Helen
I was bored so I figured I’d head into the national park and kill some of God’s abominations. There’s nothing better than monster hunting. Get outdoors, breathe the fresh air, smell the blood, cut out the good bits from the monsters, then turn them in for cash prizes. Hell, on some planes you can even level up! You can here on the Wyrdtalent Earth: when you kill a monster, you literally absorb its magic and that will make you stronger in time. Sadly, this trick did not work for me. Anything I got from a monster I killed would be temporary; as solace, I was level-maxed or would be if they tracked power that way.
Anyway, I’d gotten the call about the monster from some FBI contacts and I’d grabbed my guns, donned some fashionable hunting gear, and headed out. A bit of excitement and two hours later, I finally neared my objective.
The clouds hid the full moon in the river valley and it was so dark I thought maybe heaven had blown a fuse and there was some dumb angel searching for a flashlight so he could turn things on again. Anyway, no normal person could see the forest floor. Yet I maneuvered through the shrubs and fallen trees as if I knew my path exactly, which was exactly true. A deer turned towards me, looking startled but she stood still as I neared her. I rubbed her head affectionally. She just blinked. I’m an eternal virgin, you see, so animals have trusted and loved me since my Garden of Eden days. There’s a word for that: sucker. If I were hungry, I’d kill the bitch where she stood. As for my virginity, some boy overcomes that regularly; but my virgin state just regenerates and I forget everything about sex. You can kick the girl out of the Garden, but you can’t kick the Garden out of the girl. I’d hunt and kill God for this fucking shit, if only he existed.
As the Sovereign Huntress, my Master of the Forest ability gives me a limited omniscience and some control over all things within a hunting zone. Personally, I prefer being a city girl but my powers prefer forests and jungle rather than the concrete jungles so common on the Wyrdtalent Earth. I’d allied with the city of St. Charles, Colorado but because I lived in a suburb near the national park, my powers granted me command over city and the forest.
I saw the bonfire ahead and headed towards. A group of five young men were huddled around it, though it was a warm night and they were sweating like marathon runners in a jungle.
“Wow, it’s my lucky night,” I said, as I exited the forest. “Cute frat boys, beer, and a bonfire! All we need are marshmallows and condoms! For the record, I love heating up big wieners.”
They hadn’t heard me approach but either had the deer. Unlike the deer, they were immediately startled and three guys who were sitting immediately stood. They were mostly city slickers but one of them had been in the boy scouts for a while. The fire was neatly made, stones placed along the outside, and they’d collected the right kind of deadwood. All the boys had a beer in their hand, courtesy of a very full cooler that was even sweatier than the boys. Good-looking, clean-cut boys. My types, at least at the moment.
“Ah, what are you doing here?” one of the boys said.
“Oh, I’m out hunting,” I said.
“Alone?”
“Hell no,” I said. “I brought guns.” I’d a weapon slung over my shoulder and two big irons on my hips. Yah, like the western. Revolvers. Smith and Wessen Model 500, so magically souped-up I could shoot down trees.
“Are those guns even legal?” asked one of the guys. I placed him as the ex-scout.
“I have a license.”
“Yeah, a hunting license, but that looks like a military assault rifle.”
“More of a battle rifle,” I said.
“And those runes one the barrel look military class.”
“You should see the ammo! But I told you, I have a hunter’s license.”
“You hunt deer with that shit?”
“Oh, I see,” I said. “It’s the blonde hair, you know? I don’t have a hunting license. Well, I do, but I also have a hunter’s license. A monster hunter’s license.”
The group fell silent.
“Aren’t you too young for that?”
“I just turned eighteen but I got my license when I was fifteen. I killed that dragon down in Kansas. Maybe you heard about that. It was on the news.”
“Jesus Christ,” one of the guys said. “You’re that S-class anti-mage, Helen Eden.”
“Fuck. What are you doing here?”
“I was bored,” I said. “Bored, bored, bored. So, I came hunting monsters. You guys see any?”
“They let you carry around military hardware like that?”
“US Army supplied,” I said, in a country accent while saluting a flag that wasn’t there. “True story. Hey, Uncle Sam might need an anti-mage someday. You never know when a terrorist wizard will threaten the US oil supply! Look, I need the big boy-big bore stuff with heavy enchantments. Extremely expensive and, as you said, you need a special license for carrying it.”
The other three boys gulped. Cool. I like my boys afraid of me.
“There’s a monster around here?” asked a guy wearing an Old Navy green t-shirt.
“I told you, there was a werewolf,” the ex-scout said. “We have to be careful.”
“Right, yah, sorry Boyd,” one the Old Navy guy.
Wait, Boyd scout? Hilarious. “You knew about the werewolf but you figured it would be a great idea to come out here for some beers?”
