Monster Hunter Vendetta

The squid amulet's chain was shrinking. "The necklace! Get it off!" I shouted. Chad stumbled, fingers trying to get under the chain. I grabbed the cultist by the neck and tried in vain to grab it, but it slipped right through my fingers. He fell, eyes bulging out of his head, skin turning blue. He began to jerk as all the oxygen was cut off from his brain. The chain was slicing through the flesh of his neck like piano wire. "Damn it!"

It just kept tightening. The squid seemed to wilt and die. A few seconds later, the convulsing stopped. Chad's muscles tightened in one final spasm, then it was over.

I was on my knees next to the cultist, surrounded by Hunters and orcs. "What happened?" Sam Haven asked.

"Non-disclosure agreement from hell," I responded. Disappointed, Ed poked the cultist in the leg with his sword. No reaction. I knelt at his side, pulled my glove off, and felt for a pulse. He was dead.

Myers was rubbing his face in his hands. "He was about to talk."

"Apparently," I muttered. "You better warn your men before anybody else gets somebody to roll over." The senior Fed pulled out his radio. "Hood is in New something or other." I glanced over at Holly and Trip. They were looking to me for ideas, and I was fresh out. "Call headquarters. See if they-" A terrible pain tore up my arm and I shouted in surprise.

Chad's dead eyes were staring at me. His mouth was clamped onto my left hand. Blood was gushing past his teeth as he rent it from side to side. My blood.

"Aarrgh!" I jerked my hand away, tumbling to the ground. The zombie began to rise. Edward cleaved the top of his head off in a cloud of red and white.

"Z!" Holly screamed. I grabbed my hand. Blood drizzled down my arm. Trip tore my hand away and began dumping a bottle of water on the wound. There it was, clear as day, a serious bite mark.

Stupid, stupid, stupid."Oh man…"

"Skin's broken!" Trip shouted. "Gretchen! Help!"

Zombie bite. One hundred percent fatality rate.

The healer pushed her way through the crowd. I started to rise, but she pushed me down with shocking strength. I could see the reflection of the wound in her mirrored glasses.

Impossible. It can't be.

"Can we cut his arm off?" the Utah Hunter asked.

"Oh, hell," I whimpered. But it beat the alternative.

Edward stepped forward, sword in his hand. I cringed, knowing that with that two-foot razor blade I wouldn't even have to take my armor off. The orc warrior looked to Gretchen for wisdom. If she gave the go-ahead, there would be no hesitation.

Gretchen shook her head. Ed lowered the sword.

"Amputation doesn't work," Holly said, her voice flat. I knew that she had an eerie ability to fall into a state of utter calm when she was really freaked out. "Just causes blood loss that kills the subject faster. The contamination spreads instantly through the nervous system."

I was hovering between disbelief and panic. Such a stupid Newbie mistake…

Sam kicked the body. "Maybe it wasn't a zombie," he said hopefully. "I've never seen a zombie animate that fast after death."

There was laughter. It seemed strangely out of place. The crowd around me all turned toward the unnatural sound. The group parted enough that I could see. The cultist with no arms was sitting up. "Of course you haven't seen anything animate that fast, fools." The squid amulet on his chest was glowing. His eyes were open but rolled back sightless into his head. "You've never dealt with my art before. Well, well, well, now isn't this just a happy bonus."

Hood. Somehow he was channeling himself through the dying cultist. Multiple guns lifted to eliminate the new threat. "Hold your fire!" I screamed. The Hunters didn't shoot, but they didn't lower their weapons. "What do you want?"

"I warned you, Pitt. Now you're coming into my world, whether you like it or not. The plague is in your blood now, chap. Game over." The voice came from the cultist's mouth, but the lips didn't move.

I struggled to my feet. "Liar!"

"Your body will try to fight it at first. As we speak, your temperature is rising, trying to battle the infection. Within a second of introduction it began taking over, traveling down every nerve, every vein, artery, and fiber. Your very DNA will be torn apart. Once your brain tissue is overwhelmed, the transformation will be complete. Your heart will stop and the only thing that will matter then is finding your next raw-flesh meal…Welcome to the family." I stumbled toward the cultist. "Look at that, dead man walking." Hood laughed again.

"Marty?" It was Myers.

The lolling head turned vaguely in the direction of the Fed. "Hello, Dwayne."

"No, it can't be," Myers sputtered. "What are you doing?"

"Fulfilling my destiny. You were my best mate once and one of the few who truly mourned me. I appreciate that. I always will. But you're in my way now, so you'll step aside if you know what's good for you." The cultist's head flopped forward, chin against his chest. "Nothing personal."

Hood wasn't here just to gloat. "What do you want?" I asked.

The body jerked, throwing the head back hard on the neck, rolling around on the shoulders. "Perceptive. I've won, but now the question is, to what degree will be my victory? Killing you, especially in such a horrid way, fulfills the letter of my orders, but I want to also fulfill the spirit. I have a covenant to live up to, and I don't make promises lightly. Come to me, Pitt. That way I can turn you over to the Great One itself. In exchange, I'll return your brother."

"How do I know he's still alive? I don't even know you've got him for sure."

The blood-soaked mud before the cultists ignited in a small flame. The flame traveled in a circle, like an old-fashioned dynamite string. The flame reached its starting point, forming a tiny circle. There was a pop and a splash in the mud. The flames flickered and died in the breeze. There were several small objects resting in the puddle.

Fingers.

"I'm sure Dwayne can print those for you if you like, but trust me, they belong to your brother. And he certainly won't be playing the guitar ever again. I never liked that kind of music; too-oh, what's the word I'm looking for?-Brash? Offensive? I prefer the classics…Your call, Pitt. Die alone, hiding in your compound, or die for something useful. Give your life in one final act of mercy to free your brother and slake the thirst of my impatient god."

My pulse thundered in my ear. My face was flushed with heat. "Where?" I hissed.

"Return to this place in exactly one hour. It will take that long to prepare a portal large enough. Do not attempt any trickery. Only one person will be able to pass through the portal. Don't bother sending through a bomb-I'll see it coming and not open the gate on my side. Personally, I won't be close enough to the portal for it to matter anyway. I'll only open the portal for you. And as punishment I'll send your brother to the other side for the amusement of the Dread Overlord in your place. Do you agree to my terms?"

I was going to die. Mosh didn't have to.

"See you soon," I answered.

The cultist dropped limply to the ground as Hood's consciousness left him. Just to be on the safe side, several Hunters shot the body in the head.

It was quiet for a long moment as everyone in the clearing stared at me. It was just starting to sink in. I'd been bitten by a zombie.

"You can't do this," Sam said. "It's suicide."

Agent Archer joined us, pushing rudely past the orcs. He had a device similar to the blood sugar testers diabetics used in hand. "Hold still," he said as he pushed the needle against my neck. It made a hissing noise at it stabbed me. He pulled it away and studied the little screen, biting his lip. The whole group was totally silent, watching Archer and his little box for about thirty painful seconds. My stomach hurt from the fear. All I could hear was my breathing. A little red light began to flash on the tester. I lowered my head as the group began to murmur.

I'm dead.

Strangely, I was calm, staring at the mud. "No such thing as suicide if you're already dead, Sam. How long do I got?" I asked. The Hunters exchanged glances. "How long?" I shouted.

"Calm down, Z. Maybe it was…something else." Trip said. "Maybe it's wrong."

Archer cut in. "It's not a lycanthropy test. The zombie infection tester is always accurate."

My mouth was totally dry. I was so terrified it hurt to talk. "How long?"

Myers spoke up. "The longest a healthy person has ever lasted after being bitten was five hours. Most are done in under two depending on the severity of the…well, you know…" He wouldn't look me in the eye. He studied his shoes. "Sorry."

The old Hunter, Cody, carefully picked the fingers out of the mud. He also pulled up a short piece of rope. It had to be related to how the Condition's teleportation magic worked. "Maybe we can use this somehow?" I had no idea how, but he carefully stowed the rope too.

It was settled. "I'm going after my brother. Can you put a tracking device on me?" I suggested. Maybe my sacrifice didn't have to be in vain.

Myers pointed at my armor and then at my shotgun. "Already done. That's why we gave your gear back to you in Mexico."

I should have known. Any act of kindness from them had ulterior motives. "Well…hell…"

My friends were scared. They all knew that I was doomed. Nobody knew what to say.

"Let's get back to base. I've got an hour. I'm not going out without a fight."

Time was running out.

MHI had taken a beating. Several Newbies had died during the attack, as well as one team lead, Williams, out of Kansas City. We had six others with serious injuries and over a dozen with various degrees of damage. The injured had been evacuated to the hospital in Montgomery. We were also missing our most experienced Hunter, since Earl was down with a demon trying to devour his mind. A group of us had gathered in the conference room to come up with ideas. Frankly, I didn't have any. More Hunters arrived every second. Word had spread quickly.

I hadn't even had a chance to explain to Julie what had happened, but by the time I had gotten back to the compound, somebody had already informed her of the zombie bite. She hadn't left my side since. It was a good thing that we were so preoccupied, because I honestly had no idea what to say. Sorry, honey, gonna die soon. Gotta go take care of some business. Sorry you're cursed by evil.

Instead I was standing at the front of the room while Milo used black electrical tape to tie row after row of green glow sticks to my armor.

"Telekinesis keeps taking out flashlights, but if he pops one of these, it just covers you in more diphenyl oxalate and hydrogen peroxide," Milo explained.

"Glowing crap," I said.

"Yes, glowing crap. Remember, you'll need to crack and shake when you need them."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"Roll around or something."

"You look ridiculous," Sam said.

"Got a better idea?" I snapped. Knowing that you're counting down toward certain death makes you tense.

"Three hundred pounds of C4 shaped into a giant Owen doll," he muttered.

"Hood won't go for that. Nothing big or elaborate. We've already shot him, burned him, and blown him up. Even if he sees I'm armed, he's cocky. He'll think he can take me, so he'll let me in. Then maybe I can figure out a way to kill him." It was stupid, but it was the best that I had, and going quietly wasn't my style.

Holly had cleaned the bite, applied a bandage and wrapped my hand. It was an utterly useless gesture. What was I going to do, get an infection?

"Has anybody ever lived through a zombie bite?" asked Trip.

"Never…" Julie said. "I've never…never heard…" Her voice broke badly. "Sorry."

I reached over and squeezed her hand. I only had to be strong for an hour. She had to be strong the rest of her life. I was trying to not show it, but I was already feeling the effects of the bite. My stomach ached and my head hurt. My eyes grated in their sockets as they moved. It was like I was coming down with a bad flu.

The small length of rope was lying on the table. I had no idea where the fingers had ended up. On the bridge at Buzzard Island, Bia had thrown a bigger piece of rope on the ground, and it had turned into some sort of portal. That piece had also apparently led back to the shadow man's lair. Esmeralda was studying the cord intently.

"Do you really think we can figure out how to activate that thing?" I asked.

"Maybe," she replied. "I've heard of these things before. I read about them somewhere in the archives a long time ago. Where's Lee, already?"

"I'm coming," he shouted from the hallway. Our librarian hobbled in a moment later. He dropped a heavy book and a bunch of half-burned papers on the table, so preoccupied that it was as if he didn't even notice the rest of us. "I've got it. I cross-referenced it under dimensional gates." He opened it with a thump. "It works on the same principle, like a portable version of the door in DeSoya Caverns."

"That's awesome," Sam responded. "Can we turn it on and dump a strike force in the bad guy's lap or not?"

Esmeralda held up the rope and touched the ends together. It only made a tiny circle. "You got a team of attack leprechauns around here I don't know about?"

Sam punched the wall. He wasn't taking this very well. I was still strangely calm. Julie's little brother entered the room. He paused long enough to nod at me, but then looked away uncomfortably. It was like being a guest at your own funeral. A lot of people were struggling right now.

"The damaged papers are what's left of Ray Shackleford's notes that got burned during the Christmas party. There were things in there about portals. And this old book has a section on them too." Lee began flipping pages. "I'm trying to figure out if we can tweak this one, make it bigger or something, or even if we can turn it on, but this book was written hundreds of years ago. It's not exactly easy to understand, and I'm having to use a computer translator, unless any of you guys speak Renaissance German."

Milo looked over. "At least that one's got pictures…"

There were other pictures before Lee got to the magic rope section and one of them looked familiar. "Lee, stop. Go back a few pages…There. Milo, check that out."

Milo looked up from his glow sticks as he bit the end off the tape roll. "Hmmm…that's kind of like our ward stone."

Lee looked at it, puzzled. "That's what that is?"

Of course, he had never seen it. "Yeah, that's it. What book is that?"

Lee flipped it over. "If I'm reading this right, Principles of Alchemical Artifacts and Unnatural Philosophy. It has stuff about teleportation, animating corpses, alternate dimensions, immortality potions, that kind of thing…It was written by somebody named Konrad Dippel."

That name rang a bell.

Julie might have been in a state of shock, but she was also our best historian. "He was an alchemist, one of the really talented ones, a peer of Isaac Newton. It's possible that he would know how to make this teleportation thing work, if we could just decipher his notes."

"That's just awesome trivia, but it doesn't help us save Earl," Sam spat. "Sorry, Z, I appreciate what you're doing. Futile noble gesture, man, but I can't stomach letting you do this on your own."

"I know, Sam. If we're lucky the Feds' tracking device will work and you can come avenge me." I grimaced. I had to hang in there; everybody here needed me to stay tough. I couldn't break down yet. "Wait a second." I raised one hand. That disturbed Milo, who was busy shoving road flares in every pouch on my back. "Why's that name familiar? Dippel?"

Julie thought about it for a moment. "Well…Dippel's experiments on cadavers were carried out at the castle with the same name as the doctor in the book. A lot of people think he's the man who inspired Mary Shelley."

"Who?" asked Holly.

"The woman who wrote Frankenstein," Trip answered.

It clicked.

"Get Agent Franks."

We located Franks at the hangar where the Fed choppers were currently parked. The MCB had taken over the building and turned it into their command post. This pissed off a lot of Hunters, but the Feds played by their own rules and we were in no shape to argue. The main doors were open and I barged directly past the guards there. One of them moved to stop me.

"I need to see Agent Franks."

He automatically looked back into the open space. A twenty-foot-wide white tent had been put just inside the hangar door. There were figures moving around on the other side of the thin fabric. "I'll have to check."

A voice came through the fabric. "Let them in." Myers appeared around the corner of the tent. "How are you feeling?" he asked awkwardly. Knowing that I was ready to kick the bucket any minute had at least made him slightly humble.

"Oh, I'm just peachy. Thanks for asking." The dead automatons had been stacked neatly on the hangar floor in rows. Multiple agents were ripping them apart, looking for clues. "Where's Franks?"

Myers studied me for a moment. "He said you knew…" Then he glanced at the half-dozen or so Hunters standing behind me. "They wait here." Julie stepped up to my side. She didn't need to say a word as she gave Myers a look of utter coldness. He nodded once, understanding that she wasn't ready to leave me yet. "Fine, but what you're about to see is classified way beyond top secret. You have to take this to the grave with you."

"At least that won't take me long!" I exclaimed sarcastically. Julie visibly flinched. It made me feel guilty.

We followed Myers into the hospital tent. Several gowned and masked individuals were clustered over an operating table. Around them were beeping machines and a cart with various clean red organs stacked on it. The medical team parted as I approached. Franks was on the table. Myers had to look away.

The big man was a mess. His chest was cracked wide, held open with some sort of stainless steel device. A doctor stepped back, holding what appeared to be a damaged lung. Shockingly enough, Franks was awake and propped up on pillows. The fact that I could see his internal organs didn't seem to bug him any.

He slowly turned, eyes lingering on the bandage encircling my left hand. "Looks like I failed."

"Yeah, you did," I responded. "But let's make it count for something."

Franks dipped his head slightly. That was probably the closest thing he'd ever made to an apology.

"I need someone to help Lee and Esmeralda figure out how to reactivate Hood's teleportation device. We have a book that talks about that kind of device, written by somebody named Dippel. I have a feeling that you know something about his work."

The big man closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, I could see that they were still different colors, the blue one probably donated by some poor sucker from the concert. "Know his work? I am his work." Franks then addressed the doctor. "Wrap it up."

"But, sir, you still need another kidney, and you've also sustained damage to several major muscle groups. We need more time."

Franks looked at my hand again. He knew we were out of time. "Start stapling." The medical team complied immediately. Before they folded his chest closed, I noted that his physiology diverged wildly from anything I had ever seen in a biology textbook. There appeared to be extra organs and his ribcage was more of a hardened plate with flexible bits than separate bones. It was seriously weird. Franks caught me staring. "The taxpayers paid for some upgrades."

"So that's what you are…" Julie said. "You're Frankenstein's Monster."

"More than that," Franks snorted. "I hate that book. I'm no whiner."

I glanced at my watch. I had about forty minutes before I had to be back to the village. "Do you know anything about the magic teleportation rope?"

"No. But I understand his writings. Had to figure them out to stay alive. Good alchemist…Terrible father."

"It looks like he might have been the guy who built our ward stone too."

"Hmmm…" Franks frowned. That had thrown him off. "I didn't recognize it. I remember all the doctor's codes…Even the offensive ones." His thick brow furrowed in thought as the medical team literally screwed his chest together with terrible cracking noises. My already-nauseous stomach threatened to empty. "Sir, I have an idea."

Myers looked up from his corner. He was holding a handkerchief over his mouth. "You can't be serious."

"What are you thinking?" Julie asked. "Is there a magical way to save Owen?"

Franks' face was impassive as he squashed Julie's hope. "Nothing I know can help Pitt."

"I know what you're getting at…" Myers stepped forward, surprised. "The wards were manufactured as focal points of reality, deadly to other dimensional creatures. Isaac Newton and the alchemists created them to protect mankind from the Old Ones and…" He trailed off. "Are you saying what I think you're saying, Agent?"

