"Screw you, Harbinger," Franks said.
"Situation's under control. No need for you here," the professor stated in a cold voice.
"I'll be ice-skating in hell before I believe that you federal weasels have anything under control."
"You better shut up," Franks growled.
"Or what?" the man said with calculated belligerence and just a touch of a southern accent. "Gonna arrest me? You might not like it much, but we're a legitimate business again. If you Feds hadn't booted us out of Yellowstone, that werewolf wouldn't have gotten away, that fat guy wouldn't have gotten bitten, and this guy never would have gotten attacked."
"National parks are our jurisdiction. Your people can't legally be armed in them, so you were out of luck. So you just need to calm down," Myers stated in a manner that suggested he was used to being obeyed.
The new guy sneered. "I need to calm down, Myers? Your bureaucratic nonsense caused this trail of bodies. You could have let us break a couple of stupid laws and you wouldn't have two dead people and this one." He jerked a thumb in my general direction.
"The rules are there for a reason. Not obeying the rules is what got you shut down the first time. I think it was a mistake to ever let your kind back into business."
Needless to say, the atmosphere in the room was very tense. I was pretty much forgotten in my heap of bandages and bedpans. Myers and the interloper were locked in a staring contest. Franks looked ready to escort our guest out, preferably headfirst down the stairs. Anybody who made these guys that uncomfortable was all right by me.
"Umm… Not to interrupt this love fest or anything, but who are you?"
Finally Myers must have blinked and ended the stare off. The stranger looked at me as if he was sizing me up. His eyes were cold, blue, and intimidating. After a long unblinking moment he finally must have decided I passed muster, since he held out his hand to shake mine. Franks removed the Martha Stewart magazine to display his gun, just to remind me not to try anything.
"Name's Earl Harbinger. I'm with MHI."
"Owen Pitt. CPA." His grip was like iron. "MHI? Is that like some top secret government agency or something?" I asked.
Agent Myers snickered. "Not even close."
Harbinger just scowled at them. "No. If I worked with these idiots I would kill myself. We're a private organization. We're a for-profit business, and if I do say so myself, we're the premier leader in our field. One which I would say that you would probably be pretty good at. You did good back there."
"Thanks, but I don't think it's going to be good enough. These guys tell me that I'm probably going to end up turning into something like my boss." It was an ugly thing to say, and I could feel a great cold weight in my chest as I said it. "I don't want to end up like that."
The stranger shook his head. "Don't worry about it."
"Recruiting some fresh cannon fodder, Harbinger?" Myers interrupted. "Right now Mr. Pitt is in our custody, and he doesn't go anywhere until I say so."
"I'm not recruiting, Myers, but if you're looking I hear Wal-Mart needs a new door greeter," he responded. Turning back to me, he continued speaking as if he had never been cut off. "Have you asked yourself why every one of your injuries is bandaged except for that great big slash on your head?"
Subconsciously I reached up and touched the nasty pile of stitches that snaked down my face. All I knew was that it was going to leave a horrible scar.
"It's uncovered so they could watch it. If you had started to heal unnaturally fast, they would have dropped you dead in a heartbeat. From the amount of damage you sustained, I'm sure they were positive that you were going to make the change. I don't think anybody has ever been that torn up by a were creature and lived. I'm also guessing that since you haven't started to heal yet, they've sent out for a blood test to be sure, because they're probably itching to finish you. But they don't dare, just in case you're still human."
"They said they were waiting for a test."
"Damn right they are. But let me tell you something. I wrote the book on these monsters. If you haven't shown any signs after five days, I give you my word that you ain't infected."
"Really?" I felt the first real surge of hope since I had woken up in this antiseptic dungeon.
"You're going to be fine. Look, when these jerk-offs get their test back negative, and you get out of here, give me a call. You have my card. We need to talk. Get some rest." Strangely enough, I believed the stranger's promise. He did not strike me as the kind of person to sugarcoat an ugly truth.
Harbinger stalked out, rudely bumping into Agent Myers on the way. The senior agent appeared ruffled but he did not speak until after the door shut and our guest was gone.
