“You’ve got to be kidding me. So you’re really Mordechai Byreika?” He was supposedly the dead guy that had guided Owen through his first brush with cosmic weirdness. “I’ve got to be tripping.”
“You are not going anywhere right now. Yes. Is I. Now hurry.”
Mosh found the remote control and turned the TV on. It was still on one of the adult movie channels. “Damn, boy. Times have changed. In my day you had to work to see nekkid ladies,” said the southerner.
“Easy, Bubba,” the old man’s voice took on a cautionary tone. “Is strange world now, but still worth saving. Sometimes.”
Embarrassed, Mosh quickly flipped through the channels until he found a cable news show. There was a special bulletin with the Las Vegas Strip in the background. The announcer was rattling off information about fires, the CDC, Ebola, a chemical spill, and an evacuation, but he’d jumped in midstream and Mosh’s aching brain was having a real hard time catching up. The live video showed a line of fire trucks, police cars, and military vehicles, and behind them was a wall of whirling gray smoke.
“You are only one we can reach. Much magical energy spilling out of vortex. I use it to talk to you. You are close. You are blood of champion, so we can talk. Surprised I am, how good your mind works for this. Is more easy than your brother’s even. He has to be close to death for me to even say hi anymore. Remarkable how good you are at listening to the dead.”
That was a whole lot to take in on short notice while suffering from a hangover. As far as Mosh was aware, he’d never talked to any dead people before. So either more of his brother’s nonsense was intruding into his life again, or somebody had slipped him something last night. Either one was equally possible.
“We need your help.”
“Wait a second. I recognize that place.” Mosh pointed at the TV. “That’s the new hotel where Owen’s staying. Is this more of his monster bullshit? Look, dead guys, I don’t want to get involved in my brother’s crazy-ass business ever again. Last time I lost my fingers and wrecked my career. This isn’t my thing.”
“Is everyone’s thing. Not time to be selfish, boy. Hunters, how you say, kidnapped. Taken to another world. Whoosh. Whole place, taken away. If you do not help, one by one they all will die. When they all used up, the monster come back here to feed on more. Your brother needs you, Mosh.”
“Mosh? What kind of name is Mosh?” the southern ghost asked. “Thought you said he was a musician.”
“What kind of hillbilly-ass name is Bubba?” Mosh answered. “You a NASCAR driver?”
“What’s a nascar?”
The live feed changed to an aerial shot from a helicopter. Mosh couldn’t believe his eyes. “Shut up for a minute . . .” Mosh walked over to the window and pulled open the curtains. The sunlight drove a shaft of pain through his eyeballs and deep into his cerebral cortex. “Man, I think I need to cut back on the drinking.”
The street below was packed with cars and people, all fleeing. After a few seconds of throbbing agony he could see the pillar of gray smoke rising from the opposite end of the Strip. This sure didn’t look like smoke from a big fire, though. It was as big around as a city block, twisting like a leisurely tornado, rising up over the city until it blotted out a giant chunk of the sky. It was really weird looking, and didn’t seem to be dispersing like a normal smoke cloud. Instead, it seemed to be hanging together, coherent. And worst of all, it was huge.
“Damn it, Owen. What have you got into this time?”
* * *
Making it to Owen’s hotel was a lot harder than expected. The city was being evacuated so it was like trying to swim upstream. Mosh was still unclear on whether that was a mandatory evacuation declared by the governor, or if everyone was just getting the hell out of town because there was a several-mile-tall, eerie-as-hell smoke pillar shooting out of the ground.
A Ford Focus was quite a step down from his repossessed V12 Vanquish, but it still had a radio. The news was a mess, repeating all sorts of garbled nonsense. It was like they weren’t sure what story they were supposed to be spreading. This had to be someone else’s doing. That jackass Myers had at least been smooth when he’d come up with a cover story blaming Mosh for Montgomery. Myers had taken all the crazy pieces of the truth and hammered them until they’d fit a basic, believable, monster-free narrative, and he’d done it fast. This current media clusterfuck didn’t have that vibe at all. Mosh found himself hoping that they wouldn’t find a way to blame this one on him too.
