“Shit! Ahh!” she hissed, hoping around and holding her left hip.
“You okay,” Jerry frantically asked as he rushed over to her.
“Claire?!” Joe yelled and joined them.
“I'm fine, I'm fine,” Claire panted before digging her nails into her bullet wound and yanking the round out. “That was hot!”
“Bullets usually are,” Cass said as she walked over. She handed her sister a hip flask which she took a big gulp from. A few seconds later he wound started to heal up. “It's always fun watching my sis get shot.”
Claire glared at her.
“I'm sorry,” Jerry said.
“Don't be. That was good. Really. It wasn't a kill shot but it would have given you enough to finish me,” she smiled, still wincing a little from the pain.
“Only you would actually congratulate someone for shooting you,” Joe chuckled and Claire just grinned.
“Alright, play times over,” Cass said, picking Claire's gun off the ground. “My turn.”
“Oh, great,” Jerry groaned. Everyone knew that Cass was faster than Claire and that she wouldn't be nearly so gentle in her teachings.
By the time the others reached the plexiglass Claire's wound had healed and she was able to walk normally. They reloaded the weapons and took position. Jerry braced himself for his inevitable 'death'.
“We're not playing with sticks anymore Jerry,” she grinned mischievously.
“Thanks for reminding me,” he said trying to shake the ringing from his ears.
Cass's arm shot up so fast that Jerry barely saw it. He moved just as she fired and he could imagine the bullet coming so close that it would have taken out a chunk of his hair. He spun around and returned fire but she was well out of the way. She took aim again, practically pressing the barrel to his temple. He pushed her hand away before she pulled the trigger but was suddenly caught by a sharp kick in the stomach that sent him flying backwards, slamming into the floor.
He groaned as he got up while Cass just giggled. “How could you forget about my lovely long legs Jerry?”
“I don't remember anyone saying that we were using kicks.”
“I don't remember anyone saying that we weren't,” she shrugged.
Jerry smiled through his pissed off features and suddenly took aim at Cass. She actually back flipped to dodge the bullet just as Jerry rolled forward across the ground. Jerry rose as Cass dismounted right in front of him. They went at it again, with both of them trying to land hits, either from the guns or their own limbs. Cass continued to take shots as close to his face as possible causing the ringing in his ears to get worse and worse. His ear drum would probably explode if this carried on. She sent a kick at his chest but Jerry darted out of the way. Just as he did, Claire's words from earlier popped into his head.
Don't think about it, go on instinct. At that moment, Jerry's instinct was telling him to do something crazy. Something she wouldn't expect.
Instead of firing, Jerry suddenly threw the gun at her which Cass easily dodged but doing so gave Jerry the opening he needed. He grabbed hold of the barrel of her gun and twisted it out of her hand. He moved backwards a step before aiming at Cass's chest.
He didn't fire because he didn't have to. He had her dead to rights.
Cass actually smiled and nodded her approval. But something about that smile was also her own amusement. He would have expected her to be angry about loosing to him but for some reason she wasn't. It only took about a second to realize why.
“Ahh! Son of a bitch!” Jerry yelped, dropping the gun and clutching his hand. He hadn’t noticed at the time but the gun barrel he'd just grabbed was burning hot and had singed his fingers.
Cass burst into laughter. “Did I forget to mention that you should probably wear gloves if you're going to do that?”
“Not funny!”
“Daniel,” Sophinia called out, holding up the glass of ice water she'd brought with her. She had obvious expected someone to get burned during this little exercise.
Jerry ran straight for it and dunked his fingers in. The ice cold water instantly took some of the burn away and the pain was replaced by a weird tingling sensation. “Ohh, that's nice.”
“That was pretty damn good kid,” Joe smiled.
“Freakin' awesome. My turn now,” Goose said excitedly. “But first I'm going to get some gloves.” He shot off towards the mansion as Cass walked over and patted him on the back.
“That was good Jerry. Glad to see you're actually moving your feet now,” she said.
“Huh?” Jerry asked. He hadn't heard her very well because his ears were still ringing.
“Well done,” she said louder.
“Thanks,” Jerry smiled.
“How did you know to throw the gun at me?” she said leaning closer to his ear.
“I don't know. I just did. Figured you'd be expecting a bullet, not a gun,” he shrugged.
For the tiniest second, Rachel and Soph exchanged looks. Jerry had predicted Cassandra's moves. That wasn't normal. That wasn't human. But they weren't going to tell him that.
“Very nicely done,” Sophinia smiled.
Goose returned a few minutes later, with gloves and Jerry joined the others behind the plexiglass with his fingers still dipped in the water. They were only able to actually work on Bullet Ballet for about another hour before the rain started to fall from the sky. While the vampires didn't mind, Rachel made several complaints about her hair getting wet so they packed it up and went back into the mansion.
