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Part one lives here. It'll make more sense if you it first. https://www.reddit.com/Revblackrage/comments/hxikru/bulls_heart_texas/
I was half way to my car before I knew it, fresh cup of coffee in my hand. Ellie wouldn't let me leave without one.
I set the cup of coffee down on the roof of the Dodge and started digging around in my pockets. Looking for my keys. A scream ripped out of the restaurant behind me. It was long and loud. Sounded like someone had just stuck their hand in a deep fat fryer. Or had it forced into one. It startled me and I jumped, So much so that I dropped my keys.
I heard a snort. Which sounded suspiciously like it was at my expense. I looked over my shoulder as I bent over to grab my keys.
Murray's horse, Pistola, was tied up in a parking spot, about three spaces down from me. It was technically against city ordinance to tie an animal up in a commercial parking lot. Outside of Rodeo season of course, And there was special emphasis on undead mammals.
But if you won't tell, I won't. The skeletal equine was staring at me over a feed bag strapped to his face. I pretended not to notice that the feed bag was stained brown, with a suspicious blackish liquid dripping from the stained burlap. Sometime's in Bull's Heart, the answers just aren't worth the questions.
"Cut me some slack, dude" I said. With a voice that may or may not have registered a bit of annoyance. "I'm not a three hundred year old dead horse. Shit creeps me out sometimes."
I could have sworn that old Pistola, rolled his eyes at that. But that may have been just me giving the horse too much credit.
Another shorter scream erupted from the diner. This one ending suddenly. The context clues I had at my disposal, told me it was Marcel who was doing the screaming in there. Now were I a normal Sheriff's Deputy it would be my job to run into that Diner, ready to get to the bottom of it. But. I already knew the score and felt no need to investigate further. Plus, fuck that guy. Stripers had no protections under the law and I was specifically instructed to ensure their safety at my discretion and i discresified that Marcel was a worthless piece of human wreckage, who should be fed to a wood chipper. His death would truely be a net benefit to humanity as a whole. And that was about as far as I was willing to take it.
Just as I scooped up my keys, I heard a low nervous sound from the undead horse. One of those 'Hey I'm not cool with this' sounds horses make. A rustle of feathers creeping out of the night sky, the horse's call of unease it's only accompaniment.
"Fuck" I swore outloud. A rustle of feathers on a night time breeze could mean only a few things in Bull's Heart and only one of them would creep out a horse. I stood up straight. Looking for it. Resting my paw on the handle of my Smoke Wagon. My fingers wrapping around the checkered grip of the ridiculously large revolver. They always come when the stink of blood is on the air. They bring the cold with them too. As was attested to by the shiver running down my spine and the light steam I was suddenly exhaling. The hairs on my bare arms stood up in response to the suddenly frigid air. On one level I knew that I was under no immediate threat.... But you tell that to two hundred thousand years of evolutional preservational instincts. Shit was there for a reason. Yes I suppose you could say the thing perched over the door of Earl's diner made me uncomfortable. Just a touch.
The neon lighting from the diner's sign cast an odd neon red hue across it. The light seemed to accentuate the shadows it lurked in. But I wouldn't even have to look at the damn thing to know it was watching me. The whole site of the thing was like watching a demon stalk you.
Nobody was really sure where they had came from. Nobody who'd been to the Great Beyond, or any other such ports of mystical or metaphysical call, could recall such a creature in any of their travels.
I would describe it as a humanoid, with big ragged vultures wings. Bipedal body. Bird's legs. A man's chest. I usually saw a big fuck off beak, that was attached to a face that looked similar to a plague doctor's mask.
But rarely did two people see the same thing when they looked at the creatures. Well for the most part. The going theory was that they were some matter of shape shifters. But that still left a lot to explain. Everyone described the same ragged wings and the same piercing eyes. Orbs of a pure white, that burned with a mix of corruption and malevolent anger. Like spotlights of hate on a greasy black night.
But nobody could agree on secondary characteristics. To me they all looked the same, but if I tried to describe what I saw, you wouldn't know what I was talking about, because you saw a horses head with a seagulls beak for a face, or some other such silliness.
This particular creature's wings were drooped over it like a cloak. I could see the eyes boring into me from the inky black recesses of it's wings. No notion of a head, or shoulders, or anything could be discerned from the shadows.
I glared back at it for a moment, before I took a good weaver style shooting position, drew my smoke wagon and planted it's front site post right smack dab between those dumbass eyes. It did nothing but glare back at me with those huge hate filled peepers. I couldn't even tell if it understood what was happening. But I could make out it's inky black talons flexing on it's perch, as if it was about to throw itself forward and rip my belly clean open in a fit of avian fury. Everything in me told me to pull the trigger on my Magnum Research BFR and send a .45-70 Government Consecrated Exploding Sabot round right into the thing's forehead. Everything in me wanted to send that unearthly thing back to whatever soulless void it spawned from. The things aren't right for this world and everything in me was telling me to send it back where it belonged. To the pit it crawled out of.
But technically........Under Texas department of Fish and Game code, They are classified as an endangered species.
So all I could do was whisper "Bang" like a petulant child and reluctantly holster my weapon. I am not horribly mature, I admit.
Yeah, sure they stole dead bodies. Sure they flew around from Dusk till Dawn creeping the living fuck out of people. Sure they had all the sentience of a learning disabled possum. But some genius decided to call them an endangered species and grant them protected habitats. Like the forests surrounding Bull's Heart. Because where the fuck else would they be able to go?
The thrice cursed things are Illegal to hunt for sport or harvest. And if you kill one by accident, you better have your ducks in a row. Because you are about to be investigated for Poaching. Which in Texas, means you are going to face a lot of Jail time.
Which is some Fucking liberal bullshit, if you ask me.
Our local game warden, a fella named Lingelsou, was very particular about the animals of what he calls 'His Forest.'
He also had zero problem running in Deputys for violations to the Texas Fish and Game code. He once arrested a Deputy named Landis for taking one down. Even though he had a good reason for it..... well maybe not a good reason exactly, but a pretty damn good excuse.
About once a month or so, Deputy Landis has a condition that.... Well it's just best that he gets away from people for a couple days or so. He goes a little wild in that time frame. So he goes out to a plot of land he owns out in the woods and just rides it out. Safer for everyone that way.
During one of these..... Fits I guess you could call it. He took down one of the creatures and ate half of it. Warden Lingelsou took him in for it. It didn't matter that Deputy Landis wasn't in his right frame of mind. He still didn't have a population control hunting license, which was the only way to legally hunt them.
Sheriff Onryu had gone to bat for the Deputy, going so far as to site the American's with disabilities act of 1990, trying to point out that Landis had a condition and certain accessions had to be made in order to provide a fair and equal environment for him. Including free reign hunting rights for the thing that lived inside of him. Lingelsou wasn't buying it though. "Laws be laws" The Game Warden had said. "In my forest and in my jurisdiction, the laws be respected"
Sanctimonious do-gooder Prick. But the creatures did a good job of keeping their number's low and they didn't really go out of their way to attack people. Unless cornered. Which is a good thing. Because when they are worked up into a good lather, they can take and dish out a lot of punishment before they finally go down. Kind of like a skybourne Armadillo. Only less cute.
This specimen, as if sensing my unease, leaned forward and screeched at me. I got the impression of a beak sticking out from between it's wings. The screech was loud in the frigid silence. It gave off the audio sensation of nails on a chalkboard mixed with a crying newborn. A pretty unpleasant mixing of audible input.
Than the burning eyes turned back to Pistola, and I briefly wondered if the Creature was going to go after the undead horse. I mean they were death eaters and technically the horse was dead after a fashion.
I would legally be allowed to shoot it at the point, as Pistola was technically livestock....Deadstock?..... Anyway, in Bull's Heart, you could defend tame animals from wild Animals. Especially with all of the weird crap that lives in our woods.
But before I could sink much thought into it, the creature reared on it's haunches, gave one last terrifying screech and took wing, quickly disappearing into the night sky. My caveman ego wanted to believe that it was because the Creature was made uncomfortable by my presence.
But more than likely it figured that the staff of Toothy Earl's weren't going to toss Marcel's corpse out the front door, so there was no point in hanging around. Either way Pistola seemed to be okay with the end result, as he let out a sigh of equine relief as the potential predator made it's exit.
I watched the night sky in the direction it flew off for a moment, wondering if it was going to change it's mind and come back.
They have a name.
Like we don't just call them 'Creatures.' I just happen to think the name is stupid. Real fucking stupid. Because it's not a hot chick on a winged horse swinging a sword.
It is in no way shape or form a Valkerye. And yes that is a hill that I am willing to die on.
It's a fucking bird monster, not a chick who escorts dead warriors to the All Father's table. Can't put that shit on the side of a panel van from the seventies. End of discussion.
I just call them 'Shitbirds.'
When I was certain that the Shitbird was gone for good, I turned and gave Pistola a nod.
"You're safe now, Sir." I said with a professional smile. "You're welcome."
The Horse just stared back at me with Milky dead eyes. He seemed super unimpressed.
"Fine" I said with a bit of feigned exasperation "act like that thing didn't have you scared out of your peanut sized mind"
The Horse snorted at me again and again I swear he managed to roll his pupiless white eyes at me. That damn horse was smarter than he was letting on. I shook my head and turned back to the Charger. But as I got into the Dodge, I thought I heard something. Like words floating out of the dark. Scratchy. Raspy. Just at the point of hearing. The point were you aren't sure if it's your inner monolog or your ears, and i definitely wasn't quite sure which one it was.
"The.... Master.... Comes...."
I stared off in the direction the creature had flown. Well that was odd. I couldn't be sure that I had heard it.... But I couldn't completely write it off either.
*
I knew the way to the Miller's house like the back of my hand. We were out there enough after all. The Miller's were two people that shouldn't have been together. But they were also both extremely stubborn. Neither was going to be the one who broke first and left. They also refused to admit they had problems. Even when they were doing their best to rip each other apart. Made conflict mediation between the two parties a royal bitch.
They were one of the reasons I hated this God forsaken town.
I was going to meet up with Gruk and Daliwal at the foot of the Miller's drive and we would go up their property as a group.
It's usually best to go out on calls with as much back up as possible. Especially in this town.
I briefly thought about Gruk's condition. I glanced down towards the Digital Defensive Control Suite sitting in the middle of my Patrol car's center console. The screen showed that the U.V. Defensive lighting rig that sat on the roof of the Uparmored Charger Hell Cat cruiser was off. I reached down and tapped the off button just to be sure. I than reached over and hit the manual safety, locking it out of action.
A lot of citizen's of Bull's Heart had one condition or another that made U.V. light anything from annoying to downright lethal, so much so that the local Government classified U.V. lights as destructive devices. If you had some? You had better have a very damn good reason for having them or you were going to jail. Occasionally certain people would kick up a stink about it, make some noise about it being a violation of the 2nd Amendment, but they usually didn't get much support because.... well it's hard to get people real worked up about lightbulbs.
It would have been a damn shame to take Gruk and possibly Daliwal out of action, due to some avoidable asshatted dipshittery. I actually wasn't sure if U.V. would take Daliwal down or out, but I did know his kind were nocturnal, so better safe than sorry.
I turned down the dirt road that would take me to the Miller's front gate. Something about the way the lights of my cruiser played down the narrow tree lined dirt road gave it an ominous feeling. I was hoping it wasn't a sign of things to come.
"Here the fuck we go" I grumbled outloud.
I saw Gruk's S.U.V. and Daliwal's cruiser parked next to the Miller's cattle gate. Gruk had to drive one of the bigger S.U.V.s due to her massive size.
"More like her massive ass" I said to myself, giving myself a slight chuckle in response, finding myself hilarious. And before you ask, yes I am aware that I am an idiot.
I parked behind the big SUV and got out, but not before I let dispatch know where I was. "Jen, Whiskey Hotel, 10-23 at the Miller's" I told dispatch over the radio.
"Roger that, Whiskey Hotel, good luck!"
"Roger. Thanks. Out."
Daliwal and Gruk were standing in front of the latter's cruiser, looking up the property. Gruk turned her massive head my way. The black pupils of her eyes seemed to dig right through me as she stared. Her lips parted slightly and she gave me a disdainful sneer.
"Oh look..." She said said sounding gruff and vaguely British, like a bad guy from a Lord of The Rings Movie "'Ey sent a pathetic little 'Oomie to back us up..."
The look on her face could have frozen fire. She looked like she wanted to rip open my belly and play with what she found there. She squared up her shoulders like she was ready to throw down and raised her hands up to shoulder height. Flexing every muscle she had in her upper body. Her jaw fell open revealing some seriously nasty gleaming white canines. A Threat display if there ever was one. Her Body Armor and her duty belt did nothing except add to idea that she was preped and ready for a real slobberknocker.
She took a step forward, looking every bit of the bruiser she really was. From the top of her pony tail to the soles of her size twenty black Bates combat boots, she was built for war. Literally. Thats what her race had been bred for.
"Only thing 'Oomies is good for is filling bellys...."
Daliwal looked over at her with a 'what the fuck?' Look on his face. He seemed genuinely suprised by her words and aggressive actions. He looked over at me, his big yellow-green eyes going wide. He raised a hand to his beard and stroked it a few times. Looking back and forth between us. I got the feeling that was how his nerves liked to showed themselves.
The palm of his hand faced outwards and his fingers seemed to go backwards like their joints were reversed. He was a transfer from another town like Bull's Heart, somewhere in Florida. Thunder? Or maybe it was Cougar Teeth? Not that it mattered I guess. He had only been with the Sheriff's department a few weeks now, and most of that had been training time. He may have been a veteran. But here in Texas, he was 'The new guy' and he was still trying to figure out what was what.
The look on his face said that he wasn't quite sure what he had found himself in the middle of here, but he wasn't a fan of it.
I wasn't used to the backwards hands thing yet and it was still a little weird for me. Tiger head was off putting too, but that was easier to get used to. Seemed like a hell of a nice guy so far though. Like he was really working hard to dispell the negative views most people had towards free form shape shifters. He didn't need to though. He wouldn't have earned his Star if he were an asshole.
I tried to come up with a witty zinger to shoot back at Gruk, but I was drawing a blank. I almost went with 'ol reliable,' a Shrek reference. But I wasn't feeling it. So I just raised my hands to the waist, making sure not to spill my coffee, and mugged a sarcastically terrified expression at her.
"Ohhhh scary" I said in the most mockingly insincere voice I could muster, rolling my eyes as hard as I could. "Cut the fuckin' shit, Gruk, you're scaring the new guy" "Watch your language!" Gruk said suddenly, dropping the bad movie Orc accent like a bad habit. Her real voice sounded more like a housewife from somewhere in the mid west. Like Nebraska or some shit. Flat but somehow bubbly. You always had a suspicion that the next word out of her mouth was going to be 'Ope.'
"And besides, He isn't scared he already knows I'm a total sweetie" She said fixing him with a wide smile. Which despite the fact that it showed off her massive fanged canines, still managed to come across as incredibly warm and inviting. Like someone's mom. "I gave him some of my famous oatmeal cookies, would a big nasty evil orc make cookies for the new guy?"
She directed the last question at Daliwal. He looked like he was still in shock at the rapid shift in tones. His eyes were wide and his jaw was still slightly hanging open. I could tell that he wasn't exactly sure if we weren't playing a game of 'fuck with the new guy' His shifted his gaze between our faces. He swallowed, a bit nervously.
"Well...." His voice had that crisp English accent that alot of educated Indian Immigrants had, when they learned their English at a British founded University. You could tell from his tone that he wasn't super comfortable in the situation.
