This trip was already a clusterfuck. Murphy had french kissed me at some point or something because I wasn't just having a bad day, or even a bad week… I was having a bad year. Not sure what God I had pissed off, but they needed to get over it or something. Maybe it was pissing on that shrine in France….

You couldn't throw a stone without smacking a witch in the forehead with it, nowadays. This one was typical of the breed, all power, and no sense.

Well, I take that back; she didn't really have much power either.

Most of them just had a bit over the average person, some sort of gimmick like fire generation or light control, usually restrained by some rules that humanity didn't know; the great mysteries of our time. Why could that witch turn invisible as a starting trick or spell, and not another? Why did some seem so much more powerful than others?

How did they get their hair to take impossible shapes like that without using any product?

The current witch du jour was an expert at throwing stones. Very large, very heavy stones, thrown at quite a distance – it seemed to be all that she could do based on what we had seen so far, but she did it very well. Which was probably why she took offense to my own stone throwing efforts, regardless of how good my aim was.

I couldn't help myself, though; it was just so tacky. I mean, even if she could toss one ton boulders with her mind, it was still just tossing rocks. Ivan dodged one such rock without even looking at it, lunging and rolling as he locked eyes with me.

“Sasha, next time, can you please not provoke the witch by saying you can throw rocks as well as she can?”

Alicia peeked out from the boulder she was hiding behind, one she had already been forced to dodge herself. I wonder if the witch can pick them back up? If she was hiding that ability, Alicia could be in real trouble down the line.

“The real thing that pissed her off wasn't him saying it. It was him trying to do it by bouncing pebbles off her nose!”

I shot a good size rock, something the size of good bed, with my pistols; just enough force applied to knock the aim off. It almost knocked me off my feet when it plowed down ten feet away… it even skipped once. How had she even managed that? No matter really, the scathing comments of my peers were worth more attention.

“You're both philistines. How dare you step on my hobbies like this? I thought we knew each other!”

Alicia stopped, flat-footed.

“You mean witch baiting is your hobby now?!? You're finally owning up to a practice that could kill us all?!?”

“You worry too much, Alicia. Oh, and rock above your head.”

She cussed and jumped; the catapult sized shot would have pulped her easily.

The witch herself finally hove back into view; she needed line of sight to improve her aim, just like a gunman would. Too bad for her, really.

She was unusual for a witch; oh she was young like most of them (if she was older than fifteen I'd eat her hat), with long hair that looked like she spent too much time in front of a mirror, and classic features no matter how distorted they were. Problem was, her hat was a hardhat, and she missed that cute as a button look she no doubt was supposed to have by a good two vertical feet. Not to mention her biceps alone were probably larger than my waist. She was larger than Alicia! Her clothes were expensive looking, but they were overalls, stained with streaks of dirt and mud. She looked like the very poster of adolescent roid rage, her physique as well suited to throwing rocks as her mind was.

Alicia still had her beat in the beard department though. Her bellow tore through the clearing we had baited her into.

“Hold still, vermin!”

Okay, now that made me mad. Sure, I wasn't some fashion-minded sparkly primpy clothes horse, but I didn't just roll out of bed looking like I had crawled through several sewers – often. I didn't need to be told I looked like a bum from a bum.

“That's my line! Do you even know how you look?”

She chucked another rock at me. Hm, it was curious, she didn't seem to have a familiar. That was yet another mark in the unusual column in her paperwork, if and when I ever decided to fill it out. I dodged idly.

I probably would eventually. In another six months or so. After all, I still had the witches of hunts long past to do. That paperwork had nothing at all to do with my motivation to spend as much time as possible out in the field; none whatsoever. I was a responsible adult, I was.

“Shut up! What does a tiny little cute bitch like you, playing with guns know!?! You probably have guys fawning all over you!”

Wait.

Wait wait.

Hold the phone.

Did that over-muscled blind bitch just say what I thought she said? I looked left, at Ivan, who had been trying to work on getting close, and who was now edging away with a wary eye my direction. To my right was Alicia, already running flat out without even a glance backward; sloppy that, she could get hit that way though I suppose she was aiming for speed.

