"Sorry. That wasn't even what I was thinking," he replied, raising his hands defensively. Holly was quiet as she continued stitching me up. Trip was too dark to blush, but he was obviously embarrassed. "I'll go check on Gretchen." He left the room in a hurry.
I watched as the tear in my flesh gradually closed. She did good work. I felt the need to defend my friend. "I don't think Trip was judging you. He's real religious, but he isn't that way at all."
"I know." She continued stitching. "He's probably the nicest guy I've ever met. And he's real innocent at heart. At least as much as somebody can be in this job." She finished closing the gash.
"You're pretty good at that. I should know . . . I've been stitched up plenty of times. I've even done it to myself when I didn't have help," I told her.
"Thanks." She tied off the end. "I learned how in nursing school."
"You were in nursing school?"
"Yeah . . . don't act so surprised. You think I took a degrading job because of the quality people I got to hang around? I needed to pay bills, you know."
"I'm not. I understand."
"I was at UNLV. I only had a couple of semesters left is all . . . And don't ask."
"Got it." I understood. There seemed to be no shortage of Monster Hunters with secrets in their past. She finished stitching me up and wrapped clean gauze over my arms.
"That's about all that I can do," she said. "You need to get some rest, and you probably need to eat. I saw some food in the fridge. Trip and I will keep watch tonight."
"Thanks," I told her. She stood and stretched, then retrieved her rifle and slung it over her back. She paused on her way out of the kitchen.
"Think about what I said earlier. I don't want you getting killed for no reason."
"I promise I won't," I replied.
"Whatever . . . Stupid heroes." She left the room. "Sweet dreams, Z."
I picked one of the many bedrooms on the top floor. The plan was for all of us to sleep in the same general part of the house. Splitting up seemed like a stupid thing to do considering that we did not know how safe we were here from the Cursed One's minions.
It was a small room, and the walls were bare sheetrock, but the bed was soft and I was exhausted and still in pain. I popped a handful of Tylenol and hoped that it would help. There were plenty of stronger painkillers in the ambulance, but the last thing I wanted to be was groggy. It took me a few minutes to find a comfortable spot on the bed where nothing was rubbing a scabbed-over patch of missing skin. That was rather difficult considering the extent of my road rash.
The Cursed One was coming. I knew that. I could feel it in my bones. I knew that he was close, I was not aware of how I knew that, but somehow I knew. Ray was the key. Something in the man's head was the secret that Lord Machado was looking for. Some bit of knowledge gleaned from his own forbidden studies in breaking the laws of nature and bringing back the dead. I would kill Ray Shackleford myself before I let him fall into the hands of the enemy. I did not relish the thought of murdering a human being, but it beat the alternative.
I was asleep in minutes.
My dreams that night were brief. The Old Man did not pay me a visit, and thankfully I did not have to see the world through the lens of the Cursed One's memories. For most of the night I slept like a normal man, not bound by strange visions or plagued with old prophecies and mysteries.
I had a brief nightmare, a panicked, disjointed chase through the halls of the Appleton Asylum. This time the gargoyles were much faster. This time I could not save Julie from them. They took her from me and tore the life out of her with their stone claws. A well of rage and hate opened up inside of my soul. Every bit of anger that I had ever possessed was uncorked and unleashed upon my enemies. I crushed the massive unnatural beings into dust with my bare hands as if they were nothing. My rage continued, until finally in my wrath I destroyed everything around me, leaving nothing but a smoking wasteland of death.
I slept.
I woke up late the next morning, sunlight streaming through my window. I felt remarkably good considering how badly beaten up I was. Despite my hectic schedule over the last few weeks, and my total lack of down time, I felt downright refreshed. Rolling out of bed, I could already tell it was going to be a great day.
A horrible odor assaulted my senses. My bandages were missing and had been replaced by something foul. A green, tarlike substance was smeared all over my arms. It stunk of dead road kill and body odor. I gagged reflexively as it hit my nostrils like a hammer.
