'We still on?'
Harbinger held up the roll of bills. 'If you're gnome enough?'
'Hell yeah,' G-Nome answered as he caught the money.
The gnomes all cheered.
Julie asked what had happened when she saw me come out of the gnome house, battered and bruised. Unfortunately, Earl and I hadn't thought to come up with a cover story, and lying to Julie, especially after sustaining a minor brain injury, seemed like a really bad idea. So I told her it was a secret and that I would explain later. I don't think she liked that one bit, but was enough of a professional to understand that Earl and I had our reasons. On the bright side, I didn't really want to tell her about how I had gotten beaten up by a gang of garden decorations.
Mosh had been on the phone again, trying to explain how the tour bus had exploded to somebody else. Apparently, rampaging monsters was a bit beyond his PR firm's regular duties. I crawled into the back of the van and Gretchen began sewing up the back of my head to match the repair she had made on the front earlier. Ahh… symmetry. Earl signaled for us to roll out and our convoy started back to Cazador.
Julie and Mosh were in the same vehicle, and as I lay there, incoherent, a bone needle and thread being run through the fleshy part at the base of my skull, my fiancee tried to explain to my brother how he was currently a lot safer hanging out with us for a while. Obviously, safe was a relative word. After a few minutes their conversation was just background buzz.
It probably wasn't a good idea to take a nap after receiving a serious blow to the head, but I was exhausted, sore, and was asleep by the time we got on the freeway.
Chapter 9
Brilliant sunshine scalded my closed eyelids. I must have slept for hours.
Nope.
I was dreaming. My surroundings were a city park, but not one that I recognized. The trees were thick, brilliant green, and the grass was manicured to perfection. The air was clean and fresh. It was a huge city. Tall buildings rose above the leaves on all sides, but the skyline was unfamiliar. Children ran, laughing, playing, while a nearby street vendor peddled food that smelled really good. Everyone looked happy and the walkways were clean of grime and garbage.
Must be Canada.
I wandered down a stone path, not sure where I was going. In my dream state I noted that I was still dressed exactly the same as I had been when I was awake, complete with armor and weapons. None of the attractive locals seemed to notice. Everyone greeted me with a polite smile, guns and all, so that definitely ruled out Canada.
'Hello,' the Englishman said. He was seated on a wooden bench at the edge of a pond, looking as rough as the first time I had met him, lean frame hunched forward in a bulky gray hoodie, head and cheeks bristling with brown-gray stubble. He was a relatively average-looking man, the kind of guy where you would never guess that he had a demonic leach monster living inside of him. His cold eyes had that same deadly focus as when he had tried to kidnap me, only now he was holding a loaf of bread and tearing off pieces to chuck into the pond. A rioting crowd of ducks clustered there, fighting for crumbs. 'Have a seat, mate. We need to talk.'
'Uh, no,' I responded as I automatically pulled my. 45 from the holster. I raised it in one hand and cranked off four quick shots into the side of his head. The gun recoiled and noise blasted my eardrums but nothing struck him.
'Don't be like that. This is neutral ground,' he said, sounding unperturbed, still not looking at me, all his attention on the ducks. I stupidly lowered the STI as a bunch of kids ran past carrying balloons that had been twisted into various animal shapes. Not even the ducks had seemed to notice the sudden gunfire. He pulled off a big chunk of bread, crumpled it into a hard ball, and pitched it far out into the pond. The ducks swam after it, quacking angrily. 'You're safe here. You've parlayed before.'
I had spoken with Lord Machado in my dreams once, and that hadn't turned out particularly well. 'I'll stay over here, thanks.'
'Suit yourself, but we do have business to discuss, you and I. Circumstances have changed since we last met.'
'Met? You tried to eat my brain and murdered a bunch of innocent people.'
'My apologies. I'm working for the Dread Overlord itself. One can't hesitate when fulfilling the orders of something so epic and terrible that even saying its true name can cause insanity in mere mortals.'
'Well, you can take those orders and shove them up your Dread Overlord's ass, or whatever orifice crustaceans have.'
He ignored me. 'But that was before that meddling vampire exposed you to a shard of the sacred artifact. Events have been set into motion and I'm afraid it may be too late for us all.' The Englishman finally turned to face me. His eyes pierced through me with an unnerving cold. 'I need your help.'
I actually laughed out loud. His expression did not change. 'Wait
… you're serious? Hell no.'
'You think I'm evil, that I'm some sort of monster, don't you?'
'They teach deductive logic at Necromancer College?'
He shook his head. 'I'm no monster. I'm just like you.'
That ticked me off. 'You're nothing like me. I don't go around murdering innocents.'
'Yet,' he muttered, his voice hoarse, 'you murder every day to earn your living. Innocence is such an arbitrary thing to a Hunter. Where you see creatures of evil, I see wonders of the unnatural world, yet you destroy them out of fear and greed.'
'And I'm damn good at it. Get to the point.'
'Remember your search for Machado's Place of Power? You learned that they only existed at — certain junctures, certain specific places and times, and that they were oh so rare. Well, it isn't just places, mate. It's people as well. People like you and me. Destiny falls like a mantle on very few of us, and we're given the power to shape the world, whether we like it or not.'
Or as Mordechai would have said, I had drawn the short straw. I knew this part pretty well. 'Yeah, yeah, I'm the Chosen One. Whatever.'
'Yes, a Chosen, but not the One, rather one of many. We are the artists, and this reality is our canvas,' he began to pontificate, reminding me why he was the leader of a religious nut cult. 'We're brothers, pawns in a cosmic struggle, where only-' I lifted my gun, centered the front sight on his forehead and pulled the trigger. BOOM. Still no effect, but it was strangely satisfying. That seemed to annoy the Englishman. 'Oh, piss off then. I'll tell you why I'm here.'
'About damn time.'
'I'm not as simple as you might think. Yes, I do work for them but only because I was able to see the future. The greatest Old One will return, no matter what mankind does. It's inevitable.'
'Inevitable?' I was unable to accept that. 'We've beat him before. I stopped him last time. He'll try again in another five hundred years and somebody else will stop him then.'
'You think that's the only way? Do you honestly believe it's so easy? No. There are other plans, other ways back. And it's only a matter of time before he returns. I was exactly like you once. I learned about the Old Ones, and I thought that I could stand against them. I studied their ways, their power, originally with the noblest of intentions, only to discover it was futile. I could not stop them, so I joined them.'
'So you wanted to kiss up to the winning side? Noble,' I spat. 'Selling out humanity so you don't end up as dinner? I got the same offer from Machado, and my answer stays the same as last time. Go to hell.'
'Machado was a fool.' He went back to the bread and ducks. 'You can think that if you like, but I'm not ‘selling out' humanity. No, I'm the savior of humanity. If I can conquer this world and present it to them, then we will be spared from their full fury. Those are the conditions of my employment.' It was totally insane, but I could tell that he actually bought what he was shoveling. He was a true believer. 'If I fail, then eventually they will win, only they
