HOWL - Hunter's Moon

UNNAMED ROAD NEAR GOLF COURSE

FLATWOODS, KENTUCKY - PRESENT DAY

Dove sighed as she checked the time on her phone, before turning flipping the keys in the ignition and removing them, casually tossing both objects into the seat beside her. After the conversation with Dr. Thomas, she was pretty damn sure she had a case on her hands, but she wanted to be absolutely sure the girl was worth saving. The recording she’d been sent was...strange. The girl claimed to see what could be described as hellhounds, but what she was seeing was...well...their shadows, was the easiest way to put it. The outlines she described were more akin to what one could see through some blessed eyewear.

Not that she needed it, but that was a whole ‘nother story.

Besides her phone and keys, there also sat in the passenger seat a styrofoam container, which contained approximately half a severely underdone burger with the works, most of the fries and a tub of ketchup ready for dipping. The meal had been procured at one of the local diners a town or two over. She reached for it and cracked it open just as her stomach gave a quiet, discontented rumble.

“Yeah, yeah...quiet, you…,” she grumbled, then picked up the slightly greasy, slightly bloody mess and took a deep bite, briefly flashing a double-set of canines. It was one of the only obvious characteristics that set her apart from human hunters and she was careful not to eat around them because of their generally distrusting nature. She had met a few in her time that she liked and kept contact with, but every five or ten years or so, she had to drop all her human contacts and start from scratch in a new area. That was how it had always been, and until the foreseeable future, that was how it was safe to stay.

A low rumbling sound echoed from her throat unbidden as she chewed the morsel, greasy blood running down her chin. She made a quick swallow, then licked at the rivulet, but didn’t quite get all of it, so she grabbed a napkin and wiped her copper skin clean. While most people didn’t really get a chance to ask (and most didn’t have the nerve), her favorite part of the barely-raw burgers she preferred was always the slightly wilted tomatoes and how they melted into the patty and the cheese. Of course, depending on the person and her mood, she’d just fake it and tell them the raw meat in the patty was the best. It was what they wanted to believe regarding her kind, and indulging them in that way always led to some amusing reactions.

Dove checked her phone again with the napkin-shielded hand - getting grease off of electronics was always a bitch - and tossed it back. Two minutes had gone by since she checked it last...which was good. It meant she could finish her burger before the doctor showed up and avoid freaking her out. While it was hilarious, she hadn’t sounded as though she were in the mood.

Given the woman was sometimes not a woman, she wasn’t entirely sure what shape Dr. Sarah Thomas would show up in. Shapeshifters could be shifty, even the ones you knew well, though she’d known this sometimes-woman for many years longer than her stash of human hunters, and knew her/him to prefer to keep his/her hands clean of anything involving their strangeness...The Supernatural.

Her phone chimed as she started noshing on some fries and she glanced at it, using a clean pinkie to check the text. Crow had sent her a link from some forum…’Read...it’? ‘Red...dit’? Something. He was more in tune with the various nooks and crannies of the internet. The following text was as follows.

‘UR famous n thR circles, obvs.’

‘Hntrs found th internet! 😂’

Dove smirked and clicked the link he provided. It was a hunter’s journal pasted to one of the Read-it sub-forums called...NoSleep? It wasn’t terribly long and she could use the entertainment while she ate.

As her eyes rolled lazily over her phone’s screen, pausing occasionally to line up her burger or a handful of fries with her mouth, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise. With every word she inhaled, she became more and more uneasy. He’d changed the name for privacy reasons, but left in most of her major identifiers and was quietly cursing her mother’s heritage for her full lips and pretty blue eyes stuck into an otherwise Native face.

She remembered that particular hunt, too. It had only been a couple of months ago, but she saved the guy from his rougarou half-brother who’d just turned and was about to sink his teeth into him, but that wasn’t what the story was about. With no family, he turned to the lore and started hunting, himself. Briefly in the first few paragraphs, he’d described having just completed a wendigo hunt - no small feat for a solo-hunter, that was for sure - when he’d caught wind of a nest of vamps in Oklahoma. She remembered that reunion well, too. Lots of alcohol had been involved, but he’d been a total gentleman about it.

