"Really? Why would she listen to me? Did she tell you she liked me?" My hope spiked temporarily. Milo quickly brought me back down.

"No. But she thinks you have visions."

"I'm not going to lie to her."

"I don't want you to. But if the choice comes down to having the world blow up, or having a painful Shackleford family reunion, personally I would rather have the reunion."

"Why don't we just go speak to him ourselves?"

"He's real particular who he talks with," Milo whispered. Holly sounded the horn. She actually held it down for a full ten seconds. "Just stop by my workshop tonight, and we'll talk then. And I've got a piece of hardware I want you to try out. I think it might actually suit your personality."

"Little green book-keeper visor that clamps to my helmet?"

"Nah. Full auto, magazine-fed, 12-gauge shotgun."

My earlier hunch had been correct. Milo Anderson was a mad genius.

The drive back to Booneville and the return flight to the compound were uneventful. The rest of the Hunters were busy reading through old books or making phone calls. I helped give a short debriefing about the information we received from the Elf Queen. At the end of the little meeting I was taken to task for not telling the others about the Tattooed Man from the dreams.

"You should have said something. We could have been researching him too. Who knows what clues that might have turned up?" Julie snapped at me. She was tired and discouraged from a long day of research. I couldn't really blame her.

"Sorry. I didn't know. I thought they were just normal dreams."

"Yes, but your dreams are somehow tied to this case. I don't know how, but until we figure it out, you need to report every single dream you have." She pushed away from the table and stood to leave. "I'll go see if I can find any records matching the Tattooed Man's description. If you will excuse me, I've got a hundred years of dusty garbage to read."

After she stormed off, Harbinger assigned me to go to the range and help coach the remaining Newbies with their pistol shooting. At least there was one thing that I was good at. I stopped by the armory and picked up another pistol on the way. I needed to replace my poor broken Kimber. Stupid vampire.