Everything always seemed to move faster when she was involved. I hadn't been in the city all that long, but I was already growing accustomed to it. My biggest concern was for Sara. She was still weak, and Lyanne had said it could be months before she was back to her full strength. If Ragan had cohorts, or other creatures had taken notice of her while she was investigating them, she could still be in danger while she was vulnerable.
Sara noticed my concern. “I'll be fine. I'm going to go back to my home in Long Island. It's pretty far away from everything. I've never noticed any danger there, only when I get close to the city.”
It didn't completely quell my concerns. “Still, I want to give you my number. If you sense any danger, if you feel even the slightest hint that something is coming from you, even if you think you might just be imagining it, I want you to call me. I'll come down right away.”
She looked into my eyes, saw the seriousness behind them, and blushed. “Yes. Yes, okay. Thank you.” Her eyes drifted down from mine and to my arm. “Can I ask you a favor? Can I see it?”
I misjudged what her eyes were focused on and was shocked by her forwardness. “What?”
“Your weapon.” She pointed at my arm. “The one you used to kill Ragan. I'm quite curious. About the weapons—the effects. All of it.”
“Oh. . .well, I seem to have misjudged your request,” I said, looking back up from my pants with a smirk. “The Night Flail. Well . . .” I looked over at Lyanne, who just shrugged in a way that said It's your call.
There wasn't much harm in it, I supposed. I held out my arm and felt for my weapon's presence, and just like that it was there, the familiar and comforting chain wrapped around me, the end dangling from my wrist just waiting for an enemy to strike against.
Sara's eyes were wide as saucers. “It's real. All of it, it's all real. There really are monsters out there.” She sounded like she hadn't completely believed it until that moment.
“There are, and it my job to bring them down. And I will. You have my word on that matter, Sara,” I said with absolute conviction.
“Why does it matter more? Your word?” Sara asked. There was no judgement on her face, just open curiosity.
I fixed her with a level gaze, feeling the power in my weapon. “Because I’m the Hunter.”
8
The place needed some work.
It was impressive in its scope, its sixty acres spread across a gentle northward slope that made it seem even larger, bordered on the west by thin woodlands and on the east by The Wild Branch River. The enormous house sat at the top of the slope, watching over the grounds like an ancient sentinel, as much a part of the landscape as the hills beyond. A private drive cut through the land, passing a gazebo, gardens, and a pool, before broadening for parking in front of the building.
However, it seemed upkeep on the property had been lacking in recent years. The grounds were overgrown to cover the gazebo, the gardens were full of knee-high weeds, the tree line on the west had pushed past the fencing that marked the edge of the estate, and the pool was filled with murky rainwater. The house itself was in somewhat better shape, minus the many layers of dust that sent me on a sneezing fit the first time I entered.
Lyanne was busy giving orders to an extensive number of laborers she had acquired for the task: gardeners to get the grounds in order, carpenters to make repairs to weather damage on the exterior of the house, house cleaners to do a thorough dusting and freshening of the inside. I had tried again in vain to get her to give up a hint on the vast wealth that allowed her to hire so many people without flinching, but all I got was, “When you've been around for a while, investments grow.”
I didn’t push the issue, because I suspected that at some point, money would no longer matter to me. I had larger concerns, like culling the city of predators.
There wasn't much to do while Lyanne was with the laborers, so I decided to poke around the house and imagine what it would look like once all our furniture arrived and was arranged. My imagination started running out of ideas about halfway through the second floor. The house didn't have much in terms of modern conveniences. Electric lighting and appliances seemed to be a more recent addition to the upstairs rooms and clashed with the rest of the early 20th century aesthetics. Heating was still handled by wood-burning stoves strategically placed throughout the building. What was lacked in modern touches was made up for with luxuries such as a full wine cellar and a small outbuilding called a sugar shack, which Lyanne explained to me was for the production of maple syrup.
I was curious about the shack, mostly because it was alien to my Iowa home, and anything associated with breakfast food is going to get my attention. I was walking around the side of it, lost in the thoughts of fresh maple syrup, when I heard heavy footfalls approach me. My first thought was that some massive monster had somehow located me already. I whirled, hands coming up--
And instead came face-to-face with the largest moose I had ever seen. That includes pictures of moose. It stood head-and shoulders taller than me, with a frame the size of a mid-size car. Its antlers had to be another good six feet across, and sturdy enough to snap the spine of a man my size.
Now, I had no trouble going toe-to-toe with the forces of darkness in the name of protecting civilians, but the last thing I wanted was to piss off a thousand-pound bull moose, so I held up my hands non-threateningly and slowly backed away. The moose looked at me curiously and kept approaching.
“I see you've met Handsome Teddy.” The head of Lyanne's gardening team, a jovial, white-haired, older man named Dennis, appeared at my side. He had worked the grounds before, under the direction of the home's previous owner, and was more familiar with the property than anyone else.
The moose incautiously approached Dennis and lowered its head. Dennis put a hand on its nose and rubbed it gently.
I slowly relaxed. “You know, ah—this moose?”
