The Elixir reached his new stomach. Sudden agony ripped through Franks. He dropped the empty cup, spilling bits of glowing fluid on the floor. Lightning radiated down his bones. He roared and slammed one fist through a sheet metal table. The Hunters all leapt back. The lightning began to subside. Franks held up the shaking, bloody hand and studied the bruising pattern of his knuckles. Capillaries and nerves were connecting. That orc did good work. He flexed his muscles. Better. “Get me another.”

“Are you sure?” Milo Anderson asked.

“I’m always sure.” Normally when the MCB needed to make that many repairs to him they would take their time and give him a tiny amount of Elixir through an IV drip. Overloading this much Elixir through his system could cause premature organ failure, but he had work to do, and Harbinger had imposed a very short timeline on him. Since he would more than likely die facing Kurst, he wasn’t too worried about the lifespan of his internal organs.

Pitt hobbled into the Body Shack. “Hey, Franks. I—damn, somebody should have warned me he was naked. I knew you were built out of spare parts but I didn’t know some of them came from farm animals.”

“Shut up,” Franks snapped. He was being held together by about a thousand stitches, so he really wasn’t in the mood for Pitt.

“Nice tattoo though.”

“I’ll remove it with a belt sander later.”

“By the way, on that whole I owe you a kidney thing from that one time I accidentally shot you, duty fulfilled. You never specified it had to be one of mine. We’re square.”

Franks was sorely tempted to burn this compound down when he left, and he probably would have if it wasn’t for that angel and his stupid prophecies. “What do you want, Pitt?”

“We just intercepted a guy at the front gate, which is strange, because it isn’t like we get very many visitors out here; but even stranger, he said he’s looking for you.”

No one knew he was coming here, not even Myers’ loyalists.

“Yeah, the idea of you telling all your buddies that MHI is harboring public enemy number one through ten just fills me with all sorts of warm fuzzies, but Earl talked to him. He flashed some medallion and said God sent him to help you, says he’s from the holy order of saint somebody of the something. He made it sound like he’s a mystical Catholic ninja monk, but Earl said he’s all right.” The other Hunters nodded at that, as if Harbinger saying somebody was all right was a significant blessing. “Personally, that would strike me as kind of weird, except I’m talking to Frankenstein’s monster who was just dismantled by my werewolf boss before being put back together by our orc priestess, so what the hell do I know?”