Monster Hunter Vendetta (11 page)

"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
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alone." Julie stood. Franks hesitated, his mind probably running through the potential 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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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." 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
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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 pissed 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
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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. Hell, Holly had nearly blown up Trip once.

Earl shook his head. "No
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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
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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 class, 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, assisting 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 fair. 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
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." 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
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"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
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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 hell 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 hate him.