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EPILOGUE


About a month later Sam Haven and I got called to Cazador. I was ready to go. New Orleans is a great town when you’re hunting monsters. Even if not. The aura of Hoodoo Squad was still on, probably more since we’d apparently ended the true danger of hoodoo. We were treated like kings. Plenty of fish in the New Orleans sea and they practically jumped in your boat. The food was good.

But it was also hot. Steamy hot. And I was getting as bored as I’d been at Sandals. There was less activity than Seattle in my day. Maybe a minor call-out once a week. It was a far cry from our wild, nonstop, full-moon monster fests. Oh, there are still monsters in New Orleans—don’t let your guard down—but the ones that remain are far more interested in keeping their heads down.

Ray wouldn’t say why the call but I had my own sources. Eastern Europe was heating up. Bad. An entire town had been wiped out by what amounted to a lycanthrope army.

“We’re forming a team to head to Eastern Europe,” Boss Shackleford told us, looking around the conference room.

I knew all the people in it.

Sam Haven, former SEAL and all around badass.

Milo Anderson, hippy goofy vicious monster killer.

Susan Shackleford, the baddest bitch in the valley, now freed enough from mommy duties to go earn some of that delicious PUFF money again.

Raymond Shackleford the Fourth, brilliant scion of a Monster Hunting family.

Earl Harbinger, the meanest and unquestionably toughest monster killer in the business.

And then there was me. Iron Hand. The top PUFF recipient in recent history before I was instrumental in killing an Old One.

“The place is getting overrun with vamps and werewolves and every other kind of boggle. NATO’s formed a new group, the Organization for Supernatural Security Cooperation in Europe. US/Western-country PUFF bonuses and it’s a virgin playing field.”

Some of those Eastern European girls had been turning up in the strip clubs in New Orleans. If they all looked pretty much the same, I was on this like stink on a mava.

“Who’s up for it?”

“Cowboy up,” Sam said.

“Kill monsters,” Milo chimed in.

“Get paid,” Susan said.

“It’s get laid, Susan,” I said. “Get laid.”

Milo just shook his head while the rest of the group laughed.

We were MHI’s top Hunters. The monsters had better run at our very names. Eastern Europe was never going to be the same.

And neither was Monster Hunter International. Because we weren’t all coming home.



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Framed