"You'd best stay away from that bunch, Pitt, if you know what's good for you. They're going to screw up some day and every last one of them is going to end up in prison or dead. They don't respect governmental authority."
Well, neither did I. I flipped the agents the bird. "You know what, I'm going back to sleep. I've had a crappy day. If your stupid test comes back positive, just shoot me and get it over with. If it comes back negative, get the hell out and leave me alone. Either way you don't need to wake me." I pushed the button to lower the bed back into a sleeping position. It wasn't as dramatic as a good door slam, but it would have to do.
It actually only took me a few minutes to fade out. My body was still wracked with painful injuries and the painkillers still hummed through my system, but I was careful to first safely cradle the business card in my hand.
The Feds went back to watching TV.
I had a strange dream. It was hazy and blurry, jerky and disjointed, violent and quick. Not like a normal dream at all.
There was a battle. I did not know when it took place, but somehow I knew that it had occurred in the past. Details were obscured by billowing clouds of snow. Huge numbers of soldiers defended against a single unnatural being, trying in vain to keep him from his goal, and dying by the score. The only thing that mattered to him had been taken, and he had come to reclaim it. He was the Guardian.
There was an evil thing in the dream, even more sinister than the Guardian. It too was old, cursed and blighted, and seething with rage and hate. It was weakened by failure, and retreated as the Guardian approached. Its final minions fell before the immortal killer as the cursed thing fled into the ruins.
The last soldier waited for the Guardian. He had been the leader of the blood-drenched, elite force. He stood defiant in his black uniform, towering over the body of a frail human sacrifice, proudly shouting that his lord would return to finish what they had started. The soldier placed his pistol against his temple and ended his life.
The final moments of the dream had a small bit of clarity to them. I was able to finally see the Guardian. He was a giant of a man. Every inch of his skin had been covered in strange tattoos. The ink lines moved like living things. He looked right at me across space and time. His eyes were solid pools of hate-filled black.
"Thou shalt die by my hand."
I woke up with a start. What a freaky dream… I had no idea what that had been about. Weird shapeless evil things, tattooed killers fighting in the snow, and a bunch of soldiers screaming in German. I blamed it on the drugs.
A cell phone was blaring an annoying downloaded ring tone. I think it was "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." I kept my eyes closed and pretended to be asleep. There was some fumbling and then Agent Myers' voice. "Myers." I eavesdropped intently, hoping to get an early clue to my fate. By nature, I'm not a particularly religious man, but I found myself praying that the stranger had been right. Twenty-four was too young to die. I would miss my parents and my brother, and I wished that I had more time to fix my relationship with them. I wished that I hadn't wasted so much time on the little things. It was too late for that now. My life came down to the contents of a single phone call, and the trigger pull of a Glock.
"Uh-huh. Yep. Uh-huh… Okay… Sure… Bye."
Well, that end of the conversation sure didn't help much. I stiffened up and waited for the bullet to blow through my skull and mushroom in my gray matter. For a long moment I wondered if Franks was a good shot. The last thing I wanted was to end up as a vegetable. Would it hurt? I bit my tongue. There would be no begging; better to end it this way than twisted into something inhuman at the next full moon.
The wait seemed to last an eternity. There were a few whispers and a small rustle of movement, but no flash of gunpowder, no crack of muzzle blast. The only constant was the quiet beep-beep of the machine matching my heartbeat. That particular pulse was noticeably faster than it had been a moment before. It was hard to pretend to sleep when electronic devices were so ready to betray you. My lungs ached from holding my breath, and my stomach muscles were clenched painfully tight. Some sick part of me hoped that my exploding head would make a real nasty mess on their cheap suits. Dry-clean that, you jerks.
Finally I heard the agents move. The door opened slowly. I risked a quick peek as the two FBI men walked quietly from the room. Franks looked dejected, deprived of his chance to legally kill somebody, and surprisingly enough Myers appeared to be politely trying to keep the noise down. The door closed and they were gone.
