One of his sons had to save the world? I already had. Mordechai had told me that I had been picked before I was born for that job. How had Dad known so long ago? "You had a dream?" I asked. "What's this dream show you?"

Dad was confused. "What are you talking about?"

I began to babble. "All these years, the way you treated us, the stuff you taught us. The shooting, the fighting, the survival skills, it was all because of a dream dream? G.o.d slayer?"

My normally imperturbable old man suddenly looked like he had stuck his finger in a light socket. "How do you know about that?" he demanded.

"Tell me!" I shouted. This startled Mom and Julie.

Dad shoved himself back from the table and stood. "No!" he bellowed. "You can't know about that. You can never know."

"Calm down, dear, remember your condition," Mom scolded.

My father began to pace like a caged bear. It was almost like he was nervous nervous. But that was impossible. "I kept it from you, because...I was scared scared." He had never said that phrase ever before. Auhangamea Pitt was scared of nothing, or at least that's what I had told myself my entire life. "I was scared for you, even before you were born. I didn't want to believe the promise. It was just too terrible, but in the back of my mind, it was always there, so I tried to get you ready. That was my duty. The dream taught me what I had to do. Preparing you boys was my calling. That's why I've done what I've done. That's why I got so mad at David when he ran away. I was so fixated on this that I chased my own son away, and when that happened, I swore that I would forget about the d.a.m.n dream and never talk about it again. You were grown, and I'd done my best, so my job was finished."

I placed my hands on the table to steady myself. "Dad, listen, it doesn't matter now, but I need to find out what you've seen."

He shook his head. "I'm...I'm not ready."

It was my turn to be the bossy one for once. "Well, you d.a.m.n well better get ready then, because some serious s.h.i.t is going down."

"Don't cuss," Mom snapped automatically.

Dad quit pacing, returned to the table, and slowly sank into the chair. He seemed to shrink. That scared me. "I've had this dream for decades. In it, one of my sons has to die to save the world from something terrible..." He sounded tired as he revealed his burden.

This whole thing was so d.a.m.n shocking that I actually laughed out loud. "Dad, it's okay! The stuff you taught me paid off. I've already saved the world. It's okay. We beat the terrible thing last summer, and I'm still alive."

"No," he stated solemnly, like a man who knew his torment wasn't yet over.

"Mr. Pitt, really, it's okay," Julie said soothingly. It was weird to hear her call my father "Mister," but it wasn't like she knew him at all, and she still didn't know how to p.r.o.nounce his first name properly anyway. Too many vowels. "Owen's telling you the truth. I was there. He did what he was supposed to, and we all lived."

"No." Dad shook his head. He looked like he was going to cry. I had never seen that before. It was making me very uncomfortable. "What I've seen hasn't happened yet. What you've seen so far is nothing nothing. There are still a few signs left."

"What are you talking about?" I had done my job. I had stopped the Cursed One. What else did they want from me? "Signs?"

My father began to speak, but there was a commotion out in the hall, and a sudden banging on the door. The door flew open, revealing Trip Jones. He was really excited, and his appearance indicated that he had run here. He must have just gotten back from exterminating trolls. "Sorry to interrupt, but you guys need to come with me right now. Z, Julie, you've got to see this. It's really important."

"d.a.m.n it..." I muttered. Mom scowled. "Sorry." I stood and pointed at my father. "We'll talk later."

Dad pushed away from the table. "Owen, son..." And then he surprised me. He grabbed me awkwardly by the shoulders, pulled me close, and gave me a hug. He had never actually done that before. I was 25 years old, and had never actually been hugged by my father that I could remember. I was too shocked to respond. Finally I patted him on the back.

"Ahh...how nice," Mom said.

After a brief moment, he let go. "Give me time to think, then we'll talk. I didn't know if this time would ever really come. I'll tell you everything."

Trip jerked his thumb down the hall. "We've got to get to Milo's workshop."

Chapter 10.

Apparently Trip really did believe it was important, because he full on sprinted across the entire compound to Milo's workshop. Trip had played college football and could run unbelievably fast. I, on the other hand, am a sluggish brute, and preferred only to run when something was chasing me. But apparently this was a big deal, so I hauled b.u.t.t, yelling hoa.r.s.ely for various Newbies and Hunters to get out of my way. Unfortunately, Milo's workshop was set out by itself, most likely isolated to protect everyone else in case one of his inventions went horribly wrong and turned our gear man and his shop into vaporized atoms.

