“Penny for ‘em, Bubba,” Joe said.
“I was just wondering what life woulda been like if I hadn’t blown out my knee. If I’d finished school, settled down with some normal girl, lived a normal life in the suburbs, that kinda melancholy crap you always think about right before a big fight where you know there’s a not-insignificant chance that you might die.”
“Boring,” Hank said.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s boring, bro. I live that life. I carpool, I live in the ‘burbs, I have a minivan for Christ’s sake! But what did I do the second after you called? I made arrangements to get the kids out of town and jumped at the chance for a little excitement. Come on, Bubba! You do something important. You’re like an entire infantry division, or a whole Supernatural Sheriff’s Department, man! How many people are alive because of you?”
“Yeah, and how many people are dead because of me, Hank? And how many more people are gonna die? Maybe not directly because of me, but at least partway. I killed my father, dude. I killed him with my bare hands and left him facedown in a creek. I’m walking around downtown Athens trying to figure out how I’m gonna kill my kid brother before he kills me. That’s my life. Everybody around me dies, most of the time because of something I do, or don’t do. So I’d take a little boring, if anybody’d ever make the offer.”
A voice crackled to life in my ear, and my heart bounced a little just hearing her. “I tell you what, redneck. You get through this in one piece, and I’ll take you back up to that cabin on the mountain and bore you so hard you won’t be able to walk for a week. How does that sound?” Amy asked through our comms.
“Sounds great, baby. I reckon this means you’ve got the command center up and running?”
“Mostly,” Skeeter’s voice joined Amy’s. “We don’t have video yet, but I’ve got some intermittent surveillance by linking all the traffic cams and ATM cameras, so as long as you’re near a corner or a bank, we can see you. I should have the feed from your shoulder cams up in a few minutes.” Skeeter had rigged these tiny cameras to each of our shirts so he could see everything that was going on. They didn’t even look too weird, long as nobody looked too close. Just looked like an extra button high at the neck of the shirt.
“Good,” I said. “At least we’re halfway there. Got any ideas on where we should hit next?” I asked Hank.
“We should try Betty’s Place. You haven’t killed too many vampires lately, have you?”
“Not since I offed that touring ballet troupe last year in Charlotte,” I replied.
“They weren’t local, so nobody will care. Let’s go,” Hank turned down a narrow alley to his right that I would have sworn wasn’t there ten seconds before, and disappeared.
I shrugged at Joe and turned into the alley, the priest right behind me. “Why did you ask about vamps?” I asked.
“Because Betty takes exception to people who kill too many vampires.” Hank knocked on a door and a small window opened, speakeasy-style. “It’s Hank, the naga that lives outside of town. I bring friends who come in peace and will abide by the rules of sanctuary. They are under my protection and their behavior is bound by my word of honor.”
A voice on the other side of the door mirrored Hank’s formal tone and said “Come and be welcome, naga and guests. Understand that the rules of sanctuary are in effect and all who cross this threshold must abide.”
Hank turned back and looked up at me. “Bubba, I don’t know how to say this except bluntly. Do not start any shit in here. You are a tough son of a bitch, but there is old magic within these walls, and if you cross any lines or violate their hospitality in any way, it will be very bad for all of us.”
“I promise not to start nothing,” I said. I never said I wouldn’t finish nothing, though.
The door opened and we followed Hank into a low-ceilinged room dimly lit with honest-to-God candles and torches mounted into the walls. Of course, it being the twenty-first century, the candles and torches were all LED bulbs, but they flickered like the real thing and were dimmer than shit, just like the real thing. The bar was a long, skinny rectangle of a room with a few tables on one side and a bar on the other. There were no video games, no dartboards, no window back into a kitchen. Just a pair of pool tables and a lot of dedicated drinking space. This was a bar. A place people came to drink, and shoot the shit, and maybe get laid.
There was a jukebox playing Journey’s “Open Arms” and a wall of mirrors behind the bar reflecting the bottles of top shelf liquor and the flicker of the fake candles, as well as about two-thirds of the images of the patrons sitting at the bar. Hank heard me draw in a sharp breath and spun around. He latched onto my right hand before I could reach Bertha, and he was a lot stronger than I remembered from college. Maybe he had a lot more motivation.
“Don’t do it.” He said, his voice low and his eyes hard. “I told you not to start any shit here.”
“That was before you failed to mention that it was a vampire bar,” I hissed. I heard Joe gasp behind me and now we all knew the score.
“This place is a sanctuary for all supernaturals and humans alike. Nobody starts trouble here, or bad things happen.”
“But let your friend draw his weapon, Henry. He can find out for himself.” The voice came from the vicinity of my left elbow, so I looked down to see a pixiesh woman with close-cropped black hair standing beside me. She hadn’t been there five seconds before. I was willing to bet she hadn’t been in the room five seconds before.
I looked down at her and caught her eyes full on. I felt the weight of the ages behind her gaze, and knew that I was looking at the oldest damn vampire I’d ever seen or heard of. “Ma’am,” I said, lowering my right hand to my side. “I apologia for my behavior. I wasn’t completely briefed on the clientele of your establishment before we arrived.”