It described their hunt to a tee, skipping over the boring research parts, but including the FBI impersonating bits, among other things that would be highly incriminating if word got out and all this was connected to him. She paused about half-way through the story when she realized she’d already wolfed down (heh) the remainder of her meal. Quickly, albeit a little roughly, she ripped open her glove compartment, grabbed a few cucumber-scented baby wipes, and mopped her hands down, as well as the back of her phone and wherever she’d put her greasy paws while eating, then closed up the styrofoam container - now containing the used wipes - neatly and tossed it into the side seat again.

She went back to the story on her phone, backtracking briefly before she found her place again. The writer - he called himself Henry in the story, but his real name was Howard, from a podunk town in South Carolina - went on, describing the cabin-in-the-woods scenario. He even mentioned feeling scared for her own safety, which she scoffed at but continued reading. He was wrong about it, and the chilling part was that he seemed to know it, even before they bust down the door.

Now, Dove had thought that he’d been knocked out shortly into the fight. They’d come through the door and straight into a trap. A pair of baseball bats came down on their skulls, and she was pretty sure she’d heard the crunch of his. They both dropped like sacks, but she’d come around much sooner. They had been arguing about eating or turning him - according to the story he was barely conscious of - and that had been her own mistake; she thought he was out for good. Vamps liked to truss up their victims and then taunt them before chowing down. They’d been in the process of tying him down when she...let a portion of her other side out.

The fight had been one-sided, entirely in her favor. They hadn’t expected it and by the time teeth and claws were flying, he had been fully awake. Dove covered her mouth in silent horror as he described the vision of his hunting partner dancing about like a deadly whirlwind, decapitating vampires left and right, eyes aglow in the dim light. He then confessed to feigning unconsciousness when everything fell still. She remembered going around the room and checking for survivors, glad to find none, before going to him. In the story, he admitted his fear at being eaten - or worse - by her and she felt a familiar jab of pain shoot through her chest not unlike a dagger stuck to the hilt and twisted.

She’d picked him up and carried him over her shoulder outside before she went back in and torched the place. Another confession: he’d been too scared to try and run or fight her. Dove admittedly felt gutted, but continued reading.

He described how he feigned waking up as she left the cabin, now roaring with flames and how her blue eyes glowed in her silhouette...how frightening she looked...but as she knelt, his mind changed. Dove recalled kneeling over him, checking him for other injuries, for bites or marks that needed tending. He only had the cut on the back of his head where the skin had ruptured on his scalp from the blow. He described in his story how gentle she was and how concerned. She helped him to her truck and drove them back to the motel, where she patched him up. His story ended with some thoughts about his road so far, and how she seemed like a blessing, even like a guardian angel, though he was at a loss to describe what kind. By this point, he was aware of the whole situation with angels and demons, but still speculated that despite the fear she instilled, that she was still a friend...but that he was still willing to slay her if need-be.

Dove dropped the phone into her lap and leaned her head back into her seat, groaning a little as she sighed. She’d rather liked Howard. He was a good hunter, picked up new skills like kids did with candy or spare change, and was far better with computers than she’d ever hoped to be. It was a shame she’d have to remove him as a contact. She sat back up, scooped up her cell and flipped through her contacts. Instead of changing his name, she added a tag, ‘Do Not Contact.’ As she completed the task, she flipped through her contacts list, frowning as she counted the steadily increasing number of hunters she was blacklisting. At this rate, it was starting to look as though she’d have to move regions again and drop her contacts, as painfully soon as it seemed to be.

She pulled up her chat messenger with Crow’s log and typed. ‘I liked Howard, too.’ He responded instantly.

‘I thawt it wz Henry?’

She shook her head, rolling her eyes briefly. ‘I was there. I know his name. It’s Howard. Anyway, add him to the DNC list.’ This time he didn’t respond right away, but the bubble with the ellipses sat on her screen for a minute. She wondered if he was thinking of saying something, but then it went away. A split second later, he replied.

‘Did U c th comments?’

Dove frowned, typing a quick, ‘No,’ before switching screens back to the link he’d provided and scrolled down a little further. There were over 150 comments on it already and her brows popped at the first few.

