24 – The Hunters Must Hunt

“I’m not opposed to exorcising ghosts; it’s what we gathered to do to begin with,” Leslie said, looking from one person to the next in their little huddle. “But we have been cursed—” Rick winced, but didn’t interrupt. “—with knowledge. We now know what exists out there, and they expect us to return to our little box?”

“Don’t think we’re being given much choice,” Sofia muttered. “Unless you want to go ask them or else what?”

“I’m a little opposed to going back to usual affairs,” Anna said. Letting out a snort, she shook her head and continued. “Actually, I’m pretty fucking opposed. Did you hear them out there? They’ve known about us, want us to keep going, because it saves them the effort. At any time, they could have let us know, given us some support, or just slipped a twenty under the door on occasion.”

Rick nodded along with Anna, agreeing with each point, until she finished. “They apparently own the whole city; they could probably pay off the loan it took to get this place,” he said, looking around the back office with a frown.

“That, or surely they can afford to just pay us, maybe send some better gear our way, and get us in contact with people who know things about what we’re dealing with.” Anna paused a moment, then shook her head with a small breath from her nose. “Besides, like you said, we’re cursed with knowing. Hard to go back at this point, isn’t it?”

“You guys…” Daniel dug his fingers into his scalp, tussling his hair back and forth—it was getting a bit long, and the way he left it messy made Erika notice more than usual.

“Problem?” Leslie said.

“I just… can’t believe you’re all talking about business. There is a giant spider playing Galaga with a crash test dummy.”

The way Sofia laughed sounded a bit hysterical, but she managed to rein herself in enough to talk. “Kid, I think we’ve all seen things that aren’t normal. Those people out there aren’t ghosts, but something like this isn’t so unusual in our line of work.”

Erika raised an eyebrow, surprised that Sofia was the one to say that. It was true, and Rick nodded an agreement, but she still expected Sofia to be the one panicking. Constant exposure to ghosts in her childhood must have given her some level of resistance to things like this. In fact, from Erika’s point of view, ghosts were, by far, the stranger thing to exist, but that could be because she was some kind of supernatural being, at least partially.

Realizing that half the group was looking to her to see her take on the situation, Erika could only shrug. “If you guys have to stick with ghosts and only ghosts to keep the monster spooks off your backs, I won’t object, but I don’t think The Fixer and I are going to follow their recommendations,” she said with a confirming glance at The Fixer.

Lightly running their fingers over their goatee, The Fixer nodded. “I appreciate the assistance following the event at the museum,” they said, pausing to nod at Anna, “as well as the research on the Mother of Maggots. I have my own mission which does not involve ghosts.”

Erika jammed her elbow into The Fixer’s side, hitting just a little harder than a light nudge. “We,” she insisted. They were after her; she wasn’t going to be able to sit everything out even if she wanted to. “I doubt we need to disappear completely. We can still pop around, help when needed, and maybe get help with some lighter things that won’t piss off The Eclipse.”

“So,” Leslie said, first looking to Sofia. “One for backing down to ghost operations only.” He turned to Anna, then looked over to Rick. “Two against—at least without concessions. And one abstain,” he said, finishing with a small frown in Erika and The Fixer’s direction, concealed by his beard and mustache.

Apparently, the Walker family only got one vote, which made some sense, given that Daniel probably didn’t get a separate vote from his father—or the rest of the King family.

“And you?” Sofia said, sounding a little strained. “You said you weren’t against returning to our old activities…”

Leslie took a moment, hand trailing down his beard. “I would vote to help the most people. I don’t know how much help we truly offered during the maggot incidents, but I wouldn’t like to be forced to not act if the situation calls for it. At the same time, we can help nobody if we are shut down… or worse.”

“Then we’re tied,” Sofia said with a long sigh. “Two, two, and abstain. But I’d say we need to at least hear those people out, see if they will give us any money or whatever. They did start out asking what they would have to do to get us back to ghost hunting, right? That means they’re prepared to offer something.”

A thoughtful look crossed Daniel’s face at Sofia’s question. “Isn’t…” he started, confidence waning under Sofia’s frown. Erika, wanting to hear what he had to say, gave him a light nudge. “Isn’t that not the issue? Ghost hunting, I mean.”

“You heard them,” Anna said. “They want us busting ghosts and nothing else.”

“Yeah, that’s what they said, but aren’t they just mad that you and Rick went and messed them up in a fight?”

“I’d hardly say we messed them up,” Rick said, though he did give a lingering look at Erika. “Didn’t even scratch the spider chick.”

“The Adjustment said she would rather thank you,” Sofia said. “Presumably for avenging her? For chopping off the head of that woman who punched a hole in her chest.”

