by David Reed
RULE #5: IT AIN’T DEAD TILL IT’S IN FIVE PIECES.
Speaking of witches, St. Louis is crawling with them. I don’t know why, but it’s true. You can’t go a block in that town without tripping over a hex bag. Rufus and I hunted one there who was exceptionally nasty—she’d been using spells to turn all the food in her neighbors’ houses to acid. I don’t know what her motivation was—that had to be hurting her home value.
When we finally tracked her down, I put a bullet in her head. You’d think that’d be enough, but nooooo. The bitch stood back up, telekinetically pinned me to the wall and started twisting around my insides.
The good thing about witches is that they’re usually easy to kill. See, witches aren’t monsters, they’re just folks. Folks who, for whatever reason, are total jackasses and use black magic to further their own ends while screwing over and killing people who they don’t like.
That’s why we burn them. They have it coming. It’s not that a bullet won’t kill them, it’s that burning them hurts more. Back in the day, people had all kinds of crazy theories about witches—that they’d float if you tried to drown them, that they could control people’s minds, that they rode around on broomsticks. None of that’s true.
In the case of the St. Louis witch, she musta been way higher up the food chain than we thought. Once they develop telekinesis, you know a witch or warlock isn’t screwing around. Luckily, being a witch doesn’t give them extra brains. Rufus had snuck in the back door and chopped the lady’s head off with an axe. Then he chopped her in half. Then he chopped her a few more times.
“It ain’t dead till it’s in five pieces,” he said. I loved Rufus.
Where Am I Now?
JUST HAD A FLASH OF SOMETHING. The woman’s face, the water woman from the swamp. She was holding out her hand, and . . . I don’t know, it felt like I was getting pulled apart.
I have a confession to make. I don’t even remember starting to write this book. A few hours ago, I had to re-read the whole thing just to know what I was doing and what I’d already said.
For a few minutes, I actually thought about going to the hospital. As if they’d be able to do anything. This is . . . unsettling for me. I’m not one to ask people for help, but right about now, all I wish is that I had someone I could talk to.
Maybe I should drive back to Ashland. A part of me is afraid I wouldn’t even make it there. If I did get there, I wouldn’t know what to look for. Why are some things so clear, and others so muddy?
I have to keep going. Keep writing. Something will make it all fit together.
John Winchester
IT WAS DURING MY TIME RIDING with Rufus that I first met a hunter by the name of John Winchester. He had been steadily building a reputation for the few years he was active (1983 on), and so I was curious to see what kind of man he was. The answer? Complicated. At the time, I had no idea he had kids. Just that he’d taken on a fool’s quest to hunt a yellow-eyed demon.
We joined up with him on a hunt in Oregon, in an unincorporated area outside of Baker City. A construction crew had gone missing while trying to tear down an abandoned house. The previous owners had also gone missing, so we smelled something supernatural in the air.
John struck me as a levelheaded sort of guy, but he was so driven that it was hard to keep up with him. He was inside the house before we’d even opened our trunk, and he was running out cursing before I chambered a round.
The house was, to skip to the crazy, alive. At some point in its history, it’d been imbued with consciousness and a self-preservation instinct, and was simply not going to allow itself to be torn down.
We tried every damn thing we could think of to bring it to the ground. Fire, axes, and sledgehammers; John even threw a grenade or two inside, but each time, the house would react, find some way to protect itself.
I got a chance to talk to John as we took a lunch break. As soon as we were “off the clock,” out came the pictures of his boys, Dean and Sam. He was so proud of them, Dean for following so closely in his footsteps, Sam for being so good at school, despite moving around so much. He missed them. Hadn’t seen them in a week and a half, had left them with a housekeeper at a hotel in Housatonic, Massachusetts.
That was my first taste of the side of John that I couldn’t stand. I empathized with him, and understood the need to get vengeance for his dead wife, but he had kids to look after. He shouldn’t have left them to be raised by strangers. I told him as much, and he stood up and walked away.
