“And fish. Bugs. Birds,” Dallas interjected. “Wait, are birds animals? I guess not. So yeah, birds.”
“Okay. Yes, animals and fish and bugs and birds,” Colton agreed with a frown. “Now, if you don’t mind?”
Dallas raised his hands. “Just want to make sure we’re on the same page.”
Moving forward until he was standing barely a foot from Dallas, Colton’s grey eyes went hard as forged steel.
“I’ll tell you what page we’re on. We are on the human page. We are also the ones that know about those pages that history has conveniently left out. The pages that have been reduced to fairy tales, and bad movies, and T.V. shows staring too-pretty people. We’re the ones that protect the human race from unmentionable things, the ones that keep you safe at night and solidly grounded in your quaint idea of the real world.”
Spreading his arms to encompass the group around him, Colton said, “We, Dallas, are the Society.”
The birds stopped their twittering, and the breeze no longer blew. A heavy silence descended, and even the morning sunlight seemed to dim as Randall, Aletia, and Colton all sat hushed, looking at Dallas expectantly.
“Okey dokey. Society. Check. Glad it’s a word. I get kind of annoyed by all the letters them government types use. But don’t you think ‘society’ is kind of, oh, I dunno, mamby pamby sounding?”
Aletia resumed her twirling, the sphere-tipped whip underscoring the moment with a quiet, malcontent whir. Even Colton’s unshakeable confidence seemed to shake just a smidge.
“It’s what we’re called,” he stated flatly. “It’s what we’ve always been called. When we travelled with the Germanic tribes before Germany was called Germany, we were die Gesellschaft. In ancient Rome, we were the societatis. In every culture from every time, we’ve been the Society. It is not ‘mamby pamby.’ It is the name of a very old, very important brotherhood,”
“And sisterhood,” Aletia corrected, the hollow whisper of her twirling whip twining with her words.
“Figure of speech, Tia. Figure of speech,” Colton placated. “And please stop twirling that thing. It’s like nails on a chalkboard after a while.”
Returning his attention to Dallas, he continued. “I hope I’m making an impression here, Dallas. We aren’t asking you to join a kickball league. You’re being invited to join an ancient order of protectors with lines tracing back to the first time a Cro-Magnon used an antelope’s thigh bone to club a manticore. You’ve been chosen to be a part of something truly important, something only someone of your unique experience and abilities could ever hope to be a part of.”
Dallas rubbed his jaw. “Uh huh. We’ll skip past the obvious question of, ‘what the hell is a manticore?’” Pulling on his best haggling face, he matched Colton’s unwavering gaze with his own. “What’s it cost?”
Colton shot Randall a look.
“What? I didn’t say nothing! Lucky guess, I guess,” Randall shot back defensively.
“I knew it!” Dallas crowed. “Ancient order of special whatever, blah blah blah. Forget you guys. I ain’t paying to hang out with a bunch of weirdos in the woods. I already do that for free. Crap on a cracker, have you met Stanley?”
Colton held his hands up. “Normally, yes, we ask for a reasonable donation from new members. Hunting monsters isn’t cheap, and we can’t exactly hold down nine-to-five jobs. New members typically give what they can. In return, we teach you, train you, and equip you to do battle with those very real monsters that most folks don’t want to believe exist.”
Dallas smiled his easy smile. “Lemme check the fine print here.” Holding up a hand, he squinted at his palm and traced imaginary lines with a finger.
“Yup. Thought so. There’s an exception for the Hero of Trappersville. Looks like he doesn’t have to pay for shit and even gives ass-whoopings for free. And ass-whooping can be interpreted in a few interesting ways,” he added, winking at Aletia.
“Seriously?” Aletia sneered. “Colton, I think we’ve misjudged here.”
“Nonsense,” he replied. “Forget the donation for now. The real question is this.”
Standing to his full height, Colton extended a hand.
“We need you to hunt monsters. Are you with us?”
Dallas took a long look at the gathered group. Randall, despite his annoying voice and tendency to whine, probably wasn’t all bad. Colton, he was solid as an oak. And Aletia…
“What the hell, right? I’m in. But seriously, you gotta change the name.”
