by M. D. Massey
Or was he just really, really bad at being a doppelgänger? Just as humans had dumb criminals, the supernatural world had dumb monsters. In fact, dumb monsters were sort of the bread and butter of hunter work. While people who were clued into the world beneath were rare, there was always someone who needed a nasty fae or other supernatural creature dealt with. And, as it so happened, monsters who revealed their presence to humans tended to be the dumbest of the dumb. Or the most vicious. Or both.
Any way you sliced it, stupid creatures paid the bills. As for how we got these jobs, word tended to get around. People would start asking questions in online forums and social media groups that focused on the weird and unexplained. “Say, does anyone know how to get rid of a herd of three-foot humanoid lizards?” That sort of thing. Freelance hunters tended to monitor that sort of chatter online. We’d reach out to whoever had made the post, find out if it was legit, and then offer our services.
The Circle was too busy guarding humanity against whatever major threats they deemed worthy of their time to handle most of these cases. Hauntings, infestations, poltergeists, supernatural abductions, and the like were beneath them, and hardly even worth their attention. So, hunters like me took those jobs. The pay wasn’t always good, but lots of monsters hoarded money and valuables, so that tended to make up for it. The life of a hunter could be very, very rewarding.
If you didn’t get killed or maimed so badly that it ended your career.
Of course, I wasn’t getting paid for this job. This one was a freebie, and that was okay. I hated the fae—hated them for what they did to humans and what they’d done to me. I’d been cursed by a fae sorceress, and that curse had caused Jesse’s death. So, I had no problem taking out any rogue fae who didn’t know how to stay in their lane.
None whatsoever.
I snuck up to the back door through knee-high grass, mindful that I didn’t accidentally step on a rattlesnake or coral snake along the way. Snakes loved neighborhoods, because they always had plenty of small prey to feed on like rats, mice, baby rabbits, and squirrels. Also, some supernatural creatures attracted animals like spiders, snakes, and bats, so you had to be mindful of that when hunting certain creatures. If people knew what sort of vermin were living right under their noses—including the supernatural kind—well, let’s just say there’d be a lot more Xanax prescriptions being written.
Once I got to the back door I listened for a few minutes, then checked to see if it was unlocked. No sense in using magic if it wasn’t warranted. Unfortunately, this fetch liked his privacy, so the place was buttoned up tight. I checked the entrance for magical wards—nada. I cast a cantrip on the door to unlock it, then waited to see if the spell had alerted the fetch.
After a few more minutes of silence, I slowly turned the knob and cracked the door. The odor of rotten food, curry, and unwashed human hit me, and I heard a radio or TV set playing somewhere toward the front of the house. Good. The noise would cover the sound of my movements.
I duck-walked inside and closed the door as quietly as possible. I was now in the kitchen. Great, the second busiest room in the house. I needed to move before I got spotted. I drew my pistol and screwed a noise suppressor on the barrel. No sense in freaking the neighbors out if this job got nasty. Since I was dealing with a fae creature, I had the gun loaded with hollow point rounds tipped with iron pellets. They wouldn’t kill most fae—not unless I got a good head shot—but they’d damned sure slow them down.
I heard someone stir on the other side of the wall. It was either my target or his victim. I decided to investigate and crept out of the kitchen, into a short corridor that led to a doorway. Probably the master bedroom. I snuck around the corner and slowly opened the door.
The room smelled of urine and human excrement. Inside, Mr. Sanjay was lying on the floor in a puddle of his own filth. He’d been restrained and gagged with a shit-ton of duct tape and telephone line, and he looked like he’d been beaten. As I entered the room, his eyes snapped open and zeroed in on me.
I held a finger to my lips. “It’s alright, Mr. Sanjay. I’m here to help.” He immediately began squirming and grunting wildly. I crept forward to calm him down. “Mr. Sanjay, I need you to be quiet. I fully intend to release you, but first I need to neutralize your captor. Is he in the house?”
