“By the time I am finished,” Violet said. “There will not be a single one of these monsters standing in our way and they will know that if raise their ugly heads again, then Violet Reincastle will have them begging for a merciful death at the hands of the tentacled monsters before I send them all back to the hell from which they crawled.”
Blood Red
Thom Brannan
“How many of them are there?” the white-haired man shouted, swinging his .357 from side to side. Silver rings woven into his long, bone-white hair, tinkling as he turned, searching for targets. His name was Io, and he was a mage.
The man behind him, a tall Asian holding his police-issue H&K FP-6 Entry to his shoulder, grunted. “Three, maybe four. Why, how many were you hoping for?”
“Three is too many,” Io said, brushing white hair out of his face. “One is too many. This is the wrong side of the ocean for these things.”
Movement on the other side of the empty, darkened shopping mall drew both barrels in that direction.
“I don’t know what they’re doing here,” he finished.
John Chang, Homicide, snorted. “You mean besides killing tourists and dipping hats in their blood?” He checked his watch. “It’s getting close to midnight.”
Io stood straight up, uncocking his revolver and putting it into the holster on the side of this right leg. “Fine. We’ll do it this way.”
He pulled the sleeves of his grey hoodie back, revealing crawling tattoos on his forearms. He took a silver bracelet off his left wrist and put it in the front pocket of his sweater, pulling a white paint pen from the same place. He pulled the cap off and bent down, drawing on the floor of the mall with his left hand while holding his hair back with his right.
“Why don’t you use a tie for that?” John said.
“Why don’t you shut the hell up? I’m trying to concentrate.”
John shrugged and kept his finger on the trigger of his short shotgun. “Whatever. Just trying to help.” He fell silent as Io continued to draw on the floor. “What was in the shells you gave me?”
Io shook his head and stood. “Iron. Bits of crystal.” His hands empty, he placed them over the glyph he’d drawn on the floor and closed his eyes. “Now shut up—pretty please—and be ready.”
The cop snugged the butt of the shotgun deeper into the pit of his shoulder and nodded. He enjoyed baiting Io, but he knew when to put a lid on it.
“Here goes,” Io said, and his hands glowed blue.
Immediately, there was a clattering from a shoe store, and a figure came hurtling into the safety gate that closed the storefront off after business hours. He hit so hard, the gate was ripped from its moorings and wrapped around the figure as he slid into the wide walkway.
The shotgun came down from John’s shoulder. “What?”
Shaking himself free from the safety gate was a gnarled old man, thick through the shoulders, baring large teeth at them. Balanced atop his head was a shapeless woolen cap, dyed a deep, deep red.
“Curse ye, spell-slinger!” He shouted, raising a talon filled fist and shaking it. In his left hand he gripped a ten-foot staff, which was hopelessly ensnared in the safety gate.
“Are those iron boots?” John asked.
Io nodded. “Yeah. Well, iron-shod.” He walked towards the old man and drew the .357, cocking the big gun. “It’s supposed to be impossible to outrun these guys.” He prodded the old man’s hat. “Isn’t it, Redcap?”
The only reply he got was another snarl and the sound of rattling metal as the creature fought to free its pikestaff.
“What’s a Redcap?”
Io tilted his head at the fairy creature.
“I’ll tell you later,” he said, bringing up the revolver and firing.
John Chang removed the handcuffs from Io’s wrists and turned him around. “The body is gone. If you did that, bravo—I didn’t think you could…”
“I didn’t do that,” Io said, rubbing his wrists. “If you’re going to arrest me every time we work together, just stop calling.”
“You shot a guy, point-blank!” John yelled, eyes bugging.
Io held up a finger. “I shot a Redcap. Slight difference, which you would know if you would let me explain. Instead…” he put his hands up in front of his face, wrists together and palms apart, “I had the right to remain silent.”
John put the handcuffs back on his belt. “Explain it now.”
