by D V Wolfe
“Wait,” I said, “the burned body they found in the woods, was Meeker?”
Luke nodded. “Yeah. The five of them had each been hauled in by Griffith and his ‘management’ team and they told each one that the other four were witnesses to the circumstantial evidence that would nail them. They, very tongue-in-cheek, insinuated that the only way to make sure the other four wouldn’t go to the police was to fight them in public so they could claim self-defense and then their witness statements wouldn’t be taken seriously. They’d assume anything they said was just in retaliation for the fight.”
“And people give me hell for my ‘shit plans’,” I said.
“Yeah, this crew aren’t brain surgeons,” Luke said. “Turns out, the plan worked great for the ‘management’ team. All five of the brawlers had issues with Copia and they’d been making noise to H.R. and then to the whistleblower groups. Now, since they’ve all been arrested on assault charges with fellow workers, their claims have come under question and they’re now going to be viewed as just mentally unstable malcontents.”
“But, what about what the mob leader said, about us ‘seeing a taste’?” I asked.
Luke nodded. “I don’t have any evidence for this one, but I think maybe Griffith showed him some of the mojo he put on you and then told him that he’d used it on the bellyachers who were trying to bring down the company. You and I were at the fight so the mob came after us while the other five were incarcerated.”
I shook my head. “Humans.” Luke and Noah nodded and we were silent again. Noah turned on the radio and Black Sabbath filled the overtired quiet between us.
We stopped for food and we decided to dine in just so we could get out of the truck. Luke was not a tiny man and it was a snug fit with the three of us.
“Ok,” Luke said, once the waitress had taken our orders. “Now where are we going?”
“We’re going to see the wizard, aren’t we?” Noah asked me.
“Yep,” I said. “And he got new digs.”
“Really?” Noah said. “His landlord got him a new trailer? Even after what happened to the last two?”
I nodded.
“Wizard?” Luke interrupted, panic flashing across his face.
I shook my head. “Not that kind of wizard. We have a...Stacks. His name is Stacks and he knows things. He’s a hunter too, well more like a hunt researcher, but I think you’ll be safe there for a little bit while we figure out if it’s safe for you to go home.”
“If I even want to go home,” Luke muttered, jamming a straw into his water glass. Noah and I watched him. Luke finally sighed. “I hate D.C. There is so much going on there, it’s overwhelming. I’ve heard things and seen things that make me question if I’m on the right team. I think I might like being away from that.”
“What about family and friends?” I asked.
“No family and no close friends,” Luke said. “I’m actually kind of relieved. I don’t know what I’ll do for a living, but I’ll figure it out.” Luke looked at me. “How good is the pay for hunters?”
I half-choked on my water and Noah snorted. “You’re joking, right?”
“Not good?” Luke asked.
“The phrase, ‘living wage’ is an inside joke about finishing a job without getting dead,” I said.
“Well I guess we all made a ‘living wage’ on this hunt,” Luke said.
We ate and were back on the road by seven and we rolled into Messina just after nine.
I turned into Messina Estates and we rolled up to Stacks’ new trailer. It was in the same slot as the old one and like the last one, it wasn’t a brand new trailer, but it was less shabby than the neighboring ones.
“Here we are,” I said. “The wizard’s castle.”
“Don’t ever call him the wizard to his face,” Noah muttered to Luke. “It’ll go to his head and he’s really annoying when he’s smug.”
“Noted,” Luke said. Luke’s hair was disheveled and he was sporting a five o’clock shadow. He’d taken off his tie and his suit jacket when we left the diner. His shirt was untucked and the top buttons were open. Luke didn’t comment about the trailer, but he paused when he saw the yard that Stacks had dug up around it. I could see the tell-tale signs of Stacks already figuring out his next explosive traps grid. There were hints of ash still lingering on the white gravel and dirt.
“Is he a gardener?” Luke asked.
“Not of anything that grows,” I said.
“Cryptic,” Luke said on a yawn, “and mysterious.”
I led the way, watching for new tripwires. Stacks could be highly motivated when he wanted to be and it was possible he already had buried some new surprises. I banged on Stacks door and after some fumbling, a sound that could have been Stacks falling off a piece of furniture, and a respectable amount of swearing, the lock tumbled on the door and it swung open. Stacks stood in front of me, hair a mess, glasses on crooked, wearing a ratty blue bathrobe with pizza sauce stains on the sleeve cuffs and holey board shorts.
“What in Rosetta’s root cellar are you doing here, Bane?” Stacks snapped.
“Sorry, Grandpa,” I said. “I didn’t realize you’d gone to bed already. I mean it’s already nine. Better get that beauty sleep.”
“For your information, I wore this all day. Setting up a new homestead is exhausting. I was taking a nap. Now, why are you here?”
“It’s a long story,” I said and I pushed past him, heading inside. The trailer was clean. Well, it had been clean until Stacks had moved in. Already, there was a single stack of pizza boxes in a corner and a collection of dumpster-dived furniture. Stacks of papers, books, and electronics that he must have rescued from the tunnel under his trailer were scattered everywhere.
“Hi,” I heard Luke say, coming behind me.
“Oh, uh, hi...um welcome,” Stacks said, mustering an entirely different tone than I’d gotten.
.
“Luke, Stacks. Stacks, Luke,” I said, heading over to Stacks’ fridge. It looked like he’d stocked up for the grueling task of moving in. I pulled out a couple of beers and a bottle of Gatorade. I shook the Gatorade at Noah and he came to take it from me.
“Nice to meet you,” Stacks said, shaking Luke’s hand.
