Stupid move.
In order to miss a window, I shifted all of my weight to my other foot and it twisted oddly.
A moment later, on the sidewalk next to the Rolls Royce, I could feel the blood surging to my ankle as it swelled. It felt like it had its own heartbeat. As I hobbled toward the car, McGarrett stepped out to open the door for me.
“What’d you do? I thought you said it didn’t—”
“It didn’t,” I said, cutting him off. My pride bruised as I crawled into the car.
“Taylor, how are you feeling? You look pale. You look cold. Here, drink from this thermos; I brought you some warm Tang,” Mrs. Riley insisted before I’d even gotten fully into my seat. She always spoke like this, quickly making an assessment, and one that would lead you to what she wanted. In this case, for me to drink the Tang she’d made.
I slipped my seat belt on and took the mug, knowing that if I didn’t I’d hear nothing more than her insistence the rest of the way home.
Home was just a few miles away toward the eastern edge of town and deep in Theodore Woods. Known as the Pink Hippo, our home was in an inn that shut down when the mines dried up. Well, they didn’t actually dry up, but that’s another story. The Pink Hippo had exactly 77 rooms on 7 floors, a grand lobby, a massive dining hall, a kitchen, two libraries, a clock tower, and an indoor/outdoor pool. Several out buildings also dotted the property—a horse stable, three sheds of varying sizes, and a large workshop. The workshop, built in 1983, was a new addition in comparison to the inn, which had been built in 1865. The workshop was where Ike and his dad experimented, built, and fixed their inventions, and where Mr. Riley did his research and tracking. It was also the last place I’d seen my dad alive.
McGarrett tapped a door opener as we approached the long, gravel driveway that would snake through the woods and lead to the inn. The gate swung open, and the four illuminated headlights showed us the path home.
I was looking forward to my warm bed and some tunes to fall asleep. I felt a twinge in my ankle, but it could wait until morning.
Chapter Two
October 3rd—Tuesday
I woke to my best friend shaking me. Ike wasn’t exactly your stereotypical inventor. He had some of the traits though—crazy hair with rubbish in it, bright blue eyes filled with energy (like he’d just downed a venti quad-shot Espresso blended with a Monster energy drink), soot and dirt marks on his face, and a wide, bright smile.
“Taylor! So how’d it go? How’d my adjustments to the J-Pak work?” His voice was piercing to my just-wakened ear drums.
I hoped my groan might tell him I wasn’t quite awake yet, and he’d get the hint to chill. But it didn’t. Still, it was hard to get angry with someone so chipper.
I rolled over to look at him. I glanced at the clock.
“Six a.m.!” I shouted. Forget what I said; I could be angry. “Ike, get out of here! I just went to bed a few hours ago!”
His smile didn’t fade, but instead he shook me again. He looked even happier.
“Great, you’re awake. So how did it go?” Ike asked again. He reminded me of a small terrier puppy hopping up and down for attention.
“Not great. It was a bit—well—”
Ike started to frown.
I couldn’t be too harsh, even if I was mad at him for waking me. “—it needs some work.”
Ike let out a sigh; his smile gone.
Could I get back to sleep? I wondered. Probably not.
I swung my legs over the side of my bed and stretched my arms and yawned.
“What’s for breakfast?” I asked.
Ike answered in a rapid-fire stream of words. “Not sure, I haven’t slept yet, or ate. But I’m ready to eat if you are.”
I started to stand, but my right ankle gave out and I fell back into bed with a grimace on my face.
Ike looked horrified, “Oh, it was bad. My adjustments got you hurt.”
“No, it wasn’t the J-Pak.” I sat back up. “Grab my t-shirt and jeans,” I half ordered. “I did it when I was repelling down a building.”
Ike shook his head and walked over to my closet and opened the door. “Which one?” he asked, but I smiled to myself, knowing what was before him.
I didn’t have a lot of variety when it came to clothes. I pretty much had two styles of shirts. White tees for during the day, and black under armor shirts for hunting at night. In fact, these black shirts were a new addition to my wardrobe since I was assigned my role of hunter.
