Hunter of Vengeance

New York doesn’t react well when it feels like it’s been attacked. It’s actually one of the things that attracted me to the city when I moved here in the first place. In the few days it had taken me to recover protesters already had set up camp outside Thorn’s property. Signs reading anything from ‘Any weres but here’ to signs that seemed to encourage the extinction of the entire species could be seen over the security cameras. Most of the people gathered likely had, up till this week, lived in cultivated ignorance of the wolves’ existence, let alone where they lived. I sat and watched them for hours, thinking how not long ago I would have been out there with them. I liked it so much more when the monsters didn’t have faces… or names… things got too messy otherwise.

According to the doctors I was lucky to be alive, though I certainly didn’t feel it. They explained the entire surgical process in great detail but my mind started wandering after they said I would live. I was allowed anywhere inside the building, as long as I had company. I was told the only places off limits were people’s private rooms without an invitation and absolutely under no circumstance was I to go outside. With my face being spread around every conceivable form of media that could be found I was public enemy number one no one wanted to open the can of worms my being seen here would turn out to be.

A little over a week after our little drive through the theater district I was up and around on my own power again, albeit with a stylish new cane. In all that time I hadn’t heard even a peep from Holly, I guess when the company thought you were dead it didn’t bother paying the babysitters anymore. Between the chemicals we found at the factory and my taking the blame for the feral attack I was starting to believe what happened to Nate was less an accident and more to keep him quiet. What had he stumbled on to, though?

I felt blind living inside the compound walls. I needed a line to the outside world but I had burned so many bridges during my career at ARC, that there was only one person who might even consider taking my phone call… and even he might be a long shot.

My boss, Tony had been a good friend of mine for a very long time, we had fought together on several occasions before his accident. I had even been there when it happened. It was a nasty piece of work some twelve years earlier. A bunch of kids out in London had reported cats going missing. Some of them claimed that the cats had even chased a ball of yarn down the street the last time they were seen. ARC sent someone out to do a cursory look around but not much was thought of it, till the kids started disappearing too. That’s when Tony, myself, and Nate got called in to look around. The three of us stumbled upon a nest of trolls that is still talked about as the largest concentration ever recorded.

There must have been near a hundred of the things, small, humanoid though if you saw one on the street you’d likely think him hideous. Unkempt, greasy hair hung down over dull, glassy-looking eyes. We were outnumbered beyond what a sane man would consider taking on. It was then Tony saw the kids. They hadn’t been killed as many of us feared but instead were being put to work in various areas of the cavern. He didn’t even need to ask us if we were going to help, we just split up to various vantage points above the crowd. The ensuing battle is still one I relive in my nightmares.

We got the kids out, after having killed nearly half of the trolls using bait and trap techniques, sniping, and sometimes good old-fashioned violence. They had scattered and we thought that to be the end of things. As we led the children, dirty, tired, and scared back to the surface we heard a crack from above us. It seemed the trolls had learned quickly and set a trap of their own. A large rock fell from above us and landed on Tony’s leg, crushing it beyond any use. Nate and I defended wave after wave of the attacking trolls in an area barely as big as a bathroom while Tony was forced to sever his own leg to get out from under the boulder. The rock itself was larger than the both of us and in the cramped space, we could do little to dislodge it. Tony, himself, kept a remarkably clear head through the entire ordeal. He said later it was bad enough what he had to show those kids in order for us all to make it out, he certainly wasn’t going to add his screams to the mix. When the deed was finally done Nate and I would switch off between helping Tony back out to the daylight, while the other would defend our backs. Tony kept working for a time after the incident, using various prosthetics but he retired off the active roster about the time Nate left. He’d been riding a desk, running operations from behind the scenes since… maybe I could get some straight answers out of him.

I called him from my room the next morning, using his direct line that he never gave out except to a very select few. I waited calmly as ring after ring sounded in my ear. I started doubting what I was doing, what if Tony was part of the mess I was in? What if they were watching? I shook my head, either way, I wasn’t going to let that thinking win. Finally Tony picked up the line.

“This better not be who the hell I think it is.” Tony’s brusque tone, some days it was like the man was born without a sense of tact.

“With charm like that, I never will understand why Alanna left you.”

“Oh, and you thought ‘Wow, I’m not in enough trouble… let’s see if we can drag Tony down into this hell I’ve made…’. Don’t you watch the news Hunter, the whole damn state is looking for you?”

“I know, I saw.” I let out a sigh, rubbing my fingers into my scalp. “Look, in all the time you’ve known me, have I ever seemed like the type to work with a bunch of weres?”

“No. I’ve yet to meet any other man filled with as much hatred towards the alters as you.” There was a long silence. “Look. Maybe we can figure this out, the company was likely just trying to spin what happened in the press. Tell me where you are and we can hunt down whomever is really working with those wolves and clear your name.”

“I’m in Jersey… erm…” I could hear his reaction before I even finished. “I’m at the Alpha were’s compound.”

