Hunter of Vengeance

Less than an hour later, I was waiting for my flight home at Charles de Gaulle Airport. The police had “suggested” rather strongly that I leave town at my earliest convenience. I gave them credit for implying the never come back part without actually saying it. They had let me stay long enough to check on Antonio, who was going to live after his fall. He had lost a lot of blood and broken more bones than he knew the name of but after a couple of months of forced vacation, he would be back to fighting strength. I also collected what was left of the bullet that had helped our foe meet his unfortunate end. If I could use it to find out who had ganked our gargoyle I was sure to look them up when I got the time. All of the less-than-legal weapons I had used on this trip had already been stored, shipped, or confiscated so I passed through customs with barely a second glance and boarded the plane.

As I sat in my seat waiting for takeoff, I pulled one of the magazines out of the back of the seat in front of me. There was an article on the cover discussing the truth behind the recent supernatural occurrences. I chuckled ruefully to myself, knowing the conclusions they would draw before I even opened the magazine… inconclusive. To keep their sales up the magazine would have to appeal to a wide variety of people, and that included the so-called ordinaries… people who fastidiously ignored the evidence in front of them that another world had existed under our noses for millennia.

Twenty years ago, just before the turn of the century, technology was quickly reaching a point where the creepy crawlies and all the things that went bump-in-the night were having more and more trouble hiding. There were reports, of course, mostly in tabloids of strange goings-on the world over. A cult found dead in a daylight raid came back to life and walked out of the morgue that night. A man turned into a hairy monster when confronting muggers in a parking structure before jumping off the roof and running into the night. There was even a wizard supposedly advertising in the phone book somewhere.

During the big millennial, celebration, when everyone was worried about the world ending with Y2K, the magical community made a public announcement to say they existed. The governments reacted with typical paranoid behavior. There was an investigation into all branches of the government to determine if this new populace had infiltrated on any level, all the while denying in the press what had appeared before our eyes. Many simply took the stand that this was merely an extension of the Goth\vampire trend that the teens had been into and that none of it was real. The government didn’t take long, however, before the idea of protecting the public from possible damage from these new threats was raised.

That’s where ARC, Assault, Retrieval, and Containment, came in. As far as the public was concerned, we didn‘t exist. We were what you might call the monster police, though behind the scenes we did so much more. ARC covered research on the new species, the development of weapons to combat them, rights negotiations between races, and a whole slew of things I had no desire to know about. I liked my job and it was a simple one. Hunt down the nasties determined to crawl out of so many storybooks and take them out. When the possibility of a peaceful solution was no longer available that’s when I would get the call. Twenty years fighting all sorts of things we thought were just stories used to scare children made me one of the best in the business. Especially since the average life expectancy once you joined ARC was around ten years, if you were lucky. There weren’t many retirement cakes served around the office.

“Can you believe the stuff they try to sell you nowadays as news?” a man in a wrinkled business suit sat down next to me and indicated the magazine. “I mean how do they expect us to believe these things stayed so well hidden we never noticed them?” He smiled as he settled into his seat. In the light from the airplane’s window, he reminded me of an old friend for just a second. Memories good and bad flew through my head making me dizzy.

“Yeah,” I sighed, putting the magazine back. “Hard to imagine all those monsters hiding in plain sight for so long.” I settled down into my chair and tried to get some sleep as we made our way back to the US.

~ * ~

A little over seven hours later I waited patiently in the line to disembark from the plane. The slow shuffle forward as people paused to grab various objects from the overhead compartment tried my patience, as it always did. It was good practice, I thought, to put yourself in a situation you couldn’t control and see how you react. I could easily afford a private seat up in first class but that just would encourage the wrong kind of thinking in my mind. Too many people in a violent line of work such as mine got to thinking that because they were stronger than someone else, they had the right to do what they wanted. I figure as long as I could resist shoving my way out of a crowded plane it was a good sign I wasn’t completely crazy, yet.