Before they did, Goose successfully managed to put a bullet in Cass's left hand but that was after she 'killed' him eleven times. Both the boys would need to work a lot harder at it before they stood any real chance of using the fighting form as well as other exterminators could but they were making a lot of progress.
The next few hours were spent waiting for when they'd need to leave for the Nearly Departed. Luckily when the time came the rain had stopped and the air was already becoming humid again. They left about three and a half hours before Eddie was due to arrive.
CHAPTER 7 – A BUST
St. Cloud – Minnesota
It was about two o’clock in the morning by the time they reached The Nearly Departed which was pretty much happy hour for just about every nocturnal preternatural thing in the area. The place was packed with witches, vampires, shapeshifters and even a group of fairies while Show me How to Live by Audioslave pumped through the speakers. Strippers were doing their sexy enticing thing on stage while customers whistled and threw money at them. Not far away all the casino tables were full of players.
Jerry was sat at the bar with a beer and was just getting started on his second bowl of potato chips. At the back of the room Cass and Claire were playing pool whilst telling any vampire that tried to come onto them to go away. All they really had to do was tell them that they were Sophinia’s chief enforcers but Cass preferred to make a colorful threat that usually involved her pool cue and their corn shoot.
Not far away, Goose was doing the complete opposite and hitting on a pair of young attractive witches who were looking at him like he was a rock star or something. He loved exploiting their new and ever growing reputation as amazing monster hunters. Human girls may not have looked at Goose or Jerry twice but women in the supernatural world couldn’t get enough of them.
“Weren’t you scared?” one of the witches asked looking fascinated at his story of how he and Jerry faced down an army of vampires.
“Of course. It’s a dangerous job. You’re constantly putting your life on the line to save innocent people,” he said giving his best smolder.
“That’s gotta be so hard,” the other witch swooned.
“Yeah, it is. It’s dangerous and frightening and most of the time you don’t even get a thank you, but mostly, it’s lonely...so so lonely,” he said milking it for everything it had. “But there’s a lot of evil out there and someone has to fight it. People are in danger and they need protecting.”
&nbs
p; The two girls looked like they were having heart palpitations.
“It’s a dangerous world we live in. We’ve all gotta be prepared.”
“How?” one of the girls asked in a dreamy voice.
“Well, I could teach you a few things. Sometimes they can be the difference between life and death. Magic can’t save you all the time and knowing how to handle yourself is never a bad thing.”
“That would be so great,” the another girl squeaked.
“Yeah, sounds good, why don’t you write your numbers down for me,” they almost dropped their pens because they tried to write their details too quickly. Goose smiled victoriously.
A few moments later he walked over to Jerry with a very smug grin on his face.
“Dude, I gotta tell you, other than almost getting eaten alive on random occasions, this monster hunting gig has its perks,” he grinned tucking their numbers into his jacket. “The brunette seemed pretty interested in you.”
“Thanks Casanova, I think I’ll pass,” Jerry mumbled and continued eating chips. “And you should probably check their I.D.’s because I could swear that they’re still wearing training bras.”
“They’re legal, that’s the important part,” Goose chirped.
“Great, you gonna change your name to The Hymanator?” he asked just as a little glowing ball of multicolored light buzzed past him and hovered over the bowl of chips. Jerry instantly pulled his Colt .45 and pointed it at the fairy just as it was about to pick up one of the chips. “I got a trophy case full of dead pixies at home so unless you wanna join it you’ll float your little glowy ass away from the chips and back to Neverland!”
The fairy let out a rapid series of angry squeaks before leaving. It zoomed back over to a table of fairies and started complaining to its friends about how Jerry had just treated it.
“Freakin’ fairies, you’re too damn small!” he growled as it left.
“Dude, you’re a faecist,” Goose stated.
“A what?”
“A fae-racist, you’re a faecist.”
“That’s not even a real word!”
“Patten pending,” Goose shrugged.
“They don’t like you much either Jerry and they’re not all that size,” a voice said from behind them as Jerry tucked away his gun.
The two of them turned around to see Eddie standing behind them. He was African-American in his late forties with short hair and sported a goatee. He had brown eyes and a large scar on his left cheek and was wearing a slightly ragged brown leather jacket. He had a big grin on his face that showed his pearly whites, a few of which were missing or replaced with gold fillings.
“Well, look what the retirement home kicked out,” Jerry grinned.
“I'd like to see you try and make it to my age kid,” Eddie chuckled and shook his hand with a hard grip. He wasn’t a machine but he had a lot of strength.
