Poe the Hunter- Bedlam in Baltimore

by Nathan Galion

  Still clutching his throbbing ear, Poe stared at the strangers surrounding him and became frightened. “Who are you? Where am I?” he pleaded.

  Jonah responded to Poe’s question by stating his identity as well as the identity of his wife and the doctor. He also gave Poe an explanation of the events that transpired since the previous night. However, Poe could only watch as deafening silence was emitted from Jonah’s lips.

  Poe’s face twisted in confusion, “What are you saying to me? I can’t hear you! My ears are damaged!”

  Jonah frowned and looked at the doctor. Poe watched as he mouthed the words: “Dr. Pickens, what do you suggest we do to talk with this man?”

  Dr. Pickens thought about the question for a moment, then replied, “Jonah, do you possess in your house a notebook or ledger? You can talk with the men using pen and paper. It is the best option considering the situation at hand.”

  “Yes, doctor, I do! I will return with the materials post-haste!”

  Poe watched as the conversation carried on without his participation. Growing ever more worried, he started asking questions in a panic. “Who are you? What are you talking about? Why can’t I hear anything? What is wrong with my ears? Please, I demand that you tell me what is going on!”

  Dr. Pickens gestured to Poe to calm down as Jonah returned with an old ledger. Jonah opened it and began writing fervently on the first page. When he was finished, he handed the ledger to Poe and watched as he read what he wrote.

  Dear, Sir,

  My name is Jonah Ellerby and the people you see in front of you are my wife Lucille and Dr. Martin Pickens. You are in my house as my wife and I you and your friend from our window. We could tell immediately that you were both suffering, so we ran to help only to find blood pouring from your ears. Therefore, my wife and I took the liberty of bringing you into our home to keep you both safe and care for your injuries. Dr. Pickens will explain to you his diagnosis. This ledger is our only means of communicating until your hearing is restored.

  Poe had a flashback to the other night but could recall nothing except the pain he and Quincy were forced to endure once the alpha sceidra began screeching. He could not remember how they escaped the forest nor seeing anyone prior to waking up in this house surrounded by strangers. The pain was too great for his brain to process at the time. Regardless, Poe looked at Jonah with a look of gratification.

  “Mr. Ellerby, I thank you for helping us in our time of need and making sure we received medical care, and I am forever in your debt.” Poe looked at Dr. Pickens, “Tell me, when do you expect my hearing to return to normal?”

  The doctor took the ledger from Poe’s hands and began to write about the problems with the men’s ears. Meanwhile, Quincy appeared on the stairs, dazed and confused about where he was. Poe spotted his friend and ran to him. “Quincy!”

  “Edgar!” he responded with relief.

  As the hunters embraced, Jonah and Lucille smiled at each other. Poe tried to talk to Quincy, but the latter heard no sound from his partner’s mouth. “My ears are damaged, Edgar! I can’t hear you!”

  Poe nodded and pointed to his own ear, then gestured for Quincy to follow him. As Quincy walked down the stairs, he looked at the people in the parlor and developed a confused expression on his face. “Edgar, where we are we? And who are they?”

  To answer Quincy’s question, Poe pointed to the ledger Dr. Pickens was in the process of writing on. Once he was finished, he handed the ledger to Poe who flipped it to the first page, then presented it to Quincy who took it and began to read the words Jonah had scribed. When he was finished, Quincy looked up from the ledger to face Jonah and said, “I can’t thank you enough for your actions last night. This ledger is a great way to communicate. But what about our hearing?”

  Dr. Pickens gestured for Quincy to turn the page to read the explanation he had written, which Quincy did without hesitation. Poe joined in reading the page by standing closer to his colleague.

  Gentlemen,

  The damage you sustained to your ears is extreme. Your eardrums are completely shattered, and it will take many weeks for them to fully heal. But in order to speed their recovery, I strongly recommend that you commence with herbal treatments at once. This tincture is known to promote a faster recovery of the eardrums. The herbal medicine I recommend is a mixture of garlic oil and tea tree oil. Drop the oil in your ears and do not consume the oils. Otherwise, you should consider yourselves lucky that whatever caused this damage to you did not kill you. It was if someone stabbed you in your ears!

  The hunters looked at each other and exchanged worried expressions. They were afraid of how many souls the alpha sceidra would take while they were nursing their broken eardrums. Poe looked at the doctor, “Thank you for this information, but can you give us a number of weeks you think our eardrums will take to heal?”

  In response, the doctor held up three fingers up to signify that it would take three weeks for their eardrums to completely heal.

  “Three weeks?” Quincy asked with fright. “What can we do in three weeks? We have affairs to pursue and our lives to live! We cannot sit around and do nothing for three weeks!”

  Jonah took the ledger from Dr. Pickens and wrote more words on it to address the hunter’s valid concerns. He handed the ledger to Quincy and waited as both men read his reply.

  You cannot continue your usual business without your hearing. It is best to follow the advice of Dr. Pickens and recover sooner rather than later. The medicine he recommended, when taken together at the same time, should restore your hearing WITHIN three weeks, so you have misunderstood. Therefore, you may heal sooner, but only if you take great care in following the doctor’s orders.

