"If at any time I think this job is totally insane, I'm out of there. No questions, no ifs, ands, or buts. Don't think I'm kidding either. I've been shafted already, and I'm not going to do that again. You screw with me in any way, shape, or form and you can color me gone."
"We wouldn't have it any other way," Julie said. "And what else?"
"You, uh… need to have dinner with me tonight," I stammered, surprising myself with my own courage. There you go, Casanova. I had no idea why I had said that, it had just kind of popped out.
Julie looked momentarily taken aback. I could not tell from her reaction if she was flattered or insulted by my lame attempt to ask her out. Earl rolled his eyes.
"I guess you ain't talking about me," he said.
"No, I… uh… well, I just thought, you know…" It wasn't exactly poetry.
She did not respond immediately. I think I took her by surprise. I knew that surprise was good in war, but it wasn't necessarily what I was going for here. I have never been very good with women. Actually, that's an understatement. I turn into a bumbling incompetent oaf around them.
"Was that a lame attempt to ask me out?" she queried. "It's usually considered bad form to do that in what is basically a job interview."
"Well, I just wanted to… maybe ask some questions. About, you know-"
Earl cut me off. "There's some more business that I need to conduct anyway. I've got to go. Julie can fill you in on the rest of the details." He stood up. "You kids have fun."
"Earl, wait a second, what about…" Julie started to stand. My heart lurched. Had I offended her?
"Julie, you know what I'm talking about. You know what tonight is. Stick around. Fill Owen in on the details of our operation." He adjusted his bomber jacket.
She slowly slid back down the couch. Way to go, Earl! I thought happily. Harbinger made as if to leave. I tried to grab my crutch so I could stand to see him out.
"Not necessary," he said as he shook my hand. "I look forward to working with you."
"Me too," I responded before wincing at the amazing strength in the man's fingers as he easily crushed my much larger hand. He was far stronger than he appeared. I tried not to visibly show how much pain he was inflicting. He bent down and spoke low enough in my ear that Julie couldn't hear.
"That took guts, but be a gentleman with her, or I'll be displeased," he whispered. I had no doubt that his displeasure would somehow involve me becoming seriously injured.
I nodded. He let go, grinned evilly and patted me on the back, before swiftly leaving.
Julie Shackleford sat on my bargain basement furniture in my rundown apartment in a bad part of town and examined me quizzically. I had no idea what she was thinking. It was an awkward moment.
Finally she broke the silence.
"Want to order pizza?"
"So you know all about me because of that file," I said after swallowing a blob of cheese and pineapple. Delivery had been relatively swift, the pizza was good, and surprisingly enough Julie seemed to be enjoying our conversation. After the first few awkward minutes she had warmed up to my attempt at flirting, and was at least tolerating me. Her smile was contagious, and I felt better than I had in weeks. The sun was starting to set, and long orange shadows were cast through my barred apartment windows.
"Scary, isn't it? How much they keep track of people," she said, trying to be polite and not talk with her mouth full, and failing miserably. "You should see what mine says. If you read it you would probably be scared to be around me. They think I'm totally nuts."
"Oh, I don't know about that," I replied, going for another slice, trying not to lean forward on my bad leg too much. "You don't seem nuts to me, except for the whole good versus evil zombie werewolf thing at least."
She noticed my predicament and helpfully shoved the box closer on my little coffee table. My furniture was sparse and mostly cheap junk, but at least the place was clean, even if it was only because my mom had visited recently.
"They think everybody in this line of work is certifiable. They even think that about their own guys that Hunt."
"Like the two that visited me in the hospital?" I asked.
"Myers and Franks? Myers isn't so bad. Believe it or not, he worked for us before the government recruited him, but that was a long time ago. He had a bit of a falling out. Franks on the other hand is a jerk. I'm surprised he didn't kill you just to be on the safe side. We have to deal with the Feds once in a while. They watch us like hawks. They're actually in a special unit in the Justice Department, the Monster Control Bureau, that deals with problems like you."
"Problems like me, gee thanks. Anyway, I don't want to talk about those guys." I really did not. I wanted to talk about her. "Like I was saying, you've seen my file, so you have the advantage. Tell me about you."
"Well, first off, I'm in a relationship if that's what you want to know," she replied mischievously. "I'm just here as a professional courtesy."
Ouch.
"Really, I wasn't trying to say anything like that," I responded quickly.
"Owen, you may be a great accountant, and one heck of a shooter, but you're a horrible liar."
