Target Rich Environment, Page 2

  The Hunter seemed a little surprised. “You’re Elmovarian? The master tracker?”

  “Of course,” she answered proudly, the human hadn’t been expecting a babe. Tanya prided herself on being the hottest of all the elves in the trailer park. “That’s my full elf name. Whenever I work with humans I let them call me Tanya.”

  “I’m Earl Harbinger,” the Hunter said. “Ain’t you a little young?”

  “I’m an elf. I’m older than I look.” Which was true; Tanya had been able to successfully buy beer when she was only fourteen with her fake ID. Momma had always said she was an early bloomer. She was twenty-two now, which was positively ancient by human female standards. “Besides, I’m the best tracker in the Enchanted Forest.” Tanya didn’t hesitate. She went for the gold. This was her ticket out of this dump. “All righty then, we better get going, I’m guessing you’ve got lots of things to murder.” Not wanting to give him time to think about it, she immediately walked around the front of the truck to the passenger side. She held her breath until he unlocked the door. She threw her pack in the back seat and climbed in the front. “Okay, let’s go.”

  The Hunter shrugged and started the engine. “Seat belt,” he suggested. She complied. Tanya was terribly nervous, but Momma didn’t come lumbering out of the trailer. Nobody raised the alarm. The trackers didn’t come out with their sawed off shotguns and compound bows to massacre the Hunter for kidnapping the royal heir. They crossed the threshold of the Enchanted Forest and then they were free.

  “Where’re we headed?” Tanya asked, eager for adventure.

  “Indiana,” Harbinger answered.

  The princess of the elves was intrigued. “Ooohh. That sounds exciting.”

  The Monster Hunter just watched the road. “Uh-huh.”

  Exszrsd Hgth Frhnzld Wrst was Uzbek Orcish for Stab-Fighting Warrior of Righteous Vindication, but he was just Edward to his friends. And today, Edward had been asked to stay in the van. So he sat in the van, listening to AM talk radio and sharpening his swords.

  Outside the van, the Hunters were preparing for battle. They would call when he was needed. Then Edward would kill things, and all would be well.

  His older brother and clan leader, Skippy, had asked him to come along to support their adopted clan on this mission. Clan mother and holy woman, Gretchen, had dreamed a dream that had told her that Edward’s life skill would be needed today to save their friends. All urks were born with a life skill. Edward’s skill consisted of stabbing things, so any day that required Edward’s skill was truly a good day to be an urk.

  Skippy, or Skull Crushing Battle Hand of Fury as Mom had called him (strange humans, with their insistence on short names), was still busy fixing the MHI helicopter from when the giant tree beast had knocked it out of the New Zealand sky. So the Hunters were going to drive in cars, which were slow, lumbering contraptions compared to his brother’s helicopter. So when the Hunters had assembled to leave on their latest quest, Edward had just shown up with a bag full of stabbing and slashing implements and tossed it into the back of the van, which had created an awkward situation. The Hunters had gently tried to turn him away.

  That had never happened before and their actions had confused Edward. The Hunters always seemed to love when Edward stabbed things for them. Oh no, they assured him. They loved Edward, but they had warned him, this mission required the presence of an elf.

  So that’s why the Hunters didn’t want him. Elves were disgusting, foul, loathsome creatures. As tuskless as a human, but way more uppity about it. Elves and orcs had been at war since the beginning of the world. Edward would rather eat his own sword than have to put up with an elf, but Gretchen had been adamant that Edward needed to be present today or the Hunters would get in trouble. So when he’d still insisted on going, they’d made him promise to stay in the van out of sight. Harb Anger was sleeping in from being a werewolf, so they’d have him pick up the elf.

  So Edward kept out of sight, carefully running a whetstone down his sword while listening to Rush Limbaugh on the radio. Edward did not understand human ways, but he loved their talk radio and news programs almost as much as he loved their heavy metal. When he was not practicing his stab-killing, Edward watched the news. Owen Zastava Pitt, Brother of the Great War Chief, had laughed and proclaimed that Edward was a “Fox news junkie”. Edward was pleased with this title, for he did love the human news channel, and not just because foxes were the most delicious of all mammals, which was the whole reason he’d started watching that particular channel in the first place. Anything named after the favorite animal to hunt with his bare hands was okay by him.

