I only followed about the first sentence of that, so I cocked the shotgun and pointed it at his face. "Answer the question or I start shooting?"
"Will you believe me if I answer you? I give you my word that I shall not prevaricate."
"Dude, I only know what that means because Skeeter just told me. So I don't know if I'll believe you or not. I'm a pretty good judge of people, but I don't know how well I can read cat-men. So answer the question and we'll move on from there. Did you kill those kids?"
"No I did not." He stood there staring at me. He was dead calm, and even for somebody that didn't have much in the way of human expressions, he didn't look like he was trying to hide anything. I looked deep into his impassive golden eyes, and got nothing.
"Skeeter, do rakshasa lie?" I whispered.
"Of course we do. But in this case, there's nothing to be gained by it. I'm very happy here, and these murders have brought unfavorable attention to my hunting grounds. Like yourself."
"If you aren't killing the kids, what are you hunting?"
"Deer. Among other things. Just because I can eat human flesh doesn't mean I want to. Humans, especially Americans, are so full of fat and preservatives that they lack all interesting flavor. Nowadays you have to cook a human for so long and season it to heavily that you're better off just buying ground chuck. Look, I live here. I don't want you here, much less anybody else like you."
I held up a hand. "Don't worry. There is nobody else like me."
"That's for damn sure." Skeeter muttered in my ear.
"Your ego aside," Catman went on. "There are others in the monster extermination business, and I'd rather not encounter any of you. So I would like to propose an alliance."
"An alliance?" I looked at the paw stretched out in front of me and took a step backwards. "I don't think I'll be shaking hands with anybody that has cyanide fingernails today, thanks."
The rakshasa looked down at his own hand, shrugged and withdrew it. "I suppose that makes sense. But about that alliance?"
"What did you have in mind?"
"I help you track down the real killer, and then you leave town."
That was my usual modus operandi anyway. Come into town, find something that needs killing, kill it, leave. Relocate, rinse, repeat. "How do I know you aren't the one killing these kids? All I have is your word, and your kind is famous for lying."
"Like I said, I don't get anything out of it. I only kill for food, and these children weren't eaten. I'm being persecuted! You work for the Catholics, don't you? They're famous for persecution! All through history. The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition - all Catholic. So it couldn't be too far-fetched for me to be as innocent as those women burned in Massachusetts as witches."
"That wasn't a Catholic thing."
"I know, I was making a point."
"But that wasn't a Catholic thing."
"I know. That isn't what's important."
"It's important to me. The other things we'll take the blame for, but not the Witch Trials. That was all Protestant, all the time."
"Okay, okay, I get it. The Salem Witch Trials were not a Catholic thing. But your church has done more than its fair share of persecution over the years, you have to admit that."
"Yeah, but that was a long time ago."
"But it happened."
"Yeah, all right." I admitted. "The Church did some bad things back in the day."
"So you see my point?" The catman spread his hands as if the answer was floating in the air at his waist.
"What were we talking about again? I forget."
"I hate humans." I laughed and turned to go. "Hey! Where are you going?"
"Well, there's obviously nothing in this graveyard that's killing little kids and eating them, so I'm getting the hell outta here. It's cold, it's wet and I'll be damned if I'm gonna hang out in a graveyard ruining my boots when there's a perfectly good bar not five miles from here. So I'm gonna go get drunk, maybe get lucky, and get some sleep. Then I'll start poking around tomorrow for what's really got everybody scared outta their gourds around here."
"So you believe me? Just like that?"
"No, not just like that. The whole time you were pontificating about the Catholic Church, which I haven't forgotten by the way, I had Skeeter going over crime scene data. The trace evidence found on the kids' bodies doesn't match anything around here, and the bits of fur found under their fingernails seems feline, but it doesn't match your coat. So you're clear."
"Oh. I thought my scintillating arguments had swayed your opinion."
"I don't get scintillated all that easy. Especially by dudes. Even dudes with catheads." I turned again to leave. This time Catman appeared right in front of me. "That's a good way to get dead, Mittens."
