Black.
I opened my eyes. I was myself again, Owen Zastava Pitt. This magic stuff was one bad trip. I had just lived for a moment as a middle-aged woman, and experienced having my leg torn clean off by a vicious beast. My knee hurt with a phantom pain from over twenty years ago. Glancing around, conference room, same people, Dorcas was talking, but it was just a background buzz. I had just lived the story as she'd brought the memory up. I closed my eyes, and all I could see was a much younger Agent Myers, kneeling, with half of a torso in his lap, exposed ribs in mangled flesh, and a flopping, nearly decapitated head cradled in his arms, his white shirt soaked red, as he cursed Earl Harbinger to hell.
The other Hunters were enthralled as Dorcas told her story. Gradually the humming in my ears tapered off, and the black flashes inside my eyes died down. I could hear words again.
"So that damn fool, Hood, lifted the bar, and Earl flew out and tore him apart. I went for my gun, but Earl came over and ripped my leg off. Then Myers came out and shot Earl a couple of times with silver bullets."
"I never knew . . ." Julie said. "That's horrible."
"Why didn't you shoot him?" Holly asked.
"He was just too damn fast, and I was sleepy and not paying attention," Dorcas lied.
"No," I said without thinking. "You didn't want to shoot him . . ." My head was still really clouded.
Dorcas glared at me, eyes like dangerous little pinpricks. "What was that, boy?"
"Nothing, ma'am," I responded quickly.
"Thought so," she snapped. "If you're ever close to him on the full moon, remember, he ain't got no control then. A real Hunter don't hesitate. You put him down. Put him down hard. Got that?"
"Yes, ma'am," all of us responded in unison. Dorcas continued to eye me suspiciously. Maybe she wasn't really lying. Maybe she had told this story enough times that she honestly didn't remember about how as a young woman she had once been so in love with Earl Harbinger that she had almost let him murder her decades later.
Either way . . . none of my business.
"Are you positive that it really was him?" Holly demanded.
"Yeah, I'm positive. Everybody was positive. Earl near tore his head off. That's hard to fake. Now where the hell's my coffee?"
"Sorry . . ." Holly murmured and returned to the coffeepot.
"That doesn't make any sense," Trip said contemplatively. "Did he say anything?"
"The whole thing was kind of fuzzy," Dorcas answered. She had undergone an intense trauma, so that was understandable. "He said he couldn't stop. Like he had no choice, like he had to open that door. It don't make no sense to me, but that's what he said."
"Why'd he do it? Did you guys investigate?" I asked.
Milo chimed in. "Of course. But we never found anything. He was totally normal one minute, then he did something monumentally stupid. It was like he was trying to kill himself, but he never gave any indication beforehand. His teammates were more surprised than anybody. Hood wasn't the suicidal type."
"He was on Carlos' team. Is he still around?"
"How'd you know that?" Dorcas asked. She had been suspicious before, and that had just confirmed it.
"Don't matter," I replied quickly, and I could tell she didn't like that one bit. Well, I didn't like being telepathic either, so too damn bad. There wasn't time to be polite. "Can we talk to this Carlos? Maybe a Hunter from that team will know something about this shadow man."
Dorcas shook her head. "Carlos Alhambra's team was lost." She thought about it for a moment. "Probably about three years after Hood got eaten. Like '89, I figure."
"A year before my mom disappeared," Julie added.
"How do you lose a team of Hunters?" Holly asked slowly.
Dorcas made a motion with her hands like a magician doing a trick. "Poof. Just gone. They were working a case and they just never came back. Five good men missing."
"Carlos was the only survivor," Julie said. "I remember because I was young and it terrified me. All I could think was that could have been one of my parents lost like that. They found him wandering through the forest weeks later, dazed, half-dead from exposure, his mind totally gone. No sign was ever found of his team."
"I've heard that story before somewhere," I said.
Julie nodded. "You met him. He's still a patient at Appleton."
"That's right." Dr. Nelson had showed me on the tour. Carlos had been in the wing of the Appleton Asylum reserved for the seriously damaged cases. That wing of the place had haunted me, noises of gibbering madness coming from behind every steel door while the good doctor had lectured me about the dangers a Hunter's mind could be exposed to. "Susan just said that Hood had taken out a team of Hunters and we had never even suspected . . . She said that they had learned too much."
"We've got to go talk to him," Trip said.
"Carlos hasn't said a word to anybody since they found him . . . All he does is sit there and hum children's songs and shit himself. His brain turned to mush. Whatever he saw messed him up something fierce," Dorcas said sadly. "He was a good man."
"Too bad," Holly muttered as she shoved coffee to Dorcas. "If he could talk, he'd probably lead us right to this shadow freak."