  “Thank you, Jonah,” Poe said after he was finished reading. “I cannot express how grateful my colleague and I are for you and your wife’s aid as well as the hospitality you both have provided. We will go back to our home and will purchase the necessary remedies to heal our broken eardrums. Again, a million thanks to you and your wife!”

  To respond to Poe, Jonah smiled and took the ledger back in the palms of his hands. He wrote that Poe and Quincy did not need to repay him or his wife in any special way and that he is glad they could save the hunters from any further danger and ease the pain they endured. Jonah concluded by stating that all that mattered was the health of the hunters and their path to recovery. Poe read the note and reached his hand towards Jonah to thank him. He then inquired about the location of their clothes.

  Lucille gestured for the men to follow her by beckoning with a wave of her hand. The men followed her to a separate room where their hunting clothes were spread across a bed. Poe and Quincy were impressed to see that they were clean and without a hint of dirt or debris on the fabrics. The crossbows, however, were not in the room. The hunters deduced that they must have left them behind in the forest after their desperate retreat from the alpha. Lucille left the room and closed the door behind her to give Poe and Quincy the privacy they needed to change into their clothes.

  Once they were fully dressed, the hunters headed downstairs. The owners of the house and the doctor were patiently waiting for them and smiled when they saw Poe and Quincy treading down the steps. Lucille wrote in the ledger that Poe and Quincy must use it to talk to each other until their hearing improved.

  “Yes, madam! We would not fathom to do it any other way!” Poe commented after reading the dame’s words. “We must depart this house. But before we go, we must give you one last set of thanks for providing us with such gracious treatment in your beautiful home.” Poe smiled at Dr. Pickens, “Doctor, we will get to work on obtaining the medicine you suggested.”

  Once Poe was done speaking, he and Quincy embraced Lucille, then Jonah, and finally shook hands with the doctor before leaving and taking a carriage to their own home.

  Chapter 14

  Early the following morning, Poe was feeling re
freshed after a good night’s sleep and eager to tackle the case of the alpha as he stood outside the Hamilton Branch Library. Prior to entering its doors, he reached into his pocket and removed a vial containing the tea tree and garlic oil mixture the doctor had prescribed and used a medicine dropper to place a couple of drops into each of his ears. He was still unable to hear anything, so he had to rely solely on the ledger Jonah had given him, which he kept in his breast pocket for easy access. After treating himself with the herbal medicines and putting the vial back into his pocket, Poe entered the library.

  The library was three stories high, but it was not a grand building. While it looked modest on the outside with its grimy, dirty windows and weathered bricks, the inside of the library was a beauty to behold. A service desk flanked the wall to Poe’s left, while rows of bookcases and desks spanned the space to his right. A flight of stairs leading to the upper floors was at the rear of the building.

  A woman in her late fifties was seated at the service desk. She had her gray hair swooped up into a bun and had wire-rimmed spectacles sitting on the end of her nose. Seeing that the library had a new visitor, she smiled and said hello to Poe, but he was oblivious to her greeting. Waving to get his attention, she spoke again, but louder this time. “Hello, sir! Hello! How are you today?”

  Her hand motions caught his attention and he looked in her direction with a smile. “I apologize, madam, but I am suffering a temporary deafness. The result of a rare…” Poe’s voice trailed off as he realized what he was about to say. He cleared his throat before continuing, “It was the result of a hunting miscalculation, but I digress. Anyway… unfortunately, I will not be healed for a few weeks, therefore, I kindly request that you write down the answers to my questions in this notebook,” he explained as he reached into his coat and pulled the ledger from his breast pocket.

  The librarian’s eyes grew wide behind her spectacles as she listened to the hunter’s ramblings but smiled warmly and nodded. Poe continued, “Where is the section containing books about mythology and folklore? I am an ardent fan of this genre and very passionate about it!” he explained enthusiastically.

  The woman looked at Poe with a combined expression of curiosity and amusement as she took the ledger and opened it, then proceeded to write: Second floor, to the right.

  “Thank you! I shall return shortly!” Poe said as he took the notebook back and shoved it inside his coat pocket. The lady smiled at Poe, but after he walked away from her, she could not help staring at him with confusion and curiosity plastered across her face.

  Poe walked to the flight of stairs and climbed them to the second floor, then veered to the right as instructed. The entire second floor of the library was dedicated to the fiction genre because this was the most popular type of literature among the citizens of Baltimore. They adored mystical stories about the supernatural and some of these books even had a waiting list. Although, the city folk did not live in the same realm as Poe and Quincy and, therefore, treated stories about folklore and the paranormal as fanciful tales of make-believe. While they read these books for entertainment, Poe scoured their pages for research purposes. “If only they knew it was all real,” Poe thought.

  Once he reached the mythology and folklore section, Poe searched for a book that would give him as many answers as possible about alpha monsters. He saw a range of books that covered a variety of topics such as the supernatural, myths, legends, monsters, witchcraft and wicca, and stories about demons and the occult. After searching through several of these books, he was beginning to feel as though he was not going to find what he was looking for until he came across a book bound in red leather with an intriguing title.

