“I retired as a colonel,” Conover replied as he pulled up a chair. “And that was a while ago. But damn, Earl…You look nearly the same.…Well, you did get a shave and a haircut.”
“A couple since then, I suppose.”
“Good thing, too. You looked like a filthy hippie.”
Earl shrugged. “You kept us awful busy to worry about the state of our grooming.”
“Things were crazy there at the end.” Conover gave a little chuckle.
He hadn’t meant it to be funny. Earl and the other special members of the task force had been one step above slave labor, and this particular air force officer had been their overseer. Earl studied his old boss. Conover watched him back, and the two sat in uncomfortable silence for some time. People always told Earl that he had an unnerving way of looking at people, but Conover had been one of the few that had always been tough enough to look him in the eye. At least that hadn’t changed.
The waitress came back and left another bottle on the table. To be fair, Conover had been as decent a sort as could be expected, given the circumstances, and had actually looked out for the monsters, mutants, and misfits under his control. The Perpetual Unearthly Forces Fund was as blind as lady justice and far less merciful. If your kind were on the list, you were fair game. An individual had to earn the right to be PUFF exempt, so the government always had some special volunteers. After fulfilling the terms of the government’s agreement, Conover had kept his word and made sure that Earl’s name had been put back on the exemption list.
His former boss may have gotten old, but he hadn’t gotten soft. Conover stared back at him, unblinking. There was no guilt there. This was a man given hard orders who’d done his duty, that was all, and that was something Earl could respect. They hadn’t spoken since the last evacuation, and he was curious about the other survivors. “Have you seen Sharon Mangum?” Earl asked finally.
Conover smiled, still with that lopsided way that the Saigon bar girls had found so charming. “We got married not too long after your tour was over.”
“I’m shocked,” Earl said, perfectly deadpan. The two of them had a thing there going toward the end. The fraternization rules sort of went out the window in an oddball outfit like theirs. “I figured that might happen. Extremely late congratulations are in order.”
“Best thing that ever happened to me. The agency bounced us all over the place afterward. She hated that part, as you can imagine. But we settled down finally when I got stationed in DC. Moved out here when I retired.”
“Family?”
“We’ve got a son and three daughters.”
“Human?” Earl asked.
“Mostly.”
“Good to hear, Cap.” With Sharon’s condition, it could have gone either way. “She was a fine girl. Saved my bacon a few times.”
Then Conover let out a long sigh. “She died last year,” he said. “Car accident.”
It had to have been a bad accident to kill a half-siren. “I’m sorry. I know how you feel.” So much for trying to be cordial. “I’m guessing you didn’t send me that mysterious letter just so we could shoot the bull over some beers?”
“It did get your attention, didn’t it?” Kirk gave a sad little laugh before taking a long drink. “Old times…We were never really buddies, were we, Earl?”
Conover had been a decent man to work for, considering the circumstances, but Earl had still been there against his will. He didn’t mind war. In fact, he was rather good at it and would have gone if he’d been asked rather than threatened. “I like to think of us as business associates with a relationship based on mutual respect. Well, and the fact that I’d have gotten executed if I disobeyed your orders.”
“Smart-ass. You know, when you got assigned to me, your file said you had authority problems and I’d probably have to terminate you.”
“Aw, they were still just sore because of that time I punched out Jimmy Carter.” Sure, he’d only been governor then, and that little stunt had cost MHI some business, but he had deserved it.
“You always were the lone wolf, weren’t you?” Kirk asked rhetorically. “Well, back to business. I’ve still got people who owe me. When certain things pop up, I hear.”
Men like Conover tended to accumulate a lot of favors. “Nikolai’s back, ain’t he?”
“Afraid so. Last we’d heard he’d gone freelance. Mercenary werewolf for hire. Worked for various bad people eating other bad people, and then all of a sudden, nothing. He just disappears. Until this week. Any idea what would bring him out of the woodwork after all these years?”
Earl shrugged. “Nikolai’s a badass Russian. Badass Russians only have three emotions: revenge, depression, and vodka. Where is he?”
“It isn’t that easy, Earl. First I’ve got a question about what happens when you find him.”
“You know exactly what’ll happen when I find him.”
Conover nodded. “Yeah, stupid. I contacted you, remember? You’re about the most determined killer I’ve ever met. Once I set you on Nikolai’s trail, that bastard’s good as dead. I’d swear you’re not part wolf. You’re part bloodhound. Not the what, Earl. I want to know the why. I’m retired. This isn’t going in a report. You can level with me.”
Earl paused. How was he supposed to answer that? Nikolai was dangerous. He was everything bad about werewolves rolled up into one exceedingly ruthless and intelligent package. He was the big bad wolf. He was evil, but there were plenty of evil people in the world, and he didn’t go around hunting them all down. “Revenge is as good a reason as any, I suppose.”