“A white one,” I answered with a smirk.
Next stop was my dresser, and other than underwear and socks, there were just three pairs of jeans; all the same style and color, and a couple pairs of black athletic pants.
“How about your jeans?” Ike asked.
“Any pair is fine.” I realize that some would call Ike a genius, or soon to be. But he’s very short in the common sense department, which is such a cliché, I know.
He brought me the shirt and jeans and bent down to help get my right foot into my pant leg. I politely excused him and assured him I could handle it on my own. He shrugged and picked up my current good read from my nightstand, a comic book titled, The Howling of Hamburg.
“Research?” he asked as I shifted the pant leg delicately over my right ankle.
“Uh, yeah I guess.”
Right leg in, now the left leg.
“So what was it like?” he asked.
I knew exactly what he meant. He wanted to know what it was like to face the HowlSage.
I thought for a moment. Ike was younger than me by three years. What I saw last night would frighten a grown man, no less an 11-year-old. “It was hairy; really hairy.”
Left leg successfully in. I stood and used the bed for support while I zipped and buttoned my pants.
“Any fangs?”
I smiled. “Yeah, it had fangs,” I said as I pulled my t-shirt over my head.
“Wow…” Ike looked up from the comic book. He had a curious expression on his face. “Were you—I mean, I know you probably weren’t, but…” He hesitated.
“Was I scared?” I finished for him. “Sure, I guess I was a little bit.”
That wasn’t the truth though; I know you’d expect a 14-year-old to be scared of a giant hairy creature with saliva dripping from its fangs, but I wasn’t. Honestly, not a twinge of fear. Maybe it was my adrenaline; I really don’t know. Or maybe the anger I felt when I saw it covered any fear. But I didn’t really know why.
So why didn’t I tell Ike, “I wasn’t scared.” Because I knew he would have been, and should the worst happen and he had to face the creature, I wanted him to believe he wasn’t alone in his feelings.
I slipped on some flip-flops, and Ike offered his shoulder. We hobbled to the old elevator and went down the five stories to the kitchen. As soon as the lift’s doors opened, the smell of fresh bacon, eggs, and cinnamon pancakes wafted to my nostrils, which flared as they took in the mouthwatering aroma.
My stomach started to grumble, which for some reason gave me an unpleasant thought about the creature last night, staring at me with its fangs bared and saliva dripping from them, each drop sizzling as it hit the roof of the building.
“Good morning!” came Mrs. Riley’s voice. She waddled over to us and hugged us both.
She was such a sweet lady, treating Ike and me like grandsons. But I knew she’d been a hunter like me in her own time. McGarrett had told me that Mrs. Riley had been injured by a BloodSage when she was younger. Their families had been the first team assigned to Ashley Meadows. They’d grown up together and eventually fallen in love. But not before she’d been attacked by a BloodSage. McGarrett, although not a hunter, had saved her. How, though, he hadn’t told me.
Mrs. Riley pulled several pieces of debris from Ike’s hair and sighed. “If your mom was here, she’d have you in the shower by now.”
Ike smiled. His mom was not missing or dead. She was simply visiting his grandparents in Germany. That’s the other thing about Ik
e; he’s of German descent and in the same family tree as some great German scientists.
We took our seats and Mrs. Riley disappeared through the swinging kitchen doors.
I’d had two bites of my eggs and one sip of fresh orange juice when McGarrett walked in with Ike’s dad—whom I should introduce as Olson Swigart—in tow. They were arguing or discussing—it was hard to tell with the two of them.
They stopped when they saw me and made their way to the table to eat.
Mrs. Riley eventually joined us and we all feasted on the wonderful breakfast. There was a firm rule when we supped—no discussion of work at the breakfast, lunch, or dinner table or any other occasion that involved food. Food was to be enjoyed without the stress of work.
