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 assessment?"
"Very bad, sir," Lee hoisted the first book. "Nobody knows who this necromancer is. I've been reading up on them today, and that title can be used for anybody who dabbles in death magic, animating the dead, all the way up to some really bad men who've done some terrible things."
"What kind of terrible?"
"Pretty much anything you can think of. The last MHI case I can find involving one was in Haiti, 1978. There was a high body count on that one," Lee replied.
"I remember that," the Boss said. "That was the man who had all those doppelgangers working for him, replaced all the city authorities, and then held himself a big old massacre." We'd learned a bit about doppelgangers in training, but hadn't spent much time on them since nobody had seen one for decades. They were perfect mimics, and historically, the mysterious creatures had caused all sorts of trouble. "Good thing we haven't had to deal with those cursed shapeshifters since."
"No, you're thinking of Cuba in '53," Harbinger corrected his son. "Haiti was the one where the necromancer sewed all those bodies together into that giant flesh golem."
"My memory ain't what it used to be," the Boss replied simply. I noted that Harbinger looked a little sad at that. It had to be difficult to see your loved ones age a decade for every one of yours.
"Either way you get the point. This could be potentially really ugly. Historically they've raised the dead, invented totally new kinds of undead, opened portals to other dimensions, that kind of thing," Lee said. "And I'm assuming it gets worse." Our archivist pulled on a pair of surgical gloves before opening the largest, dustiest, and oldest book. The cover was bound in ornate leather and the pages were hand-inked on yellowed parchment. Lee was very careful, almost delicate, in order to not damage the ancient tome. "The Feds' notes mentioned that the Condition has a pet shoggoth, so I figured I would see what one of those could do . . ." The drawing was of a horrible, bulbous, lumpy, asymmetrical thing, with far too many mouths and eyes. I was really hoping that the artist had been exaggerating. "There are passing references to them in different places. This one is in Arabic, but it had the most info on them."
"Nasty . . . What's it do?" Holly asked.
The Boss and Harbinger exchanged a quick glance. The Boss spoke first. "They're a pain in the rear, is what they are. My brother Leroy and I fought one once, right here in Cazador. It moved into the forest years back. Stinky, messy beast, started eating townsfolk and livestock. I tried to kill it, but it got away."
"You never told me you'd hunted a shoggoth, Grandpa." Julie leaned across me to see the book. "I didn't know those still existed." Julie frowned as she studied the picture. "Wait a second . . . Mr. Trash Bags?"
"Who's Mr. Trash Bags?" I asked.
Her mouth fell open as she recognized it. Julie pointed at the old book. "Right there! That's Mr. Trash Bags! He was my imaginary friend when I was a little girl. We used to play games together in the forest. He was big and cuddly and sweet. You know how imaginary friends are. But that's totally him, Mr. Trash Bags. I was like six years old, but I still remember."
She had to be pulling my leg. "Your imaginary friend was a blob?"
"Sorry, Jules. He wasn't imaginary," Earl said apologetically. "And you were four. We never could figure out why it didn't just eat you. You cried for days after we chased it off."
Julie leaned back, looking flustered. "Wow . . . that . . . that really sucks," my fiancée said slowly. "He was such a nice . . . thing."
"Yes, and that's why I didn't tell you," her Grandpa said. "I figured you didn't need to know that your best friend was a soul-sucking creature from the great beyond. I hope you understand, my dear. Please, carry on, Mr. Lee."
Lee appeared a little surprised that one of his managers had been friends with a horrific blob. "Uh . . . yeah. Shoggoths are basically servants, manual laborers to the Old Ones. They do their bidding, run errands, eat people, dig tunnels, that kind of thing. To quote the original author, who's only referred to as the Mad Arab, 'To look upon their hideous thousand eyes is to invite horror and the suffering of infinite madness, within tombs of blackness where the innocent are devoured for eternity.' And so on."
"He seemed really nice . . ." Julie said hesitantly. "This is a major bummer . . ."