Finally he had to give up on trying to drive there. The cops kept flagging him out of the way for more emergency vehicles and turning him around with dire warnings. The evacuation was general, and they weren’t dicking around. So he parked on a side street and decided to walk in.
At least the dead guys had stopped hounding him. The old Jewish dude had said it took too much energy, but he’d be back periodically.
“I’d better not be going insane. Washed-up rock star goes crazy. That’s so cliché. Bet it’ll look awful on the magazine covers . . . Shit. I probably don’t even rate the cover anymore.” They said there was no such thing as bad publicity, but Mosh knew that was a bunch of crap.
Sure, some no-talent hacks loved being the bad boys in the media and collecting a bunch of disaffected loser fans. Those assholes would bounce right back from being blamed for causing the deaths of innocent people through their careless actions, then go on to being self-proclaimed bad boys of rock or some nonsense like that. But Mosh had been successful because he’d been the best, not through trashy PR manipulation. So now that his fingers were senseless, clumsy blobs of lunchmeat and his playing sounded awful, the only options he could see were either to struggle along as a terrible musician, capitalize on his bad name, and live Myers’ lie as a D-list celebrity, or blow his own brains out and get it over with. Auhangamea Pitt hadn’t raised any liars or quitters, so that left playing guitar in second-rate establishments with the wrong hand, every minute of which he hated, and each performance sucked just a little bit more of the joy out of his miserable life.
And it was all Owen’s fault, and now Owen’s not-so-imaginary friends wanted him to go rescue him or something. “Man, this is bullshit.”
“Is no bulls here. Turn right,” the ghost told him in his head.
So much for leaving him alone. “Stop that!”
Mosh had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to be doing. He’d thrown on a long-sleeved shirt and left it untucked to hide his Glock under it. He was kicking himself for not doing like Dad had always said and having a bug-out bag ready to go. Dad had always kept a backpack of useful stuff next to the door. But oh no, Mosh was too proud to listen to Dad. Whatever you needed, for any possible problem, Dad had something in the bag. It was like magic. Need to start a fire? In the bag. Purify water? In the bag. Hell, he had rope. Mosh had a pistol because he’d once been abducted by a death cult, and a Leatherman that he only carried because the screwdriver and pliers came in handy for setting up the stage show, and here he was heading toward a supernatural cataclysm. Maybe Dad wasn’t as crazy as he’d always thought.
The walk gave him a chance to clear his head. Not everybody was running for it. There were still plenty of people on the sidewalks, most of them taking pictures or video of the pillar. The cops were trying in vain to shoo them away. A few times a squad car came by using the loudspeaker, telling everyone to get off the street for their own safety. On the second pass the cop had called them idiots and said something about the chemical fire. Even the cops hadn’t been given the same story. The Monster Control Bureau was really botching it this time.
“Well, I am surprised. Go in that shop. A friend is inside.”
The sudden voice in his ear startled him. “Stop sneaking up on me,” Mosh hissed. A few of the tourists that were filming the pillar turned to study him. “Not you. You guys are fine. Carry on.”
“Cool. A Mosh Pitt impersonator,” said one of the tourists. “Nice goatee. Oh no, he’s going to go on a rampag
e and hit us with his bus!” She laughed and took his picture.
“Yeah. Okay. Whatever.”
“Hold the pig steady, man,” said the other tourist as he threw the horns.
Mosh sighed and walked toward the shop that the ghost had indicated. It was a costume shop, and like most establishments of its type in this part of town, it was mostly naughty costumes. He had no idea what sort of friend he was supposed to find in here. As he pulled open the door, a thin Hispanic man caught the handle on the other side and stopped him. “Sorry. We’re closed. I’m on my way out.”
“Uh . . .” Mosh glanced around. If it wasn’t for his stupid brother he’d be hitting the road too. “You sure?”
“If you ain’t noticed, buddy, something weird’s going on down the street.”
“I’m looking for a friend.”
The man frowned. “Crazy blonde chick?”
Mosh pursed his lips. Stupid ghosts. He figured he might as well run with it. “That’s her.”