"A ward is a shield and a sword," Franks said simply.

Whatever he was suggesting rocked Myers, the man who had once ordered a nuclear bomb dropped on Alabama. "That could disband all cohesion!"

"Exactly," Franks responded. Whatever the hell that meant. Slowly he raised one big hand and held it out to me. "I can avenge you."

I shook his hand. He was unbelievably strong. "Kill them all."

Less than thirty minutes left.

Franks, Lee, and Esmeralda were working on the magic rope. MHI and the Feds were surrounding the village just in case. I had just enough time to make a few final preparations. I was strapping on every weapon in my arsenal when Milo lifted one final item from the table.

"This one is exactly like the one we used earlier when I fried Hood's butt," he explained as he pushed the sack into my hands. "You know those nasty little things kids use on the Fourth of July, the little hockey pucks that flash like a strobe light and hurt your eyes? Think of this as one of those on steroids from hell, only angrier. Don't look at it directly, or you will go blind. Well, it is pretty close to what we used earlier, so there should be about a twenty-second flash, but I was kind of surprised that one was actually a controlled burn and didn't just explode and roast us."

That made me feel particularly safe as I put the satchel over my armor.

Milo paused awkwardly. Then he hugged me. He patted me on the back a few times before breaking away. He looked like he was going to cry. "I'll go get the rest of your gear."

"Yeah, thanks, man."

Julie and I walked into the hall. My mind was reeling. This was the end.

"You okay?" I asked. It was an idiotic question.

"Of course not," she answered. "But it is what it is."

We stood there for a few seconds, huddled together in silence, which is an eternity when your remaining life is measured in minutes. But we were Monster Hunters. It wasn't like either of us hadn't ever thought about this before. I had always figured it would have been sudden though, with no time for long good-byes. This was much harder.

"There's something I have to tell you," I said softly. "In Mexico, when I talked to your mother, she warned me about the mark on your neck." Julie stiffened against me. "She said that it was going to kill you eventually. I didn't say anything because I was scared and I thought that she was just lying to us again…But with what happened last night…" I couldn't help but think about the three new marks. There was something terribly wrong, and I wasn't going to be around to help her through it.

Julie gave me a pathetic smile. "You've got other stuff to worry about right now, Owen. I'll take care of it."

I knew she would. Julie was strong, far stronger than me. No matter what happened, she would always find a way. That was just her nature. The year that I had known her had been the best year of my life, and I had somehow believed that it would go on like that forever. I held her tight as my heart ached.

Unable to contain it any longer, Julie began to sob. "I'd trade with you if I could."

"I know…"

In a little while, I would be dead and she would be alone, but I knew that she would survive. She would get on with her life without me, and someday, she would be happy again.

And knowing that gave me the strength to go on.

It was time.

Hunters were standing in a line down the hallway to see me off. Everyone was somber. Julie's grandfather saluted me with his hook. "Good luck, Hunter." I paused in front of the memorial wall. I was going to have a plaque up there soon.

Shit. I didn't want to die. I wasn't ready to have a plaque yet. This wasn’t air. I tried to think of something memorable to say, but didn't have the words. "Thanks, everybody. I'll try not to let you down." It was stupid, but it would have to do.

My mom came out of nowhere and intercepted me. She almost took me down in a tackle. She was totally hysterical, and her accent was extra thick when she was this freaked out. "What are you doing?" She pointed at my shotgun. "Where are you going with your Abominator?"

"Abomination," I corrected her. "Never mind. Look, Mom, I've got to go after Mosh. It's me for him."

"They told me you're dying, that something poison bit you. Why can't we go to the hospital?"

"It doesn't work like that, Mom. I have to do this."

She wouldn't let go of my arm. "No! Owen, please." Hysterical tears streamed down her cheeks. "No, son, please, no."

I wasn't tough enough to do this. I grabbed my mom by the shoulders. "Listen. I'm doing what I have to do. If I had any other option, I would be doing that instead. I'm already dead, but Mosh isn't. I'm going to get him back."

Then Dad was there. He took Mom in his arms and guided her away. He studied me while Mom screamed and thumped her fists into his chest.

"I'm sorry, Dad," I said.

"Don't worry. It isn't your time yet."

He was delusional because of that stupid letter. But at least he was calm while he kept Mom restrained. "I love you, Dad. I love you, Mom."

"We'll talk about it when you get back. Bring your brother home."

"I will," I promised. I just wouldn't be with him.

There was a grumbling noise off to the side. Gretchen was standing there, a tiny black shape squished between the hulking Hunters. Her totem stick was in hand, dangling feathers, beads, and small animal skulls. I had no idea why she wasn't with her people in their time of need. She spoke directly to Julie. It must have been something too complicated for Gretchen's poor English.

"Gretchen says we're part of the clan too…" Julie seemed puzzled, trying to keep up with the rapid-fire Orcish. She actually gave a very sad little smile. "Thank you, honey. That's really sweet."

"What's she saying?" I asked.

Gretchen switched to English. "Marry." She shook her totem stick. "Marry. Sad to die…alone." She reached into her burkha and pulled out a sheet of paper. She unfolded it. The notarized letter bore the state seal and declared that Gretchen F. Skippywife was an ordained minister in the state of Alabama.

"She's offering her services as a priestess of Gnrlwz," Julie nearly choked trying to say it correctly, "the orc god of war, to perform a wedding before you go." It took me a moment to digest. It was so absurd, so sudden, that despite everything else, all the fear, anticipation, and dread, I actually laughed. Julie started to giggle along with me. "You want to?"

It was just the kind of thing that Monster Hunters would do. Even when death was staring us right in the face, we'd still give him the finger. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."

Julie shrugged. "Well, this isn't how I imagined it at all…Do your thing, Gretchen. Grandpa, would you do the honors of giving me away?"

The old man stepped up, proud of his granddaughter. "Of course. And I was worried I'd have to wear a tux for this…"

The Hunters gathered around us in a circle, seemingly just as surprised as I was. Gretchen hissed and the crowd fell silent. Trip stood just behind me and off to the side, appointing himself as my best man. Holly, apparently, was Julie's maid of honor, only instead of flowers, she had a.308 Vepr carbine.

Ironically, this was the spot where we'd shared our first kiss, right under a Latin phrase warning about the dangers of fleeting glory.

Gretchen had us get on our knees in front of the wall of memorial plaques. I took Julie's hand. This wasn't how I'd expected it either. My mom started to cry even harder and my dad put his big arm over her shoulder. Gretchen tapped us both on the forehead with her stick as she started grumbling something memorized and incomprehensible. She kept it brief. Orcs weren't big on ceremony.

I glanced over at Julie, she looked back at me, eyes shining bright. I loved her. And that one split second was exactly how I'd imagined it, and that made everything okay.

Gretchen thumped me on the forehead with the stick. "Grok?"

"I do."

Gretchen thumped Julie. "Grok?"

She looked into my eyes. "I do."

Gretchen raised her stick high overhead and screamed her devotion to the god of war. It was actually almost musical. She slammed the tip of the short staff hard into the floor, the impact resonating through the entire hall. I think that was when she pronounced us man and wife. She took the stick, pointed it at my nose, and gave me an order. I didn't understand a word that she was saying.

"She says that it is orcish tradition that the more you love your wife, the bigger the thing you need to kill for her as a wedding night offering," Julie translated. "She says Skippy killed a seventy-foot lindwyrm for her." Gretchen said more and Julie giggled again. "So she bore him many sons."

And just like that, I was a married man. I couldn't kiss the bride, because I was infected by a zombie, but other than that, it was actually a pretty happy moment. One of the Hunters even thought to take a picture.

Somebody started clapping. The two of us made our way through the cheering crowd. Dorcas was at her desk. I had never seen her cry before. She blew her nose with a sound like a trumpet. "Congratulations, I guess. See you 'round, Z." I got outside before anyone could see me completely break down. A mess of other Hunters were going to follow us to the village to provide backup. There was a car waiting.

Trip and Holly were riding with us, of course. I held the door open for my new wife. Trip reached over and thumped me on the arm. Holly gently rested her hand on my shoulder. Trip put the car in gear and we headed for the village. "It's been an adventure, guys," I told my best friends.

"It isn't over 'til the fat lady sings," Holly stated.

"Why all the tears then?" I asked.

"I always cry at weddings."

I stood in the spot where the last teleportation effect had taken place and checked my watch. Hood better not be late. I wasn't feeling very well. My head had started throbbing in the car and wouldn't stop. Cold sweat was leaking from every pore.

The orc village was deserted. The tribe had retreated to the relative safety of the compound. A dozen Hunters had formed a perimeter around the village and were just waiting. MCB agents had massed in force at the entrance.

My friends didn't want to let go of me. Trip had started to babble. "Dude, we'll be praying for you. I know that you're going to come back. It might take a miracle, but it's not like we haven't seen miracles before. God's on our side, man."

Holly was tougher. "Be strong, Z."

I stumbled away. Saying my farewells to the Amazing Newbie Squad of Yesteryear had been particularly painful. Trip was hurting. Holly was too, but she kept it bottled up behind a stoic mask. I noticed Trip starting to shudder, and Holly took his hand as they walked away.

Now it was just me and Julie.

"No matter what happens," she said. "I'll always love you."

"You were the best thing that's ever happened to me, you know that, right?"

"Yeah, I know." She tried to smile, but failed. "I can't…I don't know what to…"

"It's okay," I assured her. I stroked her face. My hand was trembling.

The earth shuddered. A few feet away, flames erupted from two points in the dirt, quickly burning outward, forming a circle just big enough for me to stand in. The ground inside seemed to disappear into darkness.

This was it.

"I love you." I couldn't even kiss her good-bye.

I broke away from Julie and stepped into the circle. It was the hardest thing I've ever done.

Chapter 19

Now I was alone.

I fell immediately as I entered the portal. It was as if the world just vanished, leaving me in a violent freefall. I hit the ground on my side, cracking a bunch of glow sticks. I lay there disoriented for a few seconds. Gravity seemed to be coming from a different direction, and it took me a dizzy moment to orient myself.

The circle I had stepped through was there, but instead of being above me like it felt it should be, it was off to the left. A beam of sunlight came through the hole, like a window into a pitch-black room. Wherever I was, it was nighttime, and we were outside. There were stars in the sky, and I was no astronomer, but I could tell I was nowhere near Alabama. I lumbered to my feet. "Hood! I'm here. Let Mosh go!"

"You're armed I see. I expected no less from someone so stubborn, but at least I am a man of my word." The voice of the shadow man came from all around me. "Free the brother."

Lights ignited atop several tall lampposts. I was on an asphalt path through an old cemetery. The mausoleums were gray and crumbling. Every path was surrounded by ornate wrought-iron fences, speckled with rust. Mosh was there, and directly behind him were two hooded acolytes. My brother was shaking, held up by the cultists. His left hand had been wrapped in a towel, but he'd already bled through it. The acolytes pushed Mosh toward the hole.

"Dude? What's going on?" he cried. He looked terrible, pale from blood loss.

Relief flooded through me. At least he was still alive. "I'm trading myself for you. Go through the portal."

"I can't leave you, man. These guys are nuts. They cut my fingers off! They're going to kill you."

"I can take care of it. Go."

One of the cultists shoved Mosh. He tumbled forward and simply disappeared when he hit the hole. It closed behind him, taking the sunlight with it.

That left just me and the crazies. Monster Hunter Solo.

"Come with us, please," one of the cultists said nervously, glancing at my shotgun. "The High Priest awaits." There was a large building at the end of the path. It looked like a really cozy house, but somehow it had an industrial feel at the same time. I scanned in every direction. There were no other lights anywhere near us. Hood was nowhere to be seen. If I made a run for it, I'd die from the bite before I made it very far.

"Does he await over there?" I nodded my head toward the building.

"Yes, please allow us to escort you."

"Naw, I think I can get there myself." I flicked off Abomination's safety as I raised the stubby weapon. BOOM. I blasted a round of buckshot into the chest of the first cultist, then jerked the muzzle onto the next one. BOOM. Both of them went down like the sacks of crap that they were.

"It's on now, Hood!" I shouted as I stepped over the bodies and walked toward the building. I was missing my honeymoon for this.

The lights all died at once. His voice came from the air itself. "Of course. I'm impressed that you're still able to walk. Usually by now the bitten is nearly comatose. I can see it though. The fever is burning you up. Your muscles are weakening. You're bleeding internally. It won't be long now."

I'd managed to smash most of the glow sticks by the time I reached the manicured front lawn. I activated the brilliant flashlight attached to my shotgun's rail and swept it over the front of the building. There was a sign: mortuary.

"Oh, that just figures," I muttered, clambering up the steps.

"Yes, I own twenty of these around the world, as well as several dedicated crematoriums and livestock-rendering factories. It gives me plenty of raw materials. Art supplies, if you will."

The double doors at the entrance were beautifully carved wood and stained glass. I smashed them open with my boot. I moved through, my shotgun light pulsing. I checked to see if the flashlight was malfunctioning, but I realized it was because of how badly my limbs were shaking. It was a nice waiting room. Large displays of flowers were set in vases under the stained glass windows. Nothing moved in here. My illuminated green reflection bounced back from the glass.

His voice came from just ahead of me. "Nice glow sticks. Are you going to a rave?"

The chapel was one of those bland, nondenominational types, but with one obviously recent addition. The flashlight beam illuminated a giant-golden-squid idol tied to the wall. I swept the light back and forth. The room was huge and there were deep shadows everywhere. The tremors in my legs were making it difficult to move quickly. I had to pause and lean against a pew to catch my breath. Something hot and wet dripped down my face. I wiped it away, then studied my glove under the glow sticks. My nose had started bleeding.

"Show yourself!" I screamed.

"Certainly," the response came from directly behind me.

I turned, whipping Abomination around. There was nothing there.

"Why must we fight, Owen? Why do you rage against your destiny?"

"Face me," I hissed. "Let's finish this like men!" A finger tapped me on the shoulder. I spun and blasted a round of buckshot through a stained glass window. A curtain moved and I shot it too. "Damn it!" There was movement overhead, a massive shadow slinking across the ceiling.

I raised my gun as it dropped. The light caused the shape to shrink. Jerking the trigger, I managed to pump several rounds upward before impact. It slammed me into the carpet. I kept firing. The shape rose. My flashlight beam cut a path through the shadow, leaving nothing but a man in a robe. I shot Hood repeatedly in the chest, silver buckshot tearing right through him. I kept on shooting even as my flashlight exploded.

He disappeared into the darkness.

Now all I had was the pale green glow coming from my armor. I dropped Abomination into its sling. "You killed me, Hood. I'm going to return the favor!" I reached for the pouch on my back and pulled out a pair of road flares. They ignited with a hiss of flame and sparks. "I'm gonna burn this motherfucker down!" I laughed maniacally as I tossed the flares to the far end of the room and reached back for more. Once I had thrown a flare into each corner I drew another magazine from my chest rig and reloaded my shotgun. One of the curtains was on fire and the carpet had caught at the far end. Now that was more like it. Flames licked up the wall, casting flickering light across the chapel. I glanced back and forth, searching for my target.

"Monster Hunters are always hell on the furniture," he whispered in my ear. I turned, too slow, and he blocked my shotgun. Hood's sneering face was inches from my own. He head-butted me. Stars exploded in my vision. Then he hit me, once, twice, fists colliding with my face, robes snapping around his arms, and finished it off by kicking me brutally hard in the stomach. I collided with a pew, flipped over it, and landed on my back.

Gasping for air, I started to crawl. I was so weak. Water began to fall from the ceiling. Fire sprinklers. I coughed uncontrollably. My body was tearing itself apart.

"You have any idea what this'll do to my insurance?" He leapt onto the top of the pew I had gone over, and crouched there, watching, enjoying my plight. The light from the flares was dying, extinguished by the sprinklers. As the light dimmed, Hood seemed to blur and grow. I flipped Abomination to full auto and emptied an entire magazine through his body. He leapt from the pew, splinters flying in every direction, and vanished back into the shadows. I rolled onto my stomach and clawed my way across the carpet beneath the other pews. It wasn't like I could hide. I glowed in the dark.

"I defeated Earl Harbinger and Agent Franks simultaneously. What exactly do you think you’re going to accomplish? Part of me exists in a dimension beyond your understanding. You couldn't stop me in broad daylight on your best day, let alone half-dead and in the dark."

I found an open space between rows and rolled into it, whacking my head in the process. I reached for the satchel with Milo's super flash-bang. I could barely feel my hands and they blundered about clumsily like they were asleep.

"You still haven't wrapped your brain around what's really going on! Come on, Owen, don't disappoint me like this."

It hurt to move, but I raised my head and looked. I could make out Hood, in human form, leaning against the far wall, arms folded. "Okay, then why don't you educate me, asshole. What's your master plan, besides feed me to your stupid god?"

"That's the spirit." He chuckled. "As you learned last year, it's a real chore for an Old One to enter our world. They exist in a reality different from our own. The rules of our existence are fatal to them. The few trapped here are dead yet dreaming. Their spawn can only exist inside a body created in this world or as disembodied spirits. The Elder Things are far too great to lower themselves in that way. For them to exist in this plane they must first bend our reality to match their own."

"Yeah, I know, and they need somebody like me to do that for them." I had to keep blinking. I didn't know if it was because of the sprinklers, or if my eyes had started bleeding. No time to worry about it. I had to focus. When I set this thing off, I would only have a few seconds to take him out.

"Very good. You're a very special man. Preordained before your birth to wield the key to the planes, the Avatar of Chaos himself, blessed with powers beyond that of any mortal man."

"Blah, blah, blah," I gasped. "Get to the point. I ain't got all day."

