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James’s Note: I’ve been excited to get to this story for a while, partially because it’s about vampires. I always loved Dracula, but really got into a role playing game, Vampire: the Masquerade, when I was in college. It had some awesome stories, but also some tropes I just thought were dumb. Just like the last story, this is my rebuttal to the modern fantasy genre.

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Anton straightened his improbably charming bow tie. He was finally back on familiar footing. “ You see Witcherman, my employer’s brother was just murdered.”

Anton just dropped that fact in the middle of the conversation and let it lay there like a dead wildebeest. I knew exactly who his employer was, and I knew who his brother was. They were both elder vampires, the kind with a capital E. And while I wouldn’t call their power incalculable, you would probably have needed several whiteboards and an abacus to calculate it properly. If someone had managed to kill a vampire with the power to be considered a tactical level demigod, this was probably going to spell bad news for the city.

Anton looked smug. I didn’t begrudge him that. His authoritative recapture of the conversation was his little revenge for me making him wait.

“Let me guess. Your boss wants me to find out who did it?”

“Oh no,” Anton said briskly, “ Master Moragain knows full well who killed his brother. What he needs from you is proof to present to the other elders so there will be no misunderstandings when he retaliates.”

That absolutely sounded like vampire logic to me. 

It would be unfair to say that I didn’t like vampires. That would just be racism. No, what I didn’t like about vampires was that most of them firmly believe they were the most important being in the universe. Sometimes it seems like narcissistic personality disorder may be a side effect of their undead transformation.

That’s not true of course, because some vampires are perfectly reasonable. Much like with werewolves, it’s just a toxic culture. The elder vampires brutally control the younger ones in the name of protecting the species. Part of what props up the system is that every vampire dreams of someday becoming an elder. Ultimate tyrannical power sounds just fine as long as you get to wield it.

The problem is, the elder vampires have a point. When vampires are allowed to feed on humans without restriction, you can end up with all kinds of Lost Boys, Elizabeth Bathory, Blood-pocalypse nonsense. The younger vamps are controlled by fear and ambition, two things most of them have in abundance.

“Alright,” I said, “I’ll look into it, but on my terms. I go where I want, I talk to who I want, and I ask any questions I want. If he hires me, he’s paying for the truth. I’m not going to take his money just to amen whatever perception bias his blood-soaked gray matter may have dreamed up. Also, he’s going to have to pay out the undead rectum.”

Anton inclined his head with the sort of classy tolerance that I’m sure could become infuriating with enough time. “My master wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24

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Sharon’s Note: It’s a lot of fun to write a character who isn’t nice. Not evil, just not nice. It gives me the licence to make the character do some really fun things. Warning: Author hoping you’re having as much fun as she is.

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I jab Clarissa right in the jaw. Her head rocks slightly, but that’s all I get my sore knuckles. Her wide eyed look of horror is much more satisfying. 

“You hit me!” She wails. 

“You hit her.” Max echoes. He’s gone from vicious guard dog to confused puppy. 

“Hell yeah, I hit you.” I point over my shoulder at my sopping wet back. “You threw hot coffee at me. You try anything like that again and I’ll beat your face in with a base ball bat, you got it?”

The crowd is creating a low level wall of noise behind me. Clarissa’s eyes start to water. She nearly crashes into her cronies in her haste to run away. I don’t know what she’s so upset about. I have bruised knuckles and a scalded back. She doesn’t even have a mark.

“You are kind of violent, huh?” Max asks. The cronies are following their mean girl queen, and the crowd must have sensed that the spectacle was over, because they are breaking up. They’re still eyeing me, but I think I see a little respect now. 

“So?” I look him square in the eye. “You want to make something of it?”

“Not if I’m going to get hit for it.” He grins at me. Weirdo. Cute weirdo. 

I shake my head. Nope. I am not succumbing to the charms of the human puppy.

“Whatever. Do you know anywhere around here I can get a clean shirt? In the main office, maybe? Speaking of which, where are all the teacher? Someone should have seen this.”

