The Awesome (2 page)

Good to know.

“I need you to put the vase in the incomplete first circle, Mr. Richmond,” Mom said. Ronald didn’t look happy about it. As soon as his hands were off the ceramic, he looked like he’d projectile hurl like
The Exorcist
chick on a bender. I retreated a couple feet to avoid heave-range.

“Good. The ghost is fixated on the item, not you, so she will go straight for it when we break the line at the door. You can stand in the second circle for safety if you want. Once she approaches the vase, I’ll complete the circle behind her to trap her. At that point, Mrs. Richmond will need to drop the sheet to block out the light.”

The windows in the room were covered by flattened moving boxes, the edges sealed off with Duck Tape. The aforementioned sheet was tacked above the door, ready to be dropped as soon as a strategically-placed strip of tape was removed. I was on salt-breaking duty and UV duty. I foisted the light to let my mother know I was ready. I’d read all about ghost banishments, and my mother had talked my ear off about them, but the actual doing was way more exciting than secondhand stories. I was so stoked my nipples were hard, like I’d smuggled raisins in my bra.

“... what if she hurts the vase?”

“Shut up, Ronald,” Mrs. Richmond snarled. “I’m not living with that thing any longer than necessary.”

“Stuff it, Missy.”

I coughed into my shoulder, fairly certain if I let out a full-throttle cackle my mother would whale me upside the head with the salt bag.

“All right, let’s do this. Margaret, the salt line please.” I glowered at her to let her know what I thought of her using my full name, and she winked at me, nodding towards the poltergeist. I approached the doorway, extending my leg as far as it would go. The moment my sneaker broke the line, the poltergeist raced past me. I barely got out of her way before she swirled around the vase, trilling and cooing like Gollum with his precious. My mother shook salt onto the floor behind her, but the ghost ignored her, too intent on the vase to notice. Mom double checked her circle then motioned at Mrs. Richmond.

“Let it down, please. Maggie, into the corner. Don’t turn on the light until I say.”

I put my back to the wall, waiting for the darkness. There was a
fwoosh
as the sheet dropped, and the room went black save for the yellowish glow of the ghost. Her spectral hands coursed over the vase, sometimes passing through it, sometimes going solid enough to rock it on its base. Whenever it teetered, Ronald whimpered, sounding a lot like he’d weep again.

What a nerd.

“All right. Go.”

I flicked the switch on the light and waited. The idea behind this particular ghost trap was simple: we recreated the light people saw when they died, giving the illusion of Heaven. Most ghosts were people who missed the afterlife boat the first time around because they were too busy picking their noses or sniffing their armpits to notice. Or, you know, had died so violently they were too freaked out to do anything other than flail. The UV light was bright enough and brilliant enough that it looked celestial in a dark room and, if the ghost
believed
it was the mighty hereafter, that was enough to shepherd them on. Mom said she’d gotten the ultimate pain of a ghost one time who refused to cross over because he liked being a turdburger to the people in ‘his’ house, but that was a rarity. Most spirits wanted peace; they just needed a few theater props to get there.

The poltergeist stopped caressing the vase to ogle the light, drawn like a bug to a zapper. Since she wasn’t writhing, spitting, or hosing anyone down with ecto, I got my first good look at her. She wore old-timey clothes, like maybe she came from the same era as the vase. If that was the case, maybe it had been her most prized possession when she was alive, or maybe it was in the room with her when she died.

I wasn’t given long to ponder it. The poltergeist drifted to the edge of her salt circle and smiled, her hand extending toward the light. She flared bright and expanded, brilliant like a star, and then she poofed from existence, her only remnant a cloud of acrid-smelling smoke.

N
OT TO BRAG
or anything, but it was a pretty fantastic way to start my illustrious spook-hunting career. The Richmonds had their vase back, I’d officially become an apprentice hunter, and Mom was five thousand dollars richer. Sadly, flawless victory didn’t stop Mom from getting on me like a fat kid on cake as soon as my butt hit the passenger’s side seat of the van.