Huh. So this stupid witch had actually said… that.

I looked over at her; she had two rocks floating on either side of her, ready to fling, and was staring at me. She looked a little nervous… a little scared. Couldn't imagine why.

I dropped the smaller pistols. I really wasn't interested in playing with this stupid bitch anymore. The eagle came out.

“Take these words with you to the afterlife… I am a man.”

The first two shots popped both her rocks as they zoomed in. I was able to see her widening eyes, her disbelief… before the third took her dead center.

I didn't want to damage the hat after all; we needed it. After the debacle in Russia, we were all low on power for our generators.

Alicia peeked out of the treeline while Ivan just shook his head.

“That was clearly overkill. Your expenses are not something I envy.”

True, desert eagle rounds were not cheap; especially the ones I used.

I stared down range, gauging the damage of the shot. It was just a small concave hole in the top of the tree line on the other side of the field. Just a little landscaping; we hadn't even blown up the turf this time. The witch had done more damage.

“I disagree, nothing important died. A witch, some old tree growth. I didn't even hit an innocent bystander or town or anything.”

I heard Alicia mutter something about a first time for everything, but I couldn't have heard that right, could I?

“I'm sorry Alicia, I don't think I heard you correctly. Could you tell me what you said, please?”

She went still, which was just silly. I wasn't a dinosaur. If I was this war would already be over.

“Um, I said I could see the rest of the tree line and everything.”

Hm… that COULD have been what she said; I didn't hear her that clearly. She sagged when I holstered my revolver. It wasn't really pointed at her – or at least not anything she couldn't live without.

“Well, now that was a pleasant diversion, at least.”

It had been, but it was the second such diversion on our way to our mission objective. Cannes, a port and resort city, and the sea witch rumored to have taken up there recently. She was disrupting what little shipping was left, and supposedly feeding residents to octopi or slugs or something. What little of the file I'd read hadn't been too clear, other than to say sea slugs had been sighted.

But the second witch on the way to Cannes, and we were still miles away? It was either a setup, or the jack rabbits were breeding; maybe it meant both. This one had been a new one too, lacking in experience and knowledge; all she had done was throw stones. No invisibility, no fire, no actual spells of any kind cast… just throwing rocks with her massive arms and minuscule mind.

Oh well, the mystery wasn't for me to solve; I just stop 'em.

Alicia and Ivan both came close, proffering their generators as I picked up the pristine if dirty hard hat. The familiar hadn't even shown up when the witch was in danger; that was a little unusual. I linked our generators and fed the hat in; the machinery would do all the work of dividing the power equally. The hat itself would stay in my generator whole, of course, in case it was needed for study. At least until it fully ran out of power and dissolved.

Lately, that sort of thing didn't happen much anymore.

The process itself took a little time, so we all sat down and enjoyed the day; it was beautiful, sunny with a slight breeze coming in, with just a hint of the salt water on it. It wasn't even jacket weather. You could barely hear the train if you tried hard enough to drown it out.

Either way you looked at things, it was a little odd to get word of a witch hanging out close to the train tracks; that was a good way to run into trains. Some of which would eventually be hunter trains. It really was one of the worst places to hang out and mine or whatever this witch was doing, rolling in the mud. So why was she here, and how had anyone gotten wind of her activities? This place was nice, but seemed mostly deserted; the kind of place frequented by idiots seeking to 'get away from it all for awhile' before going back to their cushy city life, free of stress.

Any witch found here, where there were miles to hide in, wanted to be. And found and radioed in with just enough time to stop our train in order to take her out, with her not a mile from the pristine tracks? I smelled a rat. I was smelling a lot of those, these days. This was something that had to go directly to the Gloom. I pulled out my field book, a small leather bound journal that was standard equipment to all hunters.

They looked like diaries and were written as such; some of them were even published occasionally as memoirs… but they all had code that other hunters were taught to decipher, in case of bad things happening. Mine was, as so many had mentioned to me before, depressingly empty… but that was all part of the plan! Real men didn't keep diaries, so of course mine was light on actual writing and details; that's how it should look! It was all to keep up appearances, and had nothing to do with creepy women who really should be focused on men closer to their own age looking through my stuff when I was asleep. Or acted asleep. Acted asleep with all my might.