"That's your gift, your curse. Lord Machado was the last, but he was too weak. But then you were too strong. You have no idea how jealous I am of you." He pushed away from the wall and walked casually down the aisle toward me. "If only I had been born with your blessings…If only you knew…But I do go on, and your time is so very short. To achieve my life's work, I needed something to appease the Dread Overlord. Sacrificing you will suffice, and I needed the means to control his gift, which in a way, your side has also provided me." He snapped his fingers. "Torres, my son, would you bring in our guest, please?"

There was the sound of doors opening. I jerked around toward the front of the chapel. It had opened into a viewing area. Fifteen feet away, half a dozen robed acolytes stood beside an ornate coffin.

"Anthony…" I hissed, raising my shotgun, my feverish mind forgetting that it was empty. The former Fed dipped his head at me. There was a hint of madness in his eyes. They opened the casket's lid, revealing the occupant. Falling water beat a cadence onto the silk.

Julie?

My laboring heart skipped a beat.

No. It wasn't her. The figure was perfectly still, hands folded peacefully across her chest, just below where someone had driven a wooden stake through her heart.

Susan…

"Susan Shackleford stole the artifact. She took it from DeSoya Caverns after you so carelessly discarded it. She kept it, like a common thief, stupidly thinking that she could learn to use it for herself. It was mine. I earned it. I was the one who should have inherited the key after Machado failed. Who was this stupid vampire to think that she could take my honor? She'd made herself unbelievably strong by feeding on unholy monsters of every kind, stealing their precious lives, their energy. The ghastly hag. I offered her an alliance, but that wasn't good enough. No! Susan dared think that she could take over the Condition, the church that I built with my own hands, the flock that I'd tended! She thought she deserved my glory!" Hood's voice was bitter. "That's why she came to you with a piece of the key. She knew she was no match for me, but my dear old friend, Ray, believed that you, one of the Chosen, might actually have a chance. He's as big a fool as he's ever been, thinking he could keep it from me."

"The artifact?" I gasped. It was too powerful. I couldn't begin to imagine what it could be used for in the hands of a loony like Hood. "You have it?"

"After Susan dared to interfere in Mexico and then again in Cazador, I tracked her down and took back what was rightfully mine. She escaped Earl only to run into me. I'm not done with her yet, either. I've never been able to use such a powerful vampire in my experiments before…She's always been beautiful, but I could improve her."

He was closer now. He reached into his robes and pulled out the small piece of stone. About the size of a pack of cards, it looked innocuous enough, but I knew that it held the end of the world inside. "With you, with this, my dream will be complete."

It wouldn't do him any good. The big gate could only be opened once every five hundred years. He couldn't let the Dread Overlord in. "You're too-" I had to stop as a fire rippled up from my abdomen, burning through my throat, and bloody vomit spilled involuntarily past my lips. I retched and cringed while Hood waited patiently for me to finish. "Late…" I finally gasped.

He was only a few feet away. "Of course. This isn't about letting them in. I'm trading you for something special. I've proved my worthiness to awake the Arbmunep, and the artifact will allow me to utilize it to its full potential."

Myers had said that name. "What now, you sick freak?"

Hood grinned. It was terrifying. "Eternal night. Beautiful eternal night. The world will wilt and decay until they surrender to their rightful king."

"You're insane."

He didn't like having his sanity questioned. "I'm the Lord of Shadows!" he shouted.

I was growing weaker by the second. I didn't know if I could do this. Cold water rained down on my face. The giant flash-bang was in my lap. It was now or never.

Gathering up what strength I had left, I pulled the cord and tossed it. The Frisbee-sized chunk of lethal chemicals sailed down the aisle toward Hood. Sparks shot from the top as it landed on the sopping carpet at his feet. He frowned at the device. "Delaying the inevitable with a mere distraction," he said as he raised his cloak to shield his face. "Pathetic."

I forced myself upward as it ignited. Scalding light burned across the room. The cultists covered their eyes and cried out as the light bombarded them. The chemicals burned with an unholy screech. Blind, desperate, I drove myself forward. I had to reach my target.

Maybe it was the water soaking the explosive into mush, but this one didn't last nearly as long. Hood, unfazed, lowered his cloak, grinning. "You didn't even reach me." He stopped when he realized where I had gone. "Oh, bloody hell."

"Ha!" I responded, still blind, but I had found what I was looking for. The wooden stake embedded in Susan's chest brushed my numb fingers. I forced my hands to curl around the shaft and I tugged. It grated against her ribs.

Stakes through the heart don't permanently kill vampires. They just shut them down, their supernatural regenerative abilities unable to heal as long as the foreign object is there. When the stake comes out, the vampire heals. I wasn't strong enough to do this on my own. I needed help. She was evil incarnate, but the enemy of my enemy was my friend.

"Stop him!" Hood bellowed at his blinded minions.

The stake wrenched free with a sickening pop. Someone crashed into my back, taking us both to the ground. I rolled over, weakly trying to defend myself. A cultist was on top of me, trying to hold me down. I got one arm free and slammed the stake upward. The man made a terrible gurgling noise as the sharpened wood pierced his throat.

Susan rose from the coffin with shocking speed, perfectly straight, the hole in her chest still closing. The vampire was eerily still for a long moment, arms demurely folded, false rain cascading around her. Her dress was torn and filthy from the flight through the forest. Her black hair hung like a veil over her pale face.

One of the cultists moved.

Her eyes opened, a sick shade of red. One delicate hand swept down, cleaving like an ax through an acolyte's face and out the back of his skull. The other cultists retreated. Susan growled at them, raised her hand, and licked the blood from her fingers. It took a second for Susan to get oriented, taking in me on the ground, the huddled nut jobs, and her nemesis.

The Master vampire growled at the necromancer. "Marty…"

"Susan," the shadow man responded.

"We have a score to settle, you and me," she said, showing off her fangs.

"Indeed we do. You thought you could best me, take over the empire that I built. That was your last mistake."

"And your first was having me turned into a vampire to begin with, you limey bastard." Susan stepped out of the coffin and floated to the floor.

I shoved the dying cultist off me. "Get him, Susan! Kick his ass!" I shouted. I tried to sit up, but was too weak, and sank back to the floor.

For a second, I thought we might just have a chance. She was powerful, mean as hell, but then Susan shook her head. "Sorry, hon. I tried that once, didn't work out. That's why I hired you, remember? Thanks for saving me though. Much appreciated." Then she was just gone.

"No! No! Damn it! Damn it!" I screamed in frustration. The tattered dress hit the floor, empty, as a white mist rolled across the ground and out the broken window. Stupid! So much for that idea. Never trust the undead. "You better run, you bitch!" It figured that the last thing I'd accomplished in my life was to save the life of a vampire. Way to go, idiot. I collapsed into a pathetic coughing fit.

Unbelievable pain shuddered through my body. The undead curse was shredding my cells. As a reminder of things to come, the cultist with the wooden stake jammed in his neck sat up, corpse already animated. Struggling to rise, I made it only a few feet before falling on my face. I was just too weak. A boot splashed right in front of my nose.

"Somebody shut off the sprinklers already," Hood ordered. Strong hands landed on my back and rolled me over. I tried to reach for my pistol. That same boot collided with the side of my head. "Determined bloke, isn't he? Disable the tracking device."

"I've been jamming the signal since he came out of the portal." Somebody took my shotgun. Someone else began pulling on the side of my armor. I was too feeble to do anything about it. "What now?" Torres asked.

"Watch him. I'll prepare the sending. Young Mr. Pitt has a very important appointment to keep."

Consciousness returned in tiny bits. First came the terrible aching in my bones. My body felt like an old garment that had been eaten thin by moths. Next I became aware of the taste of blood, my own blood. I gagged. My head rolled to the side so it could spill out. My eyes opened. Everything was blurry.

"Well, look who's awake." Torres was sitting across from me. One of his eyes was bruised and swollen shut. That's what you looked like when Agent Franks knocked you out. "How are you feeling?"

I couldn't respond. My face hurt too much.

"Figured as much. Well, you look like shit." He was leaning back in his chair, enjoying himself. He had Abomination resting on the chair next to him. "In fact, let me show you." There was a small mirror on the table between us. He picked it up and held it so I could see my reflection.

My skin was utterly pale. There were red blotches on my skin from blood vessels breaking just under the surface. The whites of my eyes had taken on a sick yellow tone and they were circled by blackened sockets. The fresh wound on my cheek from the werewolf was festering and leaking pus.

I closed my eyes. I had killed zombies that looked healthier than that. Not too much longer now.

Torres put the mirror down. "You were always ugly. Hell, I wondered how somebody like you wound up with a hot piece like that Shackleford chick. But now? Damn, you're ugly. About to get uglier too. But don't worry, the High Priest says that you'll hang on long enough to make it to the other side."

I tried to tune out the pain but it was all-consuming. I had no idea that it hurt this much to turn into a zombie. All I could feel was agony. One part of my body would just hurt, until another part started to hurt worse, and that would briefly take my attention, until the next bit topped it. The traitor continued to drone on. He was really enjoying himself. There were three other men in the room with us. They would occasionally laugh at something Torres said. I fixated on him. I failed to take out Hood because of my stupidity. Trusting Susan…What the hell had I been thinking? Not only was Hood still alive, which meant Earl was doomed, I had also managed to let loose another devil into the world. Maybe I could partially atone for that and somehow take this piece of trash with me.

I forced myself to pay attention to my surroundings. It was a comfortable but plain apartment, probably attached to the back of the mortuary. There was one closed door and a curtained window off to the side. I was in a heavy wooden chair. They had put down a tarp to protect the carpet. My wrists had been tightly bound to the chair arms with orange twine. The cord was frayed, but strong, and had already cut deeply into my flesh. Looking at my hands made me sick. Blood was seeping around my fingernails.

"I will say this for you, Pitt. You're a man after my own heart, somebody who can appreciate the finer things in life. Good-looking women, good-looking guns." He lifted one of my.45s. "Just so you know, I'm keeping your gear. Don't worry. I'll give them a good home." The others laughed. "And look what else I've got." He stuck out his chest. He had pulled the Velcro MHI patch off my armor and pinned it to his robe. The happy face with horns didn't mean much to him, but he knew it did to me. "I figure I played Monster Hunter long enough to earn this bad boy. Pretty sweet, huh?"

"Screw…" I was too tired to finish the sentence.

"Poor, Pitt. You'll be on the other side, suffering for an eternity. And we'll be here, living like kings, running the new order."

"The dark new dawn," said one of the cultists.

"Amen, brother," Torres replied. "And we owe it all to Owen Pitt." He pushed the.45 into my forehead with a sneer. "Don't we, you zombie fuck?" He pulled the gun away and snickered. "Don't want to get a bunch of scabs on my new gun. I want to keep this baby nice. I'll probably use it to put a bullet into some of your friends. We're not done with MHI, oh no. When the sun doesn't rise tomorrow, the payback begins. We clean house, and nothing will be able to stop us."

"You'll…die…too…" It took a moment for me to register that the horrible scratchy noise was actually my voice. I sounded worse than an orc.

"Unbelievers are already dead, they just don't know it yet. The faithful will live forever." Torres slouched in his chair, carelessly gesturing with my gun. "We're not as crazy as you think. The master's one smart dude. Look at me. He's been grooming me for years, knowing that he'd need men in the MCB eventually. I worked hard, got into federal law enforcement. He arranged a monster encounter for me to survive, bam, and next thing you know, I'm one of America's finest…Don't worry. We're not shutting the sun off. Just blocking it until everyone's ready to fall in line. But it's going to get real cold and people are going to get real hungry before they have the sense to do that."

"Convert or die," recited another cultist.

"Holy shadows will engulf the earth. Nations that convert will get to see the light, pardon the pun. Those that don't…" He shrugged. "Too damn bad for them. We'll animate their starved dead and turn them loose on the survivors. When it's over, we'll build a perfect society from scratch."

Torres kept talking. He was really enjoying himself. These lunatics were actually going to go through with this. It sounded preposterous, but I had seen the gate that had opened over Alabama. After that, I could believe just about anything. The Old Ones could do it.

I closed my eyes. I just wanted the suffering to end. Maybe if I hurried up and died, then Hood's squid god wouldn't be satisfied with just a zombie. I found myself wishing for death, and death drew even closer, like a black wall. I touched it.

"Poor boy. Hurt to look at," a familiar voice said. "It makes an old man's heart hurt to be seeing such pain."

It took a second to recognize the voice.

"Mordechai?" I whispered.

"What?" Torres asked. When I opened my yellow eyes, Torres was regarding me suspiciously. "What did you say?"

I ignored him and tried to lift my head higher. "Mordechai? Is that you?"

It was. Old, bent, leaning on his cane, small glasses perched on his nose, Star of David hanging in front of his battered shirt. He was not young and healthy like the last time I had seen him, but in the form from the time of his death in 1944, just like how I'd gotten to know him originally. He was standing directly behind Torres, between two of the cultists. They didn't appear to notice him.

"Yes, boy, I am here for help," he said with a slight smile. "Others felt you need some wisdom. They say, boy very strong, but not always smart. Others can be mean like that." His Polish accent was as thick as ever.

"But…you moved on…I freed you."

He shrugged his bony shoulders. "Eh…what can say? I moved on, but veil is thin for you now. Close enough to death that we can talk so easy. Not exactly a long trip for me to get here! This more important now, so I come back. You need smarts." He tapped his finger on his temple and smiled. "I have smarts. You have guns and magic. Should blow up many crazy people together."

Was he really here? Had he come back to help me again? "Are you an angel?"

Torres turned back toward his henchmen. "He's hallucinating. Get the stimulant, now. We can't afford to lose him yet."

The ghost of Mordechai Byreika lifted his cane. It looked exactly like the one I'd driven through Jaeger's torso. "This look like flaming sword to you, boy? Of course is not angel. Angels? They're more formal. Kind of, how you say, stuffy. Now listen close. Time is short."

"Too late." I tried to show him the bandage on my hand, pulling repeatedly, forgetting that I was tied down. "Dead…soon."

Torres took my jerking against the bonds as a seizure. "Hurry with that potion, damn it!"

"No!" Mordechai admonished sternly. "You not die yet, boy. More work to do. For something more important than you. Not like this."

I tried to speak, but the pain was too great. Nobody has ever been bitten by a zombie and lived.

"You are not nobody, boy. You are somebody. You are one picked to finish fight. Good has said you are their champion. Bad's champion is waiting for you. Champion of Good not die because of stupid zombie! That's crazy talk."

I can't. Dying.

A cultist had removed a vial from his robes. He shoved a syringe into it and began pulling out a thick red liquid. "Give me that!" Torres ordered as he snatched the syringe away.

"You not die until I say so," Mordechai insisted. "Listen to your elders, boy. You have power to fight off zombie bite, just like you fight off werewolf when we met first time."

That was different. That was something I could fight with my hands. I was never infected by the werewolf.

"Of course not infected, because you are not monster now. You are Monster Hunter. Quit being stubborn and listen. Werewolf can't turn you. Zombie can't turn you. Vampire can't turn you, if stupid enough to get bit by vampire too you are. Regular Hunter, yes, but you? Different you are. You only turn if you give up."

So I can't die until I give up?

"No, that's just dumb. Turn, not kill. They can kill you just fine. Cut head off or blow up or set on fire, maybe shoot you in face, you die." He spread his hands as if balancing the scales. "Sploosh. Dead. Just like everyone else. But you are Chosen. Harder to kill Chosen unless he is being big baby. Certain things only you can do. Old Ones not realize who they're fighting with."

Torres jammed the huge needle into the nerve bundle between my ear and jaw and slammed the plunger down. The thick clump of liquid burned. Every muscle in my body automatically contracted with brutal force. The legs of the chair slammed back and forth on the floor. "Hold him!" Torres and one of the others grabbed me by the shoulders to keep me from flopping over.

Mordechai walked right through Torres as if he wasn't there, and I suppose in the twilight spirit world that my old mentor currently inhabited, he probably wasn't. Mordechai leaned close to my ear and whispered, "Don't give up."

The drug, or potion, or whatever the hell it was they shot me with pummeled my central nervous system like a jackhammer. The now-familiar black lightning was not just in my vision. It was colliding back and forth between the very fibers of my being. My body was a battleground, an undead virus was my enemy, and the prize was my soul.

"Never give up."

I won't.

"I know. That's why you are one who drew short straw."

Then I died. I think.

I'd done this kind of thing enough times that nothing could really surprise me at this point. I was standing in the ornate ballroom at the Shackleford family estate. I was either in the past, before we'd blown it up and set it on fire while trying to kill Susan, or in the future, when we'd finally gotten it fixed, because the room was absolute perfection. The walls were covered in mirrors, giving the illusion that it was much larger than it really was, as each view doubled and tripled onto itself. The massive chandelier reflected the sunlight from the tall windows, causing the crystals to sparkle brilliantly. The hardwood floor had been polished until I could see my bedraggled reflection in it.

There was a man waiting for me in the center of the room. I did not know him. He was a head shorter than I was. The stranger was lean, but muscular, with long brown hair, muttonchops, and a mustache that extended to the end of his square jaw. He was in his forties. His uniform was made of creaking leather, with thick protective pieces over the torso and wrists, and a guard that pulled up over the throat to shield from bites, similar to our modern suits. While his archaic armor was battered, his guns were not. He had a pair of Colt Peacemakers with ivory grips holstered on a heavy-duty gun belt. The ammo stuck in the cartridge loops of the belt shined with old-school silver bullets.

The way he carried himself seemed vaguely familiar. "Who're you?"

"Somebody who's been sent to help. Mordechai kindly asked that I not let you pass." He had a very pronounced old Southern accent. "You ain't done yet. There's a mess of folks counting on you."

"I know."

