CHAPTER 7
I woke up in a cold sweat.
The nightmare was already fading. Smoking obsidian, and a jaguar who had been whispering secrets to me from across still black waters. Whispering, wanting, pushing me to accept what I am, what I’m meant to be. My lineage and my inheritance. The steady beating of my heart replaced the sound of the huehuetl.
The nagualii was pressuring me more and more since we’d arrived in Southern California. I really needed to ask Earl how he handled his curse. Werewolves were supposed to be crazier than my kind, yet his self-control was enviable, which pissed me off. I’d had a long time to practice and yet I was nowhere near where he was. There had to be a way to get the damn thing inside to listen to what I wanted.
My bedroom was pitch black because I’d put up really thick curtains. Hunters often worked odd hours and the darkness helped me sleep during the day. I lay there on top of my sheets, breathing hard and listening for danger, but the house was quiet.
I’d just had the same kind of dream that had been plaguing me back in Israel. Every one of those I’d woken up with a sense of unease and a feeling that I needed to go back to America. I’d ignored those promptings, and two good men had died because of it.
Only there was no new prompting now. I felt like I was where I needed to be, except I felt more anxious than ever before, like something bad was coming. Or something bad was already here.
A figure was standing in the corner.
I always kept a Browning Hi-Power on my nightstand, but by the time I grabbed it, I realized the shape had been a figure of my imagination, merely the last bits of a fading dream. The steel grip in my hand helped bring me back to reality. And thankfully I came to before I put a 9mm bullet through my closet.
Greetings from the Court, child.
The thing in the corner was a fragment of my dream, but that didn’t make it any less real.
Damn it. It had been a very long time since I’d dealt with one of the Court’s heralds. This one in particular grated on both the nagualii and me. “What do you want?”
I bring a gift, and a warning from our great king.
“Old feather snake isn’t my king.” Not that it would do any good, but I kept the pistol pointed at the shadow, which had now taken on a shape that was vaguely a bird of prey, perched and waiting. I resisted the urge to look at the herald with nagualii eyes to see its true form, because it wasn’t of this world, and what was seen couldn’t be unseen. “I want nothing to do with your kind.”
That is your choice. We shall abide.
The bird thing began to fade away, except curiosity got the better of me. The Court’s power had waned even in the heart of what once been their empire on Earth. They wouldn’t send one of their minions here for nothing. I hoped.
“A warning about what?”
The image slammed into my head so violently that I gasped as it was burned into my mind. Bodies everywhere, rivers of blood, and a red sky filled with winged creatures out of a gibbering nightmare. A maelstrom of death and destruction of what once was the City of Angels. Everything was on fire, a raging inferno with no end in sight.
This is what may be, but what is not yet certain.
Horrified, I tried to push the image away.
The herald seemed amused by my discomfort. Bastard.
That is the warning.
“What’s the cause of this?”
She is coming.
“Who? When?”
You have forsaken the Court. To be given such advantage over your enemies, you must freely accept us once more, and only then will we come to your aid.
That wasn’t going to happen, and I knew that the Court of Feathers had never considered rivers of blood and piles of corpses to be a bad thing, provided those sacrifices had been made in their honor. “Is she your competition? Why do you even care what happens to this city?”
The Court is above mortal concerns. Our reasons are our own.
“Does my father have something to do with this?”
The usurper remains imprisoned for his treachery. I will consider him no further.
I really was tempted to shoot the messenger, but I didn’t know anything about fixing drywall. “Leave me alone.”
Our great king has commanded I leave you with this gift, a sign to guide your hunt for this dark master.
A moment of perfect clarity took over. In the darkness, small lights appeared. They spun lazily around, dancing upon the walls, floor, and ceiling. There was a rhythmic beating of a drum in the background. Looking up at the ceiling, there was a new vision far different from the last, spinning and glittering under the constant bombardment of a single light.
It was a slowly spinning disco ball.
The vision faded. The herald was gone.
* * *
Seven adults living in a converted warehouse was not comfortable, so I’d rented a cute little house next to the local community college that was walking distance from our HQ as soon as I could. Melanie had family in Monterey Park and was staying with them. Lizz had gotten a place of her own too. Rhino, Justin, Alex, and Kimpton were still living at HQ like it was a frat house, mostly because it was free, but I was going to have to put my foot down and tell them that couldn’t last because they couldn’t be picking up girls at bars and bringing them back to what was basically a barracks filled with various top secret and/or illegal things without that causing some problems. Not that any of the young guys were going to bring their hookups around Rhino, especially since he was extra surly since he’d broken his leg.
It had been quiet for a few days after we had got back from Lake Arrowhead. We’d had no luck finding the werewolf’s previous victim, Nicole Varney, but on the bright side there hadn’t been any unexplained brutal murders in LA during the full moon. Sure, there’d been brutal murders—this was Los Angeles, after all—but they were all normal murders. And we couldn’t find anything about bodies that looked like they had gotten ripped apart by a pack of wild dogs or anything like that. Some of the first people we had schmoozed and bribed once we’d gotten to town had been the local coroners. They were a great source for tips on potential monster activity.
I filed the Treasury paperwork on our werewolf kill—the PUFF forms had been way less complicated back in the 1940s—and I’d had no choice but to call the MCB and tell them there was a potential new werewolf on the loose. Doing so made me sick, because if the poor girl wasn’t infected at minimum the government would make her life miserable and detain her until her blood tests came back negative, but if she was they had more resources than we did and were more likely to find her before she did something awful.
Of course the MCB Agent who answered the phone was rude, but took my information down, promised it would be looked into, and then got defensive when I asked how come the MCB hadn’t caught on that the rash of cougar attacks at Lake Arrowhead weren’t normal and what were they doing with all that tax money anyway? I got hung up on, but at least I’d done my civic duty . . . not that I’d actually paid taxes in America since Roosevelt had been president.
After that there was the matter of the Court of Feathers visiting me during the night, and how best to broach that subject with my team.
I went to Rhino first. He was in the shop, wrenching on some guns, probably because it was the most useful thing he could do sitting on a stool rather than trying to get around on crutches.
“Hey, Marco, you got a minute?”
He gave me a positive sounding grunt but his focus stayed on his workbench. So I took that as a yes and pulled up a stool next to him.
“I had something strange happen last night, but before I tell you about it, there’s some stuff I need to tell you.”
“You’re only half human and your dad’s some kinda Mexican cannibal human sacrifice skinwalker demon thing.”
I blinked a few times, then had to look around to make sure that nobody else had been close enough to overhear that, but we had the shop to ourselves. “That’s not really accurate on the particulars, but you’ve got the gist of it.”
“Yep.” He kept filing away on a piece of metal. “I don’t much care, though. Earl said you’re alright.”