Finally, somebody had an idea, can’t remember who. Termites. Lots and lots of termites. Let them loose inside, where they could slowly eat the house’s skeleton away. It was brought up that the termite plan was a cop-out, that it could take years to work, and that it very well could fail just like the hand grenades, but none of us wanted to get bitten in half by a garage door, so there we were.
I went by that house a few years back, it was just a pile of rotted lumber. Sometimes the cop-out is the best way out.
The Shit List
SPEAKING OF JOHN, here’s something important I definitely don’t want to forget—all the people I can’t friggin’ stand. I’ve been around the sun a few times, made my share of friends and way more than my share of enemies, and these are the ones who’ll probably dance on my grave when I’m gone. Listen up, ya idjits, I’d do the same to you. (I’m not including people that’re already dead. What would be the use?)
Kurt Dremler. For leaving me alone to fight that shtriga in Orlando, the cowardly bastard.
Jason Larson. That prick has owed me more money than anyone else I’ve ever known, but in tiny increments spread out over fifteen years. Every time I see him, the guy needs five bucks for something. We go to lunch, he forgot his wallet. I meet him to go fishing, he forgot his tackle, needs to stop at the bait shop to buy more. He pays it back . . . eventually, after great prodding.
Alexis Sinclair. The woman that owns the land directly behind mine. This woman has caused more problems for me than most monsters. She just won’t listen to reason. It’s gonna make noise, lady, it’s a car crusher! Geez. Call the county zoning board one more time, why don’tcha?
Derek Knightley. For that time with the rawhead. He owes me a new shotgun, a new set of tail lights, and some of my dignity back.
Michael Wal. He knows why.
Sheriff Mills. How many times do I have to explain to her—I drive that way on purpose. It’s gotten so bad that they pull me over now just for coming into town. And I may have been in a few bar fights and drank a little too much a few times over the last twenty years, but that’s not bad if you average it out. Like I always tell her, if I’m gonna get really drunk, I’m gonna do it in the comfort of my own home. Mills has redeemed herself a bit in the last few years, but I’d still love to give her a piece of my mind. Too bad I don’t have any of those pieces left.
M. Night Shyamalan. Guy owes me $8.50 for Lady in the Water.
Tastes Like Chicken
MAN, MY MEMORY IS REALLY GOING. I’m just seeing flashes now, some things I understand, some things I don’t. I just had this vision of Rufus wrestling with a Komodo dragon . . . when did that happen?
Wait.
Right. Eighties. I remember it now. This is actually a good one, I should write it down before I forget.
See, sometimes, this job is gross. Sometimes it’s really gross. And sometimes, you’re hunting a nagual.
Naguals are a Mesoamerican cryptid that have been known to migrate as far north as Kansas and Colorado, if the weather is right. They prefer hot and muggy, and unlike a lot of critters, they operate both in daytime and at night. Their trick is to blend in with humans most of the time, when they’re not in their animal forms. They’re distant cousins of the shifter, werewolf, and skinwalker—all of them have the ability to change their shapes, but the nagual are more varied than skinwalkers and werewolves . . . they can transform into a buncha different animals. Depends on the personality of the nagual, I guess, but I’ve heard of one chan
ging into a snake, one into a bird, one into a dog (though that coulda just been a misidentified skinwalker).
Naguals have a slightly different MO from skinwalkers—they will kill humans, but prefer to feed in whatever their native animal form is. If they’re a snake, they eat mice, if they’re a bird, they eat worms. You get the idea. Nagual are dangerous not because of their feeding habits, but because of their method of procreation.
A nagual and another nagual can meet, fall in love, want to have cute little blue-eyed babies together, and everything is sunshine and roses until they realize that the “birds and the bees” part doesn’t work . . . because they’re literally a bird and a bee. They can try to breed all they like, it ain’t gonna happen. A female nagual could get pregnant in her human form, but as soon as she turns into her animal form, she’d miscarry—and their transformations aren’t voluntary. Sooner or later, they’ll lose the baby.