"Hey! There's something going on!" I bellowed at the top of my lungs. Considering the weirdness we dealt with in this business, I figured that if you woke up to find yourself coated in strange secretions, it was probably best to alert your co-workers. Unlike most polite jobs, of course.
Trip burst into the bedroom, subgun at the ready, scanning for threats. He must have been right outside the door.
"Something slimed me." I held up one goo-coated arm.
"Dude, you about gave me a heart attack."
"What the hell is this?" I shook my arms and some of the stuff splattered onto the sheets. We were probably going to have to burn them later.
"Don't worry. Gretchen checked on you when she was done working on Julie. After she saw your injuries, she made that paste in the kitchen, came up here and smeared it on you. I'm guessing it's supposed to be some sort of salve or something."
"I didn't hear a thing," I stated suspiciously. I could not believe that I had slept through that. And certainly not while sober.
"If you haven't noticed, she moves kinda quiet."
"What's in it? It smells terrible."
"If I tell you, you're either going to puke or straight up shoot her. So I'm not saying anything. Just remember, she's supposed to be the healer . . . But according to my knowledge of chemistry, I can't think of a thing that it is supposed to do other than reek."
"I'm gonna shower. If you see ninja doctor tell her thanks for the slime." I grabbed my bag and stormed down the hall. At least I had learned from previous mistakes and had packed some extra clothing along with my armor and weapons. A man should always have access to emergency pants.
I found a bathroom, eagerly stripped out of my torn clothes, and jumped into the scalding shower. I had not thought that anything could be grosser than the wight and vampire fluids I had been sprayed with on the freighter, but I had been very wrong.
Under closer examination the stuff appeared to be vegetable-based, except for the particles that I hesitantly identified as ground bones or teeth. Skippy's wife was one weird chick, not that he was exactly a bastion of normalcy himself. As I was scrubbing the filth off under the stream of hot water I realized a few things. First, I should have been in intense pain from the water striking my injuries. Second, I wasn't in any pain at all.
As the stuff was sluiced away, I discovered that rather than being inflamed and scabbed like my arms should have been on the day after such an accident, they were mostly clear, with only smaller spots of scabbing where the very worst of the injuries had been. The gashes that Holly had sewn shut looked like they had been stitched a week ago instead of last night.
Stepping out of the shower I held my arms above my head in amazement. Other than the discoloration and missing hair, the formerly destroyed patches were well on their way toward healing. I turned my arms over, disbelieving what was directly in front of my eyes. It was a miracle. I quickly dried off and dressed.
I found the others in the kitchen. The smell of coffee was strong, and Holly was frying some eggs over the stove. Trip was leaning against a counter, subgun still casually slung and steaming mug in his hands. Gretchen was nowhere to be seen. Skippy's people did not seem particularly social. Surprisingly, Julie was out of bed and sitting at the improvised table, laughing and talking with the others. She had a small bandage on the side of her head, and there was a larger bandage peeking out from under the edges of her shirt. She smiled when she saw me enter, and she looked a thousand times better
than when I had brought her here only twelve hours ago. Other than the fact that everybody was armed, and there was a flamethrower sitting in the corner, it looked like a breakfast commercial.
"Good morning, Owen," Julie called happily.
"Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes," Holly added. " 'Bout time you rolled your carcass out of bed. Thanks for all the help with cooking. Both of you."
"Hey, I'm on guard duty," Trip said as he patted his H&K.
"Whatever. I was wandering around the halls with night vision watching for gargoyles until three A.M. so forgive me if I don't cry you a river. Make yourself useful and grab some plates."
"Sorry to interrupt the breakfast club here, guys"—I held up my relatively healthy arms—"but what the hell is going on?"
"Holy shit!" exclaimed Holly. She flung her spatula aside and ran over to look. Trip gasped and dropped a stack of disposable plates on the ground. "This is way better than it should be. The ones I stitched are about closed."
"I told you guys. Gretchen knows her stuff," Julie said.