“Earl told you?” How dare he! It wasn’t like I went around blabbing to the whole company about how he was really Raymond Shackleford the Second, secret werewolf. I vowed to put a bullet in that man’s knee someday.
But Rhino shook his head. “Nope. Earl don’t snitch.”
“Then how—”
“He told me you’d be my second, but for me to shut up and listen when you said something, because you’d been around the block, but also that if you ever got to being weird or creepy for me to call him ASAP.”
As much as that annoyed me, it was also pretty fair all things considered.
“Only I got curious, ’cause you didn’t look old enough to have done that much, so I pulled the company files, and found another Mendoza, but way too old to be you, except there was some government letter in there from way back when declaring you PUFF Exempt, so I did some asking around, and one of the MCB I knew from New Orleans looked you up.”
All these weeks working together and I’d never have guessed Rhino was capable of curiosity. I reached into my shirt and pulled out the silver tag I kept on a chain. This was my get out of jail free card, that identified me as—if not a good guy—at least not a bad guy anyone would get paid a bounty for. “Is this going to be an issue?”
“Don’t eat nobody, and I don’t give a shit.”
He was remarkably blasé about it. Say what you will about Rhino, but he wasn’t the sort to get emotionally worked up. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me yet. You ain’t told me about whatever it is made you want to tell me about what you are yet, so let’s hear it, so I can decide if it qualifies as creepifying enough to call Earl or not.”
“Well . . . ” The Shacklefords knew what I was, but even they didn’t know who I was. It was one thing to know you’re descended from a generic monster, as opposed to a specific entity that had once been worshipped as a god. So I needed to figure out how to put this in a way to not freak anyone out. “I’ll save you the long-distance charge. It’s probably nothing.”
This time Rhino’s grunt was suspicious and noncommittal.
So I gave him the vague version. “That world doesn’t have much power here anymore. They’re just a ghost of what they once were. But sometimes those ghosts can still talk. One of them paid me a visit, warning me that there’s some great danger threatening LA.”
“You believe it?”
“Maybe. I don’t know yet. It was cryptic and they’re tricksters and liars. But the messenger talked about her being a threat . . . and it got me to thinking about our werewolf from the other night, where she told him to build an army.”
That got Rhino to actually look up from his gun parts. “A shot caller.”
“String puller, puppet master, whatever you want to call it.” It was a rare but not unheard-of phenomena in monster hunting to get some sort of smarter or more powerful creature to manipulate the others for its own ends. “Maybe we’ve got one up to no good here . . . or it could just be my ancestors screwing with me because they can.”
“They tell you anything else?”
I thought about the closing vision. “It might involve disco?”
Rhino raised one scarred eyebrow. “They’re probably fucking with you . . . but we’ll play it by ear.”
I was glad he seemed to be putting some thought into this, rather than just going off half-cocked like last time. “Thanks, Marco.”
“By the way, good work on that werewolf and handling the team while I was in the hospital.”
I’d been handling a lot more than that, for a lot longer than he’d been injured, and I think we both knew it. I just hoped that getting hurt dealing with a threat that was trivial compared to some of the things we’d be expected to deal with had gotten him refocused on being a proper team lead. “It’s no biggie.”
Except Rhino wasn’t in the forgiving mood. “I was stupid, so I’m out of action and useless, and then my team did better without me anyways. Some leader, huh? Ray’s probably gonna demote me.”
“It’s not an ideal start.”
“It’s a clusterfuck,” he stated flatly.
“We’ve got some kinks to work out,” I agreed diplomatically.
* * *
While I enjoy monster research, Alex practically lived for it. Our team’s self-proclaimed nerd king was more enthusiastic looking up facts about monster than he was killing them. It was one of the traits I’d noticed about him during training. On the so-called “squishy” parts of monster lore—the myth, legends, and rumors—he was unsurpassed. Alex simply had a passion for the topic. If he’d had a degree in something useful, I’m almost certain the Los Alamos team—who handled all of MHI’s mad science contracts—would have stolen him in a heartbeat, just like they had Ben Cody, who was probably the only newbie in that class smarter than Alex. Except Ben was the hard-science type, into quantifiable, comparable numbers and facts, while Alex was into the folklore and stories about dark magic handed down by worried abuelitas.
Fortunately for me, Alex was a short-time Navy sailor who had barely finished high school, so hadn’t rated a second glance from Keegan in Los Alamos. It turned out Alex hadn’t struggled in school because the classwork had been too hard, but because he’d been damn-near bored to death and never bothered turning anything in.
“So your mystery voice mentioned a dark master,” Alex said as he flipped through one of the binders he had created. Not only was he a compulsive reader and notetaker, he possessed a severe desire to organize and catalogue everything into a color-coded binder system. It bordered on obsessive. “That’s a title more than a name, so I’m thinking my red binder. Hopefully, not the black binder.”
Ray Shackleford had spent big money for one of those fancy Xerox electrostatic photocopier machines at MHI headquarters, and Alex had put it to work before leaving for California, copying page after page from MHI’s library. There were five different colors of binders he used to categorize the different known monsters based on just how dangerous they were.
I’m glad someone convinced the Boss to purchase one of those new photocopiers. Plus, some of those ancient books reacted poorly to being hand copied. I didn’t know if MHI had anything like that, but the IDF had some ancient scrolls where we’d learned that machine copies lessened the potential mind-warping evil of certain handwritten texts. Especially the ones written in blood. Those were the worst. A good rule of thumb in this business: if you find an ancient evil tome, don’t read it. And if you have to read it for some reason, don’t read it out loud. That’s how you get demons.
We were ignoring the brown and green binders for now, since those were things like non-PUFF-applicable cryptids, or monsters who weren’t really a danger unless cornered, like Sasquatch or pixies. Instead, we concentrated on the yellow, red, and black binders.
The yellow binders were fascinating. There were a lot of monsters in there I’d always viewed as fairly dangerous, but Alex’s personal rating system had put them lower. Zombies, for instance, he had them rated lower than gnomes. I couldn’t recall a time when a Hunter had died from a gnome attack. However, the list of Hunters who have fallen to zombie bites was pretty long. But who was I to argue with the nerd king’s filing system?
The red binder had the traditional big guns—vampires, werewolves, shoggoths . . . basically any creature who could take out a fully equipped monster hunting team. Each and every one of them had fat bounties attached. These were the things that were dangerous not only because of their known capabilities, but because there were a lot of unknowns as well. Alex had lumped kappa and kitsunes in there too, not because that was the sort of thing we dealt with often, or really understood, but because of the rumors of what they potentially could do.