Before Luke could say anything, I thought it would be better to introduce him in a way that would keep Stacks from freaking out. “Luke was a Homeland Security agent but he went ‘AWOL’ to help us hunt down and kill the demon in Bellum. Now he’s sworn off the agency and he needs a place to be safe and crash until he can put a new life plan together.”
“Ex-Homeland Security?” Stacks asked, looking at Luke. There was apprehension in his gaze, but I could tell by the way color rose in Stacks’ cheeks when he looked at Luke that there was something else going on too. He pulled his bathrobe together at the neck.
I handed Luke and Stacks a beer and then pushed past them to sit down on the couch with Noah and watch the show.
“Yeah,” Luke said. “I was never really happy in the Department. When you find out the truth about what actually goes on in those government agencies, it’s hard to not grow jaded. So many lies and so many secrets.”
“Really?’ Stacks asked.
Luke laughed. “Yeah, until Bane and Noah killed a demon in front of me, I thought all the strange crap happening had to be some X-Files, aliens stuff. I mean, I haven’t seen this kind of bizarre crap since I wandered in on a CIA think tank meeting by mistake.”
“Oh really,” Stacks said. And I could tell he was hooked. Luke and Stacks sat down across from each other at Stacks’ table and Noah and I simply became furniture.
I grinned at Noah and then I realized my pocket was vibrating. I pulled it out and Luke and Stacks didn’t even pause as the ringer filled the air. It was Gabe. I showed the caller ID to Noah and he rolled his eyes. He turned and stretched out on the couch to watch Luke and Stacks’ interaction. I went out on the porch and flipped the phone open.
“Hey,” I said.
“You know, I think that’s the first time you haven’t answered the phone with some sassy comment,” Gabe said.
“Well I like to mix it up,” I said. “I can up the sass dosage if you need me to.”
“Only if it coincides with you telling me that you ended up leaving Bellum and not stepping in that hornet nest,” Gabe said.
“Well…” I said.
“Oh man, Bane,” Gabe said. “Are you ok? Is Noah ok?”
“We’re all physically fine,” I said. “Some cuts and bruises and my knee still won’t talk to me, but that’s about it. The demon wasn’t the Duke, but I think it might be equally as bad. Noah puked a lot.”
“Well that’s...confusing,” Gabe said. “I need to hear the whole story behind that.”
“Not tonight,” I said. “It’s a long story and I need to have a bottle of whiskey in my hand when I relive it. I’m letting Luke and Noah fill Stacks in.” I took a pull on my beer. “So to what do I owe the pleasure of the call? How’s everything with the Order?”
“Order is...well, the Order. I turned something up about the Duke, at least, it’s coming up as the Duke. I thought he was in Bellum and I was going to tell the Order to screw off if you didn’t answer your phone tonight and I was going to come after you, but it sounds like you survived and you’re all in Messina now?”
“Right on all counts,” I said. “So what’s the word on ole Dukey?”
“Turnabout is fair play,” Gabe said. “I’ll swap you my story for yours. I’m wrapping up the Order’s mission tonight, and then do you have time to meet at Rosetta’s?”
“I think we could swing that,” I said, taking a long pull on my beer.
“Until tomorrow then?” Gabe asked.
“It’s a date,” I said on a yawn. Then I froze. Why the hell had I said that?
There was a pause and then I could hear the smile in Gabe’s voice as he said. “It’s a date.”
I had just hung up the phone when Noah came outside and dropped down next to me on the porch. Through the front window, I could hear a conversation about Castro and exploding seashells. Luke and Stacks were getting more enthusiastic and their voices were carrying out to us.
“So,” Noah said. I waited but he seemed unsure where to go from there.
“So?” I asked.
“I’ll understand if you don’t want me to…,” Noah started.
“Noah,” I turned to look at him, “don’t finish that sentence. In fact, shoot it in the head and bury it in the back forty. As far as we’re concerned, you and me, partners, hunters…, you know, nothing’s changed.”
“Friends?” Noah asked quietly.
I nodded and took a drink. “Those too.”
“Ok,” Noah said on a sigh of relief. “So what are we going to do now?”
“Well, tomorrow, we’re going to head for Rosetta’s. Gabe has some intel on Dukey and he wants us to meet him there,” I said. I paused as Luke and Stacks started laughing and Luke said something about aliens and the Senate. “As for now,” I said, looking up at the sky. There was only one floodlight in the trailer park and the stars were out. There was a cool breeze lowering the temperature of the hot July night. “We’re going to look at the stars,” another round of speed talking from Luke and Stacks, “and be serenaded by a pair of conspiracy nuts in the background.”
Noah held his Gatorade out in front of him and I clinked my beer bottle against it.
JOIN THE HUNT!
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Other Books in the Midnight Rider Series
Midnight Rider
Dirty Deeds
Bad Company
Hot Blooded
Shoot To Thrill
War Pigs
Gimme Shelter
Like The Wolf
Working Man
Whipping Post
Bad Moon Rising
Under Pressure
Minutes 2 Midnight
About The Author
D. V. Wolfe
is a transplanted Kansas farm kid now living in Oregon. When she's not writing, reading, or walking her furball, she's traveling back to Kansas to spend time on the old farm or in her favorite dive bar in Manhattan with her partner in life and crime.
Acknowledgment
This story started with a hellion in a dirty a-shirt, jeans, and a sports bra, behind the wheel of Lucy, my '49 Ford pickup, telling me that shit was about to go down and I needed to find a pencil.
Through all the chaos of blurting out this story, I can't emphasize enough how important Glenn, my mentor and guide, and Jimbo, my entire support system and partner in everything, have been. Thank you also to Nikki, Laura, and Lydia, my kickass betas.
And to my readers, thank you for, like Noah, thinking it was a good idea to climb into the truck with Bane.