good for business,' I added.
'That's it.' Mosh finally spoke up. 'I've had about enough of this shit. PUFF? Ogres? Oni? Who the hell are you people?' He jerked his thumb to where the orcs were sitting quietly in back. 'What the hell are those people?' He turned toward me and stabbed one callused fingertip into my armored chest. 'And you. You owe me an explanation or you can pull this thing over and let me out right now.'
I glanced out the window. It was the middle of the night and we were in the country. 'Not the best place to hitch a ride, bro.'
'I swear I'm about to beat you like a tetherball,' Mosh said.
'Well, it's a long story,' I began.
'Give me the short version.'
'Monsters are real. We make lots of money killing them,' Lee piped in.
'I didn't ask you. I asked my stupid brother, who I'm guessing isn't really a CPA.' He thumped me in the armor. 'I want answers.'
I laughed. 'Short version?'
Mosh gave me a dangerous look. 'Break it down for me.'
Well, if he wanted to be that way… 'Cool. Remember last year when my accounting supervisor turned out to be a serial killer? Nope. Werewolf. Remember last time we talked and I told you about my new finance job? Nope. Monster Hunter. These guys are some of my coworkers.' I waved toward Grant and Lee, then I jerked my thumb to the rear. 'Those folks back there are orcs, but it's all good, they're on our side. That muscle-bound guy who got killed back at the overpass? He was my bodyguard, assigned by a shadow government agency that keeps monsters secret from the public. The things at the concert were mythical creatures hired by a death cult to sacrifice me to a giant space mollusk because they think I poked it in the eye with a nuclear weapon last summer… Any questions?'
Mosh glared. 'You always were a dick.'
'You ready for the long version now?'
I wrapped up as much of my story as possible by the time our GPS guided us to the location that Harbinger had given Lee. It was in an old, rundown, kind of scary area on the northwest side of Birmingham. We pulled onto a narrow street. To our immediate left was a series of fat, rectangular, red-brick buildings. Each identical building was aesthetically awful, with barred windows and knee-high brown weeds in the neglected yards. We were in the Projects.
'So, what do you think?' I asked my brother. 'We cool?'
Mosh had been stroking his goatee and quietly looking out the window for the last little while. He turned back to face me. He was still incredulous, but taking it well. 'Why didn't you tell me this before?'
Honestly, I had wanted to. I shrugged. 'If you hadn't seen what you saw earlier, would you have believed me anyway?'
'No. I would have told you to put down the crack pipe. But now? Hard to argue with what I saw tonight.' When I had first joined MHI, Harbinger had told me that Hunters' greatest weapons were the flexibility of their minds-their ability to take in situations, no matter how weird, and just deal with them. I had made a pretty good Hunter, and judging by my brother's reactions, flexible minds ran in the family.
Hensley had the look of a tough town. The streets were mostly deserted at this late hour, but there were still knots of rough young men standing under the streetlights on various corners. They glared at us suspiciously as we drove by, not recognizing us as part of their regular customer base. 'Friendly place,' Grant said, clutching the shotgun. Now this would certainly be the wrong vehicle to carjack.
'Come on, trust fund baby. You haven't been in the 'hood before?' I asked sarcastically. 'This is the kind of place that me and Mosh grew up in. Right, bro?'
Mosh raised a single eyebrow. We had grown up in a middle-class suburb, but he was quick enough to play along. 'Hell yeah, straight up ghetto. Right out of Compton. Slinging… gats. Yeah.'
'Word,' I said.
'Pimpin' ain't easy,' Mosh stated, dead serious.
Grant shook his head, having his negative opinion of me confirmed again. Lee stifled a laugh, realizing immediately how full of crap we were.
The GPS computer voice told us to make a turn and head down under a railway into an even older neighborhood. Lee had to hit the brakes to keep from creaming a nasty-looking Chow dog that blundered stupidly in front of us. To the right was a street of small frame houses, each one with a tiny front yard. The indicated address was the only one with lights on. An MHI vehicle was parked in the driveway and another was in the street. We pulled in behind it and stepped out.
I heard deep barks coming from a dog in the fenced-in backyard. Other than that, this particular street seemed eerily dead. Trash and broken bottles were scattered in the other yards, and every single lawn was dead. There were a lot of smashed windows on this street. It looked like most of the surrounding houses were long since abandoned, leaving this one particular home isolated. It felt good to stretch my legs. There were a few random gunshots in the distance.
'Owen,' Julie cried as she stepped out of the other MHI vehicle. She ran over and engulfed me in a hug. The Hunters from Esmeralda's team piled out behind her. I kissed her forehead as she held me tight, almost like she was afraid to let go of me again. 'I'm glad you're okay.'
'No biggie,' I said modestly.
Mosh cleared his throat.
'Oh, Julie, this is-'
'David!' Julie said, letting go of me, and grabbing Mosh by the hand. She was almost as tall as he was. 'Oh, I've heard so much about you!'
Mosh looked surprised, first because of the use of his real name, and second because of how strong her handshake was. I'd had that reaction the first time I'd met her too. 'You must be Julie… You know, I've never dated a Julie,' Mosh smirked. 'But I did date Ms. July once and you are way prettier.'
Julie hesitated, not sure how to take that particular compliment. 'He actually did,' I explained with a sigh. My brother had dated centerfolds, supermodels, and famous actresses. Where I turned into a stammering moron around women, Mosh had always been smooth.
Mosh grinned. 'Z really talked you up.'
'I bet. He's a regular poet,' she said. 'I've wanted to meet his family forever. We've got so much to talk about, but first-' She jerked her head toward the house. 'Owen, Earl's waiting for you inside.'
'What is this place?' I asked.
'I don't know. He wouldn't say. He was adamant: just you, and.. ' Her pause indicated that the next part was going to suck. 'You need to leave your weapons out here.' She raised her hands defensively. 'Yes, yes, I know. He knew you'd freak out, but he said he didn't want to offend them.'
Them? 'Oh, what now?' I groaned. I hated being unarmed on principle, let alone after the week that I'd had, but I trusted Earl. I unslung Abomination. 'Fine…' It took me almost a minute to completely disarm.
Skippy joined us. He took one glance at the lit house, then shook his head sadly. 'Trouble,' he muttered before wandering off.
Under the orange streetlights, Mosh looked a bit apprehensive about being left with a bunch of heavily armed strangers. He grabbed me by the arm and leaned in close. 'Where are you going?'
'Just hang out, man. Besides, Julie can explain all this stuff way better than I can.'
'Yeah, about that, you said she was hot, but… damn.' He whistled. 'How the hell did someone like her go for someone like you?'
'My charming personality.' I shrugged his hand off. 'Now back off before I scissor-kick you in the neck. I'll be back in a minute. Just relax.'
A moment later I found myself at the waist-high chain-link gate in front of the house. There was a plastic sign with a cartoon pit bull printed on it — saying beware of dog. I lifted the latch, and walked up the path. Nothing came out to bite me. This yard was free of trash but the grass was just as brown and dead as the neighbors'. The streetlights were blocked by a few overgrown trees, and most of the yard was cloaked in shadow. There was one of those cheesy garden gnomes in the desiccated bushes of the flower bed but nothing else that gave a clue to the personality of the residents. Light was coming through the window but the blinds were drawn, so I couldn't see a