“Welcome, Bubba the Monster Hunter, to what I suppose you would call a Monster Bar,” the little woman reached up and threaded her arm through mine and led me over to the bar. She spun around and hopped up onto a stool, patting the one beside her. I sat. I looked back at Hank and Joe, but they were already heading to a table in a corner.
“They’ll stay out of our way for a little while. We need to talk, you and I.”
“I’m fine with talking. But first, with whom am I talking?” I asked.
“Such grammar,” she said with a grin. “And here I have all these reports of a giant idiot with a gun to match his girth and the vocabulary of a particularly profane gorilla.”
“Well, I don’t speak gorilla, but I do have a big gun. And I’m afraid I still haven’t caught your name.”
“I’m Elizabeth, but you can call me Betty.”
“And Betty when you call, you can call me Al.” I did my best Paul Simon impersonation, but she just looked at me with wide, blank eyes. “Never mind,” I said. “I’m Bubba.” I stuck out my hand.
She put her tiny hand in my giant paw and we shook. “I know who you are. You’ve made quite the impression in our community over the past few years. You are a very different man than your father and grandfather.”
“Exactly what community is that?” I asked.
“Monsters, of course,” she replied, sipping red liquid from a glass the bartender placed in her outstretched hand. I was pretty sure it wasn’t wine, but I left my Bela Lugosi jokes on the shelf.
“Is that what you call yourselves?”
“It’s how you see us, so it’s easy enough. And we don’t really care too much about labels. When you live as long as we do, they matter less and less.”
“So I’ve made an impression.”
“Not necessarily a good one after your run-in last year with a certain ballet master.”
“He certainly didn’t make a good impression on me, but he made a pretty good one on the hood of that city bus.” I chuckled a little. I tried to be polite, but it’s just not in my nature. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. He was a pretentious ass. I hated him and hated his danc
es. But you killing him did cause a bit of an uproar. There was talk of a move against your family.”
My voice went flat. “That would have been a bad decision.”
“I agree. That is why I counseled against it. But now you are here, in my bar, and you are going to ask me to choose sides in your little family feud.”
“No, I’m not. I don’t care if you like me or my brother. I just want information.”
“And by giving you that information, I lend you my tacit support. You must understand why that is a bad decision for me. There are many in my community, some in this very room, who would take what I have spent so long building. I have a good life here. There is good music, plentiful feeding, and the nearest Monster Hunter leaves me alone.”
“Hell, until ten minutes ago I didn’t even know you existed,” I said.
“Your handler knew. He has known of our existence since he moved into his role within the Church.” I looked over at Joe and shot him a You knew about this shit? look. He shrugged as if to say “what can I do?”
“Okay, so Joe knew about you and I didn’t. Makes no difference to me as long as you aren’t killing people or screwing around too much with the local human population. From what I can see, you don’t overstep. So now what’s the plan? You gonna help me find out what my idiot kid brother is up to, or is fur gonna be thicker than beer and you gonna stick with the monsters?”
“I don’t know yet. What I do know is that there are people here who are allied with your brother, and there are people who would see him fail. I will allow you to speak with whomever you would like, as long as they are willing to speak with you. Whatever you can glean, all the better for you. Come see me before you leave and I will have made a decision.”
“Nah lady, that ain’t how this works. This isn’t some role-playing video game, where you get to send me on quests to see if I’m worthy of your help. This is the real world, with real people, humans and not, and real consequences to our actions. Now my brother’s been running all over the South for a year or more talking shit about some kind of supernatural uprising, forgetting that there’s a hundred humans for every one vampire, were, witch, Fae or other beastie out there. Y’all can unionize, y’all can listen to motivational speakers, y’all can hold a pep rally the night of the full moon if you want, it ain’t gonna change the fact that if you try to attack humanity head-on, you’re all gonna die.” My voice had gotten loud by now, and the nobody in the bar was pretending to ignore me anymore. For my part, I wasn’t pretending to speak only to Betty.”
“Some of y’all might have met me. Some of y’all might have heard of me. And some of what you heard might have been good, and a lot of it was probably pretty bad. I doubt I’m particularly well-liked in bars like this. Honestly, I’m a little disappointed there ain’t a picture of me on the dart board.”
“We took it down when we heard you was in town,” yelled a were from over by one of the pool tables. He was tall and skinny, probably a were-deer or something like that.
“I appreciate that,” I replied. “But it don’t matter what you’ve heard. All you need to know if my little brother is batshit crazy and don’t care who gets hurt in his little vendetta, as long as the list starts with me. And he might take me out. But it won’t matter. I ain’t the only monster hunter out there. Hell, the government’s got a whole department dedicated to studying y’all, and you can believe they ain’t doing all that research to help you get a better refund on your income taxes. They’re studying you so they know how to kill you. I’ve killed a bunch of y’all, it’s true. I’ve killed trolls, and vampires, and faeries and cupids and succubi and a few things I can’t even pronounce. But I ain’t never killed nothing that wasn’t gonna do the same or worse to me, and that’s more than I can say for Jason. I ain’t gonna stand here and be stupid enough to ask you to stand next to me when the shit hits the fan in the next day or two, but I will ask you to stay home. Leave this fight to me and my brother. Don’t buy his line of bullshit, and don’t make me kill you by throwing your lot in with the wrong crowd.