"So is calling me cute cat names." He snarled. The cat-dude took a deep breath and looked up at me, a little embarrassed. "Can I come with you? I...I don't get out much. And there aren't very many people to talk to out here." He gestured to the cemetery.
"Well maybe you oughta get a place with less dead people around. I don't care, come along. But do something about that overbite before we get to the bar. I don't want to get in no fights that don't involve me touching somebody's girlfriend in the wrong spots."
Catman, or Greg as he had decided he'd use for his human name, had managed to cast a pretty convincing illusion around himself by the time we got to the truck. Instead of six-foot tall dude with the hands and head of a tiger, now he looked like a six-foot dude with a big beer gut and an LSU ball cap. I gave him props for the tiger hat, and could even live with the Carhartt shirt, but when he magicked himself up a belt buckle the size of something Ric Flair would wear, I had to put a stop to it. He snapped his fingers and it flickered into something more normal, and we rolled to the bar.
Junior's Place was your typical small-town beer joint. No windows to speak of, low ceiling, two fat waitresses that could have been twin sisters half-assedly waiting on tables, and four pool tables going. A beat up TV showed college basketball highlights and jukebox played both kinds of music - country AND western. In short, it was my kinda place. I grabbed a waitress on my way to a table, handed her twenty-dollar bill and ordered two pitchers of beer. She came back with two pitchers of domestic swill and a couple of glasses. I pushed a pitcher and a glass toward Greg and started drinking straight from the pitcher.
Greg poured himself a glass and took a sip. He made a face and put the glass down, pushing it away from him with a look of disgust. "What is that? It's awful."
"We call it beer. Where are you from, anyway?"
"India."
"I know where y'all are from originally, but where are you from?"
"India. I'm from Hyderabad. It's a city in south-central India."
"Never heard of it."
"I'm not surprised, coming from someone called Bubba. Hyderabad is approximately the size of Chicago, with a population of nearly seven million people."
"Big town. So what brought you to West Virginia?"
"A misunderstanding." I raised an eyebrow, and he went on. "About a woman, of course. I was living happily in Hyderabad, hunting when I needed to, being worshipped as a minor deity by several small communities in the outskirts of the city, when another rakshasa moved in. Aditya." He almost spat the name, and reached for more beer.
"I reckon that was a problem."
"We are territorial creatures by nature. He was in my territory, so we were destined to do battle. Unfortunately, I am more a lover than a fighter, so I was defeated. He took my land, my home, my worshippers, and my Raina."
"Raina's the girl?"
"Yes, she is amazing. Her coat is the most beautiful golden bronze, with stripes the deepest black. Her breasts are covered in the softest white hair, like the fur of an alpaca. She has fangs of driven snow..." His voice trailed off and he drained his glass. He poured another and drained it too. As he poured the third, he looked up at me with bleary cat-slit eyes. "This beer of yours gets better the more you drink of i
t."
"That's why I always buy in bulk, Greg ol' boy." I said, knocking back the rest of my pitcher.
Four hours later I had a nice buzz going, and Greg was facedown in a puddle of Bud on the table. I didn't mind the alcohol abuse too much, pitchers were on special. I was watching SportsCenter for about the seventh time when three rednecks wandered over to my table. It was about fifteen minutes past last call, so I had my sunglasses on in anticipation of the ugly lights coming on, but I could still see plenty to know this was not going to end well for the rednecks.
The first one was a wiry little fella, just to type who always starts crap with me. He was about five-nine and a hundred twenty pounds soaking wet, wearing spit-polished cowboy boots to make himself feel taller and a cowboy shirt and belt buckle that looked like they came off the rack at Walmart. His two buddies were normal sized, but looked like they might have had a cumulative IQ of about eighty. I glanced over at Greg, looked back at Dummylocks and the two Dipshits, and figured I'd let him sit this one out. When the day comes that I can't handle three rednecks without backup, I better hang up my guns and switch to sipping mint juleps with Skeeter and the rest of the girls.