".....The .....'Cookies'--" I got the feeling that he had to mentally restrain himself from saying 'biscuits' "--did have Raisins in them, so the question of your being a 'Sweetie' or something of a malicious sort hasn't really been settled just yet."
It took me a second, but I got the humor. Fucker was just so goddamn dry in his delivery, that it almost didn't land. I gave him a chuckle. I got the notion that he was gonna be an okay guy to work with. Once He got settled that is.
Gruk however stared at him for a moment. She didn't quite give a laugh, but she did give him another award winning smile. She placed her left fist on her waist and pointed at him with her other hand.
"I'm gonna have to keep my eye on you, Mister!" She said with a bit of humor in her voice. "And don't you worry about the Raisins, just my way of messing with the new guy, I guess. But don't worry. They help a body increase blood production. Thats good for you..... and Me."
Daliwal waited a beat before giving Gruk a wide-eyed nervous chuckle, before breaking eye-contact and looking down to make sure his boots were still on his feet.
His timid response set me off. I let lose with a stifled laugh. I squeezed my eyes shut and laughed into the back of my hand. My sides shaking. Now Daliwal wasn't a small guy, he was broad across the shoulders. Had Fangs and Claws of his own. A Gun too. I didn't know him too well, but I would bet that He could take care of himself in a fight. His kind were usually pretty good with their mitts. Or at least thats what I had heard about them. (That might just be a stereotype though. If it is, and anyone of you out there reading this are of the Raksasha people and have a problem with it, please know that I meant nothing by it.)
But when a Person of Gruk's size and ability, friendly disposition or not, makes a mention of your platelet count it could be a little disconcerting.
Especially since Gruk, in addition to being one of the largest specimens of Orc you would ever meet was also afflicted with Vampirism.
She was hell on wheels without the condition. Half the department had called her 'Mama Bear' because if you were down and bleeding and you needed someone to drag your ass out of the fire, she was the one you would want arriving on scene.
Believe me. I know what it's like to be laying on your back, getting the shit kicked out of you, looking up and seeing Gruk come charging onto the scene like a cross between The Incredible Hulk and Jesus Christ. But as to how she came across the Vampirism, It's actually kind of a sweet story.
A few years back she fell for a local gal named Maddie and they got married. Maddie was a vampire. In good standing of course. But than again she had to be, because rogue Vampires get run out of town pretty quick, if not staked down for the morning sun.
A man by the name of Kincade ran the local Vampire Coven and he was a stickler for 'The Rules of Fair Conduct' which 'The United Night Walker Covens and Clans of The United States, Mexico, and Canada' had applied to towns like Bull's Heart.
Kincade ran a tight ship and The Sheriff's Department had rarely if ever had reason to pick a fight with the Blood Suckers. Well.... Except that one time..... But thats neither here nor there. Plus we don't like to talk about it around here. It would be especially impolite to discuss it with outsiders.
Anyway the point is, that with the Vampirism accentuating her already considerable strength and hardiness.... she had gone from Hell On Wheels to a One Woman SEAL Company.
Part of the lovely couple's wedding vows had been Maddie converting Gruk into a Vampire. Maddie had taken Gruk's name and Gruk had taken on Maddie's condition. I had to admit. It twanged on the dusty strings of my heart. For some reason, it struck me as beautiful. To not only tell someone you want to be with them forever, but to take steps to actually do so? Well, I'm not gonna lie. I shed a few happy tears at the wedding.
I guess I'm a bit of a softy.
"Senior Deputy Gruk" I said, doing my best to come to Daliwal's rescue "if you could quit subtley terrifying the New Guy for a moment? I think we got us a wellness visit to make, if you would like to take charge and lead your valiant warriors on a crusade in the name of public safety? Now would be a good time for that."
"Oh, party pooper" Gruk said. But she drew up to her full height and turned to look up at the Miller's House. It was a white ranch style sitting on top of a slight hill. The lights were off and nobody appeared to be home.
"Okay" She said looking down at me "First things first, Cowboy."
She pointed down at the Magnum Research BFR in my Holster.
"Go to the trunk of your car and get a gun that isn't stupid"
"Goddamnit" I grumbled.
*
Five minutes later we were walking up the Miller's Driveway. A fifth Generation Glock 40 sitting in my Holster. We had to hoof it up the property. Because the cattle gate across the driveway was locked. Which wouldn't have mattered.
Because once a car crossed the Miller's gate, it tends to experience engine trouble. Never getting more than twenty feet before shutting down completely. Radios had issues too. Hell the 3D RMR Night Site on my pistol was probably dead. Like it's 10 year battery was burnt out. It was something to do with the Nature of the Millers..... and the Magic they threw around. Electronics hated the stuff for some reason. So normally we just left anything that had a battery in the car.
I was staring up at the House as I walked. It was odd. Usually at this point we could hear them screaming at each other, the pop and fizzle of Magic spells going off. Inhuman roaring as demons were summoned. Not to attack, but to help bolster arguments. Dishes breaking.
Tonight though? It was different. Dead silence. Like the house was a tomb. My eyes were going from window to window. Looking for any sign of life and finding none. No fluttering curtains. Lights popping on and off. No nothing.
Just the crunch of our boots on old asphalt. I almost didn't notice the temperature drop, until I was exhaling steam. I shivered inside my uniform. I was just about to ask 'Where the fuck did that come from'
When Daliwal spoke up.
"We are being watched" He said quietly.
"I see them too" Gruk said. All merriment lost from her voice. She was switched on now and jokes would be unprofessional. She eased the AR Pistol she carried off of her belt. It was chambered in .458 Socom, and of course the entire lower was custom made to fit her gigantic hand. Including a massive grip that resembled the handle of a 1911 Pistol rather than the traditional AR group. Making it the next best thing to a Bolter.
"I count twelve in the trees on the West side of the clearing"
"I count eight on my side" Daliwal replied, his voice dropping to a whisper.
"I can't see shit" I said, wishing I had some form of natural night vision, like my creature of the night comrades.
"Valkerye" was all Gruk said.
"Shit" I muttered.
"Language" Gruk gently admonished, without taking her eyes off of the Trees on the edges of the clearing.
I followed her gaze out to the trees. I could just barely make out the little pinpoints of white light, that would have been the eyes of the Shitbirds.
I whistled lowly. There were a bunch of them out there. I had never seen so many in one place. Usually when there is more than two or three in one spot, they would fight each other. It looked like these assholes were just coping a squat and having a watch. Very odd behavior for Shit Birds.
"I've never seen so many..." Daliwal said, a tremor of discomfort in his voice. I noticed that his tail was held down, close to his leg. That might have been a good tactical decision to keep the appendage out of the way....... or it might have been an involuntary fear based response.
"Don't let them get to you" Gruk said, her voice soaked in matronly concern. "They never come for us..... just for the dead."
"Yeah" I said, turning my attention to the house. "Boss Lady is right. Pay them no mind."
I took a sip from the Coffee cup I was still holding. I was intentionally trying to look as nonchalant as possible. Partially for the new guy, partially for the fact that I wasn't going to give the Shit Birds the satisfaction of spooking me twice in one night. I did my best to walk like I didn't have a care in the world. Daliwal looked over his shoulder at me. His eyes widened slightly when he recognized the stylized Alligator on the cup. Toothy Earl's logo.
"You were at Toothy Earl's earlier?" He asked me, his ears perking straight up "Was.... Um.... Was Miss Ellie working?"
"Yup" I Responded "She was breaking in a New Striper. Didn't go so hot for him"
"Ah" The new guy said "Do you happen to know if.... If.... She is...uh... talking to anyone?"
"She talks to a lot of people" I said playing dumb "it's part of her job, silly boots"
"Oh... Uh... No..." He said, turning back to watch his side of the clearing, and the Valkerye in the Trees beyond. "I meant is she.... In a relationship with anyone?"
"Well" I said continuing on in the playing dumb vein "I'm sure she has a lot of relationships, with a lot of people--"
"Oh be nice" Gruk grunted at me "You know what he meant." She said to me. To Daliwal she said "Yes there's a fella she talks too, but I don't know if it's serious. Tall, blonde, human, a lot of people think he might really be that one lightning guy, the one with the hammer.... oh what is his name.... oh it doesn't matter." Her voice picked up a little more Growl as she went on. Apparently remembering that we were supposed to be focusing on the task at hand "Both of you need to pay attention to your sectors. Or I'll treat you both like a couple of juice boxs and call out another couple of Dumb Dumbs to back me up, when I've sucked you both dry."
"Yes ma'am!" Daliwal said, responding to the matronly authority in her voice.
"Yeah" I said, properly scolded, not even attempting to go for the obvious joke there. "Sorry, Boss."
She was right. Now wasn't the time for jaw jacking. She had left it unsaid, but there were more Shit Birds out here than anyone had ever seen in one spot. They were acting strangely. This was the quietest 'Millers Call' I had ever been out on. I would wager that it was Gruk's quietest one too. It was too weird of a night to be acting like a dumbass rookie. There was a time to fuck with the new guy and this wasn't it clearly.
I followed Gruk's lead and drew my Glock. I checked the RMR site and noticed that my Dot was in fact no longer illuminated on the glass. Like the battery was dead.
Fucking Miller's and their spooky ass hoodoo. The rest of the short walk was quiet. I watched the front, where the house was. Gruk and Daliwal watched the sides. They stayed quiet.
I would occasionally peek off to the side, at the trees in the distance. White Eyes Beamed back at me, making them look like under dressed sparsely decorated Christmas Trees.
I kind of wished we were talking more. As the feeling of all those eyes on me was driving me crazy. Felt like ants skittering up and down my spine. Some light conversation would be great to take the mind off of current events.
When we reached the house, Gruk mounted the steps to the porch and paused. She looked around. She tilted her head up to the side and sniffed the air around her. She suddenly tensed up
"What?" I asked her.
"Blood" She responded "Lots of it. Human."
Now were this the movies. The Vampire would look at me like I was a pot roast and get a strange look in her eye. But this isn't the movies and Senior Deputy LaVonda Gruk is a goddamn professional and I'll not have you imply otherwise. She treated it like a call for help and instantly got ready to run into an unknown situation to potentially save a life.
She raised her massive pistol and trained it on the door. She motioned to me with her head, telling me to kick the door for her. She looked at Daliwal and patted herself on the backside, wordlessly telling him to stack on her. He nodded and did as he was instructed.
I leaned against the opposite side of the door, back against the wall. I raised my leg and swung it back, giving the door a solid donkey kick. The door flew open in an explosion of cheap trim and paint flakes. Gruk and Daliwal flowed into the house. Gruk having to duck down in the doorway, so she wouldn't bang her head on the door jamb.
"Sheriff's Department!" She yelled.
The living room was empty of life. There was a stone table set up where a coffee table would be in a normal house, with stone bowls and unidentifiable powders in them. Jars full of God knows what lined a massive book shelf that covered an entire wall. Candles lit the space, some burned all the way down. Looked like they had been going for a while. Strange symbols were painted everywhere. I recognized a couple of them, just from being on the job so long.This looked like a Wizard's lab or a Witch's brewery. It probably was too, knowing the Millers.
"Clear!" I heard Daliwal yell. His voice a bit more of a roar, with the adrenaline surging through his veins. Gruk looked over at me. She pointed to her nose and than pointed towards a door leading off the living room, she than patted her backside again. I got behind her, ready to go wherever she would take me.
Gruk always took point. She was the most likely to survive a Shotgun blast to the face and stay in the fight. So it made good tactical sense. But it was also just the way she led. From the front.
We left Daliwal in the living room. To hold our only known exit, in case someone squirted past us. Gruk and I cleared the rest of the house, finding nothing. We came to a stop at a closed door at the end of the main hall. She looked at me and tapped her nose again. I got her meaning. This was where the smell was strongest.
I nodded and reached down for the door knob, i jiggled the handle finding it unlocked. I shoved it open and in went Gruk, pistol at the ready. I flowed in behind her. The smell of tangy copper hit me in the snout like a bag of hammers. I involuntarily gagged. I couldn't see anything. It was pitch black. But I knew it was bad. Room smelled like a badly run slaughterhouse. I felt around for a light switch. Found a candlebra instead.
'Good enough' I thought to myself as i dug in my pocket for a lighter. I gave the bic a couple of test flicks.
"Wait" Gruk said from somewhere in the darkness. "It's bad. It's real bad."
"Yeah" I said. I had gathered that much from the smell. "But how bad can it be?"
I lit the candle. It must have been a candle with some magic to it. Because it lit that room like a surgery ward and Gruk was right. It was bad. It was real bad. It was a bedroom. You could tell because a massive California King-size bed occupied the center of the room.
The comforter was soaked in reddish brown blood. There was a lump of meat in the center of the bed, that I slowly realized was a woman's torso. On one night stand there were ten neatly severed fingers. In two columns of five each. On the other night stand was a head. Devoid of a face. Just ragged skull staring at the doorway. At the foot of the bed were two legs, crossed over each other like an X. I realized that various organs and bits of body were arranged around the torso in a circle.
I looked over at Gruk. She was staring wide eyed at the wall above the headboard. I followed her gaze. The face of Giselda Miller stared back at us from the wall, where it had been nailed up like a trophy on display. Eyeless of course, because the eyes were still in the skull. But I knew that face. It had screamed all matter of venom and curse at me before.
There was something weird about this. Well, yeah no shit it was weird. But there was a strange sort of order to where everything was placed in the room. I looked over at Gruk. She looked back at me. I saw her swallow a few times, like she wasn't sure what to make of this all. Her face looked almost helpless and I felt bad for the Giant Orc.
"We...." She started to speak. Her voice a little unsteady. She paused and closed her eyes. She swallowed a few more times.
"We need to get out of this room" she said, more in control of her voice.
"Yeah" I said moving towards the door. I had seen this level of carnage before. Part of the job. People say when you see shit like this enough, eventually you get used to it. Well I'm still waiting on that fucking day.
"Forensics will have our butts" Gruk said, command voice firmly back in place "if we mess something up"
"Yeah" I said. Not particularly giving a shit why we got out of the room, but just happy to do so. We pulled Daliwal out of the House with us. Gruk closing the door behind us, to preserve the crime scene. We spun him up on what we had seen. His eyes narrowed in thought.
"What?" Gruk asked.
"Back in Florida. We had a Necromancer in town....."
"Awww fuck" I interrupted with a sigh, knowing where this was going. Necromancers were bastards and I didn't want to deal with chasing one down. I had one throw a dead cat at me once. It bit me. Shit was weird.
Gruk did that hand-shake shushing thing that mom's do when you were interrupting their shows. She wanted me to stick a sock in it. Probably had a problem with the cursing too.
"What you describe...." Daliwal went on "sounds like a ritual she did. We never found out why she did it. We figured out who it was and showed up at her door step with a lot of firepower. She did not come peacefully." The look on his face, and the way he stroked his beard, said it was a bad memory. Gruk had an uncomfortable look on her face too. I couldn't say as I blamed Her.
This could be real bad. If somebody was going around killing people for some silly necromancer bullshit..... well my week was about to get a lot fucking busier.
It's always something with this fucking town.
"Okay" Gruk said "So let's get down past the Gate and see if we can get some back up out here."
"Gonna have to wake up the Sheriff" I sighed.
"She'll be pissed if we don't. But in the mean time, we need to get people out looking for Mark Miller. His whereabouts are unknown, so that makes him our only suspect at this point."
And since the power's that be have a sense of fucking humor......
I heard a rustle of wings above our heads. Right before about two hundred pounds of meat was dropped right in the middle of our little pow-wow. It was a body. The legs caught me square in the chest, knocking me on my ass.
The face attached to the body's head, sure looked a lot like Mark Miller's face. Albeit a little more battered and beaten than usual. Dead bodies have a certain look about them and Mark Miller was rocking the fuck out of that look, broken neck and all. All three of us looked up. A Valkerye hovered about twenty feet above us. It's wings wide open, like it was riding a thermal. It's eyes blazed as it glared at us from on high. I had never seen one not skulking in shadows. I had never seen one this brazen.
"THE MASTER COMES!" It screeched down at us.
Thats when all hell decided to break loose.

