After she started supplying her own protective gear, she hadn’t had to worry about severe wounds. The Order’s idea of body armor consisted of heavy vests and plates that encumbered her; anything lighter had to be out of her own pocket.
As she dried herself, she thought about the danger she could be putting them into by letting them tag along. Paul hinted that everyone in the Pacific Northwest branch of the Order had been getting picked off: by being with her, they were just as likely to get killed, too, if the mysterious hit squad were to suddenly appear.
Conversely, where would they go? Whoever is looking for them is bound to find them, and they’ll probably die then, so why not give them a better chance by running with her? Anything sounded better than dying in cages.
While brushing her teeth, she thought about bombarding messages to the East Coast, the Appalachian Order of Immortuos Venandi facility, the only other branch located in the United States. If she could contact them, perhaps they could bring enough hunters to bulldoze the situation.
She dressed, another casual outfit that consisted of dark jeans and a graphic printed shirt declaring her immortal love of Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn.
She left the bathroom and went to the front of the motel where she left her shoes (she’d put her heavy boots back in the trunk the night before). She noticed Liama awake, sitting up but wrapped in her blanket. Thomas had cleaned up his work at the table, though the bullets still stood upright in and organized fashion, like tin soldiers.
Liama beamed up at her, her hair like a curly bird’s nest. Fiya gave an attempt to smile back but not too much because she didn’t want these strangers to get too attached.
Fiya slipped her shoes on, dark-blue denim loafers, without socks. “I’ll be back,” she said as she touched the French-style door latch. “I’m just getting food. Don’t open the door for anyone other than me.”
“Where you going?” Liama asked, standing up from the bed.
“Honey,” Thomas interjected before Fiya could reply, “we’re not going to be picky; we’ll eat what she gets us.”
Liama frowned. “I was just curious, is all.”
Fiya pushed down on the latch to open and remembered she had to unlock the chain bolt. As a crack of morning light came into the room, she turned and saw Liama with a grumpy little face, wrapped up in her blanket. “I’m getting whatever’s nearby. Probably burgers.”
“Yes!” Liama cheered. “I hate breakfast food!”
Thomas sighed and nodded as he watched Fiya in the doorway. “Yeah, she’s picky like that.”
Fiya forced a little smile, feeling a little bit of a sting because she, in fact, loved breakfast food, and repeated, “I’ll be right back.” Then she exited the motel, hoping she wouldn’t start hearing special requests, and then paused before closing the door. She took one last peek inside toward them and said, “Put the chain back up when I close the door.”
Thomas nodded as she clicked the door shut.
At the drive-thru of a place that dared to call itself Wonder Burger, Fiya waited for her order: regular cheeseburgers, however they make them ─ probably with thousand-island dressing, lettuce, tomato, and onions, since that seemed to be what was popular, which she hated ─ except for two completely plain cheeseburgers with only pickles. The doofus at the speaker actually had the nerve to ask her if she still wanted cheese on that plain cheeseburger, and she fought the urge of cussing out the guy. Why would I pay extra for a cheeseburger only to have them remove the cheese? She also got several orders of fries along with them and plenty of ketchup and mustard packets. Four plain Cokes. She needed to get something in her stomach, which had been boiling like some kind of monster. Maybe she’d check out the convenience store across the street for some antacid; hopefully, that would simmer down the monster. It’d been popping up every day lately as a nuisance.
With no car in front or behind her, she was relieved she was the only person in the drive-thru: no annoying music blaring from another vehicle, just the gruff purr of the Challenger to keep her company.
She watched the employees in their dark-blue outfits with orange bow ties bag up the burgers and then drifted into thought about where the hell she was going to take the Bradleys. Thomas was urgent about helping the other captives, but if there really were a bunch of guards ─ and werewolves ─ they’d need more than just her. At a minimum, she’d need to get the gun she had in mind and possibly more help. Fiya wished Paul hadn’t quit on them because that would have added to their numbers. She never thought much of him in the first place due to a lack of interaction, but yesterday’s encounter was enough for her to dismiss him.
