"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 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. 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 G.o.d, 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 s.h.i.t," 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 cla.s.ses, 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.ses 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 p.i.s.ses 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."

"p.r.i.c.k," 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 b.u.t.toned 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 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 c.r.a.p, 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 guest to the cafeteria?" Harbinger asked. "Owen and I need to talk...alone." Julie stood. Franks hesitated, his mind probably running through the potential of me being a.s.sa.s.sinated should he walk twenty feet down the hallway. Finally, he relented, shoved his bulk back from the table and followed Julie. to the cafeteria?" Harbinger asked. "Owen and I need to talk...alone." Julie stood. Franks hesitated, his mind probably running through the potential of me being a.s.sa.s.sinated 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 c.r.a.p, 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 bada.s.s, Earl Harbinger, trying to rea.s.sure 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 s.h.i.t again..." I couldn't blame him. Last time I had visions, I had almost destroyed the world.

"Well, this one was different than before, but kind of the same. I think it was some sort of flash because of the artifact. Last time I had visions, I lived through parts of the Cursed One's life. But this time, it was just some weird little thing from Myers, of all people, when I touched his hand outside, and it wasn't even any big deal. It was just some random memory, where you guys were all eating burgers or something, but it was real...I think." My boss reached over and poked me hard in the arm with one finger. "Ouch! Hey, quit it."

"Anything?" he asked. I looked at him strangely. "What? I don't know how all this weirdo magic stuff works either. What else happened?"

"That's about it, and now you know what I do. No, I take that back. You know more than I do. What's the deal with you two anyway?"

Earl paused for a long time, trying to think of what to say. "It don't matter."

That p.i.s.sed me off. I had put it on the line for this company. "Oh, Myers seems to think that it does, and it looks like I'm stuck in the middle of your feud. I've bled, killed, and even died with this company. I think I've earned the right to know a few of MHI's deep dark secrets at this point."

He just looked defeated now. "It's no big secret, just not something I'm proud of. There was a Hunter named Hood once, good buddy of Myers and your father-in-law to be. They were real tight, like you, Trip, and Holly are now. Until I...I killed him by accident."

"On a mission?" It wasn't unheard of. We made our living off the judicious use of firearms, high explosives, and pointy things in a real dynamic environment. Bad things happened occasionally. h.e.l.l, Holly had nearly blown up Trip once.

Earl shook his head. "No...look, it don't matter. It was my fault and I made sure that it could never happen again. It was just a stupid mistake. But that's when Myers left us, and he's hated my guts ever since. He held me responsible, and by extension, all of MHI. I just...just don't want to talk about it."

I believed him. I could honestly say that I had never actually seen him look remorseful before. The look was gone in an instant, and replaced with his usual gruff exterior. He coughed. "No need to worry about that. What's done is done. Myers can kiss off. First priority, we need to keep you from getting capped by some death cult. If I let you get killed, Julie would never shut up about it." He held up his hand and tapped his thumb and fingers together for the universal sign for nagging.

"Gee, thanks."

"Aw, just messing with you. We're down to the last few days of this training cla.s.s, and they're looking remarkably good. I've got some experienced Hunters running it, but they could probably use some help." None of the senior Hunters liked taking time off paying jobs to pull training duty, especially since training didn't involve collecting any bounties, and seldom involved any killing, which were the two main reasons most of us got into this business to start with. "As of right now, you're off active duty. You're going to stay at the compound and help with training."

"What?" I shouted. Harbinger's personal team was kind of like MHI's mobile strike force. We mostly bounced around, a.s.sisting local teams as they needed it. It was considered the sweetest gig in the company by many, and with the level of monster activity around the country being what it was, we were almost always busy. "No way. I should be out there working cases. Our team's due to get called up anytime now."

"The rest of us are. You ain't. Not until this blows over. Look, Owen, it's not anything personal. I would do the same thing for any of my men, and you would too, should you get your own team someday." I had noticed that since I was planning on marrying his great-granddaughter and heiress-apparent, Harbinger had taken an interest in my leadership skills. "Provided you live that long."

"That's not fair," I muttered.

"Fair? Boy, you're in the wrong business if you want air air. What's not fair is all of us getting killed walking into an ambush meant for you. The compound is the safest place for you to be, surrounded by firepower. No monster has had the guts to attack the compound in fifty years."

"I can take care of myself, Earl." I insisted. "This is bull-"

He cut me off. "Decision's final, Hunter." His tone suggested that he was not about to listen to me. Earl had been running this gang of type-A personality mercenary killers since my grandfather was in diapers. Nothing I said here was going to sway him once he had picked a course of action.

"What's to keep them from sending an army of zombies against the compound? He did it in Mexico."

