Chapter 1 #3
“Surprisingly, neither of us took more damage than some scrapes and scratches.” Travis poured a hot chocolate for himself from the urn on a nearby table and took a seat with them. “Although I can’t say the same for the factory.”
He recounted their adventure without any dramatic flourishes, since reality was dangerous enough.
“You were lucky that you didn’t get blowback with the fire and scorch your lungs,” Matthew chided.
“And yes, we could have been incinerated. But we weren’t.”
“This time,” Jon said.
“Hey, it worked. That should mean no more ghosts killing the locals.” Travis didn’t mind their mother-henning, but felt compelled to defend himself.
“Good point,” Matthew conceded. “But we also want you and Brent to remain among the living.”
“Much appreciated.” Travis took a sip of hot chocolate and savored the warmth and taste, ignoring the sudden craving for a shot of Kahlua. “How’s the house tonight?”
“Nearly full,” Jon replied, knowing Travis meant St. Dismas. “More than usual for a nice night. Glad we can help, but I’m sorry so many folks need it.”
“Those contributions from the antique shop in Charleston and the ghost tour company in Cape May came through,” Jon said. “Please tell your friends, ‘Thank you.’”
“I will.” Travis and Brent had gotten to know others with supernatural skills who also helped fight off paranormal predators. Some of those friends had become regular donors to St. Dismas, which Travis deeply appreciated.
“And I know you probably had your phone ringer turned off all night, but check your messages,” Jon added. “Your friend from Conneaut Lake called looking for you, so it must be important.”
Travis reached for his phone, unlocked it, and saw that his one and only message was from Mark Wojcik, another monster hunter who covered territory north of Pittsburgh.
“Hey, Travis,” Mark said. “Hope you and Brent are alive and kicking. I know it’s a drive to Franklin, but there’s a wake tomorrow for Al Saunders.
Don’t know if you ever hunted with him, but he’s one of ours, and he got taken out by a rougarou.
Strange circumstances. I’ll explain when I see you.
Let me know, and I can text directions. Thanks. ”
Travis had played the message on speaker. He looked at Jon and Matthew after it ended and checked his watch. It wasn’t too late to return the call, at least, not by hunter standards. “Guess I’d better find out what’s going on.”
Mark picked up on the second ring.
“Thanks for returning my call.” His voice sounded scratchy, but whether it was from the weather or whiskey, Travis couldn’t tell.
“No problem. I didn’t know Al personally, but I heard him mentioned on the hunter grapevine. Sorry to hear he passed. A rougarou? Seriously?”
He knew that particular type of monster had to hit hard for Mark. A wendigo killed several members of Mark’s family, getting him into the monster-hunting life and breaking up his marriage.
“I hate to sound more paranoid than usual,” Mark said with a bitter laugh, “but I think there’s more to it.”
Travis frowned. “What do you mean?” It was a joke among hunters that being paranoid didn’t mean things weren’t out to get you, something that proved true more often than not.
“I can fill you in if you and Brent come up, but the short version is I think something is hunting the hunters.”
Travis exchanged a glance with Jon and Mathew. “Say what?”
“Al is the third hunter in as many months just in my corner of PA,” Mark said.
“None of the guys who died were rookies or thrill-seekers. Two of them had been at it longer than I have, because they showed me a trick or two back at the beginning. Al had been hunting longer than any of us, but he wasn’t old, and he wasn’t slow.
He was one of the craftiest bastards I ever met, so if something got the jump on him, it wasn’t normal, even for us. ”
“Anyone piss off a coven lately?”
“Not to my knowledge. That’s just it…they could be coincidences, but my Spidey sense is telling me there’s more to it,” Mark replied. “If I were the superstitious type, I’d blame it on the black moon.”
Travis knew enough about astronomy to know that meant the second new moon in a month.
Some people considered it to be an omen.
He had learned long ago to trust intuition, even from people who didn’t have his psychic or medium abilities.
Hunters who went with their gut tended to live longer than those who played by the book.
“Okay. Text me the time and place, and I’ll let Brent know. I’ll get a room for the night so we can do the wake right and not have to drive back to the city.”