“They kind of leave us to our own devices.” Max is shifting around like he’s standing of fire ants. I don’t think he realizes that he’s a terrible liar. “Reporting this would only draw attention to the fact you punched her. If you need a shirt, you could barrow my gym shirt.”

As weird as this town acts around strangers, they’d definitely take bottle-blond’s side over mine. And a spare shirt is a spare shirt. 

“Yeah, thanks.” Max whips a gray tee-shirt out of his bag. I hold it up and it’s about two sizes too big for me, but a shirt is a shirt. He points me to a bathroom and have just enough time to change and stow my wet shirt in my locker before the bell rings. 

Of course there are a group of people in front of my locker. They are definitely a group, all dressed in black, though their style ranges from corsets and lace to safety pins and leather. The guy leaning against my locker looks like he just walkers off the broadway production of Grease, minus the pompadore. 

“Excuse me, you’re on my locker.” I point behind the Danny-Wannabe. The group goes quiet, seemingly startled that I dare speak to one of them. 

“I heard we were getting a new student.” Wannabe is grinning at me in an almost cartoonishly predatory fashion. “What’s you’re name?”

“April. And you?” The rest of Wannabe’s group looses interest in us and go back to their conversations. He is still in front of my locker and I am fairly certain the bell is going to ring any second now.

  “I’m Noah.” He holds out his hand just as the bell rings. 

I take his hand and shake it bruskly. He raises an eyebrow and smiles like I’m amusing. 

“Yeah, nice to meet you, but I really need to get to my locker. Could you please move?” His friends were already gone, but he just stands there staring at me.

“On one condition.” I think he’s trying to purr. He’s definitely trying to be suave. It isn’t working. 

I . . .

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James’s Note: Here it is, the next adventure of Daniel McAllestor, Witcherman. It’s another supernatural detective tale, full of snarky dialogue and high action. If you haven’t read the first story, don’t worry, this one stands on its own. It has vampires, deadly gardens, and murder most foul. What else could you want?

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The vampire watched me make a rather obscene gesture at my bees. In my defence, they were being assholes. He was looking over my shoulder as I dealt with the hive, apparently not worried about getting stung. 

This would have been a dangerous move on his part, as this was one of my problem hives, except that the bees would have better luck stinging a pork chop than a vampire. My bees couldn’t hurt him even if they wanted to. Well, not these bees anyway.

“I don’t mean to interrupt, but what precisely are you trying to do?” Anton’s voice was fussy and precise. The same could be said about pretty much every element of Anton’s appearance, from his hair to his immaculate bow tie. I never could decide if his appearance was more heavily weighted to the nerdy, or the stylish.

All of this style was unfortunately concealed by the anti sun gear he had to wear. The sun had mostly set, but there was still more than enough light to turn anything but the most powerful vampire into a crispy critter. 

Anton was wearing what was undoubtedly a designer overcoat that went down to his knees, gloves that probably went to his elbows under the coat sleeves, a sleek balaclava with close fitting dark shades, and a broad-brimmed hat that was probably the height of style in World War II. Somehow, he managed to make it look classy.

I sighed. I love talking about my agricultural endeavors, but people kept asking me questions they didn’t really want the answer to and for some reason, I kept giving them.

“I’m currently trying to incite a revolution. Most of my hives are very docile. You could almost pet some of the bees as long as you’re not actually jacking with the hive. I breed them that way because I don’t like having to use a bee suit. That’s because after you take off a bee suit, it smells like it’s been worn by an overweight rhinoceros who ran a marathon while eating garlic sandwiches.”

Anton looked politely perplexed. “What do you mean revolution? I thought bees were controlled by their queen?”

Against all likelihood, the vampiric underling seemed genuinely interested in my bees. I found myself warming to Anton in spite of myself.

“Well, the queen controls the hive but not in the way everybody thinks. It’s mostly her genetics that do the work. As the mother of the hive, the bees share her temperament. The problem with this hive is that they just got a new Queen and she has an attitude problem.” I pointed to the three red ribbons hanging from the hive box.