‘Damn. Dove is so cool. You should hunt with her more often!’ Well. Alright. That’s...not bad. Too bad it wasn’t ever going to happen again...but let’s check the others.

‘Holy shit! She sounds hot! Send me her number!’ Needless to say there were some relatively upset folks responding to that one. After rolling her eyes and briefly glimpsing her own brain, she continued.

‘She sounds like a werewolf. Did you do the silver check on her?’ She clicked on that one to open a slew of replies, the topmost was Howard’s. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I didn’t get to. I never suspected her of being one of those.’ Dove frowned and bit her lip, but kept reading through the comment tree.

‘Does she eat hearts?’ appeared a handful of times. ‘Does she eat regular food?’ happened once or twice as well. He responded tactfully each time, ‘We didn’t get a chance at a meal.’ Dove rolled her eyes and snorted. She’d made sure she didn’t eat around people she couldn’t fully trust, most especially hunters. They always got nervous around her raw-food diet. Well, okay, she wasn’t being entirely honest; they were nervous about the raw-meat part of her diet.

She continued to scroll through the comments, but found herself distracted when a car pulled up. Some older-model silver Mercedes rolled up the dirt path and rumbled to a halt nearby. She clicked her phone off, spying a familiar young man driving the car.

Dove slipped out of her truck just as the kid put his vehicle into park. He left it idling as he got out and she approached the driver’s side around the front.

“Hey Doc,” she greeted, shaking his sweaty hand.

The disguised Sarah Thomas exhaled nervously as he glanced around. In the skin of a young prep-school boy from the late 80’s with a shock of curly hair, his nervousness seemed projected tenfold, written all over his face and in his body language. “Hey Dove. Glad you could make it.” Dove bobbed her head as he pulled a box of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one up, taking a deep inhale before leaning against the Mercedes.

“Yeah, you don’t look like shit or anything,” Dove teased with a laugh, then stuck her hands into the pockets of her fur-lined brown leather bomber as she joined in leaning against the vehicle, settling against the hood. Doc Thomas responded with a grunt, then opened the driver’s side door, leaning in to grab a thick folder full of notes. When he closed the door again, he looked over her warily, exhaling a puff of smoke through his nostrils.

“I had these copied in a hurry. Michelle, my receptionist...she wouldn’t leave any faster...so yeah, I’m a little late and some of the pages might be fudged. Sorry,” he responded, quite short, but hesitant to hand over the folder, even as Dove held her hand out for them. Briefly, the doctor jerked them back.

“Don’t go hunting Haylee. Okay? She’s not the target.” Dove frowned, confused, but kept her hand steady, open and waiting.

“Well so far I don’t have any reason to hunt her. If there’s a demon in town here to collect souls, I’ll kill him and burn his contracts. Easy as pie,” Dove said, her stomach rumbling slightly at the mention of pie, despite the meal she’d just scarfed.

Doc Thomas half-glared, as though disbelieving. Dove’s hand dropped briefly in exasperation.

“Look, how many jobs have I done for you that didn’t pan out? I come every time you call. I might as well be a damned lap dog, Thomas. You have my word, Haylee won’t be harmed.”

His glare seemed to ease as he took another handless puff of his cig before he relented and put the folder in her hands.

“Listen...Dove...I’m attached to this one. I know this one. She might as well be...my neice or something. Haylee would never make a deal with a crossroads demon...but what scares me the most? They’re still targeting her...and she can see them.”

Dove glanced at her friend as he shivered and babied his cigarette, having already flipped the folder open. Gently, she placed a firm hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently.

“Hey…,” she said softly, barely drawing his attention. “I’m not like the other hunters, okay? You know that. I’ll be careful with her...and if necessary, I’ll protect her.”

She squeezed Doc Thomas’s shoulder again, giving him a subtle shake as he laughed a little and she dropped her hand.

“Hey...Dove?” He paused for a moment, giving a half-smile. “You’re one-in-a-million.” Dove grinned and shrugged off the dated compliment.

“So…” She looked back down at the folder, over the many notes from their dozens of sessions over the years. “Give me the low-down on Haylee Marie Quinn.”

Doc Thomas nodded, exhaling another cloud before he started.