"They're amorphous. They can change shape quickly, but they're about fifteen feet across and weigh around two tons," Earl said. "They can communicate, but they're relatively stupid. Just brute force, steamrollers, made out of tar and eyeballs. And they eat everything." Except for a four-year-old girl, luckily. Julie seemed to be taking it well, but she came from a long line of Hunters who were proud of their flexible minds. Harbinger continued. "Fire chased it off last time. Milo, I want all the flamethrowers checked out and ready to go."
Julie rubbed her neck. "Well, that just makes me sad."
Now it was my turn to pat her hand under the table.
Esmeralda Paxton raised her hand politely to cut in. "You have more problems than just a shoggoth, not that those aren't terrible enough, mind you. One of these intercepted e-mail messages mentions, and I quote, ‘The High Priest is prepared to use Force and Violence to satisfy the requests of the great Old Ones, no matter what the cost.' "
"Well, he did hit me with a toilet," I pointed out. "That's pretty damn violent."
She shook her head. "Force and Violence are capitalized."
I looked at her stupidly. "Cultists are bad at grammar?"
"They're proper nouns?" Trip asked. "Those are names."
Esmeralda smiled and pointed at Trip. "Bingo. And if this is who I'm thinking of, the Los Alamos team fought them once before, back when I was a Newbie."
Harbinger thought about it for a moment, scowling. "Cratos and Bia? It can't be. That was twenty years ago."
"Seventeen years. Please don't try and age me prematurely, Earl," the petite woman scolded him. "I'm not a little old lady yet, though I do eventually plan on being a surprisingly aggressive little old lady. They use the old Greek names for Force and Violence. They've been around for a really long time. Some say they're immortals."
"Everything's immortal," Earl stated, "until you figure out how to kill it."
"My team tracked them across southern Europe. They were easy to follow, since they made a mess wherever they went. We even managed to ambush them once, only to discover that they were virtually indestructible. Then they vanished into thin air. We never did get to collect those bounties."
"So, what are Force and Violence?" Julie asked. "I don't remember this kind."
"We're not sure what they are," Esmeralda explained. "Physically, they seemed similar to ogres, but they're smarter, or at least the female, Bia, is rather clever. The male, Cratos, is dumb as a rock, but unbelievably strong. They're either ancient or they took their names from minor gods in the Greek pantheon to give that impression."
"Ancient Greece, like Zeus comes do
wn from Olympus and turns into a giant horny swan, kind of stuff?" I asked. "Because, you know, this stuff wasn't weird enough already."
Earl leaned back in his chair, deep in thought. "Don't mock ancient Greek monsters. A minotaur near cost me my life, once. There's nothing tougher than a giant bull-man with bulletproof hide . . . I made a coat out of him."
"Well, we don't really know what they are. But they're monsters that show up every so often and go on a killing spree. The weirdest thing was that they didn't just kill people, they killed other monsters too. Their behavior was a mystery. This message might not even refer to the same creatures, but I just thought I should point it out," Esmeralda said. "If we run into two humanoids, and one's twelve feet tall and bright red, and the other's about eight feet tall, and purple—"
"Stop." Skippy suddenly cut her off. His gravelly voice made me jump. He had been so quiet that I had forgotten he was even in the room. The orc walked up to the table awkwardly and stared at Esmeralda, goggles tilting to the side. "Skippy . . . knows. Knows these . . ." He said some unpronounceable word in his own language. "Like you, Harb Anger, like MHI . . . they hunt. But bad. They bad things. No honor . . . Not hunt, to protect . . . hunt for kill. Hunt for make suffer. Hunt my people. Many Urks die." Skippy bowed his hooded head toward us, his shielded eyes inscrutable as ever. Speaking English always seemed painful to him. "Enemies . . . pay to kill many Urks." He said that same word again.
"What's that mean?" Trip asked. My friend had spent a lot of time at Skippy's village over the last few months, fascinated by the tribe, and had been picking up a lot of the orcish language.
Skippy stood awkwardly, tilting his head to one side, trying to find the words in English. "Think you call . . . Hit Men."