"Looks like your buddy can't handle his liquor." Wiry said, stopping right in front of my table.
"Yeah, woman troubles." I chuckled at Greg passed out in his beer, holding out a little hope that by mocking my sleeping "friend" I could still get out of this without sending anyone to the emergency room.
"He ain't too bright wearing that hat in here. This is Big East country, son." He puffed his chest out and I sighed. Anytime hillbillies start bringing conference rivalries into a situation, it's gonna end up with somebody's teeth getting swept up off the floor.
I stood up and looked over at the bartender. "You keep an eye on my buddy?" He nodded, and I started walking to the door.
Wiry yelled after me. "Where you think you're going, fatass?"
I froze. "That was uncalled for. I've got big bones, not that your scrawny ass would know anything about that." My big bones are wrapped in six-foot five inches and three hundred forty pounds of Bubba badassedness, but there's big bones buried in there, too. I started back towards the door. "Now I'm going to the parking lot, because I think it's rude to break up a man's place of business just because I need to teach three dumbass mountain boys a lesson in manners. So if you want to continue this conversation, I'll be the one in the parking lot holding a can of whoop-ass with your name on it."
I walked about halfway through the parking lot until I had plenty of space to work, and then pressed the Bluetooth earpiece. "Skeeter, you get all that?"
"Yeah, you need me to do anything?"
"You might want to call a couple ambulances for those boys."
"I'll call something in. The bartender already called one for you."
"That was sweet of him. Misdirected, but nice."
"He don't know you like I do. I'll get EMTs rolling for the other guys."
The three hillbillies came out of the bar looking for me. I stood in the middle of the parking lot, hands at my sides. The two bigger guys were smart enough to bring pool cues to the fight, so I knew they at least had some idea of what was going down. The littlest jackass whipped out a pocketknife and started waving it around like a bad Jackie Chan flick. Wiry came at me first, stabbing straight at my gut with his little knife. It was almost cute, it was so stupid. I just reared back and planted a size 16 boot right in his chest, stomping the little snotball right into the gravel. His knife went flying in one direction while his ass went sailing in another, and I could help but laugh. He scrambled to his feet, wheezing a little as he tried to catch his breath, and motioned his buddies forward.
One of them swung a pool cue at my head, but I grabbed it and stood there staring at the dude. He and I looked at each other for a few seconds before he let go of the stick and backed away, holding up both hands in surrender. I nodded to him that we were cool, but felt a sharp pain in my left leg as Hillbilly #2 went for my knee with his cue.
"Ouch." I said, still standing there without moving. I turned to look at my new assailant, and Wiry jumped on my back like a crazy spider monkey, flailing punches and elbows all around my head. One punch caught me in the ear and actually stung a bit, so when I saw Hillbilly #2 swinging his pool cue towards my face, I turned around and put Wiry right in the path of his buddy's swing.
Hillbilly must have put everything he had into that swing, because I heard the pool cue and about four of Wiry's ribs break when it connected. He let out a scream like a little girl at a Twilight marathon and dropped off my back to writhe around in the gravel some more. I turned to Hillbilly, who was now holding one end of busted pool cue and looking at me like a dog who finally caught the car and now didn't know what the hell to do with it.
"You done?" I asked, throwing the first guy's pool cue to the side. The hillbilly was persistent; I'll give him that. He just put his head down and charged me, a couple hundred pounds of liquor-fueled stupidity. I didn't waste a whole lot of energy on him, just stepped to one side, grabbed his collar and belt as he went by, and spun him headfirst into the side of a nearby pickup. Not my truck, of course. I'd just had her detailed, and the chrome was gleaming everywhere on my F-250. I dumped the dumbass into the side of beat-up old Ram. You couldn't really tell which dent in the side of the truck was the new one his head made, and which ones were pre-existing conditions.
"Now you done?" I asked, but I got no response. Wiry was laying in the dirt wheezing and Hillbilly #2 was out like a light. Hillbilly #1 was nowhere to be seen, so I figured he was gone, until he stepped out from behind another pickup with a little .38 revolver in his hand.
