Two Hunters and A Plan

Sharla raised an eyebrow. “For real? That’s the big bad to end all big bads?”

He nodded, “That's what they say.”

“That’s a terrible name.”

“Well I didn’t make it up, that’s just what they call her.”

“Who are 'they' in this case? Cause seriously that’s a dumb name and 'they' should feel silly.”

Cam rubbed his temples, and Sharla grinned. He always did that when she bugged him.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Why does it matter?”

“Well if this girl is so scary that an Inquisitor is hunting her then she should have a cool name.”

“Like what?”

“Like Ashoka the World Eater...”

“That sounds like a scary pornstar.”

“How about Larisha the Devourer...”

“So does that.”

“Or Illyria the...”

“These are all terrible names. Also I think that last one has been used already.”

“Whatever,” she scoffed. “I’m just saying that it’s a very non-threatening name, very sixteen and emo.”

“Experience there?”

“It was a phase," she said quickly. "A brief one.”

He couldn’t help but smile as he finished his drink.

“See,” she said. “I’m already helping.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered.

“Oh yes you do,” she said leaning forward and trying to meet his gaze. “I haven't seen you smile all week, you’ve been acting all dark and weird. You know if you were stressed out you should have just told me...”

“Please not this again,” he grumbled.

“I’d have found a quicker way to help you relax.”

“I’m stealing a smoke.”

“Well hopefully not too quick,” she said, “But it would be way more fun for both us than all your brooding.”

“It’s not gonna happen Sharla, sorry to disappoint. And I wasn't brooding."

“Fine,” she said, unable to keep from grinning. “But the offer stands. I’m just glad you’re feeling better. Having you off your game is...weird...I guess.”

“I’m sorry I worried you.” He said. “But you have to understand that I'm operating on rumors and spooky stories instead of hard facts, which is not something I'm used to. Inquisitors weren't supposed to exist; yet here we are. And what's worse is that if an Inquisitor is hunting something, then that something is supposedly so horrible, so powerful, that the planet itself is literally rejecting its presence. The Girl With the Dead Eyes is supposedly just that. A creature so bad its a blight on the Earth.”

 Sharla sighed and lit up another cigarette. “We'll figure something out Cam," she said, for the first time feeling like she needed to be strong for him. It was a feeling she wasn't used to, but one she certainly didn't mind. "We always figure something out, and we always come out okay, this one is no different.”

He nodded and sent a quick smile her way. “To be honest I've been debating if we should even get involved at all. As far as I'm concerned the two super monsters can go kill each other and save us the trouble, but I don't like this going on so close to us while we operate completely in the dark. But tomorrow night that will change.”

“We have a plan?”

He nodded. “We’ll go meet a friend of mine; I think he can help us out. He’s on shift tomorrow night.”

“On shift...wait, does this mean we’re going to that awful restaurant with the tacky decorations and the gross food?”

He smiled. “Oh yes, I know it's your favourite. Who says I don’t know how to show a girl a good time?”

“That place is disgusting, and I hate fast food.” she said with a pout. “Can’t we meet him somewhere else?”

When he shook his head, she sighed heavily and glared at him. “I'm withdrawing my earlier offer. And I'm going back to bed.”

She made a show of standing up and stomping down the hall to her room, but she still couldn’t help but smile. The Cam she knew seemed to be back.

When he heard her door click closed he allowed himself a smile of his own. Even with two of the worst possible monsters out there in the night, she knew just what to say to make him feel like things may just work out.

Two Hunters and the Rain

The rain was coming down hard tonight. But she was determined. Clutching her umbrella the young woman walked the alleys, her pace quick, not willing to waste even a second. She was so close; she had never been this close before. Just up ahead, and she prayed that the information she had worked so hard for was true. She prayed that he would be there tonight. The hunter who could help her get her revenge. She emerged from the darkness to a street lit up by the neon sign of a popular fast food chain, a safe haven in the night. She was here. Trying to look confident, she crossed the road and opened the door to Spooky Burger.

Sharla’s eyes snapped open and instantly she was upright and alert, her hand squeezing her revolver. She surveyed her bedroom, making sure nothing was amiss.

No, just the rain pounding against her window.

She sighed and rubbed her eyes, trying to shake the dream from her thoughts. It must have been the rain that reminded her of that day.

She threw on a pair of shorts and a torn up tank top and checked the clock. Just after 3am. Wondering if Cam was back by now, she wandered into the living room where she usually found him sleeping on the old couch and felt a pang of disappointment when she saw it empty. Come to think of it, since the incident at the park a week ago, Cam had been acting differently, leaving the apartment alone and refusing her requests to join him, and not returning until well after the sun had risen. That was also when the rain started, and it hadn’t let up since.

She grabbed her pack of cigarettes from the coffee table, opened the window just a touch, and set her pistol on the table, before sitting down and lighting one.

In the year that she and Cam had been together, she had been his apt pupil, his apprentice. He had taught her so much about the world they lived in now, the world she had been living in alone for months before she found him. She had seen walking corpses, she had seen ghosts, she had even seen real live vampires, and last week she saw a pack of werewolves.

What she had never seen was Cam scared. And that bothered her.

The Inquisitor had gotten to him. He had said it was an entity whose sole purpose was hunting only the most terrible of monsters, things, he said, that even other monsters fear. Things that the heavens themselves wanted to be rid of. Cam had said he had believed them to be legends, but finding out they were real was something he seemed to be having difficulty with. More so was the knowledge that if the Inquisitor was here, it must be hunting something. And that something would put anything they had faced so far to shame.

She took a deep breath and focused on her smoke for the time being. She wanted nothing more than to help Cam; after all he had done so much for her, and had asked for nothing in return. But until he was back to acting semi normal, she really didn’t know the first thing to do.

She hated it; it made her feel powerless, just like back then.

The apartment door opening jostled her from her thoughts, and even as her hand went to her gun, she knew it was him.

Cam gave her a brief smile before shedding the majority of his drenched clothing. He pulled a beer out of the fridge and sat beside her.

“I have good news, and bad news,” he said in between drinks.

“Okay.”

“The good news is I figured out what’s going on.”

“And the bad news?”

He sighed deeply.

“The bad news...is that she’s here.”

“Who’s here?”

“The one the Inquisitor is hunting. The Girl With the Dead Eyes.”