“What’s the first thing I said to you before we left the house this morning?” She demanded, pulling out a pack of Nicorette and stuffing her cheeks until they bulged. I was pretty sure she wasn’t supposed to have four pieces at once, but Mom had been doing whatever the hell she pleased for as long as I could remember, so why would this be any different?

“That the van smelled like a dead dog’s bunghole.”

“Okay, point. What was the second thing I said to you?”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t swear in front of the clients. Look, I’m sorry, but that was the grossest thing, like, ever. It came out before I could stop it.”

She popped Hendrix into the CD player, cranking it loud. The van’s wheels shredded rubber over the Richmond’s driveway. “I get it,” she said, shouting to be heard over the music. “It’s skeevy to be run through. But keep a lid on it next time. The only reason I’m not chewing out your ass is because they were a pair of douchecanoes, and I could give a damn what they think of us.”

“What’s a douchecanoe, Mommy?”

“Don’t know, but it has a ring to it, don’t you think?”

I had to admit, it sorta did.

CHAPTER TWO

S
O, AS
I said earlier, I am not the asskicker folks picture when they hear ‘monster hunter.’ For starters, I don’t own leather pants. “What respectable bad-ass doesn’t own leather pants?” you may ask. This one right here. I don’t own a single pair, and if I did? You wouldn’t want to see me in them. There’d be lumps all over the place and a muffin top that resembles peach cottage cheese.

I also don’t wear tall boots. They’re impractical. Have you ever tried running in anything with heels, or for that matter, anything squeezing your calves like sausage casings? When you fight monsters, you tend to do a lot of short distance sprinting, and if my life depends on my capacity to get out of Dodge, I want sneakers with a good tread and nothing else. You know those horror movies where the silicon-inflated babe totters down the street in stilettos while a werewolf lopes after her at six thousand miles an hour? All I have to say to that is, “Bitch would have gotten away if she’d picked better shoes.”

So, no leather pants, no tall boots. Oh, no wife-beaters or tank tops either because exposing the arms is
stupid
. Monster Z with Huge Claws should have to go through something quasi-dense before it gets to maul my flesh. Call me a wussy, it’s okay! But I am all in favor of being intact at the end of a monster fight, not looking like I was spit out of a paper shredder. Getting raked, clawed, bitten, swiped, and maimed hurts. Inviting further injury by compromising practicality for style is... well it’s stupid, like I said.

What do I wear? Comfortable, broken-in jeans that let me move, a pair of antique sneakers, and a lot of ratty, hoodless sweatshirts. My hair is cut short because long locks give a monster something to grab onto, and I like being handle-free. It’s also brown, like baby crap brown, which is boring but I’m fine with that.

To answer a few of the standard questions about hunters and hunting in general: Can I throw a dagger from three miles away and hit a bullseye? No. Do I own a sniper rifle? No, but Mom does. Can I disconnect a bomb, or for that matter, build a bomb out of Bisquick? No. Sword fighting, no. Scaling walls like Spider-Man, roof jumping, hacking into mainframe computers, making Jason Bourne look like a loser: No, no, no, and maybe on the last, but that’s only in ideal conditions and if he were a vampire.

Well, maybe if he were a vampire.

Okay, probably not if he were a vampire. There was this whole thing about me going on vampire hunts.

“Not ’til you get laid.”

I watched my mother make her twenty-seventh cup of coffee that day and frowned. “Oh, come on! All I need is a fang kill for journeyman and you’re holding me back. Actually, you’re holding
us
back. We’d get better rates if I get certified.”

“Don’t put this on me, kid. You’re seventeen. Most kids your age are getting their sex on. Not my fault you’re holding onto the almighty hymen.” I picked up a spoon and chucked it at her, and she batted it away with a tut, flashing me one of her awful Cheshire Cat grins. “Temper, temper.”

“Where am I supposed to meet kids my age? I’m home-schooled, remember?”

“And whose fault is that, Miss ‘I’m going to beat Joey What’s-His-Nuts’s face against the monkey bars ’til I knock out his front teeth’? Next time you decide to teach someone a lesson, don’t make it the superintendent’s grandson.” She flopped into the computer chair with her coffee, dumping a bunch of powdered creamer into it. “And I’m getting sick of this conversation, Maggie. You know the rules. No sex, no vampire hunt. They’re tough enough to kill without a frenzy.”