Chapter 12
“Learn the course, run the course. It’s that simple,” Colton said with an expansive gesture. He figured that since Dallas had arrived, they might as well make use of the day. “Tia will show you the ropes while Randall and I check to make sure everything’s secured.”
Aletia hmph’d, and made a comment. Part of it was in a language Dallas didn’t speak, but the English part about not signing up to baby sit came through loud and clear. Certain that she was going to object to showing him anything, Dallas was pleasantly surprised when she took him by the arm and steered him toward the odd obstacle course.
“Demon dog,” she pointed, indicating what looked like a rabid Rottweiler had taken a roll in the hay with an iguana and popped out a most unnatural critter. “Fast, mean, and smelly. Easiest to see with your peripheral vision, making them tough to take a clean shot at,” she explained, tugging at a ragged tarp half-draping the monster. “Try to take a sideways shot on the run, and hit the hound, not the tarp.”
Taking Dallas by the elbow, she walked him to another monster. This was the buxom babe with a giraffe head.
“Werethekau. Well, one visage, anyway,” she said. “Don’t just look for a giraffe head. Could be a lion, rooster, or more frequently a hawk or eagle.”
“Huh,” Dallas responded. “So, do they all have fantastic racks?”
Aletia cracked a smile. “We did that for the idiotas like you. Reminds you pay attention to all of the details, not just the ones you want to focus on.”
Dallas laughed. “And here I thought that’s why they invented the light switch. What’s with the staff?”
Her almost-smile left as quickly as it came. “Werethekau is a dios, a god. Well, one god of many. Most gods are rather caught-up in pageantry. They like props, so look for staffs, scepters, even gaudy jewelry. They can usually hide their true visage, but a careful observer can tell them by their accessories. Actually, incorporeal deities often rely on their talisman to anchor them to this reality. Which is to say that if you destroy their prop, the god has a fifty-fifty chance of disappearing. When you run the course, try to get the staff with your first shot. If you miss, go for the heart. In real life, hope there’s only one heart to go for.”
“Good to know. Good to know,” Dallas nodded, shying away from the fact that he really had no clue what she was talking about. “What else you got?”
Aletia steered him back and forth, pointing out a werewolf, a collection of zombies, and even a Bigfoot. That one got his attention.
“For real? I mean, c’mon. You guys hunt ‘squatches? What’s next? The tooth fairy?”
Aletia leveled a cold stare at Dallas. “Pray to whatever gods you hold dear that you never run into a tooth fairy.”
Dallas laughed, but Aletia didn’t, so he stopped. When she continued to stare, he fidgeted. While fidgeting, the uncomfortable silence stretched until he cleared his throat.
“Um, how ‘bout that one?” he asked, pointing to where Colton was standing. The plywood cut-out depicted a beautiful, dark haired woman wearing a long robe, its deep red color matching her fingernails, lips, and strangely, her eyes. “That doesn’t look so scary.”
Colton walked over and made a sweeping gesture, encompassing the length of the woman depicted on the plywood. “Onryo. Vengeful spirits and actually quite scary. They’re usually only found in Japan, but I killed one in Queens a few months back. It was a near thing too. I almost didn’t make it out alive.”
“
Would’ve served you right, you horny gringo,” Aletia quipped.
“Yep,” Colton agreed easily. “We met at a sake bar,” he offered by way of explanation.
“Sucky bar? That’ll teach ya,” Dallas said authoritatively. “That’s why I stick to the classy places. You gotta have standards.”
“Not sucky, sake,” he clarified, pronouncing it sah-kay. “It’s a Japanese rice wine. Good stuff. Tia and I had just tangled with a particularly nasty Clurichaun,”
“Possessed Leprechaun,” Aletia chimed in. “Real pain in the ass. Small, so you think they’d be a cinch to knock off, but they’re surprisingly strong and have really sharp teeth.”
“Temper like a wolverine with hemorrhoids, too,” Randall added with a grimace.
Colton cleared his throat. “Anyway, as I was saying, Tia and I had just dropped one and were looking to unwind. She went whiskey hunting, but I wanted a taste of something different. We had passed a little karaoke bar tucked into an alley. Sign in the window said, ‘best sake this side of the Atlantic,’ and it had been years since I was last in Japan.” Colton shrugged as if no further explanation was necessary.
