Jodi felt a grimace. “Well, I think you’ve still got a few good moves left in you – you and your buddy. What’s his name?”
“Poe.”
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THE FIRST IN THE MONSTERS AND MEN TRILOGY BY LAWRENCE DAVIS!
BLUNT FORCE MAGIC by LAWRENCE DAVIS
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CHAPTER 1
The Deliverers’ Deliverance
For a month and a half straight I’d been staring stupidly at this door.
Correction: for a month and a half straight I’d been staring at the green insignia carved beside the door with the same blank, dumbstruck face my father use to hate so much when I was a kid. Once a week I dropped a package from a fancy meal kit company on the welcome mat and just gawked. The symbol resonated with the life I used to live. It was an emblem of some kind, but who could say?
Most people imagined that when a ragtag group led by a hero was combing through tomes and scrolls, they usually happened upon whatever they were looking to find. In reality, that could take a long time. People and civilization were older than our concept of time, older than written language. Finding context for an archaic hieroglyph was tough work, I know; I used to be part of a merry band thumbing through those endless stacks of books. The search was maddening; you had to force-feed yourself so much information that you ended up brain-dumping half the lore you’d learned almost immediately after assimilating it once you were confident it wasn’t what you were looking for.
Anyway.
For a month and a half straight I dropped the package down, stared, reflected, and usually just shrugged before leaving. It didn’t just bother me because I couldn’t place it; there was something about the insignia that didn’t fit. Not my business anymore, though. I was an aging vagabond working a dead-end job because the benefits package was respectable and I could usually get through my entire day with only a few exchanged niceties as shallow as my faked smile.
Today wasn’t any different, aside from the fact that I closed down the bar the night before and was suffering the consequences. At least it shouldn’t have been. Package deposited, I gave myself the usual span of time to scrutinize the symbol. This time, I entertained the notion that it may have had some kind of localized Pagan origin. This area had an extensive and rich history, and, as I wasn’t really an expert in it, maybe that was why it was such a mystery to me. I was about to return to my asinine, uneventful life, when I felt it.
When you’ve consorted with evil—and I’m not talking about a rambunctious frat boy or some hyper-aggressive meathead who’s heavy-handed with a girlfriend, but actual evil: you feel it coming. It has a distinctive, suffocating presence. We all experience it differently, but the effect and impression are universal.
So, there I was, half a decade removed from a life I’d left behind, when everything went to absolute shit. Whatever the governing power behind timing was must have hated me. Once a week for a month and a half I’d spent no more than a minute on this doorstep. The disparity between the time spent there compared to the time spent everywhere else had to be astronomical, and yet there I was.
The hairs on my arms had just about fully risen when the door I was staring at exploded open. I was fast, but not supernaturally so. I’d spent more time in the thick of violence than I cared to admit or recall, and that alone saved me from getting a face-full of splintering wood. I spun out of the way just in time to see the guy who’d just wrecked his own door with a Spartan kick follow that up by leveling an old school, pump-action shotgun at the very quaint fence I’d just walked past to get here. There was a life-threatening fear in his old eyes, his hands shook as he aimed the barrel of the gun past me and toward the gate in his front yard. I turned to see what could possibly have driven so seemingly sane a man out of his mind.
That’s when I saw it. That was when everything started to come together.
***
This isn’t a world of make-believe, yet we still seek what we know to be impossible—from the wild extravagance seen in filmmaking to the outlandish lore built into any science-fiction series. It has a way of speaking to us, an escape from a reality that’s grown stale or unforgiving. All of us have daydreamed about it, growing pensive while we wonder what it would be like to be surrounded by such wonder.
It’s not everything you think it is. Walking in a winter wonderland is a cold, scathing trek.
Routine has a way of bastardizing normalcy which makes it seem so unremarkable that we strive for something completely outside of our understanding: fantasy.
The problem with fantasy is that we’ve largely relegated it to the happily ever after genre. It doesn’t work that way, in real life. We’re afraid of the dark because a cultivated sixth sense is warning us away from it. Our instincts were honed over countless centuries, a direct line to our subconscious protecting us from something. Man built fire not only for warmth, but to ward off the shadow that was eager to swallow us whole; it’s why the Bible begins with the creation of light to divorce us from the darkness, that separation is foundational to our species. Over time we’ve lost that fear, the limelight of our neon paradise making us immune to it. You should know that there is an ugliness just beyond our understanding that if we invite it, if we consider it too long, if we happen upon it, will strike. It might flirt with us, all coy and suggestive, but like every arrogant predator, that’s just it toying with a meal before devouring it whole.
I know, I’d been eaten alive. And here I was, in the middle of it again. They say the path to hell is paved with good intentions, and they couldn’t be more right.
***
The shotgun thundered, the sound reverberated through my eardrum and it felt like half my head went numb. It snapped me back to the present. If you’ve never had the distinct pleasure of standing beside a powerful weapon when it’s gone off, it wasn’t everything Hollywood had made it out to be. It was deafeningly loud and incredibly angry.
