Hunters Series -Burn

I was sitting alone at the café waiting, just waiting. I lingered there far longer than I had ever expected to. The coffee in front of me was no longer steaming hot and I had not even taken a sip of it. This was bad, very bad. He never left me this long before tonight. What if he didn’t come back? Or worse, what if he was dead?

I couldn’t think like that. My father had been doing jobs like this since before I was born. One little water demon wasn’t going to keep him down. You see my dad was a demon hunter. No not like the ones that you see on TV that have parlor tricks and fake victims, but real kill because they can demons.

We were always moving from place to place, town to town. I had decided long ago to home school myself while my dad was gone dealing with whatever he had to deal with that day. I got myself through high school a year and a half before I would have if I had been going to a regular school.

I looked up from my untouched coffee and out the front door. The only thing in site was the new fallen snow. I hated it up here in Montana. The lack of population made it easy for a demon to blend in and cause chaos.

The water demon that my dad was looking for had drowned three people in their bathtubs and one in a sink of dish water. We had a theory about how it was getting around, drains. I smiled at the thought of that and couldn’t help but bring a vision of a killer clown crawling up the drains from a film I’d seen many years ago. Sometimes the stories and movies got close, but then added something so strange in that anyone that has really seen a demon laughs at instead of cringes at.

There are two types of demons. One kind walks among us and we would never really know. They look human. These are the ones that no religion or occult can explain. They have “gifts” that they use to cause problems in the world. Sometimes these demons have a reason to do what they do. Maybe they are looking for power or control over others. Most of the time they do their work behind a person of great power, hoping that they will get to the top and then fall off so they can claim the top podium and be the ruler.

Does Hitler ring a bell? He was so into the occult, but couldn’t see that his right hand man was a demon that planned to get him to the top and then take over the world without him. Thank god for demon hunters then. They took out the demon before he could get to the top, but it got a little too close for comfort.

The other kinds of demons are more animal type. They can change their form without any issues and stick to a certain kind of element, like the water demon that my dad was dealing with right now. They could care less about the outside world, and only wanted to feed and live, but they were dangerous and needed to be taken care of.

I heard the bell on the door ring as someone walked into the café’. I looked up and met eyes with a man in his early 50’s.

It was my dad.

His hair was black as coal with streaks of white racing through it. His face was torn with wrinkles as if he was a lot older than he was.

I smiled at him as he walked to me, but he waved me back and sat across from me in the other seat.

“What happened?” I asked as though I had never known what he does.

“It got away this time, but I think I know where it’s headed.” He started and ended right there. I hung on the words waiting for more, but that was all he offered to me. I had learned a long time ago that if he chose not to tell me something, then there was probably a good reason.

“You're going to go stay with your aunt Paige for a little while.” He didn’t look at me while he spoke. “She lives pretty close to here and you won’t have to wait in café’s for me to show back up.

When he mentioned staying with my aunt, I knew that it was bad. Yes chasing down demons every day was dangerous, but something in the way that he said this chilled me.

“I can go with you. I’m old enough and I know a lot more than you think.” I was moving to try and look into his eyes but he wouldn’t let me.

“No. I never wanted this life for you. Hell, I didn’t want this life for me either, but that’s just not how it happened. I can still keep you from it and keep you safe. I don’t care how old you are.” He raised his head to meet my eyes.

“People die every day from these things and you will not be one of them. You’ll go to college, like your mother wanted for you.”

There was no point arguing about it now. He had his mind made up and I just had to deal with it.

“Is that all that you’ve had?” he asked nodding at my untouched coffee. I nodded and he ushered the waitress to us. “Can we get a couple cheeseburgers and cokes still or is it too late?”

The waitress, a round woman that couldn’t be more than thirty years old, stopped taking notes on her pad and looked at him. “Sure, you can get those. It will be about ten minutes till their done.”

My dad nodded at her and she walked away. “You look just like her.”

“Who?” I asked confused by the change in topic.

“Your mother. I wish that she could see how smart you have become.” He was smiling a little when he said this. I knew what he meant though. The blonde hair and the thin frame that had only came from one person.

My mother.

The waitress came with our food and then turned on her heels and left us. I looked down at the burger that was in front of me and thought about things. Why is my dad so set on sending me to my aunt’s place for awhile? Something must have happened that was worse than I thought.

“When do I have to go to Paige’s place?” I asked him looking into that burger, deciding if I should eat it or not.

“I’ll take you after we get done here. It’s only an hour’s drive or so.” He started to eat his burger like nothing was wrong.

“Great” I sighed.