand out, with the tiniest flicker easily catching her focus. Every twitch of a finger, every blink of an eyelid. She’d spent the last few hours looking at white snow and black half-covered shapes, so it wasn’t until she saw the sheer dullness of the brightly colored snowmobiles that she understood just how much her vision had changed. “Everything’s so gray . . . How can you stand it?”

“More rods, less cones,” Harbinger explained patiently. “That’s part of the change. Don’t worry—you’ll be able to see color again by morning. I’d trade you right now. I’m blind as a bat.”

“What’s he doing here?” Heather asked as Nikolai approached. The scary Russian stopped and tilted his head to the side, studying her.

“He’s on our side. Marginally. I’ll explain later.”

She’d found the help she needed to get the cure. The words practically spilled out. “I tracked down our bad guy. I didn’t see him, but he’s in the Quinn facility at building six. There’s a bunch of werewolves standing guard around it. I counted at least eight or nine, but there might have been more inside. There’s multiple dead bodies there, but I smelled a couple of normal people still alive. Don’t know whose side they’re on, though. There were portable lights on upstairs, but I couldn’t see anyone through the windows.”

“You remember that much?” Nikolai asked sharply.

“I do. I was coming back to get help when I heard you coming.”

“Impossible.” Nikolai addressed Harbinger as if Heather wasn’t even present. “No one could have made it through the madness so quickly. Especially a pup. She’s lying.”

“I’m not,” she turned to Harbinger. He was studying her, but more with concern than suspicion. “Why would I lie?”

“It’s a trick of the Alpha. There is something not right about her,” Nikolai said.

“What? No, really. I’m telling the truth.”

Nikolai’s voice suddenly grew deep. “It’s a trap.” His entire manner changed. His posture slouched, his knees bent. “Kill her now.”

Harbinger tensed and put his hand back on his gun. “Steady, Nikolai,” he said with forced calm. “Don’t go getting squirrelly on me. That amulet is messing with the natural order of things. That’s all. She’s okay.”

“Hey, I agree with the bipolar guy,” the federal agent interjected. “Better safe than sorry. Shoot her.”

“Funny. I thought the same thing about you, Stark,” Aino said.

“Do it, or I’ll do it myself,” Nikolai growled with that unnaturally low voice. Heather saw the muscles tense in preparation of movement. Time seemed to slow down as Nikolai’s fingers tightened around the stock of his rifle. The barrel rose the slightest bit.

Heather just reacted. Without conscious thought, faster than any of the humans could blink, faster even than the other werewolf could register, she shrugged out from under the blanket and struck Nikolai with unexpected strength. The impact of her open palm shattered multiple ribs. Time seemed to stop as she stood there, arm extended, while Nikolai arced through the air. He landed ten feet away, sliding through the snow on his back. Instinctively, she moved in for the kill. By the time Nikolai opened his eyes, she was straddling his chest, pinning his arms with her knees, one hand locked viselike around his throat while the other was lifted overhead, fingers spread wide, ready to tear his face off.

“Heather!”

“Not now, Harbinger,” she snapped.

“I gave him my word. We deal with the Alpha first. We’re going to need Nikolai alive.”

Heather sighed. “Fine.” Nikolai was staring up at her, shocked. She followed his eyes as they tracked up her bare arm to her outstretched hand. Her nails had already stretched into deadly claws. She studied the claws absently. “Well . . . huh. Where’d those come from?” Hadn’t even felt that. She turned her attention back to the stunned werewolf. “What? Didn’t expect that from a pup? You know what I can’t stand? Bullies. I’m sick and tired of bullies. I’m done screwing around. You get me, Nicky?”

The madness in his eyes seemed to subside. There was no way he could breathe, but he managed a spasmodic nod. Giving one last squeeze, as if to say Got you, fucker, she reluctantly let go and stood up. Clenching her hand into a fist, she felt the claws shrink automatically. It hurt a little bit, but in a good way.

The four other men were just watching her, mouths agape. She picked Harbinger’s jacket out of the snow and actually put it on this time. It was long enough that she was able to retain a tiny amount of dignity. She zipped it up as she walked over to Harbinger. Even he seemed surprised at how quick she’d been.

“What the hell is she?” the Fed shouted.

“She’s with us. That’s all you need to worry about.”

“But werewolves can’t do that!”

“Do what?” she asked innocently, making sure to bat her eyes at Stark. The mannerism seemed to unnerve him even more, and she got some enjoyment out of that. I told Harbinger I’d try not to eat anybody, but maybe he’d make an exception for that one. Heather banished the thought immediately. She was no murderer, and besides, Stark was probably high in cholesterol.

“He’s talking about you partially transforming some body parts at whim . . . and moving damn near master-vamp speed,” Harbinger said. “Impressive, even by my . . . or Nikolai’s standards. Those are some neat tricks, even with a lot of practice. For somebody on their first night? I would’ve said impossible.” He handed her the blanket. Heather threw it over her shoulders like a robe. It hung to her ankles. “But this night’s just full of surprises.”

The tall stranger and Aino were still gawking at her, obviously scared. Aino had been a friend of the family since before she’d been born. As her curmudgeonly grandfather’s only friend, she’d always thought of him kind of like an uncle. To see him staring, wide-eyed and fearful, broke her heart. He was probably waiting for her to just zip over and shred him. He must think she was a complete monster.

Nikolai had stood. There was a terrible crack as he jerked his arm back into the socket. Bones realigned, he could begin to heal. He was watching her carefully, but it looked like the slightly less evil side was back in control. How bad was it that even a werewolf assassin with multiple personalities didn’t trust her? If a monster like him couldn’t trust her, how could she expect relatively normal humans to? She was really scraping the bottom of the trust barrel here, but she needed all of them if she was going to break the curse.

Heather tried to sound as contrite as possible. “Listen, all of you, please. I’m not like those others. I know this is a little weird, but I’m on your side. All I want is to get that amulet back so I can be cured. Please, I’m begging you. I need your help.”

Aino surprised her then as he came over and put an unexpectedly gentle hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, girl. You didn’t ask for this. We all know you’re doing the best you can. Besides, I didn’t shoot you when you got real ugly earlier, not gonna start now. You’re the same person as you’ve always been, and you’ve always been okay by me.”

Heather almost choked up at the unexpected display of affection. “Thanks . . . I . . .”

The old miner had exhausted his supply of empathy. “Eh . . . More? You need a hug or something? Come on, let’s go get you cured already. I’ve been up for like twenty hours. I’m tired.”

“My apologies, Deputy Kerkonen.” Nikolai’s words were polite, his attitude not so much. “It will not happen again.” She didn’t believe him at all. It will not happen again could just as easily be referring to her surprising him and getting the upper hand.

“Thank you,” she said. “We cool?”

Nikolai nodded curtly and climbed back on his snowmobile. The others followed suit. Stark was still scared of her. The big one, Jason, seemed ambivalent but kept a real close eye on her. The air filled with the sound of high-pitched engines. One by one, they pulled off to spoil the pristine white swath covering Cliff Road.

Only Harbinger waited. She stepped closer to him. “So, how was that?”

“Unexpected . . . The amulet’s magic is doing different things to you than the other recently bitten, and I don’t know why. You know, Kerkonen, there’s something really special about you.”

“Why, Mr. Harbinger, are you flirting with me?”

“Huh? No,” Harbinger answered before he realized that she was messing with him. He rolled his eyes. “Special, as in you’re one peculiar werewolf. You’re exercising a surprising amount of control for somebody who shouldn’t have even turned yet. I just saw you do things that took me forty years to get the hang of. There’s got to be an explanation.”

Heather found herself grinning again. Why does he have that effect on me? She barely knew him, but there was something about Harbinger that just felt right. He was a gentleman, but she also liked his no-BS honesty. He was completely fearless but not a brute. This one was a keeper.

Heather had never been the social type. She’d always been the prettiest wallflower, but being a werewolf made her feel kind of fun. “Bummer . . . On the flirting that is. I’d gotten my hopes up.”

For the first time since she’d met him, which had only been yesterday but seemed like an eternity ago, Harbinger didn’t seem to know what to say. “Well . . . I’m . . .”

“Flattered?”

Harbinger actually laughed. “I suppose. You’re an impressive lady. Maybe if we don’t die, we can . . .” There was an awkward pause. “I don’t know, catch a movie or something?”

She’d done the impossible. She’d found somebody who sucked at this kind of thing even more than she did. “You’re pretty rusty on the whole dating scene, aren’t you?”

“The last picture I took a woman to starred Humphrey Bogart, and it was new. What do you think?”

“Cradle robber.” He was over a hundred, after all.

Harbinger shrugged. “That whole werewolf thing is hell on a social life. . . . It’s hard when everyone ages but you. Makes anything long term kinda . . . complicated. I hadn’t even thought about that part of being human again, but we will get you cured, too,” he promised, and she could tell that he meant it.

She got closer. “You’re sweet.” And then she kissed him.

She hadn’t planned on it. Harbinger’s lips were freezing cold. Hers were abnormally hot. Harbinger was too confused to respond at first, but then he seemed to warm up to the idea.

Out of practice, but he’s a pretty good kisser.

A minute later, Harbinger gently disengaged himself. “Well . . .” He cleared his throat. “We’d better get going.”

“So, that’s a date, then, Harbinger?”

“You can call me Earl. Just don’t take that to mean I won’t still shoot you if you go all homicidal crazy on me.”

Heather put her hands on her hips. “There you go, spoiling a perfectly sweet moment.”

Harbinger winked. “Well, I would feel really bad about it.” He jerked his thumb at the last snowmobile. “Need a lift?”

“Why, I thought you’d never ask.”

Chapter 30

The Alpha’s roar shook the building. Dust trickled from the ceiling, dislodged by his bellow, as he stomped down the catwalk.

The wait was agonizing. The amulet was like a burning patch of hate welded to his chest. Even while it fed him, it taunted him with its untapped potential. The power was so very close, nearly at his fingertips, yet the spirit of the forerunner would not give up its secret until this last challenge had been met. He was already a hundred times the man he had been, yet there was still so much more to take.

Dawn was coming too quickly and threatening to ruin everything. Lucinda Hood had warned him that the last vestiges of her spell would fade along with the dark. Soon Copper Lake’s story would be told to the world. Time was slipping away, but still the amulet told him to wait . . . .

He had thought about just denying the amulet’s order and fleeing as originally planned. Having been raised to always be careful, to always plan for multiple contingencies, to never bite off more than he could chew, this was extremely frustrating. The smart thing to do was to retreat, regroup, and assess his next move. For once training and instinct were in agreement.

Fear kept him in place. The Alpha was worried that if he disobeyed the amulet now, then it would never find him worthy again. He would still be the greatest, but it would be like having one hand tied behind his back for the rest of his nearly immortal life. He would never fulfill his destiny like that. The anxiety tore at his guts. His fist left an indentation in a steel beam.

“I need counsel,” he muttered to himself. The pack members that were attending him hung back, terrified at his outbursts. He’d already eaten a few of them, and they didn’t even know why. The shadow that remained of his humanity could understand their fear, but the new part was disgusted by their cowardice. “Bring me the prisoner.”

The werewolves fled, and the Alpha went back to pacing back and forth on the catwalk overlooking the base of Shaft Six. The catwalk crossed the center of the large space. There were stairs up and down at both ends. He was directly above the massive rusting cable spindles of the deactivated elevator. Being cooped up in this tomb was frustrating.

They returned a few minutes later with a ragged human hanging between them. His head had been covered in a bag, but the blood stains on his torn shirt told the rest of the story. It had been necessary to beat him severely during his capture. That had not been part of the plan, but he had resisted fiercely when the witch’s minions had magically appeared in his home. There was no way he would have come willingly, so it had been necessary.

It pained the Alpha’s heart to see him in such sorry shape. He should have realized there was no way he would have gone down without a fight. “Put him down.” His werewolves did so, and they were wise to do it as gently as possible.

“Get your filthy paws off of me!” the prisoner shouted as the pack withdrew. The prisoner struggled to his knees, and the tilt of his covered head indicated that he was already listening, looking for an angle, for some means to escape. The Alpha walked across the catwalk and pulled the bag from the prisoner’s head.

Kirk Conover blinked his blackened eyes as they adjusted from the complete darkness of the bag to the gray dimness of the mine building. Finally, they adjusted enough for him to make out the thin man standing before him in a big black coat and a wide-brimmed hat. “Let me go, Adam. It’s not too late to fix this.”

The Alpha shook his head and chuckled. “Hey, Dad.”

Kirk Conover’s hands had been tied behind his back for his own protection. He was still spry for his age and doubtlessly had a few tricks up his sleeve since he had, after all, been trained by the best. He was already looking for something to use to his advantage. This was an endearing trait to the remaining sliver of humanity in the Alpha’s heart, but it just made the growing power of the Alpha’s inner monster that much angrier. The Alpha whispered for it to be still. He needed wisdom, and his father had always had plenty to spare.

There were cobwebbed chains and pulleys dangling above the catwalk, but nothing that Kirk could utilize with his hands tied. Inventory completed of his situation, still hopeless, Kirk turned back to his son. “You need to listen to me. This is crazy. Stricken will lose it when he finds out what you’ve done.”

The government didn’t like when its supernatural operatives went rogue, and they were usually dealt with harshly. “I’m not scared of Stricken.”

“You should be. I don’t know what you think you’re going to accomplish here, but it’s wrong.”

The Alpha leaned against the cold metal railing of the balcony. “This is bigger than me, Dad. This is destiny. You wouldn’t listen. Nobody would listen before, but they’re not going to have a choice now.”

“It’s that witch I met earlier. I don’t know what she’s put in your head. She’s a demon’s concubine, Son. I recognize her from the briefings. It’s that Hood girl. She comes from a long line of necromancers. We’ll just explain to Stricken that she brainwashed you.”

“Do you really have any room to talk about brainwashing? I’m not the one that made my own child into a weapon. Oh, never mind.” Long experience told him where that line of reasoning would take them. There was no need to refight old battles. They’d just have to agree to disagree. “I recruited her, not the other way around. This is my plan. Her god is just along for the ride. I’ve been working on this operation for three years. . . .” The Alpha paused to let that sink in.

He could see the pain in his father’s eyes as he realized what that meant. “Even . . . before your mom died?”

“Since I saw the bones of the forerunner. It showed me things. The visions were stronger than the fake thoughts Mom stuck in my head and made me think were my own.”

Dad gasped like he’d just been kicked in the stomach. He started to speak, then stopped, nervous and confused. That would have been unexpected. Mother had used her siren gifts to keep him calm and rational during the full moon, but she had also tried to keep him from pursuing his vision, and that had been simply unforgivable. When she’d begun using her powers to try to make him forget about the amulet, that’s when it had become necessary to get her out of the way.

He’d always loved his mom. Considering their lifestyle, and the fact he’d been killing people for various black operations since he was a teenager, they’d actually had a pretty normal relationship. His parents had been just, kind, and had done their best to raise him as a normal child, despite his gifts. There had been a lot of love in their home. So that’s why, when it came time to remove Mom, he’d made sure the accident had been as quick and painless as possible.

Obviously, he couldn’t tell that to Dad. There was no need for him to know how far things had gone just yet. Dad would never come around then. “I wish I could show the forerunner’s visions to you. Then maybe you’d understand. . . .”

“But, your mother . . . Once she passed away, and you didn’t have her to help you, I thought maybe you—”

“Went crazy? No. Nothing like that. Sure, Mom’s singing kept me on the straight and narrow, soothing the savage beast and all, just like before, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t plan for the future. I know you thought you were doing me a favor, helping hold back the wolf, but we both know you were just keeping me under control. I wasn’t meant to be a slave.”

“You weren’t a slave,” Kirk sputtered. “If we hadn’t agreed to work for them, they would’ve killed you. But you were the best they’ve ever had. You were serving your country. You did great things!”

“Sure, but I’m meant for greater things,” he tried to explain to his father for the hundredth time. “You never listen to me. None of you humans ever listened to me.”

“But, son, you’re human, too.”

“ENOUGH!” The blast of noise made his father cringe. He was sick of this argument, and if his father dared pursue it much further, he’d be staring at a pile of his own steaming entrails. “I don’t have to explain myself to you. That’s not why I brought any of you here.”

“Where’s here? And who else are you talking about?”

“We’re in Copper Lake, Michigan. Heard of it?” he asked, already knowing the answer. Kirk’s face went very pale. “Ah, of course you have. . . . Imagine that. And did you know that I once read a report about an artifact that might have ended up around here somewhere? Guess what?” The Alpha tapped his chest. “Found it, way down that hole right over there. Damn thing took forever to get to. And I’m the one that brought Nikolai here. Had to gut his wife to do it, too. Turns out he wasn’t as bloodthirsty as you made him out to be.”

“Maybe he mellowed with age.” Kirk’s eyes narrowed as he realized just how unstable his son had become. “What’s your game, Adam? What’re you playing at?”

“I made sure you saw the bulletin about Petrov. Sure, you’re retired, but once Unicorn, always Unicorn. I knew you’d call Harbinger. You and Mom used to talk about him like he walked on water, like he was supposed to be some sort of role model for me or something. Of course you’d call your old buddy Mr. Wolf, and all I had to do was sit back and enjoy the show. . . . I actually thought you’d have come yourself, but I guess you’re getting a little old for field ops. I wanted you here, too, though, kind of like you’re attending my graduation. Sorry about Lucinda’s digger roughing you up.”

“What happened to Earl?”

“He’s dead. Once I knew he was the one, I tore his soul out.”

“No, not Earl,” Kirk stammered. “Why?”

The Alpha patted the amulet tenderly. “He lives on in me. Ironic. I guess he lived up to that name he picked when he was with you. Harbinger. One who prepares the way. I wonder if the forerunner was whispering to him when he picked that name?”