“Hey, we’re not werewolves,” said Old Navy.
“Are you sure? I suppose you should be sure. Since if you were werewolves, wouldn’t I fill you full of enchanted 6.88 mm silver slugs?”
“You wouldn’t just shoot us, right?”
“A werewolf has killed thirty people in Northern Colorado and Southern Wyoming. Any ‘good guy’ werewolves would clear out of this area. Also, legal werewolves wear distinctive magical badges which are like neon lights for someone with my sensory package.”
Several of the boys shifted their feet.
“Want a beer?”
“Oh, corrupting a minor! Good man!” I took the beer. “Gravestone” the beer was called, an imperial stout from some local brewery; it had the picture of a skeleton near a grave on the front of the can. I popped the can and took a whiff. Fearsome smell. I took a swig. Yeesh. Strong stuff, a bit bitter. I liked being seen drinking beer underage more than I liked beer.
“Hey, you’re bleeding!” one of the guys said.
“Oh, wow,” I said, looking at my arm. Sure enough, there was a sizeable gash in the arm and some blood was dribbling down. “Big tough anti-mage. I didn’t notice.”
“I probably have a bandage,” Boyd scout said.
“Nah, it’s OK, I’ll regenerate soon enough. Wouldn’t want my perfect skin scarring.” This was a bitter subject. All the cool kids had tattoos. Me? My body treated the tattoo like a scar and regenerated my skin over and over until the tattoo disappeared. I’d say God doesn’t like his grandkids getting tattoos but as I said, there is no God; it’s all just angelic fascism. Mind you, I’m happy that if I get acid thrown on my face or serious burns anywhere that I heal those lickety-split. If you want consistency, maybe look somewhere besides an eternally teenage girl.
“Shouldn’t you be out hunting the werewolf,” Boyd said.
“Oh, I did hunt the werewolf,” I said. “Damn thing got away. Wrong bullets. It’s the blonde hair, right? I used normal ammunition. All I did was piss the werewolf off.”
“It’s still alive?” Boyd asked.
“Well, yah, obviously. Wrong slugs. Fortunately, I’m great at running away. You know what they say, ‘I don’t have to outrun the lion, I just have to outrun you!’ I feel sorry for the other monster hunters intruding on my kill… Ahem. I mean, I feel sorry for the other monster hunters, I sure hope they got away clean.
“Funny thing about that werewolf, the FBI says it hunted the people with the strongest magical talents it could find. Werewolf avoided juicy looking fat… Er, I mean, the werewolf avoiding more tempting targets in favor of the magically weak. They can’t quite figure it out.”
The boys moved about restlessly. I took another drink of the beer.
“Wow, you guys love shifting about. You could even be described as shifty.” They did not like that. “Now, me, when I kill a monster, I can grab a Gift from it. It’s an awesome ability, very flexible. Now, I’m not terribly interested in magic but I know a spell that steals magic from a victim when I see one. And I can’t help noticing that there’s a pretty complex magical circle around this fireplace.”
“I’m surprised you can see the circle,” Boyd said. “It’s invisible to the naked eye.”
“My eyes are fully clothed! Not really, my eyes are scantily clad. I’d be scantily clad if I could help it but my parents keep taking away all my most risqué clothing. Very annoying.”
“Look, we’re just protecting ourselves from werewolves,” Boyd said.
“I’m sure. As I’m equally sure you didn’t find some poor slob and force him into werewolf form so he could run around killing and collecting powers for you five.” More shiftiness. “Wow, those are some poisonous glares! And speaking of poison, this beer is poisoned as horned toad who just finished eating brown recluse spider and scorpion stew! I’m surprised you guys are still upright...”
“What do you mean poisoned?” Old Navy said.
“The beer,” I said. “Obviously Boyd poisoned the beer.”
“What the fuck?” Old Navy said. He had been sitting on a rock but tried standing upright. He wobbled and then collapsed. The other three guys looked wobbly now. It wasn’t coincidence; the poison had a magical trigger and Boyd activated it.
“You drank that beer too,” Boyd said. I felt the poison, yes, but I was a tough little shit.
“The spell around your fire has what’s called a tontine element,” I said to the dying lads. “Whoever survives, collects all the powers. A part of it is gray magic but mostly its super-Corrupt spell created and cast by someone evil. So, yah, Boyd just used you so he could discard you and kill you.”
Outside I heard a howl.
“It looks like the werewolf has found you,” Boyd said. “You should probably run. You weren’t in this circle when the spell was cast; it won’t protect you. And the werewolf will eat you for sure.”
“You’re cute when you’re optimistic,” I said.
“He’s here now,” Boyd said. “Bye, bye.”
And sure enough, the werewolf burst through the forest and leaped straight towards me.
