“You’re not selling shit.” Holly wasn’t in the mood for her nonsense. “My people have had to stick our necks out twice to save your stupid life today.”
“I wouldn’t be sticking that old turkey neck of yours out anywhere people might see it.”
Holly just laughed, because she was smoking hot and knew it. “I’ve got a PhD in Mean Girl Politics, twerp. Nothing that comes out of your fake-ass face is going to get a rise out of me.”
“My face and ass are less fake than those tits.”
“You mouthy little shit . . . ”
I briefly wondered if I’d have to tackle Holly to keep her from murdering Sonya. Trip and I exchanged a nervous glance, but he whispered, “Not it.”
“Ladies, there’s no need for confrontation.” Milo—ever the gentleman—stepped between Sonya and certain death. “We can work this out like civilized—”
Sonya moved with supernatural speed, caught Milo by his long red beard, and spun him around to use as a human shield. She was so fast that poor Milo never even had a chance. She must have had Trip’s tomahawk hidden on her the whole time, because she stuck the blade under Milo’s neck. “Back off!”
I was tired and possibly concussed, so it took me a moment to realize what she was doing. “Are you kidding me?”
“I’m taking the stone out of here. If you can’t fix this, maybe the Secret Guard can. Once we’re down the road, I’ll let him go.”
“Uncool.” Milo said. “Very uncool.”
Sonya began backing Milo toward the stolen Hyundai.
“Oh, come on, you idiot,” Holly said as she casually aimed her carbine at Sonya’s face. “We just nuked a lich. You really want to try us?”
“Don’t make me hurt him.”
I sighed. This was probably the most pathetic hostage situation ever, with about a zero point zero percent chance of success for the hostage taker. Boone’s Hunters had heard the commotion and were spreading out and shouldering weapons. Sonya struck me as someone young, brash, and in a situation way over her head, but I really didn’t want to see her get that head blown off, so I keyed my radio. “Everybody be calm.” Then I addressed our overachieving hostage taker. “Think this through. This can’t possibly work. If you hurt him, everybody here is going to shoot you. A lot.”
“Yeah, we all really like Milo,” Holly said. “You should have taken Z hostage. He’s way less popular.”
“True that. I’m not nearly as cuddly as Milo.”
“It’s all in the beard,” Milo squeaked.
Sonya’s eyes were darting back and forth, taking in the many well-armed Hunters prepared to shoot her, and surely realizing that she done fucked up. “Wait. Milo? The Milo? Milo Anderson?”
“That’s me.”
“Oh, shit! You were one of my dad’s best friends.”
“Yep. I sure was.”
“Which would make you slicing his head off before being cut down in a hail of gunfire extra tragic.” I slowly stretched my open hand out, trying hard to not make a tense situation a whole lot worse. “So how about you give me back Trip’s happy little murder ax and we chalk this up to a big misunderstanding.”
She wasn’t ready to give up quite yet, so she played the desperate negotiation card. “I really need that money, Opie. Let me sell the rock to the Catholics.”
“Money’s not worth dying over.”
“Somebody is dying though. That’s why I need a lot of cash fast, to save her.”
“Who?” I asked.
“It’s a long story.”
“You didn’t mention that earlier.”
“Why would I tell you people anything? It’s Hunters who made her sick to begin with.”
“Sure. This is all because her grandma needs a spleen transplant or something. Those copays are killer.” Holly turned on her laser and a bright green dot appeared on Sonya’s forehead. “Scrunch down a little, Milo.”
“Hold your fire,” Milo ordered.
“Why?” Holly asked. “You actually believe her?”
“Kind of, and maybe we can help. Chad was my friend. If his family is in need, helping them is the least I can do. Plus, no offense, Holly, but I was one of the people who taught you to shoot, remember? If any of you guys are going to be launching bullets around my head, it should be Z.”
That was quite the compliment coming from Milo. “Thanks, man.”
“Well, all things considered, I’d prefer Julie, but she’s not here.”
“Fine.” Holly slowly lowered her gun. “I did warn you to scrunch down first.”