"You best not fail them." He glanced around the ballroom, as if taking in something familiar. "I never liked this room. It felt snooty. It was for bunches of rich folk, gallivanting around in their fancy clothes, telling each other how important and pretty they were." He snorted. "But you know that it was always the most special to her, ever since she was a wee little thing."

He was talking about Julie. This was her favorite room in the old Shackleford plantation house. This was where we were supposed to have gotten married. The stranger hadn't picked this backdrop. I had.

"What am I supposed to do?" I asked.

"Damned if I know. Get back there and take care of business I suppose."

"I'm dying. I got bit by a zombie."

The stranger shrugged. "Cheat death then."

"Cheat?"

"If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying hard enough. That's what I always say. So pull your head out of your rear, get righteous mad, and get to killing."

"I will."

"Then what're you doing giving up and dying?" He pointed for the door, not that I'd walked in, but I got the idea. He was sending me back. "Them monsters ain't gonna kill themselves! You a Monster Hunter, or not?"

"I'm a Monster Hunter!"

"Good!" The ghost had a mischievous grin. "My boy always had a good eye for talent."

Okay. I was back. I inhaled for what seemed like the first time in eternity.

"Hang on," Torres said. "He's still breathing."

I wasn't normal. I knew that. That point had been driven home a long time ago. I had no idea what I was. All I did know was that I didn't want to die. Especially not like this.

The pain returned like a crashing tsunami. It was like being on fire and electrocuted and drowned at the same time. The virus, an incomprehensible curse from outside the boundaries of this world, pushed one last time to finish me. I screamed at the top of my lungs, a combination of fear, agony, and fury. My thrashing increased in intensity. The joints of the chair cracked. "Get help!" Torres cried as he tried in vain to restrain me.

The black energy swept through my body like a flash flood, burning, purging, cleansing, only this time I was the one in control. The lightning clashed with the virus. Then as quickly as it started, it was done.

The war was over.

The shaking stopped. My head flopped limply onto my chest.

"Wait!" Torres commanded.

The pain was still there. But now it was different, the fever had passed. I flexed my hands on the arms of the chair. I could feel again.

"Is he dead?" a cultist asked hesitantly.

"If he is, it's your fault for not getting the needle fast enough," Torres snarled. Fingers stabbed my neck. "Wait…I've got a pulse. And…it's really strong. "

Thanks, Mordechai.

He was still in the room, waiting patiently. "Don't thank me yet, boy. Life ahead of you is hard one. Much work to do. Much sacrifice to make. Sometimes I see what's coming, and I feel very bad for you. No, no thanks for me. Someday you probably curse me for not letting you just die."

I heard the door open. It was a young woman's voice. "It's time. My father needs the sacrifice."

"Yes, mistress," Torres responded.

"What happened here? What was that noise?" she asked with a very proper, high-brow English tone. "Did you harm him?" That one question held a lot of menace.

"No, but we had to give him the shot your father gave us. Pitt was beginning to turn. He's passed out now."

"Lucky for him, pity for us. Come along then. Time is short." The door closed.

What now?

The ghost laughed. "Do what you do best, of course!"

"Come on, guys. Let's go." The chair lifted from the ground. There were three of them carrying me, and since I'm a big boy, they were still struggling. "Great Dagon, this son of a bitch weighs a ton. Careful," Torres admonished. "If you piss off Lucinda, she'll skin us all. Get the door."

Mordechai?

But there was no answer. He was gone.

I could think again. Had he even really been here? Had I been hallucinating? Had I really died again? Had I beaten the zombie infection, or was I just feeling better because of the shot?

Hell if I know. But I was about to get FedExed across the universe to be dissolved for eternity by a creature so evil that just saying its name caused madness. I had to move now. My eyes were closed and my head was lolling side to side as they carried me, boots dangling. They were too sure of my weakened, soon-to-be-zombified state to bother with securing me that well. Their mistake. I just needed a chance to get my hands free. The chair was solid, but I could probably break it. What I needed was a distraction. "Anthony…" I croaked. "Wait…"

"Hold on," he barked. He was holding the chair on my right side. "He's awake."

"Did you take Myers' treasure?" I kept my voice weak. "He told me to…keep it safe…from you."

"What treasure?"

"Some powerful…" I mumbled something else, too faint for him to hear. He leaned in closer. I risked a peek. He was at bad-breath distance. "Can you hear me now?" I whispered into his ear.

"What did Myers say?"

I bit his ear. I really chomped down on it as I jerked my head away. Torres screamed. The chair toppled, sending me crashing to the floor. Spitting his ear out, I jerked violently against my bonds, pulling with every bit of strength I had. The twine held, but I tore the arms right off the chair. I was free.

Cultist on my left, one behind me, one at the door. I swung my left arm, leading with a big chunk of splintered wood and slammed the nearest bad guy in the crotch. He doubled over and I threw an uppercut into his throat. My fist never contacted, but the chair arm did. He went down, choking.

A weight collided with my skull. I was too furious to slow down. I was up, driving my shoulder into the next cultist, taking us both across the room. I threw the smaller man into the wall, crushing him into the paneling. I slammed him in again, breaking his ribs. The last cultist rushed me, but ran directly into my boot as I side-kicked him in the stomach. Since I was twice his size, the kick put him on his back.

All four of them were hurt. I had to press my advantage quickly. Even as experienced as I was, there was no way I could take on multiple assailants in my sorry state. The one against the wall was wheezing, gasping for breath. I brought the chair arms down on his skull with terrible force, striking until the wood was nothing but splinters. The man I had struck in the throat didn't look like he was moving, but the cultist I kicked was trying to rise. Abomination was still sitting where Torres had left it. I scooped it up and charged.

He reached for his squid necklace, either to signal for help, or to activate some sort of magic, but I never found out what exactly, as I flicked open Abomination's silver bayonet and slammed it through an eye socket and into his brain. I yanked the bayonet out and he toppled, twitching to the carpet.

That just left Torres.

He was crawling across the floor, panicked, disoriented, holding his hand against the side of his head, blood streaming between his fingers. There were still loaded magazines in my pouches, so I reloaded, worked Abomination's charging handle, and put a round of buckshot into the chamber. Torres wasn't currently a threat, so I risked a quick peek out the curtained window. We were on the third story of the mortuary, overlooking the back of the graveyard. It was dark, but I could see quite a bit of the cemetery below. There was a lot of movement, robed figures with torches and flashlights moving between the mausoleums. Something big was going down out there. I let the curtains drop and got back to business.

"Hey, Anthony," I said, my voice cold and detached. My pistol was on the ground. He had seen it and was trying to reach it. I didn't plan on letting him. "Stop right there. Yeah, I'm talking to you." He kept crawling, making a kind of whimpering noise. Furious, I walked ahead of him and put my boot down on his hand. "Try listening with your good ear."

"How…how did you…" he gasped. Apparently that kind of injury was very disorienting. "You should be…"

"Dead?" I asked, as I tugged the cords from my wrists. "Eventually, but I'm busy right now. What's your boss up to?" I ground down on his hand. He cried out. "Start talking"-I put my bayonet against his back-"or I start stabbing."

Torres raised his head. He looked pathetic with one ear. "You can't stop us."

"Maybe, but I bet I can kill a whole mess of you in the process." There was a groan. I glanced over. Two of the cultists were stirring. Apparently every member of the Condition animated as an undead as soon as they expired. The one that I had stabbed in the brain wasn't going anywhere, ever, but the other two were going to be an issue here pretty quick.

"See…already my brothers are rising. The Exalted Order will never stop-"

I swung Abomination over and blew both zombies' heads off. The blasts were deafening in the small room. "They look stopped to me." If that didn't raise the alarm, nothing would. I bent down, grabbed Torres by the back of the neck, and jerked him to his feet. My strength had returned. In fact, I was feeling pretty damn good. Good…and violent. "I've just got one question, Anthony. Why? Why'd you fall in with these people? Why'd you betray your friends, your country? Why?"

His eyes were windows into insanity. "I had a revelation. I saw the majesty of the Old Ones. I heard their songs. Their mysteries were-"

Screw this. I squeezed the back of his neck harder as I dragged him across the room. "Yeah. You know what? Never mind." I paused long enough to rip the MHI patch from his robe before shoving him against the window. The glass shattered, and he tumbled headfirst and screaming out of sight. There was a tearing noise and the screaming stopped abruptly.

I stepped forward. The damp night air was refreshing. The curtains billowed around me. Torres' crumpled body was impaled on multiple fleur-de-lis tops of an iron fence. Several other surprised Condition members had rushed to the body. One of them looked up and pointed my way. "It's the Monster Hunter!"

"Damn straight," I responded as I stuck the Velcro patch back on my armor. "That's more like it." Then I shoved Abomination out the window and fired the 40mm grenade launcher directly into them. Everything in the blast radius was torn apart by shrapnel. I turned away from the window, picked up the rest of my gear, and headed for the door.

I wasn't done yet.

Oh, no, not nearly done. I was just getting warmed up.

Chapter 20

Several Condition members tried to stop me inside the mortuary. I cut them down without remorse. Compared to monsters, whack jobs were soft targets. There was a phone in the hallway but it was as dead as the cultists. I was rocking another magazine into Abomination as I cleared the stairs and reached the back door. The cemetery stretched before me. A fog was rolling in and mist was collecting between the mausoleums. Spotted throughout the fog were bobbing lights, cultists moving to intercept me, and who knew what else was out there. The smart thing to do was probably run and hide, maybe find a phone and make a collect call to the Department of Homeland Security. Anything but go out there where the unkillable Hood and his minions were lurking.

But at the same time, if Mordechai had just been a figment of my feverish imagination, and the only reason I was operating at this tempo was that shot Torres had given me, that meant that as soon as it wore off, I would go back to joining the ranks of the undead. For all I knew, I was going to keel over any second. I had to take my chances. Whatever Hood meant by eternal night was already starting.

I went straight forward with no real strategy in mind other than shooting anything that moved. And there was lots of stuff moving. The grass was thick and wet, sliding around under my boots. The names on the tombstones seemed English, but I still had no idea where in the world I actually was. It was cool, but not cold. Looking at the stars, they were weird enough that I figured I was in the southern hemisphere, not that it mattered now. I was on my own. I headed in the direction with the most lights. Hood could see in the dark but most of his followers were human and could not.

Shapes appeared through the mist and then retreated from view as I swung to face them. I knew that things were watching me from behind every stone wall. I could only imagine what kinds of horrid beasts had joined up with the Condition for their big moment. It made perfect sense. In a world without daylight, the creatures that we hunted would have an absolute vacation.

But nothing attacked. Cultists and creatures both hung back.

I reached the lights. They were the giant, portable, construction kind. Some huge project was taking place in the middle of the old cemetery. Bulldozers, dump trucks, and backhoes were parked off to the side. A giant hole, at least as big across as a football field, had been dug here, and it was obviously a rush job, completed recently. The ground had been churned into mud. Tombstones had been carelessly smashed into bits. The machines had cleaved right through the earth and I could see where they had just dislodged or cut cleanly through old coffins. Skeletal limbs were discarded and forgotten like bits of trash.

I approached the edge of the hole and looked inside. The mist was swirling in weird patterns. Strange insects cast giant shadows as they flew in front of the huge lights. There was something in the hole, something odd, but it was still covered beneath loose dirt and broken coffin bits.

Hood was standing in the center of the hole, waiting for me, arms folded. Standing at his side was a young woman, also wearing intricately decorated robes. Both of them had put on elaborate golden headpieces with all sorts of squiddy goodness and were wearing amulets that just felt unbelievably ancient.

"You didn't have to get all dressed up," I said.

"Those who mock shall mourn, unbeliever!" the girl shrieked. She was the one who had bossed Torres around. She was actually kind of cute, if you disregarded the whole diabolical, crazy-fanatic thing. "Your fate is sealed. Your time is done!"

Hood smiled and patted her on the arm. "You must forgive my daughter. The exuberance of youth, you know." She scowled but he ignored her with parental smugness. "Lucinda, my heir, meet the man who's been a thorn in my side. I'm happy to see you came here voluntarily. So you've decided to fulfill your destiny?"

"If my destiny is killing you, then yeah, guess so." There was motion behind me. Things were circling, surrounding the hole on all sides. I risked a glance over my shoulder. Cultists had approached from behind. The fires that I had earlier thought were torches had been other teleportation devices. All of his worldwide church had gathered for this event. "Nice hole. You dig this for me?"

He shook his head. "No. Sending you back to the Old Ones will be simple enough. There are thirteen small gates scattered around this world and we are fortunate to have one at this sacred place. It is already prepared." He pointed to my left.

I took a few steps to the side to see better. Some of the excavation had unearthed a stone circle. A sick red light flickered from the hole and unearthly music drifted forth. The notes made my sanity hurt.

I turned away. "Oh, I thought maybe this construction project was some sort of secret weapon so you could finally defeat me," I said sarcastically. "For somebody who's supposed to be so friggin' bad, you've certainly sucked at it." I lifted Abomination and launched a grenade at them.

Hood extended his hand and the 40mm shell detonated on an invisible wall, temporarily obscuring them in a cloud of smoke and fragments. They were untouched. He smiled. "I could kill you with a fluffy pillow, Pitt." He gestured around the giant hole. "This is an ancient living device. The last time it was used was before man even walked the Earth, in a war beyond your comprehension against the mighty Yith. I've known about this place for years, but lacked the ability, the permission to use it." The shadow man reached into the sleeve of his robe and pulled out Machado's artifact. "With this, I can guide it. With the Dread Overlord's blessing, I can awaken it."

I heard hundreds of voices raise a cheer around me. I looked up from shoving another grenade into Abomination long enough to mutter, "Shit."

"Awake and arise, my legions!" Hood raised his voice to shout at his followers. The sound reverberated across the cemetery. "Let there be NO LIGHT! Rejoice, my children, for THE DARK NEW DAWN BREAKS!"

His followers roared in excitement.

The earth shook. The dirt beneath the sod rolled like the waves of a turbulent ocean. The tremor increased in intensity. My equilibrium was gone and I fell to my knees. The shaking grew in intensity. I had lived through some decent earthquakes, but this was just crazy. This was something way off the Richter scale. The earth screamed in protest. I had to scramble away from the edge as dirt began to cascade downward, the pit widening. The old mausoleums cracked, blocks shattered, and they collapsed on themselves. Levees of dirt erupted upward in places and wide cracks spread outward from the epicenter. The creatures and humans in the dark cried out in fear.

Something was coming out of the hole.

A hundred yards wide, dirt falling off in streamers, a tower rose. It was misshapen, twisted, unnatural, and it continued to grow higher and higher into the air. Hood stood on top of it, laughing maniacally, his daughter clinging to his arm in sudden terror. The two of them were lifted upward, riding the surge of something completely alien.

It was a structure, but it seemed to be organic, living, a sick, green, mottled thing. It stopped climbing, and then the top began to flow outward, snapping and unfurling. Branches stretched laterally overhead, raining dirt down against our upturned faces as the thing filled the night sky. It was part plant, part insect, and something that the human mind had never been meant to comprehend.

The earthquake subsided. The towering entity shuddered, freed from a million years of slumber. It seemed to click and twitch, pulsing with an unnatural life. I couldn't even estimate how tall it was, but it was like standing on the sidewalk and staring up at a high-rise.

It was the tree from Hood's utopian vision. It was the tree from the grimoire Carlos had taken from him. It was sick, wrong, and bad, and it was right here, right fucking now.

"BEHOLD. I GIVE YOUARBMUNEP, TREE OF ETERNAL NIGHT!" Hood cried from a platform three hundred feet in the air. A cone of utter darkness began to grow from the branches, climbing into the atmosphere. It spread like a canopy, blotting out the sky. The cloud grew rapidly, like some sort of festering cancerous sickness.

"Mighty Arbmunep will consume the radiance of the heavens. We will blot out the light, darken the sky, erase the dawn. The night will rule. No sun, no moon, no stars. Only utter darkness. Absolute night, my children, and in it, I will rule. WE WILL RULE!" Hood screamed as the cloud grew larger. It wasn't just blocking the light, it was eating it. Arbmunep was alive and it was hungry.

There was a sound from the portal to the Old Ones' universe. Something was laughing. It was like running fingernails across a chalkboard multiplied a billion times and then driven through your ear hole with a variable-speed electric drill. I clamped my hands over my head involuntarily. The Dread Overlord was watching, fueling the monstrous tree, and it was positively giddy. Denied entrance to our world, it could at least enjoy the destruction of that which it couldn't possess.

Even something that incomprehensibly vast could be petulant.

"Thank you, noble and great master, for this ultimate gift. I will not fail you," the Shadow Lord cried.

The Condition came out of the shadows, hundreds of them. All had donned the ceremonial robes and raised their cowls. I couldn't tell what they were, most were certainly human, but there were many that felt unnatural, various types of intelligent undead probably, and several of the robed shapes were too large, too cumbersome, too wrong to be people. Stitched together automatons stood guard in the background, unthinking killing machines, simply here to observe. The cultists went to their knees or whatever else their equivalent was, and prostrated themselves before their false god and its blasphemous tree.

The shadow man spread his arms wide and leapt from his perch, plummeting toward the ground like a missile. At the last possible instant he stopped, then stepped lightly to the earth, his cloak settling around him. He walked straight at me. "Ready for your trip?"

"Ready to die?" I responded, my pulse quickening, adrenaline and energies I didn't understand flowing through my veins.

"Get in the portal, Pitt." He was getting closer. The Dread Overlord laughed. Someone killed the generator powering the portable lights, leaving us with nothing but the red light coming from the portal and a faint phosphorus gleam of the Tree's skin-bark as it fed. "I will not tell you again."