Sometimes a journal went missing when a hunter died by incineration or something, but the witches had no idea we used them as back ups for secrets… or just didn't care, so most of the time they survived even if the hunter (or even the entire hunter party) didn't.

“Wait, you're writing this one down?”

“Yeah, it's unusual to find one so close to the tracks.”

I couldn't exactly spill all of my concerns where people might be listening, even if they had to be fools for staying near a hunter war zone. Ivan watched me; he would probably follow my lead when back on the train. I don't think Alicia knew how to write, despite her often vocal claims to the contrary.

At least we now had plenty of power for the trials ahead; my generator read out was… One-third?

That was only slightly more than I entered the clearing with. I tapped the gauge with a finger. Ivan disapproved.

“It won't reset itself that way Sasha, it's digital.”

Then he looked at his own, and I saw his eyebrows climb. That confirmed it for me; she really had been weak. Too weak… and nothing of the body left. Despite the strident objections of my many jealous enemies, there often was at least something left to bury once I was done; the human body was notoriously hard to completely disintegrate.

Alicia was clueless as always, of course.

“What are you two idiots grinning about back there? Let's go to town, time's a wasting!”

Of course she did raise a good point; there was good booze in Cannes, and I'd never been there before; I'd never been allowed to go, even when other hunters were vacationing there. I'd always wanted to, but one did not simply out-stare the Gloom.

The train, being one of ours, had waited for us. It was an old steam engine, like most of ours, with one large gun that I could respect on each of the five armored cars. Each one had a gunner of course, and I waved at them as I got back on. The whole thing was over-engineered in my opinion since any large impact could just derail the thing, no matter how massive the wheels were and how they overlapped the tracks.

At least the cars were comfortable, and air conditioned. Well, that and the thing was faster than walking. The internal combustion engine was too risky anymore; there were too few people who even knew how to make fuel for it, and those people were better used in other industries, like mine. After all, fuel didn't really matter if some random hatted maniac killed you before you could burn it. The people who didn't see things that way usually died first.

But regardless of the questions raised, today was a win. We were an hour from good beer, had killed a scourge to humanity, and would likely kill another before the day was out; I just wanted lunch first.

I snoozed a bit on the final stretch and woke just as the train screeched to a stop. It was no hard feat, the thing made enough noise to wake the dead.

The platform was empty of course; the train was very obvious, and people did not hang out near hunter trains unless they were desperate for hunter intervention. Hunters were avoided by the public at large whenever it was possible; we made ourselves targets simply by existing (on purpose) and some who wore the uniform were less than savory characters. Like that pee wee, Dustin. I needed to smack him down again, on general principles, next time I saw him.

In our uniforms, we were treated like the armed train, though it was much easier for us to vanish if we needed to. We were playing bait again, of course. There were those who would talk to us, here. The desperate did exist; along with those who had a tale to tell and wanted to tell it in exchange for a drink or some gold. Maybe even both at once. We needed to find those, they would connect us to the rumor mill, which in cities without some kind of hunter presence (often the first casualty to any enterprising witch, and so not worth trying to maintain) was our main information source.

The first corner booth that promised beer was where the journey of a thousand steps began.

And like many of the best journeys, it began with a nice dark German beer. If witches really wanted to destroy human society, all they really had to do was destroy booze production; we'd kill each other in seconds.

“So, where do we start here?”

Alicia eyed me, as if the very question were offensive.

“Sasha, why are you staring at everything like that? It's unnerving.”

I shrugged.

“Never been here before; sue me.”

“Wait, what? You've never been to one of the best beach towns France has to offer?”

“Was never allowed any down time here.”

“But why….”

Ivan interrupted, probably so I didn't have to. A good thing, since it would have irritated me.

“Morocco.”

The light dawned for her.

“Ahhh... oh. Oh shit.”

