14 – The Hunters Reconvene

The atmosphere within Varn’s suffocated Erika, making her feel like she was walking on eggshells.

Not everyone was present. The Fixer still hadn’t made a peep since ordering Erika away from the motel; Erika tried sending texts, emails, and even tried calling up The Church to see if they had any idea what might have happened—in all three cases, she got no responses. Anna was the other glaring absence. Although The Castle had released her, she was at home with her mother.

Erika approved, having recently oscillated between avoiding her mother and spending a bit more time with her, yet now couldn’t do either. Even still, she wished Anna were here, just to get the surely awkward meeting over with.

It isn’t just me that’s feeling this way, is it?

Rick stooped over the coffee machine on the back counter, looking dead on his feet. He still had his sword, but it wasn’t hidden in a cardboard tube at the moment. It seemed that, while not out in public, he was going to wear it a bit more openly, ready to use it just in case something happened.

Which made little sense to Erika, considering it jumped to his hand when he needed it, but she wasn’t going to say anything if it made him feel better.

She had already spoken with him at The Castle, the only one of The Hunters with whom she had talked since the incident. Erika wasn’t too worried about him.

When Sofia walked in, shuffling inside with hunched shoulders and a downcast gaze, Erika felt that gnawing in her stomach. Aside from an initial glance around the room, she didn’t look at Erika. There were no halfhearted smiles, no questions about how Erika had been or how Sofia was, not even a disappointed frown. She immediately headed toward Rick, wordlessly accepted a cup of coffee, and slumped down into one seat at the table, staring at her lap the whole time like a student thinking the teacher didn’t know they were on their phone.

Nervous hesitation stalled Erika for a moment before she broke the silence. “Have you been alright?” she asked, hating her phrasing, words, and even light tone the moment the words were out of her mouth.

She had never really gotten along with Sofia. If anything, Sofia was a constant obstacle; from being against breaking and entering into The Church to wanting to avoid The Warrior when investigating Rick’s curse, she almost always had arguments against whatever ideas popped into Erika’s head. They weren’t always bad arguments, and her pointing out various dangers was valid, and it was likely thanks to her sensing a ghost at that abandoned pub that everyone avoided a shit situation with The Church, but she still clashed with what Erika felt she needed to do nearly every time she opened her mouth.

Sofia raised her chin and gave Erika the flattest look possible. “I’d feel much better if I didn’t know that you were going to propose some absurd, dangerous, and otherwise estúpida idea.”

“I thought your psychic powers were to sense the supernatural, not mind reading.”

“Dios mío… I don’t need to be a mind reader. I just need functional pattern recognition skills,” she grumbled into her coffee mug. “Leslie will go along with it because he’s a bleeding heart, and Rick will follow him like a dog.”

Rick slid a chair out opposite Anna, grunting in minor exertion as he sat down. “I’ll have you know that Leslie and I disagree all the time,” he said, slurping coffee.

Sofia turned her flat gaze on Rick. “Him thinking underground lizard people run the world and you thinking aliens have replaced all government officials with remote-control clones doesn’t count.”

“It’s not aliens—”

“Whatever,” Sofia grumbled, rolling her eyes.

“Besides, with what we know now about things like The Eclipse, isn’t it more likely that there is some massive conspiracy? I knew someone was suppressing information; I just couldn’t prove it—”

“Or maybe, these kinds of things just affect so few people that it feels like suppression to you, who is deeply involved, but in reality, nobody actually cares or notices.”

“That may be part of it,” Rick admitted with a pained nod of his head. “But we know that The Eclipse has been covering up things with ‘gas leaks’ or that so-called ‘movie effects accident’ at the hotel. Logically, other things have been covered up as well.”

Sofia shrugged, unwilling to continue arguing, and returned to her coffee.

“All that said,” Rick continued, turning to Erika. “I also recognize a pattern when I see one.”

Erika sighed, wondering when she had become so predictable. “We should probably wait until Leslie gets here.”

