Both Barrels of Monster Hunter Legends (Legends of the Monster Hunter Book 1)

by Josh Reynolds

  “Wow. Did they hire you for some graphics work?”

  “Officer, I can’t tell you much but I’m not quite what I seem. You’ve guessed as much. There’s a man here who doesn’t feel right to Prosperine or me. We’ve come to check it out.” Jeremy omitted the turquoise turtle. Dietrich wouldn’t thank him for withholding evidence.

  He eyed Prosperine. “You a graphic designer too?”

  “I’m into wildlife.”

  “Who are you checking out?”

  “Adahy. He owns a general store. The kids were in it before they disappeared.”

  Dietrich frowned. “The old Cherokee? He’s had some brushes with the law when he was young. Nothing recent. Local folks say he’s kind of an old style medicine man. He ain’t too friendly. Most of his own folks seem afraid of him, but why would he harm these college kids, and how? You saw that body.”

  “That’s what we hope to find.”

  A horrible croak came from above as a huge shape blotted out the moonlight from above. They all crouched, weapons up, save for Prosperine who gave such a growl that Dietrich gave her a double take.

  Jeremy looked at the officer. “Follow me if you dare, but understand this; you are crossing over into my world now. It’s not the rational place you’ve inhabited. You follow my lead, fight when I say fight. Run when I say run.”

  He stared. “Who are you? Rod Serling?”

  “Prosperine,” Jeremy said.

  The familiar started to strip out of her clothes.

  “Not that I mind the view,” he said, “but what the hell?”

  Jeremy holstered his pistol and leaned the sword on a tree. “Safe your rifle.”

  Dietrich gave him a dubious look but Jeremy heard the click. He returned to contemplating the naked Prosperine. “Rocking hot body you have there.”

  “Yes,” she replied, “both of them.” With no more than a shimmer she transformed into a hundred-thirty pound black jaguar which sat down.

  “Don’t shoot,” Jeremy barked.

  Dietrich stared over his weapon, clearly shaken. Prosperine sat up and was again the gorgeous, naked red-head.

  “So,” Dietrich swallowed. “You weren’t joking about her being a wildcat.”

  Prosperine stood brushing dirt off her butt. “I was going to get naked anyway. It’s difficult to unzip with claws.”

  “What we are after here may be as much out of your experience as she is. So if you come, you follow my orders. Agreed?”

  “Yeah, but remember. I’m an officer of the law. If I say stop, you stop.”

  “Then follow,” Jeremy said, picking up his sword and drawing his pistol.

  The three of them walked close, eyes searching the darkness alongside and above.

  “Did you get a look at…whatever that was?” Jeremy asked, knowing she had the best night vision of any of them.

  “No. I was concentrating on Dietrich and the trees blocked my view. But it was big and not of this earth. Adahy is our man.”

  They reached the section over the general store and started down to the large fenced yard.

  “This gate wasn’t unlocked before,” Jeremy said.

  Suddenly a chanting began. Across the yard, Adahy stood in the center of a star shape of glowing lines.

  “Pentagram,” Prosperine spat.

  The chanting paused the old Cherokee looked at them with mirthless smile. “You folks looking for me.”

  “Yes we are, Shaman,” Jeremy replied. “Something’s been unleashed in these woods. I think you know what it is.”

  “I get the cop, and the sword tells me what you are. Who’s the naked chick?”

  “Never mind,” Jeremy huffed. “What do you know about those missing college kids?”

  “Lousy white kids, they were good for fodder. Punks thought they knew magic. I showed them magic. I introduced them to HIM!” Adahy threw back his head and voiced a chant. From over their heads came the awful croak they’d heard before and the rush of huge wings.

  Jeremy looked up to see the face of lunacy in the sky above them, bodiless, easily ten feet across. Basketball-sized eyes glared down at him over a huge mouth of massive teeth. Where ears should have been, massive wings spread.

  Prosperine’s scream of challenge snapped them out of it. The M-14 and Walther blazed. The giant head banked away with a scream of its own. While the weapons had clearly stung, they did not bring down the giant creature.

