The Code

Chapter 3

Lebanon, Kansas, Present Day

Mary came back from her chupacabra hunt surprised to find Mick gone. The storage containers that had been transformed into a hidden state-of-the-art Men of Letters bunker felt oddly empty. Over the past few months she had seen various "Bletters" (as she'd taken to calling them) come and go, but Mick had been the one constant; the only one she felt fairly certain she could trust.

Or at least that was how she felt on good days.

She second-guessed her decision constantly, more than she'd ever second-guessed any decision in her life. Even her deal, the one that started everything... until she came back she'd had no idea of the consequences of that decision. She'd been so devastated, so lost in that moment, with her mother dead, her father's dying body possessed, and John, lying in her arms, his neck snapped. The demon had taken everything from her; she had nothing left. So when he'd asked for nothing but to be allowed into her home ten years hence, she hadn't hesitated. And she hadn't allowed herself to consider it again, until the split-second before she died.

But it felt as if every move she'd made since coming back had been wrong. Or at least misguided. Everything was so strange. She'd died in an age of M*A*S*H and Thriller and Reaganomics, and she'd never even touched a computer. Now she was thrust into a world where you carried a computer in your pocket, the Berlin Wall had come down, and everyone listened to something called "hip hop."

John was gone - again. Her babies were gone, and in their place handsome men who claimed to be her sons, even though they were now older than she was - sort of. She felt a kinship to them, a closeness of sorts, but she couldn't wrap her head around the little boys she had left behind having grown into these men. Having grown into hunters. Nothing made sense.

So how could she possibly know if she had made the right decision, going with the Bletters? Mick had said repeatedly that Toni had gone off the reservation in her interrogation of Sam. He swore that it was never their intent; they just wanted to know more about American hunters to know how to approach them and work with them.

At first she hadn't believed him, but the picture he painted was so hard to resist.

"Can't you imagine it? A world without monsters? Where there aren't any hunters, because there's no need for hunters. Where your boys can live normal lives, and have children of their own if that's what they want." He'd looked at her intently, as if he could see what she was thinking. "And Mary, with your boys being adults now I know it's easy to forget, but the truth is that you're still... well, you're once again a young woman. You could start over again yourself, find someone to settle down with, have more children... have the life you always wanted, before it was stolen from you."

"But that's impossible. There's no way to rid the entire country of monsters in decades, much less years, or months," she'd protested.

He smiled. "I know it sounds that way, but we have the technology, and the experience to do it." And then he'd gone on to explain some of the technology they'd developed, and how it could be used to eradicate an entire species of monsters in mere weeks - with the right hunters to do the dirty work.

"I can't even begin to imagine what you've been through," he said to her. "But the way that you've handled everything - the way you've adapted to life in the 21st century - it's incredible. It's that kind of grit and determination that we need, that's why we want you."

"I'm rusty," she protested.

"Not in my experience," he said, shaking his head. He held out a hand to her, which she ignored. She wasn't ready to give him that kind of trust. He didn't pull his hand away, nor did he look offended. He just left it there, palm upwards in an obvious gesture. "Mary, we can do this. We have done this. With the proper training you could lead our entire team of American hunters. Are you sure that's not something you're interested in?"