There might be a way. I glanced at Julie. She must have known exactly what I was thinking, because she shook her head. I didn't need psychic powers to know that she thought it was stupid and dangerous. We had no idea how these weird powers worked or what side effects they might have. All I knew was that anything that came from the other side had to come with a price. And dredging through the memories of a madman was probably not the best idea anyway.
"Don't you even think it," Julie said. "I'm putting my foot down."
"What?" I asked with feigned innocence.
"Huh?" Trip asked.
"Nothing," Julie responded. "Owen was just thinking of doing something asinine."
"What'd I miss?" Milo asked.
"Nothing. Sleep on it, and we'll see you in the morning." Julie stabbed the button and ended the call. "Dorcas, would you mind going back downstairs and checking on the Newbies? It isn't safe to send them back to the barracks yet, so we'll probably need to think up a story. I'll be down in a minute."
The old lady grumbled as she pulled her leg off the table and strapped it back on. She was the only one here who didn't know about what I was experiencing. Dorcas stood with a wobble, snatched up her Styrofoam cup, and headed for the door.
"Hey, Dorcas," I stopped her. "Thanks for telling us about that."
The old lady gave us a bitter smile. "There's always been too damn many secrets around this place," she said, knowing full well she was getting left out of something. She was on the list of potential spies, though personally I really doubted that. It would be a cold day in hell before I could imagine that woman signing up with a death cult. "Do what you gotta do, kids. I'd do the same if I were you." Then, in a flash of pastel bathrobe and the slam of the door, she was gone.
"Well, now we know why she's MHI's little cup of sunshine," Holly said.
"Like you've got room to talk," Trip responded. "That's you in a few years."
Holly reached over and punched him in the arm. Trip flinched.
This whole thing sucked. Earl had been right from the beginning. The very idea that a fellow Hunter could be betraying us was painful and damaging. I swore to myself that I was going to catch the son of a bitch so we could get back to normal. But first things first . . . Julie didn't waste any time. She turned to me. "You can't try to read Carlos' mind. That's suicide."
"You got a better idea?"
She paused, rubbing her neck. "Not really. But you don't know what you're doing. Do you honestly think you can control it?"
"Sure I can," I said with false confidence. "Compared to time travel, it'll be a walk in the park.
Holly laughed. "Then you're an idiot. You just had an episode when Dorcas was talking, didn't you? You got all glassy eyed and stupid for a second. I thought you were going to drool on the table."
"Again?" Julie asked with alarm. "How many more times has this happened?"
"Just a couple little ones," I lied.
"I don't like it, man. You're messing with things you don't understand," Trip said. "There's got to be another way. We've got his name."
"The Feds have more resources," Holly added. "They can probably find him better than we can. Like with secret databases and the Patriot Act or something."
"Do you really think the Patriot Act has a clause for necromancers?" I asked pointedly.
"You know what I mean. We should tell Franks, and let them handle it. It's not like we're getting paid for this."
Julie agreed with Holly. "They're right. It's too dangerous."
I didn't say anything, but my friends knew me far too well, surely understanding that I'd had enough. They continued to come up with reasons why I should just stay safe. But I was tired of waiting. Screw it. I stood, placed my palms on the table, and raised my voice. "These assholes have tried to kill me and my entire family. As long as they're out there, everybody I love is in danger, and that includes you guys. Sitting around powerless is pissing me off. You want to sic the Feds on him, fine, whatever, but this is my fight. This is personal. So now it looks like my enemy is this Hood guy and we've got a lead. Yeah, it's a pretty iffy lead, but it's what we've got. So I'm going to Appleton, and I'm going to find out what those missing Hunters learned, even if I have to rip it right out of his brain."
The others were quiet after my outburst. Finally, Julie broke the silence. She folded her arms and leaned back in her chair. "You're the most stubborn man I've ever known."
"And that's why you love me. Look, I'll just sneak out. Nobody will even know I'm gone. You guys cover for me, tell everyone I'm asleep in my room or something. If the Condition thinks I'm here, then they won't even know to grab me."
"You're not going anywhere alone," Trip said. "I've got your back, Z."
That wasn't a surprise. Trip was probably the single most honestly noble person I had ever known. He typified all that was heroic about Monster Hunters.
"We've got your back," Holly added.
"I thought you didn't want to get involved if you weren't getting paid for it?" I asked, knowing that Holly talked a big game about being the hard-ass, but deep down, she was just as loyal as Trip.
"Don't be such a douche bag."
If I told them it was too dangerous, then I suppose that would make me a hypocrite. Trying to talk them out of it would be as futile as them trying to talk me down. So I said what I could. "Thanks. You guys up for a field trip to the insane asylum?"