“She was an oiran, a royal courtesan. Well, she was when she was alive, which was in the late sixteenth century. With a few drinks in me, I thought she was just a beautiful woman with me in her crosshairs. After barely getting out with my pants and my life, I did a little research. She served in the court of Emperor Go-Yozei. Apparently, she fell from grace after embarrassing a local lordling. He tried to take credit for a song she composed that the Emperor adored. Rather than getting the recognition she deserved, the Emperor had the poor girl’s tongue cut-out.”
Colton paused in thought. “I imagine that’s why she wasn’t very talkative. I just thought she was the quiet type. Anyway, she kept pushing the karaoke book at me, pointing at songs, and making me sing. If I hadn’t been so worn out from that tangle with the little Irish nasty and quickly filling up on what honestly was the best sake I’d had this side of the Atlantic, I might’ve noticed the more important details.”
“She didn’t have feet, and her eyes were glowing,” Aletia said dryly, rolling her eyes.
“Tia said her hair was floating around her head, too,” added Randall. “Not many ladies have floating hair.”
“I said I missed some important details! Come off it, already,” Colton said, starting to blush. Turning back to Dallas, he finished his story.
“Anyway, I’m a believer in consenting adults engaging in consensual adult recreational activities. However, if the adult in question happens to be around four hundred years your senior and a vengeful spirit, well… Let’s just say it’s a good thing I happened to have a twig of cherry blossom that had been blessed by a Shinto priest in my pocket.”
While Colton and Randall shared a laugh and Aletia rolled her eyes, Dallas noticed a more familiar-looking cut-out. Well, familiar in a horror movie sort of way. The vampire didn’t look anything like Herb. Dark hair slicked straight back showed a widow’s peak that made Randall’s own look amateurish at best. Beneath the widow’s peak was a pale, drawn face with features pulled into a fearsome mask. Skillfully painted, its luminescent eyes practically glowed, and the too-wide mouth had blindingly white teeth with incisors that were easily three inches long. A silky black cape had been tied around the plywood neck, and its arms and clawed hands were up in a classic, ‘I’m gonna getcha’ pose.
Dallas stared at the vampire cut-out, a sea of memories swelling to a tidal wave about to crest.
“I know that one. Damn right, I do,” he said, voice trembling with emotions not easily defined. “But they don’t always look like that, do they.” It was a statement, not a question, but Aletia answered regardless.
“Vampiros can come in pretty much any shape or size, but they do tend to be attractive. They like fancy clothes and are usually dressed to the nines. Careful though. You can’t just stake anyone you see in a designer suit or trendy sweater.”
“More’s the pity,” quipped Randall, shaking his head at the injustices of life.
Ignoring him, Aletia continued. “See, the most common monsters we go after are the classics. Vampiros, werewolves, zombies. There are many others, but none are anywhere near as common as those three.”
“Ghosts are,” Randall chimed in. “But we tend to shy away from hunting ghosts.”
“Too scary?” Dallas asked.
“No,” Randall shot back while flipping Dallas the bird. “Just an over-saturated market. Any Joe Schmo can hunt a ghost, and even the bigger idiots in the bunch can find one or two. Ghosts are everywhere.”
“Si, Randall’s right,” Aletia continued. “Pretty much anyone can find a ghost, so pretty much everyone does. Do you know how annoying it is to show up at a haunting site and have a bunch of pimply-faced niños with EVP recorders stare at your chest?”
“You’re putting me on,” Dallas said. “I know vampires exist. I killed one at the bowling alley, remember? You can’t get much more proof in your pudding, if you know what I mean. So I guess it stands to reason that if vamps exist, a few other things must exist too. But ghosts? C’mon. I wasn’t born stupid.”
“I told you he took lessons,” Aletia said to Randall, eliciting a snorting laugh from the other man.
“You don’t have to believe in ghosts, goblins, and ghouls for them to exist,” Colton chided. “They’re real. We find them, we kill them. We just tend to ignore ghosts because, as Tia said, there are too many other people tracking them down and trying to grab headlines. We operate differently, more quiet like. We’d rather not make a scene. We find a real problem, get in, get out, and do our best not to leave a trail.”