The black binder was thankfully the thinnest. These were the monsters Alex had lumped together as potential world enders. The Old Great Ones got a page, not that we knew much about them. Necromancers, even though they were only human, went in the black binder thanks to their ability to create all the nasty yellow and red binder things like zombies, wights, and ghouls. The Fey got a few pages of notes, lumped into various courts ruled by various kings and queens who existed outside our mortal realm. A few gods from ancient mythologies were listed as well, including—I noted—a few paragraphs about the Court of Feathers.
“So that’s your family?” Alex asked skeptically.
“Unfortunately, yes, but it’s not like I get invited to any get-togethers.”
I’d had no choice but to bring Alex in on my secret. If there was some mysterious threat out there, he was the most likely one to figure out what it was. That meant giving him the whole truth . . . or at least most of it.
“I only put the Court of Feathers in my black binder because MHI knew so little of their capabilities. I skimmed through some old books back at the compound and hit the highlights, except I don’t know how accurate they are, so my notes might not be accurate.”
“Yeah, I got that,” I murmured and flipped past the crudely drawn form of a feathered snake. Alex might have a giant brain, but it wasn’t wired for quality artwork. “It looks like you’ve got the basics right.”
“They’re categorized under Fey on the PUFF tables, but that’s more because they’ve got an other-than-Earthly origin and have been here for a superlong time, than because they’ve got much in common with the Fey who meddled in European history that we’re traditionally used to. They’ve been here for thousands of years, with whole religions built around them, but we don’t know where they’re from, or what they really are . . . though if they can breed with a human and produce offspring, that suggests some sort of biological commonality between our species.”
“Ugh . . . just don’t go there.”
“Sorry, this is fascinating.”
Whenever I told someone about my background, I was always nervous about how they were going to take it. Disgust, revulsion, fear . . . only in Alex’s case, he had just gotten obnoxiously excited about it. And part of me felt like I was the hot new exhibit at the zoo.
I pointed at a name mentioned on the page. “That’s their herald, but I don’t think that’s our threat. If they were making a move in this city, I doubt they’d warn us first. I don’t think anything in your black binder fits dark master the way the voice intended. What about a master vampire?”
“There hasn’t been a master vampire spotted in America in ages,” Alex said as he went back to the red binder. “I sure hope it isn’t a master vampire, Chloe.” Alex pointed at one page. “Here’s a case from Cuba. Spanish-American War. Lucas Starmount, who’d go on to be the first director of the MCB and in Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, killed the damn thing, but they had to use something like ten tons of dynamite to do it. Apparently the thing had four wights and dozens of ghouls protecting it. It was a mess. Lots of soldiers died.”
“The only vampires I’ve ever run across was a nest of babies in Turkey about ten years ago. Local police had noticed an uptick in murders and asked for help. Good thing about baby bloodsuckers is that they’re helpless during the daytime. I’m just suggesting the name fits, and a strong-enough vampire could order around other creatures and force them into servitude.”
“That’d have to be an insanely powerful vampire.” Alex ran his hand through his uncombed hair. The poor kid looked tired. “What about a necromancer? We’ve got cases of them building an army of the dead.”
“Maybe, but how would she order around a living werewolf?”
Alex spread his hands apologetically. “Just an idea. And what about your disco ball?”
I honestly had no idea on that one. I hadn’t exactly kept up on musical trends. Benny Goodman was still my jam.
We were interrupted by the phone ringing in the next room. I heard Lizz answer, and from the way she kept her tone really professional, Alex and I perked up, because that meant business might be coming our way.
“Job?” I asked as Lizz walked into my office a few minutes later.
“Job,” she confirmed. “Zombies in the Hollywood Hills. There’s maybe three or four, but they’re supposedly contained at a broadcasting station on top of Mount Lee.”
“No danger of them escaping?” Because that’s when zombies got really dangerous. It was the multiplying that gets you.
“None. It sounds like a simple cleanup.”
“How’d they get there?”
Lizz shrugged.
“I always wanted to go see the Hollywood sign,” Alex said.
My first inclination was to just roll immediately, but poor Rhino was downstairs, and it wasn’t lost on me that Lizz had reported to me first. “Let’s see how Rhino wants to handle this.”
“You say so,” Lizz murmured, clearly unhappy.
I rushed down to the shop and gave the report to Rhino, whose face was set in his usual frown. “How many you want me to take, boss?”
It was clear he was unhappy with being left behind. However, until his leg was fully healed and he was out of the cast, there wouldn’t be much hunting for him. He couldn’t be in too much of a bad mood, though, because he’d let Lizz draw a beaver on his cast, though he’d stopped her from adding flowers up and down the plaster. None of the guys had been allowed to even touch it. I was starting to think Rhino was a big old softy for us girls.
“Take Kimpton, Justin, and Melanie. Then figure out what caused the zombies in case that’s something we can get paid for killing too.”
The rest of the team had heard the commotion and come in to see what was happening. Those three looked excited for the work. Lizz seemed happy to not have to deal with any zombies, because that was a gross, stinky, and unrewarding monster to have to take care of. They were like the plague rats of this business. Alex seemed offended about being left behind, but Rhino told him, “You, find us that girl who might be a werewolf. I don’t trust the MCB to not screw that up.”
“Who wants to go shoot some zombies and then cut off their heads?” I asked them. Melanie grinned before giving me a thumbs-up.
“I’ll drive,” she said. “I’ve got a bigger trunk.”
“And a larger back seat,” I added. “Shotgun!”
“Cut me some slack!” Justin protested. “Girl, you’re five foot tall! I need leg space!”
“Too slow. I’ll scoot my chair up, if that’ll help.”
“Damn it.”
* * *
The Hollywood sign stands out more than anything else when you’re cruising along the freeway. Located on the southern slope of Mount Lee, it can be seen for miles, like a beacon for all those wannabe movie stars coming here from all over the world. It’s supposed to be a signal of hope and success for all who gaze upon it. Having spent a lot of hours exploring the seedy underbelly of the area recently, it just reminded me of failure and hopelessness.
We’d been told by the movie company that called us that they had blocked off the road leading up to the station at the peak. A gaffer met us there and filled us in with what the producers had told him, which admittedly wasn’t much. What had started off as a film production for a “new and exciting” apocalyptic horror movie had turned decidedly real when the crew had arrived to shoot on location and discovered actual zombies munching on the corpse of the on-site security guard. Panic had ensued, a couple people had gotten eaten, and everyone bitten had been locked inside the chain-link fence where they’d been filming.
Instead of calling the police, though, the movie company had reached out to us.
Which made sense, in a sick sort of way. Movie companies were tighter than the Mossad when it came to keeping secrets. If they’d called the police, it would have been on the evening news. Once it made the news, the MCB would step in, and whatever cover-up story the MCB would order them to use would probably be embarrassing and cast a negative light on their production. Reporters would have been hounding the director and the stars for comment. Lots of companies were already moving away from filming in the Hollywood area, exploring other locales and costing the city millions.