  “Let me introduce you to my friend,” Adahy called. “Ko-rea-ram-neh-neh. Fancy Iroquois name for the Flying head. You see, some young warriors wanted to abandon the ancestral land due to a famine but the old chiefs wouldn’t let them. So they murdered the elders, sank their heads in a lake. The Gods weren’t happy with that. No sireee. Sent Ko-rea-ram-neh-neh back to punish them.”

  “How did you invoke it?” Jeremy said.

  “I told you. Me modern injun, study a lot on the computer. Found a lot out about the legends. But I’m also a shaman. I knew some spells, minor stuff. Then along came those punk kids, giving me a lot of lip. Well, me and Ko-rea-ram-neh-neh both dislike young punks. I told the kids I would show them some real magic, none of this Goth bullshit. I set up the pentagrams; One for me, and one for them. Dumb shit Hans thought he knew about pentagrams. Summoned the ancient demon and well you have to give them something when they show up. I broke their pentagram.”

  “You gave it the kids?” Dietrich raged.

  “Yeah. I kept one of the girls for myself for a week or so. It ate the other two. Chased the boys into the forest for fun, I guess. I gave it the other girl when it came back later in the week.”

  “Bastard,” Dietrich swore. “You’re under arrest.”

  “No white man’s law up here, mister—just my law. That law says you gotta die,” he raised his head and arms and began to sing.

  “He’s summoning,” Prosperine said.

  Dietrich’s M-14 came up in a smooth motion and he fired. A spark appeared in the heat shimmer around Adahy. He didn’t stop his chanting.

  “The pentagram puts him in a different space than ours,” Jeremy said. “Bullets can’t penetrate it.” As he stepped forward a shadow fell over him.

  “Down, Jeremy,” Prosperine shouted. She knocked Dietrich to the side. Jeremy dropped and swung upward with the sword, scoring on the huge shape swooping over him. A horrid croaking sounded in his ears and the weapon was nearly jarred from his hands. He heard Dietrich’s M-14 rattle out rounds as the reek of the monster swept over them. It bounded back into the sky.

  “Should have stayed out of the mountains white man,” Adahy taunted. “Guns and science won’t do you no good. Ko-rea-ram-neh-neh must eat. He likes souls really, but he’ll chew a body up good too.”

  Jeremy stared at the twenty-meter bat winged shape. The bloodsword has scored the cheek of the monstrous head. Its foul tongue slapped out to ease the wound. But it showed no sign of serious injury. Quickly he reversed the bloodsword, bringing the huge gem in its hilt level with his eyes and concentrated. The stone quickened to life. It’s blood red radiance filling the clearing with a soft glow.

  Adahy cursed and chanted the monster to attack. Ko-rea-ram-neh-neh stooped on them but pulled up with a screech when the red light fell on its skin, which puckered and bubbled. But the sweep of its wings sent them all to their knees. Jeremy’s concentration broke for a second and the stone pulsed weaker. The slavering mouth opened above him but Dietrich’s slung M-14 filled it. The teeth clamped on the weapon. Jeremy concentrated on the stone and the glow brightened. Ko-rea-ram-neh-neh backed away with a croak.

  “How long can you hold it off?” Dietrich shouted.

  “Dammit,” Prosperine interjected, “I can’t change with that damn stone glowing. I can’t use my powers!”

  Ko-rea-ram-neh-neh hesitated, wary of the stone. Adahy’s chant grew louder, a note of anger in it.

  “He’s trying to force it to attack despite the pain!” Prosperine shouted.

  As the Cherokee’s voice reached a fe
ver pitch, the shimmer of the pentagram grew and his image wavered. Above Ko-rea-ram-neh-neh croaked its protests but seemed dragged toward them by some great force.

  Jeremy raised the stone, but its spiritual power was limited to his own, and exhaustion was setting in the young Templar’s chest.

  “Jeremy, fling the sword at him,” Prosperine demanded. “It’s the only object that can get through the barrier!”

  “I can’t,” he grated. “It’ll be on us the instant I stop focusing on the jewel.”

  Suddenly Jeremy was clawing in his duster with his right hand. From the back of his belt he drew the White Hunter knife. He flipped it in his hand until he held it blade first.

  “Adahy!” he shouted.

  The Shaman’s eyes flicked to his though he did not pause in his song.

