Earl had commandeered one of the ICMHP conference rooms to serve as Hunter Central. Trip met me on the way in and tossed over Abomination. If I had been wearing it when I’d tried to talk to the cops, it probably wouldn’t have been a warning shot. Earl was at the opposite end of the room, talking to a small group of people. “What’s going on?”

“He’s talking to casino management, trying to get them up to speed.”

“What’s he telling them?”

Trip smiled. “Surprisingly, a lot.” Normally we tried to keep things on the down low as much as possible to keep the MCB off our backs. “Earl seems really dead-set on protecting everyone he can. Not that he hasn’t always been willing to risk his life to protect the innocent and things like that. But I think he’s changed…It’s like he cares more.” Trip, the stalwart goody-two-shoes of our organization, seemed really pleased by this development.

“I take it you approve?”

“Well, yeah…I just hope Earl Harbinger isn’t getting soft in his old age.”

We both laughed at that absurdity. Earl Harbinger made Clint Eastwood look like Mr. Rogers. As a general rule, the more a situation sucks, the more humor you can find in the little things. Then I had a very somber thought. “Last night when we thought it was just a stupid spider in the desert, Earl could tell himself that his girlfriend wasn’t really missing. But after what we just saw…”

“I don’t know, man. If it was something like what appeared to the German, then she might be gone. I talked to the girl that was with Hugo. She said he jumped out of bed screaming Nachtmar, Nachtmar, and then one of the big metal things just rose up out of floor and started hacking him with a big rusty sword. That’s all she could get through, before she just kind of stared off into space repeating so much blood over and over.”

“That’s an awful introduction to this world.”

“I don’t know of any good ones. As for Earl’s girlfriend, werewolf or not, if that’s what happened to the Unicorn team…He seems to be focused on working right now, but whatever we’re up against, if it killed someone Earl cares about, I almost feel sorry for the thing. Almost.”

I’d prefer to have another great Old One gunning for me than an angry Harbinger, and if what was going on wasn’t caused by something that could be killed, then I would really hate to be Stricken. “Speaking of merciless badasses, you heard from Holly yet?”