  Tanya managed to fall asleep on the drive. At first she had only been pretending, snoring theatrically because the less she talked to Harbinger, the longer it would take for him to figure out that he’d picked up the wrong elf. Sure, she figured she was an amazingly good diviner, being of the royal line and all, but she’d never actually done anything with magic outside of the Enchanted Forest. She wasn’t worried though. How hard could it be?

  She woke up when Harbinger pulled into a gas station. The sun was high and annoyingly bright. She’d been out for hours. Blinking, she stumbled out of the truck and headed for the convenience store. Before leaving the bathroom, she reapplied her makeup and fixed her hair in front of the mirror, because she wanted to make a good impression on her new co-workers. Then she flirted with the cashier, shoplifted a couple bags of Corn Nuts, and left. When she got back, Harbinger was waiting.

  “You forgot to pay for those.”

  “Oh, my bad!” Tanya exclaimed. “I must’ve been sleep walking still.” She hurried back in and paid for breakfast with actual money. The boss Hunter sure didn’t miss much. She was going to have to play her cards real careful with him.

  Harbinger started talking as soon as they got back on the highway. “We got the tip yesterday. Some locals were tearing down an old factory and must have uncovered it inside. Some of the workers got killed. Local sheriff investigated, and he had some dealings with MHI a long time ago, so when they found the anomaly, they knew who to call.”

  Anomaly? That sure did sound all sorts of sciencey. Tanya figured that a real smart professional-type elf would ask all the right questions, but not the stupid questions that would make them sound like they really didn’t know what they were doing. “What’re we dealing with?” That seemed like a happy medium.

  “The creatures haven’t been identified yet, but it sounds like they’re coming out of a pocket dimension. That’s why I called your queen and asked for a diviner.”

  “Pocket dimension . . .” She racked her brain and drew a blank. “Yeah, I get those all the time.”

  Harbinger scowled. He seemed to make that face a lot. “I’ve only come across four in my entire life and I’ve been doing this for a long time.”

  Tanya felt a momentary stab of panic. “Well, all the time, relatively speaking.” Good. That sounded vague. She tried to change the subject. “What kind of monsters do you think they are?”

  “The closest teams were already booked, so my guys didn’t get there until earlier today, but now that I’ve got Hunters on site, hopefully by the time we get there they’ll have figured it out. We’ll play it by ear. If the monsters are a pain to deal with, that’s where you come in. You can find the anchor and just break the tether.”

  That was a whole bunch of words that apparently didn’t mean what she thought they meant. “No problemo,” Tanya answered, not really sure what he expected her to do.

  Harbinger didn’t seem too talkative after that. Tanya still couldn’t remember anything about pocket dimensions, anchors, or tethers, so she pulled out her cell phone. It was a desperate gamble, but Tanya was an elf of decisive action. “Gotta check in . . . Queen’s orders.”

  Ilrondelia, Queen of the Elves, stabbed listlessly at her bowl of cornflakes and bacon. Tanya had been nowhere to be found. Fool girl had probably run off, screwin’ around again, so she’d been forced to call for one
of her other subjects to make breakfast. Elmo was the elves’ best tracker, and he had just been waiting around for the Hunters to give him a ride anyways, so she’d drafted him to cook her bacon. It was all soggy. Proper bacon stayed crispy in milk.

  Elmo was a mighty fine tracker, but terrible cook. It wasn’t like Harbinger to be late, so she’d ordered Elmo to vacuum the royal trailer instead of just standing around. The cat hair kept plugging up the vacuum, so it was taking him awhile and the noise was making it hard to watch TV.

  Suddenly, the vacuum stopped. The queen looked up from her soaps to see what the matter was. “You ain’t done. That carpet don’t look clean to me!”

  “Sorry, majesty,” he answered blearily as he fumbled around in his pockets. As usual, Elmo was hung over. “It’s my phone.”

  The queen didn’t like those fancy cellular phones, too much communicating wasn’t good for an elf, but she’d bought a few of the prepaid ones at the 7-Eleven for the elves that had to take care of important outside business. The royal family had all got some too, because royalty always got the good stuff. “Well, answer it!” It might be Harbinger, and she didn’t want to miss out on any of that nice, under-the-table, MHI cash.