  “Take back your own, Shaman, made by you and of you.” Jeremy flung the knife. The weapon, imbued by the Shaman’s own spirit, flew through the barrier and lodged in his chest. Adahy staggered and yelled, blood staining his shirt.

  “A hit,” Jeremy exulted.

  “Not fatal,” Dietrich snapped.

  “Oh yes it is,” Prosperine said.

  The shimmer of the pentagram vanished; the lines on the ground went dead. Adahy screamed and started chanting, pulling out the knife.

  “Fool,” Prosperine shouted. “Your own blood is spilled, the pentagram is destroyed.”

  “Wait, wait,” Adahy shouted as Ko-rea-ram-neh-neh stooped toward him. The Shaman turned to run.

  The monster settled to the ground just behind Adahy, its wings corralled him, pulling the shrieking man toward its hideous face. Adahy screamed and begged but Ko-rea-ram-neh-neh gave a low obscene chuckle in imitation of the shaman’s. Then the wings pulled and the screams became agonized.

  “For God’s sake,” Dietrich said, horror distorting his face. “Do something.”

  “Not if I could,” Jeremy returned. “Or do you forget that he sowed this fate for five others? Let him reap the full measure of it.”

  “He’s lasting a while,” Prosperine observed over the screams and wet slobbering sounds. “Maybe it likes to play with its food.”

  The head rolled about to face them. Adahy hung half out of its mouth, his face distorted in mind-shattering terror.

  Even Jeremy felt ill at the sight of Ko-rea-ram-neh-neh’s cheeks sank as it sucked on what was left of the shaman, who gave a last despairing scream as he was pulled inside.

  Ko-rea-ram-neh-neh stared at them and Jeremy felt his blood chill and his will weaken under those horrid eyes, portals to some place that humanity had no business in. Next to him Dietrich staggered and fell.

  Prosperine squalled and struck him with her nails. He shook himself and raised the bloodstone, concentrating what was left of his power. The stone brightened. Dietrich seized a large rock and stood; Prosperine hunched, ready to change.

  Ko-rea-ram-neh-neh gave that horrid chuckle again, dark fluid running from the corners of its obscene mouth. It humped away from them, then launched itself into the air. It rose on its giant wings, impossibly quickly and steeply. In seconds it had disappeared into the night sky.

  “It’s gone,” Dietrich murmured as if afraid to believe it.

  “From this plane of existence, yes” Jeremy said, his voice dull with fatigue.

  Prosperine walked over to Jeremy, who sagged against her taut, powerful naked form. “Unnatural demons like that,” she said, “find our world painful. They aren’t grateful to be summoned and no magic creature loves those with power over its existence. Once it had its revenge over what forced it into our universe it wasn’t interested in us.”

  “Thank God for that,” Dietrich murmured. “Though I suppose I really should be thanking the two of you.”

  “You can thank me,” Jeremy said,” with a damn good bottle of red back at the Grove.”

  Dietrich looked at Prosperine. “And you?”

  “You can turn a blind eye to the occasional loss of cattle and goats,” Prosperine said.

  Jeremy looked at her. “You coming back with us?”

  “No,” she said. “I’ve had enough of the human world for a while. I want to run wild on my own. But I’ll be here, Jeremy. As I said last time, life around you is fun. Find me next time you need a familiar.” She leaned forward and kissed him hard on the mouth. Then she stepped back and the panther was there. With an explosive snarl that made both men flinch, she leapt into the darkness of the woods.

  Jeremy pulled up to his apartment, shouldered his bag and turned the key to let himself in. Inside Shadowheart lay on the couch, surrounded by junk food wrappers, watching TV. He recognized “Heaven can wait.” She raised an eyebrow at him and gave an elaborate yawn. “Oh well, look who’s back.”

  He grinned at her. “Miss me?”

  “Were you gone long?”

  “Long enough,” he said laughing.

  “Well now that you’re through slacking maybe we can take care of some evil.”

  He dropped on to the couch next to her, and put one arm over her shoulders and grabbed up a moon pie with the other.

  “After the movie.”