  “The Book of Creators and How to Kill Them,” Poe whispered as he read the title to himself. “What is a ‘creator?’ Methinks it’s an alpha!” he grinned.

  Poe grabbed the book from the shelf and headed downstairs to rent it.

  At home, Poe settled into his chair in the parlor eager to begin reading the book. He opened it and heard its spine creaking and cracking, which told Poe that nobody had enjoyed its words for some time. After examining the Table of Contents, he began reading the introductory prologue, which stated that the word ‘creator’ was another term for ‘alpha’. Poe was excited to discover that his instincts paid off and proud of himself for choosing the right book. As he continued to read, he arrived at a section discussing the history of the alphas when a particularly important paragraph caused Poe to bolt upright in his chair.

  All alpha monsters descended from the biblical sea monster known as the Leviathan. All alphas were born from the womb of the Leviathan until it was killed by the archangel Gabriel during a brutal battle.

  After reading this slice of information, Poe rapidly scanned the words that followed until his eyes feasted upon the true method of how to kill an alpha monster.

  Although each alpha can only be slayed by certain means pertaining to just that species, there is a special universal method that can be used to slay any of them: A sword of Gabriel through their heart…

  “A sword of Gabriel?” Poe asked. “What in the world…?”

  Poe’s thought was interrupted when Quincy entered the house with a basket of food. Poe watched as he placed the basket on the floor, then reached into his pocket for his vial of tea tree and garlic oils and dripped a bit into each of his ears. While he was busy doing this, Poe reached for the ledger and started jotting down sentences explaining his trip to the library and what he had learned from reading this new book. By the time Quincy was placing the vial back into his pocket, Poe was done writing in the ledger and waved at Quincy to get his attention.

  Quincy smiled and waved back as he approached Poe, then took the notebook from him and began to read: Good afternoon, Quincy! My day was consumed by the usual business. I went to the library to research and found a book about alpha monsters. I rented it and you will not believe what I learned! Alphas do not die the same way as their children. Alphas die after being stabbed in the heart by a sword, but not any ordinary sword. The weapon to kill them is called ‘a sword of Gabriel,’ named after the archangel. We need to research this matter further, my good man.

  After reading Poe’s notes, Quincy brought out his ledger and responded to Poe in his own words. After writing for approximately two minutes, Quincy handed his ledger to his partner and Poe read the words Quincy wrote: I am glad to see that you have established a foundation with which to base our future research, but what does this have to do with Gabriel?

  Poe replied by writing: According to the book, all alphas were born from the bowels of the biblical monster Leviathan. Leviathan was killed by Gabriel, presumably with a sword. Thus, I infer this is the sword we are after. We must find more answers about this subject.

  Quincy read Poe’s words, then scribbled his reply: Splendid! I will be the one to obtain these answers tomorrow. But onto another important matter. I despise the task of communicating to you through a notebook. Our hearing needs to be restored soon! I am annoyed by the arduous task of writing to you! When will this end? I see none in sight.

  Poe sighed and nodded, then wrote: In due time, Quincy. We must remain patient and keep applying the herbal antibiotics to our ears. Do not skip a drop! I have faith that our hearing will be restored in a week. We are strong-willed individuals! But despite our strength, we cannot go to war with the alpha until our hearing is repaired. Then, the alpha will pay dearly for the pain and frustration it has caused us.

  That night, Poe sat at his desk preparing to write a letter to Frances. While his hand ached from having to write rather than speak, the pain did not seem as bothersome when thoughts of his lady filled his mind. He stated in the letter that he needed to have an urgent meeting with her about an important topic.

  However, Poe did not reveal in the letter that he planned to confess to Frances about his secret job as a hunter of the supernatural. During their next meeting he was also
going to reveal to her the true causes of his parents’ demise and his wife’s death. Furthermore, he had every intention of telling Frances that the stranger she had enjoyed an evening stroll with was not a man at all, but a demon who would not be back to bother her again.

  Additionally, Poe wrote that he needed the meeting to occur, but did not yet know the day and time. He could only write “in a week or so, as I will be dealing with a matter that is crucial to my heart.” Fearing that the mysterious nature of his letter would cause her undue stress, the hunter concluded the letter with a promise to Frances that the nature of their meeting would not be frightening nor anything to worry about as the days passed until they were again in each other’s company. Signing his name with a flourish, he tucked the letter into an envelope, which he sealed and left on his desk.

  Poe looked up at the ceiling of his room and began to speak. “Dear heavenly Father, please help Quincy and I to successfully overcome our obstacles and be victorious in our upcoming battle. Amen.”

  Chapter 15

  Quincy went to the nearest post office to obtain a map of Baltimore, so he could locate a library other than the one Poe had visited. Quincy was on a mission to hunt for more information about the archangel Gabriel after Poe provided the first step, but he strongly suggested they search elsewhere since the library he had visited did not have much to offer.