Something was scraping across his eardrums like sandpaper.

"Mhm," said Eliot. He rolled himself up even further in the bed's quilts and pulled a pillow over his head.

It happened again. "Go away," Eliot told the phone. "It's frigging Saturday. You know I don't work weekends."

The phone remained obstinate. After the fourth ring, Eliot swore and pulled it off its hook. "What?"

"Morning to you too, buddy."

"Oh. Ray. Go away."

"Easy. I know how you hate it when this stuff cuts into your free time, but this is important."

"Then just tell me about it. Then I can say no, and go back to sleep."

"Eliot, it's a demon."

"No."

"He's in Estevan, Eliot. That's in Saskatchewan, just twenty miles out. He's—"

"Know exactly where frigging Estevan is—"

" Let's just ice this guy. You know it'll be good fun."

Let one of the young guys handle it."

On the other side of the phone, Ray Trissome cleared his throat. "Not to get your hopes up or anything, but I think it might be Yellow-Eyes himself."

There was no hesitation, no time wasted spent stretching or thinking or pulling himself out of bed. There was only Eliot Saunders half-asleep, wrapped up in his bedsheets and hugging the phone against one side of his head and a pillow to the other, and then Eliot Saunders sitting bolt upright, yanking the sheets off of himself with one hand and pulling his gun holster off the waist-high cabinet next to him with the other.

"What's up?" he said as he began pulling his body armor out of the closet.

"A demon, possibly Yellow-Eyes, has been ID'd by one of the company sensitives as being in Estevan," said Ray simply. "I told you. Get some coffee in you already."

"Where within a couple blocks? Where's he heading? What the hell is he doing in Estevan?"

"Dunno. Dunno. Dunno."

"Great," said Eliot. He checked the holy symbols etched into the hard kevlar pieces were unobstructed and clean, and then strapped the armor around his bare legs. "I'm going to take a little while to get ready over here. You're good to go, right?"

"Eliot, I'm sitting in the frigging car outside your house. You might recognise it. It's the one that I own."

Eliot stopped fiddling with the chest pieces, stepped over to the window, and pulled the curtains aside barely enough to see. There was a young-looking dark blue Ford Mustang parked in front of his house. A moderately tall black man who looked more than slightly older waved back at him frantically, grinning.

"Yeah, I see you too," said Eliot, and let the curtain fall shut. "Give me some time to get some clothes on—" He finished tidying the jacket and shirt he'd pulled on so that they didn't look like they were hiding body armor—"and then I'll get Irene up."

"Eh, I don't think you'll need to bother even telling her you're gone. I figure we can get in, get out, finish this by the afternoon. Yellow-Eyes is probably already gone anyway."

"She's coming with us." Eliot finished the armor and started strapping on weaponry, concealing it beneath the jacket.

There was a pause, and then a sound of indrawn breath. "Eliot, you are nuts. She's just a girl."

"She's a Hunter now, she can take it."

Ray had to pause again. "Something you're not telling me?"

Eliot didn't say anything for a second, savouring the moment and trying to relive the fresh, proud memories streaming through his mind. "I was going to save this for a surprise later."

"I'm surprised now. Shoot. You say your little girl's a Hunter now?"

Eliot leaned against the bedroom wall. He put the back of his head up against it, grinning fiercely. "She's gone and blooded herself, Ray. Yesterday I was out hunting a vampire and took her with me."

"Eliot...Holy fu—"

"I barely did anything. Just took her to the scene..." Eliot's grin opened even further at the memory. "She did everything. Talked to the witnesses, worked out it was a vampire, figured out where the nest was...Ray, she even up and beheaded the thing. She's bloody good at it, Ray."

"Well, she had a hell of a father, didn't she."

Eliot's white-toothed grin lost a little of its luster. He got off the door, pulled it open, and headed down the hallway to Irene's room. "Yeah. Did my best."

"You mind if I come in there and congratulate her myself before we get started?"

"Honestly, I was about to invite you in for breakfast anyway." Eliot knocked on Irene's door. "Hey, Irene—"

Irene pulled the door open before he could finish. "Yeah, I heard you from down the hall. We're going for a ride?"

Eliot nodded. "Get your gun."

Eliot Saunders was a dark-haired 47-year-old with gray beginning to show on the edges of his hair. He was just on the short side of average height, but made up for it in fights with a well-toned wiry build and good training. The armor he wore under his clothing was either dark blue or matte black, and aside from the holy symbols and holy water-soaked linings, each piece had only one distinguishing feature: A small insignia that looked almost like a letter 'i' with an eye on top. Beneath it was the phrase 'Tower Corp', and an etched-in bar code.

His daughter Irene was maybe two inches taller. She had an asian slant to her features, raven-black hair that would look good long but was kept clipped so that it didn't go lower than the end of her neck, and a professional-looking hunting knife sheathed on her belt.

