“Oh god, I think I’m gonna puke,” Pat said, looking queasy.
“Not in the truck!” I could hose down the bed, but the upholstery was another story.
“What was that thing?’ Pat said, sounding like he was doing his best to breathe through his mouth.
“Looked like a Mothman to me.”
“Aren’t they supposed to live in West Virginia?”
“I don’t think he got the memo. We get a few, here and there. If they don’t cause trouble, we leave them alone. Sometimes they just fly away and never come back.”
“What got the alba-who’s panties in a twist? I haven’t heard that kind of screeching since we had to bust up a bar fight between traveling roller derby teams.”
“No idea. Maybe the Mothmen carry off Albatwitches and eat them.”
“I guess the little guy took a page out of the jailhouse survival handbook. If you’re small, you’d better be batshit crazy so people leave you alone.”
We took another turn onto a road that was easy to miss, which was exactly what we intended when we set up the preserve. The lane dead-ended at a cattle gate. To the average person, it might look like a pasture with an unusual amount of electric fence, but we’d built the fencing to withstand the worst our cryptid guests could throw at it. In addition to being super strong, the fence was warded, spelled, and protected with special magical charms that reinforced its safeguards and made it easy to forget, should someone happen upon it. A couple of witch friends made sure the magic stayed strong.
“End of the road,” I said, hesitating before I got out because I knew the stench would be even worse up close. I glanced over to see Pat stuff the earplugs up his nose. I guess I wasn’t going to be asking for them back.
Just as I stepped out of the truck, a man suddenly appeared right in front of me.
“Jesus, Otto! Give a guy some warning!” I laid my hand on my heart, convinced I might just be having an arrhythmia moment.
“It’s my nature to move silently,” the German vampire replied, apparently unconcerned with nearly causing a heart attack. “I’ll try to remember to step on twigs next time.”
I never knew whether or not he was kidding. Vampire humor took a little getting used to. Otto wrinkled his nose, and his brows furrowed. He’d always looked to me like he should be behind the counter in a butcher shop, with strong arms and a body built like a fireplug. It didn’t fit the pop culture myth, but I sorta liked the idea that a regular guy could be a badass creature of the night.
“Otto! Did you scare another critter into peeing himself?” Tristan sauntered up, a dark-haired, good looking bad boy wearing a flannel shirt, jeans, and boots. He had the easy grace of a ninja—or a wolf shifter.
“Me? I did nothing. The creature was already rank when he got here,” Otto retorted. He sounded affronted, but the slight tilt of his mouth that passed for a smile gave away his attempt at humor. “Maybe you caused it? After all, dogs lift their leg to mark territory. Everyone knows this,” he added with a sniff.
“It was a Mothman,” I said because these guys could go on trash talking for hours. I was pretty sure they were kidding since they spent a lot of time together, and nobody was missing any limbs.
“Wow. I haven’t seen one of those in a while,” Tristan replied. “There used to be one near my town when I was a pup. We chased it like it was a firefly.”
“And you wonder why there aren’t many around,” Otto remarked. “Probably traumatized it, poor thing.”
Tristan rolled his eyes. “Our mothers cuffed us up the side of the head because the Mothman could have carried us off. Since it never did, we figured it enjoyed the game as much as we did.”
Much as I liked the banter, my eyes were watering from the smell. “Let’s get Twitchy out of my truck, so I can find the nearest car wash before his pee eats through the paint.”
Tristan raised an eyebrow. “Twitchy?”
I shrugged. “Albatwitch is a mouthful.”
Otto loosened the load binders that kept the cage in place and lifted it like the solid iron cage, and the creature inside, weighed nothing. He jerked his head toward the enclosure. “You want this inside?”
“Please.” It never hurts to use manners with an immortal creature of darkness.
Otto hefted the cage, then leapt over the fence, touching down lightly on the other side. He couldn’t actually fly, he’d told me once, but he moved so quickly and could jump so far that it was hard not to think he’d flown. Otto unlocked the cage, then used his vampire speed to appear back beside us in the blink of an eye.