Moron. I was surrounded by morons and people who thought witch hunting could be done without leveling real estate. Real hunters knew better. Come to think of it, why had the Gloom sent me here? Most large towns did not want to see me. Hell, there were even wanted posters some places, as if I were some kind of criminal.

In my darker moments, even I had to admit that the chance I'd offend someone in a position of power or influence was likely. I was not the most pleasant of individuals, and I knew it. Cannes was actually still large enough to have it's own army, and a small and elite trained force that styled themselves witch hunters (they hadn't actually killed a single witch that I knew of, their training was lackluster, and they didn't own a single generator). They insisted that they could take care of themselves, loudly and often.

It was almost like they were asking for a witch like Olivia to bump them all off.

But despite all the angry words, they didn't really have any modern or manufacturing facilities left to speak of, which did more to curb witch presence than anything else, and incidentally let them talk big… at least until a witch finally took offense.

That clearly wasn't what happened here, since the town was still standing. I couldn't figure out what the real objective was; I'd have to ask the witch when I found her.

My beer was empty. I ordered another and started in on the lunch of bread, cheese, and fruit. There was no meat, and I could really use some sausage or something, but to get some I'd have to get up and walk to another place, and buy it; I was far too lazy for that. And broke. Mostly it was the being broke thing.

I wasn't allowed direct access to the team expense account anymore. That was also due to Morocco, come to think of it.

Whatever, Morocco was a stupid city anyway.

The entire being obvious thing was our plan here; regardless of the reputation of individual hunters like myself, we could still move here in this large city openly. It was clean, heavily populated, and well controlled, all of which made it easier for the witch to hide, but harder to disappear us. Something was here; something that the witch wanted, or she wouldn't be here… so she won't just pick up and leave when she gets wind of us. No, she will try for the witches' normal plan B.

Lure us somewhere and kill us. And I was just fine with that. After all, if the witch didn't, then how would we find her in all this? This press of happy humanity? People somehow laughing, talking, forgetting about their troubles. How did that even work? Maybe Ivan knew; I could ask him later.

Sigh, I hated waiting.

“Eat your food, Sasha. I know it isn't meat, but you're a growing boy, after all.”

Stupid bearded amazon. I decided to take the high road and ignore her. I didn't really care for the décor, but I was pretty sure the Gloom would do worse than kill me if I failed another mission so soon after the last. Especially since he had to slog out to Russia himself after; he hated snow worse than I did.

After a pretty quiet lunch, at least for us, it was time to find an inn. They called them hotels here, and built them larger, which seemed rather silly to me… but people made up words for things all the time, and I guess this was no different. The hotel we were supposed to be staying at was the “Hotel Marriot”, which had been warned of our arrival and paid in advance. It also happened to be right next to the chapter house of the Cannes witch hunters.

Of course, they didn't know we knew that. Our intelligence network was pretty good, and theirs wasn't.

To the outside, it simply looked like a combination police station and firehouse, with the firemen housed within, for rapid response or something. Our official contact within the city was supposed to be there, and we were supposed to contact them immediately upon arrival.

Whoops.

But unknown to them, Wisp and her team had managed to get inside, snoop around past half asleep sentries and blissfully slumbering special troops, and catalog all the different arms and armor in the 'firehouse'. She even took copies of every document in the place, including their training manuals. She was doubled over and in tears, describing it to me.

I REALLY wanted my own copy to laugh over.

Wisp and her team may not be much in a straight fight, but they usually managed to scout out more intel on witch movements and more general intelligence than anyone else. She was also the oldest witch hunter that I knew of; she might be the longest surviving one, but it was hard to tell when most people seemed to follow my advice when writing file updates. Not that I could throw stones for that… it was clear I had started a movement. Down with the Proletariat! Whatever that was!

The streets were by no means clear, but for us they might as well have been; one look at the weapons, at the uniforms, and we were given as wide a berth as the road and crowd allowed. A few stopped outright, hesitant. Those were the ones that might have something to tell us. Or just wanted to talk to us for some reason. Or at worst, possible groupies; Wild hunt groupies were weird.