The moose playfully nudged Dennis with its antlers. “Handsome Teddy's the progeny of a family of moose who have lived on these grounds longer than people have. He's a friendly one. Don't be afraid to give him a little pat.”
“Handsome?” I inquired as I put a hand on the moose's snout.
“Well, yeah. Look at 'im.”
He looked like a moose to me. “Oh, yeah, you're right. I totally see it now.”
I swear Teddy gave me a look that said, Oh, like you're such a looker. Right then, I knew we were going to be friends.
The next few months were filled with one hunt after another. They all started the same way: Lyanne and I would be looking over the articles of missing persons from the various publications she subscribed us to, we would find areas were more than one person went missing within the span of no greater than three months, and then we'd go back to the city where I'd look around until my instincts picked up something. Most of the time they picked up nothing, and we would return home where Lyanne would 'console' me for the failed hunt.
That wasn’t to say I didn't get practice in, both hunting and with the nude consolation aspect of my newfound life with Lyanne. Frankly, I didn’t think risking my life at the hands of an undead killer was that big a deal when I was in bed with Lyanne, because every inch of her was a wonder.
The next successful hunt came three weeks after the move. We decided to investigate a motel where men had been seen checking in—but not checking out. The police theory was that the disappearances were related to the drug activity that was rampant in the area. The moment I arrived at the Bravetree Motel and felt that presence, I knew there was a more supernatural explanation.
A dark one.
It turned out to be one of the motel's cleaning ladies. She was going to door to door in a loose dress she could easily slip out of when she found a room occupied by a single man. One second she was changing the sheets, the next she'd be rolling in them, and soon after the man would never been seen again. I'm still not positive what she did with the bodies.
I lay in wait in one of the rooms, pretending to
be a defenseless male waiting to be taken advantage of. Unfortunately, she must have been able to sense me in the same way I could sense her. She had barely taken two steps into the room before her seductive smile faded into a vicious snarl and she lunged at me with sharpened claws. I was on the bed, doing my best to behave like a tired tourist who had picked the cheapest place to crash after an exhausting day in the city, so my bellow was genuine as the Succubus jumped on top of me.
“Fuck your room service, lady!” I barked, rolling away in a blur of motion inspired by fear and anger.
I was able to keep the claws away from my throat by calling on the Night Flail and putting it between my soft flesh and her talons, but I still found myself stuck under the shrieking creature and unable to free myself. Lyanne eventually had to come and bail me out, striking the Succubus from behind with a mop from the cleaning cart and knocking her off me. The handle split like kindling over the monster’s neck, and her eyes fluttered for a brief second as she fought to recover.
That was all the chance I needed.
Once I was free, I was able to quickly dispatch the creature with the flail in a shower of dark energy and ash. She’d been old, but not ancient, and in moments there was little evidence she’d ever existed.
“She more or less had the drop on you, didn’t she?” Lyanne commented as she applied an ice pack to a bruise I had taken on my head. “Didn't you claim to be in the army?”
It was hard to be offended by anything she said when it all came out with the hinted suggestion of a good time ahead. “I was a truck driver. They taught me some in Basic, but I never really had the chance to put it into practice.”
“Hmph,” Lyanne said, her tone measured as she regarded me with a considerate stare.
From that point on, our regular schedule during our downtime in Vermont included lessons in close-quarters combat. Lyanne turned out to have quite a bit of knowledge on it—she was an expert, in fact. “When you've been around a while, you pick up a few things.”
We had plenty of space on the grounds in front of the house, though I was occasionally embarrassed to be training in front of the workers making repairs. I quickly learned that, despite losing most of her powers, Lyanne was still considerably stronger than her size should have allowed. Sometimes, as I lay sprawled on my back after being leveled by a solid punch, I would hear the gardeners chuckling. Even Handsome Teddy came over once to give me a look that I swear was intended to be mocking, but then again, he’s a moose, and there isn’t much serious about his face.
That wasn't the only lesson I had to learn in those early Hunts. A few weeks later we were back in the city looking into an abandoned textiles factory that happened to be right in the middle of a string of missing persons cases. I was expecting to have to look around, find evidence of a Succubus's presence, and maybe find her lurking in the shadows if my instincts picked her up. Instead, before I had even opened the front door, the Succubus came bursting out of a top story window and went sprinting down the street away from me.
What proceeded was a chase that was stupid enough, looking back on it, to have made a fine scene in a comedy. We ran several blocks with me trying to corner her in an alley, but she was fast, and she had a vertical leap that would make any NBA player jealous. If it wasn't for my instinct, we would have lost her within the first few blocks.
We followed her through the throngs of city sidewalks, through the back door of a Chinese restaurant and past a several angry cooks—one of whom threw a bundle of scallions at me—across a busy street where I nearly got hit by a car and got an ear-load of some of the most creative swears I had ever heard, and down into a subway station. I vaulted the turnstiles, ducking past the security officer who tried to grab me, and jumped into the subway car I had seen the Succubus go into just before.
You'd think a woman dressed like a dominatrix wouldn't be too hard to find, even on a crowded subway car. But this was New York, and nothing could ever be that simple. At this time of night the car was filled with all kinds of people, dressed in everything from animal costumes to spandex, and fashion choices that would make the entire 1970s cringe. The fact that I was dressed casually made me the stand-out here.