“Do you think our new resident is going to cause any problems?” Tristan asked.
“Do you have any apple trees in the preserve?”
Tristan frowned. “I don’t think so.”
“Then you’re probably fine. Thanks for meeting us.” I walked over to a nearby tree and put down a six-pack of beer. “If you see Gus, tell him I left that for him.”
“Will do. I’ll text you if I’ve got questions,” Tristan said. “You’d better go wash off that stink before you have to burn your clothes. That’s worse than skunk.”
I figured a guy who could turn into a wolf knew a thing or two about skunks. I thanked Tristan and Otto for their help, and then turned the truck around, hoping we didn’t encounter the Mothman again on our way out.
“I figured Gus would be here to say hello,” Pat said as we headed down the bumpy road.
“Gus takes the day shift since Otto works nights,” I replied. “And Tristan has other responsibilities, so he’s not here all the time.” Gus was the ghost of a deer hunter who had fallen out of a tree stand seventy-odd years ago and never left the forest. He’d saved my ass a few times, and I always made sure to leave him some beer, which he somehow managed to consume.
“That makes sense, in a weird sort of way.”
“Welcome to my life. ‘Weird’ doesn’t begin to cover it.”
2
There’s a frog-man in Woodcock Lake,” Father Leo Morelli said when I answered his call.
“I didn’t think scuba diving was allowed.”
“No, Mark. Not a frogman like a Navy SEAL. A frog-man.”
I have the kind of life where that sentence actually made sense.
It was a Saturday afternoon, and I had big plans. As in, I was going to take my Doberman Pinscher, Demon, for a long walk, come home and make dinner, and then watch movies and drink beer.
Demon cocked his head and gave me a confused look. I figured he could tell from the tone of my voice that he was going to get stood up, again.
“Why is that a problem?” I asked, making a doomed effort to salvage my plans.
“Because people are likely to take pictures of a five-foot-tall green amphibian that stands on its hind legs,” Father Leo replied, with more patience than I deserved.
Then again, he is a man of the cloth. Pretty sure patience is a job requirement. I’ve always figured I’m his penance for some big fuck-up earlier in his life. I mentioned that once, and he didn’t tell me I was wrong.
I took a deep breath and tried to see the problem outside of its impact on my nearly non-existent social life. Pictures like that would be bad. The media would be all over it, and that would cause a lot of trouble.
Not to mention that Father Leo is a good friend, a poker buddy, and sort of my boss in this monster-hunting business. He’s the parish priest at St. Gemma Galgani, but more importantly, he’s a member of the Occulatum, a secret Vatican organization that hunts monsters. I’m something of a contractor, hired muscle to take care of dangerous supernatural creatures, and relocate other cryptids to where they won’t be noticed. Being a contractor didn’t require a vow of celibacy. That’s just a “perk” of being the opposite of suave and navigating a long-distance relationship.
Eventually, duty won out. As Father Leo knew it would—he just had to out-wait me.
“All right. Has Jeremiah hurt anyone?”
“Jeremiah?” Father Leo asked. Then he
groaned because he knew my sense of humor.
“Yeah. He was a bullfrog.”
Father Leo was probably praying for forgiveness for wanting to murder me. That’s one more way I help him out, by strengthening his relationship to the Big Man Upstairs.
“No. There have been people who were startled and fell out of boats, but the frog-man didn’t do anything hostile.”
“Any odd disappearances of people or animals, cattle mutilations, that sort of thing?”
“None that I’ve heard about.”
I hadn’t realized it was possible to “hear” someone pinch the bridge of their nose, but I was pretty sure that’s what Father Leo was doing. Honestly, I wasn’t trying to be difficult. I just wanted to know what I was getting into because it’s those little details that will bite you on the ass.
“How about teeth? Any teeth?”
Father Leo sighed. “Frogs don’t have teeth. But all frogs secrete toxins through their skin, so that’s something to keep in mind.”