  “Oh . . . it’s a text.” Elmo squinted his little beady eyes. The queen was actually surprised that Elmo could read. She hadn’t known that about him. Literacy made her suspicious. Elmo started typing with his thumbs, all slow and fumbly, especially when the texter had the shakes. The queen thought that texting was a particularly stupid way to talk. “Well, ain’t that funny?” he said.

  “What’s funny?”

  “Tanya’s gettin’ serious about studyin’ our ways.” Elmo wiped his nose on the back of his hand and dropped his phone back in his coveralls. “Usually that girl’s got her head in the clouds.”

  “Studyin’? She shoulda been cookin’ my bacon,” the queen said. She went back to her soaps. She’d punish the heir when she got back from . . . wherever she was. “Hey, where’s Tanya at anyways?”

  Elmo shrugged. “She didn’t say. She wanted to know what a human would call a pocket dee-mention. I told her it’s just human talk for an eskarthi-dor.”

  That was the old Elvish word for a portal world. Why in the world would Tanya care about one of those? “Gimmie that thingy,” the queen growled. Elmo handed the phone over. Grumbling, she tried to dial the number, but her fingers were too chubby. “Damn it! Call that fool girl back.”

  Once she knew that what the Hunters were interested in was an eskarthi-dor, her confidence had grown. She’d never actually seen one, but Varty the Elder had taught the young elves about such things before he’d gone on to the Great Trailer Park in the Sky. This was going to be a piece of cake.

  Tanya jumped when her phone rang, but it was only Elmo calling her back. She’d downloaded the ringtone of pigs squealing for Elmo, but right then she was wishing she’d downloaded something more professional sounding. She looked over at Harbinger. “Gotta take this. Important elf business.”

  He didn’t so much as take his eyes off the road. “Obviously.”

  “Hel—”

  “Tanya! You fool girl! I’m gonna wring your scrawny ne—” Tanya had to hold the phone away from her pointy ear. Mom? The Queen had a set of lungs, and when she got to yelling, you could hear her clear over in Corinth. Tanya covered the phone and looked over at Harbinger, but he seemed oblivious to the monarch’s fury. “—idiot had to cook my bacon!”

  She had to think fast. There was no way she was going back to the Enchanted Forest. If she didn’t become an official Monster Hunter on this trip, she was screwed. “Why, yes. Everything is just great here.”

  “Huh? Get your fool ass back here befo—”

  “Yes. Right away.”

  “Why you talkin’ all funny?”

  “Everything is fine here,” Tanya said. Harbinger had no idea; he was just smoking and flicking the ashes out the window. Her plan was working perfectly; she might as well use the opportunity to build her street cred. She raised her voice so Harbinger could hear her over the wind. “Don’t worry. I’ll handle that huge infestation of horrible monsters as soon as I get back. Yes. I will be sure to tell them that I am the greatest tracker the Enchanted Forest has ever seen. Thank you.”

  “Tanya? You been huffin’ paint?”

  “Thank you. Bye-bye.” Tanya closed the phone and checked Harbinger’s reaction. The Hunter was clueless. Yes! She shut her phone off to avoid getting anymore unwanted calls. “Sorry about that, Mr. Harbinger.”

  “More important elf business?”

  “Of course. I’m super important.”

  The queen stared at the phone in her hand. Something was wrong. Tanya had been talking all sorts of weird, and she hadn’t even sounded drunk. She mashed redial.

  “Hi, this is Tanya!”

  “Girl, you better—”

  “Ha! Gotcha! Leave a message!” BEEP.

  Something was terribly wrong.

  “Your majesty?” Elmo asked.

  “The heir . . . I think she’s been kidnapped!” Somehow a mother just knew these things. This was awful. Horrible! Unthinkable! Someone had taken the heir. “Somebody done stole Tanya!”

