I pull up the left sleeve of my duster and show off an arm made of polished wood. “See this? Nasty bite on the wrist. Had to cut off the entire limb to stop the infection from spreading.”
Garrett’s jaw hangs slack for a moment. “You lost an arm fighting werewolves?”
“Believe me, kid, I wish it were just an arm. Maybe then Lycan’s Blight would have let me stay in the field.” Using my good hand, I pop out my right eye and slap it down on the counter. “Courtesy of the same bastard. Let’s just say it was a bad night for me.”
The eye rolls toward Garrett, who looks like he’s about to pass out. It stops just short of the counter’s edge, iris-side up.
“How, I mean, you, what…” He fumbles over his words until he realizes the obvious question. “Wait, why is it purple?”
“Ah, that’s lesson number one,” I say, then pick up the eye and place it back in my empty socket. “Aconitum Ranunculaceae. Better known as Wolfsbane. It’s a flower that’s incredibly toxic, especially to werewolves.”
I tap on the glass cornea, which causes Garrett to wince. “The inside is filled with petal extract to give it that colour. Lycan’s Blight had it custom made for me as a retirement gift. To think, most people just get a gold watch.”
I slide a long metal box off the back wall and place it on the counter, then fumble through my key ring until I reach one with a wolf’s head on the bow. “Here, take a look at these.”
The box flips open, and inside are a dozen daggers with chalk-white blades. “I make these myself. The handles are going to feel cold, but that’s by design. You won’t find a more effective weapon against those creatures anywhere in the world. Go ahead, try one.”
Garrett’s hand hovers across each blade before settling on the one with dozens of serrated teeth. He lifts it out of the box and holds it to the light.
“You weren’t kidding about the cold. It’s freezing,” he says, then shivers. “What’s it made from? I thought the only thing useful against werewolves was silver.”
“You and everyone else,” I say, choosing the dagger with forked prongs. The handle feels like I’m gripping an icicle. “What most people don’t realize is that the word ‘silver’ is a mistranslation of ancient texts. If you studied the original writings, you see that the term is actually quicksilver.”
Garrett takes a few swipes at the air, like he’s fighting an invisible beast. “Quicksilver? What’s that?”
“Solid mercury. It’s what these are made from. That’s lesson two.” I motion for him to give me back the weapon. “But it needs to be kept cold, so there’s cooling system in the handle. Developed it myself.”
He hands over his knife and beams. “This is incredible,” he says. “Are they for sale?”
I pretend to mull it over for a few seconds, then say, “For you, no charge.” Garrett looks as though he’s going to burst with excitement, but then I add, “Unfortunately, there’s a mandatory waiting period.”
His entire body slumps in defeat. “Are you serious?” he says. “For how long?”
I crane my neck and take a long glance through the store’s front window. The moon’s silvery glow is just beginning to peek above the skyline.
“My guess, kid? About one minute.”
Garrett seems to think I’m making a bad joke, but then he clutches his head and screams like he’s being skinned alive. As thousands of black threads sprout from his every inch of exposed flesh, he drops to the ground, limbs flailing, and rolls sideways into a bookshelf lined with tiny figurines. It collapses on top of him with a deafening crash that sends porcelain fragments in all directions.
I use the side of my duster to shield myself from the debris, then yank off my prosthetic hand and toss it underneath the counter. Sheathed inside the five-fingered casing is another mercury-forged blade that extends down to the hilt of my forearm.
Nobody has ever called me unprepared. Crazy, yes. But never unprepared. Still, I should have acted sooner. Alarm bells have been ringing in my head ever since he walked through the door, but I was hoping that, for once, my instincts were wrong.
The bookshelf shudders for a moment, then flies across the shop and slams into a display case filled with silverware as Garrett leaps back to his feet.
Only it’s not Garrett standing in front of me. He’s wearing what’s left of his shredded clothes, but it’s not him.
Not anymore.
