Myers had seen it too. He’d thought of Stricken as a threat, but a political one, rather than a physical one. Stricken’s power-grabbing tactics in Las Vegas had put civilians and MCB personnel in needless danger, and Myers, despite being cold and calculating, was still a moral man, who would not tolerate such behavior. Myers had set out to prove Stricken was breaking the law, all the time unaware of how far Stricken had already gone. Myers had not seen this coming, but Franks should have.

With no one to assign him mission parameters, Franks set his own. His primary target was Kurst and any others like him. If they were allowed to establish themselves here, he knew they would find a way for demons to descend on the world like a plague of locusts. Franks had entered a solemn pact to protect the mortal world from things like Kurst. Franks had broken one oath in his entire existence. He would never break another.

His secondary target was Stricken and anyone in league with him. Stricken had to die for violating The Contract, for murdering Franks’ coworkers, and mostly because Franks thought he would really enjoy seeing the look on Stricken’s face when he choked the life out of him.

Find one target, and he would find the other. In the meantime he was a fugitive. The men who should be his allies would be hunting him. Until they knew he was innocent, they would make reaching his targets very difficult. He would have to remedy that. The truth needed to get out. Myers believed in him, but they would be watching Myers. There were regular agents who would listen to his story, but they were lower ranking. Franks preferred to go right to the top.

Enough time had passed for him to make his move. They would have had no choice but to expand the scope of their manhunt. They would get help from regular law enforcement but the MCB would be limited by how much information they could share, and the cops would push back by being uncommunicative and surly. The MCB had developed a culture of secrecy and mistrust, so their capable field agents would be spread thin. An attack on their headquarters, where their brothers were murdered, by one of their own? They’d prefer to keep this in the family. They wouldn’t want an outsider to pull the trigger on this one.

He knew the regular human MCB agents’ thought processes well. He knew their strengths, their weaknesses, and exactly how they would react.

It felt nice being on his own. It was rather liberating.

* * *