“Father Leo is going to do the service. He went on several hunts with Al over the years,” Mark said.
“Thanks for letting us know. I hope you’re wrong…”
“So do I. But I’m really afraid I’m not. See you soon.” Mark ended the call, and a moment later, his text came through with directions. A quick call to Brent gave a condensed version of what Mark said and gained agreement to meet early and drive up together.
Travis put down his phone and looked to his friends. “Well? I know you’re thinking something.”
“On top of Brent’s suspicions that something is stirring up the ghosts and creatures around here, it’s worrisome,” Matthew said.
“We just did a smackdown with CHARON not long ago. I would have thought it would take longer for them to get their mojo back,” Travis said.
“Sinistram?” Jon asked.
Travis tried not to squirm at the thought. “In the past, they couldn’t be bothered with local hunters. Or hauntings and monsters that didn’t come with world-ending curses. I can’t imagine why they would care now—changing their minds didn’t come easy.”
When he spoke of the Sinistram, it was always “they.” Never “we.” Travis had left that life behind and wanted as little to do with it as possible, but the small world of supernatural protectors meant crossing paths was inevitable.
“Sorry to run out on you again.” Travis felt a flash of guilt, although he knew his duties were more than adequately covered.
“Goes with the calling, if not the job.” Jon shrugged. “We’ll be fine. And maybe when you get back, before you hare off on the next hunt, you could drop in at the Sinistram library, just to take the temperature.”
As an inducement to return, the Sinistram permitted Travis access to their secret arcane library, a privilege usually reserved for members of the Order.
He went when there was no other choice to research a case, but between the thinly-veiled censure for leaving and the open pressure to return, the experience was never enjoyable, even if it proved productive.
His expression must have made his unspoken thoughts clear, because Jon and Matthew chuckled.
“Your face is saying the quiet part out loud, Travis,” Jon laughed. “Tell us how you really feel.”
Travis rolled his eyes. “You’ve heard me whine before. Sinistram gives me access, then piles on the guilt for not coming back.”
“You’re Catholic and they’re an arm of the Vatican,” Matthew said. “Of course they do.”
Travis shot him the bird. “Still. It’s less of a courtesy and more of a recruitment tactic. I’m clearly the prodigal son.”
“More like the one who got away,” Jon remarked. “You’re a damn fine hunter, and you’ve proven by stopping a couple of potentially world-ending problems that you can do just fine without them. That has to sting.”
“Yeah, well,” Travis grumbled. “They’re everything people complain about with the Church. Stuck in their ways, close-minded, judgmental, and hypocritical. They want me for my abilities, but they also want me to feel guilty and damned for having those abilities. Fuck them.”
“And yet…we still serve,” Matthew pointed out with a glance up at the painting of St. Dismas.
“I look at it as family trauma,” Jon said. “Can’t live with it, can’t live without it.”
“They’ve never revised their views on immortal creatures who repent doing harm and change their ways,” Travis grumbled. “Once a monster, always a monster, and we know that isn’t true.”
“It’s not just the Sinistram that has trouble with that idea,” Matthew said. “So do plenty of hunters.”
No one questioned the need to stop feral, unreasoning monsters that attacked out of instinct, hunger, or malice and could not be tamed or made less of a threat.
Likewise, the need to deal harshly with people who used magic to kill or cause harm was widely accepted.
The gray area fell with those supernatural creatures like vampires, weres, and other reasoning beings who weren’t actually human.
“Back in the old days, they had special cloisters for those who wanted to withdraw to avoid temptation,” Matthew recalled.
“It was always a question whether the choice to enter those cloisters was voluntary. At best, they were a refuge. At worst, a prison based solely on having paranormal abilities.”
“Which was better than nothing, I guess,” Travis agreed. “But the uprising in 1659 burned the cloisters and killed everyone assigned there,” he reminded them. “Which just made everything worse.”
“That’s not just the Church, it’s human history in general,” Jon said. “As a species, we fuck up a lot.”
“Amen,” Matthew muttered. The conversation lagged, and they sat in silence for a few moments.