By the time Julie and I got there, Trip was already inside, and I was panting. Julie looked fine. "You should do more cardio," she said patiently as she opened the door for me.

"Punching bag's cardio," I gasped.

"Only when you do it for more than a minute."

"If I have to punch something for more than a minute"-panting-"it's time to go to guns."

"Wait." She grabbed me by the arm. "This business with your dad..."

"I don't know, but I intend to find out. Come on."

The inside of Milo's shop was a mess of machinery of every type: welders, lathes, mills, drill presses, and things that I didn't even recognize. Miscellaneous guns were piled in every corner and on every shelf. There was even a rocket launcher of some type dangling from a strap hung over the antlers of the crocodile head mounted on the wall.

We stepped past the biggest harpoon gun that I had ever seen. It was the size of a riding lawn mower, all stainless steel with a spool of cable thick enough for high-power lines, loaded with a spear as big around as a fence post, and painted on the side was a picture of a creature with a shark's head ending in squid tentacles with a big slash through it, Ghostbusters' style. So that's where Milo's discretionary budget had gone lately. If I wasn't in such a hurry, I would have stopped and admired the monstrosity.

Milo saw me looking at his invention. "Yeah, it is pretty freaking cool. I'm done messing around with stupid luskas. Next time we have to hunt shark-krakens, we do it in style. This sucker could harpoon G.o.dzilla! The guys in Miami are going to love this baby. I call it Leviathan Leviathan." He had been waiting for us, pacing, his long red beard bouncing with each step. He had undone the beard braids and the entire thing was in a giant puffy ma.s.s that extended halfway down his chest. "Well, anyways, you aren't going to believe this, but I think I've found a way to track down the Condition." He gestured for us to follow as he headed for the back of the workshop.

There was a roll-up door, and an MHI Crown Vic was parked in one of the few open s.p.a.ces. Holly was standing near the rear, casually holding her.308 Vepr carbine pointed at the trunk. She smiled when she saw us. "Z, you're all sweaty. Did we interrupt you two at something?"

I was too out of breath to respond, so I flipped her the bird. She winked. Trip appeared with a ring of keys and moved to the trunk. "Ready?" he asked Holly.

"Born ready," she said as she planted the big AK against her shoulder and took aim. "Open it."

"Slow down," Milo urged. The short man paused to push his gla.s.ses back up his nose before getting down to business "You guys have no sense of presentation. Young Hunters are so excitable. You can't just spring it on them. You've got to work up to it. It's all about the presentation."

Julie groaned. Milo's ideas were often good, sometimes bad, usually weird, but always with the best intentions. He was constantly thinking outside the box. Way Way outside the box. "I swear if there's Powerpoint involved, someone's getting shot." outside the box. "I swear if there's Powerpoint involved, someone's getting shot."

I was a little impatient, considering that my father had been about to tell me something that was probably really important concerning my destiny and all that jazz. "Come on, Milo. Spill it. How are we going to find the Condition?"

Milo smiled broadly. "You sent the three of us out to shake down the elves to see if we could find out anything-"

"Useless as usual," Holly interjected. "Though the Elf Queen asked how the Dreamer was doing. I think she's got a crush on you, Z. She's kinda cute for a four-hundred-pounder."

"But then we get the call to head over to Bessamer for a troll infestation. You guys had to bail, so we took care of it on our own," Milo said proudly. "How much do you know about trolls?"

"I've killed..." Julie paused, thinking, "five of them on two separate cases. They're rubbery, super resilient, heal fast, are very vulnerable to fire, eat anything, but prefer children, and they're smarter than they look. It's always best to engage them from a distance, then when they're down, burn them."

"Yes, yes," Milo steepled his fingers, looking briefly like he was teaching elementary school, obviously leading up to the payoff. "All true, but more important...what do they do for fun fun?"

"Hang out under bridges and hara.s.s goats?" I asked.

Julie hesitated, fl.u.s.tered. "Well...I...I don't actually know."

"Aha!" Milo shouted, grabbing a bunch of printouts off a nearby table. He shoved the papers into her hands. Julie glanced at them, frowning, then started to pa.s.s them off to me.

"Hot stock tips? Free iPods? Discount v.i.a.g.r.a? Enlarge your- What the h.e.l.l?" I asked, as Julie handed printed e-mails to me.