I gripped Abomination tighter. I had no clue what I was doing. I bellowed incoherently and charged. Hood lowered his head and did the same. His human form disappeared and a twelve-foot shadow took his place. The shadow bore down on me, cheered on by his followers and the king of pain itself.

I opened fire, the shells nothing but a futile gesture. The shadow crashed into me, knocking me down, and slapping me incoherent. Now, at his triumphant moment, there wasn't a damn thing I could do to hurt Hood. He grabbed me by one foot and dragged me through the dirt toward the portal. My fingers tore through the ground but I didn't even slow him down. He was going to toss me into that hole. Panic ripped through my guts. "You've been a worthy adversary, I must admit. I have no idea how you defeated the virus. I wish I could put you under a microscope and figure out just what it is that makes you tick but this is much more important."

I had survived the zombie's bite.

I had somehow found the strength to do the unthinkable. I had survived something that no human ever had before. I had generations of dead Hunters rooting for me. I was special, damn it! There had to be some way to hurt him. "No!" I rolled over and pulled my kukri from its sheath. Now he was just pulling me along on my back. I swung the blade through the black mass holding my boot. The knife ripped through with no effect. I kept swinging. The stone circle was only a few feet away. I could see down into the red light, coalescing shapes and impossible geometries, songs of dead civilizations and abstract realities.

The Dread Overlord was waiting.

The shadow man lifted me into the air. I was still thrashing, kicking, screaming, cursing, swinging my knife, all to no avail. I was upside down, blood rushing to my head, suspended over the portal, the Old Ones below, the Tree blotting out the stars above. The Condition members edged closer, chanting in unison, excited to see me, their Lucifer, thrown to his eternal condemnation.

Hood paused, leaving me dangling over the portal. Something vast shifted on the other side. "Dread Master, accept this humble sacrifice. I will prove worthy of your power."

"Arbmunep F'thagen. Arbmunep F'thagen," the cultists chanted, hundreds of them, increasing in volume and intensity. Hood raised his shadow arm triumphantly, holding me up as a trophy as I continued to swear and hack at him. "Arbmunep F'thagen! Aaiii!"

Then Hood paused, letting me dangle. "Oh, what now?" he asked in exasperation. I glanced up from the Dread Master's realm. The shadow shape moved and I could see what had attracted his attention.

Some distance away, probably where I had first teleported in, there was a tiny flicker of fire in the dirt amongst the Condition. The minions were stepping aside to get out of the way as the portal opened. It was only a foot across as the two small flames intersected. The dirt disappeared and a brilliant shaft of daylight pierced upward. A head popped through the hole, wearing round, bug-eyed aviator goggles with a long red beard underneath and a stubbly cranium. I recognized the interloper immediately. "Milo?" I asked in disbelief. The head swiveled around, casually studying the various monsters and cultists, took in the unbelievable alien tree, then focused in on me upside down in the air and the shadow man that was holding me.

"Hey, Z. Hang on just a second," Milo responded from Alabama, as if this was a totally unremarkable circumstance. His goggled head bobbed back through the hole and disappeared. I could still hear him as he shouted. "It worked and it's outdoors. See, I told you we'd figure it out. Let her rip!"

There were two more flickers of flame. They ignited and spread outward in a circle, just like before, only this time they were traveling in a much wider arc. This circle was going to be huge. A bunch of cultists belatedly realized that they were standing in the area of effect and rushed to escape, tripping in their clumsy robes, or getting knocked down by their fellows in a panic to escape. MHI must have not only figured out how to make the magic ropes work, but they had stitched together one hell of a big one in the process.

"You guys totally rock!" I bellowed.

Within seconds the two flames met and with a horrendous air-suctioning pop a giant circle of dirt disappeared. Several cultists simply vanished. My eyes had adjusted to the bleak dark of the cemetery and underside of the Tree, so it was painful when a massive blinding circle of Alabama daylight appeared. A portal doesn't just let matter through; it is a direct doorway to someplace else, and this particular place was sitting under the afternoon sun. Light exploded all around us.

Hood's mighty shadow form wilted and shrank under the onslaught. The alien Tree shuddered and actually screamed as the light struck it. The undersides of the branches were now shockingly well lit. Vampires amongst the crowd of cultists burst into flames, screeching as their flesh bubbled and melted off.

There was a terrible mechanical wail, growing closer and louder by the instant. It was a rhythmic beating noise, and accompanying it was a loudspeaker, blaring music at such impossible decibels that it could even be heard above the noise of the approaching rotors. A red-and-white dragonfly shape blasted through the portal, pointed so that it was shooting straight up into the beam of light.

Up in our current location was apparently sideways in Alabama, and the MI-24 Hind attack helicopter blasted skyward. The nose jerked down as MHI's crack pilot immediately adjusted. Wind tore at us as the blades fought the new direction of gravity. Within seconds Skippy had oriented the chopper so that it was moving predatorily under the branches, surveying the graveyard. The painted shark jaws swiveled in a circle, taking in the target-rich environment.

The speakers were blaring "More Human than Human." It cut out long enough so that Skippy's gravelly voice could come over, electronically amplified until the orc was as loud as Hood had been when he had activated his evil Tree.

"MONSTERS…TASTE VENGANCE…OF SKIIIPPPYYY!"

Skip had broken the FAA regulations about arming MHI's helicopter. Rob Zombie came back on just as the GE 7.62 miniguns mounted on both sides of the Hind opened up at 6,000 rounds per minute, stringing lines of tracers into the cultists; 20mm cannon shells thundered into the creatures as Skippy rotated the flying tank's nose gun. Rocket pods ignited like chains of Roman candles and bits of undead were flung everywhere. Winged beasts leapt into the air to attack the chopper and Skippy scythed them down methodically.

It was terribly impressive.

Another helicopter flew out, then another-MCB Apaches-ready to add to the carnage. There was noise and fire from the portal as Hunters and Feds poured out over the edge, guns blazing. Flamethrowers ignited, spiraling out napalm in swaths of burning destruction. Apparently the Condition's ceremonial robes weren't fire resistant either. Stop, drop, and roll doesn't work with napalm.

"Protect Arbmunep!" the shadow man screamed. "Stop them! Protect the Tree, damn you!"

Julie stepped into this place, M14 at her shoulder, hair blowing in the fire-laced wind, screaming orders like some sort of Amazon warrior queen, blasting monsters left and right. She saw me, saw Hood holding me over the portal, and a look of fury so intense and pure crossed her face that even I was afraid.

"You're screwed now!" I shouted at Hood.

The shadow shape was twisting, wilting in the light. The side of his face toward the MHI portal was human, the side in the red light of the Old Ones' portal was demonic. "But so are you," he hissed.

Then he dropped me.

Screaming, I caught the edge of the pit, rock tearing my fingers, body jerking past, wrenching my arms in their sockets, my legs dangling downward into red infinity. Hauling myself up to my elbow, I flipped my kukri around in my hand and slammed the tip into Hood's foot, anchoring it to the ground. He bellowed and jerked back, his boot parting like smoke around the blade. I used the knife to leverage myself away from the hole.

Deprived of his prize, the Dread Overlord let out a terrible wail.

I rolled to my feet and swung the giant knife through Hood. He grimaced as the steel parted his robes and whatever served as his flesh. The sunlight from Alabama was enough to allow me to damage him.

Hood sensed that as well. He leapt back through the air, away from my blade. "Destroy that portal!" he ordered as he levitated out of my reach. "Kill the light!"

The cemetery plunged into utter pandemonium. Monsters were everywhere, throwing themselves at the flaming circle of Hunters. The pillar of sunlight was our only hope. MHI had formed a perimeter around it, hunkering down behind broken tombstones, piles of earthquake dirt, and collapsed mausoleums, lancing bullets outward, cutting down targets with every burst.

Hood was retreating toward the Tree, trying to marshal his forces. I started after him. "Owen!" I jerked my head toward the sound. Julie and a squad of Hunters had fought their way to me. She had Trip, Holly, Sam, her brother Nate, Cooper, and a couple of Newbies I recognized as the Haight brothers. They immediately surrounded me, crouched down, and started firing their weapons at the approaching automatons. "You're alive!"

Holly must have thought I didn't look very alive. She stuck the muzzle of her.308 close enough to my face that I could feel the heat rising from the metal. "Say something!"

Smiling made my face hurt. "Took you guys long enough." I sheathed my knife. The Hunters exchanged glances. There was no way that I should still be moving, unless I was undead.

"But…how?" Holly asked.

"I'm the Chosen One, remember?"

"I told you there were such things as miracles," Trip shouted over the chattering bolt of his subgun. He glanced over into the still-open chasm to the Old Ones. "Is that…Hell?" All of the Hunters looked in, then looked away just as quickly. You didn't stop to gawk at that kind of thing.

"Close enough. Come on, Hood went that way." I pointed toward the Tree. We had to get him before they could kill the sunlight.

Julie was surely glad to see that I was still alive but right now was not the time to celebrate. She got on her radio. "Skippy, this is Command. My team's heading for the big…tower thing. Cover us." She didn't have to wait long. Within seconds the Hind dipped from its position over the pillar of light and headed right over us, expending hundreds of pounds of munitions in the process. Dirt rained down as rockets blasted through the cemetery. "Go!"

I led the way, firing Abomination, lumbering forward through the clouds of smoke. An automaton rose before us, probably something that had been a troll once, but was now covered in spikes. I pumped several rounds into it before I had to duck under the swing of one arm. Cooper stepped past me and slammed the steel butt-plate of his rifle into the off-balance body, taking it down. The Haights were on it in a split second, jamming their weapons through the unarmored joints and hammering it to bits.

One of the brothers shouted in pain as something struck him in the back. There was a noise like angry bees buzzing through the air. "Down! Down!" I shouted as the bullets zipped past us.

"Son of a bitch shot me!" the Newbie bellowed as he slid behind some rubble. Nate picked out the muzzle flash and returned fire.

There was a line of cultists moving through the dust ahead of us, covering Hood's retreat. There had to be dozens of them and judging from the volume of fire coming our way, they were heavily armed. Our squad of Hunters took cover behind whatever was available. Bullets ripped through the dirt between us.

"Surrender, Hunters!" one of the Condition ordered as the gunfire tapered off. "You're outnumbered."

Sam Haven bellowed back from behind the safety of a marble headstone. "How many of you fucking lunatics do we have to kill before you get out of our way?"

The same cultists responded. "The Exalted Order stands as one! Even in death, we shall live to fight. We-"

Sam cut him off. "Well, you could have just saved some time and said all of y'all." He lowered his voice and spoke into his radio, "Skippy, targets at the base of the tower, twenty yards ahead of our position. Waste 'em."

Almost instantly there was the thunder of an airborne minigun as Skippy tore the bad guys to pieces. Tracers zipped back and forth ahead of us until nothing could possibly live. Julie stood. "Keep going." The Hunters were up and running in seconds.

Something strange was happening. There was chanting, growing in intensity. I immediately recognized Hood's amplified voice, speaking in an incomprehensible language. The alien limbs overhead began to twitch, clicking in their unnatural joints. The Arbmunep emitted a keening rattle, like a swarm of cicadas, as it began to move. "Tell Skippy to watch out!"

But it was too late. One of the segmented branches crashed downward. Somehow Skippy saw it coming and jerked the chopper out of the way, narrowly missing the rotor. The branch creaked in protest and rose back into place, moving with a lumbering ferocity. One of the Apaches wasn't as lucky, and a limb slammed through its rotor. The chopper spun wildly through the air, billowing smoke, and crashed onto its side near the portal. The blades snapped off and flew through the army of monsters.

"What the hell's that?" Sam shouted.

Before I could answer, the ground beneath our feet surged, hoisting all of us into the air. Some of us went tumbling down, others managed to hold on. I was in the center where it was relatively flat, and was barely hanging on when the hill started to move. Julie was next to me, and went tumbling over the edge as the ground disappeared. I grabbed her wrist and held on for dear life. I was twenty feet over the ground, the other Hunters being knocked away, before I realized what was happening. The Arbmunep was moving.

The entire world was spinning, shaking, and there was a vast tearing noise. Trenches and hills were exploding up through the dirt all around us. Nate Shackleford disappeared into the ground as a crevasse opened up beneath his feet. Julie screamed something incoherent. The hill we were on lurched forward twenty feet, screeched to a halt, almost dislodging me, then surged again.

Roots. The giant tree was mobile. And it was heading right for the portal and the Hunters who were defending it. I pulled until Julie scrambled up beside me.

The other Apache was torn in half in a cascading gout of fire as a limb crashed through it. Skippy was staying just ahead of the shockingly fast branches, zipping about in a way that was surely impossible for the bulky chopper, clouds of ancient dirt falling with every swing. Explosions ripped across the trunk with no effect. He should have gotten the hell out from under it, but he was still firing, trying to provide cover for the humans on the ground.

"Skip, get out of here! Fall back!" Julie ordered. Another branch struck, and Skippy barely avoided it. The next sparked against his tail rotor, blowing it to bits. The Hind began to rotate violently, puking smoke, and it sank out of view into the cemetery. "No!" There was a terrible crashing noise.

I was barely hanging on. The root we were on top of would rise quickly into the air, then slam back down seconds later. There were dozens of these appendages, all driving the Tree onward, each movement surely shaking the earth for miles. As it neared the portal, whichever Hunter was in charge was smart enough to order everyone to retreat back toward the mortuary. The dirt we were hanging onto dislodged and Julie and I tumbled to the ground.

"Move!" I shouted as we hit, still holding onto her wrist, trying to stay ahead of the giant flailing appendages. Each root was as big around as a car, and they slammed around us with terrible impacts. Both of us were knocked on our faces as another root landed behind us.

The Tree shifted as it hit the portal, slamming its roots into the ground, breaking the magic cord and severing the connection to Alabama. The pillar of light disappeared and we were plunged back into absolute darkness. The Tree was still.

It was silent except for our frantic panting in the dusty air, and then an insectile chattering noise as the Tree settled into its new position. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. It took us a moment to catch our breath. "Come on," Julie hissed. She grabbed the front of my armor. "We've got to go back for Nate."

I could barely make out her figure in the dark. Then three dozen bright white eyeballs opened in a wall behind her. "Shoggoth!" I raised my gun and triggered my flashlight. One tentacle impacted my chest, pinning my weapon and crushing me down. It encircled my arms and cinched tight. It was immensely strong. Another tentacle zipped around Julie's waist and hoisted her into the air. She swore at it. More eyeballs blinked in my face as I struggled helplessly.

"CAPTURED SACRIFICE," it wheezed in an impossible bass from half a dozen mouths. It was so loud that wherever Hood was, he had certainly heard it. The amorphous blob seeped across the ground, Julie held in the air, me dragging along on the dirt, disoriented, but seemingly going back in the direction we had come from. No matter how hard I fought, I was stuck. I tried to yell for help, but a wet appendage slapped shut over my mouth. It smelled like hot tar.

It dragged me for about a minute, only slowing when the light visibly turned red. The shoggoth had brought us back to the portal to the Old Ones. It spilled us to the ground, leaving us both coughing and gagging in a puddle of ooze, our arms still leashed to our sides. The necromancer was standing there, waiting, a giant undead automaton flanking him on both sides. The hole to the Old Ones' universe stretched before us, cloudy and red.

"You're dead, Hood," I gasped. "The Feds know where we are. They've probably got nukes inbound already. They'll never let your stupid Tree live."

He nodded. "Obviously. But this is just the first of many. On my own, I was barely strong enough to unleash one. In return for your sacrifice, my Lord will awake the others. This is the first and greatest, but there are hundreds more seedlings buried across the world." Hood smiled. "And even then, an attempt to cleanse the mighty Arbmunep with nuclear fire will just end up bathing this entire part of the world in a cloud of perpetual night. The Yith made the same mistake sixty-five million years ago."

"You'll never get away with this," Julie said. The wall of eyeballs turned on her, blinking suspiciously. "My men will make sure of that."

"Well, little Julie Shackleford is all grown up." Hood laughed hard. "Your men? That's a good one. Your Hunters are running for their lives, my minions at their heels. And even if they do manage to interfere, it won't do you two any good." He clapped his hands. "Great shoggoth, send these mortals to meet your almighty maker!"

But the blob didn't toss us into the portal. It hoisted Julie with one dripping arm and turned her upside down, studying her with lots of curious eyeballs.

"What are you waiting for?" Hood demanded. "I command you to put them in the portal!"

Julie's hair was dangling in the tar. It was like she was having a staring contest with the blob. "Mr. Trash Bags? Is that you?" she asked quietly.

The eyes all blinked at once. "CUDDLE BUNNY?"

Julie grinned. "It is you!"

I could feel the surge of emotion through the dripping tentacle as Mr. Trash Bags remembered. This time the dark lightning struck like a bomb.

"Hi," said the grubling. "I'm Julie."

"FILTHY MAMMAL," the Exile replied. The mammal grubling was to be devoured. The Exile was shamed. The Exile had failed-TERRIBLE SHRIEKING DOOM-the Exile had come here to devour the mammals that had battled the other servants of Horde. The Exile would please the master and no longer be Exile. Again it would be Number 786 of Horde. "CONSUME!"

"You're funny," said the grubling. Air passed over the grubling's vocal cords and made a melody, not unlike the shrike-hounds of the howling gates and it made the Exile feel stop. New sound, word list on mammals called it giggle made the Exile feel not to devour the grubling. The grubling held up with its opposable thumbs an image of a tiny earth beast, made of cloth, stuffed with fibers. "This is Cuddle Bunny. Want to play?"

"CONSUME?"

"No. Play, silly." The grubling used its pathetic leg limbs to hop away. "Come on. You're my friend. You're like a big trash bag."

The Exile was confounded. The other mammals were made of hate and burning. The master-TERRIBLE SHRIEKING DOOM-was made of pain and orders. This grubling was of not kill. Suddenly the grubling changed to the Exile's current eyes and the Exile saw that this mammal was made of stars.

