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—wire taps, 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 short-handed 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 potent
ial 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 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.
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