by Alex Gates
Xander parked the car at the dead end and cut the engine. He reached into the backseat, grabbing a duffle bag and dragging it onto his lap. “They aren’t imbued, but they’re something,” he said, unzipping the bag and revealing a cache of guns. “In case we’re walking into a trap.”
Don’t tell him I said this, but I really liked that about Xander—his willingness to carry guns wherever he went. It was about the only thing I liked about him. Well, I guess I liked that he was uglier and stupider and less funny than me. Those traits really worked in my favor when he stood beside me while hitting on the ladies.
I bit my lip, realizing I’d left my babies in their bed back at Xander’s office. Scarred with Nephilim runes, they probably wouldn’t have fired magic, anyway.
“Joey,” Xander said. “You there?”
“I’m here,” I said. “Just thinking about how my twins might never run again.”
“Why?”
“Well, for starters, they can’t be fired normally—only through magical means. For finishers, those magical means must be through my magical signature—which was defined by the pact Hephaestus provided me. I no longer have access to that pact.” I leaned my head on the passenger window and stared out at the trees and the dirt.
Xander inhaled. “Not that again. Why are you thinking about that? You have a new form of magic. Explore that. Invest in a focus for that. Carve new runes for that. You should be thinking about your potential, not your loss…” he trailed off for a beat. “Sorry.”
Callie first, then Mel, and now my guns. I’d had those death-gifting beauties since graduating from Militus University and accepting Hephaestus pact. Eleven years now. Shit. They’d be starting middle school next year. So much life ahead of them. So much potential. And just like Hecate had stolen Mel, Hephaestus had taken those away from me.
“I spent all morning cleaning them,” I said, still staring out the passenger window. “And for what? They’ll never shout for joy again. They’ll never blow apart a monster’s stupid-looking face. I was giving a bath to corpses, like a fucking psychopath.”
Xander glanced at me and wrinkled his brow. I could see his reflection off the window, could read his eyes. They said I was too dramatic and overreactive. “You’re sure you can’t alter the runes?”
I scoffed. “Yeah, I’m sure. If an Acolyte could alter runes, they’d be stealing other Acolyte’s focuses all the time, changing them. The Nephilim language doesn’t come with an eraser. Once written, it’s written.”
“And why can’t it recognize your new magic? The shadow magic?”
“It’s a different signature,” I said. “A different property or element or whatever. Hephaestus imbued me with fire, and this is shadow. Poseidon’s Acolytes wouldn’t be able to charge Zeus’s runes with their energy any more than I could with my magic.” I sat up straight and placed a hand on the door handle. “Besides, it’s not a Nephil-given power. Since I didn’t consciously accept a new pact, a Nephil couldn’t imbue me with power in exchange for my services. I need to figure out where I received this power before I do anything crazy.”
“Joey,” Xander said, “you have access to power without the responsibility of a pact, without the chains of service. You’re free from the rules which have bound you for so long, and you’re in a unique position that most Acolytes only dream about.” He bit his lower lip and shook his head. “Get on top of this before it gets on top of you.”
“Do you even hear what you’re saying?”
His brow furrowed. “Yes, I do. Control it before it controls you. Take advantage of this opportunity. Find the silver lining instead of always wallowing in the negative.”
“Just for your information, I hate the word ‘wallow,’ and that’s why I’m leaving.” I opened the passenger door and stepped out into the brisk afternoon air, inhaling deeply. The great outdoors smelled like damp dirt and pine needles. I leaned into the door and said, “After we figure out this American River Killer case, and then after we kill Hecate and find Mel’s soul, I’m going to murder Hephaestus for taking away my babies.”
Xander opened the driver’s door and stepped out of the car, stretching his hands to the sky and moaning as his joints popped.
“And since all these Nephil are inbred fucks,” I said, “I might just liberate the world from them.”
“Let’s just take it one step at a time. According to Angela, Annabel’s cabin should be over this way.”
