Dinner could wait.
I had not thought that anyone had seen us slip quietly back into the cafeteria. I had been as stealthy and nonchalant as was possible. Julie had winked at me one last time and moved off to coordinate with the other teams and take care of business. The room had almost filled with Hunters, and only one team was still missing, but was due at any moment. My gear had been pushed to the side. I picked up my bag, spotted my friends sitting at a table in the back of the room, and made my way over. The cafeteria had taken on an almost party atmosphere as Hunters who had not seen each other in months or years were reunited.
"Hey, dude. What you been doing?" Trip said, sliding over so I could have room to sit.
"Uh… nothing."
"Whatever," Holly said as she pushed a plate of now lukewarm pasta toward me. "We saved you some food… Stud." She winked evilly. "Best eat. Keep your strength up." Very few things slipped past Holly Newcastle.
"Thanks," I mumbled and immediately began to eat. The meal was delicious. "Wow, they sure did use a ton of garlic."
"The guy that cooked it, Fred, said that it might help when we fight vampires tomorrow," Trip explained. "Maybe they won't want to bite us if we stink like garlic."
Holly snorted. "That's just an old wives' tale. Vamps aren't scared of garlic."
"Hey, up until yesterday night we thought them turning into fog was just a myth too," I answered. "So until then, load me up, baby."
The final team arrived with a flourish. They were beleaguered and their armor was still splashed with undead fluids. Their logo was Smoking Elvis. Their leader waved to the crowd.
"Sorry we're late, but we killed twenty bloodsuckers. Let's get this party started." Shouts of "Showoff!" and "About time!" rose from the Hunters. But it was all in good fun.
"Will somebody hose these guys off? Damn, Eddings, your crew smells like vampire shit!" Sam bellowed.
"Love you too, Sam," he shouted back.
Harbinger cleared his throat. "Get your guys cleaned up, and grab some grub. We need to have a meeting." At that, the newcomers immediately complied. The rest of the room went back to its heated conversations and raucous laughter. Holly watched them go. After a moment's hesitation, she sprang to her feet and ran after them, grabbing the team lead by the arm.
"Excuse me?" she asked as he turned around. I was close enough to hear the exchange over the noise of the room. "Are you the team out of Las Vegas?"
"At your service." Eddings bowed slightly. "I don't think we've met, miss?"
"Newcastle, Holly Newcastle. Yes. Yes, we have met." She surprised all of us by embracing the filth-coated Hunter, hugging him tight, and holding him there. He looked bewildered. Finally she let go of him. He studied her curiously for a minute.
"Ahh… I remember now. Wow. Good to see you. You look a lot better. You've gained a bunch of weight," he said that as a compliment. "You must have put on thirty pounds."
"Thanks," she answered proudly. I looked at Trip and shrugged. That was not something I was under the impression you could say to Holly, or any woman for that matter, without getting shot.
"Earl told me he was going to try and recruit you. I'm glad to see you took him up on it. How do you like Monster Hunting?"
"Honestly, I hated it at first, but I felt like it was something I just had to do. Face my fears, you know…"
"Yeah. I understand that, after what you went through."
"Now, though?" Holly laughed. "I love it."
"I told Earl you would be perfect… Look, I've got to clean up before he skins me for being late."
She hugged him again. This time I could tell she was crying. I did a double-take at that. I was not aware that Holly was capable of producing tears. He whispered something in her ear, and patted her gently on the back. Eddings finally broke away and hurried after his men. Holly wiped her eyes and returned to our table.
"What was that about?" I asked.
"Uh… nothing." She mimicked me perfectly. "Now shut up and eat your spaghetti." She sighed and watched them leave, gradually returned to her food and ignored the rest of us.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm glad that you're all here. We have a bit of a situation on our hands."
That was an understatement.
Harbinger paced back and forth at the front of the cafeteria. The conference room was too small to fit the assembled humans and orcs, so the large maps of the South had been brought downstairs and leaned against the wall. Many of the red tacks had been replaced with yellow tacks, but there were many new red ones dotting the map. It looked like Alabama had the measles.
Every single member of MHI was present. The ones that I knew were a small minority. Julie sat by her grandfather and a young man who must have been her little brother. Boone's guys had come in from the perimeter and were standing toward the back. Mead had waved happily at me when he had entered. The orcs stood by themselves, slightly separated from the rest of us, packed tightly together, hooded heads kept down, shoulders slumped, not used to being surrounded by so many humans.
"The team leads were sent a brief synopsis as to where we stood a few days ago. But we have had some new developments. At 2:39 today, time backed up for five minutes. This was felt by every single person on Earth."
From the brief snitches of news that I had caught, billions were caught up in hysteria over the event. Some were in a panic, others in a religious fervor, and some were in denial. Thousands of babies had been born twice. Hundreds of people had died of natural causes twice.
"Yes. Those five minutes were in fact related to this case, and it goes to show how serious this one is. This is it, folks, this is the big one. Our real enemy is one General Joao Silva de Machado. We like to call him the Cursed One. He's five hundred years old, and in case you're wondering how you'll recognize him, he's the one that's a blob of black slime wearing conquistador armor. He's armed with some sort of ancient artifact that will be activated at the zenith of the full moon tomorrow night, giving us"-Harbinger glanced down at his watch-"approximately twenty-two hours. This artifact was the cause of the… glitch. And that was just a sample of the freak show to come. When this thing really goes off, it's the end of the world."
"What do you mean by 'end of the world'?" a Hunter asked.
"Literally. End of the world as in kiss your ass good-bye." The crowd murmured. MHI had faced some strange things before, but never anything like this. "The artifact must be used at a specific Place of Power, but we don't know where that Place is."
"Like the Christmas party in '95?" the man named Eddings asked.
"Correct," Harbinger stated. "Speaking of that, the Cursed One has killed Ray Shackleford." He stopped, counted on his fingers, and then added for clarity, "The fourth."
The Hunters erupted in confusion.
"Settle down. It gets worse. They tracked him down looking for information. They got him because Susan Shackleford, who is now a Master vampire, knew right where to find him."
If the news of Ray's death had upset the Hunters, the idea of his wife being a vampire stunned them into silence. You could have heard a shell casing hit the floor across that cafeteria. I glanced over at the Shacklefords. The Boss was as stoic as ever, arthritic hands steepled in front of his emotionless face. Nathan Shackleford resembled his sister and mother, but had the hulking build of his father. He was a handsome young man, but at the moment he looked tired and forlorn. Julie put her arm over her brother's shoulders as he hung his head down and stared at the linoleum.
"Yes, people. One of our own is one of the seven. Every trick we know, she knows. She helped make them up. Apparently she 'persuaded' Ray to lie to us. Ray told us where to go, and we went there blindly, in order to intercept the Cursed One." Earl paused to light a cigarette. I noticed his hand was shaking slightly as the flame of his Zippo wavered. He noticed the tremor as well, and snapped the lighter violently shut.