by J. C. Diem
“Will these other hunters be human, or supernatural like us?” the ghost asked.
I shrugged and stuck my thumbs through my belt loops. “We won’t know that until after we meet them.”
“We won’t be able to add to our team until this wreck of a house has been fixed,” Rudy said, eyeing the decrepit ruin unhappily.
“In a few weeks, this old girl will look brand new,” I told him. I’d never bothered to do many repairs to the other houses I’d owned. None of them had needed to be brought back from the brink of death like this one did. It was a zombie house if I’d ever seen one.
“It would be nice not to have to haunt an eyesore,” Leroy mused. “This house doesn’t fit the image I’m trying to portray.” His gold tooth reappeared in another wide grin.
“I can’t believe we’re going to be sharing a house with a pimp,” Rudy said quietly so only I could hear him.
“It could be worse,” I said philosophically. “He might be an ex-criminal, but at least he isn’t psychotic.”
“I guess,” he said doubtfully. “He almost went to the dark side at the prospect of becoming a slave, though.”
“I can’t say I blame him for that. I wouldn’t like the idea of being bound to obey anyone’s orders either.”
“Are you two mahfas talking about me?” Leroy called out suspiciously.
“Aye,” Rudy replied, raising his voice to respond. “We’re trying to decide if you’re going to be stable enough for us to live with.”
“I guarantee I’m more stable than you, little man,” the phantom said indignantly. “I’m not wearing a green velvet suit and a green top hat.”
“You have a peacock feather in your purple fedora,” I pointed out. “Said fedora matches your purple suit exactly. You’re both as bad as each other when it comes to fashion.”
“It’s called style, honky,” Leroy said, stroking his hand down the front of his jacket. “That’s a concept you’re obviously not familiar with.” He sneered at my clothes.
Rudy sniggered at his quip. “He’s got you there, lad.”
I looked down at my now filthy t-shirt and jeans and shrugged. “I rely on my good looks and charm to win women over. I don’t need to wear something pretty like you two do.”
“Hey, man, I have no trouble getting the ladies,” Leroy said in insult. “Ladies love Leroy. Just ask them.”
“We would if there were any here and if they could actually see you,” Rudy said dryly.
“They’ll see me if they’re anything like you two.”
“Not all supernatural creatures can see ghosts,” I informed him. “Some species can’t.”
“We can get a witch to cast a spell that will let everyone in the house see and hear you,” Rudy added. “When we actually have other people, that is.”
“It sounds like we’re going to need a witch on our team,” Leroy said.
“If we come across one, we won’t turn her away,” I said, then went back to searching through the boxes full of crap.
By nightfall, we’d salvaged a small pile of things and a couple of wardrobes and dressers. The antiques were in fairly good condition. They just needed to be stripped back, sanded and re-stained. That was a task I could handle myself. The rest of the rubbish could be thrown away.
“What’s the plan?” Rudy asked as we waved goodbye to the ghost and climbed into my truck.
“I’m going to grab some food, then I was thinking of heading over to the abandoned barn where the slaughter happened.”
“Can we get takeaway?” Rudy asked eagerly. He was a junk food addict. If I didn’t buy it, he would magically steal it from a restaurant anyway.
“I’ll swing by a drive thru,” I said in capitulation. It wasn’t like I had to look after my girlish figure. Over the past fifty or so years, I’d gained muscle mass while hunting, but I hadn’t put on any extra fat.
“I want a burger, fries and a chocolate thick shake,” Rudy ordered. Sitting up high on his booster seat so he could see out through the windows, he looked like a cranky, bearded child.
“I’ll try to remember that when we eventually get to the drive thru,” I said, shaking my head at his impatience. We’d barely left the driveway and were still a ten-minute drive from town.
Sliding me a sidelong look, the leprechaun crossed his arms and subsided into a sulky silence. He wasn’t a fan of being mocked, but he should be used to it by now. We’d known each other too long to be offended by every snide remark we made.
Chapter Seven
After ordering our meals, I pulled into a mostly empty parking lot behind a supermarket so we could eat. Rudy made our trash disappear when we were done, then it was time for us to embark on our first mission. “The barn is five miles to the north of town,” the leprechaun told me as I set the truck into motion again.
Full darkness had fallen while we’d been eating. I drove away from Devil’s Peak, heading towards the mountain the town had been named after. At the five-mile mark, I saw crime scene tape strung across a dirt driveway. The barn was set back far enough from the road that I couldn’t make it out from here.
I nudged my truck off the road and parked behind a small grove of thin trees. The trees would shield the vehicle from casual view if anyone happened by. Climbing out, I opened the back door and reached for a backpack that was full of weapons. I’d been living out of a couple of duffel bags full of clothes for the past few months. It would be nice to have somewhere to store my belongings again once the house had been restored.
My Colt was inside the holster clipped to my belt on my right hip. I had a few knives tucked inside sheaths that were also strapped to my belt. I took a machete out of the backpack and exchanged it with one of the shorter throwing knives. The long sheath rested comfortably against my left thigh when I tied it in place to keep it from moving if I had to run. No hunter with any sense would strap a bare blade to their body. Doing so would be a good way to end up in the hospital.