"No way, man," Trip said as he examined me. "I saw what she boiled up in that pot. It was just a bunch of weeds, dirt and some teeth. She even put a dead raccoon in it. There's no way. Just no way."
"Screw Monster Hunting. Let's sell this and get rich," Holly said.
"We've been trying to talk her into bottling her tribal cures for years. She won't do it. Says that they have to be specifically prepared for each person. On the spot," Julie answered as she sipped her orange juice.
"How's your shoulder?" I asked.
"Much better. I'm sore, and I can't lift my arm above my head yet, but give me a few days and I'll be fine." She reached into her pocket and pulled something out. She dropped it onto the center of the plywood. It was a jagged three-inch piece of stone. "Souvenir. Gretchen pulled this out."
"Damn," all three Newbies said in unison. She was lucky to be alive, let alone walking around in a pleasant mood.
"Seriously. She works magic. All of Skippy's people have gifts. He can do things with that chopper that aren't possible according to the laws of physics. Wait until you meet the rest of his family. They will probably introduce themselves to you when they're comfortable."
I pulled up a chair. "They aren't normal people. What are they?"
"It really isn't my place to say. That's up to them." She changed the subject. "Eggs are burning."
Holly cursed and returned to the stove. Trip put the plates and some forks on the table. "What about your dad?" he asked.
"As far as I care he can eat spiders. Old house has plenty of them," she said coldly.
"I'll take him a plate," I answered.
"Suit yourself," Julie stated as she returned to her juice. I did not know what had transpired between father and daughter while I was taking my tour of the asylum, but obviously it had not been pleasant.
"He didn't run off when you two were unconscious. Do we really need to leave him locked up?" Trip asked.
"My dad may seem fine sometimes, but don't let him fool you. He saw some things that the human brain isn't wired to deal with. His reality is all screwed up. He's dangerous. Doctor Joan told me that he's tried to escape a bunch of times, and he damn near beat one of their orderlies to death. We let him loose and he'll be trying to raise the dead or something stupid in no time flat." She shook her head. "I sure as hell am not going to let that man loose on the world. I fight monsters, I don't help them."
"So what's the plan?" I said. My stomach grumbled loudly. The food smelled great. "After we eat, of course."
"Sit tight. Heal up. Stay low," Holly said. "That's what Harbinger told us at least. We're supposed to keep Ray safe and away from the bad guys. He's going to call us as soon as they work out the problems with the Feds."
"And he's mad at you," Trip added helpfully.
"What about me?" I asked. I had gone along with her after all.
"I think they think you're just a big protective dupe is all," Holly said. "At least that's the impression I got when he said that you were just a big protective dupe following Julie around like a dumb puppy."
"Oh good."
"Then the Feds were crawling all over us. They want Ray and they want him bad. There had to be like fifty of them at the compound."
"I wonder why Earl didn't just turn Dad over?" Julie mused. "It isn't like there's any love lost there. If the Feds just want to keep his knowledge out of the hands of the Cursed One, then they are way better equipped to baby-sit him than we are."
"He didn't say, but I've come up with a theory," Trip said. We waited. "Well, who all knows about Ray Shackleford and his research? Just MHI and the Feds. It isn't exactly public knowledge, I'm guessing, what with all of this being secret and all. The professors who got attacked in Georgia were both well known for their knowledge on esoteric anthropology; vampires can read books too. Ray was just another inmate in an asylum. How did they know what he had in his head? How did they know that he was so important?"
"You think one of the Monster Control Bureau agents is talking to the CO," Holly said.
"CO?" I asked.
"Beats saying Cursed One over and over again."
"Yeah," Trip answered. "If it's only us and them that know about Ray, somebody must have told the bad guys. How else did they know who he was or even where he was?"
Julie thought about it for a moment. "Good point. Humans have worked for evil forces before. Especially vampires—they have a way of enthralling the weak—willed."
