“That’s when the Manhattan project decided to go with atomic weapons instead of demons…Atom bombs are much safer. Desperate times called for desperate measures. They dabbled in all sorts of things, magic, transdimensional forces, fey, you name it, they fiddled with it there, until they had a few experiments get out of hand and lost a whole mess of scientists. MHI helped in the cleanup at Los Alamos. I was overseas at the time, so didn’t participate. Way before his time too, but that’s Cody’s team contract, and he still takes care of the mad-science-related problems. so has studied up on the details.”

“He might look like an old lumberjack, but Cody’s got two hard-science doctorates,” Julie said. “If a monster seems to violate the laws of physics, he probably has an equation to explain why and how, and trust me, he’ll write it on a dry-erase board and try to explain it to you.”

“We’ll bounce this stuff off him, see if any of it sounds like something he’s heard of…Most of the stuff that our boys snuck out of the Los Alamos cleanup that wound up in the archives was way over my head, but Cody’s read up on it. Continue.”

I did. Earl didn’t seem particularly surprised about the message Myers had wanted me to deliver. Every now and then he’d stop and ask a question or clarify something. I knew what Earl really wanted to ask about, but he refrained. “And sorry, Earl. Nothing at all about a red werewolf. She’d been there, but no idea where they went after Dugway.”

“I figured as much…” He finally turned around and ground his cigarette into an ashtray. “Either Heather’s team disappeared into the desert without a trace or Stricken was just yanking my chain, manipulating us for who knows what.” Earl sighed. “Well, to hell with Stricken. To hell with Myers. To hell with the bunch of them. They take and take and take some more…Hunters bleed, and sacrifice, and die, all for a world that doesn’t give a shit about us. They just assume we’ll step up because we always have. Maybe one day we just won’t bother.”

I’d never heard him speak like that before. Earl Harbinger would never quit, never give up, the idea was inconceivable. My wife looked as concerned as I felt. “Earl, if there’s anything we can do…”

“I’m just beat is all. We’ll talk about it some more in the morning. Good night, Z.”

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Julie awoke with a gasp. It immediately startled me wide awake. My hand landed on the long slide STI .45 resting on the nightstand. “What?” The alarm clock read 4:12 A.M. “What’s going on?” It took me a second of fumbling in the unfamiliar hotel room to get the lamp turned on.