Epilogue

 

“How’d you find us, colonel?” Kris asked as she leaned back in her wicker chair. She sized up the old military spook from behind her sunglasses. He hadn’t changed much in the last six months since she’d seen him. Maybe a little paler, but that could be easily chalked up to not getting enough sun in his Alaskan bunker.

“Took some doing,” Col. Harrington said with a nod, “I’ll admit that. But I was finally able to get some gait recognition software in Bangkok that caught you and Hunter both.”

“Maybe,” Kris said, smiling politely, “I should have asked a different question. Why’d you find us? We don’t want to be found.”

Col. Harrington didn’t respond at first. He just stared out to the beach where Hunter and Marta were playing in the sand together, building castles and dragons that would just be washed out to the Indian Ocean when the next big wave came. The sound of his ice settling in his scotch seemed to bring him back after a moment, and he shook his head as he turned to Kris.

“Well?” she asked. “I’m waiting, Colonel.”

He made a pained face. “I came to apologize.”

“Oh? That’s a fucking first, isn’t it?”

The look of pain deepened. “And to ask some questions.”

“Let’s go with the apology first, then we’ll see how everything evolves from there, shall we?”

Col. Harrington leaned forward, elbows on knees, scotch clutched in his hand. “Look. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the girl.”

“Why didn’t you? That’s what I don’t understand. If you’d told me to go and rescue the girl, I would have just gone and rescued the girl.”

“It wasn’t that simple. Certain interests in the PDB had their own attitude toward the way things were supposed to play out. Interests I had to sign on with to get the agency in more or less the way I wanted it.”

“They wanted her dead, didn’t they?” Kris asked, her gaze shifting now to watch her lover and their adopted child play together. In the last six months, she’d finally begun to open up. To come out from whatever witchery Cid had conjured up over her to keep her precociousness in check.

And, in this case, precocious was a generous word. She could be a real handful when she wanted to be, and sometimes it almost made Kris laugh to consider what kind of nightmare Cid had probably had to deal with before he put the spell on her.

Col. Harrington nodded. “Yeah,” he said, taking a sip of scotch. He winced at the burn. “They did. Viewed her as too much of a threat.”

“But she was an innocent,” Kris said, shaking her head. “Still is. So what if she’s the only living heir able to bring back a death goddess? There’s more than just her out there.” She fixed her stare back on the colonel again. “Is that why you leaked information to the White Feather about me, because you knew they’d set up a hit and get me in the game faster? And threatened Hunter the way you did?”

Col. Harrington nodded slowly. “Not exactly my proudest moments, no. But, don’t you see, I needed you there, Kris. Anyone else would’ve just followed these bullshit orders to eliminate the girl. You, though, I know you. You’d never let an innocent be hurt.”

“You threw your own informant to the dogs down there, too, just to sweeten the deal for Cid, colonel. They tortured him, skinned him alive, put him on display for everyone to see. Hunter had to keep me from shooting him.”

The colonel sucked in a sharp breath, his nostrils flaring as he let out a long sigh. “Yes. I know. We found him when we finally went in, after you hadn’t reported in, and the world hadn’t started crumbling. Him and his family.”

Kris nodded to Hunter as he played with Marta. “He wanted to kill you, by the way. I talked him down from that bloodlust.”

“Thanks, I guess. Not that I don’t deserve it. Or worse.” Col. Harrington took another long drink of his scotch. “Done worse things in my time, I’m sure.”

They both sat in silence for a while. A long, almost companionable silence. The kind of silence two old warriors can share, if only because they’ve experienced enough pointless noise in their lifetime that they don’t need to fill the rest with pointless banter.

“You had some questions, right?”

“Yes. Just a few.”

“They’re not going in a file somewhere, are they?”

“No, no file.”

“Sure? Because Hunter will kill me if he finds out I helped start a new dossier on him.”

The colonel couldn’t help but smile at that one, a flash of yellowing teeth between his thinning lips. He shook his head. “No, just for my own curiosity.”

“Good. Then maybe we can exchange some information? You ask me, I’ll ask you?”

“Deal,” Col. Harrington replied as he held up the scotch and eyed it as if he were wondering if he should finish it or wait a while longer. “First. How’d you get out of Mexico?”

“Same way we came in,” Kris said with a nod. “Roxy’s quite resourceful, and can put you anywhere in the world if you’ve got enough to pay for it.”

“And you and Hunter definitely have enough.”

“Precisely.”

“Your question, then?”

Kris leaned forward a little. “How are my boys back at the agency? They doing okay?”

He smiled and nodded. “Yeah. They’re good. Sam and Faith are getting married early this coming year, and Carter and his girl are setting up their own fire investigation agency. Says the fighting’s behind him.”

“Luke and Ryder?”

“Still working, still hunting.”

“Well, they’ll get tired of it eventually,” Kris said. “They all do.”

“Or…” Harrington began, but didn’t finish. It was almost as if he’d thought better of some cryptic, sad prognostication for once.

“What about Tabitha? How is she?”

“Dating someone, from what I hear.”

“Still bugging her phone, then?”

“Ha ha, Kris. You know that’s not what I mean.” He grinned. “Well, we don’t listen in. Much.”