Dear Sir, I am Barrister Kojima Loima of Nigeria and I must approach you concerning an opportunity of extreme urgency. My client former Prime Minister Katanga has requested that I safely move his fortune from our country to the U.S. in secrecy. I must transfer a sum of sixty-two million dollars to your bank account- It just went on and on. It just went on and on.

"What is this?"

"Spam," Milo said solemnly.

"Trolls are spammers?" Julie asked.

"Oh, and so much more!" Milo exclaimed. "Open it, Trip."

Holly tightened up on her rifle. Trip turned the key and popped the lid. The trunk appeared to be filled with a bunch of greasy rubber hoses. Suddenly, the pile moved, revealing it to be one solid ma.s.s curled into an uncomfortable fetal position. Giant clawed hands and feet had been chained together and padlocked. Two round yellow eyes opened and blinked at us. It had a pointy nose, hooked over a mouth full of dingy blunt teeth.

"You are the suck!" the creature hissed. It started to rise. Trip moved forward, c.o.c.ked one fist back and slugged the monster right in its ma.s.sive mouth. The creature winced back.

I looked at Trip in surprise. He was normally the nicest person I knew. "I hate spammers," he explained as he shook his aching hand.

"Milo?" Julie asked slowly. "Why is there a troll in your trunk?"

The little man was really excited now. "When we hit the target, we were expecting a bunch of these things, and instead only found this one. He'd fallen asleep with his head sitting on a desk with a bunch of computers running on it."

"There was a pile a foot deep of empty energy-drink cans and Ho-Ho wrappers on the floor," Holly added. "He'd been playing online games, arguing with random people on like fifty different internet forums, writing spam. It was really pathetic. Most of it was totally incoherent."

"And the punctuation..." Trip muttered, obviously offended. "According to his Mys.p.a.ce page, he's a sixteen-year-old girl named Brittany who likes to post pictures of herself in her underwear."

The thing in the trunk stirred, glaring at each of us angrily. It was an intimidating beast, lean, with limbs that even though they were crammed into the trunk, were obviously too long. "So internet trolls...are really trolls trolls?"

Julie folded her arms. "No, Milo. You can't keep him as a pet."

Milo was indignant. "Of course not; I remember what happened when I tried to raise that sasquatch. How was I supposed to know it was going to eat Sam's dog? Poor Squeaky..." I didn't know if that was the name of Milo Anderson's bigfoot or Sam Haven's deceased pooch. Milo lifted one last bunch of papers. "Anyway, this this is why I brought him back." is why I brought him back."

The logo on this e-mail was the same sky squid as the Condition handout Myers had presented to us. I took it from him and read. The message was brief.

Attention creatures of the darkness, the Shadow Lord, High Priest of the Sanctified Church of the Temporary Mortal Condition, extends his benevolent hand in friendship. Join our mighty legion. No longer must you live in secret beneath the blighted cancer of humanity. A new age is coming. A dark new dawn breaks. the Shadow Lord, High Priest of the Sanctified Church of the Temporary Mortal Condition, extends his benevolent hand in friendship. Join our mighty legion. No longer must you live in secret beneath the blighted cancer of humanity. A new age is coming. A dark new dawn breaks.

It was an invitation. It was dated several weeks ago.

The troll continued to glare at me and gnash its dirty teeth. "Are you a member of the Condition?" I asked.

"No," it hissed. "Condition is not to be trusted." The troll's voice was wheezy, like its lungs were filled with cobwebs and its vocal cords were coated in rust.

I distrusted it immediately. This thing was just plain icky. "What's your name? And I know it isn't Brittany."

Air escaped from its mouth in a series of puffs. Laughter. "Tell you nothing, human."

Holly leaned forward and jammed the muzzle of her AK into the side of his head. "Start talking, spam-boy, or I'm going to let out some pent-up aggression on your face!"

That got its attention. "Okay...okay. Don't let the pretty one hurt me!"

"Aw...he likes you," Trip said.

"Melvin, humans call me Melvin," the troll said quickly, raising one chained hand to protect his face. The dirty claws extended from the end of each fingertip at least half an inch. "My pack joined Condition, but Melvin stayed. Not trust Condition."

"Where's your pack now?" Julie asked.

"They go to join army. But trolls are lazy. He not want lazy servants. Dead servants never lazy. So he made them all dead. Now Melvin is alone. All alone..."

