And that was pretty much that. For a while, at least.

Everything that had occurred at Avebury was covered up. Standard Section 13 procedure: Lock it down, intimidate the witnesses, gag the press. They attributed the weird lights that had lit up the night sky around Avebury to a ‘rare meteorological phenomenon’. A lie the mainstream media was happy to go along with. Section 13 even had a respected meteorologist do an interview on the BBC explaining it all away with a lot of made up pseudo-science so tedious that everyone soon forgot about it.

Everyone else just shrugged and went back to their daily routines.

The mansion itself and the facility beneath had gone up in flames. A fire started by the rampaging supernaturals I’d help to release gutted the building. By the time the emergency services got the blaze under control, the underground facility had been destroyed. Most of it collapsed in on itself from an explosion caused by a weapons cache.

And I became a full-time trainee at Section 13.

It wasn’t just a desire for revenge on Victoria that motivated me, although that was a large part of it.

The truth was, as I saw it anyway, the deaths at Avebury were partly on me.

Even if I hadn’t killed anyone, even if I had tried to prevent the bloodshed at the last minute, I was still partially responsible. Yes, we’d had no choice, yes there were extenuating circumstances, yes I’d done what I’d had to do to stop a pair of power-crazed lunatics from completing their scheme. But even with all of that in mind, I felt I’d fallen short.

If I could do anything to stop more deaths on any side – with one exception - then I had a responsibility to do so. Joining Section 13 was a way of making good on that.

There are monsters out there, and innocent people who need to be protected from them. And there are supernaturals that need protection as well. The ones that aren’t killing people deserve to live as much as anyone else. Jess and Dee both deserve to be left alone. The way I saw it, and the way my friends never would, being inside Section 13 would help me keep them safe.

Moorecroft was as good as his word, and Section 13’s shoot-to-kill policy was rescinded in favour of capture and electronic tagging. Section 13 – we - focused on tracking down the remnants of the Monster Liberation Front, or The Alliance, as Balthazar had called it.

The supernaturals who weren’t taking militant action against humans were left to their own devices.

It was a truce, of sorts.

An uneasy one to be sure, but a truce nonetheless.

When people start dying, though, Section 13 will be there.

And so will I.

Pryce Industries kept going, although Victoria was in hiding. Officially, she was removed from the board of directors, but I doubted that was as real as it sounded. I was sure she was still running things in secret.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Major Wilson, like Victoria, had gone to ground.

Mum, it turned out, hadn’t been quite as hippy-dippy as I’d always thought, at least not where finances were concerned. She’d had a will made a month after adopting me, and everything she owned went to me. She’d been putting money aside for as long as I’d been with her. Not a huge amount, but between that and the meagre trainee salary Section 13 paid me, I’d have enough. The mortgage on the house had been paid off years ago, but it was a long time before I went back there.

Alice called me one evening shortly after the funeral. The number displayed as “unknown caller”.

Suspecting another gloating call from Victoria, I picked it up.

“I’m sorry about what happened, Ethan,” Alice said.

“You heard?”

“Yes. Do you know what happened?”

“It was Victoria,” I said, “In retaliation. Alice, where were you? Where did you go? At the battle? We were counting on you to fight.”

“I couldn’t go any further.”

“Why?”

Alice sighed on the other end of the phone. After a few moments’ hesitation, she tried to explain.

“There was going to be too much blood, and I can’t let myself drink from a live human. Or a dying one. I’ve never drained someone, Ethan, and I don’t want to. Even killing the three guards, as necessary as it was, it was almost too much for me, so I went the other way.”

She paused.

“I’m sorry, but I had no other choice.”

“Where are you?”

“Somewhere else.”

“I’m with Section 13 now.”

“I know.”

Of course she knew.

Alice knew pretty much everything.

Letting me know she knew, however, confirmed the suspicion I’d formed in the meantime. I’d had a lot of time to think about Alice and her role in everything. I’d concluded that she, like everyone else, had had her own agenda. Her disappearing act at the battle of Avebury had further cemented my theory that she’d been pulling strings behind the scenes.

“Who were you working for?” I asked.

“I wasn’t working for anyone, Ethan.”

I didn’t believe her.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” I pressed on. “You were the hacker. ‘Sam.’ You said you were investigating the Pryces. That’s why you were at Avebury in the first place. You suspected something was going on, but you didn’t know exactly what, so you got me to find out. I was a safe bet for you because I wasn’t affiliated with anyone at that point. Easily manipulated, still trying to work things out. You dug around, found some things out. And then got me to investigate.”

I hadn’t heard from ‘Sam’ since our initial contact. The only reason I could think of for that was that ‘Sam’ knew everything that had happened at Avebury, because she’d been there – or at least in the vicinity.

“Ethan, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Alice’s tone implied she knew precisely what I was talking about.

I let it go.

She told me things were happening. The slow return of magic to the world was shifting all kinds of power balances. No-one could be sure what the effect of the barrier between Arcadia and our world being destroyed would be in the long term.

Still, at least there were no immediate signs of an invading demonic army.

So that was a bonus.

“We can’t see each other again, Alice,” I said. “I’ll have to take you in if we do. Section 13 policy now.”

“I know,” she said.

“Where is she, Alice?”

“I don’t know.”

Alice paused, hesitated as if she wanted to say something more, then simply added, “Take care of yourself.”

The line went dead.

*

In the meantime, I guess this is who I am: Section 13 trainee Monster Hunter, Ethan Hall, and that will just have to be good enough for now.

A few loose ends? Sure.

Who bound Dee to me, and why? Still haven’t got a clue. What’s the ‘Red Council’ that Vincent mentioned? Ditto. Why did my father experiment on me and then abandon me when the experiment seemed to have failed?

Believe me, if I ever find him, I’ll be having very strong words with him about that.

If he’s still alive.

But for now, here I am: Ethan Hall, Monster Hunter.

Some of the monsters I’m hunting are human.