Art “The Chief” Rooney’s North Side Golden Rule

I am a Sheriff's deputy in Bull's Heart, Texas. Part 2.

Part one lives here. It'll make more sense if you read it first. https://www.reddit.com/Revblackrage/comments/hxikru/bulls_heart_texas/
I was half way to my car before I knew it, fresh cup of coffee in my hand. Ellie wouldn't let me leave without one.
I set the cup of coffee down on the roof of the Dodge and started digging around in my pockets. Looking for my keys. A scream ripped out of the restaurant behind me. It was long and loud. Sounded like someone had just stuck their hand in a deep fat fryer. Or had it forced into one. It startled me and I jumped, So much so that I dropped my keys.
I heard a snort. Which sounded suspiciously like it was at my expense. I looked over my shoulder as I bent over to grab my keys.
Murray's horse, Pistola, was tied up in a parking spot, about three spaces down from me. It was technically against city ordinance to tie an animal up in a commercial parking lot. Outside of Rodeo season of course, And there was special emphasis on undead mammals.
But if you won't tell, I won't. The skeletal equine was staring at me over a feed bag strapped to his face. I pretended not to notice that the feed bag was stained brown, with a suspicious blackish liquid dripping from the stained burlap. Sometime's in Bull's Heart, the answers just aren't worth the questions.
"Cut me some slack, dude" I said. With a voice that may or may not have registered a bit of annoyance. "I'm not a three hundred year old dead horse. Shit creeps me out sometimes."
I could have sworn that old Pistola, rolled his eyes at that. But that may have been just me giving the horse too much credit.
Another shorter scream erupted from the diner. This one ending suddenly. The context clues I had at my disposal, told me it was Marcel who was doing the screaming in there. Now were I a normal Sheriff's Deputy it would be my job to run into that Diner, ready to get to the bottom of it. But. I already knew the score and felt no need to investigate further. Plus, fuck that guy. Stripers had no protections under the law and I was specifically instructed to ensure their safety at my discretion and i discresified that Marcel was a worthless piece of human wreckage, who should be fed to a wood chipper. His death would truely be a net benefit to humanity as a whole. And that was about as far as I was willing to take it.
Just as I scooped up my keys, I heard a low nervous sound from the undead horse. One of those 'Hey I'm not cool with this' sounds horses make. A rustle of feathers creeping out of the night sky, the horse's call of unease it's only accompaniment.
"Fuck" I swore outloud. A rustle of feathers on a night time breeze could mean only a few things in Bull's Heart and only one of them would creep out a horse. I stood up straight. Looking for it. Resting my paw on the handle of my Smoke Wagon. My fingers wrapping around the checkered grip of the ridiculously large revolver. They always come when the stink of blood is on the air. They bring the cold with them too. As was attested to by the shiver running down my spine and the light steam I was suddenly exhaling. The hairs on my bare arms stood up in response to the suddenly frigid air.
On one level I knew that I was under no immediate threat.... But you tell that to two hundred thousand years of evolutional preservational instincts. Shit was there for a reason. Yes I suppose you could say the thing perched over the door of Earl's diner made me uncomfortable. Just a touch.
The neon lighting from the diner's sign cast an odd neon red hue across it. The light seemed to accentuate the shadows it lurked in. But I wouldn't even have to look at the damn thing to know it was watching me. The whole site of the thing was like watching a demon stalk you.
Nobody was really sure where they had came from. Nobody who'd been to the Great Beyond, or any other such ports of mystical or metaphysical call, could recall such a creature in any of their travels.
I would describe it as a humanoid, with big ragged vultures wings. Bipedal body. Bird's legs. A man's chest. I usually saw a big fuck off beak, that was attached to a face that looked similar to a plague doctor's mask.
But rarely did two people see the same thing when they looked at the creatures. Well for the most part. The going theory was that they were some matter of shape shifters. But that still left a lot to explain. Everyone described the same ragged wings and the same piercing eyes. Orbs of a pure white, that burned with a mix of corruption and malevolent anger. Like spotlights of hate on a greasy black night.
But nobody could agree on secondary characteristics. To me they all looked the same, but if I tried to describe what I saw, you wouldn't know what I was talking about, because you saw a horses head with a seagulls beak for a face, or some other such silliness.
This particular creature's wings were drooped over it like a cloak. I could see the eyes boring into me from the inky black recesses of it's wings. No notion of a head, or shoulders, or anything could be discerned from the shadows.
I glared back at it for a moment, before I took a good weaver style shooting position, drew my smoke wagon and planted it's front site post right smack dab between those dumbass eyes. It did nothing but glare back at me with those huge hate filled peepers. I couldn't even tell if it understood what was happening. But I could make out it's inky black talons flexing on it's perch, as if it was about to throw itself forward and rip my belly clean open in a fit of avian fury. Everything in me told me to pull the trigger on my Magnum Research BFR and send a .45-70 Government Consecrated Exploding Sabot round right into the thing's forehead. Everything in me wanted to send that unearthly thing back to whatever soulless void it spawned from. The things aren't right for this world and everything in me was telling me to send it back where it belonged. To the pit it crawled out of.
But technically........Under Texas department of Fish and Game code, They are classified as an endangered species.
So all I could do was whisper "Bang" like a petulant child and reluctantly holster my weapon. I am not horribly mature, I admit.
Yeah, sure they stole dead bodies. Sure they flew around from Dusk till Dawn creeping the living fuck out of people. Sure they had all the sentience of a learning disabled possum. But some genius decided to call them an endangered species and grant them protected habitats. Like the forests surrounding Bull's Heart. Because where the fuck else would they be able to go?
The thrice cursed things are Illegal to hunt for sport or harvest. And if you kill one by accident, you better have your ducks in a row. Because you are about to be investigated for Poaching. Which in Texas, means you are going to face a lot of Jail time.
Which is some Fucking liberal bullshit, if you ask me.
Our local game warden, a fella named Lingelsou, was very particular about the animals of what he calls 'His Forest.'
He also had zero problem running in Deputys for violations to the Texas Fish and Game code. He once arrested a Deputy named Landis for taking one down. Even though he had a good reason for it..... well maybe not a good reason exactly, but a pretty damn good excuse.
About once a month or so, Deputy Landis has a condition that.... Well it's just best that he gets away from people for a couple days or so. He goes a little wild in that time frame. So he goes out to a plot of land he owns out in the woods and just rides it out. Safer for everyone that way.
During one of these..... Fits I guess you could call it. He took down one of the creatures and ate half of it. Warden Lingelsou took him in for it. It didn't matter that Deputy Landis wasn't in his right frame of mind. He still didn't have a population control hunting license, which was the only way to legally hunt them.
Sherrif Onryu had gone to bat for the Deputy, going so far as to site the American's with disabilities act of 1990, trying to point out that Landis had a condition and certain accessions had to be made in order to provide a fair and equal environment for him. Including free reign hunting rights for the thing that lived inside of him. Lingelsou wasn't buying it though.
"Laws be laws" The Game Warden had said. "In my forest and in my jurisdiction, the laws be respected"
Sanctimonious do-gooder Prick.
But the creatures did a good job of keeping their number's low and they didn't really go out of their way to attack people. Unless cornered. Which is a good thing. Because when they are worked up into a good lather, they can take and dish out a lot of punishment before they finally go down. Kind of like a skybourne Armadillo.Only less cute.
This specimen, as if sensing my unease, leaned forward and screeched at me. I got the impression of a beak sticking out from between it's wings. The screech was loud in the frigid silence. It gave off the audio sensation of nails on a chalkboard mixed with a crying newborn. A pretty unpleasant mixing of audible input.
Than the burning eyes turned back to Pistola, and I briefly wondered if the Creature was going to go after the undead horse. I mean they were death eaters and technically the horse was dead after a fashion.
I would legally be allowed to shoot it at the point, as Pistola was technically livestock....Deadstock?..... Anyway, in Bull's Heart, you could defend tame animals from wild Animals. Especially with all of the weird crap that lives in our woods.
But before I could sink much thought into it, the creature reared on it's haunches, gave one last terrifying screech and took wing, quickly disappearing into the night sky. My caveman ego wanted to believe that it was because the Creature was made uncomfortable by my presence.
But more than likely it figured that the staff of Toothy Earl's weren't going to toss Marcel's corpse out the front door, so there was no point in hanging around. Either way Pistola seemed to be okay with the end result, as he let out a sigh of equine relief as the potential predator made it's exit.
I watched the night sky in the direction it flew off for a moment, wondering if it was going to change it's mind and come back.
They have a name.
Like we don't just call them 'Creatures.' I just happen to think the name is stupid. Real fucking stupid. Because it's not a hot chick on a winged horse swinging a sword.
It is in no way shape or form a Valkerye. And yes that is a hill that I am willing to die on.
It's a fucking bird monster, not a chick who escorts dead warriors to the All Father's table. Can't put that shit on the side of a panel van from the seventies. End of discussion.
I just call them 'Shitbirds.'
When I was certain that the Shitbird was gone for good, I turned and gave Pistola a nod.
"You're safe now, Sir." I said with a professional smile. "You're welcome."
The Horse just stared back at me with Milky dead eyes. He seemed super unimpressed.
"Fine" I said with a bit of feigned exasperation "act like that thing didn't have you scared out of your peanut sized mind"
The Horse snorted at me again and again I swear he managed to roll his pupiless white eyes at me. That damn horse was smarter than he was letting on. I shook my head and turned back to the Charger. But as I got into the Dodge, I thought I heard something. Like words floating out of the dark. Scratchy. Raspy. Just at the point of hearing. The point were you aren't sure if it's your inner monolog or your ears, and i definitely wasn't quite sure which one it was.
"The.... Master.... Comes...."
I stared off in the direction the creature had flown. Well that was odd. I couldn't be sure that I had heard it.... But I couldn't completely write it off either.
*
I knew the way to the Miller's house like the back of my hand. We were out there enough after all. The Miller's were two people that shouldn't have been together. But they were also both extremely stubborn. Neither was going to be the one who broke first and left. They also refused to admit they had problems. Even when they were doing their best to rip each other apart. Made conflict mediation between the two parties a royal bitch.
They were one of the reasons I hated this God forsaken town.
I was going to meet up with Gruk and Daliwal at the foot of the Miller's drive and we would go up their property as a group.
It's usually best to go out on calls with as much back up as possible. Especially in this town.
I briefly thought about Gruk's condition. I glanced down towards the Digital Defensive Control Suite sitting in the middle of my Patrol car's center console. The screen showed that the U.V. Defensive lighting rig that sat on the roof of the Uparmored Charger Hell Cat cruiser was off. I reached down and tapped the off button just to be sure. I than reached over and hit the manual safety, locking it out of action.
A lot of citizen's of Bull's Heart had one condition or another that made U.V. light anything from annoying to downright lethal, so much so that the local Government classified U.V. lights as destructive devices. If you had some? You had better have a very damn good reason for having them or you were going to jail. Occasionally certain people would kick up a stink about it, make some noise about it being a violation of the 2nd Amendment, but they usually didn't get much support because.... well it's hard to get people real worked up about lightbulbs.
It would have been a damn shame to take Gruk and possibly Daliwal out of action, due to some avoidable asshatted dipshittery. I actually wasn't sure if U.V. would take Daliwal down or out, but I did know his kind were nocturnal, so better safe than sorry.
I turned down the dirt road that would take me to the Miller's front gate. Something about the way the lights of my cruiser played down the narrow tree lined dirt road gave it an ominous feeling. I was hoping it wasn't a sign of things to come.
"Here the fuck we go" I grumbled outloud.
I saw Gruk's S.U.V. and Daliwal's cruiser parked next to the Miller's cattle gate. Gruk had to drive one of the bigger S.U.V.s due to her massive size.
"More like her massive ass" I said to myself, giving myself a slight chuckle in response, finding myself hilarious. And before you ask, yes I am aware that I am an idiot.
I parked behind the big SUV and got out, but not before I let dispatch know where I was.
"Jen, Whiskey Hotel, 10-23 at the Miller's" I told dispatch over the radio.
"Roger that, Whiskey Hotel, good luck!"
"Roger. Thanks. Out."
Daliwal and Gruk were standing in front of the latter's cruiser, looking up the property. Gruk turned her massive head my way. The black pupils of her eyes seemed to dig right through me as she stared. Her lips parted slightly and she gave me a disdainful sneer.
"Oh look..." She said said sounding gruff and vaguely British, like a bad guy from a Lord of The Rings Movie "'Ey sent a pathetic little 'Oomie to back us up..."
The look on her face could have frozen fire. She looked like she wanted to rip open my belly and play with what she found there. She squared up her shoulders like she was ready to throw down and raised her hands up to shoulder height. Flexing every muscle she had in her upper body. Her jaw fell open revealing some seriously nasty gleaming white canines. A Threat display if there ever was one. Her Body Armor and her duty belt did nothing except add to idea that she was preped and ready for a real slobberknocker.
She took a step forward, looking every bit of the bruiser she really was. From the top of her pony tail to the soles of her size twenty black Bates combat boots, she was built for war. Literally. Thats what her race had been bred for.
"Only thing 'Oomies is good for is filling bellys...."
Daliwal looked over at her with a 'what the fuck?' Look on his face. He seemed genuinely suprised by her words and aggressive actions. He looked over at me, his big yellow-green eyes going wide. He raised a hand to his beard and stroked it a few times. Looking back and forth between us. I got the feeling that was how his nerves liked to showed themselves.
The palm of his hand faced outwards and his fingers seemed to go backwards like their joints were reversed. He was a transfer from another town like Bull's Heart, somewhere in Florida. Thunder? Or maybe it was Cougar Teeth? Not that it mattered I guess. He had only been with the Sheriff's department a few weeks now, and most of that had been training time. He may have been a veteran. But here in Texas, he was 'The new guy' and he was still trying to figure out what was what.
The look on his face said that he wasn't quite sure what he had found himself in the middle of here, but he wasn't a fan of it.
I wasn't used to the backwards hands thing yet and it was still a little weird for me. Tiger head was off putting too, but that was easier to get used to. Seemed like a hell of a nice guy so far though. Like he was really working hard to dispell the negative views most people had towards free form shape shifters. He didn't need to though. He wouldn't have earned his Star if he were an asshole.
I tried to come up with a witty zinger to shoot back at Gruk, but I was drawing a blank. I almost went with 'ol reliable,' a Shrek reference. But I wasn't feeling it. So I just raised my hands to the waist, making sure not to spill my coffee, and mugged a sarcastically terrified expression at her.
"Ohhhh scary" I said in the most mockingly insincere voice I could muster, rolling my eyes as hard as I could. "Cut the fuckin' shit, Gruk, you're scaring the new guy"
"Watch your language!" Gruk said suddenly, dropping the bad movie Orc accent like a bad habit. Her real voice sounded more like a housewife from somewhere in the mid west. Like Nebraska or some shit. Flat but somehow bubbly. You always had a suspicion that the next word out of her mouth was going to be 'Ope.'
"And besides, He isn't scared he already knows I'm a total sweetie" She said fixing him with a wide smile. Which despite the fact that it showed off her massive fanged canines, still managed to come across as incredibly warm and inviting. Like someone's mom. "I gave him some of my famous oatmeal cookies, would a big nasty evil orc make cookies for the new guy?"
She directed the last question at Daliwal. He looked like he was still in shock at the rapid shift in tones. His eyes were wide and his jaw was still slightly hanging open. I could tell that he wasn't exactly sure if we weren't playing a game of 'fuck with the new guy' His shifted his gaze between our faces. He swallowed, a bit nervously.
"Well...." His voice had that crisp English accent that alot of educated Indian Immigrants had, when they learned their English at a British founded University. You could tell from his tone that he wasn't super comfortable in the situation.