I had a sawn-off shotgun, various ammo for both guns and a plethora of other weapons stashed inside the backpack. Since I had no idea what we were dealing with, it would pay to take a wide selection with me. For reasons that were beyond me, Rudy’s kind didn’t kill. He didn’t need to carry any weapons with him. His talents lay elsewhere.
Locking my truck, I raised an eyebrow at my sidekick in a silent request. He huffed out a sigh, then clicked his fingers and teleported us closer to the barn. He didn’t need to make the gesture. It was just a habit he’d formed to impress people.
We appeared a few hundred feet away from the decrepit old barn. I glanced around to see the remains of a house nearby. From the wear on the charred stumps, it had burned down years ago. The barn was scorched on one side from the blaze and some of the roof was missing. More crime scene tape had been strung across the wide opening where the doors had once hung. The sheriff and her deputy were long gone and hadn’t left anyone to guard the property. It was doubtful gawkers would want to come to this spooky old place after dark.
Before moving closer, I sent out my senses. Apart from nocturnal animals, I couldn’t sense anything alive on the property. Rudy struggled to keep up with me when I started towards the barn. I slowed my pace a little and he sent me a grateful look. He was always insulted when I picked him up and carried him beneath my arm like a doll. I wanted to keep my hands free so I could reach for a weapon if it was necessary.
Using my heightened senses, I smelled faint traces of Sheriff Callahan’s perfume. I also detected cheap aftershave, which had probably come from one of her deputies. Even before we approached what was left of the barn, the odor of blood and flesh became overwhelming.
“Ugh,” Rudy complained, waving his tiny hand in front of his face. “Why does death always have to smell so bad?”
It was a rhetorical question, so I just gave him an amused look, then ducked beneath the tape. Rudy took his hat off long enough to walk beneath the flimsy barrier, revealing unruly red hair. He clapped his hat back on his h
ead again the moment he was clear.
Several sets of fresh footprints crisscrossed the dirt floor of the old barn. Sheriff Callahan and her deputies had examined every inch of the crime scene. They would have taken photos before covering the remains with a blue tarp. Devil’s Peak didn’t have forensic cops, so someone else would be coming to investigate further. Supernatural Crime Units, or the SCU as they were commonly called, had been set up in the larger cities to deal with the increasing number of supernatural crimes. Ordinary cops were still learning the basics. None of them would have any idea what had killed these folks.
Trying not to step in the now dry puddles of blood, I crossed to the jumble of human remains that lay beneath the tarp. I hunkered down and gingerly lifted the edge of the blue plastic. Rudy made a face when a putrid odor leaked out and kept his distance. Breathing shallowly, I took a close look at the bones and determined that most of them had been splintered by strong teeth. Others had been snapped clean in half, probably by powerful hands. A few had even been crushed to a pulp as if they’d been squeezed. Whatever had killed them was inhumanly strong. It also looked like we were only dealing with one monster rather than several.
Standing, I rubbed my hands on my jeans, feeling soiled even though I hadn’t touched the remains. I took another deep breath and picked up a faint rank odor of something that smelled like a wild animal. Not even a bear could have done this type of damage. It certainly wouldn’t have eaten so much of the flesh and other organs. Practically nothing had been left of the victims. Their heads were conspicuously missing.
“Well?” Rudy demanded with his fists on his hips. “Do you know what did this?”
“I have no idea,” I admitted. “Something large and animal-like would be my guess. The imprints of teeth on the bones indicate that it’s just one creature, though.”
“Could it be a cougar, or something like that?”
“I highly doubt it. I’ve never seen bite marks quite like this before. Like the deputy told the Sheriff, it was a monster.” I examined the ground and saw a few large depressions and scuff marks. If they were footprints, whatever had made them was huge. Unfortunately, none of them were clear enough to determine what sort of supernatural creature we were hunting.
We backtracked to the exit and I ducked beneath the tape again. “What now?” Rudy asked as he followed me out. While he’d become my sidekick during our quest to save the world last winter, he didn’t usually come with me on my missions. He didn’t really know what my routine was when I was on a job.
“Now we try to find this thing’s tracks and follow it to its lair,” I replied. He would slow me down, but it couldn’t hurt to have a leprechaun at my back. He’d proven to be handy during a crisis on more than one occasion.
Thankful for my keen eyesight, I cast around, searching for a trail. The ground was hard and dry from the summer heat, which meant there were few signs to follow. Grass had been flattened by something heavy every now and then. I followed the faint trail to the woods, then lost it completely. “Whatever this thing is, it’s smart enough to cover its tracks,” I said in frustration.
“The smart monsters are the worst kind,” Rudy said with a grimace. “It would be easy if they were all as dumb as rocks.”
“I counted six corpses in the barn,” I mused. “It has a prodigious appetite, but maybe it’s satiated for now. It might not strike again for a while.”
“Maybe, lad,” Rudy said grimly. “I think this is one of those new types of creatures that have been cropping up. Or it could be something the Earth hasn’t seen for a very long time, but has mysteriously returned.”