Confused. The Exile followed. The Exile became Friend.

At the time I had thought that the gnome's memory had been slightly alien. Mr. Trash Bags had just shown me what a real alien was. My head ached with haunting sounds, thought bubbles that popped like dynamite, and the lingering image of a tiny, perfect, glowing angel, with pigtails and a stuffed rabbit.

"Destroy them!" Hood shouted at the hesitating shoggoth.

"NOOO!" The simple beast remembered what was probably the only thing that had ever loved it. Two tentacles cracked like whips, splitting the automatons flanking Hood in half. The limbs tore through the shadow man, pulverizing the ground at his feet, but he merely re-formed in place.

Snarling, he extended one hand. "Traitorous amorph!" A bolt of fire leapt from his amulet, down his arm, and from his hand, bursting into the shoggoth, engulfing it in flames. "How dare you!"

"PROTECT CUDDLE BUNNY," the shoggoth thundered as it carelessly tossed Julie behind it. The burning blob surged over me, across the portal, and at the shadow man. I was released, and spun wildly through the tar. The flaming beast collided with Hood, burning bits flying in every direction. Already it seemed to shrink as it turned to ash. I slid through the goo, trying to get to my feet. The blob hardened and shattered into burning shards. There was a terrible piercing squeal as Mr. Trash Bags exploded.

Hood dusted the ash from his robe. "Never trust a blob to do a man's work." He took three steps and leapt across the portal, landing effortlessly beside me. I fired my shotgun into his head and he merely swatted it aside before grabbing me around the throat and lifting me off the ground. Half man, half darkness, the hole in his face quickly closed. "We already said our good-byes."

There was a mighty yell. "Pitt!" I glanced up in time to see Agent Franks sprinting toward us, leaping between the massive roots. He would never make it in time.

"Too late," Hood said as he heaved me into the center of the portal.

Chapter 21

I broke the surface.

Time was different.

It was difficult to comprehend. Our existence doesn't really encompass this kind of experience. Time passed, but in different directions simultaneously. My brain hurt just trying to function.

My eyes still worked. The light was primarily red, but didn't seem to come from any particular source. It was utterly strange, alien. The air entering my lungs wasn't made of what I thought of as air, but it didn't matter, as enough time hadn't passed yet to breathe. I was floating in place, in a haze, almost like being on a cloud in some alternate hellish version of heaven.

Which according to the Condition, I probably was.

A creature made entirely of eyeballs floated past. It was tiny, but then I realized that with no scale, it might have been miles away and the size of a subway train. It was eating hornets made of razor blades and steam, but it didn't matter, because time wasn't passing. It just was.

Oh God. I'm scared.

The whole universe moved. It was the Dread Master blinking. A yellow slit appeared through the red. It was looking at me.

Time wasn't right, but at the same time I could see a million years in the past, and a million years into the future, and in other directions into dimensions that I couldn't comprehend, and I was going to die repeatedly through all of them, forever. This epic thing honestly believed that I was the first mortal being to ever harm it. I just knew that this being had waged millennia of war between stars against things even more diabolical than it was, but somehow a mere human had hurt it. And I was going to pay for that. A lot.

"That whole thing with the nuke, that wasn't me. The guy you want to talk to is Dwayne Myers. That's Special Agent Dwayne Myers of the Monster Control Bureau. M-Y-E-R-S." I didn't know if I just thought that, or if I could actually speak in this place, but even if I could, I'm sure my pitiful utterances were like a mosquito buzzing around its ear.

That giant eye kept regarding me. I could feel it in my mind, poking around as it figured out what would hurt me the most. I was a bubble of linear time in this ageless place, an oddity. My universe was poison to the Dread Master, but consuming me would be the equivalent of a healthy person eating a single jelly bean. Not exactly good for you, but it wasn't like you were going to notice.

Then it spoke. The entire universe thundered with its incomprehensible voice. All I could understand was the pain. The message itself was beyond me. But it didn't matter, because this was how I was going to spend eternity.

A few minutes in this place had shattered Ray Shackleford's mind before Earl had pulled him out. Ray had never been the same. For the first time, I had nothing but pity for him. The Dread Master said something else. I experienced agony beyond anything I had ever imagined. Turning into a zombie was Christmas at Disneyland with all-you-can-eat ice cream and a free ride on the space shuttle in comparison.

When it was done, I floated there, wishing to die.

I was mortal at home. Here I was an infinite chew toy. It hadn't even started yet. It got closer. Ten thousand feet of sleek carapace attached to millipede tentacles crackling with electricity. The eyeball creature was snagged by the forest of limbs and absorbed, digested for eternity to fuel the fires of chaos.

Then, in the abyss of confusion, there was a presence of something familiar, another bubble of familiar reality. A blue light intruded into the red, and it was as if time began to move again. It was coming from the opposite direction of the Dread Overlord. "I've never failed a mission," the presence said as I turned.

"Agent Franks?"

He was different here. The physical body was just a shell, housing a spirit that was clearly not that of a normal human, but rather something simpler and older. The recycled organs, bones, and sinew that served as Frank's avatar showed me the ward stone. It boiled with the power of pure reality. "Won't start now." There was a clear trail of energy connected to the ward stone stretching back to our universe.

Julie had explained it to me. As far as I understand how the ward works, it's basically a focus point for our reality. Like a magnifying glass under the sun. Undead are an unnatural thing in this world, so it just blasts them. Things from outside this reality can't take the heat. And now that I could see what it really was, I could tell that it was far more powerful than any of us had realized. The ward was huge, crackling with potential. The alchemists of old hadn't just created a defensive device. They'd created a doomsday weapon. It was like the seventeenth century's version of Mutually Assured Destruction.

If our reality was poison to the Old Ones, then Franks had just brought a keg of VX nerve gas into their living room.

The Dread Master assaulted us both with hate. As alien as we were to it, it probably didn't even understand what was going on, but it didn't like it one bit. Terrible visions and alien memories pounded my psyche. Bombarded by pain, Franks still pushed toward me, finally shoving the ward stone into my waiting hands. "Break it," Franks ordered. "I can't."

Of course not. It had been built by a human, for humans.

The Dread Overlord propelled itself forward.

In this place, I could see the stone for what it really was, a mere shell, a container, harnessing a violent reaction of raw physics and possibility. Four hundred years ago, a combination of dark wizardry and powerful alchemy had bound it to the shell, letting just enough leak so that it could be used as a shield against the forces of the other side. Franks had prearranged all of the numbers on the sphere using his creator's mathematical codes. It was ready.

The Dread Overlord was right on top of us. I would never make it in time.

My fingers sunk into the stone as I wrenched it apart. The field fragmented and energy lanced through the spreading cracks. I let go of the stone and it floated away from me, power building toward a cataclysmic reaction.

"Take my hand!"Julie…She had come after me. I reached toward her voice. "Hurry!" Then she grabbed me, pulling me down the chain, back to the real world.

The container shattered. Unleashed, a blue tidal wave of linear time invaded the reality of the Dread Master. If consuming me was a jelly bean's worth of bad health to it, then this was the equivalent of suck-starting a double-barreled 12-gauge. The yellow eye focused on the approaching wall of deadly reality. Incompatible matter collided, splitting atoms and releasing energy in an algorithmic multiplying fury. Ageless infinity broke. Every bit of the ancient squid god became disjointed, fractured, down to the subatomic level. The galaxy quivered.

The Dread Master simply…ruptured.

The explosion billowed outward, consuming planets.

I gasped for air.

There was dirt under me, real honest-to-goodness dirt. Flat on my back, lying in the center of the now solid stone circle, the Tree blotted out the sky above. Gunfire and explosions came from all around. A ten-foot-tall ogre lumbered past, on fire. I was never so glad to be home.

One of my arms was stretched out. Someone was holding my hand. My head hurt and I was so dizzy that it took me a moment to roll over and see who it was.

"Julie?" I whispered. She was lying face down, perfectly still, but she had a death grip on my hand. "Julie?" Slowly, she took a deep breath, then finally raised her head. Tears stained her cheeks. "You came after me…"

Julie smiled weakly. "Well, duh."

"Thank you," I croaked.

She just pulled herself closer, resting her head against mine. "Don't ever make me do that again."

I didn't know if she meant the portal, or having me abandon her so I could sulk off to die. She'd had the courage to follow me someplace that nobody should ever have to go and had dragged me back out. "Deal."

"Ever again…"

Something stirred at my feet. Franks sat up abruptly. He looked around slowly before staggering to his feet. "Never killed anything that big before," he said, sounding almost, but not quite, proud of himself. "It was…satisfying."

We had killed an actual Old One. We'd blown up the Dread Overlord!

"Is it really dead?" Julie asked.

Franks didn't answer. He just pointed.

Illuminated only by the burning remains of the shoggoth, Hood was on his knees. His cowl lifted, revealing black-oil tears leaking from his eyes and dripping down his face. "Oh, Master, what have they done to you?" he cried. Behind him, the undead automatons were not moving, frozen perfectly in place like statues. Then one by one, the joints began to give away, and they toppled, metal screeching, into the dirt. The High Priest's body seemed to wilt as the shadow energy dissipated from him.

With their animated troops falling apart and the source of their magic gone, the Condition forces were done for.

I got shakily to my feet and picked up Abomination.

My nemesis seemed to be choking, clouds of flies spewing from his mouth with every heave. He retched, and a dead leach thing fell out of his mouth, fading away into nothingness on impact. Shadowy shapes rose from him like steam, red eyes blinking, before drifting off in fear. Hood was being abandoned by all of the Old Ones' servants. I stopped directly in front of him. Above us, the Tree still loomed; the gunfire suggested MHI was still battling the now outmatched cultists, but this part here was my job to finish. "Why?" He looked up, black fluids leaking from his nose and ears. The substance that had kept him immortal was dissipating. "Why has he forsaken me?"

"Because he's dead."

He gagged on the demon oil. "Impossible."

I shrugged. "Shit happens."

Hood was sobbing, shaking. He knew I was telling the truth. "I studied them for so long. They couldn't be defeated. Their victory was inevitable. Inevitable! I couldn't stop them, nobody could. I sold my soul to protect this world."

"You got a bum deal."

"Then you come along…so stupid. So nonchalant about the ultimate gift you've been given. I had to work for my gifts. I had to bloody sacrifice. Fight and scrimp for every last bit of knowledge." It was like his body was breaking down as the realization of defeat hit him. "Your way could only end in blood and fire. My way led to utopia. I did what I had to do."

"You're no martyr," I said, cradling my shotgun. "Don't tell me you did what you had to do. You did what you wanted to do."

"Curse you, Pitt!" He surged to his feet, stumbling at me. His hands landed on my shoulders but his black eyes widened in surprise as Abomination's silver bayonet was driven through his chest. "I…I…"

He rested his head on my shoulder and bled down my armor.

The funeral was on an appropriately rainy day. Grandmother stood at my side, never letting go of my hand, as Father and Mother's caskets were put in the dirt. The caskets were closed, since the acid of the thing inside the pentagram had burned their faces into nothing but strands of meat and jelly.

The priest continued his litany, droning on, saying the same thing that his ancestors had said since Martin Luther himself had last stuck men in the ground. Eventually he was done, and the sky over Birmingham erupted into a downpour. The pitiful few who had gathered for the ceremony bolted for safety.

The two of us stayed, watching the fresh dirt churn into mud. One old crone and one twelve-year-old child dressed in black, pathetic in the rain.

Grandmother bent down and whispered in my ear. "Let them go, Martin."

I shook my head, water running down my face.

She squeezed my fingers hard. "Listen to me, child. Your father trifled with things beyond his understanding, and he paid dearly. Don't make the same mistakes he did. Let it go. I know he educated you in his dark ways and his dark books, but he was a fool."

I thought about the thing coming out of the basement floor. Grandmother was the fool, not Father. He understood what was out there and he had passed that information on to me. The Elder Things didn't need to be feared, they just needed to be understood. And understanding could lead to control.

I could control them.

"Your parents reside with the devil now because of their terrible sins."

"Yes, Grandmother."

"I tried to burn your father's evil book, for your own good, of course, but it wouldn't burn. So I gave away all his things to those Americans who destroyed the creature. They said that they would put them someplace safe, where nobody else would meddle with them."

Those were mine."Yes, Grandmother. What were those brave Americans called?"

"Monster Hunter International. You owe them your life, you know."

"I know."And they owe me my father's book… I vowed then on my father's grave that I would regain my birthright. Someday I would find these Monster Hunters and take back what was rightfully mine. "Can we go home now, Grandmother? I'm very cold."

"Yes, Martin."

I jerked the bayonet out in a flash of red human blood.

Martin Hood let go, stumbled back, and pressed his hands against his chest. The blood just kept coming. He sank slowly to his knees, staring at me in disbelief.

"I…forgot what pain…felt like…"

Pain was a burning village littered with orc bodies. Pain was what the families of his innocent victims were feeling. Pain was what my brother felt when his fingers had been sawed off. Pain was one of the many things he had stolen from Carlos. Pain was what G-Nome had felt when the doppelganger had ripped into him. Pain and death and suffering were all that Martin Hood had left in his wake.

Pain was his legacy.

"Sucks, don't it?" I whispered.

Then the High Priest of the Sanctified Church of the Temporary Mortal Condition fell on his face and died.

I stood over him, bayonet dripping. Julie approached with a limp, raised her M14 and mercilessly ripped an entire magazine of silver.308 into the body. I hate to admit that I flinched at the blasts. "Just in case," she said.

"Of course," I responded.

The Tree above us shuddered, insect limbs cracking. The blackness above the branches slowly dissipated on the wind, revealing stars. The nearby roots went from green, to brown, and then finally to gray within a matter of seconds, leaving the mutation with the consistency of cold stone. Mighty Arbmunep was finished, returned to the same hibernation that it had existed in for all of recorded history. Deprived of their magic and their undead war machines I knew that the cultists were now going to get the ever-living hell kicked out of them by a bunch of pissed-off and heavily armed Hunters.

Franks stepped up to the pulped body and thumped it with his boot. "Looks like shadow boy wasn't as bright as he thought he was."

Julie and I exchanged glances. "Bright?" I responded. "Look, dear, Franks made a joke."

"Fascinating," she responded, but she was mostly listening to her radio earpiece. "Sounds like the Condition is retreating, but our people are scattered and trying to regroup. A bunch are missing where the roots landed." I knew that she was thinking of her little brother. "We've got to find them."

There still had to be bunches of monsters lurking out there. Any Hunter who was alone was vulnerable. "We'd better hurry."

Franks rolled Hood over and began patting down the bloody robes. I knew immediately that he was looking for the artifact. I unconsciously stepped back. The Dread Overlord itself might be dead, but who knew what else that little thing was capable of. "Keep that damn box away from me."

The big man scowled. "It's not here."

"Looking for this?"

The three of us spun toward the voice. It was the girl, Lucinda, Hood's daughter. She had lost her ceremonial headpiece and her black robes were in muddy tatters. She was crying as she held up the artifact. It glowed with an unnatural black light in the fog. She was barely an adult.

"Drop it," Franks ordered as a 10mm Glock materialized in his hand.

"You killed him…" she wailed. "You murdered my father!"

"I did," I responded slowly. "And you'll die too, if you don't put that box down and step away from it."

"You'll pay for this. All of you will pay! He was a good man," Lucinda cried. "The Exalted Order will rise again and come for you."

"Gonna be hard since we just blew up your god."

"Lies!"

"Your father was an idiot. Now give up before you get hurt." I really didn't want to see Franks blow away a girl who was probably still a teenager. "Listen to me."

"My father was a good man!"

"Your dad was a complete psycho. Listen, girl, I can relate," Julie responded coldly. She had family missing out there amongst the roots. "But I really don't have time for this. Franks, you got the shot?"

"Affirmative," Franks responded. He put his front sight between Lucinda's eyes.

"Drop her," my wife said.

There was a gunshot. The bullet slammed into the dirt at Lucinda's feet. I turned in time to see a look of confusion cross Frank's square face, then his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed in a heap.

Ray Shackleford stood over Franks, blood-soaked hand open in front of him with a length of spinal column resting in his palm, torn cleanly from Frank's back. The vampire smiled as he dropped the vertebrae on the ground. "Well, that worked perfect! Hey, kiddos."

"Dad!" Julie gasped. She dropped her empty M14 and went for her pistol.

Lucinda Hood screamed. I jerked my attention back to her, only to see Susan Shackleford standing where she had been. The girl was scrambling away leaving a trail of blood behind her. Susan held up something and laughed. It was Lucinda's petite hand, torn clean off at the wrist, still holding the artifact. "About damn time!" Susan exclaimed as she examined the device.

"You'll all pay!" Lucinda whimpered, holding her bloody stump against her robes. She pulled out a length of rope and dropped it. The portal activated in a burst of flames and she fell headfirst through the opening.

"Hey, honey, you forgot something," Susan said as she tugged the severed hand off the artifact and tossed it casually through the portal. The opening snapped close behind. "Kids these days, I swear…Speaking of which…how're you guys doing?"

Julie and I stood back to back. She aimed her.45 at her father and I kept Abomination on her mother. If they attacked at this range we were dead meat. Susan was unbelievably powerful for a vampire of such young age and could move so fast that it was hard to watch.

"Been better…" I responded slowly. "We had a deal, Susan."

"Stay back!" Julie shouted.

"Whew!" Ray said as he raised his shoe and smashed Franks' torn-out spine. He ground it fiercely into the dirt until it broke with a sickening splatter. "Good thing he was distracted. Franks could totally have whupped my ass."