Gesturing around him, Colton invited Dallas to take in the small clearing, complete with the decrepit cabin and obstacle course.
“What you see here isn’t our usual M.O. We got wind of a vampire in these parts, so we decided to pay a visit. Imagine our surprise when we learned you took care of the problem before we arrived. That piqued our interest. We used to have a Society Warrior in these parts, so we decided it would be a good time to replenish the local ranks, so to speak.”
“What happened to the last guy?” Dallas asked.
“Dead,” Colton stated, matter of fact.
“We think,” Aletia added.
“You think? You’re either dead, or you ain’t, right?” Dallas asked.
“Well, most of him is dead,” Aletia explained. “There was a Mange-les-Morts celebration in Madison. In the Voodoo tradition, it’s the day for feeding dead family ancestors in govis, these little clay pots. One dead ancestor didn’t want to be dead anymore and possessed a Haitian witch. Tyrone thought he could handle it, que no había problema, but he’d been drinking Cremasse with a hundred and fifty proof rum. El muy estúpido was an organ donor, and now we’re worried a few of his leftover pieces might be causing problems in Ohio. We have a girl in Ashtabula County looking into it.”
“The point is,” Colton interjected, “These woods seem to be a bit of a magnet for monsters, so we need someone on the ground to deal with it. We need you.”
Dallas nodded slowly.
“You might just have a head on those shoulders after all, Colton. So, what do I gotta do?
“Well, for starters, you have to be trained,” Aletia said with a smile.
Dallas liked that smile. He liked it very much. While he and Aletia exchanged a lingering look, Randall made his way to the cabin and returned with a big plastic tub.
“Weapons locker,” he explained. Pulling off the top, he and Aletia unloaded an odd assortment of weapons. Nerf swords, ping pong paddles, hockey sticks, and even a large, wooden spoon.
Continuing her tutelage of the new recruit, Aletia went over the assorted arsenal with Dallas, explaining each item, what it represented, and what it was supposed to kill. The goal, Aletia explained, was to make it through the course and kill all of the monsters using the ‘monster-appropriate’ weapon. If there was a Nerf sword by the
manticore, you used the Nerf sword. If it was a wooden spoon… well, Dallas just hoped that if he ever did meet a Cyclops, scooping out its eye, represented by a squishy bean bag, with a wooden spoon was the best approach.
“Ignore how silly it seems,” she said. “The point of this isn’t just learning how to jump and roll. You have to learn how to think on your feet. When you encounter a supernatural, you won’t have time to find the right ancient book with instructions for how to kill it. You have to know and you have to act.”
“Oh, I think I know a thing or two about how to act and what toys to use,” Dallas offered with a wink. Seeing her blush, he immediately cleared his mental calendar for the week and penciled her in.
“No seas tonto. Be serious and pay attention. You have to get through the whole course using the right weapons on the right monsters. To make it interesting, Randall and Colton will be hiding with paintball guns. They get an arm or leg, you can’t use it for the rest of the course. They get a body or head shot, you’re muerto.”
“Uh huh, muerto,” Dallas agreed, not really paying attention to her words. Not that he didn’t want to. She just happened to have some spectacular cleavage that was occupying more of his brain than her words.
Rolling her eyes, Aletia stood and gathered up a collection of weapons. With Colton and Randall’s help, she placed them around the course. Returning to Dallas, she finally managed to get him to look her in the eye.
“Up here, boy. That’s right. Now watch. I’ll run the course to show you how it’s done, then it’s your turn.”
She turned to face the course, closed her eyes, and started counting. Reaching thirty, she launched forward, flowing like liquid mercury. Every move was infused with a panther’s grace. Colton and Randall did their best to catch her off guard, but their paintballs all seemed aimed at the spot she had been a split-second before and splattered ineffectually against the various obstacles and monsters. Watching her was the most arousing thing Dallas had seen in recent memory, and he was damn close to pitching a tent right there in the clearing.
Monsters in the Midwest (Book 2): Northwoods Wolfman Page 7
