'Wouldn't it be better if we just let the truth be known?' I suggested.
'Not my call, Pitt. I just enforce policy. I don't make it.' He began to walk back to the waiting Blackhawk.
'You murder survivors and witnesses!' I shouted. 'You destroy lives to keep up this illusion of safety! People should know what's really out there.'
Myers paused, turned, and shook his head sadly. 'Can you imagine what would happen if the world found out the truth? Chaos. Pandemonium. No. People need to be kept safe from themselves, and I'll do whatever I have to, lie, cheat… kill… anything, to keep my country safe.' The professor was a dedicated man.
It was disgusting. 'How do you sleep at night?'
Myers actually chuckled, his normally bureaucratic demeanor apparently damaged by his losses. 'I don't. If you knew what was coming'-he resumed walking, the wind from the rotors snapping his cheap tie over his shoulder and making it difficult to hear-'you wouldn't sleep anymore either.'
'What's that supposed to mean?' I shouted after him.
But he didn't answer. The chopper lifted off a minute later, leaving me to ponder what it was that Myers thought was coming. Clearly there was more to this cult than the Feds were letting on. Lee hobbled around the side of our van. He was in jeans and a Schlock Mercenary tee shirt. He had bailed out of the compound so fast he hadn't even had time to gear up. Grant must have gotten dressed on the road. The sight of Lee in normal attire made me especially thankful for my friends. They hadn't hesitated to go after me any more than I had for my own brother. 'Z, I've got Harbinger on the phone. He's been trying to reach you.'
I pulled out my cell phone. It had gotten cracked at some point during the evening's excitement. 'Piece of crap!' I cocked my fist back and chucked it far out into the Alabama River. That small bit of random violence made me feel better.
Lee shook his head and grinned. 'You know the company phones have a warranty on them, right? You could have got that replaced for free. Now you'll have to buy a new one.'
I groaned. 'What did he say?' I knew it had to be some variation of Pitt, you suck. Go hide at the compound. Lee handed me his phone.
My boss actually sounded concerned. 'How're y'all doing?'
'We're good. Only minor injuries.' I hurried, knowing that he was going to rip me for disobeying his orders. 'We got to my brother in time. Agent Franks is dead.' Saying that sounded weird. Franks had always seemed so stoic, so invulnerable, that it was hard to imagine anything being able to end his life.
'He was a jackass but he was a pro,' Earl said simply.
I turned away so the others wouldn't hear. Something that Bia said had been gnawing at me. 'The creatures knew I was coming. Somebody told them I was on my way. There is a spy at the compound.'
There was a long silence at the other end while Earl mulled that over. 'Either there or it could have been somebody who's with me right now. Julie got your message and told everybody else. We're on our way back. I've got an idea. I want you to meet me someplace. Can you ditch the Feds?'
'Already done.'
'Okay, Lee's driving? Pass the phone back to him.'
I walked back to the others and handed the phone to Lee. 'What's going on?' Grant asked. Lee was listening to instructions and went forward to program an address into the onboard GPS.
'Earl wants us to meet him somewhere.'
'I don't like it. Myers said we should go back to the compound,' Grant said.
'Screw him,' I said automatically. 'When did you start caring what the Feds say?'
Grant snorted like that was absurd. 'I don't.'
'You're just worried that you're too pretty for prison.' They'd have loved Grant in Tijira. Lee came back. 'Where to, man?'
'Birmingham. Harbinger gave me an address for a house in a neighborhood called Hensley.' Lee said.
'Never heard of it, but cool.' So Harbinger had something up his sleeve after all. The whole 'hide and wait for the bad guys to kill me' plan hadn't gone real well so far, so hopefully he had found a way to go on the offensive.
I like being offensive.
Chapter 8
Birmingham was the next big city north of Montgomery. It took us awhile to drive the van through all of the various detours that popped up in the aftermath of the concert. It gave Gretchen a chance to bounce around between the seats, applying greasy, smelly ointments to all of our various injuries.
'Yes, damn it, Tim. The tour bus exploded… Yeah, you heard me. Ex-Plode-Ed,' Mosh said into Lee's borrowed cell phone with quite a bit of consternation. He had wanted to contact his band to let them know that he was still alive. 'No, I don't know what's going on… Atlanta? Hell, I guess we're probably going to have to cancel it, don't you think? Since the bus exploded.' He shook his head sadly. 'Okay, whatever, I'll call you back as soon as I can.' My brother handed the borrowed phone back and then banged his forehead against the window.
Yep, I've had nights like that before.
Mosh wasn't very responsive and appeared deep in thought. He hadn't even commented as Gretchen had applied a paste made out of old squirrels and herbs to the scratches on his face and arms. I had thought about taking him to a real hospital but I knew that he was a lot safer with me than floating around out there, alone and a target.
The worst injury to our contingent had been to Edward. Bia had clubbed him pretty good. He was resting in the back, and Gretchen informed us that he would be just fine. Orcs were built tough.
The broken windows made conversation difficult but at least the airflow made the evaporating gas stink from my soaked boots bearable. Grant rode shotgun, literally in this case, with a 12-gauge FN auto-loader sitting across his lap. It was still unknown just how much info the Condition had about us but we were a relatively small and vulnerable force out here on our own.
Lee had asked for details on the monsters while Gretchen pasted an inch-long cut on my scalp shut. I had lost a lot of scars because of the magical healing at DeSoya Caverns but I was having no problem picking up new ones. Lee had pumped his fist in the air when I had told him the details of Force and Violence's demise. 'Yes!' our librarian shouted. 'The clay, the explosions, the ghosts, that's textbook right there. They were giant, animated, soul containers. I was right. They were definitely oni, disembodied spirits living inside a created form. That's awesome.' He turned to look at me over the seat. Apparently I gave him a stupid look. 'Don't you get it?'
'Uh, no? And watch the road, I've already been in two car accidents tonight. Don't make me make a tacky comment about Asian drivers.'
'Puh-leeze, like I've got a Camry with a giant spoiler on it.'
Lee flipped back around. 'PUFF on an ogre is only like twenty grand, depending on the breed. They're big but they aren't anything special. The PUFF bounty on an oni is in the hundreds of thousands.'
Grant perked right up at that. 'You all saw it. I got a confirmed on the purple one. So I'm the primary,' he said smugly. At MHI, the entire company shared bounties, but the team, or in this case, the individual who did the most work, got the most pay. 'And to think Earl left me behind to train stupid Newbies while he wasted his time on some wimpy trolls. How many hundreds are we talking about?'
'I'll have to look it up. It's not like anybody has killed one of these in a long time.' Lee almost giggled. He was such a dork when it came to monster lore. 'And the best part? The Feds smoked the big one, but the law says that government representatives can't collect PUFF.'
'Really? Agents don't get PUFF?' Grant was incredulous. 'That's.. that's crazy. Well, good thing I'm not a Fed! We'll file the paperwork for an assist on the red one in the morning.' He had been MHI's golden boy once, but had left in disgrace. Pulling off a great kill in his first few days back would probably help his reputation. 'They couldn't have got him without our providing a distraction.'
'Oh, that'll piss off Myers, but good.' Lee held out his fist for Grant to bump knuckles. Grant looked at him awkwardly for a moment and then did so.
'On a personal note, it sucks to be the number one target of a godlike interdimensional being, but it sure is
