“You hear anything new?” Mosh asked, obviously stalling for time.

I shook my head in the negative. The news was still the same. The MCB had finally picked one of its conflicting stories and run with it. Las Vegas had been the site of an awful terrorist attack, first with weaponized Ebola, then with chemical weapons that may have caused crazy hallucinations, and finally with high explosives that had caused considerable damage down the Strip. “Last I’d heard they were still attempting to bring those horrible miscreants to justice.”

“Good. I hear they’re real jerks.”

Like Julie had told me in the hospital, MHI had gotten hurt. Of our thirty-three members that had attended the first and final ICMHP, six had died, two were missing, and ten had been injured, with three of those being severe enough that they would probably end up retiring. We’d had another two Hunters that didn’t get a scratch on them that had quit as a result of being exposed to their worst fears in the nightmare realm. None of the other companies had come out unscathed either. Everybody had lost someone. Earl had to say his goodbyes to Heather again. She still had one year of service left before she gained her PUFF exemption. It had been a bittersweet and too-short reunion for those two.

At least we had managed to protect the vast majority of the innocents who had been trapped inside the Last Dragon with us. As expected, they had all been threatened and silenced by the MCB. Some would make the transition to accepting the real world, others would end up in Appleton, a handful of them would end up like us.

ICMHP had left everyone with scars.

On the bright side, we had made some valuable new allies. The agreement that Earl had put together to share information and resources on the first day of the conference had managed to stick. We now had a strategic partnership with most of the other companies. Nate Shackleford and a small MHI crew had sealed the deal by risking their lives to hold the final wave of demons until every single other Hunter could fall back past them. That had gotten us a lot of respect. The kid had gained a reputation as a hero, maybe even enough of one to overcome the shame his father had brought on the family name years before.

It felt good to have allies. Sure, we’d compete against each other when it came to regular business, but when the time came that this new enemy showed his face, those differences would be set aside, and the world’s Hunters would collect their pound of flesh.