Mr. Sanjay’s head bobbed up and down. His eyes got wide as saucers as they darted back and forth, from me to over my shoulder and back again.
I rolled out of the way, just as a meat cleaver split the air horizontally where my head had just been. I spun as I rolled, and came up firing at Mr. Sanjay’s double. The resemblance wasn’t just uncanny; it was perfect. Well, except for the pitch-black eyes that regarded me with the deepest hatred imaginable.
I shot the thing in the shoulder and leg. It dropped the cleaver and fell to one knee, clutching its shoulder with its uninjured hand, and using its wounded arm to staunch the blood flow from the bullet hole in its thigh.
“Ah, fecking hell! Why can’t you hunters use swords and spears anymore like proper warriors? Gah, and bullets laced with cold iron as well. It’ll take me forever to heal up from this.”
The fetch’s Irish brogue was shockingly incongruent, coming from Mr. Sanjay’s mouth. I wisely kept my pistol trained on him as I stood.
“Who says you’re going to have the opportunity to heal from this?” I asked as I stared the fetch down.
He chuckled. “You’ll let me live if you want to keep this idjit from babbling about rakshashas and davanas all over the place. Been trying to tell him for weeks now that I’m Irish, but the chap won’t listen. Had to tie him up because he kept trying to escape. Nearly had to bust his damned head open just to keep him quiet.”
“I suppose this is where you try to convince me that you’re just another harmless fae, a victim of the spread of modern human society and the advance of technology.”
He rolled his eyes. “Far from it. This human’s life is as meaningless to me as a bug I might squish underfoot. No, I’m no innocent—at least, not by your measure.”
I began to increase pressure on the pistol’s trigger. The fetch raised his hands up defensively.
“Now, now—before you go and do something rash, at least allow me to parley for me life. I can help you, hunter. Honest.”
I knew he wasn’t lying. How? Fae couldn’t lie, but they could dissemble. It was mind-blowing, how easily they could trick a human without ever speaking an untrue word. Still, you never knew what sort of info you might get out of a fae creature, so I decided to play along.
“Go on. Tell me exactly how you can help me.”
“Well, for starters, I can cast a spell on Mr. Sanjay over there, and make him forget this all ever happened.”
I looked back at Sanjay, who was sweating bullets. “We’ll see. What else?”
“I have information! I mean, did you stop to wonder what the hell I’m doing out here in Bumfucked, Texas?”
I cleared my throat. “The thought did cross my mind. Enlighten me. Why are you working a mark out here in the sticks, when the city is just a short drive down the road?”
“Ah-ha! Now you’re asking the right questions. I’ll tell you why,” he said as he straightened against the wall. “Because I got forced out.”
“Forced out of Austin? What, did you piss Maeve off?”
He frowned. “I daresay not. I’m as loyal to the queen as ever. No, I was forced out of business.”
I sat down on Mr. Sanjay’s bed and reached over to pull the tape off his mouth, keeping an eye on the fetch. “I’m sorry, Mr. Sanjay, but this is a story I have to hear. Can I trust you to keep quiet while I converse with your evil double over here?”
Poor Mr. Sanjay immediately began babbling in broken English and Hindi. Apparently, his experiences over the previous few weeks had been too much for him. I replaced the tape, muffling his ramblings for the time being.
“Alright, fetch. You have two minutes to convince me that I shouldn’t put a bullet in y
our head.”
10
Over the next fifteen minutes or so, the fetch told me an interesting tale. He’d had a thriving “business” in Austin, working as an inside man for various criminal crews on cons and heists. Apparently, his skills had been in high demand among non-fae supernatural criminals—at least until recently. Supposedly, a charm-worker by the name of Cécile had moved into town and ruined his business. She sold glamours to anyone with the cash—or favors in trade—to pay for them.
Where this Cécile chick had come from, he didn’t know. But, apparently, she was bad business—in more ways than one.