"And there is something else. While you were gone yesterday, Lee found some stuff in one of the old journals. Some Monster Hunter who died back during World War Two. We think it was about the Cursed One. I didn't get to see it, but the experienced Hunters were all freaked out. I mean really scared. Harbinger, Milo, even Sam. They were freaked. They wanted to show you, and that's when they found out that you had taken off."
"Those three don't scare easy," Julie stated.
"This journal scared them. Harbinger was talking about the apocalypse," Holly said as she dished out the scrambled eggs.
"So that's why I think Harbinger is having us hide your dad. Something he knows is the key that unlocks the gate for the Cursed One, and it's very bad news. Like the-end-of-life-as-we-know-it kind of stuff. And he thinks some Fed is working for the bad guys. He's scared to death that they're going to get their hands on your dad." He finished his theory and dug into his breakfast.
Holly sat down, looking slightly uneasy. She hesitated before speaking. "There is one other thing . . . Trip? You want to tell them?"
My friend did not reply. He contemplated his food. Holly did not appear eager to tell us either. Julie broke the silence.
"Let me guess." She leaned back in her folding chair. "If the bad guys find us, we're supposed to kill my dad ourselves rather than let him fall into their hands? Correct?"
The two Newbies nodded. Finally Holly spoke. "I'm sorry. That's what Harbinger told us. He wanted to make sure that we could do it if we needed to. He really accentuated how serious this is."
Julie nodded. "Yeah. I suppose so . . ." She trailed off.
"I'm sorry," Trip said.
"It might be a moot point. How likely is it that the Cursed One's minions are going to find us here?" I asked. I was not particularly surprised at Harbinger's direction to kill Ray if necessary, having already decided the same thing myself. At least now the others were beginning to understand just how serious the Cursed One was.
"This is the old family place. My great-grandfather bought it way back when. It has always kind of been isolated. Legally speaking, nobody lives here. As far as the outside world is concerned, this place is pretty much a forgotten relic. It was sold a long time ago to the Heart of Dixie Historical Preservation Society."
"Who are they?" I asked. The mansion was obviously a landmark of some kind, and somebody had been working at restoring the building.
Julie raised her hand. "I'm the Heart of Dixie Historical Preservation Society
." She smiled wickedly. "Since it's a non-profit organization, all a perfectly legal front, and I technically don't live here, it sure does save me a bunch of money in property taxes."
"So you're a tax evader too?" I mumbled around a mouthful of eggs. "Groovy."
"There are only a handful of people who know about this house, and most of them wear a green smiley face on their armor or their last name is Shackleford." She went back to eating. Julie appeared to be starved, and she should be considering how much blood she had lost yesterday. She paused, swallowed and continued, "And I've got this place rigged with one hell of a security system. If anything drives, walks, slithers or lands on this property, we'll know. There's also a hidden armory in the basement stocked with stuff that would have been confiscated when we got shut down last time, and the compound is only about fifteen minutes away. If we get attacked, we'll just need to hold out that long."
"Will your security system detect vampires?" I asked.
"Probably. As far as we know they still need to walk like anything else. There has never been any actual documented case of them turning into bats or mist like in Dracula, only superstitions say that they can shape-shift. But remember, they can't come into a home unless they're invited. That's the rule."
"Why is that anyway?" I asked. "I mean, I've seen it in the movies, but that doesn't really make any sense."
"Nobody knows. But it seems to be a rule with vampires. Other undead don't seem to care, but it does affect vamps," she said. "Unless you let them in, they can't enter."
"But they came into Dr. Turley's house and killed him and his wife. And he was still in bed. They couldn't have been invited. Or what about the attack in Atlanta?"
"Atlanta was a party. All it would take is a single invited guest to let one in. You guys have only seen newly created vamps. The old ones can be pretty darn charming, and they look just like humans unless they're about to feed. As for the Turleys, who knows? Any indication of invitation would probably do." She forked another piece of egg and dipped it in ketchup. "Did they have a door mat or any signs that may have said welcome, or something like that?"
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