“Give me a ride home,” Io said. “I’ll explain on the way. After we stop at Jack in the Box. You’re buying.”
Later, when his stomach was full of bacon and cheese and beef, Io was content again and in a better mood. “Redcaps are faerie-folk; The Fae, as they prefer to be called. Some people think they’re dwarfs or goblins, but—”
“That old man was pretty tall,” John said.
“Yeah. Anyway, Redcaps haunt ruined castles. You wander inside one, and they whack you to use your blood to keep their caps wet. Their caps dry out, they go away…”
“Ruined castles where?”
Io made a face. “England. Scotland—the border between—that’s why I don’t like them here.”
“In the mall.”
“In the middle of Texas. Kind of out of their area code.” Io poked around in his paper bag, looking for a stray curly fry. “And there are more than one. You said there were four sightings?”
John nodded. “Yeah. One less, now.”
The unmarked police sedan pulled over to the curb in front of Io’s apartment complex and stopped.
“I may have a plan,” Io said. “But it’ll take a day to put together.”
“Do we have a day?”
Io collected his trash. “I think we do. The Redcap’s hat was still kind of soggy. Expect a missing person’s report in a couple of days. Type AB.” He looked over at John. “But they’re not supposed to be here in the first place, so I don’t know for sure. Just keep your eyes open. And use the iron rounds.”
“I will,” John said as Io closed the car door.
After the car pulled away, Io looked up at his building and blew out a breath.
“What the hell is this town coming to?”
John Chang stared at the paperwork on his desk and wondered how he was going to justify any overtime for this Redcap thing, as there were no witnesses and no bodies. “There’s no evidence,” he said.
“You’re right,” Io said next to him, and John dropped everything onto his desk.
“Don’t fucking do that.”
Io smiled. “Your reflexes are wonderful. Here,” he said, handing over a leather thong with a stone wrapped in silver filigree. “Put this on.”
John looked at the necklace as Io dropped into the chair on the other side of the desk. “What’s it for?”
Picking up a pencil, Io pushed around some of the forms on John’s desk. “It’s a Thunderstone. Should protect you from elfshot.”
The hands holding the necklace dropped to the desktop. “What is elfshot?” He looked at the necklace. “Isn’t this flint?”
“Magic missile,” Io said with a smile. “And no. It looks like it, but no. It’s a Thunderstone.” A hint of a laugh lurked behind the smile.
John saw it and decided to stop asking. He put the necklace in a drawer and picked up his papers instead.
“Put down Century work,” Io said, dropping the pencil, then said three letters. “That’s me. Or, my Roman numeral, and you’ll get your OT.” He stood. “Come on. I have an idea. You have a place here where we can do a video conference?”
After a moment, John said, “Yeah. Come with me.”
Ten minutes later, they were seated in front of a laptop, waiting for Peter Black to pick up.
“Who is this guy?” John said. Io shushed him.
When a connection was made, an image of a dark-skinned man filled the screen. He was scowling, frown lines etched permanently on either side of his mouth. He peered at his own monitor, and the frown lines deepened. “You,” he said, not kindl
y. “What now?”
“Pete,” Io said, “come on, this is a friendly call. I just need some info. That’s it.”
Pete grunted. “What?”
John squinted at the screen as Io talked.
“I need a Collecting Bag. Where can I find one around here?”
“Are you still in America?”
“Austin, Texas,” John said.
Pete shot him a glance, seemingly through the laptop. “I was talking to Io, Chang Long Xian.”
Sitting back and blinking, John stared at the computer.
Io put a hand on his arm and continued. “Yes, Pete. America, still.”
The man, who looked more blackened than black, snorted. “Figures. Call this person,” he rattled off a 1-800 number, “and tell them I said to furnish you with whatever you might need. This is the last one.”
“Second to last,” Io said. “Remember Seattle.”
Pete scowled and snapped his hand up, and the screen went black. Io turned to John. “Your middle name is Long?”