"Assassins . . ." Esmeralda nodded thoughtfully. "That makes sense. We never did know why they attacked where they did, but there did seem to be a definite pattern. Then when their work was done, they just disappeared."
"This just keeps getting better and better. Ogre hit men . . ." I muttered. This Condition was just full of fun. "So, they're like the monster version of us?"
"No!" the orc responded with surprising intensity. Skippy shook his head vehemently. "Not like MHI. No honor!"
"How are they different, Skippy?" Trip asked calmly.
The orc continued to shake his head, agitated. Skippy seemed really offended by the idea that his adopted clan was anything at all like these things. "You, Hunters, paid money . . . for kill monster. These two . . . They kill, but paid . . . paid in souls. Eat the soul, live forever." Skippy finished talking and then retreated quietly back into the corner, seemingly embarrassed by saying so much. The others continued to talk back and forth in excited tones. Hunters tend to get pumped at the prospect of taking down something new.
My attention was diverted from the conversation as the conference room door swung open and another person walked in. I recognized him immediately, but was taken completely by surprise. The others didn't seem to notice.
The newcomer was about as tall as I was, but where I was hulking, he was lean, and where I was ugly, he was movie-star handsome. He was wearing standard issue MHI body armor only his was in black, had been tailored to fit better, and it still apparently had that magic ability to never get dirty. The spot where the green Happy Face with horns patch had been on his arm was blank Velcro now, but other than that, he looked exactly the same as the day he'd resigned.
"Hey, everyone, sorry I'm late. We had to wrap up today's training first. We started the Newbies on long-range rifle." Grant Jefferson, former Hunter, apologized as he walked up to the table. "I came as soon as I could, Earl. Why is Agent Franks guarding the staircase?"
I hadn't seen him since last summer. I glanced at Julie and she was as surprised to see her ex-boyfriend here as I was.
"Have a seat, Grant, I'll catch you up later," Earl said, gesturing at an open spot across the table from me.
He wasn't the only one who needed some catching up. "Hey, Grant. Why are you here, exactly?" I asked, probably a little louder than I needed to. The bad acoustics of the conference room were probably what made me sound a little more perturbed that I should have been. Acoustics. Yeah.
"Oh, hi, Julie," Grant said, easily ignoring me as he smoothly slid into the chair. He casually put his armored elbows on the table. "When did you get back from Mexico?" His tone was friendly.
"This afternoon . . ." she said slowly. I didn't know which was more of a surprise for her, Grant or Mr. Trash Bags. "MCB flew us back."
"Sorry I missed you earlier. Your brother is still out on the line. He said to tell you he'll catch up soon." Grant pretended to notice me for the first time. "Pitt, good to see you," he lied politely.
I grunted something noncommittal.
He turned his attention right back to Julie. "And congratulations to you two on getting engaged. That's just great." His fake smile was very convincing.
"Thanks." Julie was not deterred by small talk. "What are you doing here?"
Grant raised his eyebrows. "No one told you?"
"Aw, crap. Forgot," Earl said quickly. "It's been a busy few days. While you were in Mexico, Grant came by, asked for his old job back." I glared at Trip and Holly. They'd gotten back yesterday. Apparently they had forgotten to mention Grant's rehiring during all the excitement. They knew how well the two of us got along. Trip made eye contact and shrugged, as if to say whoops. "We're so shorthanded, I was glad to have the help."
"I guess the whole Hollywood thing didn't work out for you, huh?" I asked suspiciously.
He just smiled. His perfectly capped white teeth looked almost like Tic-Tacs. "No. It was fun, but Hunting is my true calling. I'm glad to be home."
I bit my tongue. Home? Sure, he had seen some horrible things while in the clutches of the Cursed One's seven Master vampires, but everybody had been as nice as possible to him in the aftermath, and he had still walked away, a quitter.
"Well . . . it's good to have you back," Julie said civilly. Their breakup had been a bit on the icy side. I hadn't been there for the actual "discussion" part, though I had been there when she'd knocked him out with the butt of an M14. Julie had never wanted to talk about it, so I had left it alone. With Grant gone, it had been one topic of conversation that we'd just mutually avoided.