She leaned back on the couch and put her feet up on the coffee table next to the pizza box. I noticed that she was wearing heavy-duty boots that did not really match her conservative suit. As she made herself comfortable and her jacket fell open revealing her fitted shirt, I realized two things: a) She had a great body, and b) she was carrying a gun in a leather pancake holster on her right hip.
Not able to comment on a) in a polite manner, I instead remarked on b).
"What are you carrying?"
"This?" She reached around, drew the gun, dropped the magazine, racked the slide and expertly caught the ejected round in her off hand. She then passed it over to me with the action open while she rattled off the stats only another gun nut would appreciate. "Commander-sized 1911, Baer slide and frame, match barrel. Heinie night sights. Thin Alumagrips. Bobtail conversion to the frame. All Greider tool steel parts. Trigger and action job. It's a good shooter. I've carried this one for a year now."
I examined her gun. It was a gorgeous piece of work. The slide was so smooth it felt like it was on rollers. It was obviously used hard, but well cared for.
"Mind if I try the trigger? I'm a 1911 guy myself."
"Go for it," she said with a grin. She was proud of her gun.
The break was clean and light with no detectable creep. It was a very good trigger job.
"Who did the work?" I asked. It was obviously a high quality custom build. Being a serious competitor on a limited budget I did my own gunsmithing. My stuff tended to be ugly but functional. This specimen was obviously functional but it was so well fitted that it was almost a work of art.
"I did most of it myself," Julie said with obvious pride.
"Will you marry me?" I blurted.
She laughed, and it was such a pretty laugh. I reluctantly handed her gun back. She reinserted the magazine, chambered a round, and then took the mag out to top it off with the extracted round she still had in her hand. She paused for a second and then tossed it to me. Reflexively I snatched it out of the air.
Examining the cartridge, I noticed it was a strange design. The case was normal brass, but the bullet itself was different. It was shaped like an ordinary.45 bullet, except that it appeared to be a standard jacketed hollow point, with a shiny metallic ball filling the cavity. The two pieces appeared to be sealed together into a solid projectile.
"What's this?
"Contrary to the Lone Ranger, silver bullets really suck compared to good old-fashioned lead. Silver's too hard, and it doesn't fully engage the rifling. It's lighter than lead, so you get really lightweight projectiles with lousy accuracy. It's pretty useless except for one thing: it's the only thing that will kill some of the stuff we face."
"Why is that, anyway?" I asked.
"Nobody knows for sure, but we have some theories. Most popular is it is a violent reaction of evil creatures to the thirty pieces of silver that Judas was paid. The Vatican's Hunter team says that it is because silver is a pure metal that represents goodness, while lead is a base metal of the earth. You get other weird ideas from Wiccans and mystics, but even science is stumped why silver works so much better on bona fide evil creatures. All we know is that it does. Lycanthropes can't regenerate, and even vampires feel pain from silver."
"Looks like a Corbon Pow'r Ball." That was a type of regular defensive ammunition that I had used a few times before. It used a ball stuck in a hollow cavity designed to squish back to force expansion of the bullet on impact, thereby increasing the severity of the wound.
"Good call. That's who we stole the idea from. The ball in front is pure silver. It penetrates well, and as the silver is forced back it expands the traditional lead slug around it. Usually the silver fragments off after a few inches and leaves a separate wound cavity. Best of both worlds. Still works like a regular bullet, shoots like a regular bullet, but enough silver to do a number on evil. We have them made for us specifically. They cost a fortune, so we only make them in.45 for pistols and subguns, and.308 for rifles. When we need lots of silver up close and fast, we use a modified silver double-aught buckshot."
"Now you're talking my language." I held up the bullet. "So I guess that's what the Feds were going to shoot me with if I had been infected."
"Nope, they use a sintered metal. Silver powder encased in a polymer matrix. Neat stuff, but the company that makes it only sells to the government." She caught the bullet when I tossed it back. She loaded it back in the magazine, inserted that back into her 1911 and reholstered without looking.
"You really know your stuff."
"Thanks. I love my job… I really shouldn't have another piece, but this stuff is great," she said as she went for another slice of pizza. "I think you'll fit right in at MHI. It really is a great thing that we do, and we're a good company to work for."
"So about this 'relationship'?" I used my fingers to make quotation marks. Julie rolled her eyes at me behind her glasses.
"You don't quit, do you?"
"Isn't that why you guys want to hire me?"
"Tenacity good. Stalking bad."
"Okay, agreed, stalking bad. Especially when the stalkee is packing heat. So are you and Earl an item?"
