Free Monster Hunter Vendetta by Larry Correia Page B

at my reflection. This certainly sucked. In the previous twenty-four hours I had been attacked by a shadow necromancer and his zombies, beaten by Federales, deloused, visited by vampires, reunited with a shard of the most evil artifact in the known world, been targeted by a death cult, and had it topped off by being placed under the protection of a man who could best be described as not a member of the Owen Z. Pitt fan club.
    No one spoke for a long time. Finally Myers turned back around to watch the road, knowing in his little black bureaucrat's heart that he had us beat. Julie rested her head on my shoulder. I grabbed her hand and squeezed. We had faced worse together.
    Or so I thought.

    "What's on your mind?" I asked quietly.
    Julie had pulled me aside once we had disembarked at the small airport. A U.S. Air Force C-130 Hercules was refueling nearby, and soon we would be on our way back to the States. The night sky was bright under the nearly full moon and I could make out the shape of Agent Franks shadowing us thirty feet away. He was scanning the chain link fence, looking for anything moving in the desert scrub. The man certainly took his job seriously. They were running some sort of loud compressor near the aircraft, so I wasn't worried about him overhearing us. Julie and I stood in the darkness behind a diminutive aircraft hangar while we talked about the day's events.
    "This is crap," she hissed. "I'm so sick and tired of the Feds." She was obviously upset, and her pretty features were drawn into a hard scowl.
    "And..." I prompted. I knew her too well. There was obviously something else.
    She grimaced. "And what the hell were my parents doing here? I hate to say it, but when they offered a truce, I actually believed it. If they ever did anything against us, Earl would make it his life's work to track them down. I at least thought they had the sense of self-preservation to avoid that."
    "Believe it or not, I think the truce is still in effect...." I briefly explained the nature of Susan's visit, but I'm ashamed to say that I held something back. I did not mention Susan's promise that Julie was going to die from the mark. I felt bad for withholding information, and I would tell her, but just not yet. For all I knew, Susan was lying, scheming, trying to find some way to unite more of her family into her dark world, the evil bitch.
    "A shard of the artifact? How? It disappeared in Childersburg. I always assumed that the Feds got it when they cordoned off the area. How did my mom end up with part of it?"
    I shrugged. "Beats me. All I know is that it hurt like hell when she touched me with it. I'm scared to death of that thing."
    "Do you think..." She searched for the words. "Could it be starting again?"
    "I don't know," I answered. I hugged her tight. I was terrified of the things that artifact had done, and could do, and more especially, what it allowed me to do. I'd rather kill myself than risk turning those things loose. "I just don't know."
    "Oh, Owen...I've got a bad feeling about this. I thought I'd lost you."
    "I'm not going anywhere. I promise." Saying that made me think of another promise. "I lost my gear. The pistols you gave me...your brother's pistols. They meant a lot—"
    She stopped me flat. "We can replace the guns. I can't replace you."
    Franks shouted at us, "It's time." As if to accentuate his words, the big engines turned over and the props began to roar.
    "He's such an asshole." Julie mumbled into my shoulder. She pushed slowly away, and we started toward the waiting plane. "Speaking of which..." She raised her voice, "Agent Franks!"
    The Fed nodded in her direction.
    "At DeSoya Caverns, last summer, I asked if you had taken care of my father, I asked if you had let him turn into a vampire, and if you had let him escape. Since Owen just saw him, I'm assuming that you lied to me." Julie was intimidating when she was angry.
    I don't think Franks' brain was wired with the capability of being intimidated.