“You can do better than that.” Kirk leaned back in his chair and studied him. “That was war. We did what we had to do.”
Since Kirk understood monsters better than most people ever could—hell, he’d married somebody that technically was one—Earl figured he might as well level with his old commander. “There’s something else…There are certain rules, ways of doing things. It’s been the same since the beginning. There’s always one who’s the strongest. He sets the rules.”
“They form packs once in a while, that’s about it. You trying to tell me that there’s some werewolf society with rules? Werewolf law? I must’ve missed that briefing.”
“Not in the way you’re thinking of it,” Earl answered. “Maybe rules ain’t the right word, but it’ll do. New werewolves break them because they don’t know better. Most folks, when they turn, they go right to doing whatever urge strikes. For the ones that live, though, after a while, they’ll sense what the rules are, and they either obey them, or somebody like me comes along and takes them out.”
Kirk studied him for a moment. “Somebody like you, meaning a Hunter, or an Alpha werewolf?”
Earl nodded at the terminology. As usual, Kirk knew more than he revealed. “Same difference.” Even though it wasn’t. “Some old werewolves break the rules, but most know better than to piss off the strongest. When he finds out, then there’s hell to pay.”
“What’re the current rules?”
“There’s only a couple. But basically, leave humans alone. They live by the rules, and regular people never even know we exist.”
From the look on his face, it was obvious that Kirk’s suspicions had just been confirmed. “I thought so. You know, I’ve learned a few things about werewolves since we last worked together. Most of them don’t care. They do whatever they want, regardless of what some old guy says.”
“I didn’t say it worked well, but you don’t want the world’s werewolves instinctively following the example of a real aggressive leader. The way it is now is better.”
“What happens if there’s a new boss?”
“They’ll all sense it. The rules will change…and you don’t want somebody like Nikolai setting the rules. He doesn’t see us as people who are different. In his mind, we’re superior and humans are prey. The curse will spread. Packs will grow. You do the math.”
Kirk nodded thoughtfully. “I figured it was some sort of monster psychology like that.”
“So why does the Russian have to die?” Earl leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. His minotaur-hide coat creaked. “Because I’m the king of werewolves, and I said so.”
Apparently, that had been the answer Kirk was looking for. “Nikolai is in America.”
“Figured that was the case. Where?”
“North of here. Middle of nowhere, Michigan. He was spotted arriving in the US last week. Intel says he was heading for a town called Copper Lake. Heard of it?”
“Can’t say I have. How do you know all this?”
“I’m retired. Not dead. I’ve still got friends in the business who like to keep me informed.” The nebulous answer indicated that he was not ready to give up all his secrets.
“Are the MCB planning to take him out?”
“The Monster Control Bureau doesn’t even know he exists. When the task force was shut down, we passed most of our files on, but not everything. Back then the MCB were just glorified cops and damage control. Our op was national security on a need-to-know basis. They didn’t need to know.”
“Good. They’d just complicate matters.” The last thing Earl needed was Myers’s goons getting in the way. “So, I answered your question, Kirk. Now you answer mine. Why’d you bring me in on this?”
Conover’s beer was half empty. He swirled the remainder around and stared at it. “You and me, we’re the last surviving members of the task force.”
“Turns out the Destroyer is still alive,” Earl pointed out.
“Really? Pitt the crazy Green Beret? Huh…Didn’t know that. He must have gone on to something so classified that even my department didn’t get a whiff of it. Well, Nikolai was our problem, and I don’t like leaving problems unsolved. I’m too damn old now. I can’t take him. Hell, I couldn’t back in my prime. You, on the other hand, can. Sure, I could call the MCB. They’d go crazy if they knew Stalin’s pet werewolf was roaming around their turf, but I’d like this to stay in the family.”
Earl could tell there was more. “And?”
Conover studied the tabletop, mulling over his answer. “Sharon used to have bad nightmares, all the time, our entire marriage. And it was always the same thing. Golden eyes and white fangs…The Russian would come for her, and he’d take our kids, too, just out of spite. She never had closure. He killed most of the task force. She always felt that he’d come back to finish the job.”
Nightmares. Earl didn’t have nightmares. He gave them.
“That son of a bitch stole years of Sharon’s life, and I couldn’t protect her. Now that I know he’s alive, I need you to destroy him, Earl, absolutely destroy him. I want him to feel how she felt. I’ve seen what you can do. Do it for the task force. Do it for her. And when you’re finished…Then I can go to Sharon’s grave and tell her it’s finally over.”
Earl raised his bottle. “For the ones that didn’t make it.”
They clinked their beers together. “To lost friends and a shitload of dead communists.”
Earl Harbinger could drink to that.