"Yes, we had a deal," Susan smiled, showing her pointed teeth. "You were supposed to take care of the necromancer for me. Check. Killing an actual Old One, though. I've got to hand it to you, that’s impressive. Seriously, that's like some sort of record. My chief rival is dead, and I owe you one for saving me from his service. No, we're not going to kill you, Owen. I'm just here for what‘s rightfully mine."

"What do you want with that thing?"

"Oh, this little trinket unlocks all sorts of ancient goodies, and until the Others pick a new Guardian to protect it, I'm going to milk it for all it's worth." Susan shrugged. "But that's not what I'm talking about. Like I said, I'm here for what's rightfully mine…Like my children. Julie, honey…come with us."

"Never," Julie hissed. Her father shifted a bit and she tightened the grip on her gun. "Don't come any closer."

"You don't have a choice."

Ray twisted his head and smelled the air like the predator he was. "Hunters are coming…I can't tell how close. This stupid Tree messes with my senses. I smell…Copenhagen."

"Come with us, Julie. Your little brother is out there in the dark, hurt and scared. Only I can save him now." Susan's eyes were glowing.

"I should have left that stake in you," I spat.

"Your mistake," she smiled. "Take them, Ray."

We both opened fire, but the vampires moved so quickly that it didn't do us any good. It was like Susan just stepped between the shotgun slugs. I perforated her heart and lungs, but the wounds closed instantaneously. She slammed her open hand into my armored chest, launching me back into the circle of stone. I crashed into a rock and the air blasted from my lungs.

My head swam as I tried to rise. Julie screamed.

Susan had her.

Filled with rage and fear, I pushed myself to my feet. Ray intercepted me. Our bulks collided, and he engulfed me in a bear hug, crushing my ribs. "Stay out of this, kid. This is family business."

I head-butted him in the face. His nose shattered. I hit him again, my forehead the only weapon available. Ray let go. He had superhuman strength and speed. I had desperation. I drew my.45 and shoved it into his chest, jerking the trigger as fast as I could. Ray looked at me in shocked disbelief as I tore his heart into silver-laced confetti. He grabbed me by the throat, hoisted me into the air, and then slammed me back down with a roar.

Susan had a handful of Julie's hair and had jerked her head back, exposing her throat. Julie was fighting, struggling against the iron-hard claws. Her mother's face distorted as she opened her mouth impossibly wide, razor teeth gleaming.

I shoved myself up, putting my shoulder into Ray, trying to drive him back. He clubbed me in the back with a blow that should have crippled me for life. I went to my knees. The vampire's mouth descended toward Julie's neck. Time slowed to a standstill. I could see the terror in her eyes, the pulse in her carotid artery, the unnatural black mark on her skin as Susan's fangs pierced her flesh.

"NO!" I jerked my kukri from its sheath and slammed it through Ray's stomach with all my might. He looked at me in shocked disbelief as I lifted him off the ground, blade tearing through half his torso. I hurled him over my shoulder, screaming the entire time.

Susan looked up, hot blood streaming from her mouth. Animal face contorted, she hissed. Julie's eyes were closed, her pretty face twisted in a grimace of pain. "She's mine n-" The vampire suddenly jerked, hands flying to her face, releasing Julie. Red steam rose from her open mouth. "What's happening? Her blood burns!"

Ray was pushing his guts back in as he struggled to rise. "The mark! The Guardian's curse!"

Susan clamped her claws down over her lips. Acid smoke was pouring from her face. The flesh on her chin and lips was peeling away, leaving nothing but exposed teeth. She tripped back, shrieking.

I leapt forward, trying to protect Julie, blade held high. Julie's eyes flashed open, and for a moment, they seemed to be pure black, but then she blinked, and they were normal. There was no wound on her neck, nothing. There was nothing on her skin except for the Guardian's mark. It flickered briefly with its own living movement, then it was still.

"I'm okay," Julie whispered.

Susan was shaking, in terrible pain. She lowered her hands. The bottom half of her face was nothing but glistening bone. "I can't…can't turn you…" the vampire stuttered, confused. "Why…why isn't it healing?"

Ray cried out. "Susan!"

"I'm not regenerating." She rubbed her fingers across her exposed jaw. "What have you done to me? I'm hideous!"

I rose from Julie, blade extended. It was time for Susan to die.

"Damn it." Susan raised one hand, pointing the artifact toward us. It crackled with black energy. I knew it was going to consume us both. "If I can't have her, nobody can." The air around the artifact swirled into a vortex.

"No!" Ray shouted. "Don't kill her!"

Then the artifact dropped harmlessly from Susan's stunned fingers.

Susan stumbled forward, white oak stake sticking out her back, black blood drizzling out. Sam Haven brutally slammed another stake into her. Heart ruptured, Susan went to her knees, paralyzed. "Leave them alone!" He backed up a step, raised his boot, and kicked the stake right through her.

"SUSAN!" Ray bellowed as he leapt right over Julie and me.

"It's over, Ray!" Sam yelled as he drew his bowie knife. He jerked Susan's head back as the blade came down.

Ray slammed into Sam. The two of them crashed and rolled across the dirt. I went after them. Ray was up first, his form twisting, muscles snaking across his vampire frame as bone talons burst from the ends of his fingertips. "Get away from my wife!" Ray struck with supernatural desperation. Struggling to rise, Sam grunted as the bone claws tore right through his armor and sent him sprawling.

The vampire hesitated, looking down at his former friend, then at the blood dripping down his arm. "I'm real sorry, Sam." Ray bent down, grabbed the stake from Susan's back and yanked it free.

With a cry, I swung my blade for the base of Ray's head. The blade struck and a tremor ran up my arm. The steel came to a stop most of the way through his neck. Black fluids came welling slowly out the cut. Ray stood there for a moment, his vampire features gradually softening, returning to a semblance of normalcy. He smiled slightly. "Good shot, kid…"

I cleaved the blade the rest of the way through his throat. Ray's head fell from his shoulders and bounced away. His body dropped a second later.

"Ray!" Susan cried. "What have you done?" She stood behind me, hole in her chest sealing shut, her lower jaw still nothing but white bone. She took a step forward. "What have you done?"

I spun my knife and got ready for her charge. "My job."

My father-in-law was dead. Ray's flesh was softening, turning to ooze, and dripping from his skeleton. I'd finally done him the favor that I should have fulfilled last summer.

Susan hesitated, shaking, looking down at her husband's body, then her red eyes locked on mine. "Oh, now I’m mad."

"Dad's free, Mom," Julie said as she rocked a magazine into her rifle. There were flashlights approaching from all directions and the shouts of Hunters. Julie pulled back the charging handle and let it fly forward. "You're done here."

"Not yet, I'm not." Susan bent over to pick up the artifact, but Julie's bullet knocked it flying away from her hand. Susan snarled. "So that's how it's going to be?"

Julie took careful aim. "Yeah, I guess it is."

The bullet passed through nothing. Susan's bloody clothing fell to the ground as a thick gray mist rolled across the ruined cemetery. Within seconds the mist had mingled with the fog and rolled out of sight.

"Are you all right?" I shouted at Julie.

"I'm fine. Check Sam."

The burly Hunter was sitting down, pressing his hands against his side. I squatted next to him. "Sam? You okay?"

"Naw…" He moved his hands. Torn sheets of Kevlar parted, and I could see inside his chest cavity. Desperate to protect his wife, Ray's blow had been so powerful that he'd cleaved right through the armor. Sam coughed violently and blood drenched his giant walrus mustache. "Shit, that hurts."

"MEDIC!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. Julie spoke into her radio, calling desperately for an orc healer. I wrenched open my first aid pouch and pulled out a pack of bandages. I ripped them from the package and stuck them against him. It was soaked useless almost instantly.

"Gotta lay down," Sam wheezed. I put my hand on his back and gently lowered him. "We…win?"

"Sure did, man."

Julie knelt at his other side, shining a flashlight at the wound. The vampire's claws had torn four terrible lacerations deep through him. Blood was pouring out. I was shocked he was still conscious. Julie looked up at me, a terrible knowledge in her eyes. "Hang in there, Sam. Gretchen's coming."

Sam's strong hand grasped mine. "It's all good, guys." Other Hunters surrounded us. A group of Feds found Agent Franks and called for a stretcher.

"Not Sam," Holly cried when she arrived. I glanced around the assembled Hunters. None of us could do a thing. Sam could have taken an injury like this in an emergency room and still not have had a chance. Holly began desperately cutting the rest of Sam's armor away. There was no way she was going to stop the bleeding in time.

"Figures it would be Ray. He always was a dick." Sam closed his eyes. His breathing was rapid and shallow. "I taught you kids good, though. Where's Milo?"

"Right here!" the little man shouted as he sprinted up to us. "Oh, Sam, no…" Milo dropped down beside me. "What happened?"

His eyes opened. "No biggie." Sam coughed. "Listen…brother…I…"

Then he was dead. The great heart simply quit beating. The hand grasping mine was suddenly still…just like that.

"Sam?" Milo asked. "Sam?"

We were all quiet. Finally Milo, trembling, reached up and closed Sam Haven's staring eyes.

Chapter 22

The mortuary became our temporary headquarters while we regrouped and figured out what was going on. Myers had not accompanied his men through the rift from Alabama but was in contact. With Franks incapacitated, Archer was in command. The thin man was pacing back and forth in the mortuary chapel, speaking excitedly into a satellite phone.

"No, sir. I don't see any way that we can cover this up. Negative. It's like twenty stories tall." The agent stalked back to the window. When the sun comes up, the town below us would surely see the giant alien tree. It was a secret agency's worst nightmare. Archer nodded as Myers gave him instructions. "Yes, sir. I'm on it." He closed the phone and started yelling orders. "Johnson, contact British MI4. They have an office in Auckland. They'll have to evacuate the town before dawn. Have them make up something about…anthrax or plague or something…hell, I don't know, maybe an outbreak of rabid sheep."

I was standing in the doorway, waiting. "Auckland? We're in New Zealand?" That would explain why my watch was saying that it was afternoon in Alabama; it felt like we were getting close to sunrise. That, and it had seemed unseasonably cool.

Archer glared at me. "What? I'm busy."

"Yeah, Myers sure does make it look easy, doesn't he? Keeping all those lies straight and all that. The man has a gift," I said. Archer frowned, waiting. "I was wondering if Franks…is he okay?" We had blown up a god together, after all. Now that's male bonding.

Archer actually smiled. He really wasn't a bad sort. "Franks will be just fine. It takes more than getting his spine pulled out to kill him. He probably won't even take sick leave. I'll tell him you asked."

"Thanks." I turned to leave.

"Hey, Pitt…" He stopped me, suddenly uncomfortable. "Just so you know, man. I was just doing my job. I didn't know about Torres. I really was just trying to protect you."

I nodded once, then left the young Fed to his damage control.

The Feds had taken the comfortable waiting room, leaving MHI the soaking wet and partially burned chapel. Our people had moved in to tend to our injuries and check our gear. The mood was chaotic and somber. Julie was sitting on one of the pews, wrapped in a wool blanket. She looked haggard, with big dark circles under her eyes. She gave me a weak smile when she saw me. I flopped down next to her.

"I just got some good news," she said. "Nate's going to be fine. He broke his leg when he fell down that hole and took a good whack on the head, but other than that, Gretchen's not worried about him."

"Good thing Shacklefords are so hard-headed," I responded.

She didn't laugh. "I haven't told him about Dad yet."

"Oh…okay." That was going to be hard. This would be the second time they would have to deal with his death, only this time, it was permanent. "Have the Feds found the artifact yet?"

Julie bit her lip. She seemed deep in thought. "No…not that I know of."

"Well, when they do, they better stash it someplace that nobody will ever find it. That thing's too dangerous. I hate the idea of them even having it, because eventually somebody is going to use it again. Anything else?"

She shook her head. "Amazingly enough, we've got a ton of injuries, multiple gunshot wounds, and one Newbie lost a foot, but we only had the one fatality. The Feds lost two pilots, but the other two lived."

"How's Skippy?"

"He's good. He managed to put the Hind down right side up. Not bad considering the tail rotor was gone. Minor injuries on the orcs running the door guns, but that's it. Skippy even thinks that we can fix it, provided we can ship it home."

"We're in New Zealand," I pointed out.

She nodded. "We checked GPS as soon as we stepped through the portal. By the way"-she pointed at my armor-"your patch is upside down." Sure enough, I had stuck it back on wrong after tearing it off Torres. I had been a little preoccupied at the time. "Will you look at that? Upside down, it's a penguin…swimming right at you. Never noticed that before."

Milo arrived and sat down next to me. He looked even worse than Julie. He and Sam had been friends since Milo had joined MHI as an orphaned teenager. He was holding together right now, but that was only because there was still work to do. "I checked. The magic rope's toast. Half of it is still stuck under that stupid tree, so I don't think I can turn it back on. Don't have the ward stone to juice it up either."

"How did you do that, anyway?"

Milo shrugged. "Couple of clever people, a killer deadline, and a mutant that happened to be familiar with the inventor's work. Esmeralda figured out how to turn it back on, and I said, why not splice it into a couple hundred feet of climbing rope and fly some attack helicopters through it…Seemed like the reasonable thing to do with a magic teleporter thingy. Then we took volunteers to go through it, and that turned out to be just about everybody who wasn't already banged up."

"Well, you guys saved my life. I'll never forget that."

"Don't ever forget Sam." Milo sniffed and blew his nose into a handkerchief. "Darn, I must be allergic to penguins or something, making me tear up and stuff. Well, if you'll excuse me, I've got to see about arranging transport out of here. I'm assuming most of us didn't bother to bring passports."

Milo walked away. I corrected my patch. "Does New Zealand have penguins?" I asked.

Julie shrugged.

The British Supernatural Service, commonly known as BSS, working in conjunction with the U.S. Monster Control Bureau of the Department of Homeland Security, was gracious enough to provide lodging and transport for the forty-some-odd members of MHI stuck in Pukerua Bay, New Zealand. Mostly I think they just wanted to get us out of the rapidly disintegrating situation. The small town had not been evacuated quite in time, and many photos and even cell phone video of the massive Arbmunep had been taken and dumped on the internet. People were freaking out. The Feds were scrambling to come up with a plausible cover story.

Not my problem.

Skippy had refused to leave until Archer had agreed to have the Hind crated up and shipped back to Alabama. I didn't know if Myers would allow his subordinate to keep that promise, but if he didn't, I figured the orc would probably just hunt him down, and it wouldn't be pretty. That chopper was Skippy's baby.

I was riding business class on a transoceanic flight when I got the phone call. My phone was still sitting at the bottom of the Alabama River, so Earl had finally managed to get a hold of Julie. She woke me up with a poke to the ribs and passed the phone over, violating the hell out of the airline policy about using electronic devices in-flight.

"You did it," Earl said. "As soon as the link with the Dread Overlord was broken, Rocky said he was done and went home."

"Rocky?"

"You know, Rok'hasna'wrath, devourer of worlds and all that crap. We spent a lot of quality time together, so we're on a first-name basis now. I think he was surprised to find that I was a little tougher than he initially figured. I didn't give up anything without a hell of a fight."

"Any permanent damage?"

Earl was quiet for so long that I thought I had dropped the connection. "Well, I lost a few things…" He didn't specify further. I remembered the terrible fate of Carlos, and was just glad that I had been able to spare one of my friends from that. "Thanks, Owen. Thanks for everything."

"I'm sorry about Sam."If I hadn't freed Susan…

"Don't be. Sic Transit Gloria Mundi. Sam Haven was a hero and one of the best friends I've ever had. He died how he lived, brave as hell, saving lives, and getting the job done. That's exactly how he would have wanted it."

"See you in a few, Earl."

The day after our return, I had been summoned to a meeting at one of the miscellaneous federal buildings in Montgomery. I was to come alone. It had not been a request. Apparently the MCB had a few questions they wanted answered about the events of the last few days.

I wore my only suit, which was normally reserved for funerals and weddings. There was still a very good possibility that I was going to be prosecuted for the various things that I had done. There was also the much smaller possibility that they were just going to make me disappear for being a general nuisance. My gut feeling told me that was unlikely though. If the government ever decided to just pop me, I knew that they would just send Franks.

Myers had requisitioned an office near the courthouse during his stay in Montgomery, and the receptionist pointed me in the correct direction when I got off the elevator. There was a single chair outside the office, and it was occupied by a fidgeting Grant Jefferson.

I paused, waiting.

He stood, adjusting his suit, which was much nicer than mine. He looked a little nervous, which was understandable, despite the fact that I'd had to go through a metal detector in the lobby. "I wanted to talk to you before your meeting."

I waited. I didn't really have anything I needed to say to him.

But he apparently felt the need to get something off his chest. "When you asked me why I came back, I wasn't lying when I answered." I didn't respond, so he gradually continued. "I did feel like a failure. I hated knowing what was out there, and I felt like a coward for not fighting anymore. I was bitter. I felt like MHI had let me down, not the other way around. When Myers approached me, I saw a way that I could do the right thing. I could protect people, serve my country…I saw a way that I could make a real difference."

A difference? Hiding the truth, killing people who talked too much? All while deluding yourself that you're a hero?"Why are you telling me this?"

He shook his head. "I…I don't really know. I just thought you should understand."

"You done?"

He stuck his hand out to shake. I just glanced down at his waiting hand. It would be a cold day in hell before I accepted his pseudo-apology. Finally, awkwardly, he lowered it back to his side. "Never mind then." He brushed past me and walked quickly down the hallway, footfalls echoing on the granite. I put my hand on the doorknob. Grant paused and glanced back. "One last thing, Pitt."

I waited.

"Be good to her. She deserves the best." Then he walked away.

Agent Myers was waiting for me on the other side of a desk. He had a file with my name on it sitting open in front of him. His fingers were steepled together and his elbows were resting on the desk. His cheap suit was wrinkled and I was willing to bet that he hadn't gotten much sleep over the last few days. "Have a seat."