“You ungrateful little bastard,” his father snapped. “Earl saved my life and your mother’s. If it hadn’t been for him—”

“I’d never have been a werewolf.” The Alpha smiled.

It was another painful revelation for Kirk Conover. The man was barely able to form the words. “You . . . you know?”

They had tried to keep him in the dark, and, like everything else, they’d failed. “I pieced it together. Most of the files on your original task force had been redacted, but I narrowed it down to two possibilities—Harbinger or Petrov. You never told me who it was, so I invited them both. Harbinger was the superior. He felt right. It was him, wasn’t it?”

Kirk just nodded.

“So, he was my real father.” The Alpha pumped his fist in the air. “Ha! I knew it.”

“I’m your father.”

“My human father,” he sneered. “Cut me in thirds, and that’s the most pathetic bit. Part god, part king of the beasts, and what? Human? You want me thank you for my worst parts? You rate a card on Father’s Day, but that’s about it.”

The light in Kirk’s eyes died. He bowed his head. “Your mother would be very disappointed in you.”

The Alpha grabbed his father by the throat and lifted him into the air. It took all of his reason to stop from ripping the insolent little man in half and throwing him over the rail. Disgusted, he tossed Kirk back on the catwalk. The old man hit the cold metal with a grunt of pain.

This hadn’t been what the Alpha was hoping for at all: adversarial, bitter. He’d been hoping for guidance, but now he understood that had only been his remaining humanity being weak and needy. Let it wither and die. It was better this way.

“I didn’t abandon man. Man abandoned me. I’m not an attack dog to be kept on your master’s leash. I’m the first of a new kind. I’m the next stage of evolution.” The Alpha felt the amulet burn hotter. The challenge was close. “And I’m only one step away from perfection.”

Kirk didn’t look up. “My son is dead.”

The Alpha was angry that the words actually managed to sting him still. He shouted at his pack. “Put the human back in his cage.” He stomped off to face his final challenge. “I’ll deal with him later.”

“What’s the plan?” Stark asked.

Earl studied the Quinn facility through his binoculars. The place was a huge, twisting warren of old buildings and rusting machinery. Heather had said that the tallest structure was Number Six. It was an imposing gray rectangle that dominated the facility. To reach it would require covering a lot of forest, breaching the perimeter, and making their way through a maze of potential ambushes.

At least it was all downhill from here, literally. Earl adjusted his position, trying to find a more comfortable way to lie prone on an icy boulder. Body aching, muscles sore, freezing, bandages pulling . . . He’d forgotten just how much being human could suck. He put down the binoculars and took out a smoke. Then decided against it. Wind was in their favor, but that could change soon enough. He put the pack away with a belabored sigh.

“Plan?” Stark asked again.

Sneaking in would be impossible against that many hyper-sensitive werewolves. The fence was only chain-link, but it was topped in razor wire. Heather and Nikolai could hop it, but the rest were going to have to go through the gate. A full-on frontal assault was their best option.

They were three hundred yards away, on a ridge that provided them with solid cover and a good field of fire. The sun would be coming over the hill any minute, and it would be at their backs. He really couldn’t ask for much more. However, it was easy to forget that he’d been up all night, and exhaustion had set in. A tired Hunter was a stupid Hunter, and they couldn’t afford any mistakes. He needed another opinion. “Nikolai?”

The werewolf was so quiet and motionless that it was easy to forget he was only a few feet away. “You are thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Square peg. Square hole. Go with our strengths.”

“What?” Stark looked back and forth between them. “What’s he thinking?”

“Yes,” Nikolai answered. “I’m fastest. I will secure the gate. The rest provide covering fire and eliminate the sentries from here.”

“What sentries?” Stark asked.

Earl handed Stark the binoculars. “First building in, two stories. Looks like an office. Top window, several of them moving in there.”

“At least three more roaming inside. Two more in the trees just outside the main gate,” Nikolai said. “Do not bother to look. You will not see them.”

“You a good shot, Agent Stark?”

“Qualified expert.”

Earl grunted. Maybe in his prime. Stark gave him the impression of somebody who spent a lot more time manning a desk than practicing at the range. “Recently?”

“Recent enough,” Stark snapped.

Shaking his head, Earl slid back down the boulder. The other two followed him. Stark made more noise than he had, but Nikolai made far less. They made their way through the trees toward where the others were waiting. The snowmobiles were handy, but loud, so they’d parked at the base of the ridge and hiked in. The snow had made for treacherous footing, especially with seventy pounds of recoilless rifle and ammo on his back.

Heather, Jason, and Aino were crouched in a small ravine below. Aino was using a headlamp with a red lens, still searching Aksel’s journal for anything that might help. Jason raised his gun when he heard a branch snap above, then lowered it when he saw his new employer. Earl slipped and slid down the last twenty feet. Exhaustion and grace were mutually exclusive, but he tried to make it look like he’d meant to do that. Stark lost it halfway down the incline and tumbled the rest of it, making Earl look like a ballerina in comparison. Nikolai leapt off the top and landed quietly at the bottom. Show-off.

“We on?” Heather asked. While he’d been scouting, she had cut a hole in the middle of the gray wool blanket to stick her head through and tied a length of paracord around her waist to secure it. It made for a semi-passable poncho, more for modesty than to protect her against the elements. She was still missing pants and barefoot but had his coat on under there. Earl didn’t mind. He figured Travis would have approved of Heather’s general attitude.

“We’re on. Nice poncho, by the way.” Heather took up the edges of the blanket and curtsied. The rest of the group gathered around Earl. “We set up there,” he pointed at the ridge above. “Shoot the hell out of anything that moves while Nikolai runs in. On my mark we follow.”

“The pup can follow me, if she can keep up. Once inside, stay out of my way,” Nikolai said. “When I am excited, it can be . . . difficult to tell friend from foe.”

Earl grabbed Nikolai roughly by the sleeve. “Don’t you dare hurt anybody on our side.”

Nikolai struck Earl’s hand away. “If you’d followed that advice yourself, we wouldn’t be in this predicament now, would we?” Nikolai turned and walked away.

“What was that about?” Stark asked nervously.

“Nothing,” Earl muttered. “It’s not important. When we leave the ridge, move quick, but stick together. Stay alert. We’ll wait until the sun comes over the hill, so we’ll have some light.”

“Sun’ll be up in fifteen minutes,” Aino said.

Stark pulled out his cell phone. “Still no signal.” The Fed had been checking it every few minutes since they’d set out.

“When there is, you damn well better just call for reinforcements and not an airstrike,” Earl warned.

“What? They’d actually blow up the town?” Heather asked.

“Of course not,” Stark lied as he put his phone away. “That would be overkill. Our primary mission is to protect the population from monster attacks.”

“Your primary mission is to contain the truth,” Earl said, knowing full well that the MCB was capable of massive overreactions. They’d destroyed population centers before to prevent various supernatural outbreaks. There had been one in Pennsylvania in the eighties, Texas in the forties, and even before there had been an MCB the government had burned a town in Wisconsin. America wasn’t the only one with that policy, either. No country would risk a major supernatural outbreak. Areas had been sterilized in Africa, India, Russia, and Europe, blamed on natural disasters or industrial accidents, and those were only the ones MHI knew about. These events were rare and ugly, but they beat the alternative. “We get this guy now and this op is locked down, Stark. There’s no need for these people to suffer any more than necessary.”

“Blow up my hometown and I will totally beat your ass,” Heather said.

“Oh, don’t worry about that, missy, but MCB sure isn’t done with you,” the agent growled. “You know what happens to confirmed werewolves. There’s going to be hell to pay—”

Earl cut him off. “Stark.”

“What?”

“Another word, and I’ll kill you myself and tell Myers the werewolves got you.” Earl didn’t so much as blink as he let that sink in. Stark began to speak, then thought better of it and closed his mouth. Earl Harbinger had a certain reputation amongst the MCB, and even Stark wasn’t pigheaded enough to push him just then.

Earl studied the faces around him. Heather was nervous but seemed predatorily eager. Being a werewolf had that effect on you. If she didn’t wig out and go insane on them, everything should be okay. Jason Lococo seemed calm, and despite having come from a crappy company was acting like a professional. Aino was a tough old coot who’d seemingly just tagged along for the ride, but his actions showed he was far more committed to defending his town than his words indicated. Stark was still a belligerent jerk, but he was MCB, and they could usually fight. Nikolai had already wandered off, probably arguing with the voices in his head. They were tired and out of their league. He would have traded them in a heartbeat for his regular team, but they’d have to do.

“All right, everyone. Listen up. We can do this. We’re going to beat this asshole.”

“You giving a motivational speech?” Aino asked incredulously.

“Damn straight. I always do. . . . We’re going to get that stinking amulet, and we’re going to cure Heather. If you get scared, keep going. They’re werewolves, and they’re scary, but they die, just like everything else. Remember, this is your turf. He came here. He started it. He hurt your people. And there’s a bunch of folks counting on us back there. We will not let them down. All of you lost someone today—friends, teammates, partners. We’re going to get him before he gets away and does this again somewhere else. Now it’s his turn to lose. It’s his turn to hurt. It’s his turn to fucking die.”

Earl took the time to look each of them square in the eye. He’d learned a thing or two about leadership over the years, and he could usually tell the measure of a man by looking in his eyes. Whether it was one of his Hunters or a soldier in a trench in France, Earl Harbinger could always see a warrior’s heart, and though here it was either too new, too old, too inexperienced, or atrophied by bureaucracy, they were what he had. They’re scared, but they’ll do.

“Good hunting. Move out.”

Chapter 31

“They’re here,” the Alpha said. “Wake your diggers. Get ready.”

Lucinda moved to the window. The sun was just peeking over the mountains. There was nothing moving out there except for one member of the pack, in human form, pacing near the gate. “Who? Where?”

He didn’t know who. The smells were confusing. Petrov was one of them, the female was another. There were some humans . . . and something confusing. It was Harbinger, but not. The not-Harbinger was what annoyed him. You shouldn’t be able to smell a ghost.

“Get away from the window.” He took the young witch by the arm and firmly pulled her back. The last thing he wanted was for a sniper to put a bullet in her. Then he’d be stuck walking. “I need you alive.”

“Well, thank you. I’m rather fond of you, too.” Lucinda’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

“You know what I mean.” The witch’s portal magic was their primary escape route. “Secure my father. I’m not done with him yet. Be careful. He’s a tricky one. Get to the bottom and wait for me. I’ll meet you at the elevator shaft.” His hand unconsciously moved to the amulet. “This shouldn’t take long.”

Outside, the patrolling werewolf’s head opened and tossed out brains. He dropped, cleanly killed. The sound of the rifle shot arrived a moment later.

It had been much more difficult making it back up the ridge with all his weapons, but Earl figured if you were going to bring them, you might as well have some fun with them. He’d made Jason lug the heavy stuff. Being the boss had its benefits.

He watched as the first werewolf fell through his Zeiss scope. Headshot, asshole. Though he was right-handed, and the bolt-action was set up for right-hand use, Earl shot left-handed when he was prone and using a bipod. That way he didn’t have to break his firing grip or cheek weld against the stock as his right hand quickly lifted the bolt, yanked it back, forward, and back down. It was much faster that way. A spent .300 Winchester magnum brass case was ejected and a fresh round fed smoothly into the chamber. Next.

He picked up the second sentry. The werewolf was beginning to move, having just smelled the spilled blood of his pack-mate. The Zeiss was pre-zeroed for this load, and Earl settled the 300-yard stadia line on the werewolf’s chest. The target was moving, so might as well aim for the biggest part. There was no wind to compensate for. Earl exhaled as he tracked his target.

The trigger broke clean. The heavy G.A. Precision bolt-action rifle barely rocked on its bipod. Earl reacquired his target through the scope before the impact. He watched the werewolf shudder as 168 grains of lead and silver pierced his torso. The werewolf stumbled but kept running. Tough guy, huh? Earl worked the bolt.

Julie was the team sharpshooter, since the girl just had a remarkable natural talent for putting bullets into very small things, very far away, very quickly, but Earl had been the one who had originally taught her how to shoot, and he was no slouch himself. Gotcha. The werewolf was running directly away now. The reticle swayed across the target’s back.

He exhaled again as his left finger tightened on the trigger. Earl always shot on the respiratory pause.

CRACK.

This time the bullet hit the werewolf square between the shoulder-blades. He spilled forward in a tumble of snow and blood.

Earl looked up from his scope. The mine facility had seemingly come alive with movement. Just like kicking an anthill. He smiled, because there was nothing more rewarding than a target-rich environment. There was a flash of movement from below as Nikolai and Heather sprinted through the trees. “What are you waiting for?” Earl shouted at the others. “Give ’em hell!”

This is more like it.

Nikolai could sense the Tvar’s pleasure. To the Tvar, it didn’t matter who they were hunting, just as long as they were on the hunt. The beast’s emotions always seemed to bleed across the lines into his own emotions when it was excited, making it hard to tell who was feeling what. So Nikolai also thrilled to the drama of the hunt. It was intoxicating.

Still in human form, he sped between the trees. The deep snow was nothing to him. Gravity was on his side. Leaping, he moved with incredible speed toward his objective. Faster and faster, he dodged around trees, under branches, and launched himself over logs. Somehow the young female was keeping up. She should have wrapped herself around a tree by now. Even the Tvar was impressed by her performance.

She does not move like a pup.

And she knocked the sense out of us when you threatened her earlier, Nikolai reminded both parts of himself. She was not to be underestimated again. One last jump, branches tearing at his arms, and they were in the open, over the road leading to the front gate. An enemy was caught, surprised and in human form, in the clearing.

But can she do this?

Still airborne, Nikolai aimed his carbine. The Val spat and hissed as the suppressor absorbed the muzzle blast. The burst stitched across the enemy werewolf’s abdomen and chest, sending him reeling back. Nikolai landed, sliding through the snow, and struck the inferior creature aside with the butt of his weapon. Two more bullets splattered its head into bits before it could even begin to arise.

His lips pulled back in a grin of semi-elongated canines, and a gush of steam poured out. Nikolai was in his element.

Down.

Tvar sensed danger first. There was another enemy closing. Nikolai dove aside as a bullet passed through the air above. He rolled, and came up ready to fire. The enemy was a black shape coming through the trees. There was a flash of gray and he was gone.

Nikolai blinked. The female had hit the enemy so hard and fast it was as if he had just vaporized. They landed some distance away, a tangle of flailing limbs. Kerkonen got up, grabbed the enemy by the neck, and hurled him into an ancient tree. The wood cracked with a noise audible across the entire clearing. Limbs broken, the werewolf slid down the trunk. Kerkonen approached her fallen antagonist as she freed the shotgun slung over her back. She shouldered the weapon and shot him, once, twice, three times. Satisfied that he was dead, she turned toward Nikolai and gave him a very American thumbs-up signal.

That girl is not normal.

“No. She’s certainly not.”

Sexy, though. I’d mate that.

For all its flaws, the Tvar was a remarkably straightforward thing. “Mission first.” Nikolai ran for the gate.

The ground underfoot rumbled. Earthquake. Nikolai lost his balance and fell as the earth suddenly ruptured. Snow flew into the air between the metal posts of the main gate. A square block of rusting metal was thrust into the sky. Three spikes extended from the end. The block crashed down, scrambling for purchase as ungainly limbs stretched behind it. A giant creature was leveraging itself out of the ground.

Burrower!

Despite never having seen one before, Nikolai recognized the creature from his training. They were minions of the Old Ones. According to the KGB analysts, despite their fearsome appearance, they were not supposed to be that tough. He lowered the VAL and fired as he charged. The 9x39 rounds sparked off the monster’s armor or tore hunks of stinking green meat from its hide. He would wrench its featureless head from its body. At the edge of the hole, Nikolai leapt for the monster’s neck.

One metal claw swatted him across the clearing. The air erupted from Nikolai’s lungs as he tumbled through the branches. He hit the trunk of a tree and fell, crashing, face first into the snow.

It appears the briefings were mistaken.

“What the hell is that?”

Earl finished shooting the leg out from another werewolf before he looked up to see what Aino was shouting about. A bubble had formed in the road at the gate. The bulge split, and a monster came crawling out. It was one of the Old Ones’ things from the supermarket. Nikolai ran at the monster and got smacked across the road.

“That’s the thing that ate Jo,” Jason said.

Stark aimed his .308 SCAR at the monster and started popping off rounds. Jason and Aino followed suit. It was a noble effort, but Earl knew how tough these things were. Small-arms fire wasn’t going to be enough. “The Gustav! Bring me the big one!” Earl popped up from behind his rifle. “Hurry.”

Jason lumbered over with the Carl Gustav Recoilless. Earl took the tube from him, flipped the latch, and hinged open the breach. It was far more effective to run these in two-man teams, one gunner, one loader, but there hadn’t been time to train anybody. “And the case. Hurry.”

He hadn’t brought much on the trip. Each round of 84mm ammunition took up a lot of space. Jason hauled the Cordura case over and flipped it open. Earl picked a High-Explosive-Anti-Tank, slid it in, and locked the breach behind it. He took a knee and threw the Gustav over his shoulder. “Get back!” he warned. True to its name, the recoil wasn’t bad, but the blast was a real bitch. Military regulation limited the number of rounds a soldier could shoot through one of these things daily because they were worried about the damage it could do to your internal organs.

He found the creature in the scope. It was fully out of the hole and striding toward Heather. He just hoped the girl had the sense to get out of the way. Its curious, eyeless head was bobbing back and forth as folds of empty skin spilled and bounced from every unarmored joint. Earl braced himself and fired. The concussion shook the entire ridge.