“Every time the bees boil up and attack me, they get a red ribbon. Three strikes, and the queen is out. That’s why I’m here inciting regicide.”

Anton nodded like this was the most reasonable explanation he ever heard. “I can understand that, but why not just kill the queen yourself? Can the bees even actually kill their Queen?”

“Oh, I could definitely kill her for them. In fact, that’s what normal beekeepers do. But I prefer to keep things as natural as possible. Besides, if I don’t teach them to rely on themselves, they’ll never learn to stand on their own six legs.”

Anton was actually following along. 

“I do remember reading that bees die when they sting. So doesn’t that mean that toppling their queen costs them their lives?” he asked. I was really starting to think there might be more to Anton than met the eye.

I smiled at Anton, despite my general rule against smiling in the presence of vampires. It just encourages them. “That’s absolutely correct. It would kill them to use their sting on her, so that’s why they don’t. They burn her to death instead.”

I detected actual interest in Anton’s raised eyebrow. “How precisely do they manage that?”

“They do something called fireballing. All the homicidal workers who decide to kill the queen, usually when she can’t lay anymore, get together and swarm her. They then begin to vibrate raising their temperature until the center of the ball is hot enough to cook the queen alive. It’s one of the reasons why bees are mystically associated with fire. Then, the nurse bees make a new Queen.”

Anton looked like the idea of bees being able to burn someone to death disturbed him in a way he had trouble articulating. If he only knew. 

“So the bees can make a new Queen whenever they like?”

“Basically, yeah. What the nurse bees feed the larvae determines what they become. They can turn them into drones, workers, or even queens. They feed them something called royal jelly for that. You see, everyone always thinks the power resides with the queens. The real power is in the hive.”

“And you’re just politely asking them to kill their Queen?”

“There’s nothing polite about it. These little bastards are being stubborn. Not out of any loyalty to her mind you, but just because they’re as cantankerous as she is.”

I straightened up, brushed off my pants, and turned to Anton. “But I can finish this another time. You’ve actually been ridiculously understanding and unfailingly polite, so lay it on me. What brings you so far from your natural habitat?”

Anton straightened his improbably charming bow tie. He was finally back on familiar footing. “ You see Witcherman, my employer’s brother was just murdered.”

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James’ note: You decided to take it off road. Let’s hope your mudding skills are on point.

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Screw it. They want you, they can come and get you. 

You punch the accelerator and make a run for the break in the tree line. You kick it in four wheel drive, make a hard right, and dive through the ditch.

The ditch is deep, but your jeep rolls in and out of it like a surfer on a wave. You pat the dashboard.

“Good girl”

As you tear through the overgrown field, you look in your rearview mirror. A pack of vehicles explode off the roadway.

You hear a crash and see a plume of steam, or maybe smoke, rise up as a sedan doesn’t make it through the ditch.

You risk a look over your shoulder as you make a hard left down a glorified cow path through the pine trees. It looks like there’s two trucks still on your tail. You hear a high pitch whine, and see a dirt bike coming up fast behind them.

Crap, that guy is going to be hard to lose.

You break out of the tree line again into what looks like an overgrown cow pasture. The fence still looks in surprisingly good shape, but thankfully the gate doesn’t.

Your Jeep slams through the rusted tube metal like a rampaging bull, and you say a prayer of thanks for the rhino guard your father installed on the front of your Jeep.

One of the trucks shoots the gap in the fence behind you, but the other one tries to blast through the barbed wire.

It breaks through all five strands, but you hear the blast as one of its tires blows out. The rear end of the truck jerks hard to one side as the barbed wire entangling its axle pulls it up short.

One down, two to go, you think to yourself.

You grab the pistol and try taking a few shots out your window. It makes a terrible noise, but you’re pretty sure your bullets landed in Kansas or something. This is a lot harder than the movies make it seem.