Finally, I made it out to the slightly less stuffy air of JFK airport and immediately made my way towards the exit. I may enjoy trying my patience but waiting around for your luggage to get spit out into the turnstile would drive anyone to madness. I flipped open my phone and rang the number for ARC headquarters. I punched in the code at the switchboard that most people would never know, connecting me to the division regulating bounties and payouts.

“ARC security.”

“Anyone claim the bounty on the Paris job yet?” I wasn’t in the mood for any pleasantries after what had happened.

“Ah… Mr. Hunter. How nice to hear from you.” Blake Ophei, receptionist extraordinaire, answered from the home office. “How was your flight?”

“Don’t need your lip, Blake just answers. Who the hell stole that kill from us?”

“No one has claimed the reward yet but there are only so many people out there who could make a shot from that distance. He’s got to be a pro marksman.”

“Well, I would love to know who it was so that I can shake his hand and congratulate him.” Maybe break that hand… take him out to the middle of nowhere so that no one can hear him scream. I rubbed my side where I got hit in the fight. I at the very least owed our mystery marksman for a couple of ribs.

“The fact that no one officially warranted the hit makes it more difficult to narrow the field down. The French are trying to bury the whole incident. Blaming the damage to Notre Dame on some freak lightning strike.”

“Get me a damned name Blake, what the hell else do you get paid for?” People around me in the airport were beginning to look my way… while trying, of course, not to look like they were. I glared at a few of the nearest of them and resisted growling, barely. “Research is supposedly your forte, isn’t it?”

“It’s not like I have a hell of a lot to go on, Hunter, so unless you feel like going door to door in a few dozen countries to ask every suspect personally who it was you’ll have to wait.”

“I salvaged what I could from the bullet, if I send it to you do you think you could get off your lazy ass and do some work for a change? I want some answers.” I made my way out of the airport and waved to hail a taxi at the curb.

“Fine, you can send it but I won’t be here.” I could hear the annoyance in the desk jockey’s voice and it did little to calm me.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s supposed to mean that three years is way too long to have to handle an ass like yourself. I quit!” The line went dead. I guess I had pushed the little twerp too far. Honestly never thought he would ever have the nerve to do anything not sent up the ladder and signed in triplicate. Oh well, I’m sure the office would have someone more competent replacing him in a few days. I needed to see Nate… and maybe get a drink.

~ * ~

Nathan, or Nate, Storm was my best friend since I was fourteen. We lived down in South Carolina along with his sister, Michelle. They both lived with their parents and I lived with a foster family, my fifth. My apparent problem allowing bullies to do whatever they wanted to me… or anyone else on the playground was not viewed favorably by many foster parents. As I settled into my new home I learned more and more about how to hide what I was doing in order to stay where I was. Fighting may have been wrong but getting caught was even more so.

The reason I made the effort to stay was simple, Michelle. She was pretty in all the ways you hope a girl to be. Perfectly tanned, brown hair and emerald eyes that simply lifted your soul when she looked at you. Within a year we were dating. We even watched the coming out of the alternaturals, or Alters as they were soon called, on New Year’s Day 2000. I could tell by the look on her face that she was overflowing with excitement at the possibilities that had just opened up in the world. I was less thrilled but watching her guess what legends might be proved true turned infectious quickly.

The thrill ended eight months later. Michelle was wandering through the forest and she encountered what I now know was a Yehasuri. They were familiar with the Catawba Indians of the area but had limited themselves to the reservations until the announcement. This one had claimed a little piece of the forest as his own to protect and had misunderstood Michelle’s intentions when she approached. The thing thought she was trying to drive him out when she just wanted to see if they could be friends. Misunderstandings like that often led to tragedies in those early days of the new world.

Michelle came back from a few hours hiking through the wood trails near her house more than a little disappointed. She had been determined to see some kind of creature on her adventure but the only one she saw ran and hid immediately. She had tried to cajole him out into the open, trying to make it seem that she was friendly but to no avail. Undeterred she was going to make friends with all the creatures of the forest one by one even if it took her all summer. We had laughed at the determination on her face as it turned quickly to anger directed at us.

