"Already done. Yellow and lavender. How could you forget?"
"Uh… death cult?" I said in my defense. I didn't even know what color lavender was. I think most men would consider it light blue, or something.
"No. I'm supposed to meet your family. You were going to call them, remember?"
I smacked my forehead. Of course. I didn't really talk to my family very often. The last time I had seen them was when they had come out to visit after Mr. Huffman had torn me apart. I had called Mom and told her about the engagement, and she had gushed and cried on the phone for about an hour and a half, but because of various Hunting gigs, I'd kept postponing an actual visit. As far as my parents knew, I was still an accountant.
"And you were supposed to call your brother too."
"He's still on tour." I had spoken to my brother, David, or Mosh as the rest of the world called him, more recently, but that was to arrange VIP concert passes for some friends, and even that had been a real brief conversation. The Pitt family loved each other, in their own dysfunctional way, but it wasn't like we communicated a lot. "He's really busy."
"He's also coming through the state this week," Julie pointed out.
"Too late. He's already here, and playing Buzzard Island tonight. I got tickets for Skippy and his people. I was going to go too, but I guess that's out of the question now," I muttered.
Julie was perplexed. "You got tickets to a heavy metal concert, in public, for a tribe of orcs? How's that supposed to work?"
"Private sky box," I explained. "You know how they are with crowds. I told my brother I'm doing volunteer work with the local burn ward, so that explains all the masks and goggles. He was totally down with that." He had also been very suspicious as to when I had become the volunteer-at-a-hospital type, but there was lots of stuff Mosh didn't know about me.
"Well, I don't know, as long as Skippy keeps everybody out of trouble…" Julie said, concern evident in her voice. Orcs were still PUFF-applicable so the ones living with us were, technically speaking, illegal aliens. "Thanks for lunch, but I have to find Earl. We've got to hunt some trolls and I need to draft some extra gunmen to fill in for you."
"Esmeralda's good, so are the guys that she brought along. Cooper's hell on wheels with a FAL. I'm sure they're just itching for an excuse to get out of training. I can handle the Newbies."
"Okay, we'll take Esmeralda's team too. It'll be fun for me to get to work with my little brother. That way if Milo's held up, we can still move on those trolls as soon as we get there. This should be pretty straightforward. How's the training going anyway?"
"Good, but I think one of the Newbies just tried to flirt with me," I said. "You know, us ugly guys aren't used to that kind of thing. Gets us all flusterpated."
"Uh huh, sometimes young impressionable Newbies fixate on their more experienced instructors… oh wait. Why does that sound kind of familiar? How was it we met again?" Julie gave me her best playing-dumb look. "Which bimbo was it?"
"Dawn the Texan."
She nodded. "Oh, she is pretty. She was like Miss Houston or something. Pity, I have to murder her now."
"Don't worry, you're the only one for me," I responded dryly. "Even if I am a dashing specimen of manhood and there's plenty of Owen Pitt to go around. You guys take care of the trolls. Grant and I can hold down the fort here."
"You promise to play nice with him?"
I raised my hands defensively. "You have my word, no assaulting Grant." Unless he gives me a good reason, I added mentally. "Seriously, I think we're cool. Seeing him was a surprise though, wasn't it?"
Julie shrugged uncomfortably. "I didn't expect to ever see him again, especially not here. Not after what happened to him and the way he left so suddenly."
I turned serious. "You okay?" She and Grant had been pretty tight last year. It was still an awkward topic of conversation for us. I knew that there was still a part of her that felt guilty about the timing of our getting together so shortly after we'd assumed Grant was dead.
She stood, came around the desk, and kissed me lightly. "I'm fine
… Now those trolls aren't going to off themselves. I've got to go before the client calls back and screams some more. Love you." That was code for I don't want to talk about it right now.
"Love you too," I responded. "Be careful."
"I will. And don't forget to call your parents." Julie Shackleford smiled her perfect smile as she left the office. "Stay out of trouble!" she shouted from down the hallway.
"Always," I responded, but she was already gone.