The very instant she finished speaking, as if he had been waiting outside for her to say that, Leslie pushed open the rear door to Varn’s. He stared around the arcade, actually meeting Erika’s eyes, before entering fully—also headed toward the coffee machine. Daniel followed him inside, looking chipper enough, but he also decided to grab a cup after a short greeting to everyone else.

Erika was the only one without a mug in front of her. Although she occasionally got a latte at a coffee shop, she always thought instant coffee was some vile stuff, never having found a brand or variety that she liked.

“So,” Leslie said, hanging his camouflage hunting coat on the back of a chair. He settled in, looking directly at Erika. “On a scale of one to ten, how dangerous is today’s meeting going to be?”

Erika shot a frown at the light snort from Sofia before giving Leslie her full attention. This was the first time she had seen him since she passed out after fighting that monk. He didn’t mention the monk, he just wanted an assessment—her assessment. Given that he had brought Daniel along with him, he clearly didn’t think there was going to be any trouble.

He still asked.

“No more dangerous than any other meeting, I presume,” Erika said, deciding to answer him directly rather than thank him for saving her life or apologizing for putting them in danger back then. “A five, maybe.”

“A five is fairly high for any meeting.”

“The Eclipse, at the very least, know we’re here. I doubt they’ll attack us, or anything like that.”

“The Adjustment called me shortly after I got Anna home,” Rick said, leaning back in his chair. “Apparently, The Emperor sent one of her minions off to investigate the farm in the last few days and found no ghosts. Reportedly, The Emperor is happy enough with our performance… even though we didn’t do it.”

Erika shifted slightly, avoiding Daniel’s gaze. “The day I got out, I might have informed The Adjustment that ‘all ghosts were gone’ unless there were some out in the fields, in which case they should call us back when it warms up. I didn’t say we did it, but I didn’t say we didn’t do it either. I know we didn’t discuss it, but I figured we shouldn’t keep them waiting too long and I had other things to discuss with The Eclipse.”

“Other things?”

“Maggot invasion,” Erika said, looking over the group. Rick already knew some of it, but she did a quick rundown of the things The Director told her, mainly that The Eclipse’s method of containing the maggots was not long-term viable, and that her repeated attempts to get an actual meeting with The Emperor or The Hermit had been fruitless, leaving nothing more than a warning in The Adjustment’s hands with no real plan of action going forward.

“Anyway, since I don’t know how seriously The Eclipse takes their security, for all I know, The Hanged Man let slip that we’re here to some incognito Mummy cultist and we’ll be drowning in maggots within the hour, hence my five out of ten danger rating.”

Sofia started squirming, looking around the shadows of the arcade with narrowed eyes.

“I hope not,” Rick said, far less concerned. “I’m still planning on opening this place tonight. Got to shove this table in the back, one last check to make sure all the cabinets work, and make sure all the ghost hunting gear is hidden. I won’t have time to clean out bug guts.”

“A five is like a fifty percent chance,” Erika said. “Either something happens or it doesn’t.”

“That’s not how probability works,” Daniel muttered, though he looked half asleep.

It was early Friday morning, a school morning for poor Daniel. Erika still hadn’t gone back since the incident, having been out and about, hiding on the move.

“If this is a fifty percent chance of danger,” Erika said, “then what I’m bringing to the table is going to be much closer to a hundred percent chance.”

“I knew it,” Sofia groaned, slumping down in her seat.

“Daniel pointed out to me that the museum had reopened. Lacking any other way of tracking down these tattooed bastards, and with the impending maggot apocalypse on the horizon, I went and investigated yesterday—a daylight investigation, no trouble, no breaking and entering or anything like that. I think I’ve found a way into the domain of the Mother of Maggots… and that captivity area with that giant red tongue.”

After rescuing The Fixer, she had told them about everything, including that strange realm that the cultist had brought her to, so they were all familiar with the idea of it, even if they hadn’t seen it for themselves.

Sofia actually sat back up, interested despite the proposed danger. Leslie gestured for her to continue, but Rick raised an eyebrow and spoke first.