The creature I’m facing is covered in a thick layer of wiry fur, with three-inch claws jutting from his hands and feet. His eyes burn a dull red like smouldering coals, and his jaws are elongated to house a mouth full of jagged teeth.
I grab the bottle of whisky from the counter and take another drink. “Still want to learn more about werewolves, kid?” I say. “Lesson three, they’re sensitive to rye!”
The Garrett-wolf lets out a piercing howl as I hurl the bottle at his face. It bursts open on impact, and the alcohol that drenches his skin makes a sound like water being poured on a hot griddle. The creature shrieks and topples back into a stack of old radios, thrashing wildly.
I grab the serrated mercury-dagger and make my way out from behind the counter as the Garrett-wolf staggers back it his feet. The rye whisky has burned away patches of fur from his face and chest like I’d doused him with acid, and what’s left underneath is swelling with thick bubbles of blood.
Now’s my chance. Time to move in for the kill.
I take a stab with my bladed hand but he easily sidesteps the attack, then counters with a lightning-fast swing that sends me sprawling into an old television set. I get up, wheezing, and it’s suddenly clear that age is my real adversary in this fight. Twenty years ago I could slice one of these monsters to ribbons before it knew the difference, but now I’m already winded.
Maybe the leaders of Lycan’s Blight were right all along. Maybe I don’t have the edge anymore.
But there’s no time to feel sorry for myself now. The Garrett-wolf lunges in my direction, and I barely throw myself out of the way in time. I thud against the floor, landing hard on my ribs, just as his face smashes through the television screen glass.
My head feels like it’s filling with wet cement as I roll onto my back and scramble to get oriented. Out of desperation, I fire the serrated dagger at the creature, but the blade whizzes by his ear and sticks inside a hand-carved totem pole.
The Garrett-wolf howls furiously, then shakes glass shards from his fur and spins round to face me. In a flash, he crouches down on all fours and sails through the air, teeth bared and ready to sink deep in my throat. Before I can move, his full weight crashes down on top of my body, pinning me to the ground and knocking the air from my lungs.
A galaxy of bright lights swirl across my eyes, and I can tell that he’s ready to make a killing strike. He lurches for my neck, but I manage to raise my artificial arm just in time for the creature to clamp down on the wood.
This close, rancid-smelling froth drips from his jaws and splatters onto my face. With my arm locked inside his mouth, he growls loud enough to send vibrations through my ribcage. I’m trapped, and the last of my strength is fading quickly.
The Garrett-wolf jerks back his neck and rips off a chunk of wood near my elbow, swallowing it whole before staring me down with his piercing red eyes. He howls again, as though already basking in his kill. We both know that he’s just moments away from ending my life…
Which is why he’s completely caught off guard by what must feel like a hot coal sliding down his throat and lodging in his stomach. He lets out an anguished yelp and hurls himself to the ground, frantically clawing at his stomach.
“Rule number four,” I croak, staggering to my feet. “You bastards are allergic to Mountain Ash wood.”
There’s no time for anything less than a surefire counter-attack, but I barely have enough energy left to swing a blade. Even if I could, in my current state, the Garrett-wolf will likely rip me in half before he succumbs to the wound.
I’m running on pure adre
naline now, and my mind is racing for options. I’ll never get another opportunity like this one, so I have to think fast.
In a last-ditch burst of insight, I pluck my glass eye out of its socket and slam it against the floor like I’m breaking the world’s toughest egg. It cracks down the middle, sending droplets of purple liquid trickling down the sides.
The Garrett-wolf is still reeling in pain, and this time I take full advantage of my opening. Before he has enough time to react, I dive on top of him and force the poisonous eye into his mouth.
“Rule number five,” I shout. “Respect your elders, kid!”
Even before swallowing, the effect of the wolfsbane is immediate. The Garrett-wolf’s entire body convulses violently and his eyes roll back inside his skull. He makes several desperate claw swipes that catch nothing but air, then becomes still.