“Nearly chopped her head off,” Erika corrected, earning a glare.

“That’s on a personal level,” Daniel said as a flash of understanding lit his eyes. “But she’s here representing The Emperor and The Eclipse… They’re mad you guys were with The Puppet. The Eclipse and The Puppet are enemies.”

Small frowns touched everyone’s faces as they took in his words. On some level, everyone had probably known that already, but having it spoken aloud gave them another reason to consider.

“So we promise we’re not joining The Puppet, and they let us do whatever?” Anna asked with a deepening scowl. “I doubt it will be that easy. They want us under heel—their eager little dogs ready to do their bidding for fear of a harsh whip.”

“Even if you guys do promise that and they agree, I can’t,” Erika said, looking around. “You all read my handouts. The Stalker is option two for finding The Mummy, tracking down the naked woman with her. Even if I just break things until they show up, her being able to give a heads-up could mean the difference between getting pummeled and doing the pummeling. Besides that, The Warrior is sending me magic things to practice curse-breaking, for Rick, and I technically owe them a favor still. Maybe more. There have been suspiciously few favors for this whole Rick’s sword thing.”

“They’re trying to draw you in,” Sofia said, sounding angry, though not quite enough to lapse into a string of Spanish. “Oh, look at all these benefits we offer. Come sign away your life to our cause.”

Leslie held up a hand, stalling further quips or comments. “We’re going to have to ask them, both about possible concessions or payment for our apparent services to The Eclipse, as well as whether or not The Puppet is the true crux of the issue. I don’t think we can offer a definitive response without hearing more.”

That got nods all around, though nobody looked particularly happy—Erika least of all.

Things weren’t going well for her. It felt like, no matter the decisions, she was going to end up leaving The Hunters. Maybe not completely cutting ties, but enough that working with them would be awkward at best, hostile at worst. Unless they decided to give The Eclipse a big fat middle finger, probably running to The Puppet for protection afterwards, she just didn’t see a good way forward.

Even with her tentative alliance with The Puppet, Erika didn’t think signing up with them simply for protection was a good long-term strategy—if they got in fights like the one at the hotel on the regular, it felt a bit too dangerous for regular people. The Eclipse also knew where Varn’s was, and if they could figure that out, they could find everyone’s homes without too much trouble. Everyone would have to relocate—and it was doubtful they would want to—possibly with Erika there, breaking ties to their pasts the same way she broke ID cards.

And, even with her birthday present, that wasn’t much of an option until The Mummy was no longer hunting her.

Everyone filed out of the back office, returning to the main arcade floor. Little electronic chirps and sounds came from one of the back machines where The Adjustment stood, jiggling a joystick back and forth while hammering the button. Arm crossed, The Art somehow radiated impatience with The Adjustment despite the expressionless face of the crash test dummy. Her impatience grew when, after noticing Erika and the others, she placed a hand on The Adjustment’s shoulder, only to get, “Just a moment,” in response.

“Adj,” The Art hissed—a rather odd sound given her already odd voice. “Now.”

The Adjustment did not look away from the arcade game until an odd creaking noise came from their direction. It took Erika a long moment to realize that the sound came from The Art’s hand, gripping The Adjustment’s shoulder tighter and tighter until the plastic started to crack. Long, worm-like tendrils peaked through the slowly widening gaps, digging into The Adjustment’s carapace.

“Art… Art! Stop!” The Adjustment whined, trying to twist out of The Art’s grip even as her arm swung up. She didn’t strike The Art; she instead balled her hand into a fist before punching herself in her own jaw.

The Adjustment staggered back from the blow, groaning lightly, while The Art simply stepped aside. Worms slithered back into the cracked plastic shell of The Art’s hand, leaving just three small holes in The Adjustment’s black armored body.

“My apologies,” The Art said, approaching the table once again without a single glance back, secure in knowing that The Adjustment was following.

The Adjustment shook out her arm a few times, frowning the entire way back to the table. “Yeah, sure… Didn’t think we were in full professional mode here,” she whispered, though not quietly enough that Erika couldn’t hear.

The Hunters, for their part, did not look like they knew what to say. In fairness, Erika was at a loss as well. They could jump right into concessions and discussions over what The Eclipse really wanted from The Hunters, but it felt odd to just ignore what had just happened. Even Erika, who felt far more used to supernatural things—or unfazed by them, at least—was a bit weirded out by the way The Art made The Adjustment act.

“You forced her to hit herself?” Anna asked, blunt as a hammer.