I gritted my teeth. “You think she’s dangerous—Annabel Nevis? That she’s a Scylla and we’re walking into a trap?”
He shook his head, squinting through the tree line and across the horizon. “I don’t know what to think. In my experience, though,” he adjusted his shoulder holster, “it doesn’t hurt to have protection.”
“That’s what she said.” I chuckled at my own joke, since Xander wouldn’t.
“Who said that?”
I stared at him in disbelief.
He grinned at me. “I’m kidding. Here.” He handed me his Beretta M9.
“Anything special about her?” I asked, popping out the magazine and counting the rounds. Ten. “Other than you can’t be bothered to break the law and get a bigger mag?”
“They’re hollow points filled with silver dust. I’ve also taken the time to bless each round—much like you’d carve sigils. These probably won’t kill a Cursed, but ten shots will be plenty to incapacitate most monsters.”
“That’s it?” I asked. “A little silver dust stuffed inside the hollow points and your bad breath whispering prayers over the rounds? That’s supposed to do more than annoy the bad guy? Sounds like a terrible plan if I’ve ever heard one.”
“You know, I don’t remember you complaining this much during our time in the military. You seemed a little more eager to trust our respective pacts. Did I ever lead you astray back then? Why question it now?”
“A lot of shit has changed. I find myself with a little more to question and complain about these days. And, as you mentioned, I’m not necessarily too keen on pacts, anymore.” I stuffed the Beretta into my back waistband and clomped into the trees.
“Joey,” Xander called out. “You’re going the wrong way.”
We hiked through the forest along the South Fork American River. Whoever invented hiking was Charles Manson-level psychotic. I twisted my ankle on about eight different loose stones and hidden divots. It was ball-shrivelingly cold beside the running river, and the stupid trees blocked out all of the sun’s warmth. After about ten minutes, my muscles had fatigued to the point of numbness, but I limped on. Hey, I don’t want to hear it from you. Not once did I claim to be in any type of shape.
I stopped and put my hands on my knees, panting. “Go on without me,” I said, shooing Xander forward. “I can’t make it.”
To his credit, he actually stopped walking and turned around to admire my performance. “It’s just around that bend.” He pointed to about thirty-two miles—maybe it was twenty yards—in front of us, where the river bent inward and out of sight behind a line of trees. “Her home is just around there.” He continued navigating the rocky terrain of the river’s bank, somehow avoiding a twisted ankle—maybe I did needed a little more Jesus to guide my footsteps. “And think of it this way,” he continued, “you’ll have a brand new audience to berate and convince to hate you in about two minutes.”
“Wow,” I said, standing upright and following him with the pouty slowness of a teenager. “I can’t wait to meet my new best friend.”
Kids, don’t ever grow up. Life isn’t fun when you’re old and mature and boring. Stay young. Stay vile. Stay angry.
We made it safely around the bend without any further injuries. A few dozen feet off the shore, shaded by the forest, Xander pointed out a cabin that Ted Kaczynski would have been jealous of.
“You’re serious?” I asked. “Annabel Nevis lives in that kind of cabin?” I sat on the rocky shore and picked up a stone, tossing it from hand to hand. “Nope. Not happening, Xander. You
know it’s not. I’ll bash my own skull in with this rock before I step foot in that cabin.”
“Joey, this fear you have… it’s irrational.”
“No, you’re irrational.” I scratched the stubble growing thick on my cheek and shook my head. “What’s my number one rule?”
“You have a lot of number one rules. I’m sure this one will have something do with cabins, though.”
“Don’t enter a cabin in the middle of the woods. Ever. For no reason at all. Under any circumstances. Have you seen any horror movie? People are in a cabin, in a forest, and they fucking… always… die. Black guy first.” I cleared my throat, alluding to him, and he rolled his eyes. “Super sexy, asshole jock second. That’s me. Now, the virgin, of course, always lives. That’s where we run into a problem. Not only are you black, but you’re also a virgin. So, it evens out, and guess what? I die first. Not happening.”