Up ahead, like a miracle from Heaven, you see a huge drainage ditch. It’s got to be a good 10 ft deep, at least a couple times that wide, and muddy as hell from the recent rains.

Hell yeah. Let’s see them follow you in there.

You plummet down the side of the ditch, letting off the accelerator and steering hard to keep from rolling.

When you hit the bottom, all four wheels catch, and you throw a rooster tail of mud as you plow for the other side.

Just as you hit the far wall of the ditch, dropping into low gear to climb your way out, the other truck hits the ditch trying to follow you.

Turns out, he’s too top-heavy and no match for your Jeep, as he hits the angle wrong and rolls down the side, landing upside down.

You’re just about to punch the roof of the jeep in victory, when you hear that high pitch whine again. With a familiar sinking feeling in your gut, you look back and see the dirt bike gunning it right for you.

No fucking way, you think to yourself, as he hits the raised embankment and catapults into the air.

The bike streaks across the ditch like a comet, the rider landing hard on your side. After a quick slide, the engine revs and he’s back on your tail.

Your stomach is a hard ball of fear and anger.

Fine, this bastard wants you, he can have you.

You kick off the four-wheel-drive and shift into high gear. The Dirt bike revs, and accelerates, gaining on you.

You look in the rearview mirror and grin. All-in-one motion, you drop back into low gear and slam the brakes.

Your pursuer clearly wasn’t expecting that. He skids and steers hard to miss slamming into your back bumper. As he shoots past you, you kick it back into high gear.

He manages to regain control of the bike, slowing down so he can whip back around on you. He never gets the chance.

You hit him like a freight train, your Jeep rolling over him and his bike like a speed bump.

Now you punch the roof in victory. It’s a good 10 minutes before your whole body stops shaking.

After a bit of driving around, you manage to find a road again. Thanks to the maps your dad packed in the Jeep, you figure out which one it is, and get pointed back to the deer camp in Arkansas.

Pulling off the road again, you eat some of your rations, and catch a few Z’s in your Jeep.

You sleep longer than you intended, but you almost feel like a human again when you’re finally ready to get back on the road.

What do you do now?

 

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Sharon’s note: High school supernatural romances are a guilty pleasure of mine, but I can admit that most of them are pretty bad. Let’s all have a little fun with them, shall we? It’s another choose your path story. Make sure to hit vote! Warning: This could get a little silly.

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Weird things I have witnessed thus far:

1. Sable Fields has way too much night life for its size. There are less than ten thousand people in this town and more than half the businesses are open 24/7.
2. Even the high school keeps strange hours. It has day and night classes scheduled more like college classes that run late into the night. Who does that?
3. I previously lived in a small town. I know what small town mentality looks like, complete with the mistrust of strangers. This place is ridiculous. People will literally turn and stare at you if you walk into the diner. 
4. The only non-chain restaurant in town is a diner called Lunar Noir and it’s  run by an extremely hairy, extremely creepy french dude. 

None of this matters to my parents, who insist that I am being overly dramatic and will learn to love the town in time. I think that they are being willfully blind and we were all going to die at the hands of a small town cult.

All that said, leaving the house for school after four p.m. is kind of cool. It’s a fifteen minute walk through a small, but neat suburb. I can just see the school down the road when someone bowls into me. 

“Whoa, sorry!” A hand locks around my wrist to stop me from falling. My silver charm bracelet digs into my skin. I find myself diagonal to the ground for a moment before being yanked back onto my feet properly. Big brown eyes blink rapidly at me before I take a step back. The human incarnation of a sheep dog is shifting from foot to foot right in front of me. He wrings the strap of his backpack with one hand and rubs the other on his pant leg like I’d stung him.

“Thanks, I guess.” Now I’m the one shifting awkwardly. It’s not often I literally run into cute guys. I’m not sure what the protocol is for these situations. 

“You okay?” He dips his head, letting a mop of dirty blond hair hang over his eyes. He peers at me sideways and I am even more reminded of a dog.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, but I should head to school. I don’t want to be late on my first day. “

He perks up. “Yeah. You’re the new girl, huh? Your name is April, right? I’m Max.”