When we were all done, Ike and I followed McGarrett and Ike’s dad to the workshop. McGarrett updated us on some intelligence he had received from the society’s headquarters.
Apparently, another Etherpit had opened up in a Chilean mine—the fifth new gateway in as many months.
Our society, known as the Legion der Dämonjäger, was founded to stand guard and destroy any demons sent through the gateway. The society’s forces were quickly becoming spread thin, though. In the past, new Etherpits opened only a few times a decade. I only knew all this from my last couple weeks of crash course training, so it was still fresh in my mind. But now the pits were opening at an alarming rate and the society couldn’t recruit or train new hunters and support teams quickly enough. It was the driving reason for my training starting over a year before I would turn sixteen. And it was the only reason Ike, age eleven, was told what his dad really did and allowed to start training as well. Of course we were training for very different jobs.
I still ask myself how I didn’t know about the supernatural side to his work. I’d just thought my dad was some sort of secret agent for the United States government. All his gadgets, weird hours, and constant travel. I figured I was only being dragged along because of my mom’s death and he had no choice. But now it turns out that he worked for a different sort of organization. One that, even though its business was highly dangerous, put family first.
So with the new Etherpits opening so quickly, it was possible McGarrett or Ike’s father would have to go to Chile to get things under control and establish a guard. However, with the current creature loose in Ashley Meadows and neither Ike nor I anywhere near fully trained or of age, they might get off. The decision would be up to the society’s high council, whose headship was the very monk I’d met a month prior. McGarrett looked over my ankle while Ike and his dad looked over the J-Pak; I assumed McGarrett told Mr. Swigart what I’d mentioned about the trees the night before.
You’d think Ike would be in trouble, but that wasn’t how his dad was. Mr. Swigart knew, like any good inventor, that there are many failures for every success. What I didn’t like about this theory was it was my life on the line, my body using these gadgets and gizmos. But so far, I’d not had any serious injuries from them. Of course I’d only been on the job for a day, and began training with gadgets two weeks prior.
The Etherpit we were responsible to guard had opened back in 1890; people were more willing to believe in the reality of demons then. The miners accidently struck into a black, bottomless pit, and when townspeople started seeing ghosts or weird things started happening, they got suspicious. The society was contacted and a team was sent. Of course, the mines were abandoned.
McGarrett said, “Be careful on it today,” and wrapped my ankle tightly. He gave me an old crutch he’d pulled from storage and said to take it easy at school.
Speaking of school, I remembered that I needed to finish two more paragraphs on my history paper. I took out my tablet and started tapping the on screen keyboard.
I’d just finished when McGarrett said he’d drive us to school today instead of Ike and I riding the bus. We went out to find he’d pulled up an old World War II motorcycle with a side car. This was Mr. Riley’s favorite, and Mrs. Riley’s least favorite vehicle in the motor pool. Needless to say, it wasn’t favored by Ike and I either. He had to sit on my lap in the side car—not exactly how we liked to arrive at school. But there was no point in arguing with McGarrett; he already had his goggles and leather helmet on.
Being the bigger of us, I climbed in first, then Ike squeezed in front of me, not quite on my lap, which was good.
We had barely secured our helmets when gravel ripped into the air as McGarrett hammered the throttle. The sidecar motorcycle tore down the gravel road, and Mr. Riley made it fish tail here and there for an extra thrill. One thing was for sure, I had no fear when riding with McGarrett, regardless of how he drove.
Fortunately for Ike and me, Mr. Riley dropped us at the back of the school, out of sight of any of our peers. I unstrapped my crutch from the side of the motorcycle, and Ike and I headed for class just as the first warning bell rang.
The day passed slowly, and I had lots of time to think about last night’s events. Was this really happening to me? I mean, was I really fighting in a secret war that had raged all my life, but although being a “Christian,” I’d never truly grasped its reality? It’s one thing to think you believe in Heaven and hell because you’re religious and you’ve learned about it in all your Sunday school years, but it’s another thing to stand face to face with a demon, its saliva splattering on you with every wretched-smelling breath it takes.