The Art shifted in what might have been embarrassed discomfort, or maybe ascribing feelings to mannerisms didn’t work that well on a crash test dummy.

“She can be a bit bitchy,” The Adjustment said with an almost fond tone in her voice. “Don’t worry, she was careful. I won’t get any blood all over your place.”

The small punctures in her shoulder weren’t bleeding at all.

“Yes, but… the mechanics of it—”

The Art let out a long, slow, sigh-like note. “They classify me as a parasite,” she said. “Although I prefer to inhabit less… independently animated bodies, I am quite capable of interfacing with and operating most nervous systems, even non-standards like The Adjustment.”

“At the hotel,” Erika said in realization, “you were all over that naked chick. But… you weren’t the one attacking me through her, were you?”

“No.” For a long moment, The Adjustment said nothing else, leaving Erika wondering if she would have to ask for details. Eventually, with another sighing note, The Art decided to continue on her own. “That woman… I could feel her nerves, but it was like her body did not care that I pulsed an electrochemical signal to, for example, clench her fist. She simply carried on. I even tried to infest her brainstem to no significant impact.”

“Did she survive?” Rick asked.

The Art and The Adjustment looked to one another, the latter shrugging at the former. “We do not know,” The Art said, turning back to the group. “She was unresponsive following your… departure. Her body vanished before we could relocate it for further examination.”

“Vanished?”

“It is not what we’re here to discuss.”

Rick looked like he was about to argue, but Leslie put his hand forward, leaning against the table. “We need a bit more information,” he said, looking from The Art to The Adjustment, “before we agree to anything.”

Leslie proceeded to explain some of the things they discussed in their private meeting, along with his stance and his reasons for The Hunters existing in the first place—his family’s long-standing fight against the unknown, his attempts to avoid it, and his realization following his brother’s untimely death that regular people needed someone to turn to when things got weird. Anna, Rick, and Sofia all nodded along at various points, even adding a few details about why they were here. Erika, meanwhile, now stood next to The Fixer, fighting to keep a frown off her face as she tried to figure out what she could do.

Erika liked this place. It was a safe place to return to, to bounce some ideas around, and get some advice from people who were knowledgeable without being inside. It was never her intention to drag them into fights like at the hotel, but given the whole subway incident, they were likely going to drag themselves into things more and more going forward.

Or they would have, until these two showed up.

As Leslie continued his story, giving their guests clear motive for not exclusively hunting ghosts anymore, and The Eclipse goons started arguing back that hunting ghosts was all they should care to do—throwing in a few thinly-veiled threats into their words—Erika decided that the main reason she wasn’t sure what to do was because she didn’t know what she wanted to do. Did she want The Hunters safe? She should push for concessions and get them primarily focused on ghosts. Did she want them to help fight The Mummy? She could push them away from The Eclipse, maybe toward The Puppet. The Puppet was all about freedom from The Eclipse’s authority. Yet, they wouldn’t be able to operate freely if they pissed off The Eclipse—they wouldn’t be able to help people.

They wouldn’t want that.

Maybe Erika could join up with The Puppet, fight The Eclipse with them, and kick The Emperor out of town. Then The Hunters would be free to do whatever they wanted… except it probably wasn’t that easy to uproot The Eclipse, or someone would have done so by now. Even if she could break their hold over the city as easily as she broke bones, it would probably take too long.

There was still The Mummy to worry about, a complication on top of any other path she could think to take.

Though if it wasn’t for The Mummy, Erika might not care if The Hunters signed on fully with The Eclipse. Her main reasons for not liking The Eclipse, besides the fact that The Hanged Man was a bastard, were their opposition to The Puppet. Specifically, she knew how useful The Stalker could be in tracking down people who were good at hiding and couldn’t afford to alienate The Stalker by joining up with The Eclipse.

Though, apparently, The Hanged Man could be part of The Eclipse while still being the target of The Stalker’s… target. The Stalker was crazy enough as it was, and Erika didn’t want to try to emulate that relationship.

Erika closed her eyes, blocking out the voices around her as they started getting a little louder and a little more tense, resisting the urge to fiddle with her hair. Being so uncertain wasn’t like her.

It all came back to The Mummy.

Delete The Mummy and every problem in her life would go away—mostly… some of them, anyway. The main problems that mattered right now would disappear if The Mummy disappeared.

That wasn’t something she could do right now. Right now, she needed…

“Neutrality.”

It was only after Erika spoke that she realized she had blurted out her thought in the middle of the argument. She snapped her eyes open to the sight of everyone looking in her direction.