He thrusts a hand out for me to shake. Yep. Max the human sheepdog. 

“Nice to meet you.” I shake the offered hand stiffly. New people are not my thing. 

“Well, come on. I’ll walk with you.” He walks a few steps ahead and looks back at me expectantly. Unsure of how to decline, I fall into step beside him. I guess that after nearly running me over the least he could do is walk me to school.

The campus is a lot more open than I’m used to. The buildings are boring gray squares of cinder block, but the grounds are nice. People are eyeing me suspiciously, but possibly less so with Max next to me. 

A group of girls give me a particularly strong stink eye as I pass. The way the bottle-blond whose roots are showing is looking back and forth between me and Max, I’m betting that this particular glare has less to do with who I am than who I’m with. She takes a long drink from the coffee cup she’s holding and I’m glad when we pass her by. 

Scalding hot liquid hits my back and I scream. I spin on my heel to see the girls laughing at me while Bottle-Blond holds her now empty cup. 

Max is suddenly by my side and bearing teeth at Bottle-Blond. “What the hell are you doing, Clarissa?”

“Oh, sorry. My hand slipped.” She puts a hand to her mouth in blatantly fake mortification and doesn’t even bother trying not to laugh. 

“Apologise. Now.” Max takes a threatening step forward. There had been some light snickering among the other students when I’d gotten splashed. They aren’t laughing now. Clarissa’s look is melting from cockiness to fear.

I . . .

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Sharon’s Note: People have the potential to be incredibly heroic. They just aren’t always smart about it. Warning: For want of a nail. . .

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“Give me a second, and I’ll let you know.” I said out loud.

“What was that, Joy?” Mike was suddenly at attention. He was the team leader, and took his responsibility seriously.

“Hey guys, I just got in and haven’t had a chance to look at stuff. Report.” I started clicking through all the reports for the night. Marion had a short fuse, but he always did his paperwork.

“Were out at Weeping Lake National Park. Those pig bodies we found out here last month were confirmed to be werewolf kills. Looks like someone if trying to manage their beast by letting hunt somewhere safe. We didn’t find anyone entering the park, but this place is huge. The plan is to just let them run tonight and then scoop them up in the morning to have a heart to heart about proper werewolf safety.” I nodded as Mike went over a fairly standard plan.

“Ok, guys. I’m making a call. Arm up. Let me do just a last sweep for possible threats and I’m sending you to back up Shanda’s team. They have a definite werewolf.” I did one more glance at the map of the park to make sure I wasn’t leaving anything vulnerable. It was a risk to just leave a werewolf running around a national park, but I wasn’t about to send my team into a forest after a werewolf alone. It was a death trap.

“By the time you give the go, we’ll be ready.” Mike chuckled. He sounded ready for some action. 

I’d looked over the maps for this park before. During the summer, the park was usually pretty busy with campers and people renting the various pavilions. It was September. Technically it was still plenty warm enough to camp, but nobody did this time of year. School was in session and hunting season was months away. I didn’t see any notes mentioning rentals or anything like that. There was a cluster of buildings that used to be a summer camps by the man-made lake, but they had closed down in . . . wait a second.

Yesterday I had gone grocery shopping. I always glance at the fliers in the window in case there’s a local gun show coming up. There had been a colorful notification in the window mentioning the camp. I checked the social media pages for the camp, since any event they had would be posted there. My heart stuttered as I read a posting announcing a family reunion being held all weekend at the camp. Tonight was the second night and on the posted itinerary was a moonlight hike. Oh, hell.

“Mike, we got a problem.” I was looking for more information as I spoke. “Someone dropped the ball. We got people at the summer camp.”

“Well, crap. Ok. We’ll get over there and defend the camp, then.” Disappointment laced his voice.

“You can defend everyone who’s in the camp.” I laughed bitterly. “Some of them decided to take advantage of the lovely weather and go for a moonlight stroll.”

