"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 surprise
d. "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 amongst 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.