Clean and in a fresh change of clothes—thankfully without any MCB two-headed eagles on them—I went back to the team room and found that Earl had just gotten back. He looked grumpy, cigarette dangling from one lip, sitting on Boone’s desk with Trip’s fancy camera in hand, mashing buttons.
“How do you make it so you can see pictures on the screen of this damned thing?”
“Give me that.” I took the camera from him. “You Luddite.”
“Considering I was in my twenties when they invented the television, I think I keep up with technology pretty damn good, kid.”
“Says the guy who still uses a Tommy gun.” Except after saying that it still took me a minute to figure out which knobs brought up which menus. While I played with the camera, Earl angry-smoked. I swear, if the monsters didn’t kill me, the perpetual secondhand lung cancer cloud from my boss would. “Here. Just push the arrows to see the next one or go back.”
He took the camera and began flipping through the pictures Trip had taken during our stakeout.
“Any luck finding Heather?”
“Yep.” He didn’t look up from the screen. “We spoke.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
“Nope.”
“Okay then.” I flopped onto the couch and waited, because I knew him well enough that he was going to vent about his girlfriend anyway. What can I say? I’m a good listener.
“It pisses me off, Z,” Earl said as he continued to click. “She’s too stubborn to quit Unicorn even though that job keeps trying to kill her. It’s because Heather looks at those monsters like they’re her kids. She’s protective. That whole outfit would probably fall apart if it wasn’t for her.”
Gee whiz, that sounded familiar. Change monster to Hunter, and it was basically Earl’s life story. But I didn’t say anything.
“I get that Unicorn can be a force for good. Hell, when I was stuck there, we saved a lot of lives. We did the nasty things regular soldiers couldn’t. Which makes it worse, because I know the exact kind of shit she gets involved in. It’s hard having your woman disappear for months at a time, because you know she’s probably in some third world country killing terrorists because they decided they wanted to summon demons or open a portal or some other evil nonsense. She keeps saying she’s going to be done, but then it’s one more mission, one more thing where they’re counting on her to save the day.”
“Yeah, I can’t imagine what that would be like.”
“Fair . . . But you know what really grinds my gears this time, Z?”
“She got called up because they had a shot at taking down Stricken, but she kept that secret from you?”
He looked up from the camera and squinted at me. “Good guess.”
I shrugged. Though I preferred door-kicking and face-shooting, I wasn’t a total lummox when it came to this complicated interpersonal crap. “Did you tell Heather that MHI had a line on an actual Ward Stone?”
“Obviously not.”
“Well, there you go. She can’t tell you her top-secret government business, and you can’t tell her MHI business whenever it’s something where the government would screw us if they knew what we were doing. You don’t want to put her in a tough spot. She does the same for you. You respect her, so you’ve got to trust her. She took an oath. She’s not going to break it.”
“Of course not.”
“Then you two really need to work this shit out.”
“We will.” Earl sounded surprisingly certain.
“Good, because it’s inconvenient for the rest of us.” I didn’t add that preferably their solution would mean Heather quitting Unicorn and coming on with us full time, because having another bullet resistant and non-psychotic werewolf around would really kick ass, but I’m selfish like that. “You want my advice?”
“Not particularly.” It was obvious Earl preferred talking about the pertinent business stuff rather than the messy personal stuff. “Enough about Heather. Let’s get back to work.”
“Best idea I’ve heard all day.” I didn’t need to push my luck with the life coaching. It wasn’t like I was good at this either. I’d had one successful relationship in my life and had been pretty much been winging that the whole time.
“We don’t know what kind of creature we’re looking for so we’re just guessing where to look. Problem for us right now is that the MCB really wants that Ward, and so will every powerful monster or whacko cult or wannabe necromancer once word gets out there’s one up for grabs. Not to mention the reptoids have a shaman with magic that actually works, so they’ll be looking for it too.”
“If Stricken’s to be believed, since the Dark Market auction contract has been violated, something called a Drekavac will be after her too.” That name had been a new one on me, but I’d sent a message to Lee to check the archives to see if we had any records on what those were. He hadn’t come up with much yet. “The name means screamer or shrieker, but not like a banshee. More like how an animal howls on the hunt. Folklore pegs it as some kind of cursed undead.”
“Ghost or physical body?”
“Stories go both way, so unsure, but Albert’s working on it.”
Earl gave a resigned sigh because we both knew that when it came to monster capabilities, folklore was wrong more often than it was right. Ideally, we’d find accounts by actual Hunters, because those cut through the myth and bullshit and got down to the nuts and bolts about how to kill things.
“We’ll deal with whatever that is when it shows up, Z. STFU is after her too. Do you have any idea the kind of nefarious spy shit that outfit could accomplish with someone who can change faces on demand? Unicorn’s gonna catch her and make her an offer she can’t refuse. If Heather thinks she’s doing that girl a favor, she’ll find her. Heather’s dogged.”
“Pun intended?”
Earl looked at me like I was stupid. Then he shook his head and went back to the