His aim was true. The round struck the Old Ones’ minion in the midsection. It disappeared in a explosive flash. The HEAT round was meant for taking out armored vehicles. Nothing living, short of maybe a dragon, was going to survive that.

Earl watched through the 3X magnification of the Gustav’s scope. It was raining meat in the clearing. Come on, Heather. Where are you? As the smoke and dust settled, he could see that the monster’s torso had been ripped open right through its armor and green liquefied guts had been sprayed everywhere. It was toast, but there was no sign of Heather. . . . There. Heather was alive and picking herself up out of the snow.

A bullet whizzed past his head. The werewolves were returning fire from the two-story building at the entrance. It would be difficult for them to aim directly into the sun, but throw enough bullets and they were bound to hit somebody. “I’m done screwing around.” Earl tilted the Gustav so he could pop the breach, but there was a tug that stopped him.

“Got you,” Stark said as he pulled out the empty shell. The weapon rang like a bell.

So Stark wasn’t totally useless. He knew how to act as a loader. “Bunker buster,” Earl ordered without looking.

“H-E-D-P,” Stark responded as he shoved the shell in and locked the breach behind. He slapped Earl on the shoulder to indicate they were ready, then retreated to keep from getting his eardrums busted. “Go!”

Earl centered the crosshairs on the office building. Though solid looking, it appeared to made of wood and brick. The bunker-buster round had been designed to demolish reinforced concrete, so even though there wasn’t any silver involved, this wasn’t going to be pretty for the werewolves inside. Earl fired.

The 84mm round hit the front wall, penetrated, and detonated inside a fraction of a second later. Half the building was instantly turned into splinters and brick dust. Ten seconds later the rest of the structure collapsed with an epic groan.

“Best damn thing to ever come out of Sweden not involving bikinis!” Earl shouted.

As Stark ran up and popped the breach, Earl scanned the facility. Heather was picking Nikolai out of a tree. Injured werewolves were moving in the wreckage and in the equipment yard behind it. He only had a few rounds left for the Gustav, but one of those rounds had been specially loaded with six hundred and sixty-six silver ball bearings, because in addition to being a mad genius, Milo also had a sense of humor. “Gimme the Demonsterfier.”

Stark yanked the spent shell out. Pong.

“De-monster . . . what?”

“The red one,” Earl growled.

“Are you okay?” Heather asked Nikolai.

“Fine,” he said, brushing her hands away. “No need to be concerned.”

There was a bone sticking out of his arm, the jagged edge had ripped through his coat. “But—”

Nikolai grabbed it with his good hand and wrenched it back into place. It made a sick crack. “See? Insignificant,” he said through clenched teeth.

Heather was still not used to the unnatural toughness aspects of her condition. “The way’s clear. Harbinger blew up the—”

Suddenly, Nikolai shoved her onto her back.

He’s going to kill me. But then, before she could react, she heard the high-pitched whistle overhead. The shell air-burst in a black cloud over the mine. There was a sound like ten million angry bees and a horrendous rattle of impacts. Then the werewolves began to scream.

“Hunters . . . always with a trick up their sleeves. Come. We’re clear.” Nikolai got to his feet and plucked his tubular rifle out of the snow. “What are you waiting for?”

“Just catching my breath,” Heather said.

“You don’t need to catch your breath anymore. That’s your human psychology making you inefficient. Come.” Nikolai extended a hand to help her up. Heather hesitated. Nikolai seemed relatively sane at the moment, so she took the offered hand. He pulled her upright. “Thinking like you’re still human will get you killed.”

“I’ll be human again.”

Nikolai laughed mirthlessly. “I’ll believe that when I see it. Why would you want to, anyway?”

“It’s a curse.” This sanctimonious prick was really ticking her off. “Wouldn’t you give it up if you could?”

“Of course . . . not . . .” Nikolai stopped, bewildered, then shook his head. “Enough. We’re wasting time.” He ran toward the screaming.

Since her best bet at salvation meant following the murderous lunatic, Heather followed, the ice crunching between her bare toes.

The facility was clear, seemingly free of targets. The remaining werewolves had taken cover indoors. There was no sign of the Alpha or the other burrowing monster. There was movement as Heather and Nikolai cleared the gates. They had to keep up the pressure.

“Move out!” Earl shouted. There was one HEAT round left for the Gustav. “Jason, sling this.” The Briarwood Hunter took the tube and threw it over his shoulder. In Jason’s other hand was one of the SCAR rifles they’d scrounged from Stark’s Suburban. Visible heat waves were rising from its barrel. Stark had the other SCAR, and Aino was still using his old lever-action .30-30. “Aino, take my bolt gun. You need something that shoots silver bullets.” Earl tossed the old miner his last magazine.

“Bulky thing,” Aino grunted when he picked up the rifle.

“You want to kill them, or just piss them off?” Earl asked rhetorically as he retrieved his Thompson in one hand and Aksel’s Mosin in the other. “Everyone on me.” He ordered and he stepped over the edge. The slope was pretty steep, and it would have made a really good sledding hill. It was a fast slide-roll-run to the base. He managed to make it all the way to the bottom mostly upright. He took up a defensive position and waited for the others to catch up.

There was shooting coming from the mine. Heather was in danger. He almost set off immediately, but stopped himself. Get your head right. These men needed him. Heather could take care of herself. She was, after all, physically tougher than he was now. His team was going to give him a never-ending ration of shit about this. The first time he takes a vacation day in forever, a town gets slaughtered, some terrible artifact gets unearthed, he gets cured of lycanthropy, and finds a lady friend who unfortunately happens to be a really odd werewolf. . . . It was sad that taking a day off could be more interesting than an average day of monster hunting.

One by one the others slid in behind him. Nobody seemed to have broken anything. Earl set off at the fastest pace he could, which, considering the terrain and everyone’s ragged condition, wasn’t saying much. Stark was walking with a limp, having twisted his leg earlier. Aino was old. Jason had lost a lot of blood earlier. They weren’t going to win any awards for being pretty.

They’d made it halfway when something began to beep.

Stark stopped and began to claw wildly at a pouch on his armor. “My phone!”

Earl signaled a halt. Aino looked like he needed it. He was in good shape for his age, but that age was sufficient to collect Social Security, and his face was red from the exertion. Jason seemed to be hanging in there, though he was walking a little funny, like his side was hurting.

The phone came out. “Headquarters!” Stark said, out of breath. “Yes! This is Stark . . . Wait. I can barely hear you. We’ve got an emergency. Code Delta-Delta-Five-Niner-Five. You’re breaking up.”

Earl glanced around the woods. Splitting up was a risk, but they didn’t have time to stop, and Copper Lake needed reinforcements. “Stark! Just men. No carpet bombing. You hear me?” The agent quickly nodded and held up his hand for silence. “Aino, stay with Stark.” The old man nodded thankfully, then leaned the G.A. Precision rifle on a tree so he could put his hands on his knees and hang his head to try to catch his breath.

“Jason, you’re on me.” With the slowest two left behind, Earl picked up the pace. Sweat was rolling down the inside of his armor but freezing solid on his face.

They made it another hundred yards before Jason spoke up. The fence was visible just ahead. “Mr. Harbinger?”

“Just Earl. What?”

He seemed embarrassed. “If I don’t make it, I’ve got a family to support. See . . . I’ve done some stupid things in my life. It’s hard to make an honest living once you’ve got a record. I used to fight, you know, for money, until this one kid nearly killed me, broke my skull and popped my eye. When Horst offered me this job . . . Well, I don’t care about being a hero or nothing like that. I’m doing this for my little girl. What I’m trying to say is, if there’s any PUFF . . .”

“You’ve got no time for doubts. Just know that if anything happens, your family will be covered. Just like I’d do for any of my Hunters.”

Jason summoned up his courage. “Give your word.”

That stopped him. Earl Harbinger wasn’t used to anyone questioning his integrity. “All right. I swear to you that if you don’t make it, I’ll make sure your family is taken care of forever. You have any idea how many orphans I’ve sent to college? How many houses I’ve bought? I’ve lost hundreds of men, but people still keep signing up, so what do you think I’m going to do?”

Jason looked down sheepishly. “Sorry . . . Just that the last bunch I worked for . . .”

Earl had to reach up to clap him on the shoulder. “Was a bunch of shady cut-rate bastards. I’m MHI. So pull your head out of your ass and get it back in the game. Focus, and you won’t have to find out how good the death benefits are.”

Chapter 32

The Alpha threw open the doors of Number Six and walked into the sunlight. His senses were overloaded. The air tasted of dust and blood. The pack was being slaughtered. He could feel their pain as the silver seared their wounds. A nearby building was burning. Orange sparks were rising through the black smoke as the beams crackled and broke. And behind all that chaos was the challenge. The amulet was eager. It had been waiting for this moment for thousands of years.

He spread his arms wide. “Here I am! Face me!”

There was a disturbance in the smoke, a whirl of air, imperceptible to any lesser being. The Alpha turned with just a hint of a smile on his face.

Nikolai Petrov leapt through the fire, descending toward the Alpha.

Almost as if the world were in slow motion, he watched the bullets, like fat silver slugs that he could reach out and snatch from the air. He moved aside as they cracked into the steps where he had been standing. The Alpha was so aware that he could watch the action of Nikolai’s rifle move back and forth and see every clean bit of brass glinting in the sunlight. Nikolai’s eyes widened as he descended, because to him it would have appeared as if the Alpha had just disappeared.

The Alpha casually reached out, caught an ankle, and pulled. The lesser werewolf hit the steps with a meaty thud. The Alpha lifted him effortlessly and hurled him against the wall. Corrugated metal collapsed around Nikolai.

“Well, well, well . . . Comrade Nikolai Petrov, scourge of the steppes, Stalin’s favorite werewolf, the ghost of Koh Valley. Killer of man, woman, and child. It’s a real pleasure to meet you in person. You’ve got no idea how much I’ve heard about you over the years. According to my mom, you were a cross between Freddy Krueger and the Boogeyman. I’ll admit I’m a little disappointed. You don’t seem to live up to the hype.”

Nikolai coughed as he dislodged himself from the wall. He stumbled but caught himself on a piece of scaffolding. “I’ve come to challenge you.”

The Alpha laughed. “I’ve been waiting.”

Nikolai spit a mouthful of blood onto the concrete. “You killed my Lila.”

“Was that her name? I forgot. Tough girl. It took her forever to die. She was a screamer, though. I never thought she’d shut up. That’s why I pulled her tongue out, in case you were wondering.”

Nikolai charged. The Alpha let him come. Fists flew. The Alpha just moved around them. It was amusing to watch the effort. It was like a petulant child trying to lash out at its parents. He could smell Nikolai’s fury, his desperation, but under that was a hint of fear, and as none of the blows landed, the fear grew. It was delicious. He decided to see if he could taste more of that.

He struck Nikolai down. Bones cracked against the pavement. The Alpha stepped back and casually removed his hat. He carefully hung it on the end of the handrail. The hat had been a Christmas gift from his mother. His overcoat followed, and he was careful not to wrinkle it as he hung the items over the railing. “You want a challenge? Let’s do this right. I’ll give you time to get ready.”

The shotgun blast hit him at the base of his spine. The silver burned briefly before his hyper-regeneration shoved the buckshot pellets out of his flesh. He turned to see the new female werewolf, twenty yards away, pumping her shotgun.

“Nice poncho, Rambo.”

She pulled the trigger again, so he moved from the path of the spreading silver cloud. Taking the warm shotgun barrel in one hand, he ripped it away from her. The look on her pretty face told him she hadn’t seen that coming. “I’ll deal with you in a second.” He took the shotgun in both hands and struck her with it like it was a baseball bat. The wooden stock shattered, and the female went bouncing across the ground.

He tossed the now-bent shotgun aside. “Where were we, Petrov? Oh, yeah. You were challenging my supremacy.”

The Russian was transforming, bones twisting, skin stretching. The Alpha calmly removed his ruined shirt, kicked off his shoes, and waited. Nikolai’s change only took half a minute, but to the Alpha it seemed to drag on forever. His challenger’s body needed to burn its own energy to fuel the transformation. The Alpha knew that the amulet would fuel his instantly.

Nikolai was ready. He rose, snarling, filled with fury. The Alpha had to admit that before he’d found the amulet, he would have thought of Nikolai as an impressive, even fearsome specimen of the lycanthropic species. A century old, hardened by wars, torture, and driven mad by insatiable bloodlust, Nikolai should have been terrifying.

But not anymore. The Alpha didn’t even bother to change. He yawned theatrically. “You’re not even worth my time.”

Nikolai hurled himself at the Alpha.

Stark was pacing back and forth. MCB headquarters was barely audible. He thought it sounded like Agent Archer on the other end, but he had one flickering bar, so it was really hard to tell.

“Copper Lake, Michigan. Werewolves, damn it. Hundreds of werewolves!” he shouted.

Buzz-crackle. “—wolves? Status of—” Hiss-pop.

“Shit!” Stark kicked a tree. Sadly, that just caused a cascading chain reaction of cold snow to break loose from the upper branches to fall on him. A nasty bunch of ice managed to go down the back of his collar, slide down the inside of his shirt, and lodge in his underwear. “The status is FUBAR!”

The bitter old immigrant had gone off to the side and found a log to sit on. He seemed to be deep in thought.

“—rk.” The static was unbearable. Stark had no idea what the agent on the other end had heard so far. “—for extraction?”

“Huh? I can’t hear you. Mosher is dead. Most of the town’s dead. I need help now.” He remembered Harbinger’s warning, but it had been unnecessary. Stark didn’t want the MCB to have the Air Force bombing the place until he was out of here himself. After that? Screw them. But not before he was safely on a flight home. “I need reinforcements. No bombing.”

Crackle-buzz. “Request bombing? Please veri—” And then nothing.

Stark screamed in frustration. “No! No bomb!” But the call had dropped. He hit the speed dial for headquarters and then wildly waved the phone overhead like it was a magic talisman that could ward off evil. “I lost my connection!”

“Connection . . .” Aino muttered. “Huh . . . I just thought of something.” He pulled the old Finnish journal out of his coat and flipped to the end. It was a good thing no werewolves came up on them at that moment, since Stark was running in circles trying to get a signal while Aino buried his nose in a book.

“Well . . . this sucks.” Agent Stark gave up and took a seat on the log next to his only remaining companion. For all he knew, everyone else was dead.

Aino closed the book. “I just figured something out. They’re gonna do it wrong. We’ve got to warn them.”

“Probably too late,” Stark said. “We need to get out of here before my people blow us all up.”

“No,” Aino stated with grim determination. “Come on. We can still catch Earl. If I don’t, Heather’s going to die. I know why she’s different than the others.”

Stark just shook his head. They were screwed either way. It was a little overwhelming. He hadn’t been this tired since BUD/S, and he’d been a lot younger and had actually given a damn back then. He should have been at home, sleeping in his warm bed. He should have caught his daughter’s concert, even if it would have been terrible. He never should have tried to game the system to score PUFF money, and now he was going to die for it. . . . Oh well. Being nuked sure did beat having fish monsters lay their eggs in you, so it could always be worse.

“Mr. Stark,” Aino pleaded. “I need you to watch my back. We have to reach them. The spell is all wrong. Aksel figured that out afterward. . . . Come on! Get up. I shoulda died a long time ago, buried in that mine right over there. Only Aksel Kerkonen risked his life to drag me out. I owe him, and I never paid him back. So now I owe his grandkid. She’s a good girl, and she’s about to lose her soul if we don’t go get them.”

Stark just sighed. He hadn’t really been listening to the old hillbilly’s blathering. Instead he’d just realized that being nuked was only better if you were close to the impact area. Otherwise it meant a lingering death from radiation poisoning. Bummer.

Aino tried a different tact. “You want to reach your pals?”

“Obviously.”

“I know where you’d probably get great reception.” Aino pointed through the trees at the tallest thing in view. Stark followed his finger to the top of Number Six.

Heather was facedown in the snow. She rolled over and blinked up at the light. Her red hair was spread in a halo around her aching head. Her ears were ringing. She reached up in time to feel the skin crawling closed over a gash in her skull. Her fingers came away covered in blood.

“Why, you . . .” Heather sat up. The dizziness was passing as the bones of her skull fused back together. “Dirty, miserable . . .” She let the anger free, and it washed away the rest of the pain. “Horrible, awful, worthless son of a bitch!”

Her Winchester was there on the ground. The stock was broken and the barrel was bent into an L, but she wouldn’t have picked it up even if it was still in working order. She was going to rip this bastard apart with her bare hands.

Nikolai had changed completely. She’d never seen his werewolf, but she had no problem recognizing him. His hair was dark, his form sleek. The power, speed, and ferocity was apparent, but it wasn’t doing him a lick of good against the Alpha.

The Alpha was still in human form. He’d stripped to the waist and seemed to be enjoying himself while easily avoiding Nikolai’s rending claws and snapping jaws. It was as if he’d appear, then move so quickly that he just reappeared in another place. Heather blinked, but it wasn’t her head injury that was causing that effect. He was just that fast.

One human hand caught Nikolai’s wrist and wrenched it back until it snapped. The Alpha’s foot lashed out and caught Nikolai’s ankle. Heather cringed as bones shattered. Nikolai fell, held up only by the Alpha’s whim. He tried to bite the Alpha, but the man just punched Nikolai in the chest hard enough to leave a dent. Blood sprayed from between Nikolai’s jaws as he hit the ground.

Nikolai lay there, gasping, as his chest gradually reinflated. The Alpha turned to her with a confident smile. “Hi. I’m surprised to see you back up and around already. But you’re something special. I can see that . . . You’re very special.” Heather’s knees turned to water. She felt dizzy and flushed. The Alpha’s voice was so soothing.

“I can smell it in your blood. You’re something different. You’ve got a birthright, too. Just like me, but you’re not the challenge, either. What’s your name?”