“Hasn’t anyone figured out why this has been happening yet?” I asked. He could snoop in places that were impossible for me to enter without being seen. Leprechauns were some of the sneakiest beings on the planet.
“Not even Sheridan Harwood knows exactly what’s going on in the supernatural world,” he replied.
“You snooped through the new Master Archivist’s files?” I asked.
“She left the file sitting right out in the open on her desk,” he said in self-defense. “What was I supposed to do? Ignore it?”
“Which Archives did you break into?” I queried. “The Main Archives in West Virginia, or the London Archives?”
“Neither,” he admitted. “I broke into her house.”
I shook my head at his audacity, yet I wasn’t surprised. “Where does she live?”
“You’ll never guess,” he said wryly. “Now that Spencer Von Hades is gone, she’s claimed far more than just his job. The woman has taken control of everything that belonged to him. She’s claimed all of the demon’s properties and she’s currently living in his mansion in Rosethorn in West Virginia.”
“What is she?” I asked, suspecting she wasn’t a human.
“I have no idea, lad,” my bearded friend replied. “I have a feeling she’s almost as ancient as I am, if far prettier.”
I hadn’t met the new Master Archivist yet and I didn’t want to change that anytime soon. My instincts told me to stay away from her and I was obeying them. Ari’s boss, Quintessa Vale, answered to Sheridan Harwood. The Hunter Elite had decided to continue to work for the new Master Archivist, at least until Harwood revealed herself to be untrustworthy. I knew she wanted to bring me into her fold, but that wasn’t going to happen. I was a free man and I didn’t want or need anyone telling me what to do.
Chapter Eight
After the man I’d hired to assess the house came the next day, we agreed on the cost of restoring it and the workers got straight to it without delay. Not the sort of man to stand around doing nothing, I spent the entire week working with the team. I cheated and used my fae magic to keep them working at a fast pace. Slightly bamboozled, they didn’t slacken off or need to rest as often as normal. They remained focused and intent on their work. In short order, the floors, walls and windows were replaced and then they started working on repairing the roof.
I’d bought a police scanner so I could listen in on the chatter between Sheriff Callahan and her people while I worked. I kept the volume low enough that only I could hear it. They knew others were listening in and remained guarded about the incident at the abandoned barn. Word had spread that several people had died, but no one from Devil’s Peak had been reported missing. The victims had come from elsewhere, but that didn’t put anyone’s mind at ease. Any of us could become the creature’s next target.
During the second week of renovations, I heard the dispatcher call Sheriff Callahan. She sounded tense as she contacted her boss. A worried wife had called to report her husband had gone missing. He’d left for work at eight, but had never arrived. It was just after midday now, so he’d only been missing for four hours. The sheriff took the details and presumably headed for the missing man’s house to talk to his wife.
I kept listening for updates as the day progressed, but nothing else came across the scanner that raised any alarm bells. One missing man wasn’t unusual. He could have grown tired of his life and had simply taken off. Yet my gut told me he hadn’t abandoned his family. I had a feeling the unknown monster was hungry again and that it had chosen its first victim for its latest feeding frenzy.
Rudy always waited for the workers to leave before revealing himself. He’d been lurking near the scanner and his expression was grim when he appeared next to me. I was sitting on the newly repaired porch steps, chugging down a beer I’d kept in a cooler. “The monster is back,” he said, snagging a beer for himself. “We’ll hear about a chewed up corpse by morning.”
“Not if it’s hiding its victims somewhere new,” I pointed out, wiping the beer foam away from my upper lip with my sleeve.
“Do you think it’s that smart?” Leroy asked. We had a new door now, but I left it open so he could be included in the conversation.
“It might not have a human level of intelligence, but most animals are wily,” I replied. “It will know the barn has been discovered. If it has any brains at all, it’
ll choose somewhere new to stash the remains.” It was just a hunch, but my hunches had a habit of coming true.
“It ate six people before taking a break the last time,” Rudy reminded me. “We need to catch it and kill it before it slaughters more innocent folks.” He chased that statement down with a long swig of beer.
“You don’t know they were innocent,” the phantom pointed out. “For all you know, they could have been bad people.”
“No one deserves to be ripped apart and eaten,” I told him. “I wouldn’t wish that fate on my worst enemy.”
“What sort of person would be the worst enemy of a fairy?” he asked.
“I’m not overly fond of demons,” I replied dryly. Spencer Von Hades had put my foster daughter’s life in jeopardy too many times for my liking. He’d paid the price in the end, as would anyone who would be stupid enough to mess with a vampire-witch with her level of power.
“Do you want me to find out where the missing man lives?” Rudy asked. He correctly assumed that I would want to investigate the area where he’d gone missing myself.
“Yeah. Find out as much as you can.” He nodded at my request, then vanished, taking his beer with him. I had enough time to drink a couple more bottles before he returned. Alcohol didn’t affect me and I was incapable of getting drunk. That was a lesson I’d learned long ago.
Rudy reappeared, minus his beer. “The missing guy lives on a farm a few miles away from the abandoned barn,” he reported. “The Sheriff found his truck on her way to visit the wife. It looks like it veered off the road and hit a tree. There’s no sign of the victim, but blood was found in his vehicle.”