".....The .....'Cookies'--" I got the feeling that he had to mentally restrain himself from saying 'biscuits' "--did have Raisins in them, so the question of your being a 'Sweetie' or something of a malicious sort hasn't really been settled just yet."
It took me a second, but I got the humor. Fucker was just so goddamn dry in his delivery, that it almost didn't land. I gave him a chuckle. I got the notion that he was gonna be an okay guy to work with. Once He got settled that is.
Gruk however stared at him for a moment. She didn't quite give a laugh, but she did give him another award winning smile. She placed her left fist on her waist and pointed at him with her other hand.
"I'm gonna have to keep my eye on you, Mister!" She said with a bit of humor in her voice. "And don't you worry about the Raisins, just my way of messing with the new guy, I guess. But don't worry. They help a body increase blood production. Thats good for you..... and Me."
Daliwal waited a beat before giving Gruk a wide-eyed nervous chuckle, before breaking eye-contact and looking down to make sure his boots were still on his feet.
His timid response set me off. I let lose with a stifled laugh. I squeezed my eyes shut and laughed into the back of my hand. My sides shaking. Now Daliwal wasn't a small guy, he was broad across the shoulders. Had Fangs and Claws of his own. A Gun too. I didn't know him too well, but I would bet that He could take care of himself in a fight. His kind were usually pretty good with their mitts. Or at least thats what I had heard about them. (That might just be a stereotype though. If it is, and anyone of you out there reading this are of the Raksasha people and have a problem with it, please know that I meant nothing by it.)
But when a Person of Gruk's size and ability, friendly disposition or not, makes a mention of your platelet count it could be a little disconcerting.
Especially since Gruk, in addition to being one of the largest specimens of Orc you would ever meet was also afflicted with Vampirism.
She was hell on wheels without the condition. Half the department had called her 'Mama Bear' because if you were down and bleeding and you needed someone to drag your ass out of the fire, she was the one you would want arriving on scene.
Believe me. I know what it's like to be laying on your back, getting the shit kicked out of you, looking up and seeing Gruk come charging onto the scene like a cross between The Incredible Hulk and Jesus Christ. But as to how she came across the Vampirism, It's actually kind of a sweet story.
A few years back she fell for a local gal named Maddie and they got married. Maddie was a vampire. In good standing of course. But than again she had to be, because rogue Vampires get run out of town pretty quick, if not staked down for the morning sun.
A man by the name of Kincade ran the local Vampire Coven and he was a stickler for 'The Rules of Fair Conduct' which 'The United Night Walker Covens and Clans of The United States, Mexico, and Canada' had applied to towns like Bull's Heart.
Kincade ran a tight ship and The Sheriff's Department had rarely if ever had reason to pick a fight with the Blood Suckers. Well.... Except that one time..... But thats neither here nor there. Plus we don't like to talk about it around here. It would be especially impolite to discuss it with outsiders.
Anyway the point is, that with the Vampirism accentuating her already considerable strength and hardiness.... she had gone from Hell On Wheels to a One Woman SEAL Team.
Part of the lovely couple's wedding vows had been Maddie converting Gruk into a Vampire. Maddie had taken Gruk's name and Gruk had taken on Maddie's condition. I had to admit. It twanged on the dusty strings of my heart. For some reason, it struck me as beautiful. To not only tell someone you want to be with them forever, but to take steps to actually do so? Well, I'm not gonna lie. I shed a few happy tears at the wedding.
I guess I'm a bit of a softy.
"Senior Deputy Gruk" I said, doing my best to come to Daliwal's rescue "if you could quit subtley terrifying the New Guy for a moment? I think we got us a wellness visit to make, if you would like to take charge and lead your valiant warriors on a crusade in the name of public safety? Now would be a good time for that."
"Oh, party pooper" Gruk said. But she drew up to her full height and turned to look up at the Miller's House. It was a white ranch style sitting on top of a slight hill. The lights were off and nobody appeared to be home.
"Okay" She said looking down at me "First things first, Cowboy."
She pointed down at the Magnum Research BFR in my Holster.
"Go to the trunk of your car and get a gun that isn't stupid"
"Goddamnit" I grumbled.
* Five minutes later we were walking up the Miller's Driveway. A fifth Generation Glock 40 sitting in my Holster. We had to hoof it up the property. Because the cattle gate across the driveway was locked. Which wouldn't have mattered.
Because once a car crossed the Miller's gate, it tends to experience engine trouble. Never getting more than twenty feet before shutting down completely. Radios had issues too. Hell the 3D RMR Night Site on my pistol was probably dead. Like it's 10 year battery was burnt out. It was something to do with the Nature of the Millers..... and the Magic they threw around. Electronics hated the stuff for some reason. So normally we just left anything that had a battery in the car.
I was staring up at the House as I walked. It was odd. Usually at this point we could hear them screaming at each other, the pop and fizzle of Magic spells going off. Inhuman roaring as demons were summoned. Not to attack, but to help bolster arguments. Dishes breaking.
Tonight though? It was different. Dead silence. Like the house was a tomb. My eyes were going from window to window. Looking for any sign of life and finding none. No fluttering curtains. Lights popping on and off. No nothing.
Just the crunch of our boots on old asphalt. I almost didn't notice the temperature drop, until I was exhaling steam. I shivered inside my uniform. I was just about to ask 'Where the fuck did that come from'
When Daliwal spoke up.
"We are being watched" He said quietly.
"I see them too" Gruk said. All merriment lost from her voice. She was switched on now and jokes would be unprofessional. She eased the AR Pistol she carried off of her belt. It was chambered in .458 Socom, and of course the entire lower was custom made to fit her gigantic hand. Including a massive grip that resembled the handle of a 1911 Pistol rather than the traditional AR group. Making it the next best thing to a Bolter.
"I count twelve in the trees on the West side of the clearing"
"I count eight on my side" Daliwal replied, his voice dropping to a whisper.
"I can't see shit" I said, wishing I had some form of natural night vision, like my creature of the night comrades.
"Valkerye" was all Gruk said.
"Shit" I muttered.
"Language" Gruk gently admonished, without taking her eyes off of the Trees on the edges of the clearing.
I followed her eyes out to the trees. I could just barely make out the little pinpoints of white light, that would have been the eyes of the Shitbirds.
I whistled lowly. There were a bunch of them out there. I had never seen so many in one place. Usually when there is more than two or three in one spot, they would fight each other. It looked like these assholes were just coping a squat and having a watch. Very odd behavior for Shit Birds.
"I've never seen so many..." Daliwal said, a tremor of discomfort in his voice. I noticed that his tail was held down, close to his leg. That might have been a good tactical decision to keep the appendage out of the way....... or it might have been an involuntary fear based response.
"Don't let them get to you" Gruk said, her voice soaked in matronly concern. "They never come for us..... just for the dead."
"Yeah" I said, turning my attention to the house.
"Boss Lady is right. Pay them no mind."
I took a sip from the Coffee cup I was still holding. I was intentionally trying to look as nonchalant as possible. Partially for the new guy, partially for the fact that I wasn't going to give the Shit Birds the satisfaction of spooking me twice in one night. I did my best to walk like I didn't have a care in the world. Daliwal looked over his shoulder at me. His eyes widened slightly when he recognized the stylized Alligator on the cup. Toothy Earl's logo.
"You were at Toothy Earl's earlier?" He asked me, his ears perking straight up "Was.... Um.... Was Miss Ellie working?"
"Yup" I Responded "She was breaking in a New Striper. Didn't go so hot for him"
"Ah" The new guy said "Do you happen to know if.... If.... She is...uh... talking to anyone?"
"She talks to a lot of people" I said playing dumb "it's part of her job, silly boots"
"Oh... Uh... No..." He said, turning back to watch his side of the clearing, and the Valkerye in the Trees beyond. "I meant is she.... In a relationship with anyone?"
"Well" I said continuing on in the playing dumb vein "I'm sure she has a lot of relationships, with a lot of people--"
"Oh be nice" Gruk grunted at me "You know what he meant." She said to me. To Daliwal she said "Yes there's a fella she talks too, but I don't know if it's serious. Tall, blonde, human, a lot of people think he might really be that one lightning guy, the one with the hammer.... oh what is his name.... oh it doesn't matter." Her voice picked up a little more Growl as she went on. Apparently remembering that we were supposed to be focusing on the task at hand "Both of you need to pay attention to your sectors. Or I'll treat you both like a couple of juice boxs and call out another couple of Dumb Dumbs to back me up, when I've sucked you both dry."
"Yes ma'am!" Daliwal said, responding to the matronly authority in her voice.
"Yeah" I said, properly scolded, not even attempting to go for the obvious joke there. "Sorry, Boss."
She was right. Now wasn't the time for jaw jacking. She had left it unsaid, but there were more Shit Birds out here than anyone had ever seen in one spot. They were acting strangely. This was the quietest 'Millers Call' I had ever been out on. I would wager that it was Gruk's quietest one too. It was too weird of a night to be acting like a dumbass rookie. There was a time to fuck with the new guy and this wasn't it clearly.
I followed Gruk's lead and drew my Glock. I checked the RMR site and noticed that my Dot was in fact no longer illuminated on the glass. Like the battery was dead.
Fucking Miller's and their spooky ass hoodoo. The rest of the short walk was quiet. I watched the front, where the house was. Gruk and Daliwal watched the sides. They stayed quiet.
I would occasionally peek off to the side, at the trees in the distance. White Eyes Beamed back at me, making them look like under dressed sparsely decorated Christmas Trees.
I kind of wished we were talking more. As the feeling of all those eyes on me was driving me crazy. Felt like ants skittering up and down my spine. Some light conversation would be great to take the mind off of current events.
When we reached the house, Gruk mounted the steps to the porch and paused. She looked around. She tilted her head up to the side and sniffed the air around her. She suddenly tensed up
"What?" I asked her.
"Blood" She responded "Lots of it. Human."
Now were this the movies. The Vampire would look at me like I was a pot roast and get a strange look in her eye. But this isn't the movies and Senior Deputy LaVonda Gruk is a goddamn professional and I'll not have you imply otherwise. She treated it like a call for help and instantly got ready to run into an unknown situation to potentially save a life.
She raised her massive pistol and trained it on the door. She motioned to me with her head, telling me to kick the door for her. She looked at Daliwal and patted herself on the backside, wordlessly telling him to stack on her. He nodded and did as he was instructed.
I leaned against the opposite side of the door, back against the wall. I raised my leg and swung it back, giving the door a solid donkey kick. The door flew open in an explosion of cheap trim and paint flakes. Gruk and Daliwal flowed into the house. Gruk having to duck down in the doorway, so she wouldn't bang her head on the door jamb.
"Sheriff's Department!" She yelled.
The living room was empty of life. There was a stone table set up where a coffee table would be in a normal house, with stone bowls and unidentifiable powders in them. Jars full of God knows what lined a massive book shelf that covered an entire wall. Candles lit the space, some burned all the way down. Looked like they had been going for a while. Strange symbols were painted everywhere. I recognized a couple of them, just from being on the job so long.This looked like a Wizard's lab or a Witch's brewery. It probably was too, knowing the Millers.
"Clear!" I heard Daliwal yell. His voice a bit more of a roar, with the adrenaline surging through his veins. Gruk looked over at me. She pointed to her nose and than pointed towards a door leading off the living room, she than patted her backside again. I got behind her, ready to go wherever she would take me.
Gruk always took point. She was the most likely to survive a Shotgun blast to the face and stay in the fight. So it made good tactical sense. But it was also just the way she led. From the front.
We left Daliwal in the living room. To hold our only known exit, in case someone squirted past us. Gruk and I cleared the rest of the house, finding nothing. We came to a stop at a closed door at the end of the main hall. She looked at me and tapped her nose again. I got her meaning. This was where the smell was strongest.
I nodded and reached down for the door knob, i jiggled the handle finding it unlocked. I shoved it open and in went Gruk, pistol at the ready. I flowed in behind her. The smell of tangy copper hit me in the snout like a bag of hammers. I involuntarily gagged. I couldn't see anything. It was pitch black. But I knew it was bad. Room smelled like a badly run slaughterhouse. I felt around for a light switch. Found a candlebra instead.
'Good enough' I thought to myself as i dug in my pocket for a lighter. I gave the bic a couple of test flicks.
"Wait" Gruk said from somewhere in the darkness. "It's bad. It's real bad."
"Yeah" I said. I had gathered that much from the smell. "But how bad can it be?"
I lit the candle. It must have been a candle with some magic to it. Because it lit that room like a surgery ward and Gruk was right. It was bad. It was real bad. It was a bedroom. You could tell because a massive California King-size bed occupied the center of the room.
The comforter was soaked in reddish brown blood. There was a lump of meat in the center of the bed, that I slowly realized was a woman's torso. On one night stand there were ten neatly severed fingers. In two columns of five each. On the other night stand was a head. Devoid of a face. Just ragged skull staring at the doorway. At the foot of the bed were two legs, crossed over each other like an X. I realized that various organs and bits of body were arranged around the torso in a circle.
I looked over at Gruk. She was staring wide eyed at the wall above the headboard. I followed her gaze. The face of Giselda Miller stared back at us from the wall, where it had been nailed up like a trophy on display. Eyeless of course, because the eyes were still in the skull. But I knew that face. It had screamed all matter of venom and curse at me before.
There was something weird about this. Well, yeah no shit it was weird. But there was a strange sort of order to where everything was placed in the room. I looked over at Gruk. She looked back at me. I saw her swallow a few times, like she wasn't sure what to make of this all. Her face looked almost helpless and I felt bad for the Giant Orc.
"We...." She started to speak. Her voice a little unsteady. She paused and closed her eyes. She swallowed a few more times.
"We need to get out of this room" she said, more in control of her voice.
"Yeah" I said moving towards the door. I had seen this level of carnage before. Part of the job. People say when you see shit like this enough, eventually you get used to it. Well I'm still waiting on that fucking day.
"Forensics will have our butts" Gruk said, command voice firmly back in place "if we mess something up"
"Yeah" I said. Not particularly giving a shit why we got out of the room, but just happy to do so. We pulled Daliwal out of the House with us. Gruk closing the door behind us, to preserve the crime scene. We spun him up on what we had seen. His eyes narrowed in thought.
"What?" Gruk asked.
"Back in Florida. We had a Necromancer in town....."
"Awww fuck" I interrupted with a sigh, knowing where this was going. Necromancers were bastards and I didn't want to deal with chasing one down. I had one throw a dead cat at me once. It bit me. Shit was weird.
Gruk did that hand-shake shushing thing that mom's do when you were interrupting their shows. She wanted me to stick a sock in it. Probably had a problem with the cursing too.
"What you describe...." Daliwal went on "sounds like a ritual she did. We never found out why she did it. We figured out who it was and showed up at her door step with a lot of firepower. She did not come peacefully." The look on his face, and the way he stroked his beard, said it was a bad memory. Gruk had an uncomfortable look on her face too. I couldn't say as I blamed Her.
This could be real bad. If somebody was going around killing people for some silly necromancer bullshit..... well my week was about to get a lot fucking busier.
It's always something with this fucking town.
"Okay" Gruk said "So let's get down past the Gate and see if we can get some back up out here."
"Gonna have to wake up the Sheriff" I sighed.
"She'll be pissed if we don't. But in the mean time, we need to get people out looking for Mark Miller. His whereabouts are unknown, so that makes him our only suspect at this point."
And since the power's that be have a sense of fucking humor......
I heard a rustle of wings above our heads. Right before about two hundred pounds of meat was dropped right in the middle of our little pow-wow. It was a body. The legs caught me square in the chest, knocking me on my ass.
The face attached to the body's head, sure looked a lot like Mark Miller's face. Albeit a little more battered and beaten than usual. Dead bodies have a certain look about them and Mark Miller was rocking the fuck out of that look, broken neck and all. All three of us looked up. A Valkerye hovered about twenty feet above us. It's wings wide open, like it was riding a thermal. It's eyes blazed as it glared at us from on high. I had never seen one not skulking in shadows. I had never seen one this brazen.
"THE MASTER COMES!" It screeched down at us