By the time Irene had finished pulling on her own working gear, Eliot had already been in the kitchen for about five or ten minutes getting breakfast. As she walked down the hall, Irene could smell the eggs frying, but above the sizzle and pop of breakfast cooking she could hear Raymond and Eliot talking. Without really thinking about what she was doing, Irene began to deliberately slow her walk to hear the end of their conversation.

"—Now, though? We haven't been able to straight-up detect him for years. Hell, I figure he even takes steps to ward off our psychics. What's he doing hanging around in Estevan, and how come we know about it?"

"Wish I knew. You think it's a trap?"

"Got to be. Just wish we knew more."

"Well, maybe he's trying to make contact with someone. You know, with one of his..."

The tension seemed to ratchet up. "You think so?" Eliot said finally.

"Why not? It's been twenty years now, right? They're probably coming of age now. Maybe he's checking up."

There was enough of a silence from that that Irene judged it to be the right time to walk in. "Morning Dad. Morning, Uncle Ray. Who's checking up? On what?"

If Irene hadn't known Eliot her whole life, she would have missed the slight tightening of posture before he got himself under control. "Nothing, hon," he said, keeping his gaze focussed on the eggs. "The company's just got some long-term projects it's finally managed to get results out of. We figure the CEO's checking up on them. That's all." And his body language added, Now please stop asking about it. Irene decided not to try to pull the truth out of her dad for now.

Raymond got up from where he'd been sitting at the kitchen table, walked up to Irene and put both his hands on her shoulders. "Congratulations, by the way. Eliot told me about the vampire hunt. I'm just sorry I didn't get to see it."

Irene looked away, shrugging. "Not much to see. Bunch of talking and driving around, didn't even really fight it. Just got up behind it without it noticing and beheaded it before it knew what was going on."

Raymond snorted. "Sounds like a job seriously well done to me. By the book, not a single screwup." He jerked a finger towards Eliot. "This guy ever tell you about his first hunt?"

Irene could actually detect her father's frown even though he was five meters away with his back to her. "No. And you're not going to, either."

Raymond glanced at Eliot, evaluating, and then turned back to Irene, lowering his voice theatrically. "So there's this shifter in Brooklyn, right? And—"

"Hey!"

"We track it down by the book and everything, keeping each other in sight the whole time so the bugger can't do the old 'body snatchers' trick. Except six hours in, Eliot decides he needs to pee. He's all private about it, and—"

"Eggs are up. You know, so you can drop this and start eating?"

"I lose sight of him because he goes behind a tree, and when I see Eliot get back it's really the—"

Eliot threw up his hands in surrender. "Look, I'll tell her. Later. You'll be around to listen then, and we can all laugh at the stupid-novice-Hunter story."

"Okay," said Ray. "In fact, I say we go out for beer after the trip and swap first-time stories."

"Done."

They ate in silence, mostly for the sake of speed, and then headed out to Raymond's car. Eliot and Raymond got into the front, with Irene in the back. As they headed out, Eliot turned in his seat and asked, "You ready to hunt a demon, then?"

Irene shrugged. "Far as I know. Can't think of anything else to take."

"I don't mean weapon-wise. They're tricky bastards, not to mention completely evil. Stay on your toes, don't panic, and whatever you do don't start hesitating when you're fighting it. They thrive on fear, and they'll exploit whatever leeway you give them."

"Got it." Irene said.

They reached the border between Saskatchewan and North Dakota after around ten more minutes of driving, all of them noticing the slowly-growing tension hanging in the air. Eliot had always called it the thrill of the hunt, and despite the fact that she was only experiencing it for the second time Irene had already decided that the name was both somewhat poetic and completely appropriate.

Hey, dad," said Irene, mostly to break the silence, "you bringing your Colt?"

Eliot grinned at her, and opened his coat a little so that Irene could see the holster, specially made for the long barrel of a Colt. Just above the holster was the telltale black carbon fibre-grip handle of a Tower-made weapon. "Of course. You know, I've been waiting to get to use this baby since they handed it over last month."

Ray nodded. "I dunno if you've tried it out yet, but they've got a hell of a kick to them. Practically have to use both hands to hit something."

"He's been practicing in the garage," said Irene.

"You're dad's a lucky man, Irene. Not a lot of Tower employees with one of those. They pass 'em down on the Hunter's twentieth year with the Tower, like a bonus," said Ray. He turned to Eliot as he swung the wheel around for a left turn. "Just make sure there aren't any non-Tower Hunters that see you using it, or they'll start thinking this is the Second Coming and you've got the starring role or something. That bloody gun is a real legend among the freelancers."

Irene frowned. "They don't know about how there's more than one?"

"Nah. Tower secret. We own all the other copies anyway."

Time passed. Eventually Eliot said, "Why?"

"Huh?"

"Why am I lucky, Ray? Because I've finally earned a Colt and I'm going to kick some demonic ass with it, or because you and I are probably the only two Tower Hunters in this state to make it to age forty?"

Raymond thought it over. "Well, little bit of both... But mostly? Because I think your daughter's going to be an even better Hunter than you," Then he grinned. "Hell, maybe she'll even be better than me."