The guy who’d just come out like a suburban Rambo had a mix of madness and betrayal in his stare; before he could fire again I slapped a hand beneath the barrel and directed it toward the porch roof. “Stop,” I hissed with as much calmness as I could muster. “Get. Inside. Now.” I was trying to stay calm even as adrenaline tore through me quick as a lightning strike.
The thing he had shot at was an abomination. Humanoid in shape, but warped by something insidious. Its fingers were spindled and long; halfway down each was a bloody opening where its claws started. Its knees were snapped backward like a bird and its legs ended with six-toed feet, gnarled and lethally clawed as well. Claws so sharp they cut back into its own body, leaving its hands and feet filthy with dried black blood. Literally rending the very flesh they sprouted from.
All of that didn’t compare to its face. Night-black eyes glittered in sunken slits, the suffocating void in them a direct reflection of their indifference to dealing out so much death. An exaggerated mouth was not quite canine but in that cast, as if its maker couldn’t decide what kind of monster this would be. The beast’s teeth were several rows deep like the jaw of a shark, elongated, razor-sharp, and capable of biting clean through a person. Its arms were so long they nearly dragged those clawed fingers on the ground, which made it easier to sink down to all four limbs and prepare to pounce.
I had only ever read about this abomination, only seen estimations of its likeness inked on parchment, but it all came flooding back. It was an ancient enemy of mankind, a conjured creature with more names than I cared to cite. In most circles they called them Stalkers, as they were used to hunt down someone who was notoriously hard to find and even harder to capture or kill. Here’s the breakdown: first, in order to bring one of those things to this reality, you had to be powerful—powerful enough to alter the future of mankind. The second part was that they were a perfect predator: fearless, nearly indestructible, and singular in their focus to obta
in their prey. They tipped the scale somewhere between three and four hundred pounds, moved too fast to register with human eyesight, and they topped off at just beneath seven feet. We were desperately outmatched and wasting ammo was going to get us all killed.
I wasn’t easing my grip on the gun, and the old man’s shocked look turned into full-fledged panic. I’d had very little time to understand what was happening and less to react, and because this was just a banner day when the man started trying to hurriedly explain what was happening he was speaking in Spanish.
Perfect.
It wasn’t all his fault. My complexion led a lot of people believe I was of Hispanic descent. I was short and stocky, five-seven if we’re being honest, five-nine if it’s a dating website. A fan of a good workout but also guilty of frequenting dive bars and burger joints so it wasn’t like I was going to win any shirtless competitions. I had the everyday-guy thing going for me, though if the girl is desperate enough I think I passed as handsome in the right light. The confusion was caused by my jet-black hair and standard issue brown eyes that seemed to come stock to my tan skin and with that people assumed I was a card-carrying member of the Spanish-speaking community. I wasn’t.
So, while he was yelling in Spanish, I had a major-league bad ass dropping to all fours—the telltale sign it was about to burst across the whole lawn and start ripping me to shreds—and five years of rust to contend with. You know, another Tuesday afternoon.
***
In the life before this one I was a budding Artificer. Now, the internet dictionary will tell you that’s a skilled inventor or craftsmen. Beneath that there will be a description from Dungeons and Dragons. Don’t believe me? Check it out, I’ll wait. The idea was that I would become something between the two. The truth was that my mentor was an Artificer and I was a promising student who’d had all the right stuff to be one myself but couldn’t quite put it together. That’s how it is in this life. Hell, life in general—a quarterback with every tool and physical advantage who just can’t step up in the big game, a wizard from the most esteemed family line unable to bring together the simplest spell. The optimist in me kept at it for as long as I could until the work I started to produce was actually becoming less helpful and more a liability, so eventually the pragmatist in me won out. Still, I had an ace or two up the old sleeve and a treasure trove of trinkets handed down to me when the old man, my mentor, was killed with the rest of our merry band of do-gooders.
It’s like I said though, this life isn’t an ideal escape into joyous adventure. This life also just had a way of finding you.
Even with the tragedy, hardship, and let-down that came with having to play second fiddle to the people I loved and respected most, I was never much of a quitter. If I was going to punch my ticket for that big ride in the sky, I would rather do it in the thick of a fight. Going gently into the night just wasn’t my style.
***
A mix of adrenaline, youth, and momentum helped me wrest the shotgun clean out of what I assumed was the homeowner’s grasp as I used my other hand to shove him back through the dangling door he’d just kicked almost clean off the hinges. I was trying to control the cadence of my breath and stifle the rise of fear, even with the incessant cries going on behind me. I could distinctly make out the old man and another voice. I had some modicum of success with gulping down the desire to run for my life. This creature was full of enough self-preservation to be wary when faced with someone who won’t turn and run the second they laid eyes on it.
I imagined that this was what a gunslinger felt like when faced with an even bigger and badder opponent while being without a revolver to draw. This game was going to be based on a bluff, which was hard enough when my attention was undivided. Right now I was worried about whoever was yelling in the house, what this thing was doing here, and this nagging feeling about the pagan symbol next to the door. I fed the monster a smirk, playing my utter lack of hand with this all-in gambit for what it was worth.