“I told her to get lost. She gave me a thousand bucks in cash and said she only needed ten minutes to pick out an outfit. A thousand bucks! Your friend is nuts. Hot, though. Come on in.” Mosh followed the proprietor into the costume shop as he shouted ahead. “Hey, lady. Your friend is here. You got five minutes left and then I gotta go.”
“Friend?” a woman called from the back of the store.
Mosh walked between the racks of costumes, sexy nurse, sexy kitty, sexy librarian, sexy construction worker, and then got to the more mundane area. A woman in a slinky party dress was flipping through a spinner of jackets. Since he’d come up from behind, Mosh took a moment to enjoy her curves. At least his new friend was stacked. Hey, thanks, dead guys.
She looked up in surprise. “Wait. You’re Z’s brother . . . Mosh?”
He recognized her right away. She certainly had a face that was hard to forget. They’d met at the MHI compound right after he’d escaped from Force and Violence and blown up an overpass in Montgomery. “Holly? Holly Newcastle?”
“What’re you doing here?” She was obviously confused.
Her presence made him so very happy. First off, it meant that he wasn’t insane. The odds of him randomly running into one of his brother’s people in a situation like this in a place like this were absurd, which meant the voices in his head were real. Plus, Holly was supposed to be a badass, so she’d know what to do, and it helped that she was also by far the best looking Hunter he’d ever met.
Because regardless of how bad things got, or how much life was kicking him when he was down, Mosh Pitt would always love the company of a beautiful woman.
Holly snapped her fingers a couple of times. “Mosh. Focus. Why are you here?”
There was no use beating around the bush. Holly was a Monster Hunter. The girl hung out with orcs. She was supposed to be used to weird shit like this. “When I woke up there were a couple of ghosts talking to me. They said I need to go help rescue my brother. They led me to you.”
“This day just keeps getting weirder . . .” Holly reached around and unzipped her dress and began shrugging out of it. She stopped. “Turn around, dumbass.”
“Sorry.” Mosh turned to face the front of the store, only to realize that there was a mirror nearby. Holly tossed the party dress. He had dated swimsuit models that weren’t as built as she was. However, Holly made her living killing horrific things with bullets and fire and pointy things, so Mosh swallowed hard, decided not to get his ass kicked, and studiously watched the floor.
She put on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. “I bought these clothes from the cabbie that dropped me off here. I smell like boiled cabbage. The things I do for this job . . . You can turn around now.” Mosh did so. “This ghost, was it Mordechai?”
“Yeah, and a guy named Bubba.”
“The only Bubba I know is a Shackleford . . . The founder of MHI. Z met him when he got all zombified.” Holly nodded slowly, like that actually made sense. “Okay then . . . This supernatural nonsense ticks me off, but I’m not going to turn down help, no matter how clueless it is.”
“Hey—”
“No offense, but I’d trade you for any Newbie with a month of training. This is way over your head. You’re untrained, uneducated, inexperienced, but I need another pair of eyes and all of my coworkers are inside that cloud or won’t be here in time. So you’ll have to do.”
The last time they’d spoken, she had been a lot nicer to him, but Mosh figured she was just establishing dominance. Not that it mattered. He wasn’t about to give her any lip. He didn’t know anything about this sort of thing. It was actually a relief to have someone to turn the decision-making over to. “I just want to help.”
“Okay . . . What size are you? You look like a 2X.”
“Sure . . . What—” Holly tossed a blue windbreaker at him and Mosh barely caught it before it hit him in the face.
“We’re lucky in one way. They wouldn’t have anything here that would fit your brother. Put that on, Agent Pitt. Come on. We’ve got to hurry.”
Mosh flipped the jacket around and saw that the back had DEA in big gold letters. “Seriously?”
But Holly had already gone to the front counter and slapped down another hundred-dollar bill. “Yo, Jorge. You got any business shoes? Some plain flats maybe? Anything conservative?”
“No. Sorry. Just high heels and clown shoes. We don’t carry normal shoes.”
“Damn it.” Holly looked down at her feet. She already had on a pair of high heels, expensive ones, from the look of them. “These do not look like cop shoes. Keep the change, and if I were you I’d get the hell out of town. Let’s go, Mosh.”