Fuck. I remembered reading that little tidbit somewhere, and I hated to think what it meant for a man-sized frog. Getting Jeremiah to go peacefully would be hard enough; I didn’t want to have to fish him out of the lake in a hazmat suit.
“You know I’ll do it,” I said, and Demon seemed to understand because he huffed and padded out of the room to sulk. “Is it another relocation?”
“The cryptid preserve doesn’t have a lake, and it might be too far north for this creature,” Father Leo replied. “He’s not dangerous, as far as we know, just conspicuous. I’d suggest transporting him to the Geneva Swamp.”
“You do remember that a big interstate highway goes over the swamp, right? Wouldn’t that make him more visible?”
“If they’re driving by at seventy miles an hour, I doubt they have time to notice,” he pointed out.
“Where did the frog-man come from?” I asked. “Did he grow up at Woodcock and just outgrow it? Because if he’s been there for a long time, how did we miss him?”
“Good question. The same is true of your Albatwitch. We’ve had reports of creatures suddenly showing up in places where they weren’t seen before. Is someone transporting them? Are they migrating? Or is something else going on?” Father Leo sounded tired.
I didn’t envy him his job. He ran a small parish, and still had to contend with budgets and committee meetings and give a homily every Sunday. On top of that, he had church politics, including managing his Occulatum contacts, and then the poor fellow had to put up with me.
At least we had our monthly poker game. Father Leo used his winnings for the church charity fund. When he played with our group of friends, he was just a regular guy in his late thirties who drank beer and enjoyed football. I appreciated that about him, as well as the fact that he didn’t guilt-trip me about my swearing. Then again, when we were in the thick of things on a hunt, I’d heard him cuss like a sailor, too.
“I’ve got to figure out how to move him,” I said, thinking aloud. “It’s not like I can just plop him in an aquarium.”
“I am sure you’ll come up with something,” Father Leo said, sounding much more confident than I felt.
“Wait. Aren’t you coming with me?”
Father Leo sighed. “I’m sorry, Mark. I can’t this time. I need to meet with my superiors. There are worrisome rumors going around, and we need to figure out whether there’s any truth to them.”
“What kind of rumors? Is this going to be something that lands in my lap?”
“Maybe. I’m hoping the whole thing is overblown. Something about immortal mad doctors and off-the-books experiments. Nasty stuff.”
“Aren’t there supposed to be organizations that regulate things like that? Weed out doctors when they go mad, and oversee their research?” I asked.
“Yep,” he replied. “And they work about as well as every other regulatory organization. It all comes down to budget, manpower, and whether the person in charge gives a damn.”
Well in that case, we were screwed.
Demon padded back into the kitchen, and I reached down to scratch him behind the ears, a consolation prize for not getting to spend the rest of the afternoon sprawled on the couch with me. “All right. Keep me posted. I’ll see what I can do about Jeremiah.” I hung up the phone and found myself humming the bullfrog song.
As I saw it, there were two big challenges. First, locating the frog-man and subduing him. And secondly, transporting him safely. I’d always been pretty good at catching frogs when I was a kid and figured that most creatures can be lured if you have the right food. Frogs were carnivores, so some tasty fish might do the trick. As for transporting him, I didn’t have a clue.
Everything I could think of that could hold water and also hold a man-sized frog were either too heavy, too hard to move, or impossible to get on short notice. I was shit out of luck.
Shit.
“Hey, Benny,” I greeted the person on the other end of the call when he picked up. “Do you still have those tanks we discussed?”
Which is how I ended up driving a small flatbed truck with a brand new, plastic septic tank out to Woodcock Lake.
It was off-season, so there weren’t a lot of people on the lake when I got there. Unlike Conneaut Lake, which is closer to where I live, Woodcock was a man-made lake, an Army Corps of Engineers project for flood control that saw double use as a recreation spot for fishing, boating, and camping—plus a limited area for swimming.
I hadn’t been out this way in a while, and I paused to enjoy the view. I could understand why Jeremiah might fancy this as a new home. The lake was stocked with fish, so he wouldn’t go hungry. Swimming was limited to one beach, and only small horsepower motors were permitted on boats, so the frog-man had less of a chance of discovery or injury.