“Do you people ever shut up?” Sonya shouted, exasperated. “Okay. Don’t shoot. I’ll let him go—”
Except Sonya’s impending surrender was moot, as Earl Harbinger suddenly appeared behind her and grabbed the tomahawk by the handle. Luckily for her, Earl was back in human form. If he’d still been in werewolf form, he probably would’ve swatted her head off her neck. Instead, he just roughly shoved her and Milo to the ground and kept the weapon.
“What the hell are you thinking, girl?” Earl stood there, angry, wearing nothing but the mud and leaves stuck to him. That wasn’t shocking for most of us. When your boss is a werewolf, you learn to expect the occasional incident of workplace nudity. “These Hunters risked their lives to save your fool ass, and that’s how you thank them? That’s downright disgraceful.”
“Sorry, Earl.” And shockingly enough, either Sonya was the best actor ever, or she really did feel sheepish about it. “I didn’t know that was Milo.”
“Because threatening to kill one of my other people is somehow better?” He extended a hand and helped his old friend up. “You okay, Milo?”
“Only thing hurt is my pride,” said the humblest man any of us knew. “She got the drop on me.”
“Yeah. She does that to folks.”
“I said I was sorry. This is a desperate situation, okay? I wasn’t lying about a life being at stake. I’ll explain everything.” Sonya covered her eyes. “But, eww, could you at least cover up or something?”
“Oh, you’ll live.” Earl tossed the tomahawk back to Trip, who caught it. “Trip, would you mind getting my gear? I left it on the back side of the barn.”
“I’ll get your pants,” Trip said.
“I mostly need my smokes.”
“I’ll get your pants,” Trip reiterated as he walked off.
“Is your little friend going to do anything else stupid?” Boone had circled back towards us, probably to get a good angle on Sonya with his rifle. “Because my guys really need to get back to work.”
“Naw, she’s done screwing around,” Earl glared at Sonya. “Ain’t you?”
She nodded sullenly.
“Good. Alright, Hunters, we should be clear to burn all of old Buford here, but the only way to get rid of a lich once and for all is to destroy his phylactery. His nasty spirit will fly right back to it to hide. Considering his history, I doubt we’ll find it here though.”
“Sounds like you guys have met before,” I said.
“Afraid so. Buford Phipps has been a nuisance since the Civil War, when he was just a mortal jackass who found a spell book and started raising zombies. Last time he popped up, Ray and Susan took him out. Before that, Leroy Shackleford destroyed him. I’ve killed him once before, way back when. Hell, it’s practically a family tradition. First time one of us killed him was Bubba Shackleford himself hitting Buford with a cannonball. If luck holds, we won’t see old Colonel Bone Head for another twenty or thirty years, when some poor bastard finds his phylactery and gets possessed again. Hmmm . . . about that, just in case . . . ”
“You heard the man,” Boone shouted at his team. “If you find a cursed artifact, do not play with the cursed artifact.”
Regular family traditions were things like do you open presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning, but I’d married into the Shacklefords, where the traditions were things like fighting a Confederate lich every few decades. Someday little Ray would probably get to blow
up Phipps too. Good times.
Most of the Hunters went back to scouring the area for body parts, but the Newbie, Hertzfeldt, was still staring at our naked boss. “Wait. Harbinger is . . . ” He trailed off, astounded. “So that’s why we weren’t supposed to shoot the werewolf.”
“Yeah, kid,” Boone patted him on the shoulder. “That’s one of those company secrets covered by that NDA you signed in training. Now come on. Let’s go count how many reptoids got buried so we can collect us a big-ass bounty.” Boone led the bewildered Newbie away.
“It’s not as much of a secret as it used to be after the siege,” Earl muttered. It was really hard to turn into a werewolf every full moon when you’re stuck at the top of the world with hundreds of other Hunters in close proximity for a year. Trip returned with Earl’s gear. “Thanks.” First thing he did was fish out a pack of cigarettes and lighter to get his nicotine fix. He lit one and then started getting dressed. “Milo, call Skippy for an extract. Boone can clean this mess up without us. We’ve got to get this Ward somewhere safe.”
“What about me?” Sonya asked.
