Monsters in the Midwest (Book 2): Northwoods Wolfman (8 page)

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.