“Means dragon,” John said, eyes not moving from the screen. “How’d he do that?”
“Later,” Io said. “Mmm…maybe never. I gotta make a phone call.”
“Hold on, hold on a minute. Why did you need me for that?”
Io smiled. “I didn’t. I needed the police station. Didn’t want Pete to know where I live.”
The next night, Io and John sat in the front of the unmarked police sedan, a map of the city spread out over the dash and Io’s lap. He sat with his eyes closed, a cone-shaped weight on a chain in his hands, hanging motionless over the street map.
John looked over, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. He looked at his watch. Then out at the night sky, the fat moon shining down merrily as the minutes ticked away.
He looked back and opened his mouth to complain when the plumb started moving. It dragged against the chain in Io’s hand, pointing at a spot on the west side.
“What are you waiting for?” Io asked.
John snorted and put the car in gear, steering them north on I-35 in silence. They’d gone over the plan several times, until they were both fairly sick of it. The contact Io made had provided them with a pair of Collecting Bags. When John asked Io exactly what they were for, the mage had just smiled and shook his head.
“You won’t believe it until you see it,” he had said.
As they barreled up the on-ramp for 183, John thought about that. He’d seen some wacky things, working with Io as the Austin PD’s liaison to the Century, the wizard order Io belonged to, but there was something new every time. This time it was misplaced faeries and Collecting Bags.
“Take this exit,” Io said, and John nodded.
He pointed off the left side. “Is that it?”
A burned-out structure stood overlooking the elevated freeway, gutted from where a single-engine airplane had hit it months before.
Io nodded slowly. “Yeah. Do we need to go over the pl…”
“Shut up,” John said.
Io shut up and let John drive, keeping one eye on the ruined building for as long as it was in view. The first Redcap had chosen a temporarily closed shopping center (renovations) and this one picked a condemned building. A large condemned building, Io noted.
“There will be more than one this time,” he said.
“I thought you said these things were solitary?”
Io looked at John. “Yeah-huh. I also said they lived in the UK. Does this look like the UK?”
John said nothing, but took the turn a little bit fast, making Io slide over and thump his elbow on the door. He slowed and aimed the car into the vacant lot across the street from the empty building. A ten-foot hurricane fence surrounded the place, including a demolition company’s boxes and temporary buildings.
The pair stood looking at the burned-out building until John turned and opened the trunk of his car. He pulled from it the same short-barreled shotgun from the time at the mall, and Io looked at it.
“We have the bags,” he said.
“Yep. And we have this, too.”
“Well,” Io said, starting across the street, “if you have to shoot one of them, leave the other to me. I have questions.”
John smirked. “Yes, boss. Whatever you say, boss.”
The fifth floor was a mess. The majority of the damage had occurred there, the small plane’s fuel igniting everything in its path as momentum carried it into the building. Lights from outside didn’t penetrate far, not five stories up, and the side facing the freeway had hardly any light anyway.
The Redcap, and old man with the same sturdy build, this one with something resembling a tusk sticking out from the left side of his mouth and aimed at the sky, sat over the body of a homeless man. His sign and backpack lay at the Redcap’s feet, ignored as the thing dipped its hat in the unfortunate’s blood. As close as the building was to the mass of overpasses and intersections along this stretch of 183, the Redcap’d had easy pickings for weeks.
A sound from behind caught its attention. It turned, left hand dropping to the twelve-foot pikestaff that lay on the blackened floor next to the corpse. Idly, it wondered if it should continue to carry the pikestaff around. The Redcap was feeling a little…unbound by its current situation.
There was a blast on the floor below, and the Redcap shot to its feet, slightly pointed ears cocked. It knew there was another of its kind on the third floor, but that was okay; there was enough to go around.
Heavy steps came up the stairs, and the Redcap crouched, gripping its pikestaff in both hands. It huffed and shuffled, working itself into a lather, fingers drumming quickly on the haft of the pike. It would defend its ground. This was its lair, and no one would enter without donating blood.