Xander pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “Joey—”
“Besides, who the hell lives in the middle of nowhere? The Unabomber, that’s who. Mother-flipping weirdos and serial killers—which are usually mutually exclusive things. Also, have I never told you the story about what happened last time?”
“You’re not just being a baby and trying to annoy me, are you? You’re for real. You’re legitimately afraid of cabins.”
We’ll return to your regularly scheduled story after this quick scene break to provide a little more context for this conversation.
Welcome to the backstory, baby! I’m your host, Joseph Labrador Hunter.
When I was about ten—just a year or two younger than my now-ruined guns—I had a pretty nasty experience with a cabin in the woods. Imagine your worst childhood experience ever. Now, quadruple that. You’re beginning to understand the type of trauma I suffered.
The year was 1999, I think, and The Blair Witch Project had just come out in theaters. My buddy, Terrance, and I were in the same group home and had wanted to see that groundbreaking masterpiece. Don’t you dare tell me that The Blair Witch Project wasn’t revolutionary for the horror genre, either. I will fight you, and in my current condition, you’ll probably win.
Terry—as we called him—was a big, fat, mean-spirited, nasty kid. He had orange hair and freckles that layered his ghostly skin. I think he was allergic to toothpaste, too, because he never once brushed those pearly yellows, and his breath stank like something gone bad in a refrigerator. And—let me backtrack. When I say big and fat, I’m not being mean—in fact, I’m probably being nice. At twelve years of age—he was a couple years older than me—he stood over six feet tall and had to weigh well over two-hundred pounds. Well, Tiny Terry, as the short-lived children dubbed him, had the idea to steal some money from the group home staff. When he had the cash, we snuck out of the house to watch the film. Of course, we weren’t seventeen—though Terry could have passed—so we couldn’t get into an R-rated movie. But Terry, that conniving little criminal, knew exactly how to game the system. We bought tickets for… shit.
What movie did we buy tickets for?
I can’t believe I forgot—
Inspector Gadget!
That’s right. Oh, how I wish we would have watched that instead. To this day, I still haven’t seen the Inspector go about his Gadgety business, and it haunts my dreams.
So, we stole some money and we stole into the wrong theater—which was super easy to do back in the day. There was no assigned seating that reclined back with the push of a button, back then. We just had to find two empty chairs. No one would ever know the difference.
Well, at around ten thirty at night, The Blair Witch Project probably wasn’t the best movie for a ten-year-old and a twelve-year-old kid to watch unsupervised.
That happened on a Friday night.
The next morning, our group home decided on a “coincidental” whim to head out on a camping trip for the first time in their history.
What are the odds, right?
Well, while on this camping trip, one of the staff pointed out a dilapidated cabin a few hundred yards from our location. To Terry and me, it looked exactly like the one from the movie, and our curious little minds went to scheming.
When everyone fell asleep, guess who was serious about investigating the cabin? Ding. Ding. Motherfucking ding. Tiny Terry and saintly old me—two kids no more innocent than a back-alley lady of the night wearing white on her wedding day.
I’m getting off topic, though.
Terry had this wonderful idea to tiptoe away from the campsite and investigate the cabin in the dead of night. Why not? It’s not like witches were real. Ha! What a load of malarkey. If he hadn’t died in a gas station shootout at the ripe age of sixteen, I would have hunted him down by now to tell him how real witches really were. But to T.T., he was the bogeyman and no one else made him piss his own pee—that’s a euphemism for scaring him into wetting his pants. I’m not sure if it landed or not, though.
The wooden floors creaked as we stepped around the collapsed front door.
I remember, so distinctly, my little balls sitting in my stomach like a couple of burning rocks. I wanted nothing more than to leave the cabin and bury myself in my sleeping bag. But I didn’t want Terry to know I was scared, so I tailed after him and ventured further in.