“No.” Mike’s voice perfectly portrayed the dread I was feeling. “Shit. We have to go in after them.”

I sat up straighter in my chair. “No you do not. Trying to go after a werewolf in the woods like this on the full moon is suicide. You’re going to get your team killed.”

“If any of them don’t want to go in, they can stay and guard the cabins. I am not going to let a bunch of civilians, probably with kids, get turned into dog food.” I could hear talking away from the headset. They were arming up.

“God damn it, Mike! This isn’t protocal!” I hissed, trying to think of something that would work. 

“If we were good at following rules, we wouldn’t be hunters.” Ethan chuckled and I could hear the rest of the team join him.

“Everyone is helping Shanda’s team. If you go out there, there won’t be any backup.” I closed my eyes, heart in my throat. 

“Those people out there don’t have any back up.” Mike sighed. “No one but us.”

I started to protest again, but the coms went dead.

Hard Hunting
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James’s Note: There were two inspirations for this poem. One was something that happened to my father in law. He was once pinned down by snipers fire in an undisclosed location where he never officially has been. They called in for assistance, and a A10 Warthog obliterated the enemy position. Which is why he says that is his favorite airplane.

The other is from a book I once read about a man in World War 2. He went around in a jeep armed with nothing but a pair of binoculars and a radio, and yet he reckoned himself the most dangerous man on the battle field. See, he was a forward observer for the artillery, and said his job was to trap German soldiers between an erupting earth and an exploding sky, in a whirlwind of razor blades.

This poem is dedicated to any one who has ever had a prayer answered by high explosives, and anyone who has every been the cavalry that can in when they were needed most.

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The bullets rained down 

Like a hail made of lead

As we dove for the cover,

Our blood running red.

We sent out a call 

Like a wireless prayer,

And we tried to hold out 

Until help could get there.

Then a thunder rolled out 

We could feel in our chests

And it struck down the place 

Where our foes were at rest.

The black hand of God 

Fell on them from on high,

With fire and smoke and 

Death sent from the sky.

We looked up to see

Where the havoc had rained.

The foes were all gone.

Only rubble remained.

We gathered the wounded

And hurried on by 

And sent out our thanks

For the hell from on high.

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James note: So, short of supplies and beset by enemies, you guys decided to go for the loot. You find some good stuff, but the fight might not be over yet.

---

You slump against your Jeep. Part of you wants to go stop the woman who almost got you killed. Part of you just wants to clear the road and get the hell out of here. All of you just wants a nap, and maybe a beer.

You take a deep breath and sigh. You’re stuck in what amounts to enemy territory, with limited supplies and no way to replenish them. Wearier than you’ve ever felt in your life, you head back into the woods. Those guys seem to have some good supplies and it’s not like they’re going to need them anymore.

You snag some rubber gloves from your medkit on the way. You don’t know what kind of diseases these guys might have had and there’s a reason ancient peoples always had taboos against handling the dead.

You go to roll your first guy over and most of his brain matter spills out of his shattered skull. You gag hard, but manage not to throw up. You feel pretty proud of yourself.

By the time you’re done loading the corpses, You Come Away with one revolver, a shotgun, and a couple of Glock 9mms. You find a couple dozen rounds each for the revolver in shotgun, ecstatic to find that the Glock guy had six fully loaded clips on him, not counting the two in the weapons themselves.

You also pick up the knife the guy stabbed into your arm. He stabbed you with it, you figure that makes it yours.

A couple of Bic lighters, two pairs of handcuffs, and a couple rolls of duct tape round out your haul.

Feeling pretty good about yourself, you head back to the Jeep and put away your Spoils of War. You keep one of the clocks on you, just in case.

Turning your attention to getting back on the road, you start trying to clear away the cars that block your path.

Between some good old-fashioned elbow grease and the winch on the front of your Jeep, you manage to make a hole big enough to drive through.

Just as you’re putting this whole debacle in your rearview mirror, you here engines roaring up the road behind you.

