“Yeah. It’s true.”
I could see him looking at me in the rearview mirror. I didn’t know what Julie had told the last Newbie class about that place, probably about how the whole warped dimension could twist reality on a whim, and it had been a dumping ground for banished and lost monsters, but whatever my wife had said, the idea of me spending that much time there seemed to unnerve the Newbie. He was probably thinking what the hell did I sign up for?
“What was that like?”
I’d fought mutants, Fey knights, and faced off against the immortal embodiment of Disorder. I’d barely survived by sheer stubbornness and a desire to see my family again, but that was none of his business, so I just waved it off by saying, “Time flies when you’re having fun.”
Luckily, Earl Harbinger got back on our radio net and saved me from having to talk about that miserable suck fest further. “Holly, how’s it going in there?”
Holly Newcastle and a couple other Hunters were seated at the outdoor patio tables of the little restaurant next to the target location. “All clear here. Just businessmen having lunch. I don’t see anyone who looks particularly culty. The lobster bisque is excellent though. Over.”
I keyed my radio. “Save your receipts. The company will reimburse for that.”
“In that case, I’m ordering the bottomless mimosas.”
“Don’t lie, Holly. We all know you already did.”
“Guilty as charged.” But Holly was professional enough she’d keep the day drinking to a minimum. Probably. There were still death cultists to tail back to their secret lair. Plus we would have to deal with the mystery buyer, who we could totally shoot if it turned out to be something PUFF-applicable. Perpetual Unearthly Forces Fund bounties were our bread and butter.
The intel Management had given us was limited because the Dark Market had really beefed up their information security after my wife had killed a bunch of their regular clientele in Europe. We didn’t know the buyer’s identity at all, except they were from out of town. The sellers were local, and we were pretty sure we knew what they were because the Atlanta team had been hunting them for months. Management had confirmed that the place we were watching was the neutral location they’d agreed upon to make the exchange, and when our dragon was certain of something, it usually panned out. He had sources everywhere.
The area seemed remarkably normal. Our target was just a regular business, next to an architectural drafting company, a brew pub, a graphic design shop, and a little plaza with benches and a fountain. It was broad daylight, on a nice afternoon, with dozens of witnesses wandering around. You’d think monsters would prefer someplace more . . . gothy. Or at least shadowy and menacing or something. Hell, there was a food truck selling tacos. Tacos are the antithesis of evil.
The building we were watching was one of those bland, featureless, two-story brick places. With a nebulous, forgettable name on the little sign like Insert Strong Word Here Consulting, or Nobody, Nobody, and Douchebag LLC, where you could never guess what they actually did inside. Such businesses were common and unnoticeable, which I guess made them perfect for monsters to secretly conduct their affairs.
“Milo, Skippy, how’s the view from up there?” Earl asked.
“Nothing suspicious yet, Earl.” Milo answered cheerfully. “These drones are really neat though.”
The two of them were on the roof of one of the nearby high-rises so they could have an unimpeded radio signal. Earl had wanted some eyes in the sky for this operation, but our giant noisy helicopter would have been super obvious. Luckily our supremely skilled orc could fly just about anything, even by remote control.
In the background of Milo’s radio could be heard a deep voice grumbling, “Skippy make tiny thing do the tricks! Whee. Barrels roll!”
“Stop that,” Milo insisted. “It’s not a toy!”
He wasn’t kidding. The invoice for the drones was still on my desk. Milo had taken Earl’s instruction to get something nice to mean max out the company card on high tech surveillance gizmos. Between the actual flying machines, and the really expensive software package they used, it probably would have been cheaper to buy Skippy another Russian attack helicopter. If our orc crashed one of those drones, Earl was going to be severely annoyed.
“I’ve got some activity at the back.” That voice belonged to Boone, the experienced Hunter who had been the Atlanta team lead since I’d started with the company. “There’s a black SUV coming up on the parking garage. I bet this is our seller. Hold on. Make that two, no, three SUVs. We’ve got us a convoy.”
“So much for just having to handle one delivery minion,” I said to the other guys in the van. “Our tip told us that the seller was supposed to come alone.”
“Think it’s a setup and they’re just going to rob the buyer?” Hertzfeldt asked.
“No way,” Trip answered. “A rip-off would bring the Dark Market down on their heads, and even dumb monsters aren’t that stupid. As valuable as this thing is, it’s no surprise they’re rolling heavy. From what Julie said about their rules, the seller is responsible until the buyer takes physical possession. If it gets lost before that, they’re still on the hook, and these things do not like to mess around when it comes to contract enforcement.”
From what Julie had learned in Europe, that was the understatement of the year there. The Dark Market was an illicit underground organization that horrible creatures used to make deals. My wife had told me a really unnerving story about watching some poor German kid get sucked down to hell or someplace equally awful for not reading the fine print on one of their contracts. Sad part was the only reason we knew anything about