In true team Marksman fashion, we decided to check into the hotel first. The official contact could wait. They might even have to wait until we had another beer or three. But no, if I tried to do that, Ivan would mother hen us; best just stick to checking in.

We hadn't crossed half the lobby before a porter met us, wheeling a cart.

“Right this way, sirs, madam. Your rooms are on the fourth floor, as requested, and I will show you to them. May I take your bags?”

A warning look from Ivan, and I stifled myself. Must be nice, and not cause an international incident.

“No thank you. I'll carry them myself.”

A step around him, and he interposed himself between me and the front desk again.

“Alright sir, please follow me to your rooms.”

He took two steps and looked back to see if I was following. I wasn't.

“Alright, I'll give you one chance. Prove it.”

He paled as he noticed where my hand was.

“P-prove what, sir?”

“Prove that you are, in fact, a bellhop or porter or whatever you call it, taking us to our rooms. It's pretty obvious you don't want us to go over to the front desk, and that's a bit unusual, wouldn't you agree?”

I didn't want to go over there either, really. That line was long. It was the middle of the day, for crap's sake!

He proved who he was the best way he could; he held up three keys so that we could clearly make out the hotel logo stamped on them. 408, 410, and 412. I eased my hand away from my pistol; people had tried to fool us before using plants, but it appeared today was not the day for it. Well, either that or the plot was more involved.

The nervous man led us through the halls and up the back stairs. This hotel did have an elevator, but I wasn't sure it worked. None of us would trust it anyway; not after Brussels. We traveled in silence, and people encountering us in the halls shrunk back against the walls. The rooms were right next to each other of course, and I snagged a key from the guy. It was for 408. I positioned myself next to the door and tried it; it worked.

Nothing immediately jumped out from the open door, and I saw no tripwires. That didn't preclude a trap in the other rooms, but it made it less likely at least.

The porter's hand wasn't any more closed the first time; I managed to swipe the other two keys and pass them out. Alicia and Ivan pulled my trick while I covered them; I didn't actually pull my pistols, but with my hands resting on them my draw time was fast enough not to matter. It was probably a good thing that not many people knew that for sure, come to think of it.

The entries came up clear, and Ivan went through the rooms one by one, while Alicia covered him inside and I kept an eye on our porter and the hall. We did all this silently, Ivan was best with traps, Alicia was best in close quarters combat, and I was best at range; we all knew our roles without needing to ask.

The rooms checked out on all counts. Ivan coughed, and pointed to the porter, who was oddly enough still waiting patiently.

“You're still here?”

“Uh, Sasha...he's waiting for a tip.”

A tip, huh? The time-honored tradition of people in the service industry everywhere. Well, I wasn't heartless, I could help out a fellow wage-slave.

“Alright, a tip… don't drink any milk; stuff is nasty. Stick to beer.”

Slamming the door in his face so I wouldn't have to see it, I tossed my bag into a chair and went to the 'washroom', as it declared itself with a gold plated sign on the door. Giving out advice to those in need was one thing, but money? That stuff was costly!

I could probably do with a bath or something similar to wash the dirt off and crap, but I really didn't feel like it. So it was probably best to finally deal with our official contact so we could go see the sights, or swim at the beach, or whatever it was people did here. I trapped the windows, all two of them, and nodded approval over the view; there were no close buildings obstructing the view of the streets facing this side of the building.

I walked out, adjusting my pistol belt, to find the porter thankfully gone, and my team waiting, their own bags dropped off. I set my usual traps on the door, and so did they. Then we used the other advantage this room arrangement had for us; the back fire escape. From there it was a simple skip across a busy street to the 'firehouse'.

Right inside the door, a tall thin man in a uniform was leaning against the wall, hands crossed in front of him, tapping his foot impatiently. I was pretty sure that was our contact in Cannes since he looked so much like the picture I had been given when I was told to watch for a contact at the train station….

Oops?

Let's see, I had been given a name too, what had it been… Natalie? No, it's a guy. Norton? No, didn't sound right. Nathan, yeah that was it! Nathan Bon-something. Bon-bon?

He lurched off the wall upon spotting us, stalking over.

“You are late, hunters.”

