Seth stood in the elevator next to Brett, backpack on and the satchel from Olivia over one shoulder, wearing a warm black leather jacket.

Ding!

They stepped out and Seth followed Brett down the elegantly-but-still-corporate decorated hallway all the way to the last door on the end, right beside the stairs. The hallway terminated with a window that overlooked the downtown. The streets were relatively uncluttered, as the last hour of Sunday light faded beyond the horizon. Brett swiped his key card and they walked into the room. A short entryway had two bathrooms opposing each other, and then split left and right to two bedrooms, both identical with a kingsized bed, their own fridge, couch, and desk. Each had wide curtained windows that overlooked the perpendicular direction from the hallway window.

“Right one is yours,” said Brett, pointing to the bed that didn’t have a stack of hard-cases at its foot. “Clean up after yourself, hotel services won’t be coming by. Drop your shit and come over here.” He walked into his bedroom.

Seth set his stuff on the bed and took off his jacket, then joined Brett, who was sitting in front of a military-style rugged laptop on his desk. “Pull up a chair, dude.”

Seth sat down next to him and looked at the screen, which had a browser with an overabundance of tabs open.

“Alright, standard NDA, blah, blah. I’m hooked into Hunternet. Anything you see on here doesn’t go out of this room. Cool? Cool. Here.” Brett pulled up a tab containing what looked like an off-brand Wikipedia page, titled Northern California Covens. “And… this one, I think.” He clicked on the link to Coven of Set’s Left Hand and began scrolling through the page.

“Worships Hecate… Standard… Six Matrons, classified threat minor… Hm.” He sighed. “Yeah, I’m going to have some massive reports to file to get this filled out. It’s pretty bare bones, which means all gathered intel is my responsibility to update. Though I guess I could push it off on the analysts…” Brett tugged on his beard. “Okay, so I did some research already, and somehow this group of shamans has avoided the radar. No entry on a local tribe of them. Which I’ve already made peace with the forty hours that report is going to cost me, but whatever. Sun’s about to set, that means we have… Nine hours or so to prep for recon.”

He turned in his chair to face Seth. “Get a nap in, then I’ll get you outfitted. You ever used a gun?”

“Once.”

Brett bared his teeth in a wince. “Right. Adding range time to the list. Go. Nap. I have Monsters in here, too, if you just can’t sleep.”

“I don’t sleep a lot… At least not when I’m not injured.”

Brett narrowed his eyes. “That’s not in your file. I’m tracking regeneration class two and enhanced durability. When did this start?”

“I don’t know… Around the time Hunter crashed that party.” Seth’s face went blank as the thought of Hunter soldiers shooting up David and Anthony’s party came to the surface of his mind.

Brett saw the expression and nodded. “Yeah. About that.” He sighed. “Look, I need you to not fuck me on this one. You’re aware certain things have been kept from you, well, this is one I don’t agree with. So, listen, ‘cause I’m only going to say it once. We were not the ones at that party.”

Seth’s heart skipped a beat.

“There are other groups like us, but that wasn’t us. What was the cover we told you? That those kids had been turned by Nicole’s mind-control abilities?”

Seth nodded.

“Yeah, she can do that. She did that in Missouri. But we hadn’t tracked her to California yet. We only picked up her trail in Washington.”

“So who was at the party?”

“Hunters with a lowercase ‘h’. We handed that case off to the FBI, but there’s somewhere in the neighborhood of two dozen known hunting groups in the United States, and many, many more worldwide. These assholes just happen to wear surplus military fatigues. We don’t shoot kids. The ones turned in Missouri? We incapacitated. One kid wound up with a broken leg, that was the worst thing that happened. We were never in this city until now.”

Seth leaned back in his chair, more than a little numb from the revelation. “So why lie to me?”

“Same reason I’m not authorized to tell you other things. To protect you. This is just one protection I think is dumb as fuck.”

“Won’t you get in trouble?”