Once I’m positive that he’s dead, I roll onto my back and try to catch my breath, but it feels like I’m inhaling needles. After a few minutes of laying in silence amidst a junkyard of second-hand wreckage, I hear someone knocking on the front door.
A customer? No. The timing is too perfect for that.
Surprised at my own strength, I manage to drag myself upright and hobble over to the window. Standing on the front steps, casually smoking a cigarette, is a man wearing a tailored grey suit. When I open the door, he mimes a polite clap.
“Duncan,” I say, clutching the new-found pain in my ribs. “What a surprise.”
He points to the sign hanging in the window and smirks. “It says here that you’re closed. I can always come back later, you know.”
“Now is fine,” I say, motioning him inside. “I had a feeling you were behind this.”
He walks in and takes a moment to survey the destruction, then whistles. “Looks like you two did quite a number on this place.” He nods at my empty eye socket. “You doing okay?”
I cough a gob of blood into my palm and wipe it in my duster. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
The tinkling wind chime punctuates an awkward silence that settles over what’s left of the shop. After a moment, I say, “So, you going to tell me why you sent one of those creatures waltzing in here, with a Lycan’s Blight emblem, no less?”
Duncan steps over a pile of shattered china and snubs his cigarette butt on the floor. “I apologize for my methods, but it was the only way to convince the rest of The Order to give you a chance.”
“A chance?” I echo. “I don’t understand. This was some kind of test?”
“It was,” Duncan says, “And you passed handily.” He takes one look at what’s left of my prosthetic arm and adds, “No offense.”
“None taken.” I prod my side for the source of a stabbing sensation. “Let’s cut the riddles, Duncan. What’s this really about?”
Duncan takes a globe from a shelf and spins it with two fingers. It wobbles rhythmically on its broken axis. “These are dangerous times, Blackmore. The Lycan population are multiplying faster than we can destroy them. We need every last one of our members in the field, past or present.”
I grunt, then thrust my hand-blade into the globe, stopping it cold. “Couldn’t agree more, but apparently I’m too old and damaged for this line of work.”
Duncan yanks the globe free and tosses it aside. “That’s exactly why The Order wanted to test you. They needed to see for themselves what I’ve been saying all along, that your skills as a hunter are still intact.”
“And if they weren’t?” I say.
Duncan dismisses my question with a wave. “But they are. That’s what matters.”
We walk over to the Garrett-wolf’s body, which is sprawled across a pile of old paperback novels. Duncan shakes his head. “I’ve been tracking this one all month. Freshly turned. Poor lad killed a girl and didn’t even know it.” He nudges an arm with his shoe. “Don’t get me wrong, I feel guilty for deceiving him, but it was the only way to keep the test pure. I hope you understand.”
Part of me wants to erupt at the thought of this kid being a pawn in my glorified pop-quiz from Lycan’s Blight, but that doesn’t change reality.
“You did what you had to,” I say, then pull a musty patchwork quilt off a rack. “Someone would have destroyed him eventually. It might as well have been me.”
Duncan smiles wider than I’ve seen in years. “That’s the spirit, Blackmore. Come on, The Order will be glad to see you.” He heads for the door, but I just stand there, staring at the corpse for what feels like an eternity.
“Who said anything about going back?” I say, draping the quilt over the creature’s body. “Haven’t you heard? I’m retired.”
February: The Hunter’s Moon
James Ossuary
There by the river, where the earth was frozen and covered with hoarfrost, I slid up to a bank of granule snow. Hitting the high beams and the floods, I climbed out of the cab of my truck and scanned the evergreens around me. I knew from the local papers I had studied that this was a favorite trail of theirs.
Single hikers disappeared too easily from this trail. Remains were found miles away, gnawed to the bone in snowdrift and in summer field. The local sheriff thought he had himself a serial killer. That man read too much pulp crime fiction.
What he had was not a man who thought that he was an animal, but a man who could become an animal whenever he wanted.