That is when I heard it. Maria. That was the name the old man called the female voice inside. Apparently, the name got the mud-stuck wheels in my hungover head going because the symbol I had been wrestling with trying to figure suddenly leapt out at me. The Morrigan. The Irish goddess of witches and about everything else. That was what bothered me. The symbol guarding the door was wrong, which was a pretty common thing when trying to decipher an ancient text that was based off another, even older text and translated into a foreign language that hadn’t even been invented yet. The stalemate on the lawn was ending fast, the beast was either growing too restless to give a damn about the fact I hadn’t backed down or it simply had seen through my guise of worthy guardian. It gave a stilted sniff that drew in the still air between us for a taste. The action somehow came off as a kind of snide cackle to me.
There it was: the calm. The calm right before the storm.
Those powerful, twisted haunches flexed and both it and I exploded into motion. It crossed twenty feet with one incredible leap, bounding right for me. Me? I slapped the broken door as hard as I could, the familiar sensation of pain lanced through my hand and down my forearm. One of the fractured shards of wood cut into my hand producing an ugly cut that bled freely, but I didn’t slow. Slowing down would get me killed. I turned to the symbol that I had stared at for a minute a week for six weeks and finally solved at least one mystery before an untimely death.
Dipping my free hand fingers into my cupped one where the blood from my laceration was pooling, I drew one last line above the circular singlet decoration just outside the door frame, crossing a lone line that rose from above the oval that the symbol was held inside of. That last bit was the missing piece to complete the circle of power. It didn’t require blood or anything so dramatic, but I was out a pen (packages are signed for with a digital pen now) and it wasn’t as if I had a lot of time to work with. Plus, with the language barrier between me and the owner of the house, it wasn’t as if I could convey what I needed quickly enough. Still, blood has power in it too. Magic is a funny thing, anyway. Belief in something can empower it.
The Stalker was so close that I swear I could feel that thing breathing down my neck. It hit the invisible barrier like the force of nature it was, shaking the entire foundation of the house and sending a literal whoosh of air washing over me. I could smell its acrid breath and taste the sheer foulness of it. I was half in the door and half on the small porch when a very human urge came over me. Despite knowing better, I turned back around to get a real good look at this old, ancient evil. For a long time we took measure of one another. They say it’s dangerous to stare into the abyss because it will eventually notice you. There was a cold intelligence in these wild eyes and I knew it had marked me, from the way it was glaring to the deep draw of breath that was thick with my scent. In a heartbeat I’d made mortal enemies with the most powerful thing I’d ever had the distinct displeasure of crossing.
And it wasn’t even three o’clock yet.
Skip over the part where an impossible Hunter from another reality was here, or the fact that the panicked man knew to immediately open fire at it, and of course the botched symbol of an old, powerful goddess revered by witches, and we still had a guy in khaki shorts and a puffy coat (me) from a brand name parcel service stumbling into a living room with two wide-eyed strangers staring slack-jawed at me. From the outside looking in, what I’d done was impressive. I’d smirked at a monster before cutting my own hand open, repaired their protection emblem, and raised a field of invisible power that stone-cold stopped a freight training monster midway into a crazed rush.
“Hi,” I winced foolishly, trying to gather myself from a wave of emotion that I couldn’t even begin to streamline into any kind of coherent thought. “Hola?”
“I speak English,” the girl countered irritably. I had a way of annoying people almost instantly and judging from her disposition it seemed that my run of bad luck with women was going to hold strong
. “Who are you?” There was something off about her, but, given the fact there is an age-old Evil stalking a barrier I’d just whipped up on the fly and the still-talking old man is serving as a soundtrack to our strained conversation, I was having a tough time placing it. She quieted the shotgun-wielding lunatic with a reassuring word or two, but before I could think how I was going to answer, she was looking at me again with those gorgeous brown eyes.
Gorgeous? Dammit.
“Janzen,” I dumbly pointed at the badge that proudly displayed my name across it. “Janzen Robinson.”
“Maria,” she said curtly, clearly disinterested in spending any more time on formalities. “How did you do that?” An up-nod from an elegantly shaped chin directed my attention back to the barrier. I wasn’t really empathetic to the worlds beyond the In-Between, but I’ve enough sense to discern that the Stalker was gone.
“You didn’t draw the symbol correctly, but it was close enough to do most of what it’s designed to do. Precision is pretty important with this stuff, almost as much as the belief that’ll fuel it.” I don’t know why I only realized at that moment, but I had my hands up. I was either clutch under pressure or an utter mess. Demonic monster? Bring it on. Pretty girl? Catastrophe.
I put my hands down with a half shrug. It looked perfectly ridiculous since I still had the shotgun. Exchanging a look with the father, I awkwardly handed the spent weapon over to him and he, being just as embarrassed, muttered his thanks.
“We got lucky,” I answered honestly. “I assumed someone in the house believed in Morrigan, the old Irish goddess of witches. Since I was right, when I completed the insignia it amped up the protection spell. Before, it probably kept someone from aiming a tracking spell at you or maybe scrying, but it wasn’t going to be able to ward off something like that unless done properly.”
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