"This place has been warded," he explained. It was obvious that I didn't get it. He sighed and backed up. "You know how vampires can't come into a place unless they've been invited? Well, we've got something even better than that covering the compound. No undead can enter here, period. And if this guy's main weapon is bossing around undead, this is the safest place you can be. No transdimensional creatures either, which rules out anything sent directly from the Old Ones."

"How's that work?" I asked.

"Beats me, but it does. We found a ward stone a long time ago, and set it up here. Any undead that cross the threshold of this property just explode. It's really kind of neat. Don't go spreading that around, though, because once in a while some undead come by with a bone to pick, and it's fun to watch them blow up when they cross the gate."

"I don't like it..." I muttered.

Harbinger pulled out a pack of Marlboros and shook one into his hand. "I didn't say that I'm going to make you sit here forever, did I? Don't worry. We'll figure out a way to deal with this cult. The Feds might not be able to handle it, but they're a bunch of bureaucratic twits. I'll call in some favors and we'll start working our sources out on the dark side. We'll find them ourselves, then take care of this problem, MHI style..."

"Which usually involves chainsaws," I said happily.

"Yes. Yes, it does." He flipped open his MHI logo Zippo and lit his cigarette, indicating that this was bothering him more than he was letting on. He usually didn't smoke inside the main building unless he was under a lot of stress. "In the meantime, you lay low here at home base."

"If the compound's so safe then what about this spy?"

"I think Myers is a liar," Harbinger answered, a little too quickly. "But...I didn't get this old by not being paranoid. Look, you think getting stuck on training duty is a joke, fine. Congratulations, you're now responsible for rooting out this mole if there is one."

Now I figured he was just humoring me. "And just how am I supposed to do that?"

Harbinger shoved the Feds' file folder toward me. "I don't know yet. Use your imagination. I'll gather the others that I know we can trust, and you can meet me in the main conference room at six. Ditch the federal weasels on the way. In the meantime, don't let Franks screw around with any of our stuff. I don't trust that guy."

"Okay, first off, we need to set some ground rules," I spoke slowly and avoided using big words so Franks wouldn't be confused. Past history indicated that when he got confused, he tended to hit me. He and the three other Feds were sitting across from me in the MHI cafeteria. Franks was on his fourth sandwich and apparently had a metabolism like a blast furnace. The other agents-Torres, Herzog, and Archer-listened intently. The one thing I could say for the Feds, they did take their jobs really seriously. "You don't need to be so close. Here at the compound, I'm safe."

Franks snorted. Agent Torres actually raised his hand, which made me feel a little silly. I pointed at him.

"Owen. May I call you that?" I nodded. My friends around here usually just called me Z, but it would be a cold day in h.e.l.l before I ranked anybody from the MCB as a friend. "I know this is awkward, but we're just here to help." Torres was the youngest, and seemed sincere. He did seem to really respect MHI, which was abnormal. After the meeting, Holly had told me that she thought he was the cutest too, which had caused me to roll my eyes so hard that I had actually hurt myself. He had given me back my precious guns though, so I was inclined to not totally totally hate him. hate him.

"When people from the government tell me they're just here to help, I get nervous. You're supposed to blend in, right? We've got a giant Newbie cla.s.s going on now, the compound's crowded, and always having four of you walking in formation around me looking like a bunch of storm troopers isn't going to help."

Archer spoke. "So what do you expect us to do? Just sit back and wait for the Condition to murder you?" Archer was tall, but unlike most of the overly buffed MCB, he was skinny. The average Fed made your average Hunter look pretty dumpy. But Archer was thin, with an angular nose, and a large Adam's apple. He had one of those haircuts that worked if you were a Marine, but otherwise just made you look kind of silly, with the buzzed sides, and the perfectly straight flattop, so symmetrical that it had to have been done with surveying gear.

"Look, Pitt, we don't want to be here any more than you want us to be," Herzog said. She was the first female MCB agent I had met, all of five feet tall, and built like a bulldog, complete with jowls. She also had the worst att.i.tude. "We all know this is a bulls.h.i.t a.s.signment, and I don't know what we did to p.i.s.s Myers off to get stuck doing this scut work, no offense, sir," she nodded at Franks, who stopped chewing long enough to grunt an affirmation. "We should be out killing monsters, and taking down the Condition the old-fashioned way. Beating the ever-livin' h.e.l.l out of everyone in it until somebody squeals where the bosses are, and then putting a bullet in the brain of every last one of the squid-worshipping fanatics. We kneecap enough of these a.s.sholes and cut off enough thumbs, somebody will talk. They always do. We need to be out there putting the fear of G.o.d into these freaks, not babysitting...you."