That wasn’t the half of it though. I had spent 20 years hunting ever bigger prey, starting when I was just a boy in Virginia, hunting squirrels in the autumn trees with my father, God bless him and keep him. My father died in a hunting accident when I was only nineteen years old. I never forgave the forest for taking him away. There was something fitting about it though, something apt.
For every drop of blood that is spilled in the forest, a new life emerges.
When I was in my twenties, I hunted Grizzly bear and wolves. I would travel up into the game reserves in Minnesota. Back then; the wild dogs were protected, so I had to be very careful.
I was hunting in the northern woods when I spotted a black phase wolf that looked particularly big. I couldn’t wait until he was in my trophy room. I stood downwind from him, fancied I could even smell him, but he never sensed me.
One report from my high-powered rifle and part of his shoulder vaporized. He flip-tumbled in the grass. Then he was very still. When my ears stopped ringing I ran to the clearing. A man lay sprawled in the moss, shamelessly naked, with a crisped hole where his shoulder should have been.
His mouth worked a couple times and he gasped. My mouth was probably carping almost as bad. I watched him die of system shock, and then I buried him in the root-thick soil. I got out of there quickly after that.
It started me thinking. What if there were others? Was there a place where men hunted like animals? I became driven with the idea that I had to find them all.
At first, I thought it was some sense of moral outrage that compelled me to hunt them.
It wasn’t long, before I realized hunting them was when I felt most alive. Like the old story goes, man is the most dangerous game, and I was hooked.
Reaching behind the seat, I pull out my hunting rifle. Non-reflecting targeting scope with night sight option, muzzle flash suppression, the perfect sniper rifle. That makes it the perfect weapon for hunting men who want to play at being wolves.
There’s a room in my hunting lodge. It’s double bolted and I keep the only key around my neck. I don’t even let the guys I hunt with during the fall season see what I have in there.
They’ve seen my grizzly, my mountain lions, they’ve seen the Kodiak I killed and had to smuggle back because I wouldn’t play along with their damn permits. I’ve even got a cheetah I shot on a very expensive and illegal safari in South Africa. They just wouldn’t understand the room with the half dozen burnished skulls of the men who once became wolves.
I kill the lights in the truck and with my pack firmly on my back and my gear slung tight to my back, I hike out to a spot far from the road. When the p
ath becomes twisted and forks off into a lonely spot, I set up my snare for my quarry. I don’t even need to bait it, whether in human or wolf form, my quarry will have to pass through this cleft to get to his favorite hunting ground below.
This one will be special, but then, they all are.
Patiently, I keep pace with the night. Nothing stirs on the path until the first ruddy light of day paints fire on the tips of evergreens. I am quiet, nestled against the bole of the tree. I forget myself and dose off as morning pours into the pass.
Later, I wake to the sound of pebbles skittering across the path. A young woman scrambles her lonely way toward the notch. She walks straight up to my snare.
I don’t call out.
A startled scream and she is wrenched into the air. More screams as she hangs upside down by the one leg. It is probably broken. After a while, she vomits. Then she passes out.
Still cradled against the bole of the tree, I wait.
As the afternoon light wanes into early evening, a ranger wanders up the path from the valley below. By this time, the girl has cried and screamed all day, and barely has enough energy to whimper piteously. The ranger runs up to her and cuts her down from the tree.
I know better than to move. I have my rifle ready in case Ranger Rick gets too close.
The hiker sprawls across the ground twitching and moaning. Strangely, the ranger doesn’t stoop to help her, just mumbles something too low for me to hear. Then he squats down next to her and lays his hand on her head. He pulls her head back gently but firmly, exposing her throat.
A shadow out of nightmare his body roils and shifts until I see a huge gray wolf crouched over the girl. A paw still pins her head down. A half moon of fangs expose themselves over her helpless flesh.
It’s time to make my presence known.
Couching the rifle, I take aim and punch a fist-hole in the tree above its head.
“Don’t even move. I will drop you before you make it out of that clearing.”
Both Barrels of Monster Hunter Legends (Legends of the Monster Hunter Book 1) Page 11