“You’re offering him a deal?” Cueto shouted. “Stricken orchestrated the cold-blooded murder of MCB agents!”
“I am sorry, Director. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
“That’s fucking awesome, Mr. Spock, but that don’t change the fact he turned monsters loose in MCB headquarters to slaughter my friends and gut-shoot my predecessor.”
“Told you you should’ve let me kill him,” Franks said.
“I understand your righteous anger, Director. Yet it is what it is. The Subcommittee agrees with my assessment. If you do not accept it, feel free to turn in your resignation in protest.”
Cueto was red-faced, but he stopped yelling. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before that happens.”
“As Agent Franks can attest, every day in hell is a cold one, Director,” Coslow said.
“Fine. Whatever. But let the record show that I think this is a terrible decision and am only doing this under direct orders from the Subcommittee on Unearthly Forces.”
“Do not be silly,” Coslow said. “There will never be any record of these proceedings. Do you also wish to voice your displeasure, Beth?”
“I think this is a mistake. Stricken turned my organization from a force for good into his personal mafia, and I’ve spent the last few years trying to repair the damage he did. Stricken doesn’t deserve a deal. He deserves a bullet and a shallow grave in a landfill.”
“Dissent noted—and immediately disregarded . . . Very well then. It is settled. We shall proceed. To the interrogation room then. We will listen in on the conversation between Mr. Pitt and Mr. Stricken. It should prove rather enlightening.”
“Whoa, hang on.” I held up one hand, like I was a schoolkid trying to get called on by the teacher. “My experience with Stricken isn’t exactly sunshine and roses either.”
“Yet, you remain the least likely of those present to immediately tear his head from his shoulders in a fit of monstrous rage,” Coslow said as he stood up.
Heather shrugged. “That’s accurate.”
Franks grunted. “Eh.”
“All of you are forgetting something else. I don’t work for you.”
“Then on behalf of a grateful nation, thank you for performing this voluntary service for your government, Mr. Pitt. That is the carrot. Or would you prefer I use the stick?”
Coslow wasn’t even sort of threatening in how he said that, but I couldn’t even imagine what a man who could boss around the MCB and STFU considered a stick. “Can I at least get my arm cleaned up first?”
“It is true the egg children of the Lacertus are unclean things.” Coslow reached out and touched my shoulder as he passed by. His hand was abnormally cold. “That should handle it for now.” Then he opened the door and walked out.
There was a sudden odd tingling in my arm. The best way to describe it was that it felt like there was static in my blood. Then there was an audible electric snap beneath my hastily applied bandage. I jumped. A little puff of smoke drifted out from beneath the gauze. I hurried and pulled it off, only to discover the gashes had been cauterized in angry, jagged, burnt lines. It smelled like somebody had just burned a piece of meat, and it hurt like a son of a bitch. “What the shit, man?”
But Coslow was already gone.
I’d experienced orc healing magic before, but this was like the microwave oven version to Gretchen’s slow cooker. I glared at the others. “What the hell is he?”
“Don’t look at me,” Beth said. “It’s compartmentalized. There’s still some things that are classified above my pay grade.”
“What he is, I don’t know, but his official title is the PUFF Adjuster,” Cueto said.
“Bullshit! I’ve dealt with those before,” I said. “They’re just the bureaucrats who make calls on one-of-a-kind bounties.”
“You’re missing the point. Those are PUFF adjusters. He’s the PUFF Adjuster, like the original guy who started the program.”
That didn’t make any sense. The Perpetual Unearthly Forces Fund had started during Teddy Roosevelt’s administration. I looked between the heads of the MCB and STFU, but Beth just gave Cueto an annoyed look and shook her head, like he needed to shut up.
“All that is an innocuous way of saying he’s a mystical weirdo they brought out of cold storage to babysit the Subcommittee again after Stricken nearly tricked those idiots into building an army of monsters.” Director Cueto stood up. “Now come on, kid. Let’s find out how bad Stricken is about to screw us all over.”
Seeing my tax dollars at work kind of sucked.
Chapter 4
Stricken was on the other side of the one-way glass, already seated inside the interrogation room. He was dressed the same as when I’d seen him earlier, though they’d taken his tie—probably so he couldn’t hang himself with it—and at some point one lens of his funny colored glasses had gotten cracked. He looked a little worse for wear but considering how badly all the super dangerous people here wanted to beat him like a pinata until candy came out, Stricken appeared remarkably unharmed.
His hands were chained to a big steel ring on the big steel table and his ankles were chained to a big steel chair. There was an MCB agent standing quietly in each of the four corners of the room, and one more at the door. That seemed like overkill. Stricken wasn’t dangerous because of any physical strength. He was dangerous because he was a really smart, connected asshole who had zero qualms about screwing around with evil shit that was better left alone.
I was in the observation room with Franks, Heather, and Beth. The director and the PUFF Adjuster were off printing up copies of Stricken’s deal with the government. Once they had those ready to sign, they were going to let Stricken have his requested conversation with a Chosen. Lucky me.
“I’m actually kind of amazed you’re going along with all this,” I whispered to Franks.
“I don’t like it.”
“Then why not go on another vigilante