Hunter's Moon ~ Part 1

This one is turning out to be a bit of a monster, so I thought I may as well post the first part before it gets any longer.
I know some of you liked the last one, if you have any suggestions for future stories, especially creatures you'd like to see featured as our villain-of-the-week, let me know.

“L’amour est un oiseau rebelle…” The music poured out of the singer like audible crystal, a sensuous rush of sound, giving new life and force to Bizet’s music. The singer smiled bewitchingly, her dark eyes, and malevolent smile promising all the raptures of worldly pleasure, at the cost of unbearable misery. Maggie almost dropped her shotgun, as the force of the music hit her, she stumbled back off balance, leaving herself wide open to an attack.
I watched Maggie trip and aimed my gun at the other woman. I looked at the singer, a dark-haired Latin beauty, and the image shifted. The image of the beautiful singer was suddenly a ghostly, ethereal shroud, surrounding the creature’s true form. The creature beneath the ghostly veneer of the Mask that still hung about her was shriveled and emaciated, the sagging skin of its body covered in closely linked scales like the hide of a fish, it’s limbs were too long for its short torso, and ended, both feet and hands, in long, cruelly curved talons.
Aiming my gun at the monster I shouted, “Hey, Fish-Face!” and fired.
{So, I should probably explain this situation. I’m Jim, the staggering redhead is my normally badass partner Maggie, and Fish-face is a Siren. Yes, like full on Homer, The Odyssey, sings-to-drown-sailors Siren, and right now it wants my head on a stick.}
The Siren dropped flat, and the shot missed, but at least I got her attention away from Maggie. The downside was that I was now at the top of the Siren’s shit-list. I ran down the aisle of the abandoned theater, taking a running leap onto the stage, my bowie knife flashing out of its sheath as I ran. The Siren screamed its defiance at me in a high, melodious cry, and dashed forward its claws slashing looking to tear the flesh from my bones. I slipped away as the claws descended, but not quite fast enough, her claws nicked my shirt, tearing it easily, and drawing a line of blood down my chest. I dodged the next few attacks, which became wilder and wilder as the scent of my blood sent the Siren into a frenzy. Eventually, she did what I was waiting for, she opened her mouth and the song poured forth. I was hit with a wave of Glamour.
{What Homer missed about Sirens is that they would eat the sailors that washed up on shore, preferably while they were still alive and wriggling. Oh, and the sailors didn’t fling themselves overboard just for some really good showtunes, it was the Glamour. Glamour being the Jedi mind tricks that the Fae use to screw over humans. In the case of the Siren it ramps up the human libido from Ludicrous Speed all the way to Plaid, driving people so insane they sit there moaning in pleasure while the Siren devours them alive.}
The Siren stalked forward triumphantly; utterly certain I was helpless with ecstasy. Which is when I slit its throat.
{Why didn’t the Glamour work on me? It’s a long story, but the cliff’s notes are: I spent some time in the Unseelie Court of the High-Fae, the big boys of the magical world. While I was a less-than-willing guest of the Gentry, I was treated to every magical party-drug and aphrodisiac in existence. A Siren is what you call Wild-Fae, the much less powerful magical creatures that inhabit Earth rather than the separate planet/dimension/plane of existence of Faerie. After what I’ve gone through, no way this bush-league poser is going to get me with a Glamour.}
The Siren didn’t even have the chance to scream before my blade severed her windpipe. Her blood didn’t spurt out in a fountain of red gore like a human’s would have, instead it oozed out of the cut, thick and black as pitch. The Siren flailed wildly with its long, sharp claws, but it was no use, it was soon dead.
Ignoring the writhing Siren, I turned and met Maggie as she jogged up to me.
“Damn.” She said. “How the hell did that thing get me?”
{It’s a good question. Maggie went through a similar experience as me when she was a gladiator in the household of our High-Fae “host”. Normally, we’re both pretty close to immune to the effects of Wild-Fae Glamour.}
“You did good, most people would have been flat on their backs after a hit like that.”
“You didn’t even blink.” Maggie said, genuine admiration in her voice.
“Yeah,” I said feigning flippancy, “I’m used to people screwing with my libido.”
Maggie bit her lip, contemplating the dying siren, uncomfortable as ever with the off-hand mention of my ordeal in Faerie.
{The woman was pumped full of Faerie steroids, stimulants, and more combat drugs than you can shake a stick at and forced to fight to the death against all manners of horrible monstrosities, for the entertainment of a crowd of inhuman psychopaths, and she honestly thinks I had the worse deal. I think she’s insane, at least I had a soft bed on occasion.}
Suddenly she looked over at me and exclaimed. “You’re bleeding.”
I looked at her confused, and then the pain started, as if it had been waiting to be acknowledged.
“Come here.” Maggie said, her voice clinical and calm now that there was a concrete problem to deal with. Maggie poked and prodded at the cut that ran down the left side of my chest, narrowly missing the symbol inscribed there above my heart.
{That would be the brand, Maggie’s got one too. It’s the symbol of a High-Fae’s ownership. Brands are pretty complex and no two are ever quite the same, but all the Gentry’s slaves have them. They do a bunch of things, but the highlights are that they give us the Second Sight, which is how I could see the Siren’s true form, ensure our obedience to our master’s orders, and slow the ageing process down to a snail’s pace.}
“It’s not deep, I’ll clean and bandage it once we get back to the car.” Maggie said, her callused fingers, surprisingly soft on the skin of my chest. I acted purely on reflex, without thinking, and grabbed her hand from my chest, raising it to my lips and softly kissed the tender skin on the underside of her wrist. A sudden pain shocked through my right side, and I let go of Maggie’s hand as she increased the pressure on the nerve point in my neck with her free hand.
She let go quickly once I had stopped. Deliberately, refusing to address what had just happened, Maggie turned and started walking towards the exit.
{Believe it or not there’s nothing romantic between Maggie and I. No, seriously, I would have reacted that way to just about anyone. I spent my time in the Unseelie Court as part of a High-Fae noble’s harem, nymphomania was one of the little… quirks I picked up. I’m getting a handle on it, but I still slip up sometimes, it’s a fun side effect of all that magical LSD I was on, my hormones are all out of whack. Sure, Glamour can’t touch me, at least Glamour as weak as a Wild-Fae’s, but put me close enough to another organic being for long enough, and my own hormones will drive me just about insane. Faerie Drugs: Not Even Once, Kids.}
We got the scene pretty well cleaned up. We scoured as much of the blood as we could find off the stage and burned the body and the rags in the parking lot.
{The less that’s left, the better. Technically, neither Maggie nor I exist according to official records, that happens when you spend an unknown amount of time in another dimension and/or planet, and we don’t want any suspicious remains fouling that hustle if we can avoid it.}
Maggie got me bandaged up, thankfully, without any more shenanigans from my overactive hormones.
We drove hard all night, crossing the Red River from Oklahoma into Texas just as the sky was beginning to lighten in the East. Finding a no-name motel in a place that was about a full herd short of being a one-horse town, we stopped to catch some rest. Maggie passed out on her bed, dead to the world, and was still sleeping when I woke up. I was in better shape since I had been able to sleep in the car. Pulling out a laptop, I set it up on the cheap pasteboard table in the room. Hooking up to the motel’s WiFi, I began looking for another case.
{This is what we do; ever since we stumbled out of Faerie, and back onto Earth Maggie and I have crisscrossed the United States finding and killing any of the Wild-Fae that we can get our hands on. The hours are shit, but at least the pay is too.}
I surfed various regional news sites, looking for the signs that I had learned to recognize as the tell-tale signatures of Fae activity.
{It's not that hard really, once you know what to look for. Mostly it’s just the weird, a sudden rash of coincidental deaths all around the same warehouse, a bunch of children vanishing from out of locked houses with no signs of forced entry, or a string of disappearances from an opera house. You get the idea.}
I finally found something that looked promising from a local paper out of West Virginia. Knowing that Maggie would want to take a look when she woke up, I bookmarked the page, and went out to get a cup of coffee. There was a small convenience store, about a mile down the dusty strip of pavement. The store had a self-serve pot of drip coffee that looked like it had been sitting on its burner since the days of Pecos Bill, I poured myself a paper cup full, and savored its heavily stewed taste while I browsed the selection of candy bars, finally choosing one for myself and for Maggie.
{About the food. The Gentry feed their slaves on Faerie food, a substance that messes with human brain chemistry. Basically, human food has little to no taste anymore, except for the absolute extremes, hence the bitter coffee and the sweets. Not an ideal solution, but you can only handle so much bland before you go nuts.}
Maggie was awake when I got back to the motel, pacing the room, with rapid, irritable steps. She glanced at me as I came through the door and threw the candy bar across the room to her. Maggie’s face lit up when she saw the treat, and she groaned as she bit into the candy, closing her eyes in satisfaction. A little electric thrill ran through me at the sound, as my breathing sped up and my pulse began to race. I sat down in the chair by the table, and concentrated on booting up the laptop, not wanting to repeat last night’s incident.
“So, I think I spotted a job.” I said, with an attempt at casual speech.
“Awesome.” Maggie said, though around the candy bar it sounded more like “Awl-shub”.
“West Virginia. Disappearances from a local park.” I continued.
“Body count?” Maggie asked, licking melted chocolate off her fingers with relish.
“None confirmed, but 3 missing.” I replied.
“Who were the victims?” Maggie asked, still looking at the candy bar wrapper as if in the hope that it was going to spontaneously generate more chocolate.
“College students, two male and one female.” I said, finally grabbing the empty wrapper from her and throwing it in the trash.
“When were they taken?” Maggie asked, sighing forlornly at the trashcan.
“All within the last week, about one every two days.”
Maggie’s head snapped up, all focus now. “How long since the last disappearance?”
I nodded; I had been thinking the same thing. “Yesterday,” I replied, “the next disappearance should be tomorrow.”
Maggie and I wasted no time, we showered and changed with a precise, efficient routine established by long practice, and within the hour we were in our car on route to West Virginia.
“Spill.” Maggie said as the car rumbled across the Mississippi.
“Spill what?” I asked, nonplussed.
“You’ve been wearing your I-have-a-theory face since we hit Arkansas, and I’m tired of waiting. So, spill.” Maggie said impatiently.
“I don’t have an I-have-a-theory face” I responded indignantly.
“Yes, you do. It looks half-way between smug and constipated. Now, spill.”
{No comment.}
After a pause long enough to recover the shreds of my ravaged dignity, I finally relented. “Today’s October 28th right?”
“Yes. And?” Maggie said, clearly not comprehending the significance of this fact.
“Which means that the next kidnapping should happen tomorrow, the 29th.” I continued.
“And this is important because…?”
“Because, 2 days after that is October 31st.” I prompted waiting for a connection.
Maggie was still confused. “A little more info for those of us playing the home game here, please.” She was starting to get irritated now.
“Halloween?” I asked incredulously. “The Feast of Samhain?”
“Samhain? Samhain?” Maggie mused, a light finally clicking on. “Isn’t that one of the Fae Holidays?”
“Yeah,” I said, surprised that it had taken this long to spark the memory. “it’s one of the 4 High Holidays in the Gentry’s calendar. Samhain marks the death of Summer; it was always a big deal for the Unseelies. I’m shocked you don’t remember.” I said, looking curiously at Maggie.
“Honestly, they fed us a bit more, and there were a few more fights than usual around festival time but otherwise,” Maggie shrugged. “it was business as usual.”
{It’s easy to forget sometimes, given that we only have each other to lean on for support, but we really had very different experiences on the other side. I spent my time in the Master’s residence, entertaining and amusing his guests and household. Maggie spent her time in the fighting pits. She never really saw the Gentry, except at a distance, and certainly never talked to them. I on the other hand, had way more quality time with the bastards than I wanted to remember.}
“So, tell me more about Samhain.” Said Maggie of the one-track-mind, thankfully dragging the topic back to the job at hand.
“Samhain is one of the Unseelie festivals, it marks the death of Summer and their victory over the Seelie Court.”
{In some stories the Seelie are the good guys, the nice and gentle Faeries that help humans. And if you’ll swallow that line, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn, and some farmland in Florida to sell you. In reality, the Seelie and Unseelie are the same dicks with different paint jobs.}
“There was always a big ass party the week leading up to October 31st. Same thing with the Winter Solstice.”
{The other two holidays were the Seelie festivals, Beltane in the Spring and the Summer Solstice. Not a fun time to be living in an Unseelie household, believe me.}
“Why were they so important, you make it sound like these festivals were a big deal.” Maggie said shrugging.
“They are a big deal.” I replied. “It has to do with possession of the Gate, it’s an old treaty the Courts worked out to avoid a war.”
{The Gate is the main portal between Faerie and Earth. Oh, there are doors all over the place if you’re unlucky enough to find one, but those are temporary, and pop up randomly. Maggie and I jumped through one of those when we made our great escape. The Gentry, can’t use the smaller doors. Well, they can, but if the door closes while they’re on our side, they’re cut off from Faerie and lose most of their power. That’s why the Gate, the only stable, permanent portal is so important, it allows them access to Earth with their power intact. The treaty allows each court possession for half the year.}
“The Unseelie rule from sundown on the longest day of the year until sunrise after the longest night, and vice-versa for the Seelie. Each court is allowed to cross in force only twice a year, hence the festivals.” I finished, feeling a little silly giving a lecture on High-Fae politics.
“And Samhain, is one of the nights when they can cross.” Said Maggie, carefully, as if chewing through the information.
I nodded giving her time to think.
“So, why would Wild-Fae be preparing for a High-Fae festival?” Maggie wondered aloud.
“I don’t know.” I replied.
{What? I can’t know everything. Besides this was my first October since we’d escaped. How was I supposed to know what Wild-Fae did for Halloween? Whatever their holiday plans, you can bet they're nastier than stealing candy and egging houses.}
“The Wild-Fae sometimes like to pretend they’re High-Fae, maybe its something like that.” I suggested.
Maggie looked skeptical, and to be honest I wasn’t buying either, but neither of us had a better idea.
“How do you know all of this anyways?” Maggie asked shaking her head, as if to clear it of useless speculations.
“Pillow talk.” I said bluntly.
{Look, I don’t care if it’s a teenager on prom night, or a nigh-immortal-near-omnipotent douchebag, you get someone warm and satisfied and they’ll tell you anything you want to know… and lots of stuff you didn’t. Want to hear about an immortal sadist’s mommy issues? Yeah, neither did I.}
Maggie made a gagging noise in the back of her throat, squirming uncomfortably at the implications of my statement.
It was early morning on the next day before we arrived at the park in West Virginia where the abductions had taken place. It was an out-of-the-way place, a bit of lawn with a swing-set and some picnic tables, adjacent to a large tract of overgrown woods that was riddled with hiking trails. Maggie and I talked it over briefly and decided to check the place out before the sun came up properly. We cast about on the grass for a little while with flashlights, before deciding that the abductions must have taken place on the hiking trails themselves. Arming ourselves we set off into the woods. It wasn’t long before we found the tracks. They lead off the main trail and onto an overgrown, little-used path that snaked its way through the trees.
{It’s easy to find evidence of Fae, the damn things aren’t exactly careful. Fae rely on their Glamour and Masks to keep themselves hidden from humans, and that works pretty well, unless the Fae isn’t around to keep the mind-fuckery going. Cameras, footprints, corpses, will show the Fae in all their hideous reality. Luckily for humanity, people have been faking evidence of the Fae for centuries, so the few pieces of genuine evidence that surface are always dismissed as hoaxes.}
Maggie and I moved as silently as we could through the trees, cresting a small rise, we followed the footprints until we saw, what was plainly, a small camp hidden in a clearing behind a screen of thick brush. We crouched in the bushes, our breathing shallow as we watched the camp in silence. Suddenly, we heard voices rasping and chittering from across the small clearing. Five hunched forms shuffled into view, their skin was dark green, sagging, and dry like a lizard’s, they had bald heads, large pointed ears and bulging eyes. Goblins, I thought, weird, I hadn’t seen them since…
“Yeeeeeeahhh!”
My thought was cut off by a high, keening, shriek of rage, fear, and hatred. Before I could move, Maggie was charging across the open space, going from a crouch to a dead run like a sprinter at the blocks.
The first goblin turned at the sound, taking Maggie’s knife square in the center of its scrawny chest. Maggie twisted the blade and yanked, drawing the keen steel out of the first goblin and across the throat of a second in a glittering arc that spattered her in blood. One of the goblins tried to run, Maggie’s arm, already cocked back from the slash across the goblin’s throat, flashed forwards sending the knife in a spinning wheel of death to bury its point between the fleeing goblin’s shoulder blades. The remaining goblins tried to rush Maggie, one of them launching itself into the air in a flying leap while the other charged in low, teeth bared. Maggie never batted an eye, she snatched the leaping goblin out of the air with a fluid effortless movement, swinging the creature by one bony arm into its charging companion. The two goblins had barely landed, sprawled in a heap, when Maggie was on top of them, bashing their heads into the dirt with savage, frenzied relish. Five goblins killed in as many seconds. I advanced slowly into the clearing, leaving my gun and knife beside Maggie’s abandoned shotgun. I was wary of another goblin attack, but I sure as hell didn’t want Maggie to think I was a threat.
“Mags?” I said gently, circling around slowly so that I was inside her line of sight. Maggie looked up from the pulped remains of the goblin skulls she held in her hands, there was a snarl on her lips and a wild light in her eyes, she was soaked in blood from the waist up. She looked feral, and I shuddered involuntarily at the sight.
“Maggie, it’s okay.” I said softly, holding up my empty hands to show that I was unarmed. “It’s all right.” Maggie looked at me warily, and for a moment I thought she was going to attack, but she suddenly collapsed, her limbs shaking as huge, gasping sobs wracked her body.
{Here’s the thing, when the Gentry break out the chemistry set, they don’t really give a damn about the small print on the label. When Maggie and the rest of the gladiators in the fighting pit were pumped full of magical steroids, somehow no one mentioned that chief among the many, many side-effects was sporadic bouts of homicidal rage. I thought I had it bad until the first time I saw Maggie hulk out. Luckily, we were able to find a new car.}
I got Maggie bundled up in my coat, and half supported, half carried her back to the car, managing to grab the guns and our knives along the way. I drove us to the nearest motel I could find and paid cash for a room, thanks-be to whatever benign force that’s out there that black cloth doesn’t show bloodstains easily. I herded Maggie into the room just as the sun crested over the horizon. Maggie showered and crawled into bed, while I bagged up our stained clothes and cleaned the gore off Maggie’s knife. With nothing left to do I sat at the end of the bed and thought about our next move.
Prev: Rainbow's End
Next: Hunter's Moon Part 2