One of the other issues was that C-list movie stars always seemed to get caught up in whatever new-wave religion was the craze at the moment. A lot of times, people with nefarious intent coerce these young, vapid individuals into repeating their mantra and proclaim themselves to be an acolyte of the golden sunset or whatever they called themselves. You see it on the news occasionally when some movie star gets caught up in a real-life cult, though according to Lizz the MCB was really cracking down hard on these. Still, the sea of young people willing to sell their souls for a chance at wealth and fame was really disgusting, and made for ripe and fertile grounds for cult leaders looking for new talent.
Zombies, though? This was something that Golden State Supernatural would have handled, but they were now bankrupt. Fortunately, some studio exec had wound up with MHI in their Rolodex and decided we were the company equipped to handle this, discreetly and quietly.
Three hours had passed since the people locked inside the gate had been bitten. Just like a werewolf’s bite, infection was instantaneous and there was no known cure. The average time for a zombie bite to kill a healthy person and bring them back as the ravenous dead ranged from three to five hours. We were a little on the upswing side of the bell curve, but not terribly so, and from what I’d heard Hollywood actors might look great for the camera, but were unhealthy individuals on the whole. Three hours seemed like plenty of time for them to be dead.
It might seem a bit crass to look at it that way, but we all knew the score, even though none of us Hunters liked to talk about it. Shooting a person before they turned was hard. That was the kind of weight you didn’t want to carry. Once they died and turned? Shooting them became a whole lot easier. I personally didn’t care, but I wasn’t about to put that on the newbies. They’d have plenty of chances to do horrible things that would haunt them for the rest of their lives later.
When we arrived at the film site there were several cars and trucks, some trailers, a few tents, and lots of equipment. There was a notable lack of staff for so much stuff, but that was because this wasn’t the studio’s first encounter with the supernatural, so they’d already known to send away all the potential witnesses. The fewer witnesses there were to intimidate into silence, the less time the MCB would spend interrupting their schedule.
There was a chain-link fence around the station, and on the other side were the zombies. And there were far more of them than we’d been led to believe on the phone. This wasn’t some minor outbreak. There were at least ten of them shambling around in there. The studio was delusional if they thought they were going to handle this one quietly.
As we piled out of the car, we were greeted by one of the associate producers for the movie. Introductions went about as well as we’d come to expect from people who had never worked with us before. It didn’t help that this guy had the look of a sleazy film producer and gave off a vibe of being an arrogant ass. It was the standard Hollywood greeting when a self-important man looked down on those he considered lesser beings.
“Great,” the producer grunted, clearly annoyed. “So this is what’s eating up my budget, the famous Monster Hunter Incorporated.”
“International,” I corrected him. “Nice to meet you, Mister . . . ?”
In spite of the cool morning he was wearing a sweat-soaked, wide-collar shirt open all the way to his navel. The shirt appeared to be begging for mercy from his expansive gut, and he had a horrible combover that did nothing to hide the huge bald spot on the top of his head. His mustache reminded me of two lost caterpillars who weren’t quite meeting up at the same spot along his lip. Around his neck was a heavy gold chain that became lost in his chest hair the farther down it went. Not the most attractive specimen around, but since he was a big-shot movie producer, he was probably able to weasel his way into gullible up-and-coming starlets’ skirts with promises about making them rich and famous. I was willing to bet he even had a casting couch in an old, ratty office somewhere downtown.
He looked me up and down in a manner that made me want to shower. The predatory look he gave Melanie almost earned him a throat punch. “They send a spook and two slots. Yo, James! I thought you said these guys were pros?”
That made me angry, but it must have really infuriated Justin, because he cleared the distance in a flash, grabbed the producer by his lapels, and hoisted him off his feet. The movie slug looked as overweight as Justin was lean, but Parris Island and the mean streets of South Chicago had made him tough as iron. Justin might not have bulging muscles like Rhino, but the guy was strong.
“The next word out yo mouth better be sorry,” Justin growled as an accent I’d never heard from him before came out. His eyes were inches from the movie producer’s. “If it ain’t, I’m gonna toss you in there with the zombies.”
“James?! James?!” the producer shouted.
Justin’s frown deepened and his eyes narrowed. “That don’t sound like no apology to me.” And he began to drag the whimpering movie producer over to the chain-link fence. Attracted by the noise, the zombies were beginning to shuffle toward the fence in search of their next meal.
“I’m sorry! Jesus Christ, I’m sorry!” the producer sobbed. “Please? Please! I’m sorry!”
“He sound properly contrite to you, ma’am?” Justin asked me, his accent dropping as quickly as it had arrived. The tough street kid from Chicago had disappeared and the respectable, formidable Marine had returned, though the accent hadn’t disappeared quite yet.
I failed horribly to hide my smile. “I don’t know. He was terribly rude.”
“Please, sir! Ma’am! I’m so, so sorry!” the producer blubbered.
Mollified somewhat, Justin released his grip on the shirt, and the producer fell on his ass in the dust. “Your call, boss. Introductions, or zombie food?”
“Let’s do introductions. I’m Chloe Mendoza, MHI,” I said and offered my hand to the dirty, terrified producer. He reluctantly accepted it and I easily hoisted him to his feet, leaving him clearly shocked at how much stronger I was than I looked. The nagualii cheered at the display of dominance. I told it to shut the hell up. “Let’s get one thing straight: We want your business, but we don’t have to put up with your shit. Spare us the movie mogul bluster. This is what we do, and right now you need us more than we need you. Disrespect my people again, and we walk. Then you can deal with the undead and the government on your own. Okay?”
“Okay,” the producer replied shakily.
“You called my office?”
“James did.” He was looking at all of us in a new light now. Gone was the arrogant, cocky jerk; standing before us now was some regular schmo who was simply way out of his depth in a crisis, putting on a mask to hide his own insecurities. I’d seen this before from military officers and elected officials. “James knew who you were.”
“Can you show us who James is?” I was polite because there was no need to rub salt in the wounds. Justin had kicked his ego so hard it wouldn’t reinflate for six months, at least.
The producer led us away from the fence and to a covered area where a handful of men were standing around, nervously watching the zombies. There were multiple cameras angled toward the tower beyond the fence, and a lot of equipment I couldn’t easily identify stacked on boxes taller than me. There were a few temporary trailers parked nearby, which I guessed was where the stars were hiding or getting makeup put on. I wasn’t sure. I’d never been to a movie set before this.
It was all interesting, but I was there to kill zombies. However, I also knew movie production companies were flush with money, and we could get some long-term contracts out of this little escapade if I played our cards right. Diplomacy would be key here, and I’d promised Ray that I’d remain diplomatic during negotiations. Arrogant and insufferable movie producers notwithstanding, of course.