  Our Fields

  Paul Salvette

  Sergeant Gong adjusted his belt as he stood on the mud wall that enclosed the rice field. He looked at the young girl’s corpse lying face down in the muck and wondered how long she had been dead. Flies swarmed around the decaying remains, but her skin had yet to swell in the punishing humidity. Her shredded pink dress, floating in ankle-high water, exposed severe bruises on her tiny legs. A massive puncture wound through her stomach left segments of intestines visible to the large group that was now gathering. The freshly planted rice stalks in her vicinity showed no signs of disturbance.

  The rainy season had come early this year in northeastern Thailand. Everyone’s sons and daughters had begun the annual ritual of taking time off from their jobs in Bangkok as factory workers, taxi drivers, and waitresses to come back to their village to help with the rice crop. While most of the villagers were accustomed to the crime and sleaze of the big city, they did not expect to see something like this in their home.

  A pickup truck came rumbling down the dusty road with six people sitting in the bed, their faces wrapped in t-shirts to escape the oppressive sun. One of the men jumped down and began walking over to the body.

  “Everyone take a step back,” Gong yelled. As a police officer in the small town of Non Fai, he was responsible for ensuring law and order in this sub-district. The last time he had come out to this particular village was a month ago, when a woman had hit her husband on the head with a frying pan for drinking too much whiskey. He never expected to see a little girl so brutally murdered in a rural area where everyone knows each other.

  “Gong, like I said earlier on the phone, I think she came out to the fields to play. Everyone loved little Om. Who could have done this?” the girl’s uncle, Et, spoke calmly.

  Gong had gone to the same secondary school as Et, and they were friends ever since. Et was a rice farmer for four months out of the year and during the dry season did construction at the nearby temples and government buildings. Gong had gone to the police academy and become a cop in Bangkok, but he moved back home last year after getting tired of all the big-city, internal politics of the Metropolitan Police force. However, after seeing his friend’s niece dead, he wished he had never come back to Non Fai.

  “Et, I’m sorry you had to see this.”

  “I’m doing alright. It’s sad, but I barely knew little Om. She spent almost all her time with her mother down in Bangkok.”

  “How’s Lek?”

  “She’s pretty devastated. She was the one who found the body this morning. Lek noticed Om wasn’t in her room when she woke up, so she walked outside looking for her. I heard her running into the house screaming like a crazy woman. After seeing the body for myself, I gave you a call.”

  “What time did Om go to bed?”

  “About 9:00 p.m. She must have woken up
and started playing out here while it was still night.”

  Gong looked around at the villagers to see if anyone looked suspicious. The elderly villagers stared stoically into the distance with their withered faces. Their rough appearances were the result of a lifetime of hardship in rural Thailand, and unfortunately for Officer Gong, they looked the same in any situation. The younger villagers, on the other hand, with lighter skin and cell phones dangling around their necks on lanyards, seemed shocked.

  Gong stepped off the mud wall and walked toward the large crowd. “Who saw something last night? Who did this?” he asked.

  The villagers looked from one to the other without saying a word.

  “Well, I’m not leaving till I get some answers.”

  After a long, awkward silence, a young boy raised his hand.

  “Officer Gong, I found this over here.” The boy pointed to a large, fresh mound of feces next to the road.

  “Et, do you still raise cattle?”

  “Hardly anyone in the village does anymore. The market price for beef dropped after the worthless government stopped its subsidy program. But that’s not cow shit, it’s water buffalo shit.”

  “Who still uses a water buffalo to plow their fields?”

  “Nobody. Everyone either owns a tractor or borrows their neighbor’s nowadays.”

  Gong walked farther down the road and saw a cell phone smashed to pieces. Beneath the rubber keypad and some wires lay a shard of casing that read “Om” next to a Doraemon sticker.

  “Lek, I need you to talk to me. What happened last night?”

  Lek sat cross-legged on a bamboo mat, staring blankly into space. The concrete foundation of the house had a crack propagating down the middle due to age. Like many houses in the northeast, the bottom floor had no walls, a holdover from when livestock used to be stored on the ground floor, but Et’s family was too poor to install plaster walls and tiling.

  About a dozen children from the village were standing outside, curious as to what happened to their cousin from Bangkok. Gong towered over Lek while her two sisters gently massaged her shoulders.