Part of the roofing had caved in and lay in a pile of split wood and jutting nails. We skirted around it, crunching broken glass beneath our heels. Cobwebs caught the moonlight—some of the thickened silk wrapped around my arms and stuck to my face. I nearly had a heart attack as I wiped the webbing from my skin. All I could think about was a fat, fuzzy, black spider crawling beneath my clothes and biting me over and over and over again.
“I don’t like this,” I whispered. My voice came out like syrup, and I realized I’d been crying.
“Quit being a bitch,” Terry had said—a twelve-year-old, certified badass.
Without a flashlight, following the guidance of the moon, he led me further into the bowels of the fallen structure. We turned into the back room. A naked doll lay in the corner, her clothes shredded and her raggedy skin pale. Near her lay a pile of smoked cigarettes, the crumpled pack they came in, and a rusted knife.
“Seriously,” I said with a weak tone, “I think we should—”
A heavy instrument slammed against the side of the cabin. It sounded like someone took a lead pipe to the walls. Whatever it was, it drummed against the siding and drowned all my senses and all my thoughts, and it suppressed my breath. I could barely see beyond the screaming BANG! BANG! BANG! that reverberated throughout the weakened structure.
Terry’s chubby hand grabbed mine. We stood frozen as someone or something walked around the perimeter and beat at the wood. Glass shattered, spilling across the floor. A hyena laughter filled the night.
I might have screamed, but I don’t really remember the details. I know I cried. Terry took off running, dragging me along with him like a rag doll. We burst through the front doorway and fled through the forest without looking back. Our retreat wasn’t like a horror movie. We didn’t trip on an exposed root, the monster didn’t step out from behind a tree and block our passage. Branches didn’t snag our clothes or cut our skin.
We reached our campsite screaming bloody murder. One of the staff members—I forget her name—grabbed us and shushed us. Through sobs and gasping breaths, we relayed what had happened to her.
And you know what she did?
She laughed, like we had told her a funny joke. “Serves you two little shits right for sneaking out last night and seeing that movie.”
“And for stealing my money,” said another voice from behind us.
Terry and I turned and saw a second staff member standing in the moonlight. He held a baseball bat and wore a smile as broad as a sword.
It wasn’t until we settled into our tent that I realized I’d pissed my pants. Too embarrassed to get up and change my underwear, I fell asleep with tears wetting my cheeks and urine wetting my thighs.
And…
Welcome back, reader. You made it. Let’s get right back into the mud.
“How would I not be afraid,” I asked Xander, Annabel’s cabin looming before us, “after what happened that night?”
“Because you were ten, and unlike most people, you never grew up and overcame that childish fear. When you ventured into the cabin that night, it wasn’t a monster that attacked, and you even know that. It was a spiteful human playing a nasty trick on a couple of kids.”
“Isn’t that the scariest thing of all?” I asked. “Humans that choose to be monsters?” I ran a hand through my hair and stared through the trees at the cabin, shaking my head. “How about this—you recognize and accept that I hate cabins located in the woods, that I’m deathly afraid of them. If you do that, I’ll stop making fun of your irrational fear of wasps.”
“It’s not irrational. I was stung on the tongue! You don’t recover from that.”
I cocked my head. “Some say tomato, some say potato.”
“That’s not how… never mind. I’ll acknowledge your fear as legitimate, but you’re going to face that fear and enter that cabin with me. That cabin, Joey, it stands—”
“Don’t say it,” I said.
“It stands between you and finding a Scylla that will lead you straight to Hecate and Mel. You’re entering that cabin with me.”
“But, Dad…” I pleaded, my attention still fixed in the direction of the cabin, though my eyes had started to follow a spry lady with a shotgun sneaking from tree to tree toward us. “What if the crazy lady comes out here instead? Then we could all be happy and not have to be miserable in there.”
Xander was facing me, so he didn’t her—the shotgun now butted against her shoulder and aimed directly at his back.