“Go fu . . . fu . . .” She couldn’t finish the insult. She was just too tired. Her eyelids weighed a hundred pounds each. She just wanted to curl up someplace warm and go to sleep.

“What’s your name?” he asked again.

Heather wanted nothing more than to make him happy. He was simply beautiful, the most beautiful thing in the world. It was understandable now why his followers were so fanatical. He was beautiful, and he wore the moon around his neck. The Alpha was positively radiant.

And that radiance had murdered half her town . . . .

The anger came boiling back, and the heat of it burned away the haze. Rage was her anchor. He was trying to hypnotize her. Hell with that. “My name’s Deputy Heather Kerkonen of the Copper County Sheriff’s Department. But you”—she spread her arms as she felt the rage turn into strength; she uncurled her fists as her fingers stretched into knives—“you can call me death.” She screamed as she rushed him.

“Nice!” the Alpha said. One hand shot out and hit her right in the throat. She slashed his arm, but he didn’t seem to notice. His fingers crushed off her air. “Cheesy line, but a good try. Fiery. I like that! I’ve got a way with the opposite sex. You can say it runs in the family. So it’s been a long time since I’ve had a woman resist me like that. I’m going to enjoy our time together.”

Heather thrashed, but he was far too strong. He flipped her around and dragged her in tight. Her back was pressed against his chest. His nose pressed against her hair as he drank in her smell. Blood was leaking from his arms where her nails sliced, but the Alpha didn’t seem to care. “Ahh . . . I understand now. So that’s why you’re so different from my other new children. Your grandfather took something with him when he touched the amulet. A little bit of the forerunner’s spirit joined his. He must have passed it on to you.”

Heather could sense the truth in the Alpha’s words as she thrashed and tried to break free.

“I see now . . . You’re his heir. The forerunner’s essence is in your veins. That’s why you’re so in control. You’ve been prepared for this your whole life—just another thief from a line of thieves. Good thing I came along to take that essence back.”

Sensing his distraction, she responded like she’d been trained. She threw an elbow into his ribs, then kicked her heel into his groin. At least that seemed to catch his attention long enough for her roll forward to toss him over her shoulder.

The Alpha hit the ground as Heather backed away. “You’re a monster!” The change was on her now. It didn’t even hurt this time. She tried to shout something else, but it came out as an inarticulate growl past her sharpening teeth. She nearly tripped over Nikolai, who was coming to and looked ready to get back into the fight. Maybe the two of them together might have a chance.

“I’m a monster?” the Alpha laughed as he stood up. “Look who’s talking, babe. You want a monster. I’ll show you a real monster.”

The humming noise that Harbinger said was the moon multiplied a hundredfold, only it wasn’t in orbit. It was ten feet away and closing. She covered her ears and screamed. Nikolai howled. The Alpha seemed to shimmer with heat. The snow around his feet instantly turned to water; then the puddles turned to steam. His skin bubbled and stretched, before it ripped open, revealing tufts of hair.

He was growing.

The splits in his skin grew, forked, and grew again. The silver three-clawed amulet shone with a light that threatened to blind. The raw energy of the amulet hammered her soul. Even if she hadn’t been changing, the amulet would have forced her to. It was as if the Alpha was sucking energy out of the air and using it to expand. Heather looked up and up . . . and up, until the Alpha lifted his tree-trunk-size arms to the sky and let out an earth-shattering roar of triumph.

His voice crashed into her mind with the sound of thunder. BEHOLD THE MONSTER!

There was a noise, so awful, so painfully loud, that for a moment Earl was sure the MCB must have gone ahead and dropped a nuclear weapon to cleanse the area. Except it seemed strangely organic.

Earl ran around the underground monster’s hole, through the open gates, past a rusting iron sign that read QUINN MINE, and jumped over some flaming boards. The Mosin-Nagant bounced up and down against his back with every step. An injured werewolf came out of the ruins. She had transformed, but her hair had been burned off, leaving her a mottled mass of black burns and red scabs. Earl didn’t even slow down as he sprayed her in the face with silver .45 slugs.

Hopefully there aren’t any of the new silver-proof ones around. He still had the Mosin’s magic ammo, but wanted to save that for the big—Earl totally lost the thought. They rounded the corner and saw the biggest fucking werewolf ever.

It was only a hundred yards away, pitch-black as night, at least twelve feet tall, and it was tossing Nikolai around like he was a rag doll. It wasn’t just a giant werewolf, it was the living embodiment of the forerunner’s bones, cloaked in angry muscle.

There was a flash of red fur as another werewolf jumped onto the Alpha’s back. Heather! The giant werewolf moved with shocking velocity, snatched Heather out of the air, and hurled her against the wall. Heather shattered a row of heavy-paned windows and disappeared into the bowels of Number Six.

“Whoa,” Jason said.

“Daaaamn.” Earl was a big proponent of flexible minds on Hunters, but that thing over there was something completely new.

“Is it too late to resign?”

“Probably . . .” Earl looked at the subgun in his hands and then back at the super-werewolf.

“Want your bazooka?”

“That’s not a bad idea.” Earl traded his Thompson for the Carl Gustav. “Take cover.” The Alpha werewolf had his back to them and was busy kicking Nikolai merrily down the road. Earl threw the heavy tube over his shoulder and peered through the scope. The Gustav’s optical sight filled with black hair, and Earl fired.

THOOOOM.

The 84mm shell was on the way. Somehow, impossibly, the Alpha turned, lashed out, and struck the shell in midair.

BOOOOOOM.

It detonated in a flash of superheated air. The Alpha flew back in a gout of blood and crashed through the wall of Number Six.

Earl dropped the empty Carl Gustav. “Immortal, my ass.” There was a groan of metal and a series of crashes as bits and pieces of the interior of Number Six collapsed.

“That shit blows up tanks,” Jason said happily.

Then the Alpha howled. Only, it wasn’t the cry of something mortally wounded. It was the bloodcurdling howl of something injured but still extremely angry. Earl felt the telepathic intrusion as the Alpha invaded his thoughts. Harbinger? You’re alive . . . I don’t know how, but it won’t be for long.

“Aw, hell,” Earl said as he unslung the Mosin-Nagant. Fighting monsters that could withstand hits from anti-tank weapons was usually a very bad thing. “Back to Plan A. We’ve got to hit him before he can heal. Come on.”

There was a rumble, and the ground lurched beneath their feet. A crack appeared in the ground and snow began to cascade down it. Earl’s eyes followed the crack as it travelled across the facility. It widened fifty feet away, and large chunks of pavement broke loose and fell into the growing gap. A giant metal claw appeared over the edge as the second of the Old Ones’ minions made its presence known.

The Alpha . . . There was no time to deal with both. He had to get the Alpha before he could regenerate. They were stuck between two awful monsters and out of high explosives.

Jason understood the issue. “I’ll keep this one busy,” he said. “Go get the big one.”

“Alone, you won’t have much chance.”

“Nobody will if that big one grows his arm back.” He tried to hand over Earl’s subgun.

Earl was impressed by the kid’s bravery. “Hold on to it. You’re going to need everything you’ve got.” He pulled out his remaining two magazines and shoved them into Jason’s coat pocket. “Stick and move. Don’t let it corner you.”

“Got it, Coach,” Jason said, lifting the Thompson in one hand and the SCAR-H in the other. “Remember our deal.”

“Keep your head straight, and I won’t need to.” Earl ran as fast as he could for the entrance to Number Six. Behind him, Jason opened fire.

Chapter 33

I am getting really tired of waking up on the ground.

Heather was on a cold slab of concrete. Shards of broken glass surrounded her. Beams of morning light were streaming through the hole in the wall a floor above. One of her hands was in the light. She was human again.

Already? How . . . But she could feel the drain. The Alpha had been hurt. He was using all of the surrounding werewolves’ energy to heal himself. For a brief moment, she wondered if she’d been cured. But no . . . she could still hear that damned background sound. She was still cursed. She had to get that amulet.

Standing, Heather cringed when she felt the pull in her leg. Reaching down, she dragged out the bloody hunk of glass that was embedded in her thigh and tossed it away. She’d lost her blanket, but she still had Harbinger’s coat. And it didn’t even seem damaged. It hadn’t so much as broken a seam when she’d changed in it, nor had the glass cut it. In fact, her torso and arms were the only part of her that hadn’t been cut by the window glass. No wonder Harbinger seemed so fond of it. The damn thing was like magic.

Where am I? Her gray vision couldn’t pick out as much detail as her normal vision, but she could see enough to know that she was on the ground floor of Number Six. Her dad had brought her here once when she was younger, because this was the site of the most tragic thing that had ever happened to their little community. . . . Or it had been, until last night.

Heather limped along, listening to her senses, trying to figure out what to do next. The inside of the above-ground portion was mostly hollow through the center, except for the system that lifted the ore. There were stairs and ladders up each wall leading to various equipment rooms. Below her were the giant cable wheels that led to the elevators down into the mine shaft itself.

She discovered a massive, smoking hole in the wall, and everything around it was covered in blood. The Alpha hadn’t just been injured: he’d been severely injured. There were fresh boot prints in the blood. She smelled Harbinger, and the scent was warm. He’d only passed a minute ago. The blood trail led down the metal stairs, and that told her exactly where she needed to go.

Earl went down and down the stairs for what seemed like forever. He held a flashlight in his left hand and kept sweeping it back and forth ahead of him. The Finnish rifle was absurdly long, difficult to maneuver inside the close confines of the metal stairwell. The blood was slippery underfoot, but the amount had tapered off. That was either a good sign, as in the Alpha was losing blood pressure, or bad, in that he was healing.

Rounding the last corner, he came onto a catwalk. There was a woman in front of him, filthy, her hair matted with dirt and rust, and seemingly bewildered. She was looking at her hands, confused. Then she saw him, her eyes flashing gold, and asked, “I need to kill you, but why can’t I change?”

“Hell if I know,” Earl answered as he aimed down the Mosin-Nagant’s sights. The sharp report of the 7.62x54r was deafening in the enclosed space. The werewolf simply exploded. Everything but her legs disappeared over the edge of the catwalk. Earl lowered the smoking rifle and shined his light over the dripping carnage. “I’ve got to get me some of these Baba Yaga bullets.”

“Earl!” a man shouted below. “Down here.”

“Shut him up!” a young woman screamed.

He risked a glance over the edge of the railing. Several portable lanterns had been hung from chains at the base. There were two giant spools of cable suspended on steel girders over a gaping black hole in the gravel floor. A man was on his knees, his hands tied behind his back, and behind him was a young, dark-haired woman in a fur coat.

“Kirk?”

“Down he—” Kirk shouted, but the girl lifted one hand that seemed to be wearing some sort of medieval steel gauntlet and smacked Kirk in the face.

“Get him!” she shrieked. “Kill Harbinger!”

There was movement at the far end of the catwalk. Multiple people, and judging from their golden eyes, werewolves, were headed his way. He chambered another round in the Mosin and fired. Another werewolf flew into bloody pieces. They must not be able to transform for some reason, but these had brought guns. Bullets sparked against the catwalk as they fired wildly at him.

There was no cover. He was dead if he stayed on the catwalk. Too far to jump. He saw a chain dangling from an overhead beam off to the side. Earl slung the rifle over one shoulder, vaulted over the edge, caught the chain, and slid roughly down. The rusty steel tore the palms of his gloves. Earl ran out of chain ten feet before the bottom and fell the rest of the way. His boots hit the ground hard and something went pop inside one knee.

Metal echoed with footfalls as the werewolves ran above him. One leapt over the side and landed gracefully a few feet away. Earl’s revolver was already in hand, and the werewolf’s smile of satisfaction barely had time to go away before Earl blew his brains all over the wall.

Before any more could come after him, there was a scream and a crash. The entire catwalk shook, and dust rained down. There was a howl of pain as another werewolf came over the edge. Only this one went sideways and banged off of one of the pulleys with a sick crack. Apparently help had arrived.

Another werewolf was flung over the edge, only this one hit some chains, and was quickly entangled as it spun down until it impaled itself on a hook. The werewolf squealed until Earl shot her in the face. “Harbinger! Clear up here!”

Hearing Heather’s voice flooded Earl with relief. He turned back to the only remaining visible threat. The girl was pointing her metal hand at him. Her eyes were blank and her lips were moving rhythmically. The words she was repeating sure as hell were not in English. The already cold air around him grew even colder, like she was sucking the energy out of it. Magic! Earl snapped off a quick shot with his Smith and was rewarded with a spark as the bullet ricocheted off the girl’s gauntlet. She fell down, and the air temperature returned to just freezing.

Earl reached Kirk a second later. “Nice shot!”

“I was aiming for her head.” Earl drew his bowie knife and slashed the cords binding Kirk’s wrists. The girl was sitting up, so Earl pointed his gun at her. “Don’t move, missy.”

Heather vaulted over the railing, landed softly, and ran over to them. She was covered in healing scratches, and his minotaur-hide coat was dripping blood. She must have recognized the concern on Earl’s face. “Don’t worry. Most of it’s not mine.” Heather picked a flattened bullet off of the leather sleeve. “By the way, this is a really nice coat.”

“Thanks. It’s made out of one of my best friends. It’s a long story.” Earl turned back to Kirk. “What’s going on? Where’s the Alpha?” And then to the girl: “And who the hell are you?”

“I’m the high-priestess of the new—”

Earl cocked the hammer for dramatic effect. “Short answer.”

“I’m Lucinda Hood. Your thugs killed my father.”

“Hood? You’re Marty’s daughter. The Condition is involved?” Earl was stunned. He’d thought for sure they’d been destroyed. “Owen told me about you. What’re you doing here? Do all of you evil assholes network or something?”

Lucinda began to respond. “You’ll pay for—”

“You know what? I ain’t got time for this.” Earl walked over and slugged her hard in the jaw, knocking the witch cold. “I normally don’t hit little girls, but I make an exception for death cultists. Which way did he go, Kirk?”

Conover looked like Earl felt. He’d obviously taken a licking. “Adam? Well, I think it was Adam. . . .” Kirk pointed down the shaft. “But he’s changed. That thing’s corrupted him.”

“Adam? The Alpha . . . He’s your son, isn’t he?” Earl asked.

Kirk nodded silently.

He, too, was a father, and couldn’t even imagine . . . “I don’t think he’s going to go down quietly,” Earl said. “This is—”

“No. He won’t stop. Do what you have to do. I didn’t know . . . I never expected . . . I thought he had the curse under control. He did fine for years. But then we found that skeleton, and it put images in his mind. He started keeping to himself more. Then, when Sharon died . . . They gave him some leave. Our superiors just thought he needed time to grieve. I should’ve seen it.”

So many questions. Earl shook his head. There just wasn’t time. Until that amulet was deactivated by the Baba Yaga’s spell, the vulkodlak would keep on trying to kill everyone left in town. Earl shined his light down the shaft. It could only pierce so far. He couldn’t even see close to the bottom. How do I get down there?

“I didn’t know, Earl. I promise I didn’t bring you here on purpose. I was telling the truth. All I knew about was Nikolai. Adam arranged everything.”

The elevator had been left down below. The power was off anyway. It looked like there was usually a safety cage over the shaft, but the Alpha had torn it into jagged pieces. The shaft was a ten-foot-by-ten-foot square. There were several thick cables still dangling in the middle. If he could secure himself to that cable . . . Along with duct tape, Earl always kept a small bundle of paracord in his armor. He pulled it out.

“Why didn’t you tell me about him?”

“He’s an operative of an agency that doesn’t even officially exist. It was classified. I didn’t know he’d be here. I just thought Nikolai had come ba—”

“No. I mean how come you didn’t tell me that I’d cursed your unborn child?” Earl began fashioning the cord into a basic harness.

“Because . . . Sharon didn’t want me to.”

Earl tied the paracord around his waist. He despised this acrobatic crap, and wasn’t sure how good at it he was going to be as an ex-werewolf. Now he just needed to reach that cable. . . . “Why the hell not? ”

“You hurt her while you were trying to save her. Sharon, she . . . she loved you, you know.” Kirk’s voice grew quiet. “She said that you already had enough guilt on your conscience. She didn’t think you could handle much more.”

Earl winced. If only he’d known. Maybe he could have made a difference. Maybe he could have stopped this before it had ever begun. Maybe . . . And maybe that was exactly what Sharon had been trying to prevent.

“I don’t think you can beat him. Even before he found that damned thing. He’s powerful, Earl. Like nothing you’ve ever seen. I’ll try to call for help. My old operation has some assets. They might be able to take him alive.”

That was a father’s desperation talking. There was no help coming in time to save the town. “Too late now,” Earl said. “I’m going after him. Wish me luck.”

Heather frowned. “Harbinger . . . Wait.”

Now was not the time to get mushy and nervous. “I’ve got to do this.”

“No.” Heather scrunched up her nose, like she could smell something bad. “He’s coming to us.”

Stark nervously looked down the hole in the ground at the entrance to the Quinn Mine. That thing had crawled out of there before Harbinger had blasted it with the 84mm. How many more of the Old Ones’ creations were hiding under their feet?

There was still gunfire coming from nearby. Stark forced himself to move toward it. The crusty bastard with the accent was right behind him.

Douglas Stark had been brave once. He’d been a member of one of the proudest fraternities of warriors in history, briefly. It had been his first operation that had ended up fighting Deep Ones. Stark liked to think that if he would have just stuck with fighting other mortals, he would have been okay and not discovered that he was a coward. But instead he’d been whisked into the top-secret world of monster eradication.