“Yeah, sorry about that, the train got delayed when were tasked with finding a...”

He cut me off, the rude frog.

“I am not referring to that incident, which was called in by your conductor and duly cataloged. I refer to the train station, in which I waited by your train for over thirty minutes before….”

And he cut himself off after pulling himself up in front of us. He really was a rude frog. I started paying more attention, realizing he was staring directly at me with wide eyes and a lopsided grin. I decided to restart him, hoping it would prevent him from saying anything stupid.

“Thirty minutes before….”

“Thirty minutes before realizing that of course a beautiful young lady like yourself would want to remain unseen before refreshing herself at the deluxe hotel room provided. So I came here to wait for you….”

And he blew it.

“Sasha, no, you can't kill him!”

Alicia had my arms locked upwards; some sort of hold that kept me from drawing. I was getting careless, apparently. That and the team prediction thing we depended on was too good, at least for stuff like this. Well, I had more cards to play; I went limp.

“Come on Alicia, let me go. I'll only maim him a little, I swear.”

Alicia looked at Ivan while the frog paled.

“What is the matter? What is going on?”

The idiot didn't even realize. Not only did he need his eyes checked, but his accent was stupid.

“No Alicia, he is not to be trusted on this. Berlin, remember?”

Alicia nodded and tightened her grip, the traitor. I needed to start carrying boot guns or something; those would be much harder for her to restrain. Ivan turned to the idiot frog.

“As for you sir, you just insulted the Sasha Norre, the 'Marksman'.”

“The maniacal marksman…? But why would such a ravishing creature be insulted by compliments to her beauty?”

I snarled. Maybe if I lunged, I could bite him to death. The gorilla held firm, with gorilla strength.

“I'm a guy, you blind jackass.”

He blinked. Then blinked again.

“But how… no. I refuse to believe it; it cannot be!”

Ivan stepped in front of me, forcing a break in eye contact with my target. I tried to look past him, but he put his index finger on my nose. I HATED that, it made me look and go cross-eyed every time.

“Sasha… listen to me, Sasha. You absolutely cannot kill this man. We need him. So until we no longer need him, we need you to be the consummate professional we know you to be. Can you do that Sasha? The Gloom is counting on us to handle this.”

Right. Consummate professional, that's me, so of course, I could do it. I relaxed and straightened up.

“Fine, no killing. I won't even maim him; happy?”

At least not yet. Ivan signaled the gorilla, and she let go. Ivan was watching my shoulders warily. It was the best way to tell if a trained gunslinger was going to draw in time to react, and Ivan knew he wouldn't be able to see my hands move unless I let him.

“Yes, I'm very happy. Alicia is happy too. Aren't you, Alicia?”

Even though I wasn't looking at her, I could sense her nod in the whiff of displaced air; it was that enthusiastic.

“Very happy. No sadness here, nope!”

“Excuse….”

The frog was trying to talk? That was fine, I was very interested in what it had to say. I profiled left and Ivan moved with me, staying in front while coincidentally stomping on a foot that wasn't his. Hm, I could probably put a shot through the toes, and blow that foot off without hurting Ivan at all, but… no, I was a consummate professional, and would not risk it. No killing or maiming… yet.

I put my hands in my coat pockets. It would lag my draw time by perhaps two-tenths of a second, so it was more for show than anything else, but both Ivan and Alicia knew what it meant; it meant I wouldn't be starting a war of extermination… yet.

It looked like the frog finally realized how close he had come to death; Ivan finally unveiled the fool and his blood seemed to be pooled around his shoes. Maybe he was finally remembering that pissing off hunters was a bad idea. The first words from his mouth and the deep bow from the waist seemed to support that:

“I humbly apologize for offending you; it was not my intention, and I am deeply sorry.”

Well, apologies were good. I'd also taking pissing himself in fear, but this was almost as good as that.

“Apology accepted. So… tell us what you know.”

He straightened up and beckoned us back into the depths of the building. I guess the lobby really wasn't the best place to hold a debriefing like this. Especially a lobby filled with staring people; I snarled at them and they hurried back to whatever work they were busy with before, or at least made it look like they were. I didn't really care, as long as they weren't staring at me; staring at me led to other less savory things.