“Fuck my life…” 

You think back on the woman you let escape and have a bad feeling that the vehicles coming up on you fast are not unrelated.

What do you do?

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1. The Apocalypse We Chose
          2. Go for the Jeep
          3. Head for the Deer Camp
          4. Approach with Caution, Gun Ready
          5. Take the Fight to the Woods
          6. Loot the Dead

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Sharon’s Note: Well, you asked for it and you got it. Here’s what happens when you ask a vampire to kill you. Warning: Actions have consequences.

---

I stared down at the book in my hand. It looked innocent and harmless now, but a moment ago it had been bleeding and squirming like it had maggots under its skin. It probably was made out of human skin or something. Ew.

I put the book down on the kitchen table and dropped down into the chair. “I’m not good with confrontation, you know.” 

Lorena raised an eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”

“I’m not good with confrontation.” I repeated. “I wouldn’t be here if I was. My first instinct is to run away from things. It always has been.”

“Well, you can’t run away from this.” Lorena snorted. “That book is bound to your body and soul, at least until it manages to switch places with you.”

“With me, you won’t have to run away. I can give you the power to face your problems easily.” For a voice in my head, the book had a lot of tone. It was trying its damndest to be soothing. That can’t have been easy for an evil book.

I caressed the leather, not knowing if I was speaking to it or my landlady. “I know it would be easier to face my problems. Less stress, probably even less trouble in the long run. It just seems so . . .awkward. I can’t stand awkwardness. It brings on the most horrible anxiety. I can’t stand it. I’d rather be in pain than feel awkward. I’d rather die.”

“That’s insane!” The demon book growled. 

“If you’re asking me to do something, say it outright.” Lorena leaned against the counter, eyeing me thoughtfully. “I will have no misunderstandings.”

I took a deep breath while my demon screamed in my head. “I want this over with. I’m done running and I don’t want to fight. Just kill me.”

Lorena crossed her arms. “Is there someone you want to call before we do this? Anyone you want to leave a letter to? I’ll make sure it gets sent.”

“No one.”

“Just tell me one thing.” She held up a finger. “What are you running from?”

I smiled weakly. “Not what. Who.”

“Sounds like there’s quite a story there.” Lorena pushed away from the counter to sit with me at the table. “You want to tell me about it? Maybe I can help.”

“As much as I never thought I would say this, I agree with the vampire. Talk to her.”

It was my turn to snort. “You know the book just agreed with you?”

Her eyes widened. “Well, that’s disconcerting.”

“Yeah.” My vision started to blur and it took me a moment to realize it was tears. “There’s only one way you can help me. I’m not strong enough to resist a demon, but maybe for once my weakness can work for me instead of against me. Get it over with. Please.”

Lorena stood up slowly, like there was a weight on her that hadn’t been there before. 

“No you idiot! Run. Fight! Do something!”

I chuckled to myself as I watched Lorena reach out towards me. I was doing something. I sat absolutely still and didn’t even flinch.

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James’s Notes: And this brings us to the end of our story. Witcher Man means a lot to me. It’s the first longer piece I ever finished and the first I ever really enjoying going back and reading. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as I loved writing it. And don’t worry, there are more stories about Daniel on the way. After all, there’s no rest for the Witcher Man.

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“That was very impressive.” Wolfgang observed with a respectful inclination of his head. 

“Not at all”, Dimitri replied. “He is very inexperienced and doesn’t know how to use his own strength yet. We will make sure that in time he finds his true power.”

Having almost accidentally killed myself trying to keep him from killing me, I admit there was part of me that wasn’t too keen on this guy discovering any more power. But that wasn’t fair, so I kept my mouth shut.

Damien, who was standing at his alpha’s elbow, piped-in. “He ought to be handed over to us to face pack justice.”

The looks he received from both Wolfgang and Dimitri were almost identically icy and full of menace.

Demetris voice was polite and calm but dangerous. “That will not be happening.”

“Of course not,” came Wolfgang’s quick reply. “We of course recognize your right to deal with your own, just as we would expect to deal with ours.” 