It was approaching sundown when I was finally able to break away from the routine. I had been out on the obstacle course assisting while Grant Jefferson yelled at the slower Newbies. Agent Franks stood just outside of bad breath distance the entire time. The trainees kept casting a fearful eye at the brute behind me. Even among brand-new Hunters, Franks was already a legend.
The compound seemed relatively quiet without Team Harbinger and Team Paxton. Skippy's tribe was gone too, but they were virtually invisible even when they were here anyway. The Alabama spring air was thick with enough pollen to make my eyes water and fireflies were beginning to flicker through the chain-link-and-razor-wire fence surrounding the compound. Since it was relatively peaceful, I decided to call my folks while sitting on one of the benches outside the main building. I would need to think of another excuse as to why they couldn't meet my bride-to-be yet, but with a bunch of psychos stalking me, it was pretty rotten timing.
The ever-present Franks sulked ten feet away. He crossed his arms and scowled as I pulled out my phone. "Can I have some privacy?" I asked in exasperation.
He looked around. We were alone. There were no possible threats in view. He looked back. "No."
"You're such a douche bag." I sighed as I pulled up my folks' number. Franks didn't bother to respond. He was the immovable object.
It wasn't that I didn't love my parents. We just didn't communicate well. My mom tended to talk a lot, but seldom about anything important, and my father talked at me, rather than to me. Speaking with him was always awkward, as I was more used to him giving orders and training me for the inevitable fiery apocalyptic end of the world than anything approaching a normal relationship. I had to admit though, if my war-hero father hadn't spent all those hours teaching me to fight, then I wouldn't be alive today. Thank goodness for paranoia.
It rang three times before someone picked up. The voice was raspy and unfamiliar. "Who's this?"
"Who's this?" I responded, glancing automatically at my BlackBerry's display. Sure enough, it read Mom, so I hadn't misdialed.
"Well, hello, Mr. Pitt," replied the man with a chuckle. "That's some good timing. Your parents have a nice little home here in the country. You really should visit more."
A cold lump formed in my stomach. The look on my face must have telegraphed my distress, because Franks immediately perked up, one big hand unconsciously moving under his coat. "Who are you?" I demanded.
"No one important." There was a hoarse laugh. "I am but a mere acolyte of the shadows, but I bear a message from the High Priest of the Dread Overlord. We have your parents. He is willing to offer a trade: your family, for you." There was a shout in the background, an impact thud followed by a crash, and a woman cried out in fear. Somehow I knew it was my mom. "If you don't do exactly as we say, we'll feed them, bit by bit, to the mighty shoggoth."
My stomach lurched. I was speechless. Franks realized what was going on, pulled out his radio and started barking commands, but that was just a gray, background, buzzing noise as my world spiraled out from under me. "I… I…"
"You will do exactly as I say, Mr. Pitt, for we are the spear of the Old Ones' righteous fury. We- Hey, watch the old guy!" Glass shattered, there was some crashing, then something that could only have been a gunshot, and the phone went dead.
"NO!" I shouted, but the signal was gone, and I was only screaming at the silence. "Damn it! Franks! My parents! They've got my parents!"
"On it," he said calmly as he listened to his radio. Apparently their vast files told them right where to go. "Local law enforcement has been dispatched."
Panicked, I redialed. The phone just kept ringing, but nobody picked up.
I found myself pacing back and forth. This couldn't be happening. They had nothing to do with this. This wasn't their fight. They didn't even know what I really did for a living. They were hundreds of miles away. The feeling of helplessness hit like a sledgehammer. A painful minute passed, and I honestly didn't know what to do. I wanted to puke.
"Agent Myers," Franks said, holding out his radio.
I snatched it from him and slammed down the transmit button. "Myers, you son of a bitch, you better go get them!"
"Calm down, Pitt. My men are on it. If they escape before we arrive, we'll cordon off the area. My chopper is warming up now. I will personally oversee the search."
"Damn right you will. This is your fault!" I raged.
"Just stay calm and stay at the compound," Myers ordered.