Demolition Days, Part 28

That reminds me of a story.
Continuing
Javen Spanner calls Jerry to have him remind me that we have a meeting planned and tonight would be a good time. I ask Jerry to call him back and accept for me.
Properly showered and decontaminated, I show up at the Spanner Ranch once again. I know where to park, I know which do to go to.
The butler greets me and takes my duster and hat as usual.
“Drawing room, Mr. Rock. Mr. Spanner is waiting.”
“Thank you, Jeeves.” I never did learn the guy’s real name.
Once again into the den. Javen greets me warmly and tells me to pour him and me a drink.
“Double bourbon and branch, neat?” I ask.
“Good man. I don’t like to have to tell anyone anything twice.” Javen remarks.
I decide to make two. I hand Javen his drink and ask what’s on his mind.
“First off, Sani sends his regards. Says you finally finished that work you were doing and just wouldn’t quit. I like that. Determination.” He says.
“Ah, Sani. He’s a real character, isn’t he?” I reply.
“He likes you. You could have gone off on him and gotten abusive. Hell, you’re twice, three times his size. But you stuck to your guns and got the job done. Good. Sani was impressed as well.” He says.
“It was…necessary. It was a key to figuring out the area.” I reply.
“Determined and motivated. I like that.” He hits a silent button on his desk.
I sip my drink and wonder curiously.
“Have a cigar” Javen says as he offers me his open humidor.
“Thanks. Cuban. Oh, very nice.” I say.
Javen leans back in his big leather chair and smile.
Jeeves walks in a few minutes later pushing a cart with some largish object on it, covered with a white tarp.
“Ready for another?” Javen asks.
“Sure,” I reply.
Javen goes and gets the drinks. Hands me mine and stands next to the cart.
“Curious?” he asks.
“A bit”, I reply.
He pulls off the tarp. “Here, this is for you.”
It is a hand-tooled leather, custom Western saddle, burnished until it shines. Silver Conchos, silver this, and silver that. It is exquisite.
“Whoa. Thank you, Mr. Spanner. But what…”
He cuts me off. “Come over here and look at this” he instructs me.
I go over to the saddle and he points out the name “Esme” hand-tooled into the fore and aft of the saddle. I know there are names for every part of a saddle, but I don’t know them, so front and back it is.
He also shows me where it was created: it was signed “Spanner Saddlery. Torreon, New Mexico”.
That’s it, I’m stumped.
“Whoa, Javen. Wow. What can I say but thank you?” I sputter.
“We take care of our own out here. You helped me, I help you. Thank you.” Javen says to me.
“Again, it’s beautiful. Esme will just love it.” I say.
“And you too when you give it to her.” He chuckles.
I smile and do my best ‘aw, shucks’ Andy Rooney routine.
“Now, come. Another drink and we will talk business.” Javen says.
We get our own drinks as Jeeves takes my keys to deposit the saddle in my truck.
“Now, Rock. I have a business proposition for you”, Javen says. “How much longer are you going to be in school?” he asks.
“At least a year until I finish and defend my thesis. Then maybe two or three more if I decide to pursue my Ph.D.” I explain.
“What would you say if I offered you a Vice President position at Spanner Enterprises once you finish your Master’s?”, Javen asks.
“I’m not sure,” I replied.
“Well, I am. I could use someone like you. Smart, determined, motivated. I’ve got so damn many irons in the fire, I can’t even count them much less keep control. I need someone like you. Good pay, good benefits, use of the whole Spanner Empire’s resources. What do you think?” he continues.
“Would that be here in Torreon? “ I ask.
“Depends where you want to live. I’ve got houses in Cuba, Torreon, Albuquerque, Farmington, Taos. Take your pick.” He says.
“Javen, I’m honored and I thank you. I will have to give this a lot of thought, though. Can I have some time to think it over? See, I might possibly be getting married when I graduate as well. So there’s another consideration.” I say.
“Take your time. Make sure before you leave New Mexico that I have all your contact information. It’s not time-critical. I know you need to finish your Master’s. But after that, you let me know what you want to do.” Javen explains.
“Absolutely, Javen. Let me chew it over for a while. I will definitely give you my decision as soon as I sort a few things out.” I say, still reeling.
“Well let’s have another drink and a spot of supper, shall we?” Javen smiles.
I don’t remember a thing from the ride back to camp that night. My mind was a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.
I awoke the next day to pummeling rain. A cold front had run headlong into a warm front and the results were leaking out all over northern New Mexico. It was windy, somewhat dark, and raining like a cow peeing on a flat rock. Most unusual weather for this part of New Mexico at this time of year.
My tent, well repaired, was high and dry so I decided it’d be madness to go into the field today. I’d never get across any of even the minor wadis and everything would be turning to sticky mud for the next couple of days. Luckily, John let me store Esme’s saddle in his house until Jerry and Bets left for Texas.
I had an unplanned day off. I had plenty of cigars, loads of beer and such and some work I could do while I was imprisoned. After 5 hours of mapping and re-correlating sections, I grew restive. Maybe some coffee would help. I wandered over to the office to see if anyone had made a recent pot.
It continued raining so I just slogged it over to the office in cargo shorts, T-shirt, and the cheap tennis shoes I bought in Cuba; I didn’t want to ruin my fuzzy-bunny field slippers in this mess. Plus, I was tired of all the shit I got every time I wore them.
John, Derek, and Ace were all in the office, can’t weld too much when it’s 100% humidity.
There was a pot of semi-fresh coffee and I helped myself to a cup.
“This weather normal? “ I asked.
“Not really” Ace replies.
“It happens, but not for years. You’re lucky to see this.” Derek adds.
John calls me over to the window, “Rock, take a look at this.”
The ditches we blasted and dug were filling with runoff water but seemed curiously ‘alive’.
“So, Dr. Science, what the hell’s that? He asks.
“Dunno,” I reply. “Let’s go find out.”
We all troop out in the rain and look into the filling culverts.
“What the fuck? “ Ace says.
“That’s weird,” I say and bend down to scoop up some of the bubbling water.
“Holy shit!” I exclaim, “Its toads. Thousands of toads!”
Seems there’s this species of estivating toad that makes its home in this part of New Mexico. They are the New Mexico Spadefoot Toad (Spea multiplicata) and go absolutely sex-crazy and reproductively obsessed when there’s a soaker like today. They’re not protected or anything, but unusual. They show up only once every few years and only for a day or so.
And a perfect way for me to supplement my bank account.
Dr. Nax wants are representative herpetofauna; herpetofauna meaning both reptiles and amphibians. And currently, we’re up to our hip boots in amphibians.
“John,” I ask, “You got a landing net by any chance?”
“No, but I’ll wager Jerry does out on his boat.”
We run over to Jerry’s house and ask if he has a landing net. He does, it’s in his boat out back, and we could borrow it, if we return it when we’re done.
“Will do” I yell as we run back to retrieve the net.
“Ace, take the net and start scooping out toads. I’ve got to get some buckets. I’ll give you a six-pack for helping me.” I yell.
“On it, Rock!” Ace yells back.
“Holy wow”, I think, “This is a bonanza! At even a buck or two each, it’s money in the bank!”
I run back with my buckets, mis-negotiate a corner, and go face-first into the wet, sloppy New Mexico mud.
“Fuck it. I don’t care. I’m washable.” I think as I run toward my meal ticket.
There were toads everywhere, particularly in the slit-trenches we built. They were full to overflowing with water. The toads burbled out with it.
I was trying to grab the slippery bastards and throw them in a bucket, but they were fighters. I was slipping and slopping around, and just getting covered in mud. I didn’t care. This was too much fun.
Ace slips and he joins the mudmen corps. He didn’t care as long as he earned his six-pack.
John was doing well and had gotten about a dozen of the croakers into my bucket when he joined the corps. Of course, we were all too polite to laugh…too much.
One after another, we all got covered thickly with mud. I had buckets of toads but kept going, maybe there were more than one species here. This was for SCIENCE!
Danny wanders over after some church-related meeting. Due to the flooding, the frothing, and the toads didn’t see the slit-trench and stepped right into it. He went all in three and a half-full feet.
Danny picks himself up as he asks what’s going on.
“Toads! We all yell back.
“So?”
“Rock collects them for his museum. Get over here, these bastards are slippery.”
Figuring he’s already soaked and filthy, he does help out.
After an hour or so, I’ve got five five-gallon pickle buckets full of amphibians. I tell everyone to wait here, I’m going to get my truck.
Jerry walks over to see what all the commotion was and sees his whole crew, plastered with mud, sitting around and on my truck. We were all drinking beer, or Orange Fanta, as I had bought some in case Danny ever came back over to our side, actually as a mixer for some of the local firewater, smoking cigars and laughing like loons.
“Rock. You are a very bad influence on my workers” Jerry laughed as he shook his head.
I spent until 0330 the next day fixing, formalin-ing, and collating toads. There turned out to be four different species. I couldn’t tell the difference, but Dr. Nax could.
“Now that’s a representative herpetofauna,” I said to no one as I creaked back to my tent.
After a day to recover, Jerry comes over and asks if I’d like to ride the pipeline with him.
Once a week, someone takes the one-ton company pickup and rides from one end of the pipeline to the other for visual inspection. It’s a full day affair and Jerry thinks it’ll give me a good overview of areas I’d either normally avoid or not see.
I respond in the affirmative and we take off on our journey. It was a long, hot, dusty drive.
Truth be told, it was boring as hell. Sure, there were some places of interest, but since there were so many out here, these were moderately ‘OK’ versus the ‘Wow’ of the others I was working with.
We drive all morning and Jerry says, “Hey, I know a good lunch spot. You’d never find it if someone didn’t show it to you. Maybe you can tell us what it is.”
We drive for a while longer and pull off to the left and go seriously bush for a mile or so until we come to a clearing surrounded by short, badlands-type outcrops a few dozen feet tall.
We park and Jerry say “Come over here and look at this. What is it?”
I look at the ground and there are dozens of felled trees, all lying on top of one another. Huge trees, fully 40 or 50 feet in length and 3-4 feet in diameter, all lying around like thrown jackstraws. Thing was, they were all solid quartz. It was a fossilized Late Cretaceous log jam.
Jerry was right, I’d have never found this on my own.
I took seven rolls of film and ran through each one of them. I mapped as best I could and noted the locality on the geological maps I was building.
“Holy hell, Jerry”, I say. “If I’m reading this right, this is at the very top of the Late Cretaceous.”
“Yeah, and?” he says.
“This, if I’m reading this right, might be the New Mexico result of the Yucatan asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. I’ve seen the tsunami deposits in Texas from the event, and the fallout in North Dakota and Nebraska. This could be a result of the asteroid impact tsunami, and the wiping out of local coastal forests. Jerry! This is incredibly important shit! Holy hell! This could be the find of a career!” I was jumping up and down.
“Oh, good. I’m glad I brought you here then.” He flatly says.
I just goggled at this lack of enthusiasm.
A few days later, after I map the fossil log jam and sample and document it as much as I can, I’m out riding around the country looking for likely looking outcrops. I come around the corner and run directly into Sani on his horse. He motions for me to pull over so we can talk.
“Sani Yáʼátʼééh shi akʼis”, I greet him.
“Yáʼátʼééh Kǫʼdził-hastiin”, Sani replies.
“Kind of hot today,” I say.
“Yeah. Dusty too.” He agrees.
I grab a couple of cold beers out of the cooler and hand one to Sani.
“What’s up? “ I ask.
“I was looking for you. You found the trees?” he asked.
‘Yeah. What a find. Jerry showed me. It’s an amazing locality.” I replied.
“I asked Jerry to take you there. You needed to see it, I was told,” he said.
I knew better than to ask ‘by who’?
“Thank you. Most appreciated.” I reply.
“Now you follow me. There is trouble ahead. Kǫʼdził-hastiin will fix it, I was told.”
“Sure. I’ll follow you. OK?” I said.
Wordlessly he hands me his empty beer, mounts his horse, and waits for me to follow.
I drive about 10 miles, right off the edge of my map area. We stop at a small collection of hogans, the native structures in which the locals sometimes live.
Sani motions me over to a structure on the side of the compound. Turns out it’s a hand-dug and relatively ancient water well.
The problem was, it was dry.
Sani tells me that it gives good water, sometimes running high, sometimes running low, but always sweet water. Now, it’s dry. This is bad.
“Kǫʼdził-hastiin will make it work,” Sani tells me.
“Sani, I’ll do my best,” I reply.
I go over to my truck, get some climbing gear as its big enough to enter and a flashlight as its 35 or so feet deep and dark at the bottom. I back my truck up so I can tie off and rappel down into the well.
There’s some junk down here, tree branches and the like but the thing that I notice is the amount of very fine sand covering the bottom of the well. This well was choked off by the recent rains. Too much runoff, and when it subsided, it left a load of sand and clay which plugged up the porosity of the aquifer.
Easy fix. If you know what you’re doing.
I climb out of the well and Sani just looks at me with those big brown eyes and weather-beaten visage.
“No problem. I can fix it. Take a bit of time, but I’ll have it up and running by late this afternoon.” I say.
Sani shakes his head yes and goes back to talking with some of the other locals.
Two round trips and a few buckets of well-bottom schmoo later, I’m sitting on the back of my truck, wiring up a blasting harness. Sani comes over and asks how I’m doing.
“OK, just need to clear out some of that sand, create some new fractures and you’ll have plenty of water. I’ve got to blast, so keep everyone away. I don’t know the local lingo for FIRE IN THE HOLE, literally. So, just tell everyone to stay away until I give the all-clear.” I tell him.
“Kǫʼdził-hastiin has spoken. It will be done.” Sani tells me.
What to use, what to use? Dynamite? Too messy, lots of leftovers after a shot. C-4? Nah. Probably too much shock. Primacord? No. What to use?
A lightbulb goes off. “Binary liquids!” No residue and I can use an empty beer can for the charge. I‘ve got lots of those. The aluminum will be atomized and won’t contaminate the water.
Beer. Is there nothing it can’t do?
I mix up 8 ounces of my new binary liquid explosive. It’s really stable and even a bullet out of a gun won’t set it off. I rig a blasting cap to the top of the beer can and spool out 50 feet of demolition wire.
Back in the bottom of the well, I dug a hole about two foot deep and set the charge. I cover and tamp it well so the blast goes down and sideways instead of up. I ascend up out of the well and toss all my gear into the back of my truck.
I pull away from the well a few feet and rig to blast. I look around and there’s no one to be found, even Sani’s disappeared. I hit the horn three times, yell fire in the hole, feeling a bit weird. But I stop and take a look around, just to be certain no one’s around.
Can’t see anyone, so I hit the horn again and go back to the blasting machine.
FIRE IN THE HOLE! Literally.
I say “HIT IT!” and push the big red shiny button.
There’s a hellacious THUMP and the ground literally shakes.
I quickly rewind what demo wire is left and wander over to the well and shine my flashlight down to the bottom. There’s a lot of dust and swirling, and if I listen carefully…