“Hey,” a voice said behind, and the Redcap turned in time to see a white-haired man swung a burlap sack over his head—then, blackness, and an endless sense of falling.
John watched Io slap the bag over the faerie and cinch the mouth shut, but he didn’t believe it. Io then swung the bag around over his shoulder as if it had a bowling ball in it instead of a six-foot mythological creature. He noticed his mouth was hanging open and closed it before Io noticed.
“Explain,” he said.
Io walked past him. “On the way to my place.”
Driving south, Io patted the bag in his lap. “You know how Santa Claus is supposed to travel all over and deliver presents? Well, back when he did such a thing, he carried everything in a bag just like this.”
John pursed his lips. “You called it a Collecting Bag.”
“True. Santa had…an associate. You know how, when you’re bad, you get a lump of coal? Well, back in the gap…”
“I hate that saying.”
“…instead of getting a lump of coal, bad kids were nabbed up and taken to mine the stuff. In a bag just. Like. This.” Io patted the bag again.
Eyebrows raised, John glanced over at Io. “You think I can keep the one in my trunk?”
“It’ll cost you.”
“Deal,” John said. “What about the bogey in the bag?”
“Redcap. Bogeys are—”
“I don’t give a shit.”
“Right. When we get back to my place, I’ll dump him into a holding cage in my garage and get some answers out of him. It might get unpleasant.”
John considered. “Well. He’s not a citizen. Or human. So I can’t see as how he has any rights to violate.”
“Shaky ethics,” Io said. “You’ll go far in politics.”
They pulled into Io’s neighborhood and he waved a hand, opening the garage gate. John looked around as they pulled in. “How do you get away with using so much of the parking garage? There have got to be other people that want to use these spaces.”
Io got out of the car and wiggled his fingers. “Magic.”
John grabbed the bag. “Bull.”
“Meh,” Io said. “I rent out the spaces and put up a little deterrent spell to keep the curious out. Probably
need to rent a house. Maybe I will. Bring the bag over here.”
John followed Io to an empty corner of the parking garage, and he felt a tingle as he crossed over a very white line, then he saw everything that was there. “Holy shit,” he said, gaping. The garage was lined with bookcases and shelves full of leather-bound tomes and folders, lumps of clay and marionettes, and what looked like an unfinished model of R2-D2.
“Yes, I know,” Io said. “It’s bigger on the inside, yuk yuk. Get ready to empty the bag. When I say now, alright?”
He pointed at a dog crate about a foot and half square.
“You’re full of it,” John said. “There’s no way—”
“Just, do it. Ready?”
John nodded. Io put out his left hand and crooked his fingers. “Alright, then. And…now!” John opened the bag and shook it as Io shouted something that sounded like Greek, and a purple flash hit the Redcap as he tumbled from the Collecting Bag. When the flash faded, the faerie was contorted and twisted into a small package that fit the crate.
“Huh,” John said. “My mistake.”
Io knelt in front of the Redcap. “How many more of you are there?”
The Redcap smiled toothily at Io, the tusk on the left side scraping the black finish from the bars of the dog crate. Io sighed and reached out, gripping the tusk.
“How many?”
Somehow, the Redcap managed a shrug, and Io yanked. A terrible ripping sound came from the Redcap’s mouth, and he screamed, a wet sound that made John’s skin crawl.
“How many?”
Whimpering, the Redcap stuck one finger out of the crate.
“Just one, or are you giving me the finger?”
Eyes wide, the Redcap’s head began to vibrate.
“I think he’s trying to shake his head,” John said. “So one left. That’s not so bad, is it?”
Io held up a hand. His eyes never left the Redcap’s.
“How did you get here? Do you even know where you are?” He released the Redcap’s tusk and pulled his hand away. “Answer in your own language, if you have to.”
Both Barrels of Monster Hunter Legends (Legends of the Monster Hunter Book 1) Page 49