Finally, Travis finished his hot chocolate and stood. “I need to get some sleep. I can’t say I’m looking forward to the wake tomorrow, but maybe Brent and I will find out something that helps explain what the hell is going on.”
“And it slows you down from going right back out to look into that haunting at the Darr Mine, like you intended,” Jon added.
“I guess a day won’t hurt too much,” Travis conceded. “But it’s another case where a long-ago disaster that hadn’t caused problems in a long time suddenly flared up.”
“It’ll still be there the day after tomorrow,” Matthew assured him. “Now get some rest.”
Travis said goodnight to his companions before he took his cup to the kitchen and headed to his room.
He set out his clothing and checked the supplies in his go-bag before he changed for bed. Travis always wore several silver protective saints’ medallions, day and night, and kept a rosary in his jacket pocket, along with a flask of salted holy water.
Travis considered which weapons might make the most sense at the mine.
He had some altered flash-bangs that could spread salt, powdered silver, and iron flakes, and make a nice little explosion with a loud noise.
He tossed in a couple, mindful of being careful that igniting them wouldn’t cause a bigger fire.
He always carried silver knives in addition to his Glock with silver bullets and a shotgun with rock salt rounds.
Matthew kept him provisioned with essential field medicine supplies, and Travis confirmed that he hadn’t depleted his stock.
When he felt sufficiently prepared, he set the bag aside and turned out the lights.
Mark Wojcik’s words repeated in Travis’s mind as he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, unable to fall asleep. Brent believed something had stirred up long-dormant haunts and turned them dangerous. Mark was convinced that something was hunting the hunters. The two seemed contradictory.
Could both be true, with different entities behind them? he wondered.
More frequent, powerful manifestations endangered the general public, but particularly hunters, who took it upon themselves to stop paranormal threats from harming civilians. Increased confrontations automatically created more opportunities for hunters to get hurt or killed doing their job.
If someone or something was intentionally targeting hunters, the end result was the same.
Hunters didn’t recruit new hunters. Broken people found their way into hunting after something supernatural killed people they loved, and they went looking for vengeance.
That was true for everyone Travis knew who was “in the life,” as hunters called it.
There was no central hunting organization, no formal education, and no union.
Hunters learned from each other, formed friendships and loose alliances, and took care of their own, like with Al’s wake.
Take out too many at a time, and replacing them will take a while.
That could leave a gap unless folks come in from other areas.
But people tend to stick to the region they’re from, for a lot of reasons, Travis mused.
They know the territory, the legends, and sometimes, the cops.
They’ve got side gigs or day jobs. Hard to pull up stakes.
If the spike wasn’t a coincidence, then the question was, what entities were powerful enough to make it happen? CHARON was the most likely candidate, since they were aggressively anti-monster, but playing a long game wasn’t their style. Too subtle.
The possibility remained that an unknown coven or powerful witch might be manipulating the situation for their own ends, either to get rid of hunters they viewed as a threat, or to make the surviving ones more hard-line.
Possible, but seems like a stretch.
Which left Sinistram, an option Travis still considered unlikely. Sinistram’s cadre of specially trained “ninja” priests with arcane abilities considered home-grown hunters to be armed rabble, but didn’t object to using them for cannon fodder.
Sinistram complains about hunters, but they’d actually have to work more without them.
They like feeling superior, but I can’t see them siding with the monsters against humans.
What’s in it for them? They’re a secret organization, so they aren’t going to get famous.
They’re funded by the Vatican, so they don’t need money.
That leaves power—over whom? To do what?
We’re missing pieces, and I’m afraid this is going to bite us on the ass if we’re not careful.
The day’s activities were finally catching up to him. Travis yawned, trying to get comfortable. He wondered whether he would get another vision, something to make sense of what he had seen.
Let’s see what Brent and I can pick up at the wake and get from Mark. Maybe if we all compare notes, someone will have the pieces the others are missing.
But we’d better figure it out soon. These things always have a short timeline, and the clock is already ticking.
He fell asleep in the wee hours of the morning, and while he did not have any visions, his dreams were restless.