“I hear water. Good.” Sani says, sneaking up behind me and scaring the hell out of me.
I listen for a few minutes and don’t hear anything. I toss a small rock in and hear a rewarding splash.
“Mission accomplished,” I tell Sani.
“See, I was told Kǫʼdził-hastiin will fix it,” Sani says matter of factly.
Jerry and Betsy were hitching up their boat, getting ready for their annual fishing trip holiday down to South Padre in Texas. He calls me over for a confab.
“Rock, here are the house keys. I didn’t put the key to my gun cabinet on the ring since I figure you already have that covered. Please look after my place and keep the mud to a minimum,” He laughs.
“Don’t worry, Jerry. I’ll watch and take care of this place like it’s my own.” I reply.
“Help yourself to any food in the fridge or freezer and don’t worry about replacing it. It’ll just go bad otherwise. Hope you and Esme, that’s her name, right? Have a good time. See you September first. We’re gone.” He says.
Betsy comes over and gives me a quick hug. “Thanks for this Rock. I feel better leaving the house in good hands,” she says.
“Don’t worry about anything. We’ll take great care of your place and guard all your stuff. Now, GIT! And have a great vacation.” I tell her.
I decide to leave my tent up as I don’t want to tear it all down and it’ll give me a good place to unwind, smoke and do my mapping. I want to live in their house, not squat.
Long John brings Esme’s saddle over and we both stand there looking at it.
“Damn, Rock. Javen is tighter'n a bull's ass in fly time, and he gave you this? Holy hell. He must really like you. That saddles gotta be worth four or five thousand dollars, easy.” He notes.
“No shit?” as I had no idea what horse riding kit cost, “Did I tell you he offered me a job?”
“As what? Drinking and Boone companion?” John chuckled.
“No. Vice President of Spanner Enterprises,” I reply.
“No shit?” John goggles, “People would kill for a job like that. When do you start?”
“Don’t know. Don’t even know if I’m going to take the job. I’ve got to finish my Master’s and that’s a year. Then, Ph.D.? I don’t know. Then there’s Esme.” I explained.
“Damn. That’s a lot on your plate. Hell, you take that job, and I’ll be working for you as Spanner Enterprises owns 50% of this plant. Now there’s a revolting thought.” He laughs.
“I just don’t know,” I tell him. “You’re right, things just got a lot more complicated.”
A couple of days later, I’m out mapping to the west. I note that I’m only a few miles shy of the Scavada wash. The next thing I know, I’m parking at the Scavada Trading Post and Silver Bullet Station.
“Hello, the trading post!” I yell as I enter.
“Hello “Kǫʼdził-hastiin. Enter!” Fred chuckles.
“Where the hell did you hear that?” I ask.
“News travels fast on the res. You’re quite the celebrity.” Fred tells me.
Fred grabs two beers and we stand around the front desk, chewing things over.
“Sani speaks highly of you. I heard of your introductions out at the grim Mount Badass. He pranked you good. He likes you.” Fred chuckles.
“You know Sani?” I ask semi-rhetorically.
“Everyone knows Sani,” Fred replies.
The door opens and two locals come in. Fred greets them.
They turn to look at me and say “Yáʼátʼééh Kǫʼdził-hastiin”.
I guess I am becoming a local celebrity.
They stopped in to see if Fred would spot them a beer or two on credit.
Fred says: “Guys, you know my rules. No credit. No free beer. Unless you have money or something to trade…”
One of the older gents turns to me and says, “Maybe Kǫʼdził-hastiin would like to hear of our stories from the war.”
Fred looks at me and says “For return of a beer. Tales for booze.”
I said I’d rather like hearing of their exploits.
They were Code-Talkers during World War Two. No matter what age they were, meet an older male local and they were a Code Talker. But if there were Talkers or not, they provided some entertaining stories. Definitely worth a beer or two.
After a couple of hours, they left and I had an idea.
“Fred, my girlfriend’s coming for a visit. Is that jewelry there on pawn or is it for sale?”
“Most of its ‘dead pawn’; they pawned it and never redeemed it. I sell it to help keep this pile of shit running”, he replies.
“That’s quite the collection. Does it come with a Kǫʼdził-hastiin discount?” I ask.
“Make me an offer.” Fred chuckles.
I leave an hour or so later with 5 exquisite native necklaces, a couple of pairs of earrings and a silver concho belt. Total cost, 75 bucks. Lots of turquoise, lots of bone and shell, all quite striking.
Well, Christmas is coming and all that.
In our last letter, I sent Esme a map detailing directions to Cuba. I wanted to meet her there, have a spot of lunch or dinner, pick up any supplies she might need and then have her follow me out to Lago de Estrella gas plant.
Well, today was the day she was driving in.
I waited for her at the Atomic Bar. It had a good view of the only approach into town from Albuquerque and it was cool and the beer was cheap.
Finally, I see a gun-metal gray Chevy Nova come wheeling into town.
She’s here!
I run outside and flag here down. The reunion was quite moving. I had missed her more than I had realized. A monumental decision was made that moment, that day, standing in the dusty parking lot of the Atomic Bar.
“Hungry?” I ask her.
“Famished.” She replies.
“Let’s go across the street. The food there I incredible.” I suggest.
“Lead the way.”
After checking for the nonexistent traffic, we go over to the Cuba Café, enter, and grab an empty table.
Sindy comes over with menus and asks if I’d like my usual.
I reply “Yes, make it two.”
Esme looks at Sindy and Sindy stars daggers back.
“So, you’re a regular here? I would have expected that across the street.” Esme chuckles.
“Oh, I’m just a regular celebrity around these parts,” I say.
Sindy returns with our beers and I say “Where are my manners? Sindy this is Esme, Esme this is Sindy. She helped me out when I first hit town.”
“Hello. Nice to meet you” Esme says.
“Yeah, hi” Sindy glacially says and shuffles off.
“Helped you out? How so?” Esme asks.
“Well, she brought me my laundry once; gave me the lay of the land. All very proper and above board. Nothing else. She’s married, well, separated. Everything was nonphysical and friendly.” I say.
“Oh, I see. Well, it was good you made friends while you were out here. The tone of your letters made it sound like you were forced into being a monk or hermit.” Esme says.
“I was simply pining away for my one, true love” I poured it on with a bucket.
“Good. You should. Now, tell me all about Cuba, New Mexico.” She says.
“Nope, you tell me all about Alpine, Texas first,” I reply.
We spent the rest of the day filling each other in about our respective summers. It was so good to see her, I hope she likes the crowd out at the gas plant.
“Well, we best be off. It’s not that far to the plant, but the roads are kind of windy and I got lost several times. Best take it slow and be certain.” I say. “Need anything from town before we head out?”
“No, I’m good. Gassed up in Torreon, so I’m still pretty full.” She says
“OK, then. Let’s go to your new home.” I snicker.
We arrive at the gas plant without getting lost nor sidetracked. I show here where to park and grab her luggage.
“Welcome to Lago de Estrella!” I say as we enter Jerry and Betsy’s place.
“Wow. Sure beats the tent I’ve been living in these past three months.” Esme says.
I show her around and she says she’s tired but would love a shower.
I show her the place and grab some towels for her.
“Where do you want your luggage”, I ask, sheepishly.
“In the bedroom, silly. Where else?” She says.
The cosmic karma fairy has indeed been generous to Kǫʼdził-hastiin.
The next day, Esme says she’d like a day off after her long drive and field camp.
I need to go out and map a few more areas.
She says: “Go. That’s what you’re here for. Don’t let me alter your plans. Knowing you, you’ve got time mapped out to the second. Go. I’ll be fine.”
“If you go out, watch for Danny and Beth, they’ll try and convert you. Ace will try to be his most flattery goofy self, he’s harmless. Watch out for the tall character, he’s Long John. He’s into pranks and practical jokes. Again, mostly harmless.” I say.
“OK, go. I’ll probably be napping anyways. I’m beat after a full summer of climbing mountains.” She says.
“Oh, yeah. Stay out of the spare bedroom. Jerry doesn’t want anyone in there.” I lie. It’s where I hid the saddle.
“Sure. No problem. Now go so you can get done and get back.” She tells me.
Yep, now I know I made the right decision.
I drive out and look at my field notes. I need to map an outcrop of coal where the locals have been filching the stuff for use in heating and cooking. It’s not technically illegal, as this stuff is local, at least in this outcrop, low yield and never be targeted for mining. But, it does technically belong to the company that has leased the lands. Still, it’s not very much and…
I stop as Sani is on his horse, right in the middle of the road.
After the usual greetings, he instructs me to follow him.
Here we go again.
Right to the coal outcrop where I was headed.
“Sani, what’s the deal?” I ask.
“Many people depend on the coal here. But look, there is no coal here, just rock. I was told Kǫʼdził-hastiin will know what to do. I was told where to find you, and now I bring you here.” Sani says.
“Sani”, I say, “This is weird. I was planning on coming here today. I told no one except Esme. Oh, yeah. My girlfriend is in town, I’d sure like you to meet her.” I say.
“This I know. I will meet her. But first you need to talk to rocks.” Sani direct.
“OK, Sani. No problem. Let me look at what’s going on and I’ll see if I can figure it out.”
“You will. That’s what I’ve been told.” He says.
I get my kit out of the truck and attack the outcrop. It’s about 60 feet wide and 20 feet tall. It’s mostly low grade, sub-bituminous coal. Late Cretaceous in age, Fruitland Formation. I start to map the outcrop after photographing it and get a sense of what was going on here during deposition.
The rock Sani referred to was a medium-coarse grained sandstone. I start to dig around it and see it’s a point-bar deposit. That means it’s not laterally extensive and hasn’t displaced the coal. It’s just a fluvial distributary or levee-break sand that cut through the coal swamp, probably from a storm, and deposited a blob of sand in the middle of the coal swamp. Everything got buried and lithified, and well, Bob’s your uncle.
It’s a textbook case of a fluvial point bar, so I photograph it some more and retire to my truck tailgate to update my maps and integrate this discovery into my maps. Plus, it’s hotter than the hinges of hell, so I grab a cigar and a beer.
“Please, make it two,” Sani says after sneaking up on and startling me and making me bash my skull on the top of the truck cap.
“Sneaky Indian” I chuckle as I hand him a cold one.
“Kǫʼdził-hastiin talk to rocks?” Sani asks.
“Yes, I have. I’ve got it figured out. It’s a sand bar from an ancient river. Just continue to remove the coal around it and it’ll eventually just fall away.” I tell him.
“But that will take much time. Maybe past winter.” He looks hopefully to me.
“Or, I could hurry its departure; if that’s what you want,” I say.
Sani closes his eyes, nods, and smiles.
This one’s going to be quick and dirty. There’s no one that I can see for miles, except for Sani. I haven’t gone old school for a long while and have plenty of dynamite. I’m going to show that sandstone what for.
Sani watches as I pound a stake in several places around the sand body.
“Shot holes” I explain.
Weird, a couple of the shot holes I poke yield a feeble flow of water. Out west, they’re termed “tiñaja”, a coal that acts as a spring. The water is blood red, rusty, and foul-smelling.
Hydrogen sulfide. Definitely not potable water as some are.
I go to tell Sani what I plan and he’s disappeared again. Damn, he’s stealthy.
I rig it up old school. Full sticks of 60% in each hole, blasting caps with super-boosters tied to Primacord. All leads tied back to one length of Primacord and that terminated in a safety fuse igniter. Pull the pin, pop the cap, the fuse ignites and heads for the Primacord. Primacord detonates at 25,000 feet per second, actuates all the blasting caps and boosters simultaneously, and boom. No more sandstone.
Since we’re out in the middle of nowhere, no houses or hogans in sight, I didn’t bother with cutting down the charges. Sure, I could have gotten away with less, but where’s the fun in that?
I lay on the horn three times to warn the mule deer, rattlesnakes, prairie dogs, and Race Runners that the show is about to begin.
FIRE IN THE HOLE as I yell even there are no people anywhere in sight, even after my horning.
“HIT IT!” I say out loud and pop the safety fuse cap.
I get in my truck and back up about 75 yards, perpendicular to the blast path.
Three minutes later, there is a titanic explosion as all eight stick of 60% detonate simultaneously. Evidently, as I found out later, with water flowing through the cleats and fractures of the coal, there will be coal seam gas.
I didn’t know that at this point. I do now. Coal seam gas is eminently flammable.
The explosion was heard in Cuba I found out later.
Well, the sandstone point-bar disappeared and there were piles of coal lying everywhere. A new outcrop of coal had appeared and it was free of sand bodies. Just nicely fractured, low-grade coal for whoever needed it.
I pulled my truck up to further inspect the results. Damn, that was a bit more energetic than I had counted on. Still, it all worked out. No need for mining coal, just gather it up.
I make my notes and enter the data in my field notebook and blaster’s required paperwork when someone grabs my shoulder from behind.
After landing back on Earth, I see Sani standing there with a smile on his face.
“I was told Kǫʼdził-hastiin would fix it. You have. Thank you.”
“Fix it? I almost put it into orbit. Tell whoever comes here for coal there’s bad gas here too. Hydrogen sulfide smells like rotten eggs. There should be no problem out in the open like this, but later if digging here, watch out for enclosed spaces. That stuff is nasty, it’ll kill you in low concentrations. If I get a sign made can you have it translated into the language so they might know?”
“No need Kǫʼdził-hastiin. They will know. They will be told. They will heed.” Sani says.
“OK, then. Well, do you want me to help clean some of this mess up? It did kind of go everywhere.” I asked.
“No, Kǫʼdził-hastiin. You did what was needed. Thank you.” And with that, he turns, gets on his horse and leaves.
Since I’m out in the field, I notice I need gas. What better excuse for a Scavada visit?
“I figured that was you”, Fred says over a cold Silver Bullet. “Really rattled the rafters. That old illegal mine? Hell, it’s gone now, I bet.”
“More or less. It’s just a lot safer and available.” I reply.
“Oh, I hear your main squeeze made it in. When you going to drag her out here so we can meet?” Fred says.
“Never. She’s too pure for the likes of you.” I chuckle.
“An insult! I am wounded!” he feigns real injury.
“See?”
“Hey. I’ll be on my best behavior. Drag her out here. I’d like to meet her and tell her all sorts of lies about your sordid past out here.” He laughs.
“Yeah. We’ll see. Maybe in a week or so,” I say.
“Give her the saddle yet?” he asks.
[Stunned] “How the hell did you know about that?” I ask.
“Ain’t no secrets on the res, Kǫʼdził-hastiin.” He chuckles.
I spend the next week out in the field. Sometimes Esme comes along, but she prefers to just take a bit of a breather after her field studies.
Time is wrapping up for me. After Lago de Estrella, I’m off to Fort Peck Reservoir in Montana. I’m going to meet Dr. Jak and the museum folks there to recover some dinosaur fossils found the previous season. They need my truck and me back on the job.
Esme has a new job waiting for her back in Brew-city. Parting will be such sweet sorrow.
So, I plan to make the best of it with the time we have until life intrudes and we have to go our separate ways; for a while at least.
Out in the field, we’re at the fossil log jam Jerry showed me. I had to show Esme and get her ideas, she’s a geologist as well. I’m on the ground, slowly digging around one tree trunk, thinking I saw a glint of bone in the tangled mess.
Esme walks over and nudges me. “Rock, there’s some guy on a horse over there. He’s just sitting there, watching us.”
To be continued…

