"No," Myers stated flatly. "Your gang of misfits is done as far as I'm concerned. Aiding and abetting a fugitive. Nope. MHI is finished. Once again, Monster Hunting is a government responsibility, just like it should be."
"You bastard," she spat. "We didn't turn my dad over because we thought you had a leak to the Cursed One."
"That's absurd," he replied. Which was true enough. The bad guys did not need information from us or the Feds to know about Ray, not when his own wife was working for the other team. Fat lot of good that knowledge did us now. "Look. I don't like this at all. I'm not a violent person, but we don't have time for your games." He nodded toward his subordinate with obvious distaste. "Agent Franks. Do what you have to do. We need to know where the Place is."
"Yes, sir." The dark man looked at me emotionlessly. It was going to be a long night. Just then Myers' radio crackled.
"Delta team. This is Bravo. There's a car approaching, high rate of speed. Should we fire on it? Over."
"Negative. Intercept at the gate," he replied. "Expecting company?" he asked Julie.
"No. Just the vampire that ransacked my home and killed my dad," she stated flatly.
The radio again: "Sir, it appears to be some of the Hunters from the MHI compound."
"Who?" Myers asked.
"Earl Harbinger and a few others. He's out of the vehicle and approaching the entrance. Moving to intercept."
"Arrest them," Myers responded. "Be careful; Harbinger is extremely dangerous."
Julie made eye contact with me. She mouthed the words, "Get Ready." I nodded slightly. I did not know what was coming, but I was not going to let her down. I was not cuffed, but I had a Fed on each arm. So far I had not resisted, and they were merely holding me up to be Franks' punching bag. There was another trooper by Julie, one by Gretchen, and as far as I could tell, three on Trip and Holly. All of them were well trained, heavily armed, and looking for an excuse to shoot us.
Everyone was startled as automatic gunfire erupted from the front of the house. Franks looked in that direction as his hand moved toward his holstered Glock. He did not see my bare foot sailing towards his crotch. I kicked him hard. Too bad he was wearing armor. I brought my foot down, and used my leverage and brute strength to swing the two Feds holding my arms into each other. They collided in an armored mass. I smashed an elbow into the first one's jaw, and broke the second Fed's nose with a left jab. They both went down.
The room exploded into confusion. The agent kneeling on Julie screamed in pain and fell over. Franks recovered with a small grimace and charged me. The other Feds went for their guns. We were about to get killed.
The door exploded inward and two agents were hurled through, landing and rolling painfully across the floor. Harbinger came in fast, charging directly into the agents standing over Trip and Holly. He went swiftly into the path of their rising muzzles. He attacked, dodged between the guns, struck the agents down with his bare hands, batted aside a rifle, grasped the final Fed by his web gear and slung him back into the wall with a horrible crash.
I had never seen a man move that quickly.
Distracted by Harbinger's superhuman display, I did not see Franks' movement. He forced his palm into my face, pushing me off balance. He bladed off, protecting his right side, going for his pistol. I struggled forward, trying to reach his gun hand. Time slowed down. The pistol came up and out of the holster.
"Stop! Stop!" screamed Myers.
Franks froze. His Glock held in a tight, low, retention position. Finger on the trigger. Indexed directly at my sternum. His eyes were locked on mine. If I moved at all, I was dead.
Julie was still lying on the floor, but had rolled far enough to reach the flamethrower. It was humming, pointed at Myers' legs. The agent that she had knocked over had pressed his pistol into her back. Harbinger stood over the stunned forms of the other downed Feds. The Fed by Gretchen was holding his leg where her totem stick had stabbed him. Unfortunately he had raised his G36 and it was pointed at Gretchen's head. I could not see most of the Feds' expressions behind their black balaclavas, but I imagined that they were about as tense as I was. If one person twitched wrong, a whole bunch of us were going to get shot or immolated. It was the most screwed-up Mexican stand-off I had ever seen.
Another Fed entered the room, hands held above his head, Sam Haven pushing close behind with the muzzle of his pistol screwed into the back of the agent's neck just under the helmet.
"Nobody move or I'll waste this punk!" Sam shouted. He paused as he studied the complicated situation, before shrugging and spitting some tobacco juices. "Oh… never mind. Y'all are ahead of me." He sounded rather disappointed.
"Don't spit on the floor, you ape!" Julie ordered. It may have been scorched and blasted with shrapnel, but it was still her house.
Harbinger's hands were empty of weapons, but after the display of physical prowess I had just seen, nobody was in a hurry to mess with him. Five Feds lay on the ground moaning or whimpering. He shouted down the hallway he had entered from, "Milo! How you doing?"
"Hurry up. There's like a hundred Feds coming this way. And they looked pissed!"
"Myers. Turn on your damn phone," Harbinger commanded. "Do it now."
The Fed complied. He slowly reached into the pocket of his suit, pulled out the phone and turned it on. Immediately we all heard that annoying "Take Me Out to the Ball Game."
"I hate that ring," I said, as I looked over Franks' Glock.
"Me too," he agreed, not letting the gun waver at all.
"I shut it off when we landed. It's kind of distracting on a raid," Myers said defensively as he pushed the button to answer it. "This is Agent Myers."
"Yes, I will hold for…" The senior agent sounded surprised. "Oh… Hello, sir… Sorry… I apologize… Yes, sir… Yes, sir… But this is outside the regular chain of command…" We heard half of the conversation. Myers seemed remarkably collected considering Julie had the flamethrower pointed at him. The agent pointing the rifle at Gretchen looked a little shaky. I hoped this did not take long. "But, sir… But… But… We can… But… Yes, sir… I understand…" We waited for the conversation to end. "Understood… Good-bye, sir."
He refolded the phone and dropped it back into this pocket.
"Stand down," he shouted. "Everybody stand down." The guns in the ballroom slowly began to lower. Sam pulled his Sig 220 out of the back of the agent's neck. Julie set the flamethrower down.
"Tell the guys outside that too!" Milo blurted from down the hall. "There's a big black helicopter looking at me!"
Myers spoke into the radio. "Stand down. All units stand down. That is an order."
Tense moments passed as everyone complied. Franks was the last to do so. With the Glock still pointing at my heart he told me simply "I'll get to kill you one of these days." He slowly lowered the weapon and reholstered.
"Take a number," I replied.
"Well, Harbinger. I'm surprised," Myers said. He looked flustered and angry. He still reminded me of a professor, only now he looked like one who had just found out his tenure had been denied. "That's outside the chain of command, but you know I'm not going to go against a cabinet-level appointee."
"You heard him," Harbinger stated shortly. "We have a truce. Y'all can get the hell out of here."
"For now. As soon as I get orders from the Director, he's going to be overridden, and then I'm going to arrest every single one of you for assaulting federal agents and aiding and abetting a fugitive."
"I figure that will probably take more than forty-eight hours. So by then either the world is going to be destroyed or this is all a moot point. Until then you have your orders," Harbinger said coldly. "You can take the Place. We clean up the local infestations. We tell you what we know. You leave us alone."