Paul was nothing compared to who she was really thinking about … Someone far more competent and considered an elite hunter. Someone who was still living in Washington but retired due to age instead of selfishness. If truly there was a hit put out on members of the Immortuos Venandi, his home was likely hard to find.
If they did find it, Rutger Bronson probably didn’t welcome them with open arms.
The Challenger returned to the Suncrest Motel. Most of the other visitors had checked out by the time Fiya came back, so now she was concerned that her car could be easy to spot. She parked the Challenger at the end of the lot, allowing a blue 18-wheeler Freightliner truck parked along the length of the parking lot to block her baby from the road. It wasn’t perfect, as someone traveling southbound could spot her car pretty quickly, but it was all she had. She didn’t recall seeing the truck before she left and kept an eye on it through the room window as they ate.
Thomas and Liama scarfed down their burgers. Liama plucked off the tomatoes and onions but kept the rest of the toppings. Judging by Thomas’ happy face, Fiya assumed he thought they were the best burgers he’d ever eaten. To her, they were pretty decent. She had put ketchup in addition to the pickles so it wouldn’t be so dry. The pickles were nice and thick chips; exactly how she liked them.
“I really don’t know why,” Thomas said, wiping his hands on the napkins Wonder Burger generously provided. “They just took us, they never gave us a reason why, for what purpose, you know? They clearly had some kind of plan. I thought at first, they were going to take Liama because of all that trafficking stuff I see on TV. I head-butted one of the men, thinking they were going to sell her into that, so they pumped more drugs into me. Eventually, I figured out that wasn’t going to be the case when they let her share the cage with me.” He sipped on the Coke. “I’m glad they didn’t take her away. I don’t know what I would have done if they did.”
He looked at Liama, who ate her fries quietly. “Everyone I spoke to there didn’t have a clue. The ones who were there longer were told nothing. Some had been there for a week. And everyone seemed so random ... Where are we now?”
“East of the Seattle area, other side of the mountains,” Fiya answered, glancing out the window again.
“And we were taken in Olympia, and that means they drove a long way just to take us. It doesn’t make sense.”
“A lot of serial killers travel a long distance for their victims.” Thomas fell silent, and Fiya just realized that probably wasn’t the right thing for her to say just then. She added, “Maybe they just saw the right opportunity, and it was bad timing?”
He shrugged. “The next day was when I noticed the smell coming off the guards. They smelled like something dead, like roadkill. That kind of smell where you know it when you smell it, and there’s nothing close to it? Like pot? When someone says, ‘Oh it smells like burning rope’ or ‘burning plastic,’ and you’re like ‘No, it doesn’t, it smells like pot’? They smelled like decay. I think they tried to hide it with car air-fresheners, but you could still smell death on them. Something was wrong. I don’t know if there were piles of bodies that these guards were working with in the rest of the school, but the smell was nasty, and it never left them.” He sipped from the Coke again, shuddering as he recalled the smell.
Fiya nodded as she listened, at the same time thinking about
how his captors were probably ghouls, but things didn’t quite make sense yet.
Thomas continued. “The night we made our escape, one of the guards told us to stop stressing the meat, and it’ll be all over in a couple of days.”
“Wait!” Fiya said, alert and leaning forward in her chair. “It spoke?” One eyebrow arched while the other remained flat, and she curled up her lip. “The ghoul spoke? You sure about this?”
Thomas looked at Liama, who nodded along, and then back to Fiya. “Uh … yeah, it definitely spoke. All of them did, even though they wouldn’t really tell us anything.” He paused. “Did you just say ‘ghoul’?”
“Yes, a ghoul. Or zombie. Undead former people, usually with shit for brains. ‘Zombie’ is a broad term for the mindless undead. They’re pretty much the same thing, except ghouls specifically eat human flesh. If a zombie does that, we classify them as ghouls.”