All this time I’d just thought my dad was some sort of government spy, but it turned out his job was far more perilous. As a boy I’d thought he was invincible, tougher than nails.
But the day had come, and alas, my dad fell. He literally fell, chasing a SwampSage into the abandoned mines. McGarrett told me the painful story of what had happened after a couple weeks of training. He and Mr. Swigart were watching my dad chase a SwampSage. The entire scene was being streamed to the workshop via the night-vision camera embedded in my dad’s chest armor.
Apparently my dad had the SwampSage cornered when something else shoved him from the back. He stumbled to the left, and then the SwampSage took its opportunity and pulled my dad into the black void with it.
The next morning was when I got the news, and a few days later I started my crash course in becoming a demon hunter. I’d learned about a few types of demons so far; all had weaknesses, but I couldn’t keep all of that straight.
The demon I was hunting at the moment was a HowlSage. Society’s term for it is werewolf, and in recent years the public’s concept of the wolfish beast has been so far skewed that some would idolize it as a hero. This simply isn’t accurate; these beasts are hungry for the flesh of men, and they have one purpose and that is to serve the Evil One himself. There is no glory or goodness in these creatures.
The BloodSage is equally misrepresented today, personified as a being who can show human emotions of love, courage, and honor. Most know them as vampires, but we call these demons BloodSages. They are strategists of the underworld; seeking to create vast armies of minor demons, they fight amongst themselves to create huge territories from which they can feed and siphon strength from human sin. McGarrett seems to believe they are the most dangerous demon we face on this side of the Etherpit. I asked him what he meant by this side, and he shook his head and changed the subject.
The beast that murdered my dad was a SwampSage. These demons are dangerous too, but not alone—their strength comes in numbers. If you’ve ever heard of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, you can get a pretty good visual.
There are many more demons in existence, and Ike has sketched a few for you to see. But for now I must concentrate on learning all I can about the HowlSage.
When the bell rang for school to be out, I met Ike outside the school to wait for McGarrett. He pulled up in a short few minutes in the Rolls Royce.
Ike tugged on my shoulder. “Looks like somebody is off to Chile,” he said.
There were several suitcases strapped to the roof of the gray car. Mr. Riley was driving, and Ike’s dad was in the bac
k.
McGarrett motioned me into the passenger seat, and Ike got in the back with his dad—a sign that it would be Mr. Swigart headed to South America.
A few short minutes later, we pulled into the parking lot of Ashley Meadows Regional Airport, a small airport where only a few private jets and one airline flew. Southwest airlines had purchased one of three available gates and flew one flight in and out per week. Southwest airline’s current president was a member of the society.
Ike hugged his dad goodbye, then stood next to me while Mr. Riley and Ike’s dad spoke. As usual their conversation looked very serious as neither man frowned once.
Mr. Swigart gave a wave goodbye and then headed through security, which we knew from the overhead announcements was at “Threat Level Orange.”
“It’s never going to be green again,” I said to Ike.
“Probably not,” Ike started.
I scoffed.
“Imagine if instead of a terror alert level, we had a spiritual warfare alert level,” Ike said.
“People would just ignore it like they do the terror alert level announcements in airports,” I said, and as if on cue, the announcement aired overhead again.
Ike and I started to follow McGarrett back to the car. “True, they already have the Book, they just never choose to listen to its warnings,” Ike said.
We rode back to the Pink Hippo listening to the police scanner. But this night, like most others, there was no activity.
Once we got back in the workshop, Mr. Riley launched the targeting application and a large map of Ashley Meadows and the surrounding countryside appeared on the oversized plasma display in the workshop. There were several glowing spots in varying hues. Small sensory devices scattered throughout the area picked up traces of scent, sound, infrared, and visual identification, attempting to match the likeness of our current prey.
Of course, my first prey would have to be the most difficult type of demon to track, having qualities so similar to animals, especially dogs. It seemed the entire map glowed red with direct matches.
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