“So, I go to the bitch to appeal to her better nature. You know, to tell her she’s ruining my business and putting me in the poor house. And you know what she does? She says, ‘Tough shite, ya dope.’ And laughs at me.”
“And then what happened?”
He wiped something from his eye with a knuckle and scowled. “She put a hex on me, is what she did. On me! Cursed me luck to turn sour, and now I gotta stay in character all the time, siphoning luck off geebags like this one. The nerve! Had my old crew chase me outta town too. Told them if they didn’t, they’d never get another of her spells again.”
“Uh-huh. And where can I find this Cécile?”
“She operates out of the back room at a joint called The Hammer and Anvil.”
“Strange name for a fae bar.”
He shrugged. “The place is run by a werebear—some big Nordic guy who thinks he’s the second coming of Thor. He’s a right prick, but he tolerates fae if they watch their manners. I think he might be getting the ride from the witch, so watch yerself if you pay her a visit.”
I nodded. “Anything else I should know?”
“No, nothing that comes to mind.”
“Give me a second—what was your name again?”
“Manny.”
“Alright, Manny. I have to check in with my handler, then we’ll figure out how to handle this.”
I called Maureen. “Yeah, I found him. Uh-huh. Yeah, just the one witness. Gotcha, see you in a few.”
I ended the call and shot the fetch in the head. Mr. Sanjay started going nuts. I turned to him and sighed.
“Relax! I’m not going to hurt you, but I can’t have you screaming and yelling and getting your neighbors over here. So, we’re just going to sit tight until my friend shows up, and she’s going to take care of everything. Alright?”
He nodded, his eyes plastered to the pistol in my hand. I realized I’d been gesturing with it as I’d talked. I sighed again and tucked it in my Craneskin Bag, just in case someone had happened to hear gunfire and came to investigate. Suppressors muffled the sound of a gunshot, but they didn’t completely silence it. All that crap you see in movies and on TV, where someone fires a silenced pistol and it sounds like a Nerf gun? Yeah, bullshit.
Mr. Sanjay calmed down, and I sat on the bed next to him in awkward silence while Manny bled all over the carpet. Then he began to shift back into his natural state, which was kind of reminiscent of Odo from DS9. It made me wonder if one of the special effects artists on the show had been clued in to the world beneath.
A few minutes later, I heard a knock at the front door. I pulled my pistol and crept to the entryway, peeking out the blinds to make sure it was Maureen. I opened the door for her, careful not to let anyone spot me as she walked inside.
“Oh, man, am I glad to see you. That guy is totally freaked out. I’m thinking that maybe I shouldn’t have shot his double in front of him. He was pretty traumatized already.”
Maureen cocked an eyebrow. “Ya think? Show me where the body is so we can get this over with. I have an appointment for a hot stone massage and a facial that I don’t want to miss.”
I headed to the master bedroom with Maureen in tow. “I didn’t think you fae had to worry about that stuff.”
“You forget, I’m only half-fae. So, I age. Just not as quickly as a human, or as slowly as a full-blood fae. Besides that, there’s nothing wrong with a girl pampering herself every now and again.”
“Hey, I’m not judging.” I entered the bedroom and almost slipped in a large puddle of pinkish goo, which I assumed had once been Manny. “Oh, that’s so gross. Gah, and it stinks too!”
Maureen snickered. “Try not to track it all over the place, because I’m the one that’s going to have to spell this place clean.” She pointed at poor Mr. Sanjay in the corner. “I take it that’s our victim?”
“Yeah, that’s him.”
She muttered an incantation and wiggled her fingers in intricate patterns. Mr. Sanjay immediately fell into a deep sleep.
“Huh. You’re going to have to show me how you do that,” I quipped as I wiped my shoes off on Mr. Sanjay’s carpet.
“You might’ve already learned if you’d paid more attention to your magical studies.”
“Meh, I’m more of the physical type.”
She tsked. “You won’t always have someone around to clean up your messes. You’ll need to finish your training at some point… that is, if you intend to keep taking jobs like this.”