Even then, he’d managed to be brave, a little bit, when necessary. MCB agents were called upon to do all sorts of terrifying things, but Stark had always managed to maneuver himself so that it was somebody else doing those things instead of him. Sure, he’d fought monsters, killed a few, but he wasn’t the one to volunteer for it. Following Franks around had been the scariest thing he’d ever done, but Franks had been the one to do all the dangerous stuff, which was justifiable, since it was impossible for Franks to actually die. Stark had always hid his cowardice well. Luckily, since the MCB was a government agency, the keys to success were often more related to time served and working the system than sticking your neck out.

Having spent the last decade in management, though, the part of his brain that controlled bravery hadn’t gotten much use. Stark was a good manager, an excellent paper-shuffler, witness-intimidator, and PR doctor, but always in his heart he knew that he had a tendency to choke under pressure. It was hard to admit, but that was probably the single biggest reason he hated the fact that Dwayne Myers had been promoted instead of him. Myers was just as sly, just as cruelly efficient in the completion of his duties, but Myers actually led from the front. Myers actually was brave, and Myers was also perceptive enough to know that Stark wasn’t.

If he could only see me now, Stark thought as he jogged through the burning debris. A bleeding werewolf tumbled out of a smoky corner. Stark bellowed as he shot the werewolf half a dozen times. Another one came out, dragging a leg nearly severed by silver shrapnel. Stark gunned it down, too.

“There! Look over there!” Aino shouted.

Another one of those big underground floppy-skinned monstrosities was chasing the last Briarwood Hunter between some of the parked equipment. Jason saw them, ducked under the bed of a dump truck and sprinted their way. He was holding Harbinger’s Thompson, which was a good sign, because maybe that meant the scary bastard had gotten eaten.

Unfortunately, the monster began climbing over the dump truck in pursuit. “Don’t run this way! The other way!” Stark shouted, but it wasn’t doing any good. The idiot was going to lead that thing right to them. “Damn it.”

Jason was soaked in sweat and gasping for air. Blood was running freely from the bandage on his head, and the side of his coat was stained red. Apparently the monster had managed to hit him at least once. “I’m almost out of ammo,” he gasped.

“Did you lose my gun? Because that was an issue gun.” There was a form for that, and Stark hated paperwork. Except the monster was lumbering toward them, so paperwork could wait. He shouldered his SCAR and started shooting.

Jason fired his last few rounds. The bullets hit, but the monster didn’t seem to notice. Its head kept bobbing along. The giant mouth slit was hanging slightly open. Its skin was pocked with dozens of bleeding green bullet wounds. Jason dropped the Thompson and picked up a board. One end of which was on fire. “I’ll hold him!” The big man bellowed as he charged the creature.

Now, that was brave. Stark had already gone through twenty rounds and not made a dent in the thing. He dropped the mag and pulled another from his armor while Jason ran right up and smacked the monster in the leg. The flaming board broke into sparks and ashes, but the creature didn’t so much as flinch. Jason backed away as the creature raised its two metal hands.

“Big man! Catch!” Aino shouted. Stark was surprised to look over and see the grizzled old man holding a lit stick of dynamite. He threw it at Jason, who, remarkably enough, reached out and caught it in one hand.

“Where’d you get that?” Stark asked.

“Been carrying it around all night. ’Bout time I got to use it.”

Jason stood his ground, face grim, as the fuse burned down. The creature reached down and grabbed him around the shoulders. Jason’s feet left the ground as the horrible gaping mouth opened wide to swallow him whole. He didn’t so much as make a sound as he was shoved headfirst down the thing’s throat. The skin bag stretched as the Hunter fell inside.

“That is sick and wrong,” Stark said.

The monster turned toward them, the pouch on the front bulging and swinging. It took a step forward, then stopped. The head kept bobbing, like it was thinking about something. A green point appeared in the middle of the sack; then it turned into a straight green line as a knife blade sliced cleanly through the skin from the inside. The monster opened its mouth to throw Jason up, but it was already too late.

The incision was three feet long by the time Jason’s arm and head fell out. The gasping Hunter and a massive pile of slime spilled into the snow. Jason wasted no time as he sprang to his feet and ran for his life. He’d made it ten feet when the dynamite he’d left behind went off. It wasn’t as big of a boom as Stark had hoped for, but it blasted green internal organs six feet in every direction. The blob of a head tilted crazily to the side before the whole monster sank gradually to the ground, flopped over, and lay still.

“That wasn’t very big.”

“I only had the one stick. Big man! You okay?”

Jason stumbled over to them. He was covered in goo, and so dizzy he could barely walk. He sank to his knees in front of Stark and held out his hand. Under all the slime was a knife. It looked familiar. Just like Stark’s SOG knife. Automatically, he reached for the sheath on his armor, but it was empty. “Hey . . . How’d you get that?”

“You lost it sliding down the hill,” Jason said. “You can have it back now.”

The Hunter had gotten a lot more use out of it than prying open soda machines. Stark looked at the nasty, stinky mess, and said, “Naw. That’s okay. You keep it. I’ve got to try and signal help before they bomb the shit out of us.”

“Cool. Gonna rest now. . . .” Jason fell over and hit the ground with a dull thud. “You guys go do what you gotta do.”

The man was brave, no doubt about that. That kind of gumption would have gotten him far in the MCB. He looked like he was probably going to die, but he’d managed to kick some ass in the process. He’d already lost one hard-charger today. Stark tried to remember back to his training. . . . Something about an obscure creature like this had been talked about in medical. That slime . . . Stark opened the med-kit on his armor and began rummaging around until he found a labeled injector. He gave the Hunter the shot and hoped that he was remembering right.

Stark checked his phone. Still no signal. He looked to the top of Number Six. It was his turn to be the hero. “I’ve got to go.”

Aino handed him Harbinger’s sniper rifle. “Just in case you see any more werewolves.”

Jason Lococo was mumbling, staring into the distance. “Not so bad . . .”

Chapter 34

The Alpha was climbing up the elevator shaft. Nikolai could tell that the devil-wolf was fully healed, because that strange draining sensation had tapered off. The Alpha no longer needed the extra energy. When he reappeared, he would be virtually invincible.

Nikolai stopped to watch from the catwalk. He placed his filthy yet all-too-human hands on the metal to balance himself, since the world hadn’t stopped spinning since he’d changed back. Harbinger and Kerkonen were below, ready to face their doom with open eyes. Now he needed to decide if he was going to die with them or not.

Flee?

“For what?”

Tvar was silent for a long time. To survive.

“Is that all there is to life?”

I do not know.

“Why not?”

Because I am you, and you do not know.

Nikolai was weakened. The Alpha had easily destroyed him just moments ago. To face him again was suicide.

You were willing to commit suicide earlier to stop me from taking control.

It was true. Losing himself had been more frightening than death. Death held no mysteries. Nikolai believed in nothing. The institutions he’d believed in as an adult had been a sham, and he had no faith in the tales of his fathers. There was no happy afterlife for him, no god to judge him, no eternal resting place to lay his weary head.

Bleak but poetic.

“I come from a bleak but poetic people. What would you have us do? Fight and die, or run as cowards.”

You are . . . asking me?

“Why not? I’m tired of the struggle. I’m tired of not owning my own head. I’m just . . . tired.”

The Tvar seemed to think about it for a long time. The Alpha let loose a howl of rage so intense that it felt as if the entire building would collapse on top of them.

He invaded our territory. He killed our pack. She was mine, too, you know. I did not approve, but he took something from both of us. We fight. Our death will have meaning.

Nikolai was surprised by the answer. “Why?”

Because I am you, and these things . . . I know.

“Incoming!” Heather shouted.

“Get out of here, Kirk,” Earl ordered, and, when he hesitated, Earl snapped, “Go call your people. If we die here, he still needs to be stopped.” Kirk snapped to and fled.

“Heather, get ready.”

He could see the Alpha’s eyes far below. They were shining like golden headlights. The mass of the super-werewolf was taking up a large portion of the shaft. He was climbing straight up, throwing himself upward, yards at a time, claws striking deep into rock and steel. It was like standing at the end of a tunnel with a freight train coming right at you.

There was nothing big to drop down the shaft. Heather tossed a wrench, then kicked in a rusty toolbox. The Alpha didn’t even blink when they hit.

I’M COMING TO GET YOU, HARBINGER.

Earl had three shots left in the Mosin before he had to reload. Aksel had written that he’d struck Koschei right between the eyes. Earl aimed. Fired. There was a brilliant flash of silver light, and the Alpha roared. The headlights blinked twice, then started back up.

“That didn’t work?” Heather shouted. “What now?” She threw over a tarp, looking for something else to toss down the shaft. “What happened to shoot him in the head and say the magic words? Shit. Shit.”

KOSCHEI WAS WEAK. HE HAD NOT FED THE AMULET LIKE I HAVE.

Earl chambered another of the Baba Yaga’s rounds. He aimed carefully. The old gun seemed to be perfectly zeroed. This time he picked a glowing eye.

YOU’RE NOT EVEN A WEREWOLF! I TOOK YOUR SOUL. YOU ARE NOTH—FUCK!

The Alpha shrieked as the silver bullet obliterated his eyeball. “Felt that one, huh?” Earl shouted as he worked the bolt, chambering the last cartridge in the magazine. There was only one beam of yellow light now. It danced wildly inside the shaft as the Alpha shook his head. He resumed climbing.

OH, IT IS ON NOW.

Heather had found an oil lantern. She hurled it down the shaft. The light fell, then shattered against the Alpha. The oil ignited in hissing flames. The burning werewolf kept ascending.

The fire was dying fast. “Got any more of those?” Earl asked.

“I think the rest are battery-powered.”

“Aw, hell.” Last shot. Earl aimed, trying to time the blinking of the Alpha’s massive eyelids. At least the target was getting bigger. . . . Too bad that meant he was closer. “My, what a big eye you have,” he muttered. Smoke and the stench of burning hair boiled out of the shaft. He pulled the trigger. The other light went out, plunging the pit into smoky darkness.

AARRRGGGHHH! The roar was in Earl’s head and against his ears. THEY’LL GROW BACK. I DON’T NEED TO SEE TO EAT YOU.

Earl pulled a stripper clip of five of the magic rounds and began to thumb them into the open action of the Mosin-Nagant. He hadn’t used one of these particular rifles since a mission during the Korean War. There was a trick to not getting all the cartridges wedged up against their rims. There. He closed the bolt.

And the Alpha came out of the shaft.

Somehow, he seemed even bigger than before. He had to duck his head to get under the cable wheel. WHERE ARE YOU? His nostril holes, which were big enough to fit a grapefruit in, flared. The head turned toward Earl, and the jaws opened. Each tooth was the size of a combat knife. THERE YOU ARE.

The jaws snapped forward, wide enough to completely consume a man. But they snapped shut on empty air.

Earl hit the ground rolling, entangled with a mass of dark hair. They came to a stop, and for a moment, Earl thought that Heather must have saved him. But it was Nikolai in werewolf form. His teeth were only inches from Earl’s eyes, and for the briefest of moments, Earl would have assumed that the fearsome beast, his mortal enemy, smiled. Nikolai turned, snarled, and charged, loping toward the Alpha.

PETROV. Blind, the Alpha swung one mighty arm, ripping thousand-pound girders right out of the concrete. Nikolai spun through the chaos and landed on the Alpha’s neck, tearing and biting.

Earl had lost the Mosin. It was a few feet away. He scrambled for it.

Heather, fully changed, joined the fray. She came at the Alpha from behind and attacked his leg, trying to rip through a hamstring. The giant lashed out with one leg, and a paw knocked Heather across the room.

Nikolai never let up to the end. He threw himself at the Alpha, over and over, tearing roast-sized chunks of meat out, spraying blood in great arcs, attacking with unbelievable savagery. One giant claw wrapped around Nikolai’s leg and pulled him away. The Alpha held the other werewolf away from his body, letting Nikolai dangle and thrash. The Russian managed to pull himself up, breaking his leg in the process to attack the tendons in the Alpha’s wrist. The Alpha roared in agony as Nikolai severed the artery.

ENOUGH OF YOU.

The Alpha reached up with his other hand and took hold of Nikolai’s arm. The limb seemed puny between the great claws. The Alpha pulled. Nikolai screamed as one arm was torn off.

Earl’s hand landed on the wooden stock of the Mosin-Nagant.

Nikolai was still fighting, still attacking, even as the blood pumped from his torso. The Alpha sunk his claws into Nikolai’s chest, and, once locked on, pulled against Nikolai’s leg. He screamed again, weaker this time, as his leg was torn cleanly off at the pelvis.

PETER AND THE WOLF. LAST OF YOUR LINE. YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE CHALLENGED ME.

The Alpha wrenched off Nikolai’s other arm. Nikolai’s head hung, weak and limp. He held Nikolai over the shaft.

LIKE YOUR EMPIRE, TO THE GRAVEYARD OF HISTORY’S FAILURES YOU GO. . . .

Great claws pulled free of Nikolai’s body and the Russian tumbled into the dark.

The Alpha turned, satisfied. NOW, WHERE ARE YOU, HARBINGER? Still blind, the monster flared his massive nostrils as he sought the scent of his enemy.

And Earl shoved the barrel of the Mosin nearly a foot up the Alpha’s nose. He jerked the trigger.

The light was blinding. This time the message that the Alpha broadcast telepathically was an unintelligible signal of so much confusion and pain that it momentarily shorted out Earl’s brain.

The Alpha reared back, hit the pulley, did a turn, then fell. Earl dove to the side to keep from being crushed. The impact of the Alpha’s body shook the foundations.

NNNNNNUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuu.

Earl shook his head. The Alpha was down, flat on his back. The rifle was still sticking out of his nose. There was no time to lose. He had no idea how fast the monster could regenerate from something like this. Nikolai’s life had bought him a distraction, and it was his only chance. Earl jumped over one outstretched arm, grabbed handfuls of black, and began pulling his aching body up the Alpha’s torso.

The amulet. There. It was barely visible through the hair. There was no chain holding it. It was like the silver had turned molten and seared itself to the werewolf’s chest. It was an open palm, three claws, just like the forerunner’s skeleton, just like the dream from when his curse had been ripped away.

He grabbed the amulet in both hands, sinking his fingers into the Alpha’s skin, and shouted the words from Aksel’s journal. “Allut tvar mataw!” And he pulled with all his might.

Nothing happened. The amulet didn’t even budge.

“Allut tvar mataw. Allut tvar mataw!” Earl roared. Somehow he pulled harder. Veins stood out in his neck. “Allut tvar mataw! Motherfucker!” The amulet hadn’t moved a bit. “This is why I hate magic!”

Earl looked to the rifle. The Alpha had to be regenerating. Time for another dose of silver to the old brain-stem.

HARBINGER.

The entire body shuddered beneath Earl’s knees. “Aw, hell.”

GIVE MY REGARDS TO PETROV.

Earl tried to move, but the arm was so big, there was nowhere to go. It was like trying to dodge a wall. It hit him, and he tumbled overboard. He hit the ground hard, only to be hit again. His body scraped and banged across the gravel as the Alpha shoved him over the edge and into the shaft.

Earl was falling.

Desperate, he reached for something, anything. His hand struck metal, stone, metal, and somehow he grabbed on, for just a split second. The impact wrenched his arm from the socket. The ledge he’d grasped crumbled, and Earl fell again.

Air tore by. Earl hit a center cable. He touched it. Sliding. Then hit it again. Somehow he grabbed it, slowing himself. Friction burned his gloves as he fell.

Can’t die. Not like this. Earl got his other hand on the cable. Still falling. Can’t stop. He hit it with his leg, trying to wrap himself around the cable. It abraded through his armor and into his skin. The pain was horrific, but he squeezed tighter.

He was slowing. Slowing. Then there was no more cable. The end zipped past his leg. Past his hands and was gone.

He barely had time to make a noise before the ground hit him.

The Alpha pulled the rifle out of his nose. It hurt like a son of a bitch. The silver needle had literally scrambled his brains. He should have eaten Harbinger, at least for the calories, but kicking him over the edge so he could plunge to his doom had been strangely satisfying, too. He lay there for a moment, using his other senses as his eyes slowly healed. He began to shrink. It took too much energy to sustain the great-form for long. Waves of heat bled from him as he took his human form.

That had to be all. The challenge had to be complete. There was nothing else for him to prove. Listening intently, he waited for the amulet to tell him another secret, but the damned thing was silent. “What more can you want from me?” There was still no response. “Please?”

“Adam!” It was his father. His human father. His real father; his werewolf father was dead. “Adam, stop.” The Alpha turned to face him. Kirk had found a revolver somewhere, probably one of Harbinger’s, and he took it in both hands and aimed it at his son’s heart. His father had a surprisingly grim look on his face. “You’ve got to stop this. It’s that thing on your chest. It’s changing you. It’s messing with your head.”

“You can’t blame it on the amulet, Dad. It’s changing me physically.” The Alpha tapped himself on the head. “But I’m the one calling the shots. This is my plan. My mission. My destiny.”

“These are silver bullets in here. I don’t want to shoot you, but I will.”

“I’ve got no doubt you would. You always were the tough one. You made that decision a long time ago, didn’t you? That if your horrible, cursed, monster son ever went wrong, ever went bad, you’d be the one to put him down. Duty, honor, country . . . Family came way after everything else.”

The gun was barely moving. “I love you, Son, but I will kill you if I have to.”

The Alpha shook his head. “That’s what I told myself when I decided Mom needed to go.”

“You . . . you . . . what?” Now the gun shook.

“I loved her, but she was in my way.” The truth seemed to rob Kirk of his will. The Alpha moved, too quickly for his father to react, and wrapped his hands around the revolver. Kirk fought, but he wasn’t nearly strong enough as the Alpha steered the muzzle under his father’s chin. “Now you two can be together again.” He put pressure on his father’s trigger finger and closed his eyes.

When it was done, he felt strangely empty.