“Call a taxi. Or one of them Uber things they’ve got now. I told your mom I’d try to keep you safe, and we’ve more than fulfilled that promise. Then you paid back that kindness by threatening one of my men. After that behavior I’m not in the mood for any further bullshit. You’re on your own.” But then Earl saw the pained expression on Milo’s face. “What?”
“You missed that part. The Ward has merged with her. I don’t know how to remove it. It has to be something to do with her not-human half messing with magic designed to be used by humans. We can probably figure it out, but we have to take her with us.”
Then it was my turn to deliver more bad news. “From what the Vatican Hunter said, that Drekavac thing is going to be coming after her again in . . . ” I checked my watch. It was just after two in the morning. Sundown this time of year was around seven. “ . . . about sixteen hours at the earliest.”
“Sucks for her then,” Holly said.
Earl took a long angry drag off his cigarette. “You sure about that, Z?”
“I’ve got no idea, but Gutterres seemed pretty certain of it. That Drekavac is going to keep coming back, stronger and stronger, until we manage to kill him thirteen times in one night. I probably got about halfway there and it was already one scary son of a bitch.” I gestured toward the road. “Not burying a bunch of cars in a dirt tidal-wave-level scary but getting there. He’s fast, mobile, has really bitey spirit-animal helpers, a blunderbuss that shoots lightning bolts, and he strikes me as the highly motivated type. On her own, she’s as good as dead.”
“You’ve got to help me, Earl,” Sonya begged.
I cut her off. “What was it you said to me earlier when I told you MHI needed the Ward Stone to stop an ancient chaos god from destroying the whole world?” I feigned confusion trying to remember a distant memory. “Oh, yeah. ‘Sounds like a personal problem.’”
“I didn’t mean it that way.” Sonya batted her eyes and tried to look innocent for Earl. I wasn’t sure but she might have even shifted her face a little bit to look more victimized and forlorn, and she was already wearing her Girl Scout cookie dealer face. “So I stole a thing from a bad guy to try and help some good guys, and in exchange I was going to use the reward money to help a loved one in need.”
“And then everybody clapped,” Holly said sarcastically. “So she’s the real hero, but I’ve got a suggestion. We could just saw her hand off. We keep the stone, and then maybe she can find Stricken and apologize enough that he’ll call off his attack dog.”
“Hang on,” Sonya shouted.
“She’s kidding,” Trip said. “We wouldn’t do that.”
Holly shrugged.
Of course this offended Milo’s sense of chivalry. “We can’t abandon her. Her dad was a fellow Hunter!”
“And my dad was a construction worker, Milo.” Holly said. “That doesn’t mean everybody else owes me a free house. She just threatened to cut your throat.”
Milo grimaced because Holly had him there. “Yeah, but—”
“No buts. We’ve got what we came for. You want to find a nicer way to get the rock, great, do surgery, whatever, but then kick her to the curb. If princess here wants us to save her ass, she’d better talk to the accountant.” Holly jerked her thumb toward me. “Maybe she can work out a payment plan.”
“What’s the PUFF on a Drekavac anyway?” Trip asked me.
There was a sudden crash as a bunch of the burning barn beams split, dumping more shingles into the inferno. A giant cloud of sparks rose into the night sky.
“I don’t think that monster is on the tables. I’d have to fill out a request form and send it to the MCB for a special one-of-a-kind ruling. Judging by his abilities and annoying ability to keep coming back from the dead, it’s got to be a pretty good payout.”
“Give me your best guess, Z.” From Earl’s tone, he was asking that question as the man who had to pay for all this stuff. SMAWs and attack helicopters aren’t cheap.
“Well, specials are all over the board. Like this lich. They’re all different based on their danger and history. MCB will look at their criteria and then decide the payout. What did MHI get paid for Buford last time?”
Earl thought about it for a second. “I can’t recall exactly, but since he’s been annoying the Feds for over a century, it was pretty good. I remember the company cleared seven or eight hundred thousand after Leroy parked that bulldozer on Buford’s head, and that was back in the Eighties.”
