'One problem,' Julie said. 'The Wendigo isn't going to talk to you. You're going to be wandering around the woods for weeks. You know what the Bottoms are like. The rules don't apply there.'
'Let me guess,' Myers said. He exhaled slowly, apparently trying to control his anger. 'This thing will talk to you people though.'
'He'll only talk to me,' Harbinger said, before adding with a note of barely concealed disgust, 'looks like we're going with you.'
Myers cursed. The man had a remarkable gift for creative profanity.
'Looks like we get to work together,' I told Franks cheerfully.
The silent brute just nodded as he patted his Glock, doubtlessly contemplating the moment he would finally get to use it on me.
'This is it,' I said. 'We know where the Cursed One is going to be. We finish this tomorrow-one way or the other.'
'About time,' Sam said. 'Grant was one of us. That slimy bastard is gonna pay.' The big cowboy kicked at the gravel.
'Yeah,' Milo added with what was for him, unusual somberness. He wore his night vision monocular and scanned back and forth across the property.
The three of us were standing in the darkened driveway of the Shackleford ancestral home near the vehicles. We were waiting for the others. Gretchen was applying some first aid to Trip after the little bit of 'stick time' he had received. Holly was grabbing some gear. Harbinger and Julie were standing about a hundred yards away, talking quietly amongst themselves. Apparently Julie had a few things that she needed to speak with him about privately. The Feds had left, quite a bit worse for wear after the beating that some of them had received from Harbinger.
'What do you think they did with him?' I asked. I did not like the way that we were talking about our companion as if he were already dead, but I could not realistically see much hope for the alternative.
'The Old Man's journal said that they needed to sacrifice a Hunter to use their device,' Milo said. 'I'm guessing that poor Grant is going to get himself sacrificed.'
'Sucky way to die,' Sam agreed.
'Do they need to keep him alive until the full moon? There is a possibility he could be alive still.'
'Maybe,' Milo said. 'We can hope.' He sounded doubtful. Most of the seasoned Hunters' missions involved search and destroy, rather than rescue.
Having eavesdropped on Grant's contrition earlier made him somehow more human now, and made his being taken that much more difficult to stomach. But a tiny, ugly part of me hated him even more now, because I could see that Julie was taking his disappearance hard, and I found myself somehow jealous of someone who was probably already dead. We sat in silence for a few moments. In the distance I could see that Julie and Harbinger were arguing. She looked rather angry and animated as the senior Hunter tried to explain something.
'What do you think they're fighting about?' I asked.
'I'm guessing she wants to know if Earl knew that Susan was a vampire,' Milo answered as he looked upward through the night vision. 'I can never get over how many stars you can see through one of these things.'
'Did he know?'
'Beats me,' Sam answered. 'We had our suspicions, of course. We had never found her body, and they had been hunting a vampire. I mean, I guess we all kind of thought about it, but none of us wanted to think it was a real possibility. You gotta understand, we loved Susan. The idea of having any of us turned to the other side… well, that… That just ain't no good.'
'I've got a chainsaw with my name on it in my workshop,' Milo told us happily. 'If I'm ever killed by undead, I want you guys to chop me up with it. It's a good chainsaw.'
'I reckon it is, Milo. I would be honored to chop your head off,' Sam said. I worked with some interesting folks.
The lights in the house were extinguished. Trip, Holly and Gretchen joined us a moment later. Since we had blown holes in the ballroom, and the Feds had kicked in all of the doors and many of the windows, we could not even lock up anything other than the vault. I just hoped that nobody came up here and looted the place while we were gone.
Trip was limping and did not look very good. 'Now I know how Rodney King felt,' he said through swollen gums. One eye was matted shut, and Gretchen had smeared him with some sort of foul-smelling cream.
'Yeah, but you ain't gonna get no million dollar settlement to blow on hookers and crack like he did,' Sam said wryly. 'We're just waiting for the boss and we can get out of here. We got us some monsters to kill.'
Julie and Harbinger continued fighting for another minute, before finally coming to some sort of terms. He hugged her as she sobbed on his shoulder.
'She's had a tough night,' Milo said simply. Estranged father dead. Boyfriend missing. Mother revealed to be undead. Milo Anderson was a master of understatement. None of us disagreed.
'I've got a question,' Trip asked. 'How come Grant didn't sound the alarm? I woke up when I heard Owen shouting.'
'Probably snuck up on him,' I lied. In truth I had a pretty good idea of what had happened. Probably something similar to what Susan had tried on me, only Grant had probably not realized what was going on until it was too late.
Holly knew the truth. 'Vampires can be seductive. You saw what she was wearing. She probably floated in as mist, put on some of Julie's things, and bit Grant when he thought he was going to get lucky. Then she tried the same thing on Z here…' She pointed at me. 'So did you score with your friend's dead mom?'
'It sounds gross when you put it that way.' It didn't do me much good to lie at that point. 'I got to second base before I realized she wasn't breathing,' I stammered with no small amount of embarrassment. 'Hey, I thought she was Julie.' And then I felt really stupid for saying that. Luckily she was still standing far enough away to have not heard.
'Way to go, Big Guy.' Sam punched me in the shoulder. 'If you had been a little dumber, you could have put a whole new meaning to 'staking' vampires.'
'That's horrible,' Trip said as he pressed a bag of ice against the side of his head.
'Whatever. She would've bit you next,' Holly said.
'Probably not. I would have sounded the alarm,' he answered.
'Sure you would have… church boy.'
'No really, I've never…' He caught himself. 'Uh… never mind.'
'No way.' Holly sounded stunned. 'Are you saying… No way. You're what? Twenty-seven?'
Trip looked very uncomfortable.
'Saving it for marriage?' Milo interjected, looking alien with his massive beard poking out from under his night vision. 'Good for you, Trip.' At least he had the Mormon contingent's approval.
'I didn't know you Rastafarians did that kind of thing,' Sam said. 'I figured you all partied.'
'Baptist,' Trip said quickly.
'Oh, I just figured with the funky hair and whatnot. You should shave that thing then. You would look good.' Sam spat into the gravel. I made a mental note never to listen to the fashion advice of a man with a mullet and a puffy trucker hat.
'Yeah, you would look like Shaft,' I added helpfully. 'Not the old one, the new one.'
'Chicks dig that on a black dude. Be sure to get yourself laid then, kid,' Sam told him with great confidence.
'But… Wait… It's a personal choice, damn it,' Trip sputtered.
'Okay guys. Here's the plan.' Thankfully Harbinger interrupted. He lit a cigarette as he approached. It was back to business. Julie looked sad, but resolute and determined. The director just looked angry. 'Back to base. Gear up. We will form an assault element. We're going to meet the Feds in Natchy Bottom in the morning. Milo, load up everything you can think of. Julie, Sam, you two contact every other team in the country. Have them drop whatever they're working on and get back here now. Our team hits the Bottoms, everybody else hits the local outbreaks.' He pointed at me. 'Newbie squad, take a car. Take Gretchen back to her people.'
I had almost forgotten about the small woman. She was so quiet, and cloaked in her shapeless robes she nearly disappeared in the shadows. Harbinger bowed toward her in a sign of sincere respect, and said something in her language. It sounded like gurgles and clicks to me. She replied, gravelly and deep.