Baffled, Thomas sat and wasn’t sure how to respond or even blink. His eyes drifted to the carpet.
Liama’s eyes grew in astonishment as if her dreams were coming true. Monsters were officially real to her, and she wondered what else could be real out there. Werewolves last night and now ghouls! “That’s so cool!”
Thomas barely turned his head to shush her, bothered at her level of excitement over all this, and then his eyes floated back to Fiya.
“You’re looking at me like I’m nuts,” Fiya said.
“… No.”
“It’s okay. You only just witnessed werewolves last night. Why would ghouls and zombies be real, right?” She wasn’t even sure why she was being so defensive; it just blurted out of her.
Liama sat up from the bed, smiling. “Are vampires real, too?”
“Liama, please,” Thomas said, waving his hand to settle her. He closed his eyes to help take in all of this.
“Si, vampires are real, too.” Fiya glanced back at the truck, still guarding her Challenger. She thought she might be overly paranoid about it ─ something about big trucks always caused her discomfort ─ and now she was even more determined to keep Liama close by. She continued, “Back to my point … Ghouls don’t speak. Or rather, they can’t communicate. They may try, but it’ll be a bunch of grrrs, guffs, snarls, and hisses.”
Thomas stood up and carefully put his chair back under the tiny table. “This is crazy.”
Fiya stared at him with a blank face and a flat mouth. She shrugged.
“This is ─ excuse my language, baby ─ this is all kinds of fucked up.”
Liama snickered at the uncommon use of her father swearing.
“Yeah, it’s fucked up,” Fiya replied, “but true.”
Thomas paced slowly in the room as this new information processed through his mind. “Huh. How … why … where have these things been this whole time? Were they just hiding this whole time and now just coming out of the woodwork? Everyone has a phone these days, so how come no one posts pictures or videos of these on Facebook or YouTube? How’s this not common knowledge these days?”
“Well,” Fiya said while rubbing her temple, “pictures and videos do get taken from time to time, but those that do are accused of faking it. Some of them are actually true; they just get lost in the shuffle of scam artists. We pretty much let the disbelief of internet trolls take care of keeping things low key.”
“Okay …”
“These things have always been here, but exposure has been tightly controlled and monitored. Humans are the majority population still, and many of these creatures are in a vast minority, which makes it easier for them to hide. Most of the time, when a person comes into contact, they’re killed. You just so happen to be a victim that didn’t. That’s rare.”
He stopped pacing in the middle of the room and cocked his head at Fiya. “Wait … you said ‘we’ earlier.”
“What?” Fiya asked, furrowing her brow.
“You said ‘We call them ghouls’ or something like that. Who’s this ‘we’?” He cocked his head to the side, anticipating an answer.
Fiya looked back out the window. She knew she said too much already, enough to get chewed out, but wondered if it even mattered. Who would chew her out at this point? “We should get going soon.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” Thomas repeated, amplifying his voice to try to intimidate her into answering.
She stalled out of habit and training. She really wasn’t supposed to be talking about this to people, the general public. Civilians, she was told, couldn’t handle the truth. But who’s going to stop her now from spilling the beans?
Taking a deep breath, she answered, “I’m sort of a hunter. A slayer, knight, agent, soldier, exterminator … whatever you want to call it.”
Thomas crossed his arms over his chest, but Liama climbed on the bed, on her tummy, excited for story time.
Fiya continued, “The Order of the Immortuos Venandi is the name of our organization, and Immortuos Venandi is Latin for ‘undead hunter.’ At least so I’m told, I didn’t bother to look it up, I took it at their word. We get sent on assignments to take care of things that go bump in the night, and we try to do it as discreetly as possible.”
Thomas nodded slowly, but his eyes were still trying to detect bullshit. “Is this a government thing?”