The Alpha stepped away from his father’s body and touched the amulet. Still nothing. He’d just severed the last tie to his mortal life. “What more can you want from me?” He roared in frustration, picked up a wrench, and smashed it to bits against the wall. The sun was up. They couldn’t afford to wait any longer. “Let this place be the first test, then. I’ll raise vulkodlak in other places, larger cities, with bigger populations. I’ll satisfy you eventually!” Lucinda Hood was in the corner. Luckily she hadn’t been crushed during the melee. He was at her side in the blink of an eye.

The witch was coming to. “Wha—what happened?”

“Harbinger knocked you unconscious. Come on. Wake up. It’s time to go.”

Lucinda shook her head to clear it. “Give me a moment to prepare.” She reached into her coat and began unknotting the rope tied around her waist. The rope was the key element to one of the Shadow Man’s perfected teleportation spells.

“Hurry. There’s nothing left for us here now.” The Alpha checked the air. His vision was shot, but he could still smell—with one nostril, at least. There was only one other living thing on their level. . . . “Wait. That’s it!”

Lucinda was still wobbly. “What?”

The female. Her grandfather had somehow stolen a bit of the forerunner’s spirit when he’d taken the amulet from Koschei, and he’d passed that on to his heirs. Whatever piece had been stolen was enabling her to exercise remarkable control. That had to be what the amulet needed. It wasn’t complete. “Keep working. This won’t take long.”

He found Heather on the other side of the room, trapped. When he’d struck her, she’d apparently fallen onto a few pieces of broken rebar sticking out of the floor. There was one through her calf and another piercing her thigh, with a foot and a half of metal spike sticking out of each one. Far too high for her to lift herself off of, there was no way out on her own short of gnawing her own leg off.

And from the look of determination in the red werewolf’s eyes, he could tell that she was thinking about it.

“Regeneration is a spectacular gift. Except you can’t heal around a foreign body. Look at all that blood. I’m amazed you’re still alive.” He reached out one hand and used the gift that his mother’s line had bestowed upon him. “Calm . . . calm. Let me take your pain,” he whispered. “That’s all right. It’ll be over soon.” The female relaxed. She quit tugging on the bloody holes in her legs. She exhaled as his peace relaxed her, and began to shift back to her human form. He gently stroked her hair. “That’s right. It’ll be over soon.” He waited patiently until she’d returned to her original state.

Once she was fully human, he removed his power and let all the pain come rushing back at once. Heather screamed.

The agony had to be excruciating. “What’re you doing?” she hissed through gritted teeth.

“Taking back what’s mine. Come on. This won’t take long. Stand up.” He grabbed her by the old leather coat she was wearing and hoisted her off the rebar. She screamed as the metal tore free. Holding her in his arms like a baby, he carried her back to the shaft. She had lost too much blood to fight anymore. Once the stolen essence had been taken back, he’d toss her down with the others that had dared fight him. It seemed appropriate that way. Someday, in a world full of werewolves, they’d build a shrine on top of this place.

“Heather!” A single, feeble man stood on the catwalk. He was old, pathetically weak, and wouldn’t have too many more years on this world, even if the Alpha wasn’t about to destroy him for meddling. “It’s not too late! I know how to beat him!”

“Somebody kill him already,” the Alpha ordered, but then he remembered. The entire pack was dead. One more thing he was going to have to rebuild. He unceremoniously dumped Heather on the floor next to the shaft. “Guess I’ll do it myself.”

“Heather! It’s in your grandpa’s journal.” The old man lifted a small leather-bound book and waved it over his head. “On the very first page.”

Interesting. It would be useful to know exactly how some mere soldiers had been able to defeat the great Koschei. The Alpha picked up a five-foot length of steel girder and tested the balance. He walked toward the human.

“Read the words. Use it!” The old man threw the book at the female. It was actually a very good shot, and the book landed only a few feet from her. She showed surprising fortitude as she dove for it, dragging her torn leg behind.

He looked back at the intruder. He would deal with Heather in a moment. The Alpha hurled the heavy beam through the air. It missed the man but struck the catwalk hard enough to shear all the rusty bolts from the wall.

“Aino!” the female cried.

The entire catwalk assembly broke free and collapsed to the floor with a terrible crash. A cloud of dust rolled across the room. He turned back to the female. She had rolled onto her side and had the book open before her. She was panicked, desperate, as she tried to find a way to stop him.

The Alpha strolled over and snatched the book from her hands. “What’ve we got here.” The handwriting was loose and sloppy. He picked a random spot on the first page.

See, I bear a curse. You learn to deal with it, or it deals with you. Crying about it won’t change a thing. Embracing it will destroy you. I have stared into the face of evil, and I’ve been the face of evil. I’ve done some bad things in my life. Good thing I’ve lived a long time, because I’m still trying to even that score. Some folks would call it penance. I call it my job.

I am a Hunter. I am a Monster. I was born Raymond Earl Shackleford Jr., son of the greatest Hunter to ever live, in the year 1900. I’ve held many names since.

Today they call me Harbinger.

This wasn’t the journal of Aksel Kerkonen. The Alpha looked up from the page at the female. Treachery ran deep in her family. She held a different book in her hands and was reading aloud from it.

It was a spell. The air crackled with raw energy. “Bitch.” He reached for the true book.

But a claw came over the side of the pit, hooked him by the leg, and pulled him over the edge.

Chapter 35

Earl had one of those dreams. Where you were falling. And you bolt up in bed, wide awake at the last second.

Only this wasn’t a dream, and he’d hit the floor hard enough to break every bone in his body.

He lay there, staring up. There was a single perfect square of light, far above. It seemed so far away. He must’ve slowed himself quite a bit on that cable, or he’d have been dead on impact.

Earl reached for the wall. One hand wouldn’t respond. He gasped in pain when he reached over and touched the bone sticking out of his forearm.

Got to find a way out. Got to move.

He couldn’t feel his legs.

Well . . . shit.

They say your life flashes before your eyes when you’re close to death. Earl didn’t buy that. He’d almost died plenty of times, and he’d never gotten the slideshow. But in those final moments, you did dwell on things . . . Things left unsaid. Things undone. This time was different. Like this, would have plenty of time to think.

Far above, the Alpha was going to kill Heather. She was a sweet girl. She deserved a chance. Then the Alpha was going to get away, and he was going to keep on killing, only he was going to get better at it. All because he was a jerk-off with daddy issues and delusions of grandeur. He’d learn from that amulet, and he’d get stronger. By the time the world knew what they were facing, it would be too late. He couldn’t even get word to MHI to pick up where he’d left off. The son of a bitch would flood bastardized zombie vulkodlak everywhere.

He’d prayed for a cure. He’d tried to cut a deal with God to be rid of the curse. He’d done everything he could, searched the globe, turned over every rock looking for a way to end it, but never found anything. So he’d accepted his lot in life and made the best of it. He’d used his curse to be a warrior for good. He’d made kicking the shit out of evil into a business, and he’d saved a thousand times more innocent lives than he’d taken, but that entire time, he would have traded it all to be human once again.

Got my wish. Lord, you’ve got a very ironic sense of humor. He would’ve laughed if he could have formed the sound. Here he was. Human again . . . only he’d be dead soon. And all the work he’d done, all the battles he’d fought, they’d all be for nothing. Guess I was wrong to waste all that time wishing for something when I should’ve just made better use of the gifts you gave me.

“Harb . . . inger . . .”

The voice was a hoarse whisper. So quiet that the first time he heard it, he thought he was imagining it, or maybe it was an angel come to lead him on. Now, that will be an interesting judgment day!

“Harbinger . . .”

Nikolai? He became aware of the presence next to him. The voice was inhuman, struggling to form words with a mouth that was filled with fangs and still partially transformed. “I’m dying . . .”

Obviously. There were limits even to what a werewolf could survive, and three torn-off limbs was well beyond that point. Nikolai being alive was rather surprising. Stubborn Russki bastard. “Me, too,” Earl managed to croak. Fitting. They should’ve died together a long time ago, the last of their breed.

“No . . . ,” Nikolai coughed. “Not yet. Smell . . . no death . . . on you.”

Earl lay there, tried to block out the pain, and thought about it. He’d been hurt so many hundreds of times that he could be analytical about his injuries. He knew what broken vertebrae and shattered bones felt like. Nikolai was right. Earl wasn’t dying yet. He could survive this.

They’d find him down here. Heather would be dead, and the Alpha would escape, but he could still survive to live as a man.

And as a failure.

There was movement. Nikolai shifted. He was right there, but it was too dark to see, too numb too feel. “The amulet . . . It’s surging. Strong. Magic . . . like never before.”

What’s he getting at? The earlier surges had forced all of the werewolves to change, but Nikolai was too damaged to transform now. Werewolves couldn’t regrow limbs. He was melting back into a man as he died. Nikolai was about to punch the clock. And the amulet didn’t do anything to a normal man. . . .

It wasn’t too late, but it meant giving up everything he’d ever hoped for.

Nobody had ever accused a Shackleford of being a quitter.

Earl lifted his less-broken arm and managed to shove it toward Nikolai. “Bite me.”

There was a noise as the dying werewolf shifted. “Finish . . . it . . .”

Crunch. Earl screamed as fangs pierced his hand.

The jaws released, and Earl pulled his mangled hand against his chest. Nikolai was breathing in short, panting gasps. He’d be dead shortly.

“Something . . . to remember me by.”

Those were Nikolai’s last words.

The ragged breathing stopped, and Earl was alone except for the ringing in his ears and the mind-numbing pain coursing through his broken body.

Would it work? Or would it all be for nothing?

He watched the square of light. It was all he could do. The Alpha roared, and the sound echoed down the shaft. Earl’s vision darkened as the light darkened from yellow to gray.

No. Not darkening. Changing.

The ringing in his ears was replaced with a hum. No. Not a hum. The Hum.

The curse was in his blood again. Earl concentrated on the gray light. Normally it took weeks for the change to take place. But with that amulet . . . Heather had changed in hours, Buckley and the other cursed had changed in hours.

He didn’t have hours. He’d be dead long before the healing kicked in.

The werewolf-killed had changed into vulkodlak within seconds of death. Only, they’d been partial transformations. And what was he supposed to do? Wish real hard for death? And then come back as a mindless undead? No thanks.

Heather had changed in hours because of that false moon. But she’d been a new werewolf. What could it do in the blood of someone already familiar? Somebody who knew exactly what he was looking for, and how to set it off?

Lord, help me. Give me the strength I need to do this. Help me change. I’ll do my best. I will be a warrior in your service. Grant me your strength. Please.

Earl cleared his mind and opened his soul to the Hum.

His temperature was rising. Earl still couldn’t feel his legs, but he could have sworn that they just twitched.

The Hum was everything. It was calling to him. Earl searched for his other half. It wasn’t the enemy. It was an old friend. He thought he heard a noise. There. It came again. It was a crackling noise.

It was his spine realigning.

Suddenly he could feel his lower body, and it hurt a lot. Everything was shattered. Yes! Earl welcomed the pain. He welcomed the anger. He welcomed the monster.

Bone fragments ground together, slowly at first, then faster. He lifted his arm, put his hand in front of the square of light. For a moment, he thought he was hallucinating, seeing a vision of the amulet with its three claws. A finger was gone. There was just a bloody hole on the end of his hand.

Nikolai, you son of a bitch, you didn’t have to bite my pinky off.

Earl rose, stripped off his tattered armor, and began to climb. The change was fully on him now, but his thoughts were still clear, still coherent, still his. He found a handhold and pulled, another, and then he was moving upward. Bones twisted back together, then bent into new angles.

The pain was horrendous. It was just as bad as the very first time, only now, instead of rolling around on the floor and going insane, Earl just kept climbing. He was not the man he had been all those years ago. Twenty feet up, and his nine remaining fingers had turned into claws, all the better to dig into the walls. Forty feet, and his teeth were sharp, ready to rend his enemy’s flesh. Seventy, and he was moving with inhuman speed, leaping up the walls, grabbing onto the smallest of ledges. Halfway up and all vestiges of his human form were gone. He climbed faster and faster, until he was bounding from side to side, kicking off and hurling himself upward.

The square of gray light grew bigger. He heard voices. He felt the false Hum just ahead, like a giant screaming moon. There was Fey magic in the air. The Alpha was vulnerable.

Earl broke into the light. He lashed out, grabbed the Alpha’s human leg and pulled. Earl let himself fall. Better to die dashing the evil one against the ground at terminal velocity.

HARBINGER?

The change was nearly instantaneous for the Alpha. One second he was human, the next he was a perfect werewolf. They fell together, striking and tearing at each other. The Alpha was faster, but in freefall, it didn’t matter.

WHAT’S HAPPENING TO ME? SHE USED MAGIC!

Earl hit the side. His claws tore divots through the rock as his body lurched to a stop. The Alpha snagged the cable twenty feet below and stopped his fall. He was rapidly increasing in size.

WHY WON’T YOU DIE?

He let go of the wall and fell toward the Alpha.

Because I’m Earl Harbinger.

The two collided. The Alpha held on, and Earl slashed him repeatedly, raking his claws to the bone. The Alpha struck him back with a force that should have killed Earl instantly. Earl hooked his thumb under the Alpha’s growing muzzle and tore out his throat. Blood cascaded down the shaft.

King of the werewolves.

They were falling again. The Alpha roared as energy from the amulet flooded the shaft in scalding light. The Alpha had grown so much that he just thrust both arms out to the side and slammed his palms against the wall, stopping himself. Earl fell past but caught the Alpha’s leg. Claws raked him, but Earl sunk his teeth into the Alpha’s tendons and wrenched his muzzle from side to side. The Alpha screamed.

I only have two rules.

The Alpha’s foot claws sliced through Earl’s shoulder and knocked him off. Earl dropped like a stone. He looked up as the still-growing Alpha climbed frantically toward the surface. Earl casually reached out and grabbed the madly whipping cable. He stopped himself and began to climb.

Rule number one. Leave humans alone.

As he reached the Alpha, it lashed out at him. Earl launched himself from the cable, hit the wall, and scurried up with an agility that he’d never had before. He reached the Alpha’s arm and lit into it with tooth and claw. He tore divots from the bone and bit until he tasted marrow.

Rule one. Violated.

The Alpha was still trying to climb. He was confused how Earl was so fast, so unbelievably strong. He was trying to get into the open, where he could use his superior strength. Earl wasn’t planning on letting him. Earl could smell the fear. It was the most beautiful smell in the world. Earl never stank of fear. He thrust his claws into the Alpha’s neck and bit off his enemy’s ear. The Alpha’s cry of pain was like beautiful music.

Rule number two. Stay off of my bad side.

They reached the top. The Alpha sunk one massive claw onto the surface and pulled. Earl reached around the Alpha’s face and gouged both eyes out.

You done violated the shit out of rule two.

Earl clambered up one giant arm, raised his hand high, and struck three deep lacerations through the back of the Alpha’s hand. He hit it again and again. The Alpha wailed as he lost his grip. Both of them tumbled through the darkness, striking walls, careening back and forth. Earl just kept striking until they were falling in a red rain. The cable snapped past Earl’s snout; he reached out and took it, but not to slow his fall.

You’re no king.

They lurched to a stop in a cloud of broken rock. Earl jerked the cable around the Alpha’s neck, then rolled himself over against the Alpha’s chest. He sunk his three-clawed hand into the flesh around the amulet.

NO. IT’S MY BIRTHRIGHT.

You have to earn it.

In desperation, the Alpha let go of the wall to try and tear Earl from the amulet. They were falling again. Earl’s claws tightened around the burning piece of silver.

They reached the end of the cable’s slack. The loop Earl had created snapped tight, and the Alpha’s unnatural mass slammed against the noose. Vertebrae and muscle tore. The amulet ripped free of the Alpha’s chest as Earl was dislodged and flung aside.

Earl hit the wall, skidding, but managed to sink his talons against a ledge to catch himself. The amulet scorched his hand, but he held on. Above, the Alpha hung, swaying, his limbs dangling, lifeless. The golden light in the giant’s eyes began to fade.

He didn’t even know if the Alpha could hear his thoughts, only that he could hear the ones the Alpha chose to broadcast, but he had to try. I’m sorry I cursed you, Adam. I wish I’d known. Maybe I could’ve made a difference. Maybe I could’ve helped somehow. Maybe . . .

The Alpha’s body gradually shrank as the amulet’s energy left him. The head separated from the body, and both parts plunged past Earl into the darkness.

Chapter 36

The strange words seemed to hang in the air for a time, repeating in her ears, even after the Alpha disappeared down the shaft. Heather’s vision blurred, fading in and out of focus in time, as the words turned into a chant. As the world faded, another one replaced it. An older world, long since turned to dust, where one of the four factions had gathered to create their champion.

The mighty beast had been chained. Capturing it had cost many hunters their lives, but it had to be taken alive, for a dead thing had no spirit to take.

Heather stood before a great-demon wolf, more terrifying than the Alpha had been. It was upright, shackled and pinned between two great stone pillars. The ends of a hundred arrows and a hundred spears protruded from its bleeding skin. Its hair had been burned away with fire, leaving it blackened and naked.

It was the last of its kind. The adversary had not created it. He could not create, only corrupt. The sagas said that the adversary had taken the wolf and twisted it to be this, before he had buried himself deep in the world to sleep. There the adversary would lie until time was broken and remade, to fight the great war of the living and the dead, but before his retreat, he had left his great-demon wolves to harry and destroy man.

But man would steal the spirit of the great-demon wolf and make it their own. For when the adversary returned, they would use his own weapons against him.

One of the great-demon wolf’s forelegs was lifted with ropes pulled by a hundred of their strongest men. The device was made ready. Designed with plans given by a mad Fallen, built by their wise men using tools stolen from the Old Ones, and given an intelligence of its own, the device had but one purpose: to make the adversary’s weapon their own. The wise men surrounded the quaking limb and buried the flaming device into the beast’s palm. Its howl had shaken the foundations of the world.