"Don't move." He said, and I couldn't tell what was shaking more, his voice or his hand.
"Dude, put that down. I don't want to hurt you."
"I think I'm the one that's got the gun, redneck."
"Yeah, and that ain't gonna end well for you."
"Why not?"
"Because mine's bigger." I reached into the back of my jeans and pulled out Bertha, my Desert Eagle fifty caliber pistol. She gleamed pretty colors in the lights from the beer signs, and I pointed her at the suddenly very concerned Hillbilly #1.
"I can still shoot you."
"Yeah, but I probably won't die. The ambulance is already on the way for your buddies, and a thirty-eight don't always kill what it hits. If it hits. A fifty-cal pretty much blows the shit out of anything it hits, and I don't miss."
"You're full of crap."
"You want to take that chance?" He stared at me for a few seconds like he was seriously considering throwing down with me, then the doors to the bar flew open with a bang. We both turned to see Greg in full Catman mode stagger out the door with a furry arm draped over each of the waitresses and a big goofy grin stretched all over his kitty-cat face.
"Bubba! This beer of yours is amazing! Look how beautiful it has made these previously homely humans!" The waitresses looked like they weren't sure if they'd just been complimented, but then they looked at Greg's claws and decided not to pitch a fit about it right then.
"What the holy hell is that?" Hillbilly asked, backing away and frantically trying to get him gun put away while he pulled out his car keys.
"Careful with the pea-shooter, son. Don't perforate nothin' you might need next weekend!" I chuckled, holstering Bertha and heading over to help Greg. "Thank you ladies, I've got it from here."
"Bubba, you must release me! These women are ripe for fornication! I can smell the musk upon them!" Greg bellowed cheerfully. The waitresses sniffed the air, trying to figure out what the Catman was babbling about. I just bent down, picked him up in a fireman's carry, and dumped him into the bed of my truck.
"Don't you spray back there, Hairball." I muttered. I hopped in the cab and pulled out of the parking lot just as the ambulances pulled in. I gave the EMTs a grin and a wave and pulled out onto the highway with a six-foot tall tiger standing up in the bed of my truck. I heard a thump as Greg f
ell down when I rounded a curve, and adjusted the rearview mirror to check on him. He was still back there, holding his head out of the side of the bed like a Labrador on a Sunday drive. I pulled into the parking lot at the cemetery and got out of the truck. Greg was leaning over the side of the truck, looking like he couldn't decide whether to hug me or barf on me. I threw a blanket at him.
"Go to sleep, fuzzbucket. I'm sleeping in the cab."
"Why do I have to sleep out here?" He whined.
"Because you have a fur coat, because you're drunk, and because I don't room with dudes. Pick any two of those reasons." I climbed back into the truck and leaned my seat back. It was about three-thirty, so I figured I'd grab about four hours sleep before sunrise woke me.
I was wrong of course. I'd just started to drift off when I heard a tapping on the back glass. I slid the middle window open and Greg poked his big furry head through. "It's lonely out here."
"It was nice and quiet in here 'til ten seconds ago."
"Were you asleep? I'm sorry. As a magical being I don't require much sleep."
"As a human I require a little." Just my luck the critter I thought was going to be the bad guy turns out to be a tiger-dude that wants to be friends. Better still, he's a chatty drunk.
"I'm sorry. It's just been so long since my Raina was taken from me, and I've had no one to talk to." He actually sniffled a little at that. I was almost to the point where I was starting to feel sorry for him. Almost. Then Skeeter buzzed me.
"Good God Almighty, Skeeter! Don't you know I need at least a little sleep?"
"I knew you were awake."
"And how exactly did you know that?"
"I bugged the truck the last time you brought it in for more armor and the flamethrowers."
"You know I hate your ass sometimes."
"Yeah, but it's such a cute ass."
"Shut up, Skeeter. What do you want?"
"Well, you remember how I said the hair found at the scene wasn't from your buddy there?"
Scattered, Smothered and Chunked - Bubba the Monster Hunter Season 1 Page 10