“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 f
elt 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 c
ould 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.”