  Indiana wasn’t any more interesting than Mississippi, which was kind of sad if you thought about it. They had arrived in a small town and a police car had been waiting for them at one intersection. The police car got in front and led them to an old, abandoned factory on the outskirts. There were a bunch of Hunters just kind of chilling, looking all sorts of cool with their fancy armor and guns, just hanging around outside the crumbling old building, but Harbinger had called them a “perimeter” which Tanya filed away as an important-sounding term for hanging out.

  Harbinger got out and immediately started asking questions, getting answers, and giving orders. This was a man used to being in charge, but not all blustery and yelling like the queen. He didn’t need to hit anybody with a thrown shoe. They just did what they were told without arguing because they automatically knew that Harbinger was right. Since Tanya was going to be queen someday herself—if she didn’t get disowned for this stunt—she filed that information away. Being all sorts of smart got you more respect than a well aimed bunny slipper.

  “Anybody know what we’re dealing with yet?”

  “Witnesses couldn’t tell. The only thing we could get from them was that it gave everyone headaches that got close to it. Tracks say quadruped with big claws, probably seven or eight hundred pounds. Lee’s cross-referencing the files on that.” It was a girl with dark hair and glasses that answered. “Local police have the place surrounded, but nothing’s moved since we got here. We’ve got another problem, though. Timeline just sped up.”

  “Status?”

  “Possible hostages. Two children, male, five and seven, were reported as missing yesterday. They were last seen playing around here. We just found kid-size footprints, but the tracks lead up to the gate and disappear. I think they’re on the other side.”

  “That complicates matters,” Harbinger muttered. “I was hoping we could just blow everything up and collect the parts. Looks like we’re going in.”

  A group of Hunters formed a circle around them. Tanya recognized some of them. Harbinger rattled off introductions, but Tanya was so overwhelmed with all the bustle and excitement that she remembered them as Dreadlocks, Blondie, Red Beard, Glasses Girl, Limpy, and the Big Ugly One. When he was done, Harbinger turned to her. “This is Elmovarian, master diviner of the Enchanted Forest.”

  Red Beard looked confused. “Aren’t you the princess? Toni? Tawny? Something?”

  “Tanya.” Harbinger looked right through her. “What do you mean, princess?”

  “What? No . . . Me? That’s crazy talk.” Tanya hadn’t thought through the idea that some of the Hunters might recognize her. Curse her amazing and unforgettable beauty! “You’re thinking of the other Tanya.”

  “No. I remember you, too,” said Dreadlocks. “Your mom hit you in the face wit
h a bunny slipper for asking how to join MHI.”

  “Looked like it hurt,” said Blondie.

  Harbinger didn’t seem happy. “Well, that explains some things.”

  “No . . . I . . .” Busted. All of the Hunters were scowling at her now. Scowling was like a default setting on these humans. “Crap. Okay, whatever. Yeah, I’m the princess. So? I’m a way super good diviner.”

  “Sure you are,” Harbinger said. “I’m going to have some words with the queen once I take you home. I can’t believe she tried to rip me off. I should have hired a gnome.”

  “No, you can’t tell the queen. She doesn’t know I ran away. I’m here on my own. This is like my dream. I want to be a Monster Hunter.”

  Blondie whistled. “The queen is going to be pissed.”

  All of her carefully laid plans were falling apart. “But, I can totally help!”

  “It doesn’t matter anyway. We’re going in after those kids. You’re going to sit your ass in that van and not move until we come out.”

  “She can’t go in the van, Earl . . .” Big Ugly noted. “We’ve got a you know what in the van, and I don’t really know if he’d do very good at the whole rescue thing. He recognizes Hunters okay, but he says that other humans kind of all look the same to him.”

  “He does love decapitating folks.” Harbinger sighed. “Okay, leave Edward in the van. Can’t have her royal highness getting sliced and diced.”

  “What’s an Edward?”

  “An Edward is somebody you don’t want to mess with, and he really doesn’t like elves,” Harbinger stated. “Now go sit in the truck and eat your stolen Corn Nuts. I don’t have time for your nonsense.”

  “I’m not afraid of no Edwards.”

  Harbinger stopped, obviously frustrated. “Edward is an orc.” Tanya’s mouth fell open in shock. She looked fearfully at the van. “You give me any more lip and I’ll tell him to babysit you . . . Corn Nuts. Now.”