“James? This, uh, lady would like to speak with you,” the producer said after leading us to a man sitting on a lawn chair next to a folding table. On the table was a schedule written in such big, bold letters I could tell with just a cursory glance they were running well behind schedule.
James turned out to be a chubby three-hundred-pound man with a goatee and a smile. He stuck out his hand. “You’re the people from MHI?” Surprisingly enough, he had a British accent.
“Chloe Mendoza,” I confirmed. “This is Justin Moody, Melanie Simmons, and Kimpton Wall.”
“James Andrew. I’m the director of this film.”
“It’s nice to meet you, sir,” I said as Justin and Melanie both stepped forward for introductions. Kimpton remained in the back, eyes taking in everything but saying nothing. Unlike the other hack, James was unfailingly polite. I chalked it up to a proper British upbringing. Hollywood either hadn’t rubbed off on him yet or he was simply a nice guy. I was hoping for the latter.
“The studio didn’t want to get the constables involved, and I met a man once while filming in London who said he was from your organization,” James said once introductions were completed. “He dealt with some decidedly nasty business involving a . . . strangler of young actresses, the nature of which Scotland Yard has cautioned that I should never expound on too much in public, if you catch my drift.”
“Drift caught, sir.” So this guy was read in. Interesting.
“So when we discovered this unpleasantness, I decided it was in our best interest to bring in the professionals on this matter.”
“We appreciate that. MHI is the best monster hunting business in the world.”
“That is what your Raymond Shackleford assured me, despite the protestations of his British rivals.” James looked tired, which, given his circumstances, I couldn’t fault him for one bit. It must have been a rude and unwelcome shock to discover real zombies eating your fake zombies on set. “We’re also in a bit of a pinch here. The studio has authorized me to pay your company ten thousand dollars if you can take care of this by this afternoon, as well as sign a nondisclosure agreement of silence with punitive penalties should said contract be breached.”
I did some quick mental math. On average, zombies were good for a few grand a pop, depending on their type. I looked over at the fence, which was now beginning to bow a little under the weight of the zombies pushing up against it. These looked like the typical slow, dumb ones. There were probably more hiding out near the communications tower or possibly in the building itself. Ten thousand was generous, especially when we would file a PUFF on them later and get paid twice.
However, if we could get a contract from this studio, word would get out to the others, and whenever a movie company had a problem, no matter where they were at, they could call MHI. That would lead to bigger paydays and be a much better long-term investment. With the MCB lurking around, an NDA was a waste of time. That was just a piece of paper to them, but if our signing it made them feel better, great.
“That sounds good, provided that you tell your studio what a fine job we did afterward, and that by paying us a reasonable monthly retainer they can save money in the future and keep MHI on-call. We’ll guarantee a twenty-four-hour response to their filming locations anywhere in the country.”
James cocked his head and looked at me in an entirely new light. “I’d have to contact the studio.”
“Of course.”
When a young assistant came over and whispered in his ear, James’ smile disappeared. “Ah, how fast can you eradicate the problem? The city is beginning to breathe down our necks regarding our permit to film here. It was only supposed to be three days. That was two weeks ago.”
“One hour, two tops,” I promised. “This sort of zombie is typically slow and stupid. Still dangerous, but only if you’re sloppy. Shouldn’t be a problem as long as we’re careful.”
“Just one more thing, young lady,” James asked, his smile returning at the happy news. “Would it offend you if we filmed it for our movie?”
“Seriously?” Kimpton asked, speaking for the first time.
“Of course. This is an incredible opportunity for groundbreaking cinema.”
“We don’t do retakes.” I shrugged.
The MCB would never let them keep copies of anything they filmed, so why not? I looked around and saw that the camera mounts were set on tiny little railroad tracks on the ground. Following their path, I noticed they didn’t go past the chain-link fence’s entrance. “Oh, and sir? We’re not going to wait around for your crew to lay down more of that railroad stuff for the camera to roll on.”
That seemed to catch them off guard for a moment before the director began nodding.
“Smaller camera, less film on the reel,” he said, looking around as the skeleton crew began gathering around him. He pointed at a big dude who clearly looked like he worked out religiously. “You? Boom operator?”
“Yeah?” the man replied.
“Do you think you can carry a rig and reel without tripping, or getting eaten by those nasty beasties over there? While staying close to the young lady here?”
“Uh . . . ”
“Yes or no, young man. Time is money.”
“Yeah, I can. I think. Yeah, yeah I can do it.”
“Excellent.” James’ grin was infectious. “One take is all we shall get, my dear. Correct?”
“Zombies don’t get back up after the way we kill them.”
“Splendid!” James clapped his hands, clearly delighted. The change was almost disturbing.
I shared a look with the other Hunters, because we were about to shoot zombies for a real-life Hollywood director and get it all on film. I doubted the Boss would be pleased, but Earl might get a kick out of the absurdity of it all. He was funny like that. Life as a Hunter is never dull, but some things were such a rare occurrence that it was better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.
We grabbed our gear from the back of Melanie’s station wagon. I stole an occasional glance toward the chain-link fence, as I expected it to give way under the increasing weight of the zombies, but whoever had installed that fence had done an outstanding job. It was holding for the time being, and fortunately, wouldn’t need to much longer.
Just before we began to kill us some zombies and get paid, James stopped us and handed us a few items from the props department. Frowning, I accepted the bunched-up fabric and eyed it suspiciously. It was a ski mask.
“Are we supposed to be playing terrorists?”
“We knocking over a liquor store?” Justin suggested and grinned.
“When we shoot scenes such as this, it allows us to hide the identities of the stunt men—well, in this case, stunt persons—from the audience.” James was downright giddy with excitement. “Then, when the moment is right, she will rip the balaclava from her head, revealing the heroine, and the audience will gasp with delight!”
As fun as this was, I really did need to rain on his parade. “James, you do realize that the government is never going to let you use any of this, right?”
“My dear, if a government agency comes along and asks what it is, we’ll simply say it is a skillful blend of makeup and prosthetics. As I said, I’ve worked with your type before and . . . how do you Yanks put it? Ah, yes, I ‘know the drill,’ as it were.”
“I can dig it,” Melanie said. Kimpton merely shrugged and slid his on.
“Wonderful, my dears! Go kill some zombies. Chop chop!” James saw that I had taken a sheathed machete out of the trunk. “No pun intended! Boom operator? Well, I guess you would be Camera A now. Are you ready?”
“Ready,” the former boom operator responded. He was wearing a strange cross harness rig on his chest and a rather large camera was perched upon his shoulder. There was a ginormous battery strapped to his back as well. All told, the contraption had to weigh close to two hundred pounds. Despite its heaviness, it didn’t appear to be bothering him one bit.
“My brother, I sure hope these don’t turn out to be fast zombies and you have to try and run hoisting that thing,” Justin said.