Their greatest hunter had volunteered to be the weapon. He placed his hand against the flames and joined his soul to the beast.

The ceremony had spanned three days and three nights, as the strength had been drawn out, bit by bit, through the device embedded in the beast’s palm and fed into the heart of their greatest man. At moonfall, all that could be consumed, had been. The strength of a great demon-wolf had been given to a man. The beast had screamed for all three days of the ceremony, but it was dead now. The transfer was complete.

But something had gone wrong. . . .

The great man could not control the spirit of the beast; instead it had controlled him. At the full moon, he changed into a pale shadow of the great-demon wolf. Madness spread. The vision ended in blood.

Heather wiped her eyes and struggled to her feet. Her head was swimming. The vision slowly faded, and she remembered the broken catwalk. She pulled Aino out of the wreckage and tried to stop the bleeding, but it was too late. Flat on his back, there was blood coming out of his ears and nose. She could sense the weakness, the internal bleeding, and the death that was coming with it.

He’d insisted on holding her hand.

“You can’t go back,” Aino said. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t talk. Just rest.”

“Aksel figured it out too late. The Baba Yaga didn’t lie, but she didn’t know the whole truth. You’ve got to give yourself to the amulet first, then it decides who gets it. They fought Koschei twice. First time, Aksel was the only survivor, but part of the wolf spirit went with him. When they fought again, it decided it liked Aksel better.”

“Shh . . . Hang on. I’m going to carry you out of here.”

“Don’t shush me, girl. I’m dying, not stupid. Listen. You’ve got to know. Aksel fought Koschei twice. Second time . . . said the spell again . . . and he took it. The wolf spirit takes the measure of who’s fighting over it . . . decides who’s worthy. It used Aksel. That part of the wolf spirit changed him, and when he died it changed your daddy, and then it changed you.”

“Why?”

“Something about your people was special. Its job is to pick an heir. It’s looking for the last one.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Last heir gets it all. Aksel hid it . . . Because if it picked somebody bad to be the last . . .” He closed his eyes and sighed. “Good or evil . . . it’s their call. Your call . . .” He trailed off.

“Aino?” her voice cracked.

“Good old Six,” he whispered. “Always thought she’d be the death of me . . .”

“Aino?” She squeezed his callused hand, hardened from a lifetime in the mines, but there was no response. Her eyes burned. “Oh, Aino.”

There was a scraping noise echoing from the shaft. Heather turned, expecting to see the Alpha coming out of the hole to finish them once and for all. She scanned the room for help, but there was no one else there. Even the girl Earl had punched out was gone. There was just a weird piece of rope and a burned spot on the floor. She was alone. A sudden clang of metal told her he was getting close to the top. I’m all that’s left. She picked up her grandfather’s rifle and, determined to go down fighting, walked to the edge of the pit.

The werewolf was climbing quickly. The Alpha was normal-sized now, but it didn’t matter. He was still more than a match for her. She aimed the rifle at the top of the Alpha’s skull, but hesitated. Her gray vision could tell that this one was lighter in color. He must have heard her, and golden eyes turned upward. Though she had never seen him transformed, instinctively she recognized him. Heather lowered the rifle. “Harbinger?”

Nervously, she backed away. Harbinger wasn’t like her. He’d told her about how the moon drove him insane, about how he had to lock himself in a reinforced prison cell whenever the change overtook him. The monster version of Harbinger was an animal, a pure killer, nothing like the honorable man she’d known. It wasn’t safe.

The werewolf crawled up the shaft and, with an exhausted grunt, leveraged himself up and over the side. Harbinger stood upright, a foot taller than she was in her human form. His light fur was matted and streaked red. His skin was torn with dozens of deep lacerations. Frothy blood dripped from his jaws and ran down his chest. His head swiveled to study her. He took a step forward.

“Harbinger! Stop. Don’t make me shoot you.” He took another halting step. She raised the rifle, but there was no growling, no fearsome roar or baring of teeth. He just looked tired. “Earl?”

Slowly, he held out one damaged hand. It was covered in blood and hair, and there was a black scab where his pinky-finger had been, but he was offering something to her. She took a step closer. The amulet! Harbinger was offering it to her. He took another step and swayed, as if he was going to collapse. Without thinking, Heather moved forward and caught him.

One hairy arm fell over her shoulder. His fangs were dripping the Alpha’s blood down the side of her face, but she understood that she wasn’t in any danger. She held him upright as the pace of his breathing slowed.

Teeth retracted and flattened. The fur receded. A moment later, he was only a few inches taller than her. She still continued to hold him as the last werewolf features fell away, until she was holding only a very battered man. Heather squeezed him even tighter. She’d only just realized she was crying. He placed one hand on the back of her head and kissed her gently on the forehead. “It’s all right,” he rasped. “Everything’s all right now.”

“I know . . .” But she didn’t let him go.

He was looking past her and saw the corpses of Aino and Kirk. “Aw, hell. So many . . .”

Harbinger was alive. He had the amulet. “Is he . . . ?”

“Dead.” His voice was ragged. “The Alpha’s dead, and I got this.” He lifted the amulet of Koschei and held it between their faces. “Your town should be safe. Now we need to figure out how to cure you . . . us . . . all of us. Wait . . .” He stopped, horrified, and stared at the rapidly disintegrating amulet. The silver claw was cracking as its outer edges bled into dust. “No. No! NO!” Harbinger shouted. He let go of Heather and tried, futilely, to squeeze the pieces together. Dust streamed between his fingers. Harbinger fell to his knees and tried to collect the ever-shrinking bits. Within seconds, they were gone.

Heather felt the magic leave, and the last fuzzy remnants of the dream went with it.

“I can’t believe this. It was a cure. . . .” Harbinger stayed there, on his knees. “No . . . We could have ended the curse.”

Heather shook her head, trying to recall her dream. “It was waiting for someone worthy. The curse was on purpose, but the people that took it weren’t ready yet. They didn’t know what they were asking for. The monster’s spirit was stronger than theirs. But the amulet had a mind of its own. It held something back for some reason.”

“You saw something, too . . . didn’t you?”

“I did, just now. Like it wanted me to know.”

“Me, too. Little bits and pieces, when I lost my curse, and when I saw the bones.” Harbinger ran his fingers through the dust. “The amulet was a test.”

“It wanted to be found. It was waiting for someone. The thing was only making werewolves stronger to attract even stronger challengers.” She placed one hand gently on his shoulder. “It found what it was looking for. It picked you.”

“No. It didn’t.” Harbinger stood and took Heather back in his arms. “I wasn’t enough. It picked us.”

“Harbinger?”

“Earl. Really. It’s just Earl.”

She kissed him, gently. He still tasted like blood. “Let’s get out of here.”

*   *   *

“You hear that?” Heather asked once they got outside. “It’s quiet.”

Earl listened, it was good to be able to really hear again. “I’d say too quiet, but I suppose that’s because we’ve killed everything in a mile radius.”

“No, smartass. There’s no gunshots from town.”

It was like he’d figured. The vulkodlak had only existed because of the amulet. Once it was gone, there was nothing keeping those undead walking. The question was if they’d stopped them in time to make any difference. There was some clothing hanging on the railing at the entrance to Number Six. Which really brightened Earl’s morning. He wasn’t the self-conscious type, werewolves seldom were, but he was still a Southern gentleman, so walking around buck-naked with a lady seemed rather uncouth. Heather still had his coat, but he passed her the pants. There was a rather nice wool overcoat, so he took that. It smelled like the Alpha. There was a wide-brimmed hat, too. Earl put it on. “Souvenir.”

“You look like a flasher,” Heather said as she put the pants on. They were too big for her. She unconsciously let one fingernail elongate into a point to poke a new hole in the belt so she could cinch the pants up tighter. “You could just leave it off. You’ve got a good body for a senior-senior-citizen.”

“Damn, woman, you are forward.” Earl checked the pockets. Sadly, it appeared that Adam Conover had been a nonsmoker. “In my day—”

“In your day they invented the airplane. Besides, somebody would just call it in and I’d have to arrest you for indecent exposure. Let’s see if anybody else survived and find us a ride out of here.”

Despite being too tired to think, Earl found himself smiling. The girl had spunk. If she didn’t degenerate into an insane killer, he could see this actually maybe working out. It would be nice to have some female company again. “Then some breakfast. I could eat a horse.”

“I know where some are near here. The Randall place is just over the hill. I’ll split one with you.”

Because of the fire, and the smoke, and the dozens of corpses, he couldn’t locate any of his companions by smell. So it took longer than he would’ve liked. They found Jason Lococo near the gates. The Hunter was in bad shape, covered in slime, barely conscious, but breathing. Close by was the exploded remains of one of the Old Ones’ diggers.

Earl knelt next to him. “How you feeling, Jason?”

He gestured weakly at an empty syringe on the ground. “Stark . . . Antidote.” Jason’s good eye rolled back in his head, and he was out. Earl checked the syringe. Atropine. Stark must have known the digger’s poison caused nerve damage. Nasty stuff, but it looked like it had been caught in time. His nose was telling him that Jason would live.

“Nice work, kid.” Lococo was probably twice his size, but it wouldn’t be difficult for Earl to carry him out. “Let’s get him to some medical help. Kid’s got real potential.”

“That just leaves Stark,” Heather said as she scanned the compound. “I wonder where he ran off to?”

Special Agent Douglas Stark of the Monster Control Bureau of the Department of Homeland Security watched the fire-haired werewolf through the scope of Harbinger’s precision rifle. The crosshairs were floating around on the back of her head. He had a solid position. There was zero wind. He’d known they would stop to help the injured Hunter. From the top of Number Six, the range was a piddly hundred and fifty yards. It was an easy kill.

“Agent Stark. Stark! Can you hear me? Are you okay?”

Stark listened to the Bluetooth earpiece. He’d gotten headquarters. He’d gotten help on the way. National Guard out of Marquette were going to cordon off the area while the MCB airlifted in a cleanup team to bag the bodies and intimidate the witnesses. They’d come up with a plausible cover story, like they always did, and the whole Copper Lake mess would just go away.

“I’m here,” Stark whispered.

“There are choppers en route to your position. I’m trying to get an ETA. Are you secure?” Agent Archer asked.

There were three dead werewolves that had gotten in his way on the stairs. He was pretty proud of those kills. There were only two werewolves left down there, and he was glassing them with a sniper rifle. “Secure enough.”

“Good work, Stark, good work. The outbreak will be contained. Thanks.” Archer sounded like he was getting choked up. “Thank you.”

Stark moved the crosshairs over to Harbinger’s back. A few ounces of pressure on a trigger that would break like a glass rod, and that asshole was toast. Harbinger shouldn’t have punched Stark in the face. “What’re you talking about, Archer?”

“My hometown is right down the road. If you and Mosher hadn’t stopped the outbreak, we might have been forced to . . . Well . . . shit, sir. You know. Just . . . thanks.”

“Uh huh,” Stark said as he put his finger on the trigger. Obviously, he’d given headquarters his interpretation of the day’s events. There was still a lot of explaining to do, but nothing he couldn’t handle.

“Well, sir, you’re a hero. A real hero . . .”

That temporarily floored him. He had never been called that before. A hero. Previously, the biggest compliment he’d ever received in the line of duty was followed orders well.

Hero. That’s what they called you when you risked your life for somebody else, when you saved lives, and they’d probably saved a ton of lives. Anybody that lived through the night in that shitty little one-horse town, and the people in the neighboring towns that weren’t getting nuked to glass right now, was because of Harbinger and the people that had followed him.

He couldn’t shoot Harbinger or the redhead that had helped him. They really were heroes. They were what Mosher would’ve been if he’d gotten his way. He was what Sam Haven had been, and Stark was suddenly deeply ashamed of himself.

His finger came off the trigger. “It’s your lucky day, hero.”

Besides, there was a small chance that he could miss, and then Harbinger would be really mad . . . and that man was terrifying.

The responding MCB agents had taken Earl into custody and taken his statement before they’d passed him off to the military. After eating three complete MREs lifted from the Michigan National Guard, Earl had collapsed into a provided bunk and slept like the dead. It had been a long time since he’d been this tired, if ever. He’d slept so deep and dreamless that the pounding on the door had taken a while to even register.

He took the time to light a smoke before getting out of bed. The rubberized food packages hadn’t been the only things he’d managed to snag from the National Guard. He made it to the door and cracked it open, squinting at the sudden brightness. “What?”

It was a young lieutenant. “Mr. Harbinger, I need you to come with me, please.” He looked a little nervous, unsure why the secretive federal agency in charge of the incident had felt the need to stick this man into a room at the local roach motel and then post a dozen guards to make sure he didn’t leave. Their instructions had been to be polite, but firm. “Agent Myers wants to see you now.”

Earl looked around the hotel room, spotted the shoes and clothing that had been left for him neatly folded on a chair. His old, reliable minotaur coat had been thrown on the floor. “All right. Tell Dwayne to relax. I’ll be there in a minute. What time is it anyway?”

“Fifteen hundred, sir. He’s using the county office as a command center.”

“How’s my Hunter? The big fella with the glass eye?”

“We’ve got him cleaned up, sir. He’s very ill. The doctor said it could take him a while, but he should recover.”

That was good news. Earl took his time getting dressed. Myers could wait. He was probably busy anyway, what with organizing the cover-up. This one was sure to be one hell of a doozy. Hopefully, Myers wouldn’t use it as an excuse to finally have him executed. Satisfied that he was as presentable as he could be in a borrowed set of Army digital camouflage, Earl followed the officer out to a waiting Hummer. The air was crisp and the sky was clear. Copper Lake smelled like dead werewolves, blood, and smoke. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

Special Agent Dwayne Myers was using what had been the mayor’s office. The room was packed with MCB agents and military personnel, poring over maps and arguing loudly. Myers just frowned when Earl entered and snapped, “Everybody out. Out.”

Earl waited as the men shuffled past him and out the door. “Hey, Dwayne.”

“Earl.” There was no offer to shake hands or any other false pleasantries. His old teammate had aged since they’d last spoken. His skin was pale, like he’d been spending too much time indoors, his hair was thinning, and he’d lost weight that he couldn’t afford to lose. Even his suit looked more battered than normal. Myers had been run ragged. He gestured at a metal folding chair.

Earl took a seat. He was still smoking but didn’t think the rules about not smoking inside government buildings applied after complete anarchy had set in. “So, what’s the story going to be this time?”

“Too rural for a plausible terrorist attack. One of my junior men talked to the press too quickly, said that the mine tunnels under the town had caught on fire and that hundreds had been killed in the resulting explosion. Moron forgot it’s a copper mine, not coal. Right now I’m leaning toward radon gas. But that’s not why I wanted to talk to you.”

Myers didn’t sit behind the desk, as Earl had expected, and instead wandered over to the window and watched a helicopter landing in the school parking lot. He didn’t speak for a very long time.

If the MCB was going to revoke his PUFF exemption, they would’ve done it already. Something else was wrong. “I’m assuming you wanted to question my account . . .” When Myers still didn’t respond, Earl was surprised to find that he was actually concerned. Myers was a prick, but he was a reliable prick. “Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not.” Myers shook his head and gave a sad little chuckle, still looking out the window. “It’s speeding up . . . isn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“The events. More incidents every month. They don’t seem to be related, but the stats just keep climbing.”

Monster attacks were still high. MHI was hopping, there was no doubt about that, but Myers was privy to a lot more intel than he was. He waited for the agent to continue.

“A few years ago, we broke time, nearly opened a portal in Alabama. Scared the shit out of the entire world, but we passed it off as a natural phenomenon. Then the Arbmunep in New Zealand. You have no idea how hard that thing was to bury. Then you probably didn’t even hear about what happened in California recently. It was big, but we dropped Franks in and locked it down quick. It’s always something different . . . but they’re coming faster and faster, like never before. There are so many things I can’t even tell you about.”

“Keeping secrets from the people is hard work, but you already know my opinion on that bullshit policy.”

“It’s not just keeping monsters secret anymore. Something’s coming, Earl. I can feel it. It’s not just us, either. The South Africans lost a village six months ago, and we still don’t know what did it. Something big happened in a rural area in China just last week, but they won’t tell us a thing. Now this.”

It was truly odd to have the ultra tight-lipped MCB agent speaking so freely. The government looked at contractors like MHI as a necessary evil, and that was on a good day. “Why tell me this?”

“Because you get it. My superiors don’t. They’re in denial, and they’re getting tired of me pushing the issue. They think they can throw enough money and bodies at it and the problem will go away. . . . You know how I feel about MHI.”

“Irrational hatred seems to be the words that come to mind.”

“You’re reckless, careless, and dangerous, but, though it pains me to admit it, you’re also effective. Enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that. Just think about what I said. I want you to be ready, Earl. I don’t know for what, but just be ready.”

“Point me at the fight and make sure the checks don’t bounce. MHI is always ready.”

It was back to business as usual. Myers turned away from the window, came over and sank into a cushioned swivel chair. “Now, about your statement. Everything seems in order. According to the locals, you made a big difference here. Even Agent Stark mostly agrees with your account, though he says there was one other surviving werewolf, a sheriff’s deputy that was recently turned. So, before you can go, there’s just one thing we need to clear up about these other werewolves first. . . .”

Earl had been honest. Mostly. “Some died in town. The last of them, including Deputy Kerkonen, were blown up at the Quinn Mine. I want the PUFF on them, the digging things, and all the undead divided up and paid to each of this town’s survivors. For the one that started all this, I’m going to demand a one-of-a-kind PUFF finding on him. He was a divine-werewolf hybrid, so he’s going to cost you big. I’ll do the paperwork myself. You’ll find that particular werewolf at the bottom of the shaft in two pieces.”