“I’ve done worse.” He turned back to his laptop. “Way worse. Go nap.”

Seth nodded and got up, turning to to look out the window over the city. “So whoever it was… They just killed those kids looking for Nicole?”

“One, don’t go getting that ‘I swear vengeance’ thing going on, and two, yeah. It sucks. It’s sad. But it’s the nature of what we deal with.”

“Do you know which of the groups you mentioned it was?”

“Yes.”

“Which one?”

“No.”

Seth looked back to Brett. “You think I’m going to try and go after them?”

“Wouldn’t be the first asset who went and got himself killed because he thought superpowers make him invincible, dude.” Brett declined his head. “Look, you and I have a shaman tribe and a coven to deal with. A rogue hunting group is completely irrelevant right now. I hate fuckers like that just about as much as you. But reckless idealism will get you killed.”

Seth crossed his arms. “I’m not saying I’m going after them right now. I’m not stupid.”

Brett raised an eyebrow.

“I just want to know what’s being done about them.”

“We have a unit dedicated specifically to liaison with rogue hunter groups.”

“Liaison? That doesn’t sound like dealing with them.”

“Yeah. If they’re willing to follow the Extranormal Elimination and Control Policy, then liaison. Otherwise, it gets handed over to a very specific department in the FBI. You’re asking a lot of questions for someone who needs to get some sleep.”

“I don’t need much sleep.” Seth pulled out his phone. “Is this bugged?”

Brett snorted. “Yes.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“What? You think daddy government was gonna give you a phone for free with no strings attached?” He laughed. “Mine’s bugged, too, dude. Besides, we can’t get data from it when it comes to the Ignis-Sacer, and I’m pretty certain that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Were you tapping my other phone?”

“Yes. Good call on taking the SIM cards out, by the way. Report said you had a habit of doing that. I do that, too, whenever I’m…” He looked at the bed. “I don’t want to give the analysts anything to jerk off to.”

Seth shook his head, a small grin on his face.

“Any other questions, or you gonna let me get a jump on all the paperwork this mission is going to cause me?”

“I can think of more.”

“You-” Brett turned to see Seth grinning. “Got me.” He moved back and started typing. “Get some rest. Be up by zero-one.”

“One AM?”

“Zero-one. If you’re going to work with the military, gotta get used to the lingo.”

“Right.”

“You mean roger.” Brett grinned as he started on the title of a report.

Seth nodded and walked to his own bedroom, jumping back onto the bed and staring at the ceiling, trying to push the thought of Hunter-33 analysts listening to him through his phone. He pushed the thought of the rogue hunter group even more aggressively out of his head. Brett seemed more than trustworthy, and he was Seth’s one lifeline in this. Seth didn’t want to go against him, especially since it seemed Brett had the same level of experience with this as Coach John and Ms. Tull did with martial arts.

Shit.

Seth had to be at black tab selection tomorrow night, and though he had full faith in Hunter to take care of school for him, he felt like maybe they wouldn’t go to his gym and give him a leave of absence. Seth got back up off the bed and walked to Brett’s room again.

“Brett-”

The Sergeant held up one finger, finished typing, and turned to him. “I’m gonna start calling you Jeopardy if you keep this up. Actually, I’m authorized to make your callsign. Yup. It’s Jeopardy. Anyway…”

“I need either a reason to not go to my dojo, or I need to go to my dojo.”

Brett raised his eyebrows. “What do you do?”

“Kyokushin and kickboxing. You?”

“BJJ and whatever the hell the military chooses to put me through. Just tell your instructor you can’t go or something.”

“I’m going through a testing process. For instructor rank.”

“Shit, kid. Nice. I’ll call higher. If they can’t amend your cover, then I have no problem with you going as long as it doesn’t leave you smoked.”

“Regeneration, remember?”

“Must be nice,” said Brett. “Seriously! Get to sleep.”

“Roger.”

“There you go. See you at zero-one, kid.”

Seth returned to his bed, and this time, he did manage to fall asleep.