“Good thing I wore my Chuck Taylors.”
Flexible mind, strong, unflinching . . . I made a mental note to keep an eye on this one. If he did well during our clearing of the zombies—and if he ever grew tired of Hollywood—MHI was always hiring.
The zombies were all fresh, and still looked like people. Just bloody, bitten, vacantly staring, obviously dead people. It was sad, but it was what it was. It didn’t do any good to dwell on the fact that these had just been living, thinking, feeling human beings a few hours ago. I wondered if James gave that much thought before deciding to just treat them like props.
I turned to my team. Fun and games was over; now it was time to focus and not get ourselves killed. “We’ve been through this in training. Head shots and anchor shots. Ammo’s cheaper than your lives, so make sure they’re done before you step over them. Call out your reloads so your partner is covering you. Take your time. Check your corners. Don’t forget to look up and down. I’ll take off their heads for the bounty samples. We’ll shoot the ones through the fence first.”
“Miss,” James interrupted, sounding a little embarrassed. “Take the heads? Wouldn’t that be more suited to someone, ah . . . more physical? Those poor creatures over there do not look like the rotted sort I’ve seen in other films. While I’ve never participated in a decapitation, I’m sure it is not the easiest exercise.”
“Don’t worry, James. It’s all in the wrist.”
“Ghastly business,” James said as he shook his head.
“You have no idea,” I replied as I stuffed a foam plug in each of my ears. Now that was a neat new invention. In the old days we’d just stuffed cotton balls in there. Then I pulled the ski mask over my head. The wool made my forehead begin to itch and it took all of my self-control to not scratch at it with the machete’s handle. The others followed my lead, and suddenly there were four well-armed yet nondescript people dressed in fatigues and flak jackets. We easily could have been stunt people ready to film a scene. James really did know his business.
“Ready?”
“Ready,” Melanie answered. Justin nodded. I glanced at the cameraman, who gave me a thumbs-up.
“This seems kind of irreverent, but alright.” Kimpton sighed. He was the only one who seemed not excited at the prospect of being in a movie—even if nobody would ever see it. Maybe that’s what was bothering him. “Ready.”
I gave the order. “Let’s do this.”
“Roll film,” James called.
“Rolling.”
“Stand by.”
“Standing by.”
“And . . . action!”
Melanie turned and immediately raised the Zastava M70 she had somehow acquired while still in newbie training. From a distance of thirty meters she put a round right between the eyes of the closest zombie through the chain-link fence. Its head rocked back as pus-filled brain fluids splashed the others behind it. Remarkably, it didn’t drop, so a second shot to almost the same exact spot finished the job. The shambler collapsed to the ground, twitching. All that time out in the desert shooting was paying off.
I heard our makeshift cameraman whistle softly under his breath. “Damn, honey . . . marry me?”
The gunfire stirred up the zombies and they began pushing harder on the chain link. They made an awful moaning noise, and the metal creaked as it strained under the added weight. Justin and Melanie went to town on the zombies, their rifles barking as they took careful aim between their shots. The cameraman and James moved around behind us, keeping themselves out of the line of fire but still trying to get good angles on film. For a boom operator, he was a born cameraman, it appeared. James was even impressed and, over the distinctive crack! of the rifles, kept giving the man direction.
First zombies cleared, it was time to work our way toward the station. Kimpton unlocked the gate, and as we went through my team put more bullets into the zombies that were already lying on the ground. Since we had a moment, I moved in, machete in hand. With each brutal swing I cleanly removed a ruined head from a neck. There was a lot of ichor, blood, and who knew what else spraying into the air. Glancing back, I could see the cameraman was keeping the angle in tight on the scene, though he did look a little green around the gills. James looked equally unwell but neither had puked yet, which was a point in their favor.
I was proud of my team. They were keeping their cool, being professional, making good shots, and communicating. Even though two of them were newbies and one only had a few years on the job, they worked well together.
It only took a couple of minutes to totally clear the fence. No other zombies came down toward the noise, but knowing there might be more up in the broadcasting station proper, we began trekking up the small dirt road to the nearby building. I stopped for a moment and yelled back to the production crew.
“Don’t touch the bodies! Don’t get any juice on you. Lock the gate behind us!”
I hoped they listened. Even decapitated, some idiot could wander over and get bit by a severed head. That happened all the time. And I didn’t think it was possible to get zombified just by getting their ooze on you, but I’d heard rumors of people in China getting infected by drinking pulped zombie brains to try and cure impotence or something, and considering what people put in their bodies these days I wouldn’t be surprised if it were true.
The building’s front door was closed, which meant little but did suggest nothing had gotten inside. Zombies might be a menace but for the most part they were too stupid to really understand how doors worked. Judging by the lack of cars parked around the building, I was tempted to believe it was empty and call it a day. There was a small, shatterproof rectangular window on the side of the building’s metal front door, so I leaned in and tried to look inside. The window was tinted a dark color. I cupped my hands around my covered face and looked in a second time, then hissed, and swore softly.
There were three bodies in the hallway. Their throats had been slashed and strange markings had been drawn on their bare chests. They had been left with their pants on, thankfully. Each of them had once been a fit, attractive man. All three were lying within a dark circle that appeared to have been drawn in blood. Probably their own.
“Ritualistic sacrifice.” I had wondered how a zombie outbreak could happen up here, in the middle of nowhere. Now I had my answer.
“How many?” Melanie asked as she covered me.
“Three. Weird number for a sacrifice.”
“Is that a sacred number for anything?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Not that I know of.”
“What about fairy tales?” Justin interjected as he peeled off his mask. He sent an apologetic look toward James. “Sorry, man. It’s hot.”
“No, I believe we have the shot we wanted,” the director said, waving away Justin’s concern. He slapped the cameraman on the shoulder. “Fantastic work, bloody fantastic. Good job, son! Miss? Can we peek inside?”
“One second,” I replied before looking back over at Justin. “What did you mean about the fairy tales?”
“It’s probably dumb, but you know how fairy tales work. Three wishes from a genie? Three little pigs? Goldilocks and the three bears? Three billy goats gruff? The Boss said once that fairy tales are based on real monster stuff.”
“Okayyy,” I dragged the word out, uncertain. The best way to warn people about the dangers of monsters was through mediums like myths and fairy tales, but he clearly had something more in mind. “Your parents must have read a lot of those to you.”
“Granmama,” Justin said. “You think who did this is gone?”
“Probably.” I peered back inside, trying to see if there was anything. The bodies of the dead men, outside of their throats being slashed, looked to be in remarkably good shape. They showed no signs of torture from what I could see, and their hands weren’t bound at all. The trio might have been drugged, but I’d been told by some unsavory types that using the life force of an individual under the influence could substantially change the effects of whatever dark magic was being harnessed. “We can’t be certain until we get inside for a closer look.” I tried the door, but it was locked. “Who owns this place, anyway?”