That almost made me sad. Almost. Almost. "Do you know where to find them?" "Do you know where to find them?"

He shook his head. "Let me go free. I tell you, then you kill poor Melvin."

Poor Melvin was an eight-foot-tall, carnivorous killing machine. Letting him go wasn't really an option. But I needed him to talk. Maybe if I treated him with a little respect, he might open up. If that didn't work, we could always let Holly have a crack at him. She seemed the least morally adverse to beating the truth out of something. "Let him out."

"What, Z?" Trip asked. "Serious?" Julie looked at me like I was nuts, but didn't say anything. She drew her.45 from her holster and held it low by her side.

Milo stepped off to the side and retrieved a Mossberg shotgun from one of the many racks. He pumped a sh.e.l.l into the chamber. "Don't trust him, Owen. I'm a moderator on a forum. You can't ever trust a troll."

"Listen, Melvin. We're going to let you out of the car. If you try anything stupid, we're going to shoot your arms and legs off and then we're going to burn you to ashes. Got it?"

"Melvin play nice," the troll promised. He began to slowly unfold himself out of the trunk. First one long leg came out, chains clanking, until claws clicked on the concrete floor, then it took a minute to get his spindly torso out of the narrow s.p.a.ce. Finally the troll stood, all twisted and gangly, wrists chained together in front of its narrow chest. His flesh really did look like row after row of dirty garden hose stacked into a rough humanoid shape. I had to crane my neck to look him in the eye. There was a ma.s.s of stringy black hair matted together on his head. The other Hunters kept their guns trained as I stepped closer.

"Okay, Melvin. I'm going to level with you. I really need to know how to find the Condition. Help me avenge your pack's murder."

He laughed again. "Not care about rest of pack. Pack was stupid. Got turned into zombies. Now they not hog Melvin's bandwidth." His breath stank of stale Red Bull and his teeth hadn't been cleaned lately, if ever. "They are the Fail. No, Hunter. You let Melvin go. Then I tell you where pack went."

I was afraid of that, but I had an idea. Twice in the last few days I had been able to live somebody else's memories: Myers', and only a few minutes ago, my father's. Susan had exposed me to that cursed artifact so that I would have the ability to fight this Condition. If it worked on people, maybe it would work on monsters. If he wouldn't tell me what I needed to know, then maybe I could just take it. It was worth a shot. I extended one hand slowly toward Melvin's clawed hand.

"What are you doing?" Julie asked.

"Trust me."

The troll regarded me suspiciously. Finally I touched his hand. He felt warm and squishy squishy. Nothing happened. No black magic lightning. Nada.

Melvin screamed. "It burns! It burns!" I jerked my hand away. The other Hunters took an involuntary step back. The troll smiled, showing off row after row of rotten teeth. "I kid. I kid." Then he head-b.u.t.ted me.

His rubbery skull rebounded off mine, flaring pain through my brain, sending me flailing back, blocking Julie's shot. He moved with surprising speed for his size. One fist swung out, slamming into Holly's stomach and knocking her to the ground. Milo blasted him in the back, the buckshot sending chunks of green meat in every direction. Melvin didn't seem to notice. He surged forward, grabbed Trip by the shirt and tossed him headfirst into the trunk of the Crown Vic. Then Melvin slammed it shut.

My eyes were watering as I stumbled out of Julie's way. She opened fire on Melvin, her bullets tearing into the troll. I swear he giggled as he reached past Milo, grabbing onto a huge shelf of tools, guns, machinery, a.s.sorted widgets, and pulled. The heavy shelf teetered for a second before falling over.

"Move!" Julie shouted as all of us dove for cover. The shelf came crashing down, bits and pieces flying in every direction. I rolled out of the way as a chainsaw spiraled past. Milo cried out as something landed on him.

Ankles chained together, Melvin hopped for the open roll-up door and the freedom of the forest. Trolls were amazingly fast. "Ha ha. You got pwned, b.i.t.c.hes!" He laughed as he cleared the exit. Milo was trapped underneath the shelf and thrashing about. Julie was cursing and reloading her 1911. Holly had the wind knocked out of her and was gasping for breath. Trip was beating on the inside of the trunk. I drew my STI.45, wiped my watering eyes, and started after the escaping troll.

"Witness my perfection, newbs!" Melvin shouted as he hopped down the pavement. If he reached the fence, we were going to lose him.