Mosh caught the edge of the coffee table, took out the remaining bottles, tripped and landed on his butt. I stood over him, fists clenched. He started to get up. “Don’t…” He saw the look on my face and knew he’d pushed the last wrong button. “Just don’t.”

My brother wiped the blood from his split lip with the back of his hand. “Get out.”

The sack of guns and armor went over one shoulder. At the door, I took one last look at my brother, sitting on the floor of a ratty hotel room. Cheeks burning, hand stinging, I made it into the hall.

That hadn’t gone well at all.

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

The mood back at the Last Dragon was considerably brighter than at Mosh’s place. The first thing I heard when the elevator opened on my floor was dozens of voices, awful drunken singing, and loud music.

Is that…polka? Sure enough, somebody had put on polka music to celebrate Grimm Berlin’s victory. Lindemann’s team was in the hall, each of them holding a gigantic beer stein, singing badly in German, while two athletic young women that I was fairly certain weren’t Hunters danced around in full-on Oktoberfest lederhosen outfits.

Hugo, the Hunter that had finished off the giant spider, saw me, slapped me on the back, handed me a plate full of chopped sausages speared with toothpicks, then shouted assist! The other fifty or so people packing the hallway did so too. Apparently news of MHI’s semi-useless gun run on the gas station had spread.

Lindemann’s team was flush with cash from their big win. The various other Hunters packing the halls may have been disgruntled about losing, but the Germans had bought the booze, so everyone was happy. The bratwurst was actually pretty darn tasty, and I hadn’t eaten since lunch. After a few seconds everybody went back to singing and ogling the dancing girls, so I was able to make my escape.

Apparently most of the Hunters attending the conference had been concentrated onto a few floors of the hotel, and there appeared to be half a dozen room parties going on. Doors open, groups of Hunters inside, some parties louder than others, ranging from drinking games—Green seemed to be holding his own against a big Russian—to some old cranky bastards playing poker. There were a lot of strangers present, and many of them were really good-looking women.

The first other MHI Hunter I spotted was Holly Newcastle. I almost didn’t recognize her, since she’d done her hair and makeup and put on an outfit that was a lot tighter and more revealing than the body armor I was used to. Since she was almost like a sister to me, it was easy to forget that Holly was smoking hot. “Z! You’re back.”