“One of the television stations,” James answered. “I could place a call.”
“Do that.” Then I simply kicked the lock in. It was a sturdy door, but I was motivated and only half human. “Tell them you found their door vandalized.”
I nodded toward Kimpton, and he went in first with his shotgun. Justin followed him. But the building was so small that a moment later they called out all clear.
It felt evil inside. And it wasn’t just my inhuman senses that picked up on it, but it was obvious the rest of them were feeling it as well. Dark things had been summoned here. Upon examining the bodies and seeing that this was unmistakably some sort of necromantic human sacrifice, I told the others, “We need to call the MCB in on this.”
“What? Those bastards . . . Do we have to?” Melanie asked with a slight whine. She hated the MCB more than any of the others. I never got the full story, only that Earl mentioned something about a brief hospitalization due to intense questioning from MCB agents after her attack had happened. Considering how levelheaded she was, it made me wonder just what the MCB had done to her.
“Yes. Because if we don’t, they’ll think we were behind this. I want to keep our relationship with them on cordial terms. Sorry, James, NDA or not, the Feds don’t mess around when it comes to someone practicing necromancy. They’re going to lock this place down until they can investigate it.”
“Ah, that’s alright. This footage more than makes up for having to move to a new location. I’ll show that Kubrick what groundbreaking cinematography really means!”
* * *
I guessed that Agent Beesley was not happy to see me by the way she almost ran me over in her government-issued black Plymouth Duster as she pulled up to the Mount Lee broadcasting station. From the sounds of the engine revving violently beneath the hood, she was pissed off that she had missed.
I gave her a friendly wave as she got out of the car. “Agent Beesley. So glad you could join us. Lovely day, no?”
“Ever since your company rolled into town, you’ve made my life a living hell,” she said after slamming the car door shut. It was clear she was angry about something other than not allowing her to run me over. Probably had something to do with the dead zombies, the film crew, and the report of a ritualistic killing inside the locked broadcasting station. My day was going okay, but it was clear hers wasn’t, so I decided not to antagonize her. Let’s give peace a chance.
“So what’s shaking?” I asked her.
“Why is there a film crew here?” Beesley demanded, giving James and the rest of the movie people a nasty glare. They were back on the other side of the fence, pouring bleach all over everything that had gotten zombie on it, as my team supervised.
“They were here first. They called us.”
“You know how many people here are going to talk?”
“None,” I told her. “They were making a movie up here when the zombies ate some of their crew. They locked the fence, ran away, and called us. That’s just a skeleton crew. The director was read in and knew to send most of the potential witnesses home for the day. We took care of the zombies, then discovered three bodies from what looks like a ritualistic sacrifice in that building over there. I called you. I’m just trying to do my job, Agent, and not interfere with yours.”
“We’re still going to have to warn every single one of them,” Beesley grumbled, clearly irritated. For just a split second I almost felt pity for the hatchet-faced shrew. Witness intimidation was one of the messier jobs the MCB had to do. Fighting monsters the way MHI does is straightforward. Dealing with the aftermath, like an MCB agent? I’d rather fight a vampire in the dark than have to do what Agent Beesley did.
. . . go to the ravine, a terrifyingly familiar voice whispered in the back of my mind. We must speak.
I frowned and tried not to let my sudden unease show.
The Court of Feathers had returned, but why I had no idea. This wasn’t the same herald as before. This voice was sleeker, deeper, and somehow it felt more secretive. Getting psychic messages from mysterious entities after seeing the end-result of a dark magic sacrifice wasn’t how I wanted my day to go. The fine hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I hoped Beesley didn’t notice.
She did. “What’s wrong with you, Mendoza?”
“I just hacked a bunch of heads off with a machete. What did you do for your lunch hour?”
“I ate a tuna salad sandwich. I’d have treated myself to something nicer if I’d known I’d be spending the rest of my day screaming at actors. And human sacrifice? Do you have any idea how much paperwork that takes? Plus, what mundane excuse am I supposed to use for this many deaths?”
“I don’t know. Have your guys knock one of the letters off the Hollywood sign and say it fell and crushed them.”
She actually seemed intrigued by that idea. “Not too shabby, Mendoza. I did already use the old bus-crash excuse for a mass casualty event this year. Good old construction failures are a classic. Covering up more than a handful of deaths from one incident is a pain. Singles are easy. You know that thing about how one of the leading causes of death is slipping and falling in the bathtub?”
“It isn’t?”
“MCB came up with that one,” Beesley said proudly. “It explains away so many monster attacks. The public bought it so well that I just wish I would’ve got stock in the company that makes those little flower traction stickers that people put on the floors of their bathtubs before we took it live.” She handed me a business card. “Do me a favor: Next time, don’t go through the switchboard. I’d appreciate a personal heads-up so I can get a head start.”
“Will do. You need me for anything else, or can I leave?”
Beesley waved her hand dismissively and began walking toward the film crew. “We’ll be in touch.”
I glanced over at Melanie, who was standing by the car, and signaled for her to give me a moment. She didn’t seem in a particular hurry to leave, especially after the film’s star had left his trailer and immediately begun flirting with her. She had that effect on men, even while she was standing there in blood-splattered fatigues and holding a rifle. If I cared, I might have been a little jealous of her natural beauty. I didn’t care, though, no matter what my facial expressions may have suggested.
Looking around the site, I hadn’t seen anything I’d describe as a ravine. The south face of Mount Lee looked out over Los Angeles and the entirety of the valley, so technically that could have been considered a ravine, but the voice had to mean something more specific than that. After making certain Beesley wasn’t looking my way, I headed back toward the broadcasting station.
More black cars were arriving. The MCB had sent a large contingent to deal with this mess. Shortly, agents would be tromping all over the place, intimidating the film crew and threatening to toss them in a mental ward—or worse, a shallow grave—if they talked about the things they’d seen. They were atrocious at calming survivors of monster attacks, and I’ll admit I despised them for it.
Behind the broadcasting station there was a steep drop-off down the hill, and a tiny footpath that led between two rises in the slope. It was the only thing that resembled a ravine. Tall bushes hid it well but there was a lot of trash around the entrance. This place was probably used by teenagers needing a place to drink and screw around. Cautiously, I began making my way down, trying not to trip over the piles of beer cans. After only a few seconds I stopped, because blocking my path was the biggest jaguar I’d ever seen in my life.
The cat was gigantic, muscled, and sleek. It made no sound as it studied me with eyes that were far too intelligent to belong to any normal animal.
This was unexpected and unwelcome, but I couldn’t show weakness, because this was the avatar of a very dangerous being. I tried to put steel in my voice. “Jaguars aren’t native to this region. You’re kind of conspicuous. Change.”