I used my instincts to navigate through the crowd closer to the Succubus. Lyanne was nowhere to be seen, and I had to assume she’d missed the train. I found my target at the very back car, calmly seated as if she didn't have a worry in the world. She smiled at me when I approached her.
“I don't know what you're so happy about,” I said, though it didn't sound as threatening as I imagined it would in my head with my out-of-breath panting. “You're finished. You think I won't do it cause we're in public? The car will empty soon.”
Her eyes were filled with a kind of mischievous glee. “There's nothing I would like more than to stay and play with you, but I have plans.”
She then leaped up in her seat and screamed, catching the attention of everyone in the car. “Don’t you touch me! Stop touching me there!” Her word choice was brilliant. I was fucked, because the assorted crowd of New Yorkers who ride the subway in the late hours of the night sure react when one of their own is in danger. For the rest of the trip I was kept busy trying to slip free of a mass of grabbing hands from people yelling, “What the hell's wrong with you, buddy?” or, “you like hassling women, you fuckhead?”
When the car came to a stop, the Succubus slipped out, and it took me more than a minute to free myself from the dog-pile that had built up on top of me to pursue her, sure that she had already disappeared into the night.
Lyanne appeared then, giving me the boost I needed to fight my way free.
She had apparently hopped onto one of the other train cars before it departed and kept an eye on us from there, taking great amusement in the scene I had inadvertently caused. When the subway stopped, she followed our target out of the station and down the street, then called me when the Succubus finally stopped at all-night pizza place. Apparently, the creatures get hungry for men as well as pizza. Must be why they chose to live in New York.
I slipped behind as she folded her slice, the cheese forming a string as she bit down and sighed in pleasure. I felt a twinge of guilt as the flail appeared, but I pushed that sensation away with thoughts of all the people she’d drained through the years, leaving them confused, sick—dead. She was no longer human, and I couldn’t save them all.
The flail bit deep, the pizza fell, and she was gone, just ashes on the wind as I was left standing there, looking at Lyanne, then the flail, and the empty sidewalk where the Succubus had been. There had been no dramatic confrontation, no speeches. No recognition of her fate in eyes that had seen hundreds if not thousands of deaths, just a flick of my wrist, then ashes.
Quick. Neat. Brutal.
When we returned home, Lyanne was quiet at first, but then she had questions.
“So is your plan to just pursue Succubi through the city every time one of them runs from you? Because not only is it a foolish way to catch them, but it is a good way to get the police interested in you. To the uninformed, the Succubi look like innocent women being chased by a predator. You see the issue?” She gave me a searching look.
I knew she had a point. Those people on the subway had certainly thought the Succubus was a victim and jumped in to protect her, and I wasn't going to do anyone any good if I got locked up in jail.
“Well, what else am I supposed to do? They can sense me coming, just like I can sense them. Maybe if I covered myself in pizza-musk before every mission I could sneak up on them. It was an odd detail to note she couldn’t smell me over, of all things, pizza. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a powerful scent, but still—"
Lyanne paused, her brow furrowed in thought. “Your sense. Does it tell you exactly where your target Succubus is?”
“Well, no. It's more like a vague understanding of the direction. I’m not even sure it is a direction. It’s more like a tug, a pull—like gravity that brings my senses and attention in their direction, but it get
s stronger with proximity,” I said.
“So why assume they’re any different? They might be able to tell you are around, but you need not go stomping through the front doors, announcing your presence. This is a game of cat-and-mouse, and you’re pursuing them like a hound. Like a dog, really. Could we try subtle? If only to protect you, until you fully understand the nature of your talents, as well as their ability to see you coming.”
I liked dogs, though I felt making that point at this moment probably wouldn't help me. “What are you suggesting? That full stealth is our only option? Because I can tell you that won’t work. We can have some degree of anonymity here in the city, but that won’t always be the case.”
She turned me around until I was facing a window that looked out to the woods surrounding our property. “I’m saying you need to learn how to stalk. Stalking and stealth are different things.”
Suddenly, I was a hunter in more than one sense of the word. Lyanne had me practicing hunting deer, rabbits, and birds—skittish animals that took off at the slightest sound. Oh, and she wouldn't let me take them out with something like rifle where I could get them at range. No, I had to get close enough to stab them with a spear, imitating the length of the Night Flail's chain.
It was a grind. I was born outside the city, but that skill set was something even northern country kids didn’t perfect—we hunted with bows, shotguns, and rifles, and there was even the occasional black powder enthusiast around, the booms of their weapons sounding like cannon fire during deer season.
For two months, I experienced the kind of frustration I thought only existed in dreams. Every animal knew I was there, and simple things like stepping through a blackberry bramble ended up sounding like an elephant falling off a cliff. It was a lesson in humility each and every time I stepped into the woods, and after a few weeks, I needed a victory.
“Fuck. This.” I exhaled, trying to calm myself one day as a deer flashed away, tail raised like a flag. The doe made almost no sound even at full speed, and I stood, quivering with anger as the forest sounds settled around me again.
Succubus Hunter Page 7