The look he gave Damien promised a chewing out later. Possibly literally.

Wolfgang’s people went about securing the scene and making sure that no civilians would end up involved, as I helped Dimitri maneuver the unconscious man into his town car.

“I really appreciate you coming. I might could have handled him, but I probably would have had to kill him, and I really didn’t want to do that.” I sighed heavily, sliding into the passenger side of Demetrius car. 

I really hated having to bum a ride, but my mini was still in the shop. That may have been a little optimistic, as there was a strong likelihood that my mini was totally junked and I would need a new one but I was still hopeful. In his backseat set the bag that carried my shotgun along with several drum magazines loaded with Willie’s special payload. It sat unused and thankfully unneeded.

“Think nothing of it, Daniel. I am glad I was able to find him. He can’t be held responsible for his actions. We’ve all been there. When the Beast first seizes you, it will drive you towards monstrous violence. The only time I’ve ever known of a loup-garou to make it through the change without hurting anyone is when there was no one there to hurt.”

“So you’ll be taking him back to Petravalt with you?”, I asked. Petravalt was The Enclave that Dimitri ran. A small village of loup-garou that was really more like a monastery. They all live in a remote mountain range in Eastern Europe where they practice controlling their rage, and, as Dimitri was an excellent example of, also learning how to harness it.

“Yes, I hope he will be able to find peace with us there. At least, he will be safe from himself and the world. So, Daniel, how is your garden doing?”

And that was how I dealt with what I put down in my journal as the Case of the Wolf that Wasn’t. No one died, at least not after I got involved, so I counted it as a major win. It turns out that the loup garu’s name was Simon Lancaster. Apparently he is an accountant, showing that the universe has a sense of humor. He sent me a letter from Petravalt. He wanted me to know how sorry he was for attacking me, and even offered to try to pay for a new car. I told him not to worry about it, and to focus on getting his life together. Luckily, he had no family to speak of, so this wasn’t as complicated as it could have been.

The young hunter who I turned into a werewolf is currently apprenticing with Ollie. He has him helping to run the gun shop, a subject he already knows quite a bit about, and learning how to be a free werewolf who answers to no one. Have I mentioned how much I love Ollie?

The tension between the werewolves and vampires has returned to a normal level. Since the giant death machine werewolf battle was the talk of the entire city’s supernatural community, there was no doubt that the murderer had not been performed by one of Wolfgang’s werewolves. Although the leader of the vampires did manage to stick Wolfgang with the cover up and clean up bill. 

Oh well, I guess them’s the breaks if you want to be the top dog. Pun intended.

As for me, my life continues on at it’s usual erratic pace. I’m currently in negotiations with a Knocker I know about putting my Minni back together. Yes, it would be cheaper to replace it than to pay for fairy magic to fix it, but Ohana means family, and family means no one gets left behind.  

My garden is truly a wonder. Radishes beat the soil into submission, making it nice and soft for the tomatoes more delicate roots, while the garlic and marigolds stand guard, sentinels against the insect hordes.

I’ve been plagued by Japanese beetles, an invasive species that is starting to play havoc, but they picked the wrong garden. My secret weapon is almost ready. 

The tarantula in my office is in training to be my ultimate answer in natural pest control. I’m binding him with a minor guardian nature spirit. He’ll have a little more intelligence than spiders are accustomed to, as well as some physical advantages that will turn him into the spider equivalent of Superman. Think of him as a tiny guard dog with superpowers.

As for business, it continues to be good. Or at least as good as it can be, when all my business is by definition bad.

After all, you only call me when you’ve run out of other options. I’ll always be a last resort and I’m okay with that. 

When all hope is lost, and you don’t know what to do, you can always call the Witcher man.

Part 1     Part 2     Part 3     Part 4     Part 5     Part 6     Part 7     Part 8     Part 9     Part 10
Part 11    Part 12    Part 13     Part 14     Part 15     Part 16     Part 17     Part 18     Part 19
Part 20     Part 21    

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