Slow minutes passed as I made sure they weren't coming back, but all was still. The call had come. The stranger's promise had been true. I was not infected, was still human, and wasn't going to die. I laughed until I pulled something in one of the many lacerations in my back and then I cried in pain and then in relief. As I said earlier, I was not normally by nature a pious man, but on that night I sure was. I sobbed and heaved as all of the stress left me spent and wasted.
There were two final things to do before I went back to sleep. I grabbed the bouquet of get-well flowers from Hansen Industries and hurled it across the room. It had been a stupid job anyway. Then I pulled the business card out, brought it up close to my face, and tried to read it with my blurry eyes. I couldn't focus well enough to read the fine print, but I could read the heading.
Monster Hunter International
Monster Problems? Call the Professionals.
Established 1895
Physical therapy sucks. Recuperation sucks. And the never-ending itching that comes from under a cast has to possibly be the worst form of torture known to man. The worst, unless you happen to have your parents invade your home in an attempt to comfort you. My folks had flown in when they had been informed of the "incident," and had immediately set about being a huge nuisance.
Before that, however, my hospital stay had dragged on for another week. Apparently, dying, even if only for a minute or two, could be quite a stressful event. The doctors had been impressed that I was even alive. When I had asked one of them approximately how much blood I had lost, he had responded wryly with "most of it."
Treatment had consisted of me trying to move around without tearing anything. Gradually my strength returned until I was able to hobble a few feet on my own and even digest some of the hospital food. Detectives from the Dallas PD had come out to interview me. They did not say anything about supernatural monsters or the FBI agents, and believe me, I did not bring them up either. Instead the cops were under the impression that Mr. Huffman had been some sort of deranged serial killer high on PCP and armed with a 14-inch bowie knife. I was sure that my new friends from the federal government had arranged the crime scene to show whatever story they wanted, and it certainly didn't involve werewolves. The police thanked me for ridding the world of a very bad man, and told me that their investigation showed a clear-cut case of justifiable homicide. There was no indication that I was going to be indicted for anything, and they even arranged to return my.357 once everything was cleared through the prosecutor's office.
The local papers had run stories about my heroic defense against the crazed serial killer Cecil Huffman. In an amusing note the cover story featured both of our employee pictures. I'm sure that most casual readers would conclude that my picture showed the insane murderer, since I was big, young, muscular, swarthy, generally ugly, and beady-eyed. Mr. Huffman looked more like the victim type, a fat, middle-aged, middle manager, with big sad eyes and triple chins. Looks could be deceiving. During my hospital stay I had repeatedly turned away reporters. The last thing I wanted to do was to make up a story, or screw something up and draw the ire of the FBI. I had even turned down a potential guest spot on Oprah. My mom had been royally ticked when she found out about that.
The folks had arrived right before I was discharged. Now, don't get me wrong. I honestly love my family. They are good people. Crazy, but good.
"Damn, boy, you look like shit," was the first thing that my father exclaimed when he saw my face.
My father was an upstanding citizen, a decorated war hero and member of the tight-knit Special Forces community, a man who was respected by his peers. At home, however, he was an emotionally distant and stern man who had a hard time relating to his children. When I was younger I had taken this to mean that he did not approve of us or even really like us much. I had dealt with that by trying to follow in his footsteps. My younger brother had dealt with that kind of thing by dropping out of high school and forming a heavy metal band. While I had become a CPA, my brother's band had landed a record deal and was always surrounded by hot groupies and wild parties. I think I got the shaft in that deal.
Apparently my father was a little ashamed that I had gotten so torn up by a corpulent schmuck, when I myself was young, fit, and-since I had been brought up right-carrying a gun. I imagine that if Huffman had succeeded in eating me, my father would have been more embarrassed that a Pitt had lost a fight, than saddened by my actual demise. The last time my father had been obviously ashamed of me was when the Army recruiters had turned me down because of flat feet and a childhood history of asthma attacks. That had been a tough day for him.
