Mosh stepped back, still huffy. He turned his attention to Holly for the first time. 'And who are you?'
She stuck out her hand. 'Holly Newcastle. Monster Hunter. I'm on your brother's team.'
It was almost as if I could see the mental shifting of gears. Mosh went from Angry Important Guy to Player mode. He took her hand, and wasn't very discreet as he checked her out. And Holly was a very attractive woman. 'Well, nice to meet you, Holly. I'm Mosh Pitt, international superstar.' He was such a cheese ball.
Oh, barf. I waited for Holly to throat-punch him.
She giggled. Tough as nails, killer of monsters, Holly Newcastle actually giggled. Like a… girl, or something. Trip and I looked at each other in confusion.
'You know, Mosh, I'm sure you've got a lot of questions that just haven't been answered. And your brother's been too busy to help you, so I can totally understand your frustration. I'd be glad to take the time to explain everything.'
He nodded. 'Yeah, there's been a lot going down. Maybe we could talk about this… over some lunch.'
Oh my gosh. Holly was flirting with my brother. 'Sure, that's a great idea. We're not exactly equipped for fine dining, but I could probably whip up a little something… Z, Trip, why don't you guys go talk to Earl. I'll catch up.' She took Mosh by the arm. 'Right this way.'
Mosh winked at me. 'Maybe this place doesn't totally suck.'
They left for the kitchen. The female Newbies looked offended and the orcs were fighting over who got to keep the guitar that Great War Chief had actually used.
'What just happened?' Trip asked.
'Hell if I know. Either Holly's covering for us, or she's actually attracted to goofy-ass, bald men, with lots of tattoos and really stupid pointy goatees… My money's on getting him out of the way for me. I owe her one.'
Trip folded his arms. 'Well… I don't like it.'
He actually sounded… jealous? Naw, that was absurd. 'Come on, man. We've got to take care of business.'
Earl leaned back in his chair and lit his fourth cigarette since I had begun my story. It was a good thing his tissues regenerated supernaturally or he surely would have died of lung cancer eons ago. He put his bare feet on the table and pondered on what I had said.
'I just can't believe it…' He shook his head. 'All these years…'
Trip and I had found Sam and Earl in the basement office outside of Earl's prison cell. This was the place in which he usually cleaned up and calmed down after a werewolf stint. It was more of a bunker than an office, with some thrift-store furniture, a shower, and a door that looked like it had come from a bank vault. I knew behind that vault door was an even plainer room, with a tiny drain hole in the middle, and hundreds of thousands of scratches etched into the concrete. Sam was sitting off to the side. 'All these years you've been beating yourself up about killing the little punk and it turns out he deserved it anyway.'
My asthma was tearing me apart. There weren't any windows in the basement, and the air was thick with secondhand smoke. 'Except it wasn't even him you killed.'
Sam leaned forward. 'So let me get this straight. Hood swapped bodies with some other dude, and it was that dude, in Hood's old body, getting mind controlled or something, that opened Earl's door?' I nodded. Sam paused to spit his chew in a Styrofoam cup. I was surrounded by nicotine addicts. 'Man, that's some messed-up shit, right there.'
Earl talked to the ceiling. 'Why didn't you tell me, Carlos? We could have figured this out together.'
'I'm sorry about your friend,' Trip said.
'He was like a brother,' my boss said simply. He lowered his head and faced us. I was glad that the anger in that look wasn't directed at me. 'Marty Hood… It sounds stupid, but the more I think about it, the more it fits. He was always into that stuff. Him and Ray were always poking around the archives. Trying to understand monsters. You don't understand them… you understand how they think enough to track them down and destroy them. There's a big difference.'
'So the necromancer was a Hunter. He knows our capabilities. Did Hood know about the compound's ward stone?'
'Ward what?' Sam asked. If Sam Haven didn't even know about the warding, then that meant very few Hunters did.
'Long story, Sam.' Earl shook his head. 'Hood shouldn't. I never told him. The last time we fiddled with it, he had already been moved to Carlos' team. We kind of take it for granted, don't really talk about it much.'
'So now what do we do?' I asked.
Earl appeared exhausted, with black circles under his eyes. He pulled a pair of socks out of the desk and started putting them on. 'Let me think on it. We'll talk again later. Right now, I've got to get presentable. I need to play referee while the team leads fight over who gets which Newbie.'
'I want the Haight brothers,' Sam said quickly. 'I need more shooters, and those boys are tough.' I knew which Newbies he was talking about right away. They were two brothers from Utah, whose construction crew had accidentally dug up the resting place of some evil spirit while laying a foundation. Both were rodeo tough guys and longtime varmint hunters; they had also been by far the best gunmen in this class.
'I can't give you both of them,' Earl said.
'Aw… come on, man. They made a bomb out of five hundred pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer on the spot and blew up a skinwalker. That's the kind of initiative I need!'
'You and everybody else, Sam. I give you both of them, and I'll have to listen to the others complain about favoritism.'
Sam smirked. 'Well, I am your favorite. Okay, if I can't have them, then I want that Torres kid.' Trip and I snickered. 'What? Something about him I don't know? He seems squared away.'
'He should be. He's one of Franks' men,' I replied. 'He's one of my protective detail.'
Sam scowled. 'Now you're just messing with me.'
'No, I'll explain later,' Earl said as he tied his boots. 'You can't have Archer or Herzog either. They're Feds too.'
'Well, Archer had struck me as a good support guy. Those anal-retentive OCD types usually are, all organized and shit. But Herzog…' He grimaced, 'I don't know why anybody would pick her. During the interview she went off about how a centralized government is the best way to hunt monsters. What a hag.'
That reminded me of something. 'She's not an operator. She's a clerk.'
Earl looked up. 'What?'
'She's not a Hunter at all. But she was assigned to this job by Myers himself. Herzog slipped up and admitted it because she was worried about you eating her. No offense.'
'She's not my type,' my boss responded dryly. 'That doesn't make any sense. Why would Myers send a desk jockey on a protection job?'
'Beats me,' I responded. 'But Myers picked those three to back up Franks for a reason. And I can't figure out why.'
Earl stood and threw on his ancient bomber jacket. 'I want to speak with Myers anyway. He needs to know his old buddy is our bad guy
… I'm sure Franks already reported in, but I can't wait to rub it in personally.' He smiled maliciously. 'Good old Myers wanted to kill me for that night, and when he didn't get his wish, he tried to ruin this whole company instead. He's screwed us every chance he's had, and it turns out that he was just as big a sucker as the rest of us.'
There was a knock at the door, and Julie entered, only to stagger back as she hit the wall of smoke. 'Oh wow, how can any of you guys breathe in here?'
'Man business,' Sam stated. I coughed painfully.
Earl poked himself in the chest. 'Regeneration. What's up?'
Julie saw me and grinned, forgetting Earl for a moment. 'You're back.' Her smile brightened my day. I'm such a sap. She got down to business. 'We need you upstairs. VanZant is arguing with Mayorga again about who gets the top support person. Hurley's adamant he wants both techs, and says he needs another Spanish speaker. Esmeralda's taken a bunch of folks out to the range because Eddings thinks she's fudged the shooters' scores. He says there's no way that she can be graduating this many Newbies and more probably should have flunked.'
My boss groaned. 'That's because last time he trained, we only passed six people and he can't admit she's a
