good. If you're infected, we're doing you a favor. Otherwise in three weeks you'll be eating little old ladies and babies. Hopefully the tests come back negative, and we forget this ever happened.'
'So what now?'
'Just chill for a while,' Agent Franks said.
'Easy for you to say.'
A doctor came in and took my pulse and blood pressure. A nurse changed my IV and checked my bandages. The staff seemed intimidated by the Feds, and left without talking. Flowers were delivered. They were from Hansen Industries, with a card wishing me a speedy recovery. Along with the card there was also a letter on Hansen Industries stationary that informed me that I was fired for violating the Official Workplace Safety Code No Weapons in the Workplace Rule. If I did not want to risk an interruption to my Workers' Compensation, I had best not protest the firing. Hugs and kisses, Human Resources.
I pushed the button on the motorized bed so I could sit upright. Myers turned on the little TV and we watched Jeopardy. Watching television kept my brain occupied, and more importantly kept me from dwelling on the possibility of ending up dead, or even worse, like Huffman. Myers was pretty good, but I was destroying him. I'm a Trivia King. Franks kept the gun in his lap and sipped a Diet Coke. I tried not to think about the fact that the nice men from the government were here to shoot me in the brain with silver bullets. The feeling of helplessness was horrible. Alex Trebek had all of the answers. I just had questions.
'What is Constantinople? So, Myers, how bad was I injured?'
'You lost a lot of blood and technically died on the operating table for two minutes. No brain activity at all. You have about three hundred stitches and staples in you and some broken bones. If we don't have to shoot you, you should heal up just fine. But you won't ever be pretty. What is the Great Wall of China?'
The thought that I had actually been dead was interesting. That was kind of cool. I wondered if I could use that as a pickup line.
'Who is Ghandi? What happened to Mr. Huffman?'
'He landed on a Lincoln Navigator. The desk landed on him. He was pulped. Nobody else got hurt.' He was frustrated. I was tearing him up in the Famous History category. I could tell the professor was used to winning. Ha ha sucker, eat hot trivia death! 'What was the Magna Carta? Huffman didn't pull back together or anything did he?'
'Damn, you're fast. Nope. Lycanthropes can regenerate from just about anything other than silver, but it takes energy to restore tissue. There's only so much energy stored in one body, so if you inflict enough damage on them, they die.'
'Fire,' grunted Franks.
'Indeed, fire works great. Wait, I know this. What is uranium!' he shouted.
I made a buzzing sound. 'Wrong. What is beryllium? Damn, Myers, I thought you had to have an education to be a G-man. You suck.'
The senior FBI man changed the TV channel to CNN and sulked. Well, at least I had the satisfaction that if they were going to kill me, I had defended my honor on the field of useless knowledge. The news was saying something about a huge pipeline explosion in a remote part of Russia apparently caused by Chechen terrorists. I tuned it out and went back to harassing the Feds.
'Does this kind of thing happen all of the time? How did Huffman become a werewolf? Are there many more out there?'
'You ask too many questions,' Franks said.
'My associate is correct, Mr. Pitt. This subject's on a need-to-know basis. You just need to know to keep your mouth shut.' Fine. I figured I would just go back to sleep. Stupid Feds.
There was a knock on the door. It must have just been a mere courtesy knock because whoever it was immediately barged in. Franks barely had time to hide his Glock under an issue of Martha Stewart Living.
The man was of average height and lean, with short-cropped, sandy blond hair, probably in his mid-forties. With no really remarkable features, he was not a memorable-looking guy, but emanated an old-school toughness when he strutted into the room, an attitude like a Bogart or a Cagney from the golden age of movies. A cigarette hung lazily from the corner of his mouth in clear violation of hospital rules.
Myers grimaced and it looked like Franks gave some serious thought about pointing his gun at somebody else for a change.
'Well, if it ain't the junior danger rangers. How's the murdering witnesses business?' the man asked, reaching into the pocket of his leather bomber jacket and pulling out a business card. He stuck the card into the edge of my wrist cast. It stuck there, vibrating slightly.
'Screw you, Harbinger,' Franks said.
'Situation's under control. No need for you here,' the professor stated in a cold voice.
'I'll be ice-skating in hell before I believe that you federal weasels have anything under control.'
'You better shut up,' Franks growled.
'Or what?' the man said with calculated belligerence and just a touch of a southern accent. 'Gonna arrest me? You might not like it much, but we're a legitimate business again. If you Feds hadn't booted us out of Yellowstone, that werewolf wouldn't have gotten away, that fat guy wouldn't have gotten bitten, and this guy never would have gotten attacked.'
'National parks are our jurisdiction. Your people can't legally be armed in them, so you were out of luck. So you just need to calm down,' Myers stated in a manner that suggested he was used to being obeyed.
The new guy sneered. 'I need to calm down, Myers? Your bureaucratic nonsense caused this trail of bodies. You could have let us break a couple of stupid laws and you wouldn't have two dead people and this one.' He jerked a thumb in my general direction.
'The rules are there for a reason. Not obeying the rules is what got you shut down the first time. I think it was a mistake to ever let your kind back into business.'
Needless to say, the atmosphere in the room was very tense. I was pretty much forgotten in my heap of bandages and bedpans. Myers and the interloper were locked in a staring contest. Franks looked ready to escort our guest out, preferably headfirst down the stairs. Anybody who made these guys that uncomfortable was all right by me.
'Umm… Not to interrupt this love fest or anything, but who are you?'
Finally Myers must have blinked and ended the stare off. The stranger looked at me as if he was sizing me up. His eyes were cold, blue, and intimidating. After a long unblinking moment he finally must have decided I passed muster, since he held out his hand to shake mine. Franks removed the Martha Stewart magazine to display his gun, just to remind me not to try anything.
'Name's Earl Harbinger. I'm with MHI.'
'Owen Pitt. CPA.' His grip was like iron. 'MHI? Is that like some top secret government agency or something?' I asked.
Agent Myers snickered. 'Not even close.'
Harbinger just scowled at them. 'No. If I worked with these idiots I would kill myself. We're a private organization. We're a for-profit business, and if I do say so myself, we're the premier leader in our field. One which I would say that you would probably be pretty good at. You did good back there.'
'Thanks, but I don't think it's going to be good enough. These guys tell me that I'm probably going to end up turning into something like my boss.' It was an ugly thing to say, and I could feel a great cold weight in my chest as I said it. 'I don't want to end up like that.'
The stranger shook his head. 'Don't worry about it.'
'Recruiting some fresh cannon fodder, Harbinger?' Myers interrupted. 'Right now Mr. Pitt is in our custody, and he doesn't go anywhere until I say so.'
'I'm not recruiting, Myers, but if you're looking I hear Wal-Mart needs a new door greeter,' he responded. Turning back to me, he continued speaking as if he had never been cut off. 'Have you asked yourself why every one of your injuries is bandaged except for that great big slash on your head?'
Subconsciously I reached up and touched the nasty pile of stitches that snaked down my face. All I knew was that it was going to leave a horrible scar.
'It's uncovered so they could watch it. If you had started to heal unnaturally fast, they would have dropped you dead in a heartbeat. From the amount of damage you sustained, I'm sure they were positive that you were