Erika lightly cleared her throat, buying a brief moment to think of how this idea was supposed to play out. “You don’t want to be lapdogs and taken advantage of,” she said, gesturing to Anna and Rick before gesturing to Leslie. “You want to help people. And you…” Erika trailed off for a moment as she looked to Sofia, trying to remember any clear points she had brought up in the earlier meeting. “You want to take safer jobs,” she said, figuring that was close enough.

Turning, Erika focused on The Adjustment and The Art. “You, or perhaps The Emperor, don’t want us in bed with The Puppet.”

Erika paused, looking around to see reactions and commentary. She waited half an instant before deciding that she didn’t want to give anyone else time to interject, barreling right along to avoid losing her momentum. “Thus, neutrality. An independent faction,” she said, using terminology she had seen in The Analyst’s archives. “We’ll need to hash out details before agreeing to anything—I really can’t speak for everyone—but tell me if this sounds agreeable to you: We don’t swear fealty to The Eclipse in exchange for some pats on the heads while being yanked around on a leash. You pay us properly, as if we were contractors taking on jobs.

“You want us hunting ghosts?” Erika asked rhetorically, not giving a moment for them to actually answer. “Bring the job to us, sign for it, and pay out upon successful exorcism. If The Castle wants us hunting down lamprey maggots in the sewers and pays us… well a lot—I don’t want to trudge around sewers—but if we agree, we’ll take the job. We’re not exclusive unless someone pays out the ass for it. At the same time, we are neutral. We will not knowingly take a job that acts against the direct interests of another faction. Even if we do take a job from The Puppet, it won’t be something you guys would be pissed over. Absent a contracted job, we act in our own interests, which is probably mostly hunting ghosts on our own,” she said, looking to Leslie for some confirmation.

Leslie nodded slightly, taking the brief pause as a chance to speak for himself. “That sounds like something we would discuss further in private,” he said, then looked to the others. “I am not opposed to the general idea, however.”

“She covered my issues,” Anna said.

Rick nodded. “Same.”

Sofia let out a long sigh. “That’s never going to work. If we get rid of a ghost that was harassing The Puppet, thus freeing them up to attack The Eclipse, that acts against The Eclipse’s interests, doesn’t it?”

“I used the phrase direct interests for a reason,” Erika said, irritated despite fully having expected Sofia to come up with some argument. A voice of doubt and caution could be good on occasion, but Erika didn’t really like her plan being doubted. “We cannot be held responsible for everything that anyone else might do as a result of our actions.”

“That’s a big game you’re talking,” The Adjustment cut in, sounding more amused than anything. “But you are just a bunch of mortals; I don’t know if you’re ready or capable of making demands.”

“Are we? We’ve got a generational ghost hunter family, a cursed-sword wielder, a psychic, and Anna—”

“Thanks,” Anna grumbled.

“Along with two Outsider-class beings,” Erika finished. The Fixer touched her elbow, but if that tidbit was supposed to be secret, it was too late now. “That makes us a larger faction than The Puppet.”

The Art and The Adjustment regarded Erika, moving slowly on to The Fixer after a moment. Slowly, they turned to regard the room as a whole.

The Adjustment cocked a grin—or whatever passed for one with her biology. “I don’t think we have the authority to say anything about that, but I could bring it up with Empy.” The Art turned her vacant eyes on her spidery friend, glaring. The Adjustment ignored it. “No promises. Might be back next week with more threats.”

Rick snorted. “Maybe call first,” he grumbled sarcastically before his face lit up like he decided it might be a good idea. “We could set out some tea… or spiders don’t like caffeine. Flies?”

“Gross,” The Adjustment said with a grimace. “Locusts, maybe, but it’s a bit out of season for that. Get me a rare steak, blended to a slurry, and I’ll go easy on you if Emps sends me back to pummel you guys into submission.”

“And ruin a perfectly good steak?” Rick said. “I think I’ll take the beating.”

The Adjustment barked out a laugh, clapping her hands together. “See, I knew I’d like you guys.” She bumped shoulders with The Art. “Good thing we went with my plan, huh?”

The Art could not roll her eyes, but some slight movement in her body gave Erika that impression anyway. “Let’s leave,” The Art said. “I’m sure they have much to discuss. And I believe I need to find a flame-retardant suit before we report to The Emperor, lest this one melt before The Hierophant finishes with my new one.”

The Adjustment laughed again as she looped an arm around The Art’s waist, leading them to the door. “Catch you all later,” she said.

The silence that followed the door slamming shut was deafening. Erika tried not to show how uncomfortable she found the several sets of eyes on her. “Sorry for talking so much. We just didn’t seem to be getting anywhere, and I… I mean, at least we have a good week to discuss in a bit more detail, right?”