He caught Holly on the sidewalk, where she was pulling on her own blue windbreaker. Holly’s read FBI. “Here’s the deal. These aren’t very convincing disguises, but they don’t need to be. It’ll be chaotic in there, and MCB usually pretends to be some other agency anyway.”
“In where?”
“We’re sneaking into the quarantine. Try not to talk to anybody. If you act like you belong, then nobody will bug us . . . Maybe. Stand in front of me for a second.” Mosh did as he was told. Holly reached into her purse, pulled out a pistol, quickly stuck it in her waistband, then covered it with her jacket. A few extra magazines went into the jeans pockets. “I’m glad you showed up. I might need a lookout or a distraction or something. You ever picked a fistfight with federal agents before? How good’s your attorney?”
“He’s not talking to me because I still owe him money from when the city of Montgomery sued me.” You knew things were really bad when your own attorney put you in collections. “Why are we sneaking into . . . a quarantine?”
“No big deal. It’s just a stroll through the MCB’s secure area without proper ID to talk to a mad scientist. If we’re seen by a certain scary albino, I’m going to shoot him in the face. We get caught or we don’t. Either way, we’ve got to figure out how to stop that.” She nodded her head toward the frightening pillar. From this distance it seemed even more unnatural. “Any questions? No? Good.” Holly raised her voice and spoke directly at Mosh’s forehead. “Listen up, ghosts, if you’re really in there, and you can do anything to help, I’d appreciate it.”
Apparently Mosh was the only one that could hear the voices, because Holly showed no reaction when Bubba chimed in. “I really wish we could’ve contacted her instead of this bum.”
“She is not blood of champion. Must work with what we have.”
Great. I’m being insulted by the voices in my own head. Just do like she asked and send the cavalry.
Bubba laughed. “Kid, you are the cavalry.”
Holly, who apparently couldn’t hear any of that, put on a pair of dark shades and a matching fake FBI ballcap. “How do I look?”
“Like a gorgeous FBI agent?”
“Why, Mosh. Even when you’re in way over your head and scared shitless you can be so sweet. Come on.” Holly had only made it a few feet when she spotted one of the tourists that had talked
to Mosh on his way into the costume shop. “Excuse me, ma’am. Nice shoes. Are those size seven?”
The surprised woman looked down at her plain black tennis shoes. “They’re eights.”
“Close enough.” Holly’s grin was sort of frightening.
* * *
Holly’s plan worked. Briefly.
Piercing the outer layer of defense had been easy enough. Because of the sudden chaos the authorities were still disorganized. Adding to that was the evacuation order, which was taxing everyone’s resources. There were police and sheriff’s deputies from different departments, representatives from multiple agencies, and they’d called in the National Guard. The weirdness of the unnatural smoke funnel made a great distraction. Holly had simply picked a spot on the perimeter and walked right between the barricades, talking on her cell phone like she was getting directions from a superior, and waving at the distracted soldiers.
Mosh figured that it helped that all of the law enforcement and military types were distracted by the screaming death cloud. And it was, quite literally, screaming. Having spent years of his life on a stage listening to vast crowds making all sorts of noise, the sound coming from the whipping smoke was uncomfortably similar. It might have only been the wind, but the frequency of this particular wind sounded like thousands of people crying out as one, and they didn’t sound like they were having a good time.
All eyes were on the smoke so Mosh couldn’t blame them for the lax security. Screw watching for trespassers breaching the perimeter. Who’d be crazy enough to want to come close to this thing anyway? The smoke seemed alive. It was moving, but not billowing outward like smoke should, just going straight up, not deviating from its path until it was a quarter mile up. It was moving, like the whole thing was rotating around some unseen axis, but it didn’t seem to be moving fast enough to be making that screaming noise.
After a few minutes of walking through chaos, the two of them stopped behind a fire truck to take a look around. It wasn’t marked in any way, but it was obvious that this was the line where regular law enforcement stopped, then a no-man’s land of pavement, and then there was the special government on the other side. That was where their scientist would be.