“You think?”

“I didn’t want to show my hand before I’m ready, so I didn’t actually break into the realm,” Erika said. “Though I did have to do a little minor breaking to find out in the first place, but the ripples from that shouldn’t propagate for a full two weeks thanks to my brother. Someone might still notice early; it is best to assume we are on a time limit, although all circumstantial evidence indicates that they can’t simply move the entrance location.”

Rick frowned at her, drumming his fingers against the coffee mug on the table. “I’d like a more detailed explanation on how you found this without entering it, yet still had to break things, and… brother? He does things too?”

“Why don’t I finish explaining my idea, getting input and all that, before going into heavy details?”

“And what is your idea?” Leslie asked, folding his arms as he leaned back.

“Napalm, maybe?” Erika asked, looking around the room. Silence reigned for a long moment with everyone likely expecting more than a one word plan; they clearly hadn’t paid attention to all the other plans Erika had, as she preferred everything short, simple, and straightforward.

“Jumping straight into the war crimes, I see,” Sofia muttered.

“Napalm is only a war crime if you use it against civilian targets, which these maggots certainly do not count as,” Leslie countered before turning to Erika. “We know exceedingly little about the place beyond that portal, and while I will admit that fire is probably a good starting place to clearing it out, I’m curious where you think you’re getting napalm from?”

“I was kind of hoping one of you would know.”

Sofia just rolled her eyes. “This plan is off to a great start.”

Rick pinched the bridge of his nose. “We’re ghost hunters, not terrorists. Looking up this kind of thing is how you end up on a list.”

“We’re all already on a list,” Leslie said. “Several, probably.”

“More lists. Not just whatever The Eclipse has, but the real government’s ‘lock this guy in a hole for the rest of their life’ kind of lists.”

“The real government lives in holes in the ground—”

Erika snapped her fingers, pulling everyone’s attention back to herself before the conspiracy theory arguments could get off the floor. “Guys. Please. It doesn’t have to be actual napalm, or whatever. We just need big fire. A few cannisters of gasoline and a lighter will probably work.”

“I was about to suggest the same,” Rick said, leading to a snort from Sofia.

“Yes, of course, after an hour long argument about the lizard people,” she said with an extra scoff for good measure. “You all aren’t thinking about this straight. This plan isn’t going to work.”

Erika, figuring this would be coming eventually, simply looked to Sofia and waited.

“It doesn’t matter how much gasoline you get,” Sofia continued, “you aren’t going to get it into the portal.”

“Why not?”

“You said it yourself, the portal thingy is just a doorway, not much bigger than an actual door. I want you all to imagine how well it’s going to go when you’re trying to get inside to place your gasoline bombs around the maggot nests when a thousand maggots are all trying to squeeze their way out through that same small doorway.”

Erika couldn’t help but nod. For all that Sofia had made it her mission in life to shoot down every idea Erika had, she made good points. If the maggots had just been piling up ever since she broke that seal—and since The Eclipse shut down their ability to leak into the world—there would probably be a lot of them over on the other side. Opening that doorway might just cause a flood of them to pour over here, starting The Prescient’s prophesied apocalypse even earlier than he foresaw.

They might not be able to throw a bomb inside, let alone get deep enough in to do real damage. She didn’t see a real way her ability to break things would come in handy here, though perhaps she could retrieve gasoline bombs from elsewhere if she managed to get in, thus reducing the initial encumbrance.

But how to get inside in the first place?

“Maybe flamethrowers?” Daniel suggested with a yawn, earning contemplative hums from Erika, Rick, and Leslie.

“Merde,” Sofie muttered, palming her face.

Erika frowned at her. “That’s not even Spanish.”

“I don’t care, and we have no way of getting flamethrowers any more than we have ways of getting napalm.”

“Not actual flamethrowers,” Rick said, rubbing his chin, “but you reminded me of The Warrior’s shotgun. She had a lot of different effects, some of which might work even better than fire.”