“What the hell kind of game do you think you’re playing here, Hunter?” If Tony screamed much louder I could put the phone down and still hear him from the next state. “You call me up, telling me you’re not working with the weres but you’re out there in the country having tea with them?”

“It’s not that simple Tony, if it weren’t for them I would be in the ground already. You know what it’s like owing your life to someone you’re less than happy about even knowing.” It was a dirty move and I knew it but I needed any advantage I could get at this point. “Now what can you tell me about the night of the attack?”

“All I know is it’s like someone around here saw it coming.” If I knew Tony he had been looking into that night as hard as I would have. “We have enough budget to build two of those tanks and both of them were deployed in a holding pattern, not two miles from where they hit you? If that wasn’t strange enough they were loaded with nothing but anti-were munitions. There are too many things out there to load up for merely one of them unless you know what you are going up against way ahead of time.”

“Great. What about the guy on the news… Frederick something or other.”

“Colton, yeah, some guy the higher-ups put as the public face on ARC. He’s been around here a few times this week giving tours of the less secretive areas. Couldn’t find anything on him more than a year or two old. I think the whole personality was engineered from the ground up for the media.”

“All right, I’ll look into things on my end and get back to you. Probably safer if you don’t try to call me, safer for your career at least.” The way things were beginning to look his career would be the least of his worries talking with me. “Oh, and I never got the chance to thank you for that new contact replacement, needs a raise that one does.”

“What can I say, no one would work with you. Good thing, else they would get wrapped up in this too.” Tony chuckled tensely, I knew he was worried about something but couldn’t tell what. He and I liked our lives simple, black, and white… when things got complex it never ended well. “I suppose now that you’re persona non grata I’m the only one dumb enough to bother with you still. If I can send any help you’re way that won’t be traced back to me I will.”

I cut the line after that, it looked more like someone had wanted those ferals to go crazy but why? If that was the extent of their plan why did they need so much of whatever that guck was? Whatever they had been trying to do from their reaction time I could only assume I succeeded in moving up their timetable. So something big was coming, and there was no way to know when. I needed to take another look at the warehouse, and maybe find where the stuff was being shipped to. The door to my room slammed open and Mara was standing there, she looked pissed.

“Thorn wants to see you. Now.”

“Tell his high and mighty I have a headache-” Mara cleared the distance between us before I even registered her moving and lifted me off the bed. In the blink of an eye, I was pushed out of my room like a child on the first day of school. I turned back to Mara, ready to give her a piece of my mind about how I don’t like to be manhandled but she grabbed me by the collar and started dragging me down the hall.

“Oh my god, Hunter you’re alive?” Holly’s voice sounded in my ear like a megaphone. “After the attack, everyone thought you were gone.”

“Nice to hear from you also, Holly,” I said, for the moment forgetting Mara was right there. “I guess Tony was wrong about him being the only one willing to talk to me.”

“Who? Oh yeah, your boss. Sorry, things have been a mess down here since you’re little outing.”

Mara had stopped dead in her tracks and was staring at me. I couldn’t quite read her look but it was somewhere between pity and anger. Probably was upset she put her life in the hands of a crazy person, or that Thorn had.

“Yeah, about that, Holly.” I stood up properly now that Mara wasn’t dragging me around like a rag doll. “I need you to get someone out to the warehouse and look it over. Also, any background paperwork you can find, who owns it, and all that I’ll need as soon as you can get it.”

“Already did, less than an hour after you went down police cleared the warehouse and it was empty. Looked like it hadn’t been used in years. There were reports that there were explosions heard in the area but nothing was found to corroborate it.” She paused. “Whoever cleaned the place did a good job, even replaced the office window and fast. Not to mention it’s owned by ghosts. The fake paper trail leading all the way up the ladder till it just stops where no one knows what’s what.”

“This is just not my day. Keep digging and see if anything turns up.” I looked at Mara who had her lips pressed together in a thin line. I remembered that look from the first time I came home to my ex having forgotten our anniversary. I was distinctly a bad look. “Holly is.. She’s kind of a research assistant.”

Holly harrumphed loudly in my ear.

“Um… communications officer to headquarters.”

Another loud cough.

“My handler? All of the above plus a real snazzy dresser and one helluva cook?” Mara raised an eyebrow, waiting for me to continue. I didn’t hear Holly object anymore so I hoped she was satisfied I was close enough. “She’s basically in my ear in an implant. I didn’t expect to be working on this long enough to need to explain what was going on.”

“You mean you didn’t think you would be saddled with me long enough to have to trust me, you mean.” Her eyes hardened as the pity left them, now there was just the anger left. “Guess that ship’s long sailed. C’mon, Thorn’s waiting.”

I followed after Mara, muttering. “Holly, sometime soon we’re going to have to have a talk about why you and my boss seem to never have heard of each other.”

~ * ~

Mara stormed through the hallways like a hurricane with me just trying to keep up. She threw the doors open at the end with such force I had to catch them before they swung back to hit me in the face. We were in some sort of parlor that for a moment gave me intervention flashbacks. Thorne stood in the middle of the room with some new faces scattered around with such a murder mystery vibe I expected his first words to be ‘You may wonder why I gathered you here…’.