"Where's your team patch?" I asked, being a complete jackass. Grant's hand subconsciously flicked to his arm, and just briefly he let slip a scowl. The golden boy never could handle failure.
Earl, sensing tension, spoke again, "I've assigned Grant to help Esmeralda with training for now. When the other team leads come in at graduation in a few days, we'll find a spot for him on one of the teams. We need all the experienced Hunters we can get out there in the field."
"Glad to help," Grant replied, still glaring at me. I smiled, noting that his once perfect nose had healed with a slight bend from when I had broken it.
"Yes, yes, back to business," said the Boss, who apparently could not care less about our petty personal dramas. "Anything else we need to know about this Condition?" Nobody had mentioned the potential spy. Earl caught my eye and shook his head slightly so the others wouldn't notice. Apparently we were keeping that part a secret.
"We're dealing with an organization that has a couple hundred human members, tops," Earl said. "And most of them are going to be fanatics rather than professionals in this exalted order of assholes. Their leader's powers are useless here, so we should be relatively safe from a direct assault. Unless he sends his other non-undead monsters against us, and if that happens, we'll just button up and deal with them. In the meantime we need to prepare for any other threats he comes up with. None of you will breathe a word of this to anyone outside of this room. We'll come up with a plan for this Condition." He began to rattle off duties. "Everyone, keep an eye on Franks. I don't trust him. Lee, see what you can find out about these ogre things from the archives. Julie, Dorcas, I want you to contact all the team leads, give them
a brief rundown about this cult and see if any of them can scare up any local intel. Milo, Trip, Holly, go see the elves, check if they've had any dealings with them."
Holly groaned out loud.
"I really do know them better than anybody, I guess." Milo squinted toward me. "My wife's about to have a baby, and if I'm off talking to trailer park elves about you when she goes into labor with my first child, I'm holding you personally responsible."
I nodded slowly, not really sure how I was going to help with that.
Earl continued. "Esmeralda, Owen will be helping you with training. Don't let his goofiness fool you. He's actually a decent firearms instructor."
"I certainly could use another hand," she said.
"And you'll be adding three undercover federal agents to your class," Earl added. I believe that Esmeralda actually groaned louder than Holly had about the elves. Apparently the Seattle team leader got along with the government as well as everyone else at MHI. "Yeah, I know. Just pretend they aren't here."
"Damn Feds, on my property," the Boss murmured. I swear that if he wasn't such a gentleman, he would have spit on the floor. The government paid a large portion of the bills through PUFF, but that didn't mean we had to enjoy working with their Hunters.
"Can I at least be extra mean to them?" Esmeralda asked.
Harbinger smiled that predatory way only werewolves can. "But of course."
"I've got just the thing." Esmeralda grinned back. "Milo, we'll need some more cow entrails for another Gut Crawl tomorrow. It wouldn't be fair if our late arrivals missed out on that."
"I don't have anything fresh," Milo stated.
"Even better . . ."
Chapter 5
I settled into a routine over the next few days. Whenever I was working at the compound, I slept in a small room on the top floor directly across from Julie's temporary room. Some of Harbinger's team had their own homes off site, mostly in nearby Cazador, but I had been living at the old Shackleford family estate, or at least I had until Earl had decreed it was safer for me to stay here. The routine started early; Esmeralda and her Hunters had the Newbies up and running by six. I'd shower and head downstairs for breakfast where, inevitably, Agent Franks was sitting in a chair at the base of the stairs waiting for me. We had assigned him a private room, but as of yet, I was unaware if he had actually used it. The giant apparently never slept, and if he did, I was willing to bet it was with one eye open. Each morning since we'd gotten back he had been in the exact same spot, in a folding chair stolen from the cafeteria, back against the wall, waiting. And each morning, he would just nod at me when I would appear, as if he had heard me long before I had come down, and had been waiting patiently.
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