“Naw. This is a one-time deal. After this, I’m through.”
“If you say so. Help me get this tape off him, and let’s get him undressed. He’s going to need a bath and a shave before I bring him back around.”
“For real?”
She frowned. “If you want to do this right, it has to look good.”
I sighed and got to work. We spent the better part of an hour cleaning Mr. Sanjay up and getting him dressed, during which time we discussed what I’d learned from Manny. After we were done we left Mr. Sanjay on his couch with the TV on.
“You sure he won’t remember anything?” I asked.
“Not a thing. I learned from the best. He’ll wake up thinking he’s been sick for the past several weeks. I already hacked the human resources department at his employer’s and put him on convalescent leave, retroactive to the first day he missed work.”
“Think it’ll hold water?”
She stretched and yawned. “You’d be surprised what people will overlook to dismiss the inexplicable. Now, don’t you have a witch to visit?”
“You think she might have something to do with this vamp I’m hunting down?”
Maureen looked at Mr. Sanjay for a moment, tapping a finger on her chin. In a flurry of motion, she rearranged his arms and propped his head up with a pillow.
“That’s better.” She stood straight again and noticed the baffled look on my face. “I didn’t want him to wake up with a crick in his neck. Oh, don’t tell me you’ve never had one. Absolutely horrendous. And in answer to your question—yes, I do. Call it a hunch. Trust me, it’s worth checking out.”
“Alright, noted. I’ll stop by there tonight after I go home and clean up.”
“Good man. Just be careful and mind your manners. The werebear will be the least dangerous of the two.”
“Roger that. Anything else I should know?”
“Shore up your wards before you head over there. And call me to let me know what happens.”
“Yes, Mom.”
“Call me that again and I’ll be the one hexing you,” she hissed.
I waved my hands in the air. “Whoa, alright, alright! Geez. I meant it as a compliment.”
She squeezed the bridge of her nose and sighed. “Dear boy, you do have so much to learn about women.”
11
After a quick shower and a change of clothes, I hopped on my scooter and headed to The Hammer and Anvil. It turned out to be one of those new hipster bars on the east side, located in an area that was quickly becoming a concrete jungle of lofts and condominiums.
Neighborhood joints like this one provided their customers with the illusion they were slumming when they really weren’t. While the place had a sort of kitschy-grunge vibe, it was really just another yuppie bar for millennials who worked for the man but wanted to pretend like they still fought the power. Whenever I heard native Austinites talk about the �
��old” Austin, I couldn’t help but think that it was places like this that were ruining the city.
The bar was located in an old cinder block gas station with a couple additions off its side and back. The faux-rusted tin roof gave it an almost authentic roadhouse vibe, and the blues tracks blasting from the outdoor speakers in the beer garden weren’t half-bad. While I sat on my scooter scoping the place out, they played a little B.B. King, a few SRV tunes, and even some John Lee Hooker.
Then they fucked it up by mixing in some White Stripes—the blues equivalent of pop punk. What a dick move. I hated the owner already.
But I wasn’t out there to write a review of the place. I scoped it out in the magical spectrum, and yeah, there was some hinky shit going on in there. For one, a lot of the patrons going in and out of the place were definitely not human. I saw some fae, a few ’thropes, and at least one vamp mixed in with the crowd.
That in itself wasn’t weird, since supernatural humanoids had to mingle with humans if they wanted to enjoy the benefits of human society. What was weird was how fast they were coming and going. While the human patrons tended to show up and stick around, the supernatural types didn’t delay. They’d enter and leave within the span of a few minutes.
Also, there was a magical blank spot in the back addition. Everywhere else, I read the usual signs and signals you got with a monster or fae-owned business. There were wards and spells to protect against the usual crap—hexes, hauntings, and the like—but that area of the bar was dead. Not only was there no magic emanating from it; there was nothing coming out of there.
So, that room was either dimensionally displaced, or someone was shielding it with some serious juice.