We made it to a conference room without further incident, and he gestured at us to sit down, so we each took a chair. He remained standing, pacing in front of us, which really wasn't the smartest thing he could have done, but I was a consummate professional, and could ignore it.

“The situation is this: two weeks ago, a girl came to the city, openly wearing a hat. She walked down Rue d'Antibes, taking in the sights like any tourist until confronted by a team of our chasseurs. When asked if she was a witch, she responded in the affirmative, and was promptly engaged; she fled in response.”

We were still in Russia during these events. Speaking as a consummate professional, the decision to engage a witch in the middle of the city was a bad one; it could have easily turned into a bloodbath if she fought. We were trained to try and draw witches away from population centers if possible and they normally did their best to force as many casualties as possible. Having one go willingly was a welcome switch, and so was having one run.

Well, I mean, they ran from us, sometimes. From a second rater french national team? I didn't buy that it was from fear. I don't think the french did either; he looked too angry about this.

“The team followed the witch out to the beach, along the west. The spotter reported they followed her over two miles, whereupon the witch slaughtered the entire team.”

Well, that would explain why he looked so constipated; he continued.

“Another three teams were dispatched, and the spotter reported they were waylaid by another witch while traveling to the site the first witch was last seen, and wiped out. The witch that performed the ambush rose from the sea and a host of sea creatures rose with her, including giant slugs. Also with her were several witches. Once her grim work was done, she sought out the spotter and conversed with him, in order to make it clear that she knew he was there.”

Interesting.

“Two questions for you. What is a spotter, and what did she say?”

“A spotter is a lookout of sorts. Their job is to watch the battle from hiding, with as much distance away as possible, and report on events either missed by the team on the field, arrange reinforcements if needed, and report the fate of a team and how they were overcome if necessary.”

Well, their spotter had definitely not been a consummate professional, if arranging reinforcements was in the job description. The Hunt hadn't used anything similar in decades… we didn't have the manpower. We would if we could, but we didn't get too many recruits; stupid organizations like this tended to get all the manpower they wanted. Then, of course, they lost them doing stupid things, like sending small teams of poorly trained fools when they could flood a place with numbers.

Of course, flooding a place with numbers hadn't worked for the armies of the old countries, a few centuries ago. I was no historian, but the only time armies took the field against the witches, the witches won by cooperating. Then they picked off the world leaders responsible for the army, one at a time. The only good news from that was they weren't playing nice with each other anymore. Well, that and those witches that had fallen in the battle had left hats. The first hats used in the first generators, which started The Wyld Hunt rolling.

It took awhile, but we had gotten our revenge.

“So the spotter is how you know so much, got it. Where is this spotter? I'd appreciate hearing the report first hand.”

The frog frowned.

“Spotter Lachance is currently on assignment, unfortunately. Perhaps if those duties allow it will be possible at a later date.”

Even more interesting; the spotter was being kept from us, perhaps? Did they intend this frog to be the only point of contact?

“Alright, anything else? Did your spotter positively identify the witch, or get a direction on where she went? Anything to point us in the right direction?”

Please tell me you aren't that incompetent as to have nothing. Please please please…. He frowned again.

“We did not positively identify the witch in question though she both came from and returned to the sea. Of the first witch, there has been no sign, though others have, unfortunately 'popped up', as it were, occasionally. Like the one that made an appearance earlier today, harassing the rail lines.”

Well, if witches were beginning to cooperate again, that could be bad. This really was something we needed more than one team for, much as I didn't like it. Multiple witches in the area, working together? I was going to have to dust off my radio protocols. The frog unrolled a map of the area, which helpfully had little red dots marked on it.

“These are the sightings of witches in the days since, marked by position and date. As you can see, there are over ten of them, a different one and different place each day. The encounter is always the same; the witches either make an appearance just long enough to be seen, or appear and snatch a person seemingly at random, then make an escape. It is only a media blackout keeping the city from erupting in riots or a mass exodus of refugees; the population thinks all the attacks are attributed to the sea witch.”