/r/HorseRacing Census 2019 (results)

Online horse racing betting is legal in most US states due to exemptions written into federal law that give states the authority to regulate the industry within their borders. Legal horse and greyhound racing betting sites partner with hundreds of tracks to deliver live video simulcasting, wagering and data to fans across the country. Texas Racing Act Article 11. Wagering. Sec. 11.01. Pari-mutuel Wagering; Rules. (a) The commission shall adopt rules to regulate wagering on greyhound races and horse races under the system known as pari-mutuel wagering. Wagering may be conducted only by an association within its enclosure. Horse Racing US Fixed Odds Racing Rules. All races are settled on the basis of the official result issued by the local Horse Racing Authority including any amendments affected after eventual steward inquiries and objections. Any changes to the result after the first official result has been posted will not be considered. Online horse betting in the United States is completely legal. People from all over the world are accepted at our affiliated horse betting site, New Bodog. There are no restrictions to which horse racing tracks that are available for online wagering. New Bodog allows the online betting for the Texas tracks Lone Star Park, Retama Park, and Sam ... States With Legal Horse Betting. All of the states with legal horse betting will attest to the fact that horse racing is big business in the USA. Though the history of horse racing in the US goes back for centuries, it was towards the beginning of the 20th century that modern-day horse racing betting was established.

Profitable Lay System

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Age	Percent	Count
Under 18	3%	6
18-24	22%	51
25-34	41%	96
35-44	22%	51
45-54	8%	19
55-64	3%	8
65+	2%	5
	Answered	236
	Skipped	1

Gender	Percent	Count
Male	89%	209
Female	10%	23
Other	2%	4
	Answered	236
	Skipped	1

Inolvement	Percent	Count
Casual Fan	69%	141
Handicapper	54%	127
Track Worker	5%	12
Work with Horses	9%	21
Total Degen	18%	43
	Answered	236
	Skipped	1

Country	Percent	Count
Australia	2%	5
Canada	2%	5
Ireland	1%	2
Italy	0%	1
Nebraska	0%	1
South Africa	0%	1
Turkey	0%	1
United Kingdom	2%	4
United States	91%	193
	Answered	213
	Skipped	24

State	Percent	Count
New York	20%	39
California	17%	32
Illinois	10%	19
Kentucky	9%	18
New Jersey	7%	14
Maryland	5%	9
Ohio	4%	8
Pennsylvania	4%	8
Florida	3%	6
Texas	3%	5
Washington	3%	5
Minnesota	2%	4
Louisiana	2%	4
Massachusetts	2%	3
Philadelphia	2%	3
Arizona	1%	2
Arkansas	1%	2
Indiana	1%	2
Colorado	1%	1
Delaware	1%	1
Iowa	1%	1
Nebraska	2%	3
New Mexico	1%	1
North Carolina	1%	1
Virginia	1%	1
West Virginia	1%	1
	United States	193

Horse Racing Rules DraftKings Sportsbook

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/r/HorseRacing Census 2019 (results)

/HorseRacing 2019 Census (results)

Q1: How old are you?

Q2: What is your gender?

Q3: How are you involved with racing?

Q4: What is your home race track?

Q5: How long have you been involved with racing?

Q6: How often do you wager?

Q7: Which online wagering website do you use?

Q8: Who is your favorite horse of all time?

Q9: Who will be the Eclipse Champion 3 year old?

Q10: What is one thing racing could do better?

Profitable Lay System

Track	Percent	Count of Track
Saratoga	12%	22
Arlington	10%	18
Santa Anita	9%	16
Monmouth Park	7%	14
Belmont Park	6%	11
Churchill Downs	6%	11
Golden Gate	5%	9
Keeneland	4%	8
Laurel Park	4%	7
Parx	3%	6
Del Mar	3%	5
Emerald Downs	3%	5
Canterbury	2%	4
Woodbine	2%	4
Belterra Park	2%	3
Gulfstream Park	2%	3
Lone Star	2%	3
Suffolk Downs	2%	3
Thistledowns	2%	3
Fairmount Park	1%	2
Indiana Grand	1%	2
Oaklawn Park	1%	2
Penn National	1%	2
Pimlico	1%	2
Sam Houston	1%	2
Tampa Bay Downs	1%	2
Aqueduct	1%	1
Arapahoe Park	1%	1
Arizona Downs	1%	1
Colonial Downs	1%	1
Delaware Park	1%	1
Delta Downs	1%	1
Fair Grounds	1%	1
Fairgrounds	1%	1
Finger Lakes	1%	1
Gulfstream	1%	1
Lincoln Race Course	1%	1
Miami Valley	1%	1
Mountaineer	1%	1
Paririe Meadows	1%	1
Pocono Downs	1%	1
Presque Isle Downs	1%	1
The Meadows	1%	1
Turf Paradise	1%	1
	United States	187

Experience	Responses
Less than a year	9%	21
1-3 years	22%	50
3-10 years	29%	67
10+ years	39%	90
	Answered	228
	Skipped	9

Frequency	Responses
N/A	8%	17
Every day	8%	18
A few times a week	36%	82
About once a week	14%	32
A few times a month	23%	52
Once a month	4%	10
Less than once a month	7%	15
	Answered	226
	Skipped	11

ADW	Responses
TVG	41%	91
TwinSpires	35%	78
Bet America	7%	16
NYRA Bets	17%	38
DRF Bets	10%	22
Other	32%	72
	Answered	223
	Skipped	14

Horse	Percent	count
American Pharoah	7%	16
Secretariat	7%	16
Zenyatta	6%	13
Justify	4%	8
Arrogate	3%	7
Rachel Alexandra	2%	5
Smarty Jones	2%	5
The one that wins	2%	5
Cigar	2%	4
Barbaro	1%	3
Big brown	1%	3
California Chrome	1%	3
Ruffian	1%	3
Seabiscuit	1%	3
Seattle Slew	1%	3
Silver Charm	1%	3
Songbird	1%	3
Winx	1%	3
Yoshida	1%	3
	Answered	216

Horse	Percent	Count
Not Sure	27%	50
War of Will	19%	35
Omaha Beach	14%	27
Maximum Security	11%	20
Tacitus	8%	15
Travers Winner	2%	4
Country House	1%	2
Global Campaign	1%	2
Guarana	1%	2
King for a Day	1%	2
Mitole	1%	2
Plus Que Parfait	1%	2
Tax	1%	2
Winx	1%	2
	Answered	188

Suggestion	Percent	Count
Attract Families/Younger Crowd	16%	29
Horse Safety	11%	20
Central Governing Body	10%	19
Marketing/Public Image	7%	13
Statistics	6%	12
Drug Control	5%	10
Fix Santa Anita	5%	10
Lower Takeout	4%	7
Technology	3%	6
TV Coverage	3%	6
Larger Field Size	3%	5
Change Betting Structure	2%	4
Steward Transparency	2%	4
	Answered	186