The problem with vampires is they love virgins, and not in the biblical humpy-humpy way. They love to eat them. Apparently, they can smell someone’s innocence—unplucked flesh contains the sweetest blood—and when they catch a whiff, they go nuts to get their hands on it. The older ones learn to suppress the urge, but the fledglings... well. It’s ugly. As vamps are stronger and faster than humans, roid-raging them up for virgin blood doesn’t exactly tip the odds in the hunter’s favor, which meant until I did the nasty with a dong of my choosing, I was a liability. Sadly, it had to be flesh in flesh sex to count as a true deflowering, so cheating with a battery operated boyfriend wouldn’t make the trip.

“I could sit in the car while you kill it,” I said hopefully.

“Right, because they don’t have super senses or anything. The answer is no, Margaret. If you want it so bad, go get ’er done. And if you don’t use a condom, I’ll kill you.”

“You’re gross. You’re setting women’s lib back by, like, fifty billion years.”

She fired up the computer, plunking in her password and waiting for the home screen to load. “Yep, that’s me. Anti-feminism. A weak wallflower who wants you to debase yourself before a man. Oh, while we’re on the subject, why don’t you take your shoes off and go make me a meatloaf? I’m starving.”

“Screw you.”

“Love you too, baby girl!”

“Hey. Hey wait a minute.” I narrowed my eyes, looming over her desk like I’d become one of those creepy guys who rub against girls on packed trains. “Allie Silva’s a lesbian.”

“And?”

“So how’s she a hunter?”

When my mother’s smile gets to a certain point, I know whatever she’s about to do or say is going to result in cry time, and right then, she smiled so wide the corners of her mouth nearly touched her ears. She lifted up her left hand and made a circle. With the other hand, she crammed fingers through the circle until it couldn’t hold them anymore. I didn’t get it at first, and then I did, and I felt my eyes bulge from my skull, like one of those rubbery dolls that explode from their eyes, mouth, and bum when you squeeze their middle. “NO WAY! You’re such a freak. You are
such
a freak.”

“Hey, you asked. And if you’re not up for the boys, you’re more than welcome to find yourself a nice girl. I’m hip, I’m happening, I am totally down with you crazy kids exploring your sexuality. I love you no matter what, Margaret Jane Cunningham. Gimme a kiss.” She kissy faced at me and I swatted her away, sitting down in the overstuffed chair next to the desk. She continued to quasi-molest me until the computer came alive and Monster Finder popped up on the monitor.

Monster Finder (or MFer if you’re juvenile like me and liked swear words a lot) was how we did our job. It was a reporting database linked to the DoPR, or Department of Paranormal Relations. A hunter put in their territory number, and MFer would spit out a report on the monsters in our area that needed attending. Some days there’d only be a name or two there, others days there’d be a dozen. Each case was ranked according to difficulty: one star jobs were the easy ones—low grade ghosts, house brownies (which my mother called car key gnomes)—while five stars were the kill on sight dangerous jobs. You found a lot of rogue vampires and werewolves in the four and five star range, monsters that not only refused to register with the DoPR but also exhibited violent behavior. Sometimes hunters from different territories would team up and split the profits from the five star jobbies. They paid the best for obvious reasons, and in my mother’s case, she usually called Allie Silva and her partner, Tiny Tina for three-way hunting fun.

The ‘Tiny’ part of Tina’s name was ironic: the woman could lose fifty pounds and it’d be like throwing the deck chairs off of the
Titanic
. She was three tons of hunting love.

“What do we have here?” Mom printed up the list and skimmed it, eyes flickering over the assignments. There were only three jobs today, unusual for a Saturday, and I knew without asking the top job would go untouched, so it was more like two jobs. Jeffrey Sampson, a one star vampire whose only crime was refusing to register with the DoPR and thus needed to be tagged with a tracer, had been popping up for the better part of a year, but every time I mentioned him, Mom shooed me off. She said tagging jobs paid poorly, and the best way to get a one star vampire job escalated to a five star job was to plant a bug on someone who didn’t want it. The risk wasn’t worth the pay.