I pulled up a chair.

He got right down to business. "The necromancer is dead. His plot to utilize the Arbmunep weapon, defeated. All of our intel indicates that the Condition is collapsing without him. There are a few splinter groups holding together, and one young woman claiming to be his successor-"

"His daughter, Lucinda."

"Correct. But we will find her before she causes too much trouble, so don't worry about that. I'm not too worried about a teenager with one hand and a shattered organization. That's not why I called you in here." He lifted the top page in my file. "In the last week, you've threatened one of my agents with lethal force, failed to cooperate in a federal investigation, lied to investigators, and hindered an ongoing operation. These are all very serious charges."

"I also killed one of your agents with a grenade launcher," I pointed out, "which I think I should get bonus points for, and not to mention that Franks and I blew up the Dread Overlord itself."

"I'm aware of that, and Agent Franks will be reprimanded accordingly. He was not authorized to enter another universe or to attack an unknown entity. The Congressional Subcommittee has ruled it an act of self-defense, however, so Franks will not be terminated."

Did that mean fired or dismantled? "You know that's absolute bullshit, right?"

Myers, unfazed, continued. "Even more troubling is that it seems like you've been keeping secrets from me. I have evidence here that you have some sort of psychic powers and that somehow you are the only person in recorded history to have survived a zombie bite."

"That's impossible," I said with no inflection.

"Indeed," Myers said. "Because that would mean that your continued existence could prove to be an important national security issue." I did not respond. If Myers wanted to just make me go away it was certainly within his power. "But I'm really doubting the accuracy of this report," he said as he waved the paper.

"Why's that?"

"Because this same intel indicates that the Condition's Shadow Lord was really a man named Martin Hood, who died quite some time ago. See, I happened to know Martin Hood, we were actually close friends, and I would hate to see his good name slandered."

I nodded. "And it would also call into question the judgment of the interim head of the Monster Control Bureau if it turned out that one of his oldest friends was really the leader of an evil death cult." Myers was concerned about his association with Hood coming back to haunt him…

Unless…

Could Hood have also approached Myers about working together, like he had with Carlos? It was a definite possibility. They had been best friends. Had Myers known just what kind of craziness Hood had been dabbling in? Had he known about Hood's father's book? Had he known, but protected his friend anyway?

I had to know. "Can I see that report?"

Myers extended it to me and I reached out and touched his hand instead. It wasn't so difficult to use the ability this time. After all, the memory was just sitting there, floated to the top by the pressure of Agent Myers' buried guilt.

Ray Shackleford was furious. His face was turning a shade of red that was normally reserved for when he was chainsawing a monster in half. He shoved the chubby Hunter against the wall, enraged. "Damn it, Marty! What the hell were you thinking? I told you not to screw around with this stuff anymore!"

Ray was such a brute that Marty's feet dangled a few inches off the floor and the big man didn't even notice that he was holding him up. But the smaller Hunter was undaunted. "Don't you get it? I figured it out! I've learned the language of the book. I've read the entire Skia Thanatou! I can control the dead. There's no limit to what we can do now," Hood gasped, trying to breathe past the meaty hands clamped around his throat. The wall of Shackleford family portraits was at his back. The family estate was packed with Hunters but we had this room to ourselves.

"You were animating zombies, you idiot, and Carlos found out, and in the morning when Earl wakes up human, he's going to know too." Ray let go and Marty dropped, gasping. "I got you transferred so you would quit dinking around with the magic shit in the archives. You weren't supposed to sneak the evilest book down there with you!"

"It was my book to take," Marty snapped. "It belonged to my father, and his father before him. You didn't think it was such a bad idea when I used it back here and was making us millions in bounties!"

Ray rubbed his face in his hands as he stomped away. "What are we going to do? Does Carlos know anybody else helped with your research?"

"Of course not," Marty snapped. "You think I'm stupid? Now lower your voice, or the whole house will know. I'll handle this. I'll tell Earl that it was all me. I'll take the heat. What's he going to do? Kill me?" Marty snorted.

"Yes," Ray snapped. "My dad and grandpa are a lot of things, especially old-fashioned, but they've got principles. They won't tolerate a Hunter using dark magic. One of these days, I'll be in charge, and that'll change. We all know that this stuff can be harnessed for good, but until then, we were supposed to keep our mouths shut."

Marty's fat face opened in a wide grin. "Don't worry, mate. I'll handle this. If there's one thing I can do, it's keep a secret. Nobody ever has to know who helped me."

"Damn right," Ray snarled, poking him in the chest. "We're done tonight. In the morning, you'll come clean and beg Earl for forgiveness. You're going to take your lumps. Earl will probably fire you, but at least he won't eat you, and it beats all of us going to prison, right, Myers?"

"Agreed," I said, speaking up for the first time. I hated myself for ever getting involved. It had been stupid, playing with evil for the greater good, and my best friend had taken it too far. We had been fools.

But I did know how to keep a secret.

Only a second had passed. I was getting better at this. I studied Myers' face for a moment. He still looked like a community-college English professor, not like the interim leader of a top-secret government agency tasked with protecting the United States from all supernatural threats. He was an easy man to underestimate, but now I knew why he was so doggedly determined in his work. Myers was seeking atonement.

"It would probably ruin your career if it also turned out that your best friend was animating zombies and studying the darkest of mysteries while you guys were hanging out. Some of the good congressmen might even get the crazy idea that you were somehow involved," I said.

Myers smiled nervously. "Yes, no need for the Subcommittee to even worry about such preposterous allegations. I think that it would be for the best if this erroneous report never saw the light of day, wouldn't you?"

"Martin Hood died in 1986. Werewolf accident," I said.

"And Owen Zastava Pitt is just an average man, with no magical gifts or anything absurd like that." Myers nodded. "That seems fair enough." He neatly stacked all of the papers, put them all back into the folder, and fed the entire thing into an industrial shredder next to the desk. We both waited for it to quit grinding. "Now that‘s behind us, I do sincerely hope that we never have to work together again. In fact, I damn well better never see your name come across my desk, ever again. You should just stick with normal monsters. It seems like every time I get a case that's almost impossible to cover, it somehow involves you. No more world-altering events, time travel, portals to the Old Ones, or giant super trees. Is that understood?"

"Of course, Agent Myers." I stood. "I can show myself out."

We held the funeral services three days later. The dirty but necessary work had been done immediately, so this part was only for the living, not the dead. During the attack on the compound we had lost a team lead, Adam Williams, and three Newbies: Drew Foster, William Tanner, and John Newton. We had lost Sam Roger Haven under the boughs of the Tree, and we were also honoring the sacrifice of Carlos Alhambra.

Everyone had gathered.

There was a small cemetery in the forest outside the compound and the place was packed. The only Hunters who were buried here were the ones who requested to be. Most were cremated and then sent back to their families with some sort of fabricated cover story. It was sad, but it was how we had to operate. There was only one person actually being buried here today, and that was Sam, because his only family had been his fellow Hunters. The casket was closed, as we had already cleanly removed his head. It was something that we all had to do eventually.

We had set up a little podium in front of the hole in the ground. Milo Anderson had been tasked with saying a few words. The little man looked terribly uncomfortable in front of the crowd, glancing nervously about the entire time. He had dressed up in his best purple suit and had carefully braided his beard.

The orc tribe had buried their dead in their own private ceremony, but three solemn representatives had joined us. Skippy, Gretchen, and Edward held back, uncomfortable around so many humans, but feeling the need to acknowledge their connection to us, their adopted tribe. Their people had suffered because of their friendship with us, and I felt like it was my fault.

Yet they didn't see it that way. The orcs had welcomed me back as the hero who'd avenged their village. Gretchen had been impressed that I'd provided Julie the biggest wedding night offering ever, and she had warned my new bride that she was now obligated to provide me many strong warrior sons. Given how big an Old One was, Gretchen estimated three dozen sons would be sufficient.

Every Hunter that wasn't currently in the hospital was here, and even a few of those had managed to limp in.

My family had stayed for this. They would be leaving this afternoon. They could have left sooner. The Condition was broken, their members scattered, their leader and their lord dead. But my father had insisted on being here for this. After all, he was a man who understood sacrifice.

I still wouldn't speak to him about his dream and I refused to take his letter. Yes, I was curious, but I'd be damned if my curiosity was going to kill him. Dad glanced down the line of Hunters directly at me. In his opinion I was being a coward by not reading his letter. That may be the case, but I felt like I actually understood him for the first time. He had been trying to do his best the whole time. Dad's tough love had enabled me to survive, and as a result I'd found my calling in life and the woman I loved. My father had done his duty. I would do the same, and that meant keeping him around as long as possible.

My brother had also stuck around and was standing next to Mom. His career was ruined. His left hand was still wrapped in a massive bandage. Cody had saved the fingers and after Mosh's return they had been surgically reattached. The best he could hope for was a tiny fraction of the strength and dexterity he had once had. His days of being the best guitarist in the world were over. The Feds had publicly smeared him as the person responsible for the Buzzard Island incident. The official story now was a load of nonsense about special effects gone astray while under the haze of illegal drugs that had left a lot of people dead. It was utter crap, but somebody had to be blamed, and the flood of lawsuits was going to leave him bankrupt. He could maybe hope to someday play again, but Mosh was like me, and if you couldn't be the best at something, why do it at all?

Yet another life ruined because of me…

But Pitts are flexible, he hid his bitterness behind an impassive mask, and besides, Mosh had seen the real world. He had approached me just this morning, curious about what it took to become a Hunter. He also said that if he joined, and that was a big if, he had dibs on Team Rock Star once he inevitably became the greatest Hunter alive. I had been glad to put in my recommendation to hire him.

The Feds had felt the need to send representation for some reason. Maybe Myers understood that this whole thing was his fault, or maybe he just wanted to tweak us because he was such a petty man. Two agents had been sent to represent, and judging by who had been sent, I was assuming it was out of pettiness. Grant Jefferson looked painfully awkward in his expensive Italian suit. Grant actually would have made a good Pitt. If he couldn't be the best, why bother? I had no doubt that he would be a very effective Fed, since being a lying, self-righteous bastard came naturally to him. He shifted nervously, as Hunters cast the occasional cold glance at him. But at the same time, he and Sam had been teammates. Maybe Grant hadn't been ordered to come. Maybe he had volunteered. I would never know.

Agent Franks was the other government representative. He was chewing gum. I was sure that he would much rather be somewhere else, killing something. I did not understand what made Franks tick. He had kept his word, though, and fulfilled his mission.

The other Hunters listened to Milo patiently. He wasn't the most eloquent of speakers, but he spoke for all of us. Grandpa Shackleford sat between his father, Raymond Shackleford the Second, whom we all knew as Earl Harbinger, and his grandson, Nate, who had a large cast on his leg. The Shacklefords had another person to mourn. One of their own turned to the other side had finally been set free. Raymond Shackleford the Third, or Boss as I called him, had cornered me the day I had gotten back. His only words had been, "Thank you for killing my son," and he had been sincere. It had made me cry.

Julie came from solid stock. The wall of family portraits had confirmed my suspicions, but even if I hadn't been able to recognize the very first Raymond Shackleford from his painting, seeing the generations of Shackleford Hunters here today would have clued me in. They all carried themselves with that same solid determination. The ghost who had sent me back had been Raymond "Bubba" Shackleford himself. The founder of MHI was still keeping an eye on things.

Holly was torn up, taking Sam's death hard. Trip put his arm around her and pulled her close, trying in vain to comfort her. The others looked away. They had been there for me. The threat had been against me specifically, but Hunters stood together. I was the least of them, but I knew that every single one of them would lay down their lives for me, and I would do the same for them. I loved them like family. Hell, they were family.

I was in the front row, uncomfortable in a black suit and tie. The day was beautiful. The sky was clear. The spring air was clean. Birds were singing.

Julie was at my side, wearing a black dress. She hadn't spoken much since we had gotten home, and I knew that she was still in shock about the final death of her father. She had a lot on her mind. The marks on her neck and abdomen had not changed since that night, but they were an indication that something was happening. While Milo told stories, I reached out and took my wife's hand. She gave me a nervous smile. Whatever was coming, we would face it together.

When Milo was done, he stepped away from the podium. Earl Harbinger stood, and without a word, placed two patches on top of the casket, a happy face with horns and a walrus with a banjo. The few of us who had been asked, helped lower the casket into the earth.

A baby began to cry. Milo moved to his wife, who was gently bouncing the squalling infant. Shawna Anderson had given birth the day after Milo had gotten back from New Zealand. It was a healthy baby girl.

They named her Samantha.

Epilogue

The powerful demon crouched, unobserved, in the top branches of a distant tree, silently observing the Hunter's funeral below. It remained perfectly still, claws sunk deep into the bark to provide a stable platform as the breeze caused the branches to sway. The creature's third eye, etched deep into the plate of its skull, was able to clearly record the event for its distant master.

The mewling of the human infant caused the demon's belly to rumble with hunger, but meat would have to wait. Today it would watch. Tomorrow it would kill.

The four have gathered, the master projected his thoughts directly into the creature's mind. Can you feel them?

The demon scanned the crowd. It was said that four of these fleshlings had been to the Old Ones' dimension and returned alive. That alone was remarkable, but three of them had actually destroyed an Overlord. That was impressive, even by the demon prince's immortal standards.

The first was easy to pick out. It was one of the fallen, cloaked in a suit of flesh, animated by the Elixir of Life. Unlike most of its kind, this one pretended to be a man, living as a human. But even then, the demon could see the aura of violence this particular fallen wore like a cloak. It could play at being a human, but it would never succeed.

They call him Agent Franks now, the master confirmed. He went to the other side out of a sense of duty.

That made no sense to the demon. The fallen had no duty, no allegiance. They were damned for eternity, regardless. They had nothing to lose, no stake in this war.

And that's why he is dangerous.

The second was the werewolf.

Harbinger entered the Old Ones' world to save his grandson several years ago. The grandson was chosen to be the champion of man, but he was weak, manipulated by the necromancer, Hood. He fell to the vampire and has been replaced.

The demon could tell this was no normal lycanthrope. He was ancient by mortal standards and no stranger to battle, having hunted down nearly every type of beast. Killing that one would be an honor.

Many ghosts shared this forest. They too were watching. The demon was royalty amongst its kind, but the Hunters' unquiet dead left it nervous. These spirits had picked their side in the upcoming war. Many of the dead would not ally with his master this time. A particularly angry ghost was circling the tree, trying to pick a fight. It ignored the spirit and concentrated on the master's task.

It took longer for the demon to spot the next of the four. It was a young woman sitting in the front row. A Guardian? It couldn't be, but as the third eye refocused, it could see the black marks of the Others beneath her clothes.

Yes, the master said. She crossed over to bring back her lover. She is a brave one.

The demon prince scoffed. The last Guardian had been an unstoppable warrior, finally killed only through treachery. This little girl would be easy prey.

Do not underestimate her, child. Even now she has hidden the sacred artifact. The Others do not choose a new Guardian lightly.

The last was the hardest to find. All of the Hunters at the funeral were dangerous, special in their own way, fearsome, honorable, creative, ruthless, or courageous. It recognized a few of them from prior battles, but none were the champion.

There.

The demon fixated on the young man holding the new Guardian's hand. He was a warrior, that much was certain, but the demon prince could not understand what was special, why this one had been chosen above all the others.

He is the only one who did not cross over willingly, but even forcing him to do that ended the wretched Overlord. Before that the Old Ones could not tempt, coerce, nor trick him to do their will. When he destroyed the vampire Raymond Shackleford, the prior champion of man, he unwittingly took that mantle upon himself.

It took a great deal of effort, but the demon began to really see. This human had been picked for a reason. It was in his blood. For generations the factions had steered events to this place, this intersection in time, for the great unsealing.

This is the one who woke me. He who has broken time. He must be the champion. I will use him, then I will destroy him.

Sudden forces shook the tree. Energy struck the demon in the chest. Claws tore through bark as it was knocked from its perch in the tree. Spreading leathery wings, it glided to the ground silently. Landing, hunched, it tucked its wings in tight and waited. The living Hunters had not heard the commotion.

A flickering ghost appeared before the demon, dressed in the leather armor of a turn-of-the-century Hunter. The spirit was ready to battle. "Y'all ain't welcome here. This is a private ceremony," he ordered.

The demon prince recognized the dead man. They had fought long ago. It spoke for the first time as it drew itself up to its full height, towering over the ghost. "I know you. I helped kill you."

The dead man gave a slow nod. "I reckon you did, but don't you worry your pointy little head on it. My folks will even up that score eventually." He pointed to the northwest, the direction the demon had come from. "So get off my land."

It weighed the options. There was not much that a lone spirit could do to harm it. Yet, the nearby Hunters with their physical bodies and silver weapons could prove troublesome. More ghosts had appeared and the prince realized it was badly outnumbered.

It is not time, child, the master warned. The end of the world is near, but it is not yet upon us. Leave the Hunters to bury their dead for now. There is still much to prepare.

Frustrated, the demon dipped its curled horns in acknowledgement to the gathering army of spirits, turned and stomped away, leaving nothing but a trail of cloven prints in the red soil. Along the trail, it passed the shimmering ghost of a bent old man, leaning upon a wooden cane. The dead Hunter was studying the intricate symbol branded on the demon's chest.

"Seen that sign before," the ghost said with a thick accent. "Drawn in the dirt by father of my friend, just the other day." He pushed the glasses back up his nose, hawked, and made a big show of spitting on the ground at the demon's hooves.

"We are not done here," the demon hissed.

"No. We're just getting started," the old man replied with a smile.

The End

Table of Contents

-Contents-

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Epilogue

Table of Contents

-Contents-

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Epilogue