So, to keep their numbers up, they have to recruit. They’re a lot like vamps in that respect. If they want a baby baby, they’ll have to steal one from a human couple and turn it.
After several children disappeared in the Phoenix metro area, Rufus and I got on the case. A few factors led us to believe a nagual might be involved—the family of the first disappeared girl said that they’d found an iguana outside their house and brought it inside, and when their daughter was kidnapped, the kidnapper took the iguana too. Didn’t seem like someone would bother taking the lizard if they were in the middle of a kidnapping, so we started to think that maybe the lizard was the kidnapper.
We hunted the thing across three counties before we heard a police radio squawk about a disabled vehicle on a desert road—the copper said that the vehicle was an old RV, empty except for a lizard, a couple cats, two ravens, a koala, and a marmoset. Sounded to me and Rufus like we were chasing a whole pack of naguals, and that they’d already turned the stolen kids.
Here’s the most important part of the story: once you’ve been bitten by a nagual in their animal form, you become one of them within a day. There are ways to stop the transformation, but only if you get to the victim before they change. Since the kids were already changed, they were already monsters. There was nothing we could do for them except stop them from doing the same thing to someone else. Sounds harsh, I know, but there ain’t another way around it. If I was forced to become an armadillo for half my life, I’d want it all to end pronto.
When we got to the RV, the lizard and the koala were valiantly attempting to use a jack and tire iron to replace their blown tire. Like I said, naguals can’t change at will, so if they were stuck in their animal forms, that was that. We thought it was an open-and-shut case, we’d just gank the things and move on with our business, until things got weird.
Rufus had pulled his Desert Eagle on the koala, which was the strangest damn sight I ever did see, and I’ve seen some strange. As he was talking to the thing (telling it to step away from the tire iron, if I can remember correctly), I was searching the inside of the RV. The two ravens flew the coop, and I chased after them. I fired a few wild shots, mighta nicked one of ’em, but both got away. Then I heard Rufus yell out, “The damn thing bit me!”
I turned to the sound, saw him wrestling with this giant Komodo dragon—it musta been laying out on the cool asphalt under the RV. It’d taken a chunk out of Rufus’s arm, and he was bleeding pretty bad. I took a few shots (using silver bullets—as cousins of weres and shifters, silver’s the only thing that’ll hurt ’em) and managed to put down the dragon. The rest of the animals went into a friggin’ frenzy like I’ve never seen. Rufus and I both fired like crazy, took the whole pack down, minus those two ravens (one of which, I swear to God, came back and took a crap on me while I was shooting).
In all the chaos, I hadn’t even noticed that the koala had scratched me. Those things look all cuddly and friendly, but they’re little jags, every last one of ’em.
Rufus and I were both infected. We would both turn into naguals by the end of the day if we didn’t do something about it ASAP. This is where the gross part comes in. . . .
The only cure for nagual venom is to consume the flesh of the nagual who bit you. For Rufus, that was the Komodo dragon. For me, it was the stupid koala. But here’s the kicker—when they die, naguals transform halfway in between their two forms. Half man, half beast. Half yuppie tax attorney, half Komodo dragon. Half hippy chick, half koala.
We had to eat them.
Grossest meal of my life, and I already told you about the seaweed.
So if you find yourself in the same situation, make the most of it, like Rufus and I did. We got ourselves to a kitchen as soon as we could, cooked up as close to a gourmet meal as possible with the nagual as a base.
Here’s the recipe:
ELEGANT CRITTER WITH MONSTER MASHED POTATOES
You gotta eat the whole monster. Sorry, there’s no way around it. But the truth is, it really does taste like chicken, if you cook it just right. If you ever find yourself with time to spare and you don’t have a critter on hand, just substitute chicken breasts and good old condensed cream of chicken soup and you’ll have yourself a feast that would impress any lady. First meal I ever made Karen. If it was good enough for her, it’s good enough for any of you.