“Not really. It’s a worldwide organization. There are two locations for us in the States: one nearby, the Pacific Northwest facility, and the Appalachian facility. Rome is sort of our main office. The top level guys in government are aware of us and aids us in keeping the public from not knowing. Even the Pope agrees.”
Liama gasped. “Is the Pope your leader?”
This suggestion made Fiya laugh, the first for her in a while. “No, no, he just has a say, like he’s part of a committee. The U.S. President knows too. The whole U.N. is aware of us, actually.”
“Have you ever met him?” Liama asked.
“The President?”
“The Pope, but him, too!”
Fiya shook her head. “Nada, I’ve stayed on the west side of the country. Since I’m a hunter, I’m one of the grunts. This ‘we’ you’re asking about, we’re kind of like cops, but the bad guys we take out are the supernatural kind. We do our best to keep things under wraps from the public eye, but frankly, I’ve always hated that rule. The undead ─ monsters ─ they’ve been around a really long time, and the Immortuos Venandi was organized as a way to hunt and destroy the undead and any other supernatural threats to mankind. As far as the undead go, vampires are the only ones I’ve encountered that display any real intelligence, but they tend not to smell like rotting flesh. So, given that this appears to be in my field, I’m curious what these guards that held you captive really are.” She was also curious how she didn’t feel exhausted talking to strangers just yet.
Uncrossing his arms, Thomas sat down again. He seemed to struggle with everything he just heard, shaking his head and widening his eyes. His attempt at detecting bullshit had failed, and what she said seemed like it should’ve been obvious bullshit.
Fiya moved away from the window and leaned into Thomas, who backed away, confused at first, until she bent and pulled on her shirt collar to reveal the rune tattoo on the lower base of her neck. “You see that?” she asked.
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
Relaxing her collar, Fiya sat down at the table across from him. “That tattoo is a logo ─ no, sorry, a rune ─ that stands for ‘death to undead.’ It’s drawn from the ancient symbol for ‘Angel of Power,’ with a stake in the middle. The rune is called the KNIV, which comes from an older version of the organization’s name: Knights of the Immortuos Venandi.”
“Death to undead. Sounds blunt.”
She nodded in agreement. “It is. It’s given to us as part of a ritual that grants us the strength to fight these things. See, since most of them are stronger than men, we need to be beefed up, so to speak, to handle the job. I didn’t want to say anything last night, but as Liama continuously pointed out, I am stronger than I appear. My metabolism’s generally better so
I can recover from injury faster than normal, and …” Fiya thought for a moment, looking at the floor. No point in holding back now, right?
Sucking in a breath, she continued. “I think that’s about it. It’s like a blessing, rather than being pumped up on steroids. But I still would be considered cheating if I try out for competitive sports. That same rune is on my sword, and it, too, has a special blessing. Strike the undead with it, and it helps make sure they stay dead. Won’t even need a ray of sunshine or a stake to the heart for a vampire … As long as I strike them in an area that would normally be a mortal or lethal wound for a living being, it’ll affect them the same.”
“Huh.” Thomas wanted to say more, but that was all that he could muster.
“So, you’re a superhero!” Liama blurted, jumping to her knees on the bed.
“Liama! Don’t be silly!” her father barked.
Liama’s face fell into sadness. “But she wears a mask when fighting monsters! She’s super strong and has a magic sword.” She lowered back down, sitting on her bottom.
Fiya tried to hide her blush by leaning away to look out the window again. She didn’t really want to say all that to impress the kid; she just wanted to lay out all the information so her father could understand what world they’d woken up in.
“You read way too many comic books, baby. It’s just fantasy puff stuff.”
Liama looked down at her knees as she settled back down on the bed and glanced over at Fiya’s “guitar” case. “But it’s such a big sword.”
Thomas turned to Fiya after glancing at the case. “Why a sword?”
She shrugged. “Out of the options, it was my favorite. There aren’t many options. I suppose I could’ve selected something a little more modern as other hunters do, but I liked the old-fashioned longsword.”
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