Torres had mentioned Border Patrol at the airstrip. Archer had an 82nd Airborne tat on his forearm. All the MCB types apparently started out in regular government jobs, so I had to know. "Herzog, who were you with before being recruited by the Monster Control Bureau?"

"Internal Revenue Service."

G.o.d help us."Oh...well...okay then." That made sense. I had a sneaking suspicion that she had once audited my old job. Somebody from the IRS had actually taken the time to draw frowny faces in red ink on a depreciation schedule that I had filled out. She seemed like the type. "Look, personally I agree. I would much rather have you out there doing your thing, cutting thumbs off and whatnot, and not following me around. Like this, you're going to stick out. This just isn't going to work."

"The only Hunters who know who we really are Harbinger and his immediate people," Torres suggested to Franks. "We can blend in with the new recruits. n.o.body, including the Condition's spy, will ever even know we're on site unless Owen needs us."

"You three, maybe...but everybody knows of Franks," I pointed out. I didn't add that his reputation for brutality had an almost urban legend quality to it in Monster Hunting circles. "He'll have to go, I don't know, live in the forest or something."

Torres was undeterred. "Okay, then the cover story can be that Agent Franks is a liaison, a.s.signed here to build camaraderie between private sector and governmental Hunters." The man was just chock full of helpful suggestions, though I still liked my live-in-the-forest idea better. Franks nodded slowly, as if the idea of him being an amba.s.sador of goodwill made any sense whatsoever. "We stay out of your way, we're still accomplishing our mission, everybody's happy."

"Everybody saw your great big airplane land today."

"n.o.body was close except for your friends. We can say it was for Agent Franks. The rest of us are late additions to the cla.s.s."

I bit my lip. Torres had a point. "That'll work, but there's one more thing."

"Oh, I'm sorry, is putting our lives on the line to protect you from the forces of evil inconvenient inconvenient?" Herzog asked, just oozing sympathy.

"Yeah, it is." I had no patience for this nonsense. I didn't ask for their help. "Inside this, the main building, you're not allowed past the first floor. When I'm working here at the compound, my room is upstairs. Upstairs is off limits. The bas.e.m.e.nt is off limits." Really, I didn't care, but I knew that MHI had a lot of things stashed around here that they really didn't want the government to know about. h.e.l.l, I still didn't now what was in half of the bas.e.m.e.nt. Plus it was one more way for me to be a pain in the a.s.s to Franks' Goon Squad. I can't help it. I really do have an antiauthoritarian streak.

"That's not going to make our mission any easier," Torres suggested gently.

"You want to blend in with the Newbies? They aren't allowed past the first floor either until they've graduated training. Deal with it."

"Myers warned us that you'd be difficult," Archer said, raising his voice slightly. "So that's how it's going to be then. Who the h.e.l.l are you to-"

I raised my hand and cut him off. "You want to go upstairs, get a warrant. Otherwise, shut it, Buzz Cut. We all know why you're here, and that's to capture some a.s.sa.s.sins. You could care less what happens to me. So worst-case scenario, I get killed, then you can mop up and your boss is happy. This whole d.a.m.n thing is his fault anyway, and I don't have to have you all crowding my personal s.p.a.ce." That seemed to really p.i.s.s off Herzog and Archer. Torres looked like it hurt his feelings that I would question his honest intentions. He was almost like a governmental version of Trip.

Surprisingly enough, Franks didn't argue, he just kept chewing, taking the time to savor the Wonder Bread and bologna. Finally he swallowed and wiped his mouth with the back of one ma.s.sive hand. "Whatever...It's your funeral." He glanced across his team and nonchalantly ordered, "It's settled. Hang back until someone tries to kidnap Pitt. Interrogate the survivors."

Somehow that didn't give me a real good feeling.

The file on the Sanctified Church of the Temporary Mortal Condition was fat with color photos, weird intel, and disturbing reports. I had spent the last three hours poring over the notes, and the more I read, the more worried I got. It had grown dark outside and stuffy inside the second-floor conference room.

"Man, what a bunch of jerks," Milo Anderson said as he leaned back in his chair, holding a sheet of paper in front of his bushy red beard, eyes darting back and forth behind thick round gla.s.ses as he read through the list of the various atrocities. "I never knew there were this many ways to sacrifice a virgin!"

"Better watch out, Trip," Holly muttered under her breath as she flipped through the pages, her shoes up on the conference table, absently chewing a pencil between her teeth. "They're coming to get you."