The jaguar turned its head back and forth, inspecting the body, before the creature melted into something smaller. In the blink of an eye it was a regular housecat now, though the spotting on it was still very much a jaguar. I noted that it was missing one of its back legs.
“Tezcatlipoca.”
“I bid you greeting, daughter,” the cat replied, dipping its head slightly.
“Don’t call me that,” I growled in a low, dangerous voice. “I’m the product of your crimes.”
The cat flicked his tail and stared at me with golden eyes. If my comment bothered the avatar thing, it didn’t show on his feline face.
“How’d you escape the Court’s prison?”
“This is merely an aspect of my greatness. I remain imprisoned beneath the sixth house. The sun is high now. Though summer approaches, night will spread again.”
My father was a cryptic alien thing. He was also an incredibly powerful and dangerous entity that could obliterate me on a whim, so I tried to remain calm and choose my words carefully. “Why are you here?”
“Why are you here, daughter?”
I ground my teeth together and said nothing.
“You fled to the land eastward, away from my gaze. I am lord of the north, and to the north you have returned. You were compelled to come back to your people.”
California was north of his old stomping grounds, but his current jurisdiction consisted of some extradimensional prison cell for his crimes against his own kind. Had those promptings I’d felt in Israel to bring me here been Tezcatlipoca’s doing?
“My affairs are none of your concern.”
“You are mistaken.”
“Why’d you call me?”
“Time is short.”
“Then talk,” I snapped, which wasn’t careful, but he and I had some issues.
“The pathetic sacrifice you found here is the work of the being the Herald dispatched by the Court of Feathers warned you about. Except the Herald twists his words.” Tezcatlipoca’s avatar’s tail was flicking back and forth in the dirt, as if agitated. “Their mouth is a bowl of lies. The Court knows precisely what threatens this land.”
“What’s this dark master, then?”
“You seek wisdom, child? I will gladly help you . . . for a price.”
Screw that. “I ask you for nothing. I offer nothing. I pay nothing.”
“Then I shall only speak what I give freely. The Court of Feathers is concerned because this being has recruited some of their former soldiers. Dangerous things, yet the Court cowers, waiting, hoping mortals will do their work for them. The Court hides the truth from the worlds, so they may prove their neutrality later, after time breaks and the great chaos awakens.”
That made no sense to me. Time breaking? Time can’t break. That’s not how physics worked. It sounded stupid. Then again, I was standing behind a building that had been used in a ritualistic ceremony to create zombies, speaking to a cat avatar of my dad, who was an extradimensional monster once worshipped as a god. My life was strange like that.
“When the great war comes, sides will be chosen. The Court is weak now, egg without yolk, bone bereft of meat. Fearful, they will wait to see which side is stronger before declaring their loyalty. Their hesitancy shall be their demise. Only that is not your war. That is the war to come, and great it shall be. The Chosen who will break time has not yet been born. That war will have a new generation of champions. Your war begins now.”
“I see,” I lied. This was all news to me. But then, monsters are always talking about some war or prophecy or Chosen One. It was kind of their shtick. “You’d like a big war, wouldn’t you?”
“As would you. You do not need to pretend meekness with me. Your heart yearns for conflict. You want to slash the arteries and see their blood freed. Through hostility, comes beauty.”
My hands curled into fists. “Your ways aren’t my ways.”
“So you claim.” The cat dipped his head. “I see you now carry the token of your slavery, and the symbol of the book god.” I wore two things around the chain on my neck: my silver PUFF Exemption tag; and an old Star of David that had been given to me as a gift on a freighter out of Europe. My hand went there unconsciously, as the cat spat, “Weakness.”
“I chose a religion that has survived everything the world could throw at it. Your religion ended up in the trash bin of history.”
“You rebel against your true father like a petulant brat. The conquistador god may have been victorious over the empires who paid sacrifice to the Court, child, but our realm has been destroyed many times before, and with each age we return, greater than before. Your world only gets one chance . . . Ironic.”
I had never heard a house cat chuckle before. “What’s so funny?”
“It amuses me that one of the same men who crushed my kingdom will return in time to attempt the same to yours, only now the conquistador flies the banner of an older, crueler god. However, as I have said, that is not your war. Your war is now.”
“Yeah, thanks for all that cryptic prophecy stuff. Why are you here?”
“Preparations for battle,” the cat avatar said as he began to groom a paw. “The Court cowers. Tezcatlipoca does not. They are shadows of their former glory, filled with bitter vanity. They expect chaos to win. I told them they are fools to placate such an entity. My rebellion was why they placed me in chains.”
“They threw your sorry ass in jail because you broke their laws,” I snapped as my temper flared. “There’s supposed to be a truce between mankind and the Court. You broke that when you attacked my mother and created me.”
It was impossible to read the emotions of the cat avatar of an ancient god, but for a brief moment, I thought Tezcatlipoca looked disappointed in me. “You know nothing. The Court has deceived you.”
“We’re done here, drought bringer. Don’t ever contact me again.”
Suddenly, the placid housecat was gone, and the ferocious jaguar had returned, only now it was tall enough we were standing eye to eye. The beast showed me his fangs and snarled.
I snarled back.
“Such insolence . . . You remind me of your mother.”
I resisted the urge to pull my pistol and start pumping bullets into the creature, but then half a dozen MCB Agents would come running to see what was happening and find a PUFF Exempt half human having an argument with a giant talking jaguar, and that would be a whole big thing.
The jaguar’s lips hid his fangs. “Trust the Court at your own peril. When you are most desperate, they will offer aid. Their offer is a trap. They would enslave all nagualii.”
I snorted. “Oh, like whatever you have to offer is better?”
“I am not a god who requires slaves. I am a father who will protect his family. Farewell for now, my daughter.”
And with that, the jaguar turned to smoke.
I stood there as the avatar drifted away on the silent wind, until it was just me standing alone in a ravine filled with garbage left behind by teenagers.
The Court of Feathers was probably trying to manipulate me somehow. I had to agree with my father on that one. However, all the other stuff was up in the air about being truthful or not. Tezcatlipoca, after all, was not known for his straightforward trustworthiness. He was feared and reviled for a reason.
When I turned around to start making my way back up toward the broadcasting station, I was surprised to see Kimpton and Justin standing there, dumbstruck.
Oh shit.
Hopefully they hadn’t caught too much of our exchange.
“What the hell was that?” Kimpton asked.
“Uh . . . It’s complicated.”
“A motherfucking tiger the size of a horse just said you were his kid!” Justin shouted. “I’d say that’s pretty fuckin’ complicated!”
“First of all, keep your voice down. Second, jaguar. Not a tiger. Huge difference.”
“He turned into a cloud and floated away, Chloe!”
“I’ll explain in the car.”