Myers put his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers. “Yes, about him . . .”

“His name was Adam Conover.”

“He doesn’t exist.”

Earl angrily shook his head. “Don’t play games. He was government property. A pet monster gone rogue. He was one of yours.”

“Not one of mine, Earl. Don’t bring him up again, don’t talk about him, and forget he ever existed.”

“So, that’s how it has to be?”

“That’s how it is.”Myers rubbed his face in his hands, as if debating what to say. “Off the record, he worked for an operation you do not want to cross. MCB is a shield. They’re a sword, or maybe a poisoned dagger would be more appropriate. They answer only to the highest levels. They’re small, but they deal with things that I wouldn’t want my agency to touch with a ten-foot pole. Nobody talks about them and lives long. Am I clear?”

If there was one thing that werewolves knew, it was how to keep secrets. “Crystal.”

Chapter 37

This will be the last entry in this book. The journals began as a tool to chronicle the holes dug in my mind by a demon, and many of those holes have been filled. There are still things missing, but for the most part, my life is mine again. Up yours, Rocky. I win, you son of a bitch.

The first book was about my history, the second was about my Hunters, and the third was about my curse. But it doesn’t feel right calling it a curse anymore. Koschei’s amulet changed me. In the four months since Copper Lake, things have been different. The change is easier to control now, and when I do transform, though the madness is still there, it does what I tell it to. Even during the full moon, I’d say I was at least half sane, and that’s a pretty decent improvement. I’ll still lock myself up, just in case, but I’m more confident than I’ve ever been. I’m in charge of the beast now, not the other way around.

I’ve always had family, mentors, friends, and my Hunters are my pack, but in one important way, I’ve always been a lone wolf. Even my beloved wife, God rest her soul, could never fully understand my other half. Now, for the first time in my life, I’ve got someone by my side who not only understands what it’s like, but who isn’t a complete raving nut-job about it, either. I’ve been teaching Heather, but she’s a faster learner than I was.

We’re still working the kinks out. Apparently, I can be difficult to live with sometimes. Go figure. But the last few months have been nice. Shit. I’m a master of understatement. It’s been great, some of the best times of my life. But if you expected me to write about my feelings, you sure as hell picked up the wrong journal. Let’s just say that life is good.

Earl Harbinger stopped and looked out the cabin’s window. There had been a noise, slightly out of place, just an echo of a sound against the mountain. One hand came to rest on the Smith & Wesson sitting on the edge of the desk. The property was as isolated as possible, just a lone hunting cabin on a barren stretch of nothing a hundred miles from the nearest bit of civilization. He had bought the land a long time ago under a name that had long since ceased to exist. It was the kind of place that a man could disappear for a time; where a young, supposedly dead werewolf could practice and the only things in danger be the local animals. All of which were edible to a werewolf, but only the bears were a challenge.

The logs in the fireplace popped. The cabin creaked against the wind. Scowling, Earl watched the Alaskan night for a while, but the out-of-place sound didn’t come again. It must have been nothing. Earl removed his hand from the gun and returned to his work.

I was bitter at first, having chosen to be cursed again by my old nemesis. But Nikolai, evil son of a bitch that he was, had done me a favor at the bottom of that black hole. I’d thought I’d have given anything to be a man again, but I was wrong. I was always meant to be a werewolf . . . Monster and Hunter.

This is who I am.

“Writing again?” Heather was standing in the bedroom doorway.

“Scribbling.” Earl put the pen down. He hadn’t sensed her come in. She could be downright stealthy when she wanted to be. “Just a few last things to fill in before we trek out tomorrow.”

Julie was going to have a plane waiting for them in the nearest town. An identity had been prepared for Heather to use while MHI’s attorneys worked on getting a provisional PUFF exemption. They had to tread carefully, but that’s why Earl paid them a thousand bucks an hour. MHI had done fine without him there, babysitting, but he hadn’t killed a monster since November and was starting to get twitchy. The snows were melting. It was time to return to the world.

“You really think I’m ready?” Heather asked.

“Ready as one of us can ever be.”

“You had three years to work on it,” she pointed out.

They’d had this discussion several times. “I had to learn all this from scratch. You’ve got resources, know-how, and one hell of a handsome advisor.”

“You’re rich, too.” Heather folded her arms and watched him with a bit of a smirk. As she had come to accept her new state, Earl found that she’d become increasingly lovely. In his opinion, there was nothing nicer than a pretty girl with the confidence to beat up a polar bear. “Don’t underestimate the attractiveness of the being a millionaire part. Mom always wanted me to find a rich guy.”

“I invested a few PUFFs way back when. That’s the power of compound interest for you.”

“You’re right. I’m ready.” Heather smiled at him. “I’m just going to miss our luxury accommodations is all. Wrap it up, would you? We’ve got a long trip tomorrow. Come to bed.”

“I’ve just got to finish this. When we get to Cazador, I’m going to bury this down in the archives. Maybe it’ll come in handy someday for someone else.”

“You’re pretty serious about recording everything for posterity.” Heather came over to where he was sitting, draped her arms around his neck, and whispered in his ear. “But I bet I can distract you.”

A grin split Earl’s face. “Oh, really?” You got to know someone rather well when you spent an entire winter isolated with them, and Earl knew exactly how distracting Heather could be.

The sound came again in the middle of the night. It was louder this time, and the suddenness of it launched both of them out of bed. Earl was getting dressed as he reached the front door. The noise of the fighter jet lingered on the mountain for a moment. Another aircraft flew past a minute later, skimming terribly low over the lake. It passed the cabin close enough for the noise to rattle snow from the roof.

There were munitions under the wing.

“What was that?” Heather called.

“A flight of F-16s,” Earl answered.

Heather was behind him, buttoning her shirt. “Maybe they’re just on a training flight?”

The first one was banking back over the mountain. “Doubt it.”

“But . . . you’re okay, and they think I’m dead!”

The fighters gained a bit of altitude and began a long circle around the cabin. Earl watched the orange glow of their exhaust. That was an awful lot of firepower. There was another noise in the distance. A helicopter. “We’ve got company coming. Might as well get presentable.”

“Should we run?”

“Naw,” Earl shook his head. “That’s the thing about Hunters. Once they find you, if you run, it just makes them want to chase you that much harder.”

The conflict on her face was obvious to read. Instinct was telling her to flee, but she trusted him. “You’d better be right, Earl.”

“We’ll see what they’ve got to say. Besides, if they were really out to get us, they’d just have dropped a bomb on the place.”

Earl splashed some water on his face, finished getting dressed, and then confirmed that their belongings were ready to go. They’d already been packed to leave in the morning. Heather was too nervous to talk. Earl did his best to comfort her, but he didn’t know what was happening, either. You didn’t send the air force if you were planning nothing more than a friendly visit. “Stay inside. They might not know about you,” Earl warned Heather before giving her a gentle kiss. “I’ll be right back.”

“You’d better,” she warned him. “I don’t want to do CPR on you again, okay?”

“You’re really good at it, though.”

He closed the door behind him. There was an overhang to protect the entrance from the snow, so Earl lit a cigarette and settled down beneath it to wait. Two minutes later, a Chinook helicopter with no markings landed in front of the cabin. Four armored figures disembarked as soon as the ramp hit the ground. They fanned out in a protective circle while a fifth man strolled down the ramp. The stranger walked directly toward the cabin without even taking the time to orient himself. The four soldiers formed a line behind him and followed.

The stranger was tall, and despite his heavy coat, obviously thin. He trudged along through the snow at an energetic clip. Despite their camouflage-painted, ceramic-plate armor that made MHI’s heavy suits look svelte in comparison, the soldiers kept up. As they got closer, Earl noted that the leader’s head was bared to the elements, and that he was completely shiny-bald. He was also wearing a pair of oddly colored, orange-lensed sunglasses, even though it was pitch dark.

The Chinook’s twin rotors were still turning, which made it difficult to understand the stranger’s greeting. He had to repeat himself as he got closer. “Good evening, Mr. Harbinger.”

Earl just nodded. “Your helicopter’s messing up my landscaping.”

The soldiers came to a silent halt a polite twenty feet away. Their leader closed the remaining distance and stopped at the overhang. “It won’t be there long.” The stranger appeared to be in his forties, six-and-a-half feet tall, extremely long-limbed and with skin so pale that if Earl hadn’t smelled the warm blood pumping, he would’ve suspected the man was undead. He was borderline gaunt, but his movements gave off a sense of athleticism. He seemed human, just an odd one. “I’m Mr. Stricken.”

Earl made a show of not being able to hear over the chopper. “Sorry? What was that? Strickland?”

“Stricken,” he repeated.

“What? No handshake?” Earl asked.

“I’ve heard your reputation on the subject,” Stricken said. “My hobby is classical piano, so I’d prefer you not to break all the bones in my hand. May I come in?”

“No. What do you want?”

“Just a moment of your time. I can be polite or not. Your decision.” Stricken took off the orange shades, revealing albino eyes. “And I would like to speak to Ms. Kerkonen as well.”

Earl had been afraid of that. “Deputy Kerkonen died at the Quinn Mine.”

“We both know that’s not true. My time’s valuable, Mr. Harbinger. Believe me, this isn’t my idea of fun. Cold doesn’t agree with me. Bring her out.”

Earl looked over at the four soldiers. Their helmets had opaque full-face visors, so it was impossible to read their expressions. He had no doubt he could take them. It was the F-16s he didn’t know what to do about. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Your file said that you could be a pain in the ass. A satellite has been passing over this area every day for weeks. There’s a redheaded woman here, approximately five foot eight, one hundred and thirty pounds. Nice rack. Spends her free time turning into a werewolf and terrorizing the squirrels. Wave, dumb-shit. You’re on camera,” Stricken said. Earl tilted his head to peer suspiciously around the overhang. “Don’t bother looking, you idiot, you can’t see it. It’s in fucking outer space.”

“She can control it. Just like me.”

Stricken’s laugh was mean. “You think I give a shit? You think I’m MCB? They’re losers. You think they’d get permission to go rerouting satellites for one measly lycanthrope? If popping her was my mission, I’d have vaporized this whole valley with one phone call.” The laughter died, and Stricken’s pink eyes bored into Earl. “Call her out.”

This man wasn’t to be trifled with. Earl opened the door a crack. “Heather?”

“I heard,” she muttered as she came through the door and stood proudly at Earl’s side. “What do you want from us?”

“Werewolves have to earn the right to exist. PUFF immunity is a rare and precious thing. Luckily, werewolves are an amazing creature, and I happen to need one.”

Not again. Earl tossed his cigarette butt in the snow. “How long this time?”

“Two years, beginning immediately. Upon satisfactory completion, there will be a certificate granting full PUFF immunity to the bearer.”

“Until the government changes its mind again.”

“Of course. This offer is valid for the next five minutes. Yes or no. If yes, then we board that helicopter and for the next two years you have zero communication with anyone outside of my organization. No friends, no family. For all intents and purposes, you’ll be government property for the next seven hundred thirty days. Seven hundred thirty-one if there’s a leap year. I haven’t checked the calendar.”

“And the job?”

“You will complete assignments as specified. These assignments will be dangerous but should be well within your capabilities. Everything you need will be provided. At the end of this term, you’re free to go. However, you will be required to keep all information pertaining to my organization classified for the rest of your life, or your immunity will be revoked and you’ll be terminated.”

“And if the answer is no?”

Stricken smiled that same unnerving smile. “Harsh words may be exchanged . . .” An F-16 roared past. “And cluster bombs.”

Earl glanced at the eerily silent soldiers. They hadn’t so much as twitched. There wasn’t even a hint of fear smell, nor excitement or any other recognizable chemicals. Their smell was an indeterminate mixture of gun-oil, synthetic fibers, meat, bone, and blood. They were either inhumanly well trained, or just plain inhuman. Their armored faceplates gave no clue.

He turned to Heather. She was still holding his arm. Now she was frightened. The soldiers were terrifying, not as physical threats, but as what they represented. Heather was barely learning to control herself. He was her anchor, he was her teacher, he was her lover, but now these strange men were here to take him away. Stricken wouldn’t just be hurting Earl, he’d be hurting her.

But if he didn’t go, they were both as good as dead. Even if he killed these men and they escaped, the hunt would just be beginning. He was a Hunter, and as such, he understood just how awful it was be to be the hunted. It would never stop.

Earl gently raised his hand and touched Heather on the cheek. She turned to him, and he could see the understanding in her eyes. She knew what he had to do. Heather was strong, even stronger than he had been at the beginning. She’d be fine. There was just the slightest hint of a nod. No matter what, she trusted him.

Stricken was waiting for an answer. The man, if he was a man at all, was still smiling, only his eyes weren’t. The strange eyes were utterly cold. It was just like before. Different decade, and it would be a different war, but the game was always the same. To them, a werewolf wasn’t a person with a curse, they were an asset, a weapon. They’d give him a new name, and then they’d point him at a target. He’d do his job, just like before.

Only this time, there would be a woman that loved him waiting at the end. So at least he’d have something to look forward to. Earl cleared his throat. “I’ll do it.”

“Not you.” Stricken shook his head and pointed one long finger at Heather. “I want her.”

The words took a second to register as Heather’s fingers tightened around Earl’s bicep. “You bastard!” he snarled as he took a step forward. The faceless soldiers’ guns came up with a clatter.

“Wait!” Heather shouted as she pulled on Earl’s arm.

Stricken raised his hand. The soldiers immediately stopped, their carbines shouldered, muzzles trained on Earl. Four laser dots danced on Earl’s shirt, but Stricken would die before Earl felt the sting of the first bullet.

“Up yours, Pinky. You can’t have her. You want a werewolf, you take me.”

“You know how it works, Mr. Harbinger. Monsters have to earn a place in our world, and you’ve done it. No one doubts you. You’re a patriot. You are living proof that the system works. Unfortunately, times have changed, and I’m afraid recruiting a man with your known personality quirks would be a bad human-resources decision. Ms. Kerkonen, on the other hand remains an unknown quantity. She needs to prove herself, and, as you know, my organization is now short one werewolf.”

“So, Adam was yours?”

“Yes,” Stricken said unapologetically. “And he was the best I’ve ever seen. I had a great deal of respect for his parents as well. They worked for me, too, before they retired so Sharon could dote on her grandkids. Operative Alpha was just like you once, a superb killer. He also earned a place in a human world, only he decided that wasn’t good enough.”

“Your boy went nuts and killed my hometown,” Heather spat.

“I let my guard down, began to think of him as an equal. I’ll never make that mistake again.” Stricken looked at Heather pointedly. “Clock is ticking. You know how much it costs per minute to run a fighter jet? That’s all getting billed to my operating budget.”

Earl was calculating the time it would take to incapacitate the soldiers. Then he’d grab Stricken as a hostage and force the chopper to fly them out. . . . Heather squeezed his arm again. She knew exactly what he was thinking.

“I’ll do it,” Heather said. “I can prove myself. Just let him go.”

Earl closed his eyes and died inside.

“Wise choice, Ms. Kerkonen,” Stricken said. “Get your bags and let’s go.”

Heather turned to him. “Earl . . . I’m sorry. I’ve . . . I’ve—”

He took Heather in his arms and held her close. “Don’t do this.”

“I’ll be back.” Heather was trying not to cry. “I’ll stay strong.”

“It’s not you I’m worried about. Don’t trust anyone,” Earl whispered. “I can—”

“Excuse me,” Stricken interrupted. “I said grab your shit and let’s go. Time is money, Ms. Kerkonen.”

Hesitantly, Heather broke away and entered the cabin. Earl watched her go, and there wasn’t anything he could do. The government was the most merciless monster he’d ever dealt with, and it was the only one that he could never truly beat.

“Don’t try to contact her. That will only make things worse,” Stricken said.

Earl’s hands curled into fists. “Heather serves her time. Then she goes free. You stick to the deal or you deal with me.”

Stricken nodded appreciatively. “And I’d expect no less. I would hate to sully our blossoming friendship. I’m not the bad guy here, Harbinger. I’m just doing my job, just like you had to. I don’t get off on dragging monsters into slavery. We’re doing important work, and it absolutely has to be done.”

If hate could kill, Stricken would have burst into flames. “Fuck you and your important work,” Earl whispered.

The door opened in a rectangle of firelight as Heather came out of the cabin, backpack in hand. Earl held her again, stroked her hair, lied and told her everything would be okay. “I love you, Earl. Wait for me.” He couldn’t form a response, other than to nod desperately. They kissed good-bye, lips salty with Heather’s tears, and then Heather was walking away, a soldier flanking her on either side, and there was nothing Earl could do but watch.

“You’ll get her back,” Stricken said. “You have my word.”

“Your word means nothing. I don’t even know who you people are.”

Stricken paused, weighing his answers. “We’re nobody. You think monsters are secret? They’re famous compared to us. I’d tell you to remember that, but you’re better off forgetting this ever happened.”

The soldiers escorted Heather up the ramp. She turned, waved, and bravely blew him a kiss. A solider took her by the arm, and then she was out of view. Earl exhaled, and did his best to retain both his composure and his humanity.

“Listen to me carefully, Stricken. She’s a good girl. She’s got a human’s heart. She’s not like Adam, and she’s sure as hell not like me. You go back on the deal, and I swear you’ll be worried about a lot more than me talking. I swear to God, if anything happens to her, nothing in the world will save you.”

“I’m not worried about you talking or your threats. Kill me, and somebody else will take my place. I’m humble enough to know I’m a little cog in a big machine. Talk? Well, no one would believe you, anyway.” Stricken put his odd glasses back on as he turned and walked to the waiting Chinook. He called over his shoulder, “Because remember, Mr. Harbinger, everybody knows there’s no such things as unicorns.”