Ingredients:
2 whole nagual breasts, skinned and boned
8 slices Swiss cheese
1 cup condensed cream of critter soup (instructions below)
1/4 cup dry white wine (or whiskey if that’s all you’ve got)
2 cups seasoned breadcrumbs (I use Wonder Bread)
1/3 cup melted butter
1. First step, kill the damn critter. If you got bit and it ran off, hurry and chase it down. Otherwise, go ahead and substitute in the chicken and say your prayers. It’d make a fine last meal for any man. Especially if you’re about to turn into a koala and be stuck eating eucalyptus leaves for the rest of your life.
2. Once you’ve made sure the thing’s dead, cut it up. Put the breasts aside. Place the rest in a big pot and cover with water. Let simmer for an hour, if you have time. If you’re starting to feel the effects of the venom, you can get by with a half hour, but you’ll lose some flavor.
3. To make the condensed soup base, strain the meat and bones and place 1 1/2 cups of critter broth in a medium-sized saucepan; bring to a boil. Add 1/2 cup of whole milk or cream, and season to taste. In a bowl, whisk together an additional cup of milk or cream and 3/4 of a cup of flour. Add to the boiling mixture and continue to whisk briskly until the mixture boils again and thickens.
4. Place the breasts in a 9x13 ceramic baking dish and top with cheese slices. Combine soup base and wine and pour over the cheese. Mix together the breadcrumbs and butter and sprinkle over the nagual, cheese, and sauce.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour. While it bakes, prepare the potatoes and gravy.
MONSTER MASHED POTATOES
Cut and peel one-pound of Yukon gold potatoes. Add to a large pot of boiling water. Cook until soft, about thirty minutes. This is where things get messy. While the potatoes cook, use an immersion blender to combine the remaining pieces of the nagual. The bone should have softened enough so that the hardest part will be blending it without making yourself sick. It’s just like making food for a baby. Grind it up and pretend it’s applesauce. When it’s as smooth as can be, turn the pot back on and bring to a simmer. It will be pretty thick, so thin it out to a palatable consistency. Normally, I like to add a can of cream of mushroom soup to my gravy, but if you don’t have that lying around, milk will do. When the potatoes are done, mash them up and add as much butter and salt and garlic as you can. Take the nagual out of the oven, put it on top of the taters, smother it in gravy, and tell yourself it’s chicken.
Alphas
MONSTERS AIN’T LIKE PEOPLE. Some of them try to blend, some of them succeed better than others, but one constant is this: they operate by different rules than us. They have their own social hierarchies and customs and wants, many of whi
ch we’ll never understand. The biggest example of that are the alphas. For years and years, hunters assumed that each nest of vamps they killed was separate, a solitary kingdom that had no connection with the other nests around the world. That was before we found out that every single one of the creatures had a psychic connection to the boss vamp, the alpha.
Other creatures have the same system. Werewolves, skinwalkers, wendigos, shifters, ghouls, djinn, wraiths, they all have alphas.
How do you fight one? You don’t. If you think killing a regular monster is hard, imagine fighting one that’s been on earth for literally thousands upon thousands of years, honing their abilities and sharpening their claws/fangs/whatever.
In every encounter we’ve had with an alpha, we’ve been outclassed. If the Winchester boys can’t take one down, I hate to break it to you, but you don’t have a snowflake’s chance in hell.
Dragons
THE STRANGEST THING ABOUT THIS . . . sickness I’ve got, or whatever you want to call it, is what I remember and what I don’t. I remember the sandwich Rufus ate for breakfast the day after we took down Gareth McIntosh’s ghost, but I can’t recall my mother’s face. Memory loss wouldn’t be so bad if you could choose which things not to remember. I’d like to remember my mother, if only to have someone to blame for the way I turned out.
One woman you’ll never forget once you meet her? Eleanor Visyak. Ellie is a professor of medieval studies at SFU, and an expert at so many things it makes my head hurt. Or maybe that’s the whiskey. Or the memory loss. Anyway, if you need to know anything about dragons, she’s the one you wanna ask. Why dragons? Because they’re the flavor of the week. After hundreds of years, they’re suddenly back on the scene, and we’re not quite sure why.