Later, she complained a bit about having an ache in her neck and left Nate and me to try and sleep it off with some aspirin. The next day I got a call from Nate in the afternoon, they had tried to wake Michelle up several times but there was no response. After rushing her to the hospital, the doctors soon said she had slipped away in her sleep. And with that, she was gone, I hadn’t even had the chance to say goodbye.

In the years since her passing, I have had a lot of time to research what might have really happened out in the woods. I suppose being hired as part of a government organization with tons of research has its benefits but that comes later. The Yehasuri were normally harmless pranksters, stealing the shadows and clothes of kids. They were, however, very territorial. The ache in Michelle’s neck was likely caused by an arrow, invisible to the human eye, that had been launched by the creature and poisoned her.

Back then, of course, I didn’t know it had been an accident…a misunderstanding. I can’t honestly say that it would have changed what happened had I known. All I cared about was this creature… this… thing… had taken away someone very dear to me and I was going to make it pay. Nate, of course, felt the same way and joined me as we packed up his truck and headed out to the woods the day after Michelle’s funeral.

We didn’t have much in the way of weapons back then but we did each have a hunting rifle that Nate’s dad took us out with a few weekends every summer. Nate put a cigarette from the new pack he bought in town in his mouth and the hunt was on. We looked through those woods for days till we found where we thought Michelle might have encountered the creature from her description. It didn’t take much longer to find it living in the small hole of a stump.

We knocked the butts of our rifles against the stump, egging the thing on to come out and face us. The two of us were riding high on the righteousness of what we were doing, that and the twelve-pack of beer we had brought with us. It finally came out into the light and it was a little thing, only about two feet tall. He kinda looked like one of those garden gnomes old ladies had on their lawns but way hairier. The two of us yelled threats and insults at the thing, I can’t even remember what we had said. The next thing I know the thing jumped us.

It clawed at my face with bare hands, breaking the skin. I dropped my rifle and flung it away but it was fast… too fast for my alcohol-addled mind to handle. It leaped onto Nate, climbing up the front of him with its claws and tearing his shirt. Nate dropped his rifle as well, the impact setting it off and blowing a small hole in a nearby tree. That sent the little dwarf into a frenzy tearing through Nate’s shirt and chest like he wanted to burrow straight through him. I watched my friend fall to the ground trying in a panic to fend off the attacks of the creature.

I noticed that in the attack the monster had shredded Nate’s shirt pocket sending his cigarettes flying. To this day I have no idea why I did what I did next. I grabbed the cigarettes and crushed some of them between my palms.

As Nate’s cries continued I spoke as clearly as I could, “Dugare ini para'ti na yehasuri deme hana te we stere yanamusi sere!” I still don’t know what it means; heck, I only have a few guesses as to what language it might have been. Regardless, it seemed to have the desired effect.

The thing froze in place, still tangled with Nate on the ground. He pushed it off and I walked over, the look of fear was plain on its face as I retrieved my gun. Michelle likely would have found it in her heart to forgive… I just couldn’t. I couldn’t forgive any of them. I calmly unloaded every shot in my rifle into the little thing. I remember thinking to myself that these creatures claimed to have been here as long as humans, longer some said, but this was still our world. I would do what I needed to defend the people in it.

A few days later there was a knock at my door. I opened it to find a strange-looking man with dark, tanned skin. He was dressed in a full black suit complete with sunglasses. I thought to myself how this guy must have watched way too many movies before choosing his outfit. Turns out he was a recruiting agent for ARC, a new agency still in its infancy at the time. Nate was receiving a similar visit next door at the same moment.

Nate quit a few years back… after he had kids of his own he couldn’t handle the violence anymore. Something about being able to look them in the eyes when he got home. I fought with him, said plenty of things I’m not proud of… even accused him of not caring about his sister. He decided to start his own private investigation firm. He was doing well for himself… rolled his bounty money from ARC into a nice little setup of his own. I was sure he had forgiven me by now… pretty sure.