“What’s he like?”

“Good. Grounded. Makes her leave work occasionally, which for her is necessary. That witch would work herself to death if she were able, especially since she took over the agency.”

Kris grinned. “Hope she’s liking it so far.”

“Hates it, from my understanding. But, then again, she hated everything else, too.”

They both lapsed into another long silence, both just watching father and daughter play, and letting the rhythmic crash of the waves rolling in soothe them as they tried to relax and just enjoy the moment.

“You know,” Kris said finally, “you could have told us about the organization when you left Full Moon. We would have gone with you.”

“I know,” he said, nodding slowly. “Doesn’t mean I would’ve wanted you there, though.” He paused, actually smiled out at Hunter and Marta. “You wouldn’t have gotten this if you’d stayed with me. And the boys wouldn’t have gotten theirs if they’d stayed. Instead, what do you have?”

Kris smiled. “Family.”

“Exactly. Something I never really had.” He paused, cleared his throat. “Speaking of which. About the girl.”

“What about her?”

“How much does she remember?”

Kris’s eyes grew distant as she looked out at her daughter playing in the sand. Sometimes Marta woke up screaming from the nightmares, still. Which really wasn’t all that strange, especially when her adopted mother and father both did the same thing. Tragedies and hardships leave scars. Tissue that’s built up over time and makes you stronger, harder to break down. But scars are always on the surface and never leave. Sure, they may fade with time, but they’ll never completely disappear.

Secretly, Hunter and she worried about the next time some bad man would come looking for her. What if they found another artifact? Or the golden mask kept in a special vault drawer by Roxy was opened by the wrong owner? What then? What new waking horror would Marta have to deal with? Or her daughters or sons, if she had them?

“None of it,” Kris lied. “She doesn’t remember a thing.”

“And the mask? You know you can’t destroy it. Not even dragon fire can hurt that thing.”

“Believe me, Hunter and I both tried after we killed Cid with it. Tried for hours, till the desert was almost glass beneath it.”

“Where’d you put it?”

Kris smirked. “Some things are better left unknown, colonel. You know that. Rest assured, though, it’s someplace neither you nor anyone else can ever get to. Promise.”

“The girl? What if she has a daughter?”

She turned and smiled at the colonel. “From what we learned about it, the mask was what mattered most. As long as it’s kept separated from the bloodline, the Nameless One can’t make her grand entrance, and we won’t have to deal with that particular apocalypse for a while.”

Another long moment of silence.

Another drink later, with not as much small talk, the colonel finally excused himself. As he walked away back to the road, Hunter and Marta came back up to the porch.

“Mommy,” Marta called as she came running up, jumping into her lap with a surprised oof from Kris, “who was that man?”

“Well, that was an old friend of Mommy’s.”

“Oh? Is that why Daddy kept mumbling about wanting to burn him alive?”

“What?” Hunter said, faking shock as Kris shot him a look. “Marta, why do you have to keep telling fibs on Daddy like that?”

“That wasn’t a fib!” she squealed.

“Well, Daddy kept mumbling that,” Kris said as she wrapped her arms around her little daughter, “because Daddy knew that man very, very well. And Daddy’s been around long enough to know when not to trust some people as far as he can throw them. Isn’t that right, Daddy?”

“Trust,” Hunter said, leaning down to kiss Kris on the lips, “but verify. Isn’t that right, dear?”

“Right.”

“Well, what did our old friend want, anyways? He’s not trying to give you a job again, is he?”

“Not precisely,” Kris said, her hand traveling up over Hunter’s flat stomach, patting it lightly. “He actually came to apologize, and to check on our girl.”

“Not worried she’s the next antichrist, is he?” Hunter asked in a concerned tone. “Because, so help me God, I will burn him alive.”

“Hey!” Marta shouted. “See, Mommy?”

“Oh, I see very well,” Kris said, beaming up at him. She had no doubt in her mind whatsoever, that he’d do whatever was necessary to protect his family. It didn’t matter whom it was up against. “And, no, of course not. He doesn’t think anything like that.”

“Mommy, what’s the antichrist?”

Oftentimes, as parents, you have to have uncomfortable conversations with your children. With most children, it’s about death and dying, why you shouldn’t be mean to someone, and, in their later years, the talk about S-E-X. With Kris and Hunter, though, it was about demons, dragons, shifters, and the apocalypse.

“Well,” Hunter said, scratching the back of his head, “it’s kind of complicated. Are you sure you can handle this?”

“Of course I can!” Marta said, jumping up from her mommy’s lap.

“But first, sweet child,” Kris said as she got up out of her chair and put an arm around Hunter’s waist as she looked down on Marta, “you need to go wash your hands and get cleaned up for dinner.”

“Okay, Mommy!” Marta said, eager to comply as she raced inside the house.

As soon as she was within the house and out of earshot, Hunter pulled Kris to him and kissed her again. “I love you,” he said.

“Oh, Hunter,” she whispered as she stared up into his eyes, the tips of her fingers brushing down his cheek. “I love you, too.”

They kissed again as, somewhere, on the other side of town, Col. Harrington was sending an email.

“Search inconclusive. Target not found. Continue search North America. SE Asia is waste of resources.”

 

~ END ~

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