He had brought his sons up to follow in his soldiering footsteps. In fact, the idea for my first name came from the Owen submachine gun that he had used to save his life in the backcountry of Cambodia during a war that never officially existed. He thought the name had a nice ring to it, and the actual gun had come in handy for mowing down communist insurgents after he was trapped deep in enemy territory with nothing but an obsolete Australian weapon older than he was. Believe me, as kids, we had heard all of those stories.
"Oh my baby! My poor poor baby! How did this happen? You poor thing!" was the first thing from my mom. It continued like that for several minutes in a barrage of hugs, kisses, and dampened tissues. Mom was the emotional one in the family. She also showed her love by cooking, which is why I was always the chubby kid growing up. In my house, if you weren't eating, obviously you were not loved. Needless to say, the Pitts tended to be big people.
They had taken me back to my apartment, where to my surprise they promptly settled in for a stay. I tried to assure them that I would be fine, and that I would not need any help. Since I could barely walk and was still covered in bandages I don't think I made a very convincing argument in favor of my independence.
Weeks passed as I gradually healed. My strength was returning, and after a few doctors' visits, I was running out of staples. I had to admit that I loved my mom's cooking, and between the lack of exercise, atrophied muscles, and 3,000-calorie meals I was starting to put on some weight. The trade-off came in the constant questioning. "Why no girlfriend? When are you going to get married? When will you find another job? What are you going to do now?" These were always followed by invitations to move back home where I could find another job and meet a nice girl.
Friends came to visit several times. Mom rented lots of movies for me to watch. I caught up on my reading, and checked the want ads for a new job.
Dad mostly played golf.
This whole time the business card that I had received at the hospital lay discarded in a drawer in my bedroom. I had thought about calling the number, but couldn't bring myself to do so. It was much easier not to think about a world where creatures like Mr. Huffman existed.
The hardest part was not being able to talk to anybody about it.
One night I received a phone call from my brother Mosh. His real name was David, but it had been a long time since anybody other than our parents had called him that. Since I was the only one in the family that he ever spoke with, and that was only on rare occasions, he had not known about the Incident until then. He had called as soon as he had found out. We spoke for a while, him wanting the blow by blow, and me giving him the FBI approved version. Of everyone that I had spoken with, he was the one I was the most tempted to tell the truth to, but I really didn't want the government to kill me, so I refrained.
I had asked how he was doing. His band, Cabbage Point Killing Machine, was doing well and they were going to release their next album, Hold the Pig Steady, in the next month. I made him promise to send me a copy, and VIP passes for when his tour hit Dallas. He told me he would, as long as I managed to not get murdered before then. I gave him my word that I would try.
The night before my parents were scheduled to fly out, my father took me aside for a conversation. He waited until Mom was occupied in the kitchen cooking another four-course meal, then motioned me into the living room.
"Owen, we need to talk."
"Sure, Dad. What's up?" It was not very often that my father wanted to speak with me. He usually just spoke at me, but tonight he seemed rather agitated.
"Look, son, let me just come right out and say it. I know you aren't telling us everything."
"Huh?" This was a surprise. "What do you mean?"
"I've seen your injuries. I've seen knife wounds, hell, I've given knife wounds. Those aren't knife wounds."
He had me there. I didn't know what to say so I just nodded.
"Plus, I know what you did to put yourself through school, and I know that you never told us because you didn't want your mother to worry."
That made me jump. I had had no idea that he knew.
"What do you mean, Dad? I worked in a warehouse."
"Sure you did, for a while, except after that you bounced in a biker bar, and you used to compete in underground fights for money."
"How did you know?"
"Remember crazy Charlie from my office? He had a gambling problem. Old guy would bet on anything. He caught one of your performances one night. Called me the next morning to tell me how he had seen my boy kick the living hell out of some tough customers. So I did a little checking is all… Did it pay good?"
Early on in life, I had discovered that I had a remarkable gift for violence, which had been encouraged and cultivated by my father. That, coupled with my physical ability to soak up a beating, had enabled me to make some pretty decent money on more than a few occasions. It didn't have the perks of accounting, but I do have to admit that punching people in the face had its own certain charms.
