“Douglas Stark. Sounds familiar, but I can’t remember from where. Ringing any bells?”

“Never heard of him.” I looked around for Earl, since he knew everybody, but he wasn’t back yet. “A new guy, huh? How bad could he be?”

“Never say that about the MCB,” Julie hissed. “You’ll jinx us!”

The MC got out of the way and a stocky man with bulldog jowls entered from behind the curtains. He walked across the stage with a swagger, took his place at the podium to sporadic and lackluster applause, reached into his suit, took out a piece of paper, cleared his throat, and began to read his speech. “Thank you, Ken. Thank you, everyone, for the warm welcome.” The dozen or so MCB agents that were actually clapping stopped. “I’m Special Agent Doug Stark and I am honored to be a guest here at the first annual International Conference of Monster Hunting Professionals. It is my goal to usher in a new era of cooperation between public sector and private sector Hunters.”

“That’ll be the day.” Earl slid in next to me. He had neglected to bring me more snacks. “Why’s that jackass talking?”

“That’s the new MCB director.”

“You’re messing with me…Oh shit, you’re not. Him?” Earl’s eyes narrowed. “God help us…I should’ve killed that son of a bitch when I had the chance.”

After Director Stark’s incredibly self-aggrandizing speech, we broke for lunch, and the first thing Earl did was track down and corner Agent Franks to get an explanation. I followed along, mostly because I wanted to see what happened when the unstoppable force ran into the immovable object. We found the big agent in the hall outside the main room, frowning at the multitude of passing Hunters, surely bummed that he wasn’t allowed to hit them. “Franks. We need to talk.”

“Harbinger.” Franks didn’t seem surprised to see us. “Pitt.”

“What the hell happened to Myers?”

“I’m unable to comment on personnel matters.” He said the words like they were memorized. I had a sneaky feeling that would be the standard line from any member of the MCB.

“Come on. We both know this is a bad call. I can’t stand Dwayne, but he’s a strategic genius compared to Stark. What did they do with him?”

The wheels turned, but apparently Franks had something to gain by not being a totally uncooperative dick. “Transferred. Agent Myers is over the Special Response Team.” To the best of my knowledge, the MCB’s Special Response Team were the ones that came swooping in with all of the big guns. It was a job that seemed a little too militaristic for Agent Myers.

“That’s a demotion. Why in the world would they do that? Are their heads that far up their asses over there? Stark’s a coward and a moron. We both know that.”