I hurled the radio back to Franks. He effortlessly snatched it out of the air before it hit him in the face. I started running for the main building.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm going after them," I shouted back.
"It'll take hours to get there," the giant stated.
"Shit!" He was right, of course, but that didn't change the fact that I had to do something. Who did MHI have in the area? Julie would know. I pulled out my phone and hit speed dial J. I walked in a circle as it rang repeatedly.
"Hi, you've reached Julie Shackleford, business coordinator for MHI. Please leave a detailed message at the beep."
I swore. Of course she wasn't answering her phone; she was hunting trolls. At the tone, I left what I was sure was an incoherent and panicked message about cultists kidnapping my folks.
My phone chirped. I switched to the incoming call. "Hello?" I said quickly.
"Son?" The gravely voice was winded.
"DAD!" I shouted. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," heavy breathing, "some assholes kicked the door in, started tying us up. Talking all kinds of craziness. Fucking amateurs."
It was like I could breathe again. "Is Mom okay?"
"Sure, she's fine."
Oh, thank you God. "What about the cultists?"
"Cultists? These punks? Well, I got three of them. The last one's crawling down the driveway, but he isn't going very fast with all those holes in him, so I'll mop him up in a second. What the hell's going on?"
I let out a huge sigh of relief. He had survived everything assorted communists and terrorists had thrown at him in twenty-five years of warfare, both official and unofficial. He wasn't the type to scare easily.
"Dad, listen carefully. Hang tight, cops are on the way. You've got more guns, right?" I asked. He grunted, almost like that was insulting. "Okay, good. Grab some big stuff, just in case."
"How big?"
"Big as you've got." And I knew that for Dad, that meant some serious firepower. The militant apple didn't fall far from the militant tree.
Franks interrupted. "Cult survivors?" I held up one finger. "We need him." I nodded.
"Dad, don't shoot that last guy anymore. The cops want to question him."
"Well, they best hurry up then. I'll go toss him a towel and tell him to put some direct pressure on it and quit his crying. Now, you listen to me, boy. They were talking about you, that this is all about you. What kind of bullshit are you mixed up in? Is this some sort of mafia accountant thing?"
Of course he still thought I was a CPA. "I'll explain everything later, I promise. I need you to get to Alabama as fast as you can. The Feds will escort you here." I glared at Franks as I said that, but he nodded in consent. At some point he had summoned the Goon Squad, because Archer, Herzog, and Torres had come running, carrying all their equipment. "Did they say anything else?"
Dad gasped. "Damn, forgot. Yes. Your brother, they said that they were sending ‘violence and evil' or something like that after him."
"Force and Violence?"
"Yeah. But then I went for the kitchen gun." Growing up, it had been Pitt family custom to stash at least one gun in every room of the house, so having a kitchen gun had finally paid off, "I shot the son of a bitch that said it in the face, so I was a touch distracted. We've got to get to David."
"He's near me. I'm on it, Dad. I'll see you in Alabama. Just hang tight." I hung up and scrolled through until I found my brother's number. My hands were trembling so bad that it was hard to work the little trackball on my phone.
"Yo?" Somebody unfamiliar picked up and my heart lurched. Was I too late?
"I need to talk to Mosh right now!" I shouted.
"Dude, he's going on stage in a minute. Call back later."
"It's a family emergency," I said forcefully.
"Well, I'm his manager. I'll pass it on when the show's over." The voice was very laid back, bordering on obnoxious mellowness.
"Mosh is in danger. You need to get him out of there, now!"
"Look, man, lay off the dope. It makes you paranoid. Call back in a couple hours." He hung up.
Bellowing something profane and incoherent, I started for the main building. I needed my gear.
"Where are you going?" Torres asked.
"They're coming for my brother. He's in Montgomery tonight. I have to get to him. We can be there in half an hour."
"Our strike team is camped at Maxwell," Archer said quickly, referring to the Air Force base in Montgomery. "I'll raise them."
"Myers said you weren't supposed to leave the compound," Herzog snapped.