Julie snorted and started to choke on her pizza. I couldn't tell if she was trying to laugh or not die. So I didn't know if I should be in on the joke, or try to perform the Heimlich maneuver.
"Earl? You've got to be kidding me. No. Oh no. Hell no. We're related. This is a family business. Why would you even think that? Earl's much older than me."
"He doesn't look that old."
"Let's just say that the man has aged well. Earl has been like a dad to me. He pretty much raised me and my brothers." There was an audible trace of her Southern accent when she said that.
"Why?"
She thought about it for a moment, as if debating whether she should tell me or not, finally she shook her head in the negative.
"Never mind. It doesn't matter." It was obvious it did matter, but it was a sensitive topic and none of my business. On that subject she seemed to be wound tight as a spring. "Just know that Earl is probably the greatest Hunter alive. If he tells you something, listen."
"So is your boyfriend a Hunter too?"
"Yes he is, and if you ask me any more personal questions, I'm going to beat you to death with your own crutch." She was only half joking, and in my current physical condition, she could probably do it without elevating her heartbeat.
We finished the pizza as the afternoon slowly turned into evening. Julie gradually filled in the gaps in my knowledge about her company, though she was tight-lipped and uncomfortable talking about herself. I did learn more about this interesting woman as she talked about her work, because it was so obviously a big part of her. Julie had worked in this field since she was a child, and seemed to know it very well. As the daylight fled, she started to glance nervously toward the window. I did not ask why.
She was a veritable encyclopedia of monster-related knowledge, and she even let slip the fact that she had earned a degree in ancient history and a master's in archeology because it pertained so much to her life's work.
When I had asked why those particular fields, she explained that the battle did not start recently, and she left it at that. The open window kept drawing her attention. It was dark outside. Finally I could not help but ask, "So why are you so distracted? What're you looking for?"
Julie sighed, and brushed back her long dark hair, looking relieved. She yawned, stretched, and stood, adjusted her jacket and prepared to leave. She patted her gun to make sure it was properly holstered. "I've got to be going."
"Why?" I asked, puzzled by the sudden change.
"You don't realize what tonight is, do you?" she asked.
"Thursday?" I answered helpfully as I grabbed my crutch and pulled myself out of my chair.
"I wonder if we stole the right file, because for a genius you're not real fast on the uptake."
I shrugged. I had no idea. She grabbed my arm and helped me stand up. Julie looked me in the eye, and I could see my reflection in her thick glasses. Her brown eyes were beautiful.
"It's been one month since you were attacked. The test came back negative, but they're not always right."
She guided me as I hobbled over to the window. The full moon hung low and bright above the Dallas skyline. I realized now why she had stayed. Other than my still sore leg and healing muscles, I felt fine. I wasn't spouting any hair, at least not any more than my normal prodigious amount.
"So it was a test?"
"Nothing personal. We just had to make sure."
"Oh." I could not think of anything to say. She had been prepared to kill me all along.
We silently watched the sky. I realized that she was still holding my arm, standing close, and I could feel the warm, soft pressure of her body against mine. There together, in the light of the moon, just the slight tenseness of her hands on the muscles of my arm, I could feel her breath on my ear. It was a good moment. I wished that it could last forever. Unfortunately she was only holding me to help keep my pathetic crippled ass from falling down.
Once she was sure that I was stable on my crutch she let go. She reached into her purse, produced a card and handed it over. The card had a set of directions, a very basic map, and a picture of a green happy face with horns.
"We're putting together a training class. It's going to be brutally hard, because we only hire the best. Once you have had a chance to think about it, if you're still interested, be at the location on that card in three weeks." I put the card in my pocket.
"I'll be there," I promised.
"Good. Welcome to MHI." She shook my hand in a professional manner.
"Thanks."
"I'll let myself out," Julie said. She started to walk away, leaving me to watch the moon.
Julie Shackleford made it a few steps, and then surprised me by turning around and coming back. I felt her full lips brush softly against my cheek in a brief kiss. Luckily the crutch was well grounded or I might have fallen headfirst out the window in shock.
"You're a sweet guy, Owen. Thanks for the nice dinner. See you in a few weeks." Then she glided away.
At least I waited for the confirmation of my front door closing before grinning like an idiot. It had been a good day after all. I had gotten some of my questions answered. I had found a new job, one that at least sounded interesting, even if it was a bit of a career change on the insane side. I had, in theory at least, a check for $50,000 in my pocket. And best of all, a pretty girl had kissed me on the cheek. Yes, it had been a great day indeed.
I pulled the card and examined it. I was going to Alabama.