"Thank you, Skippy. Gretchen saved our lives tonight. She healed our many wounds. And her faith and bravery turned away a Master vampire. If it wasn't for her, many Hunters would have died."
"She… brings honor… to clan?" He rose and spoke loudly in his language. There were some gasps of astonishment as they stepped away from Gretchen, and then bowed to her. I could not see her features, but by her mannerisms, I was guessing that she was slightly embarrassed by the display. After a few seconds they rose and went back to their merry greetings. Finally Gretchen was able to break away and approach us, the rest of the tribe following closely behind her, until finally the whole group was assembled quietly in front of the three of us.
Gretchen pointed at Trip, and said something to the others. There was much oohing and ahhing, and then they bowed toward him. Skippy's people were big on the bowing.
"Uh… what's going on?" he asked, running one hand through his dreads nervously.
"Dark Hunter… you fought… gub mint… agents… to protect Gretchen?" When he said government, the tribe booed.
"I guess," he answered.
"Agents beat you…" He pointed at Trip's face. "For protect her?"
"Yes. Really, it was no big deal… I-"
Skippy cut him off. He turned back to the tribe and loudly proclaimed:"Smrslal! Smrslal Aiee!"then to us, "Dark skin Hunter, Brother of War Chief, and… Girl. Bring great honor. My clan… you one with… us. With honor… No need for hide."
Skippy reached up and removed his glasses, revealing bright yellow eyes sunk deep into grayish-green tissue. He carefully folded and put the shades in a pocket, and began to remove his balaclava. One by one, the others did so as well. Even the little children removed their hoods, some needing the help of their mothers.
We had gained the trust and respect of the tribe. Honoring us as equals, they revealed their true selves. Their skin was bumpy, mottled, mostly green, some gray and some brown. They were either bald, or some with wispy white hair. Their lower jaws protruded, and tusk-like teeth stuck past their lips. Most of their noses were squat, though some were raised up more like snouts. The eyes were yellow or pale blue, set under thick bone ridges and short foreheads. Their ears were long and pointy, and most if not all of them had facial piercings of bone or gold.
"Holy shit," Holly mumbled.
"Orcs," Trip said in awe. "I don't believe it."
Skippy's pointed teeth ground together above his wide jaw, in what I believed was a smile. His yellow eyes twinkled as he clapped his hands above his head."Urks! Yes. Clan of Gnrlwz, fist of North. Spear of… Doom. Now clan of… M H I. Harb Anger… give us home. Give us work. Now are family. Join us… eat meat… dance." He pointed at one of the others, who immediately turned and ran for what I thought was a shrine. The younger orc knelt and fiddled with something on the backside of the edifice, and massive hidden speakers started blaring. Metal. The orcs were playing heavy metal.
"JBL. Kick Ass… Sound system," Skippy grunted at us. "Come! Party!" The entire tribe began to either bang their heads, dance wildly, or jump up and down with their hands extended above their heads, pointer and pinky fingers extended in the devil horns of classic rock. The children formed a mosh pit and began to slam each other about. The mothers looked on approvingly.
"Skippy, I wish that we could," I shouted back over the sounds of Static X. "But we have a mission. We need to fly to Natchy Bottom in the morning." The orcs danced. Giant wolves howled in the nearby forest. Of course, that explained the thing that had crossed the headlights. You can't have orcs without wargs.
Skippy nodded. "Skip understand. I be there… Together… crush foes. Must take… care of clan… Then come. To fly into battle." He bowed again. I returned the honor. "Thank you… Noble One."
"Great honor, Skippy. Thank you." We parted. I returned to the car.
Holly climbed into the front seat. Trip stood transfixed at the rear door, staring at the clan in wonder, as some of the giant wolves wandered out of the treeline and into the light of the fires. Little green children ran to crawl up on the horse-sized animals, playing with what to them were basically family pets. Pets with jaws that could snap a deer in half, but pets nonetheless. Skippy returned to Gretchen and they knocked their tusks together in what was probably the orcish equivalent of a kiss. I started the car. Finally Trip broke away from the sights and got in.
We drove down the lane. The raucous music died away as the distance increased. We did not speak. Trip stared out the window in silence. The Mercedes bumped and scraped as we bottomed out. It would take a pretty dedicated explorer to bother with this back road and now I could see that that was by design. It was a strange and secret community, but obviously one built upon strong family bonds of love. My spirits were lifted from my brief visit to Skippy's people.
Finally Holly spoke. "Well, Trip. Satisfied now?"
"Huh?"
"Remember when we met the elves?"
He did not answer. But none of us could forget his disappointment on that day.
"Remember when you said that since there was so much secret evil, there had to be some sort of secret good to balance it out?"
"Yeah," he answered slowly. I could not see him in the darkened car, but from his voice I could tell he was smiling. "I guess there is… I guess there really is."
"See, I told you so," Holly said in smug satisfaction.
We assembled in the meeting room. Harbinger was preparing to brief us. We would be taking off within the next half hour. It was 4:00 a.m. Every available Hunter was assembled, including the untested Newbies, all of Harbinger's team, Dorcas and the senior Shackleford. The conference room was crowded. Every other member of MHI in the country was currently en route.
I sat down at the conference table next to Milo. He grinned when he saw me. The man was always in a good mood.
"So did you get to meet Skippy's people?"
"Orcs," I answered. "That was pretty cool."
"Yeah, they're good folks. Homo-Ogrillion. We were hired to go into Uzbekistan and eradicate them. Turned out that they weren't so evil after all, so we brought them all home. I'm glad we did."
Harbinger called the briefing to order. It took a few moments for the group to quiet down. Apparently word of the attack and all the gory details had spread quickly. Julie was sitting next to her grandfather, and his burned face was drawn into a tight grimace of pain and anger. I could not imagine how the man felt. Even if you had distanced yourself from a child who committed horrible crimes, he was still your child. And now he had lost that son.
Harbinger cut right to the chase. "Everybody knows about what's going on, and you've already heard about what happened earlier tonight. One former Hunter is dead. One current Hunter is missing. Turns out that one of our own is a Master vampire in the service of the Cursed One. We have a deal with the Feds. One team is going to go with them to Natchy Bottom to deal with the main bad guys. Every available Hunter is on the way. As they arrive, the rest of us will break into groups and handle the following undead outbreaks." He pointed at the map of the Southeast that had been taped to the wall. It was dotted with red tacks.
"Auburn, Gadsden, and Forestdale, Alabama; Columbus, Georgia; Pulaski, Tennessee; and Pensacola, Florida. Those are all confirmed vampires or wights. Boone's team just cleared out some new creations in Atlanta. I felt bad calling them up since some of his men are still hurting from the freighter, but they rose to the occasion. And we have unconfirmed reports in Florence, Tupelo, Dothan, Fayetteville, Russellville and Demopolis, though those might just be regular missing persons, but I wouldn't bet on it."
He paused long enough to take a drag off his cigarette. I had not seen him smoke indoors around the other Hunters before, but I was guessing that he was under more stress than normal.