“Here he is, Stanton, you all enjoy your little chat.” She turned on her heel and tried to move past me as quickly as she came.

“I need you to stay for this, Mara.” The Alpha said calmly.

“But… fine.” Mara came back into the room and slumped down in one of the unoccupied chairs. I looked around and saw a few new faces as Thorn made the introductions.

“Hunter this is Claudia, my mate.” The woman indicated was tall and elegant, even while seated. She wore her flaming red hair in a bob that framed her face in a friendly sort of way. Her face itself, however, was not so friendly. Haughty brown eyes that looked at everything as if she owned them were matched with lines on her face that let me know she frowned more often than smiled. She was dressed in a red pantsuit and wore enough jewelry to feed a small nation. Her seat was just to Stanton’s left, though at first, it looked as if they were even with each other, her chair had been moved just slightly back from his.

“Fenris, head of my war council.” A huge Indian man nodded at me succinctly. He wore his hair long, falling down around his shoulders. A large bushy mustache twitched slightly under steel gray eyes. It took only a few seconds but I could tell he was sizing me up. He must have liked what he found since he burst into a friendly smile right after. The move entirely changed his face from stern and unforgiving to affable in mere seconds.

“You of course have met our esteemed Doctor Slaughter.” I nodded kindly to the man who had saved my life. Upon first being introduced to him when I woke up, I joked about his given name… now I knew better. “And obviously you remember Mara. Apparently, you’ve been using your charm on her to quite an effect.”

“What’s so important I had to come down here now instead of in the morning?” I dropped into a seat, trying my best to look more menacing than I truly felt at the moment.

“Well for one thing we have to determine, now that you are well enough to get along on your own, if we truly should choose to ally ourselves with you or send you out to a world that so obviously wants to see you again, in pieces or otherwise. If that isn’t of any interest to you then by all means, go right back to bed.” Stanton waited quietly, he wasn’t just going to let this pass without my admitting something.

“Fine, not like there’s much on TV tonight anyway. Besides, if there is any discussion about my being thrown to the wolves, so to speak, I’d like to be there.”

“I thought that particular topic might pique your interest. First and foremost, Mara tells me that you both found a manufacturing plant of some kind back in New York.” He glanced over a few papers. “I sent some people to take a look…”

“Let me guess. Cleaned out, by professionals, long before anyone was able to get there. I’ve seen this movie unless your copy has an alternate ending?”

“No… no, you pretty much nailed it. Though an interesting note, at least to me, is my men could find no scent at all either.” He put the papers back down on his desk with a sigh. “That’s nearly impossible unless what you saw is as the news would suggest a product of you’re diminished capacity.”

“Well if I’m bonkers then maybe I should just take you all out. After all, if nothing I’ve seen recently is real, that wouldn’t be much consequence, no?” There was a tentative knock at the door before the woman from before, Margaret, walked in.

“Security wanted you to see this report right away, Mr. Thorn.” She crossed the room and handed Stanton a sheet of paper. With a furtive glance in my direction, she nearly ran out the door.

“You made a call to an ARC official?” Stanton raised his voice only a small bit but I could feel the walls shake with his anger. “We pulled your fat out of the fryer and this is how you repay us? By reporting to your masters at the first opportunity?”

“It is becoming obvious the man’s path lies separate from ours, we should make it clear to all that it is so and seek our own solutions to the problems we currently face.” Fenris didn’t look mad at the revelation I had called Tony, he just was stating the facts as he saw them, his face returning to the unreadable mask he donned when I entered.

“First off, dogs have masters, I don’t. Second I called Tony Johnson, he’s a friend. I want to find out what the hell is going on just as badly as you do.” I reached down to pull out my phone, forgetting briefly that I had lost it somewhere on Broadway. “Look, you can call him and ask him what we talked about.”

“No need, Hunter. My security will be making a transcript of your conversation and we’ll see just where we stand with you.” Stanton glanced at Mara. “Mara’s conviction that despite reports you should be given a chance is the only thing you’re trading on right now.”

“If it helps,” Mara spoke up, glaring at me. “I’d like to change my vote to tossing him over the fence and taking bets on how long he lasts. I’ll put twenty that he never makes it to a main road intact. We can have popcorn… make a night out of it.”

“Now you really do remind me of my ex-” I got cut off mid-sentence as a man dressed in a security uniform nearly broke down the door. His look was close to panicked as he ran the length of the office to Stanton’s desk.

“Yes Charles, I already got the report of Mr. Hunter’s phone call The way people keep barging in here today I’m going to need to replace the doors.” Thorn put a hand on the guard’s shoulder, almost as if trying to calm him. “We were discussing it just now as you interrupted us.”

“Sorry, sir, but it’s not that, sir,” The man took a few deep breaths to steady himself. “It’s the kid… erm, Quint, we found him left like a present for us. He’s.. they killed him, sir, and not easily from the look of it.”