"Our team is already there. They can handle it. Driving up there will just put you in danger. This is probably just what the Condition wants you to do," Torres suggested softly. "This could be a trap."
"I'm going," I spun around. "And I'll kneecap the first one of you who tries to stop me." I'm a physically intimidating specimen when I'm enraged. The three junior agents stepped back automatically. Franks didn't flinch. None of them said another word as I stared them down. "You gonna help me or not?"
Franks mulled it over, probably weighing the pros and cons of endangering his charge versus being able to go kill something. The decision didn't take long. "I'll drive."
Chapter 6
The G-Ride speedometer pegged at a hundred and forty miles an hour but we were going much faster as we entered Montgomery and headed west on the 85. The black-armored Suburban had been delivered to Franks sometime in the last few days by some of his minions and I was glad we had it. Although MHI had a lot of vehicles, none of them apparently had a friggin' quarter-million-horsepower engine forged in the fires of Mordor like this thing apparently did. It normally took me forty-five minutes to hit the outskirts of town from Cazador, but Franks had done it in less than twenty, and I wasn't exactly averse to speeding. The demonic roar of the engine was almost as loud as the banshee siren that warned everyone else to get out of the way or be flattened beneath our armored steel bumpers. Our tax dollars had equipped Agent Franks with the SUV from Hell.
Franks was emotionless in the reflected flashes of blue and red, still wearing his cheap suit. A pine-tree-shaped air freshener bounced around under the rearview mirror. I was in the passenger seat, hunched forward by the armor and pouches on my back. Abomination was muzzle down, balanced between my knees. It had been almost impossible to get dressed while we had slalomed around the corners of rural Keene County, but I had managed. The Goon Squad was in the next row of seats, also armed to the teeth, each one intense and ready to fight.
I had run into MHI headquarters long enough to grab my go-bag and give Dorcas a brief rundown. She had been trying to raise the others as we had left. I shoved my MHI-issued earpieces in, partially to protect my hearing from the siren, but also to check to see if any of my people were in range. I was alone. The radio mounted on the SUV's dash was tuned to the Monster Control Bureau's encrypted channel, so I knew that their strike force had mobi
lized and moved to the Buzzard Island Amphitheater, now only a few miles ahead of us.
"Alpha Team is in position outside the concert and holding," said someone over the radio.
"Any suspicious activity?" Agent Myers asked over the airwaves.
There was a long pause of open air. "Uh, sir, most of the people here are suspicious looking." Apparently they had never been to a Cabbage Point Killing Machine show before. Their tours were legendary. You could drop all sorts of weird supernatural creatures into one of their average gigs and nobody would notice.
My phone rang and I hurriedly pulled it from the small pouch on the front of my armor. "Yeah?"
"Z?" It was Albert Lee. "Dorcas just got ahold of me."
"Where are you?"
"We're a couple miles north of Cazador."
"Who you got?"
"Me and Grant. Dorcas raised Harbinger. They turned back too." Excellent. Lee was a good man, and Grant, say what you would about him, was a known quantity, more than I could say about my current carpool. "Listen, I've got to tell you something. Dorcas said it was Force and Violence. I've been reading up on them. Be really careful."
Franks must have somehow, impossibly, heard that. "Put him on speaker."
I complied so the Feds could hear. "First, what can they do? Second, how do we waste them?"
"Nobody really knows what they are. The descriptions sound kind of like an ogre and an ogress, but they're too fast, too smart, and apparently indestructible. Esmeralda thought they were Greek, and they've been seen in that part of the world a lot, for at least three thousand years, but from the descriptions, I think they're oni."
"Three thousand years?" Herzog said incredulously. "Bull."
Franks held up one hand to silence her.
"What's an oni?" I asked.
"Far Eastern legends talk about them a lot. They're evil spirits that have gained a physical body, usually really big and strong. They suck the life out of other things in order to power their own bodies indefinitely. That's probably what Skippy meant by getting paid in souls. I don't see why some of them couldn't wander over to Europe and end up in that area's folklore."
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