“Good to see you Eddie,” Goose said and shook his hand as well while Jerry waved the White sisters over to them.
“Good to see you too,” Eddie said before turning to the girls. “Ladies, always a pleasure.”
“Of course it is; we’re hot,” Cass smirked and hugged him. Claire did the same.
“So, Soph finally let you two off the leash? What did you do, use mind control on her?” he asked the boys.
“Nah, just appealed to her charitable nature. She said you’re working a gig?” Jerry asked.
“Yeah, somebody spotted a chupacabra up in Jamestown,” he nodded.
“What’s a chupacabra doing this far north; I thought they stayed around the Mexican border?”
“You got me,” Eddie shrugged, “guess I’ll find out,”
“Well, in that case, let’s talk shop,” Jerry said and the five of them gathered around the bar.
“What, you eager to get yourselves on the list?”
“What list?”
“The list of people to be feared by the supernatural world,” Eddie smiled.
“Didn't know there was one,” Jerry shrugged.
“Well, it's not an actual list. Exists more in whispers and reputation really. But it's out there.”
“So who's top of the list then?” Goose asked.
“Roman Garrett. Former SAS, works Europe mostly but he has been known to hop across the pond. I even met him once,” Eddie explained.
“I hear he's hot,” Cass smirked.
“I doubt he has any trouble with the ladies, if that's what you're asking. He's been in the game about seven years. These days, he's gotta actually chase the monsters because they all run away from him. Can't blame them. I wouldn't want to fight him either.”
“Who's number two?”
“That would be a guy named Tran. He's Korean or Taiwanese, I'm not sure. Grew up state side though.”
“I hear he's really hot!” Cass grinned even wider.
“He is,” Eddie shrugged admittedly. “Real pretty boy. Don't know how he does it, considering how many scars you get from this job. He would have been number three but the other number two died a few years back. Don't know much about him. Other than he was one badass mofo.”
“Who was he?” Jerry asked.
“That's the thing. Nobody knows who he really was. He always worked alone, never left any traces of himself. They just called him 'the chain man'.”
“The chain man? Sounds like a serial killer,” Jerry snorted.
“He practically was. See, Roman is all business. He's a professional at every turn. The chain man, he was nasty. He was like the bogeyman to monsters. Supernatural Jack the Ripper...but he died a few years back so Tran is number two now. He's been making a lot of noise down south in Texas and Cali, places like that. Then you got Dietrich and Nixon. They're great hunters. Roamers.”
Roamers. Jerry had heard about them. Whereas he and his friends worked a specific area, other exterminators moved around. They just went wherever the work was. One week they'd be in Florida, the next they'd be in Indiana. No permanent address, no attachments, no baggage. Just hunting.
“Well, if we ever want to get on this list, I guess we better get some work done,” Jerry said happily.
“Oh, don't worry, you got a lot of points from killin' Selena but some are saying that was just luck.”
“Most of it was. What you got?”
“I got two cases that need looking into,” he said pulling a pair of files from under his jacket. He laid them on the bar and opened the first one. “Okay, in Lexington, Nebraska, the body of a thirty four year old male is sitting in the morgue because something ate its way out of his stomach.”
“Eeesh,” Goose cringed.
“Cholesterol a bitch,” Jerry nodded.
“Yeah, needless to say, the police are baffled,” Eddie chuckled and opened the second file. “And in Harvey, North Dakota, twelve full grown cattle have vanished from farms in the area, all of them turning up three days later missing everything except their skeletons,” he said. “The locals suspect alien experimentation.”
“Okay, gut-buster and ham-burglar, any connection?” Jerry asked.
“None that I can see. But, we won’t know until we take a look.”
“Well, they defiantly rate the level of weirdness that we like,” Claire said.
“No, what’s weird is that this is all I got,” Eddie said.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m seeing none of the usual traffic. No ghouls or changelings doing naughty things, no spell-work going wrong. It’s quiet. Eerily quiet.”
“So monsters are actually behaving themselves for once, what’s so bad about that?” Goose asked.
“It’s like when a dog doesn’t eat, you know there’s something wrong.”
“Well, that’s not foreboding at all,” Cass groaned sarcastically.
“You think it’s got something to do with our mystery monster?”
“Can’t say, but once I’m done with this chupacabra, send me all the info you’ve got on that and I’ll try and help you I.D. it,” Eddie sai
d.
“You got it. Okay meat thief or John Hurt, which one you guys want?” Jerry asked Cass and Claire.
“Meat thief,” they said at the exact same time. Nobody wanted to investigate the poor bastard that had his guts eaten out. They could take a certain degree of gore but that was pushing it.
Blood Heavy: Ascension Page 7