I knew the answer, but I had to ask the question anyway.

“Alright, the times the witches didn't take people, what was different?”

“The suspect the difference was the number of people making the sighting. In the four cases, the witch in question did not kidnap a person, only one or two people were present to witness the presence of the witch.”

Yep, I hate being right.

“So they are calling you out, specifically. Any link at all among the kidnapped people?”

Ten sightings, four without any visible goal, that left six people kidnapped unless the witch took more people.

“None that we can determine. The files are there, but among the missing are a young shepherdess, an old man here to convalesce, and a merchant here to sell cheeses.”

There were files under the map, but reading that was for suckers… like Ivan. The map itself had three red marks with orange circles over them. I tapped one while motioning Ivan to take up the files. He rolled his eyes but picked one up anyway.

“What are these?”

“Positions where a team got lucky enough to be close when a witch appeared. Or rather unlucky enough; each time a team found a witch, they engaged her. All three times the witch managed to escape, and there were always… casualties.”

I read the map notations. Each site a witch had fought one of their teams, there had been a kidnapping. One of their own being kidnapped, and they were covering it up perhaps? That was likely; I wondered if they had tried a rescue. The red marks seemed to concentrate along the beach to the west, which was a sign even a blind man could follow.

In the end, it came down to the generators. There just weren't enough to go around, and they were hard to manufacture; especially now. It was almost like the witches could detect the places behind the generator's manufacture, but even for my paranoia that was a bit much. After all, if they could, they would just hit Central and wipe the Hunt out. We were behind most of that, now.

Come to think of it, the main reason they probably didn't was it would require a level of cooperation the witches no longer possessed to hit our stronghold. Those powers on the other side, the big four, hated each other more than us. Except now, some witch was showing it. Some random witch who had managed to inspire loyalty among their insane loner ranks.

Reporting in just became a priority, the more and more we heard. If I was right in this, if the data was correct, then Humanity was in imminent danger.

People would be surprised that I knew that word, imminent. But I was a consummate professional.
I really wanted to say screw it, and sleep in the train. While making the gunners stay up; they at least would give us warning. We would have next to none in the hotel. The numbers against us were bad; easily the worst, even if the witches all sucked… and I doubted that.

“Alright. Anything else?”

My voice was steady. Just another day at the office for us.

The frog gaped for a moment.

“No, that is all we have.”

“Alright, we'll take it from here. I need you to do two things for us. One, get your spotter here, I want to talk to them. I don't care what they are doing or why, just get them here. You have until we get back.”

We needed first-hand accounts, as many as possible. We needed to know who and what we were actually dealing with; not knowing what a witch could do, or how experienced she was, would kill us as fast as any half-trained team. The frog nodded as we all stood up. Ivan snagged the files, and sensitive or not, the frog did not object when faced with us walking out with them; whatever we did now, the blame was on us.

“And the other thing?”

I worked hard to suppress a grin; necessary as it was, revenge was sweet. Especially petty revenge, but I was a consummate professional.

“I need to know how many personnel you have left that are combat capable. How many teams, what their training and fitness level is, their strengths and weaknesses. We may end up requisitioning them.”

He spluttered.

“Requisi…. You can't! You can't just…!”

I stopped and held up a finger, stopping him just short of laying filthy hands on me.

“I can if you want our help. I do have the right to refuse jobs I feel are too dangerous to my team,' - even though I never had before – 'and this one could well qualify.”

We walked out and he didn't follow. He knew we had him by the balls. On the way out of the 'firehouse' we had quite the audience of whispering people, watching us leave; it seemed that word had gotten around among their version of us. I didn't mind, because that allowed us the chance to study them in turn. I wasn't all that impressed, but didn't say so; whatever else they didn't have (like proper training or common sense) they had guts.

Ivan leaned over as soon as we were out of the place and whispered in my ear.

“So what's the plan, boss?”

Guess he was rattled by what I said back there; we'd never refused a job before. I grinned at him, and he somehow relaxed and tensed again at the same time.

“Same thing it always is. Come on, we got a call to make.”