"Twenty percent of the house if you win. Five if you lose. Very illegal. I did the bar gig for a while. I was the cooler; they actually just let me hang out in the back and do homework until they had a problem." I neglected to mention that we had had problems on an hourly basis and it was the kind of bar where the local paramedics had our address memorized. "I only did that kind of thing long enough to pay for school." That was a shameful lie, but I could never tell my father the truth about why I had quit. "How come you never said anything?" I asked after a time.
He looked a little sheepish for a minute. Confused by emotion he quickly turned up the gruffness. "Not my business, you were an adult."
I believe that was the closest he had ever come to giving me a compliment.
"But anyway, what I'm getting at is I'm guessing you've got experience handling guys with knives." He had no idea. My body had a lot more scars than just the new ones. "I want to know how that asshole managed to wipe the floor with you, break walls, smash furniture, get shot ten times, and still manage to rip you open?"
"Drugs, I guess," was the only response I could think of.
He continued, "I've seen wounds like that before. I saw a guy who'd been mauled by a tiger once. Looked like what happened to you. He got raked up and down, dragged around. The cat toyed with him for a while. Unlike you, he had the muscles on his back eaten right off, right down to the bone like we would eat a fried chicken, and that was 'fore he got flipped over, and cracked open so it could eat the sweet spots out from his guts." I remembered that story, if I recalled correctly. Dad had shared the long gory version as a bedtime story when I was about six.
"I don't know what to tell you, Dad."
He looked me hard in the eyes. He was still a remarkably intimidating man, physically and emotionally. "Look, I know there's some weird stuff out there. I've heard stories from people I trust. I've seen a few things myself back in the day that no rational man can explain." He shook his head vacantly as if he was trying to forget something. "I guess what I'm trying to say is that I know you didn't just tangle with a normal man. If you want to tell me the whole story, I'll listen."
I didn't reply.
He scowled, eventually tired of waiting, and left the room without saying another word, no doubt ashamed of me once again.
They flew out the next day.
I cursed and swore as I hobbled through my apartment, crutch banging randomly into objects as I tried to make my way to the entrance. The doorbell rang again, and this time they held it down, and wouldn't let up. It was a very shrill doorbell.
"Just a minute!" I bellowed as I stumbled around the couch. My leg was getting much better. That had been by far the worst wound, and it was still the most tender, especially when I tried to walk on it. The rest of my injuries were healing nicely, and even my hand cast had finally come off. I promised myself on my long journey across the living room that if the person ringing my doorbell was with the media, I was going to shove my crutch through the reporter's chest cavity and leave the corpse propped up in the hallway as a warning to the others.
Peering through the peephole, all I could see was darkness. The hallway light had burned out again. "Who is it?" I yelled through the door, ready to give the crutch treatment if they said anything about a newspaper or television station. The media were apparently drawn to my story like flies to garbage, probably due to the made-for-TV movie feel of the whole thing. Serial killer thrown from a high building? Sounds like a winner to me.
"Earl Harbinger," came the muffled reply. "We met at the hospital."
I had almost managed to forget about that business card. Almost.
"What do you want?" I shouted.
"I need help with my taxes, what do you think I want?"
I debated opening the door. On one hand I could go back to my normal life, find a job, pretend that the biggest dangers in the world were good old-fashioned bad people, and sleep well at night. On the other hand I could get some answers.
Curiosity won out in the end. I unlocked the two dead bolts and opened the door.
Harbinger had brought a friend.
She was beautiful. In fact she was possibly the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was tall, with dark black hair, light skin, and big brown eyes. Her face was beautiful, not fake beautiful like a model or an actress, because she was obviously a real person, but rather Helen of Troy, launch-a-thousand-ships kind of good-looking. She wore glasses, and I was a sucker for a girl in corrective eyewear. Since I was ugly it was probably some sort of subconscious reaction in the hope that I might have a chance with a cute girl who couldn't see very well. She was dressed in a conservative business suit, but unlike most women I knew, she made it look good. If I were to guess I would have said that she was in her mid-twenties.