Most of the time, when I’m out in nature, I’m running for my life. It had been a long time since I’d just gone for a hike without tracking something I had to kill or move. I was overdue for a day of fishing, or maybe a weekend camping—just Demon and Sara and me. I sighed, consigning those very good ideas to my “to do” list, and knowing that they were likely not to get done anytime soon.
As I backed the flatbed down the boat launch, I worked on the one piece of my brilliant plan that I hadn’t figured out.
How to get Jeremiah into the septic tank.
I had a live trout and a heavy-duty fishing pole, which I hoped could reel him in. I didn’t want to hurt him, and I wasn’t sure how I would wrangle a man-sized frog into the tank.
Not having any idea of what I was doing has never stopped me before, and it didn’t slow me down now.
I got out of the truck, unscrewed the wide-mouth cap on the top, and put down a ramp; then I got my rod and the trout, which was in a big orange Homer bucket. I was just about to try to put a live, wriggling trout on the hook when I spotted something that was an odd shade of green bobbing in the shallows.
Hunters survive by learning to listen to their intuition. My intuition has, from time to time, needed to beat a bass drum while clashing cymbals to get my attention, but I try to learn from my mistakes. And right now, my gut told me I needed to see what was floating in the weeds. I dropped the trout back into the bucket, unharmed, and left the rod on the ground, then ran to the edge of the lake.
Jeremiah lay face up, not moving. I watched his pale belly and felt relief when he took a breath, but while I didn’t know the respiration rate of amphibians off the top of my head, I thought it seemed slow and shallow.
“Fuck.” Now that I was closer, I could see bruises on Jeremiah’s arms and legs. Had a predator gotten to him? Not much around these parts could carry off something that was probably the size of a twelve-year-old boy. An eagle, maybe. But there would be gashes from the talons. A bear would have left different marks. Something about the placement seemed familiar, although right now, I couldn’t make the connection.
I needed to keep Jeremiah moist, get him into the truck without giving myself a contact high, and t
hen I’d go find Father Leo.
My truck would have had blankets and tarps, but I had the borrowed flatbed. I took off my jacket, soaked it in the lake, wrung it out, and then used it to gather Jeremiah into my arms without touching his skin.
The cab didn’t have a back seat, so I was going to have to prop him up shotgun-style and hope the cops didn’t notice. To be on the safe side, I grabbed a gimme cap that someone had left behind and put it on Jeremiah’s head, then turned up the collar of my jacket. It would have to do.
I love it when a plan comes together.
For once, I drove the speed limit. I also kept to the back roads, where I was more likely to run into a local cop I might know than a Statie I didn’t. If Jeremiah woke up and freaked out on me, we’d probably die in a horrible, flaming wreck. Thinking about that wasn’t going to help anyone, so I didn’t.
So far, Jeremiah hadn’t made any noise or moved, other than breathing. I knew that amphibians could slow down their bodily functions when it got cold out to survive the winter, but I was pretty sure they did that tucked into a snug hole somewhere, not floating on the surface of a lake.
The suspicion that a person hurt Jeremiah grew stronger, and that just pissed me off. I hadn’t come to hunt him, just relocate him somewhere safe, where gawkers and the media would leave him in peace. The idea that some sick mofo had hurt a defenseless frog-man just made me see red. Or, rather, green.
I got off at the Geneva exit and cast a glance at the swamp, which was going to be Jeremiah’s new home. But he was hurt and vulnerable, and there were things in the lake that would see him as an easy meal. I wasn’t going to rehome him until he had a chance of fending for himself.
Father Leo was sitting on his porch when I drove up, and he gave me a confused look. That, by itself, is nothing new. In this case, I hadn’t taken the time to call him and give a heads up, so he really had no idea what was going on.
“Did you get him into the tank?” Father Leo asked, squinting as if he might spot a dark shadow swimming around in the opaque, white plastic container.
Monster Mash Page 2