I said, “With inflation, it’ll be a lot more than that. You know, Gutterres told me this Drekavac has been around since the 1600s. If we could document that—and he said the Church would share their records—that creature could be one hell of a lucrative PUFF bounty for us.”
My boss was clearly thinking the same thing I was. Though with Earl, it probably wasn’t about the money. My guess was that he’d angrily said he was going to ditch Sonya, but he was far too honor-bound to leave her to her fate, and it was easier to act tough but mercenary in front of his Hunters than it was to be a big softy. Except a seven-figure PUFF was a seven-figure PUFF, so even Holly, as much as Sonya clearly rubbed her the wrong way, was interested in getting paid. We did a lot of good things, but we were ruthlessly practical about it whenever we could be. It took a lot of work to pay for this rock-and-roll lifestyle.
“I do like when the paycheck comes to us,” Holly muttered. “Beats chasing them down. I made bank on the siege, but I sure didn’t like having to go to the ass end of the Earth to do it.”
We all looked down at Sonya, who was still sitting on the grass, trying to look helpless and forlorn. Except she was too cunning to make that stick for long. “Hang on now. You’re thinking you could potentially make millions of bucks for scary hat guy. Only in order for you to ambush him, you need me for bait. If I don’t cooperate, you’re out of luck.”
“If you don’t cooperate, your head is going to end up mounted on the Drekavac’s wall.” That monster struck me as the kind of thing that would decorate his lair with taxidermy.
“Maybe. Maybe not. I’ve still got a few tricks up my sleeve.”
“What’re you going to do, kidnap Milo again?” When Holly said that we all laughed. Well, except for Milo. It was hard to tell in the firelight but knowing him he was probably blushing.
“I’m always happy to help MHI,” Sonya suggested, innocent as could be. “Okay, I volunteer. I’ll go with you. Only I get a percentage of the bounty. Like half. Like I should for this lich too, because you wouldn’t have come here if it wasn’t for me.”
“Wow. You really are greedy,” Trip said.
“Not greedy. Just desperate.”
Earl looked toward the sky. His superior senses could hear Skippy’s chopper long before the rest of us. Our ride was almost here.
“One other thing to think about,” I said to my boss. “From what the lich said, he’s not the one who called Son
ya and told her to come here. It was a trap. Somebody else had eyes on us. They might be watching us right now.”
“I was thinking the same thing. And why did they send her here? We’ll talk about it later.” Earl looked down at Sonya and sighed. “Let’s go.”
“So we have a deal then, half the bounty?”
“Not a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening. But I did promise your mom I’d try to keep you alive. Don’t make me regret it.”
Chapter 14
Skippy landed in a nearby field to pick us up. As soon as we were airborne Earl handed out assignments. Messages were sent and plans were made. I also noticed that Earl didn’t give Sonya a headset so that she couldn’t listen in. Unless she was excellent at reading lips or had supernatural hearing, she would be shit out of luck. I knew Earl liked her, but I could tell he was genuinely pissed off about her threatening Milo. That had crossed a line. I was still curious what her sob story was going to be about why she needed the money so bad, but that could wait.
We talked strategy during the first part of the helicopter ride back to Alabama, but after that I took a nap. I’d had one hell of a day. Once the adrenaline wore off, the aches and pains started. I was so exhausted I could barely keep my eyes open. Sleeping this soon after being that close to a thermobaric warhead going off probably wasn’t good for my brain, but I’d see Gretchen when we got home. She’d grind up some roadkill and leaves, make a smoothie, do some orc magic on it, and I’d be good as new. Probably.
The inside of a Russian MI-24 Hind is extremely loud and not exactly comfy, but I had a lot of practice getting sleep whenever I could squeeze it in. The trick when riding with Skippy was unplugging your headphones so you could no longer hear his heavy metal playlist. I managed to get a power nap in before waking up as we reached the MHI compound. I love flying home at night, because out the window it’s just miles and miles of pitch-black forest, until all of a sudden, boom, there’s this huge fenced-in paramilitary compound, with multiple buildings, hangars, and a world-class shooting range. It’s amazing what you can hide in the Alabama woods. Skippy put us down with his usual gentle touch at the end of the runway.
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