Herzog almost leapt out of her boots. "What the hell was that?"
I was terrified of werewolves myself because of personal experience, but I didn't let it show. "That there is why I want everyone inside. For an agent, you sure are jumpy."
The noise startled the stocky woman from her usual hard-core façade. "Screw that. I'm no field agent! I'm not used to this crap. Let's go." She took off, moving with the speed of somebody who figured they were about to be monster chow, stubby legs pumping.
Not a field agent? I frowned. That didn't make any sense. She'd been assigned to protect me. Myers had said they were some of his best men…handpicked. We were about a hundred feet from the front door and Hunters were piling out, throwing on weapons and gear in response to the alarm. I caught the short woman in a couple of steps, let Abomination hang by the sling, grabbed Herzog around her bicep, and spun her back to face me.
"Hey!" she shouted.
"Not a field agent? What are you?" I demanded.
She began to stammer something. I squeezed harder. "I'm a clerk!" she squealed. "Admin clerk. But…but I'm a fully sworn agent. I've been through MCB school. Let go."
"A clerk?" I released her arm.
Her face fell. "I was at the IRS and I came across some top-secret returns about PUFF. I did some poking around and that's how I found out about monsters. I've never actually seen one. Even the MCB needs somebody to shuffle paper, so they offered me a job and sent me through the academy." Harbinger howled again. He was fully transformed now and he sounded relatively close. "Please, let's get inside!"
"Why are you on a protective detail?" This didn't make any sense at all.
"I don't know. Agent Myers assigned me to Agent Franks' command for this mission." Her beady eyes darted around nervously. She was really freaked out.
"What about Torres and Archer?"
"Oh no, Anthony's a full-on pro. He's been on all sorts of missions. But Henry's more like me. He's a crypto-commo geek. That's what he did in the Army. But he's cool and he's actually been on a few missions with real monsters, but I don't know if he's actually ever killed any. Please, let's get out of here, before whatever that is comes and gets us."
She sure had been a lot tougher when she had been threatening me with a gun. "Go." I nodded toward the door. Something was fishy. Franks was a one-man wrecking crew, but the Goon Squad weren't the hardened killers that I had been led to believe they were. Torres had been by far the nicest of the bunch but he was the only one who had actually seen the elephant.
I would have to think about it later. A bunch of Hunters were fanned out, covering the entrance, weapons pointing outward in a rough semicircle of potential destruction. I had to remember that only the old-timers and the ones wearing Happy Face team patches knew about Earl's little secret. The alarm died off and two giant spotlights ignited on the roof, sweeping randomly across the perimeter.
It was a relief to see Julie come trotting out, brutal M14 in her lovely hands. "What's going on? Are you okay?" Herzog's stocky form pushed past Julie and retreated inside the relative safety of the fortress.
"I'm fine. Your parents are here."
"Damn them!" she shouted. Several other hunters jumped at that.
"And…" I raised Earl's empty jacket. She knew right away what had happened.
"Everybody inside now!" Julie ordered. "Move! Move! Where's Dorcas?"
Our receptionist was leaning in the doorway in a flowery, old-lady nightgown. Her hair was up in curlers. The reason she was leaning was because she hadn't had a chance to attach her artificial leg yet. It was tucked under one arm. A massive stainless-steel revolver hung loose in her hand. "Yep?"
"Once everybody's in, I want a full head count. We've got a Code Silver." She gestured at Earl's leather jacket.
"Aw shit. Not this again," Dorcas muttered. "Let's go, kiddies." She pushed off from the doorframe and hopped out of sight.
I stayed with Julie at the entrance until the last of the Newbies was roused from the barracks and herded inside. She glanced around, careful to make sure that there was nobody close enough to overhear us. "Why'd he do it? The full moon was a week ago. He didn't have to change."
"He did it on purpose. He was going after your folks," I whispered. "I think he was dead set on not letting them get away."
"That was stupid." Julie shook her head. She hadn't had a chance to tie her hair back, and it was so dark and shiny that it reflected the spotlights. "Well, at least he should have some judgment right now. The closer to the full moon, the more out of control it is. He shouldn't wander into town and eat anyone. Sometimes I'm really glad we're in the middle of nowhere."
"What about Skippy's village?"
"They know to get inside when they hear the alarm. Skip knows what to do and they've all got silver bullets. Earl goes in there and they'll shoot him. Nothing personal, that's just how it is, and Earl would understand. Their wargs will give them plenty of early warning. Let's get inside."
The two of us were the last ones in. We pulled the massive doors closed behind us and threw down the bar. There were a bunch of really confused, half-asleep, heavily-armed, almost-graduated Newbies wandering around the reception area. The Hunters experienced enough to know about Code Silver were busy getting everybody calmed down and oriented. Julie rested her head on my shoulder briefly so she could whisper, affording us a tiny bit of affection amid the chaos. "I hope he catches them…"
Wrapping my arms around her, I squeezed her tight. It would be really nice to have the curse of Susan and Ray removed once and for all. "Me too." Damn it, we had almost had a name. I had been right. The shadow man was somebody from MHI's past. If we knew who he was, we could find and destroy him, but that was assuming Susan was even telling the truth to begin with.
I let go of Julie so she could get back to damage control. Monster Hunters by their nature are not an easily riled bunch, but they were also intensely curious, and with Earl out running naked and hairy through the woods chasing vampires, that left Julie as the de facto head of operations. She needed to get everyone taken care of.
Dorcas had finished taking a quick roll and reported in. "Your grandfather's upstairs, has his hearing aids out, so slept through the alarm. Milo's in Cazador at his house. Everyone else who should be here is accounted for." She added the next bit with extra volume for anyone listening. "Oh, and Earl Harbinger is in Montgomery on business."
I noticed my folks standing near the wall of memorial plaques; they'd apparently been woken up by the alarm. Mosh was coming down the stairs. So I had some explaining to do myself. I started toward my parents and was almost there when a whisper filtered through my mind.
This message from Susan was weaker than the others. She was either further away, or hopefully busy getting her arms pulled off by an angry werewolf. It was a single word.
…Hood…
That sounded familiar. I paused, turning slowly. The wall of plaques stretched before me under the Latin Sic Transit Gloria Mundi. My hand automatically flew to the silver surfaces, passing quickly through them, each cool to the touch. I found the one I was looking for within seconds.
A. Martin Hood
1/14/1960-10/17/1986
Chapter 12
3:45 A.M. Back in the conference room, with the only people who I knew I could trust: Julie, Trip, Holly, and the absent Milo on the speaker phone.
"Do you remember this guy, Hood?" I asked. "Supposedly he died in '86."