Trip studiously ignored her and kept on reading factoids about the people who wanted to bundle me up and ship me across the universe to be devoured by a giant mollusk. Harbinger had said that he was going to bring in the people he trusted, and apparently, that was pretty much everybody who would normally be here anyway, which wasn't exactly surprising. When you spend this much time risking life and limb with people, they aren't just coworkers, they're family. And apparently, having one of that family personally threatened gets taken pretty d.a.m.n seriously.

"So which of y'all's got a plan on how we kill all these folks on here?" Dorcas asked, holding up the list of the suspected cultists. She slurped noisily from her coffee mug. Normally our senior-citizen receptionist wouldn't be in a team planning meeting, but she had taken an almost grandmotherly liking to me over the last year. Either that or she was just itching to shoot somebody.

"We're Monster Hunter International, not Doofus Hunter International," Julie said soothingly. "We're not interested in these chumps. Most of them probably don't even know what they're involved in. Besides, knowing the government, their intel is probably wrong on half these names anyway. Sorry, Dorcas."

"Tempting though..." Holly said, glancing at the list. "I hate that guy's movies."

"Terrible actor," Trip agreed.

Albert Lee was the last to arrive. He limped into the room carrying a stack of books hastily gathered from the archives under one arm and balancing his cane in the other. Lee had worked as our archivist ever since his leg had been severely injured at DeSoya Caverns. Though mighty handy on demolitions, his real calling was in research. He put the heavy books down and then thumped me hard on the back. "Good to see you made it home, man," he said with a grin.

I shook his offered hand. "Good to be home, Al."

"Wait 'til you see what I found. Dude, you are so so screwed," he said as he sat down next to me, his metal leg brace creaking audibly. I felt bad whenever it seemed to cause him discomfort, which was often. I had been serving as his team leader when he had taken that hit and I still held myself responsible. Realistically, there was nothing that I could have done differently, but that's still how I felt. Lee, a tough former Marine, had never uttered a single word about it, except to joke about how it had finally given him an excuse to buy a bada.s.s sword cane. screwed," he said as he sat down next to me, his metal leg brace creaking audibly. I felt bad whenever it seemed to cause him discomfort, which was often. I had been serving as his team leader when he had taken that hit and I still held myself responsible. Realistically, there was nothing that I could have done differently, but that's still how I felt. Lee, a tough former Marine, had never uttered a single word about it, except to joke about how it had finally given him an excuse to buy a bada.s.s sword cane.

The room was relatively full. Earl Harbinger, Julie Shackleford, Milo Anderson, Trip Jones, and Holly Newcastle were normal fixtures, as they made up the backbone of my team. In addition, Skippy, our pilot, and leader of our orc contingent, was standing quietly at the back of the room, still wearing his hood and goggles, unwilling to take a seat at the table, even among his friends. It wasn't that Skippy was unsociable, it was just that being around humans was always painfully awkward for him. And compared to most of his people, he was the life of the party.

The only other active Hunter present was someone I only knew in pa.s.sing, and had never personally worked with, other than briefly last year when all of MHI was gathered for DeSoya Caverns. Her name was Esmeralda Paxton, Seattle team lead, and she was the one who had drawn the duty of training this Newbie cla.s.s. Paxton was probably only a little over five feet tall, in her early forties, with auburn hair tied up in a bun, and wearing wire-rimmed gla.s.ses. She had on a folksy patchwork vest, a fashion that really didn't seem to fit in with all the hardened killers. She looked more likely to bake up a plate of chocolate-chip cookies than to stake a vampire, but Earl trusted her enough to lead a team in one of the most active parts of the country, and Julie's very own younger brother had been a.s.signed to her care, so apparently she was a lot more dangerous than her motherly looks indicated. She had not spoken much yet, but continued to study the material intently.

Raymond Shackleford the Third, semi-retired super Hunter, whom Julie referred to as Grandpa, and the rest of us normally just called Boss, was sitting at his customary seat at the head of the table. He had aged quite a bit during the time I had known him. His white hair was getting wispier, the scarred side of his face around his eye patch was beginning to droop, and I was sad to notice that his nagging cough had gotten worse since we had left for Mexico. He was more of a symbolic leader. Earl Harbinger, real name Raymond Shackleford the Second, ran the day-to-day operations of the company, but there was no way that the Boss was going to sit out on a death threat against one of his Hunters. Missing his right hand, he banged his stainless-steel hook on the table to get everyone's attention.

He cleared his throat. "All right, people. What's the consensus?"

"Z's hosed," Trip suggested.

"Thank you, Mr. Jones. All in favor?"

The entire table said "Aye," then laughed at my expense. "Thanks, guys," I muttered. Julie patted my hand under the table.

"All right, enough of that tomfoolery," the Boss ordered. "Threat a.s.sessment?"