“Because that’s what will happen if you raise hand, fang or claw against a human being on my watch. I will kill you, and I will make sure you are for-real dead. Now y’all have a good night.” I nodded to Betty and turned to walk out the door.
A big vampire stepped into my path before I could get there. He must have been pretty old, because the power rolled off him like smoke off a fourth of July grill. “That was a nice speech, Hunter.”
“Thanks.” I looked just a little above his eyeliner. It’s always a good idea to avoid looking in a vampire’s eyes if you can get away with it. They know the drill, so most of the time they don’t even get offended.
“I am Starnes. I lead the coven here in Athens.” I saw a little bit of fang poke out from between his lips as he spoke to me.
“Good to meet ya.” I shook his hand, then shifted my gaze to lock eyes with him. His went wide for just a second, then he caught himself. He behaved, he didn’t try to compel me or whammy me or whatever you want to call it.
“We will not aid you in your battle with the self-proclaimed Messiah of the Otherworlders.”
“Is that what the little jackass is calling himself these days?” I tried not to laugh and almost managed. It’s hard to deal with that level of pretentious from somebody you remember getting his first zit.
Starnes smiled up at me, a genuine smile that made him look almost human. “It is indeed. As I said, we will not aid you in your coming conflict,” he raised his voice so the entire bar could hear him. “But neither will we aid your brother. The Vampire Coven of Athens will not participate in this battle. So I have spoken, so shall it be.”
It was damn creepy to hear every vampire in the bar repeat “so shall it be,” but at least one nest of bloodsuckers was out of the fight. I nodded at Starnes and pushed open the door onto the street.
I walked the length of the alley and turned back out onto Polaski before I stopped. Then I leaned against the wall of a bar called Pat O’s and let out a sigh of relief. I had just stared down a bar full of things that usually I hunt for money or sport, and not a drop of blood was shed. That was either a sign of maturity or fear, both of which could get a hunter killed.
“Nice work in there,” Amy said into my earpiece.
“You think?”
“I do. You got everybody out of there without anybody or anything dying, and you got the local vampires to swear to stay out of the fight. That’s two major victories in one night.”
“I’m with Amy,” Joe said. “That was more than I hoped for when I suggested we visit Betty.”
“Yeah, one of these days we’re gonna have to have a chat about Betty and what other kind of places you know about that you’ve never mentioned,” I said.
Joe looked down at his toes and generally stumbled around for a few seconds before he finally said, “There’s a lot of things I know that might only get in your way, Bubba. That’s kinda what a handler does - I handle you. If that offends you, I’m sorry, but it’s kept us both alive this long, so it’s on the list of things you’re just going to have to deal with.” He was looking me almost in the eye by the end of his little speech, and I was reminded that Joe was no small man himself.
“Well, Joe, if it gets me killed, I’m gonna be pissed.”
“Me too,” he replied.
“All right then,” I let out a big breath and looked at Joe and Hank. “What’s next?”
“I think I’m next,” came Skeeter’s voice over the comm.
“What’s up, Skeet?” I asked.
“You know how I mentioned that I have a list of names and keywords that I run a constant search on, and whenever one of them gets a hit, I investigate?”
“Yeah, like the Patriot Act, only hunting monsters instead of terrorists.”
“Exactly. You were listening!”
“It happens. What’s up?”
“I just got a hit on one of the names. I’ll be honest, Bubba, I
forgot I put the name on the list. It’s never gotten a hit before, not from Google, not from a local newspaper, nothing. But a few minutes ago, it came across on a missing persons report from Louisiana.”
I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. “I think it’s going to be good that there’s a bar right behind me, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, probably,” Skeeter replied.
“What’s the name?” I asked.
“Remember, I put this name in when I first started the system, right after we started working with Joe. I just haven’t gone back through to take it off the list. I didn’t mean anything—“
“The name, Billy.” I hadn’t called Skeeter by his given name since his mother died. It seemed apropos, given the name I was pretty sure was about to come across his lips.
“Leila Templeton,” he said.
“Are you sure it’s her? Not just somebody who has the same name?” I asked. I was still leaning back against the wall of the bar, bricks pressing into my shoulder blades. I let my head fall back against the solid wall with a thunk, the solidity reassuring as my feet were convinced the world was swirling out of control underneath me.
“That’s what took me the last twenty minutes to check out. I hacked the police database. They had a picture from… from her…”
“Say it.”
“Her family. Her family provided the police with a recent picture for the search. It’s her, Bubba. It’s almost twenty years later, but it’s her.”
“Guys, help me out here,” Amy cut in. “I’m sorry, but who is Leila Templeton and why is she going missing suddenly more important than the war Jason is trying to start?”
“Because she’s the reason for everything,” I replied. “It all makes sense now. Turning Pop, making me kill him, Brittany, kidnapping you, even having his bitch threaten Joe earlier this year. It all goes back to her. Shit, this is all her fault.”
Grits, Guns & Glory - Bubba the Monster Hunter Season 2 Page 34