“We’re supposed to be neutral.”

“A perk of neutrality is being able to pick who we source equipment from, right?” Rick said. “Most of the stipulations we gave The Adjustment were about not taking certain kinds of jobs for non-Eclipse factions. Nobody said anything about not buying from them.”

“Getting some of The Warrior’s enchanted bullets would be a good idea anyway, given what we might face,” Erika said, earning a firm nod from Rick. She imagined Leslie would have been nodding along as well if he had been at the hotel. “I still owe them that favor for helping me find The Fixer, and they did call up and say they were about ready for me to pay up. I could ask about custom bullets while I’m with them.”

“You’re not going alone, are you?” Leslie asked.

“I mean, I was planning on it. I didn’t think anyone was particularly interested in coming with me.” She paused, then quietly added, “I will be breaking things, though I’m not exactly sure what. Hopefully, The Puppet will have some quick escape methods…”

Hopefully, The Puppet would bring her along in their fancy van after she broke whatever they wanted her to break. Otherwise, Erika needed to think about escape methods herself.

Leslie slowly stood, stretching slightly before he downed the last of his coffee. “I think it is time I meet these people from The Puppet for myself. If they don’t object, I’ll be going with you.”

Erika felt a surge of elation in her chest. She had been worried about… well, a lot of things lately, her relations with the rest of The Hunters among them. Hearing support for her like that brought a tingle of relief. “I… think I would appreciate that. I’ll give them a call now, if you want.”

“Do it. The rest of us will continue discussing possible methods for dealing with these bugs, with or without The Puppet’s magic bullets.”

“Thanks,” Erika said, standing. She stopped, and looked over the group as a whole. “And sorry. It isn’t much of an excuse, but I didn’t know…” She trailed off. Various ways of apologizing had been running through her mind practically since she woke up in the asylum, but now that she was here in front of three of the four Hunters, she was at a loss for words.

Rick, she had already apologized to back at The Castle, but Leslie and Sofia were staring at her, waiting.

Daniel gave her a small, encouraging smile.

“I’ll do my best to make sure everyone is informed of anything I’m doing, whether I think it is dangerous or not, going forward. There is a lot I still don’t know about all this supernatural stuff, and a lot I don’t think about before doing, but…” Erika bit the corner of her lip as she firmed her resolve. “I can only promise to do my best.”

A judgmental silence followed, making Erika wonder if she had said the wrong thing. Daniel offered one more smile before he nudged his dad in the side.

“I suppose our best is all any of us can promise,” Leslie said, voice gravely. “The only other thing we can do is be prepared for any danger.”

“Spoken like a true Boy Scout,” Rick teased. “Frankly, I should have mentioned my sword to everyone well in advance of any situation where I might have had to use it. None of us are perfect, nor expecting perfection, but we do expect some due diligence. As long as we have that, we’ll just have to handle things as they come.”

Both Rick and Leslie turned slightly, looking to Sofia—who had her face firmly set in a heavy frown. With a breath and a roll of her eyes, she said, “I wish we were hunting ghosts and only ghosts, and even then, I doubt I would be happy. The Eclipse is handling other stuff, and have apparently been doing so for a long time without the world ending, so…” She shrugged, leaving her complaint at that.

“As we said when you joined up, you aren’t required to go on any job you don’t want.”

Sofia waved a hand back and forth, shooing Leslie away. “Yes, yes. But if I’m not here, you idiots are going to go open a portal to a bunch of maggot apocalypse with no plan to handle them besides throwing gasoline around and probably burning yourselves alive in the process.”

Leslie laughed, patting her on the back harder than she would have liked, judging by her face.

“Maybe not now, but you should speak with Anna,” Rick said, his voice much softer. “Give her a little time. I’ll call her later and keep her informed of what we are doing. For all I know, she’ll hear our plan and her curiosity won’t let her stay away, so I imagine you’ll have a chance to speak with her soon enough.”

“Of course,” Erika said, “I… Yes. I’ll speak with her next chance I get.”