Justin Gustainis - Those Who Fight Monsters Tales of Occult Detectives

He glanced up at me as he shrugged on his backpack, eyebrows raised in challenge.

I shook my head, and started for the trail head.

The trail down was certainly no easier than it had been on the climb up; in fact, it took considerably more care, now that I was more aware of the failing afternoon light, and Luis’s presence. I did not care to see him hurt on my behalf.

We were well into the shadows and premature evening of the trees when the first howl came, rising and falling in an eerie cadence. More than one beast. A chorus of them. I stopped, panting and wiping sweat from my face, and looked at Luis, who had gone very still. The sound grew, hushing birds and normal forest noise, and then faded away.

“I freaking hate it when you’re right,” he said. “Just so you know.”

I wasn’t fond of the fact myself, at this moment. “Wolves?”

“That’s no wolf pack. And bears don’t howl. Isn’t a mountain lion, either.”

“Then what is it?”

“Something that shouldn’t be here,” he said, and under the bronze color of his skin he seemed pale and shaken. “Something wrong, Cass. Really wrong. Let’s move it.”

“But—”

“This isn’t something for just the two of us to handle.”

“How do you know—?”

“I know, all right?”

“You know what it is.”

He took in a deep breath. “Maybe. But the point is, a couple of Wardens alone out here isn’t going to cut it. Let’s get moving, fast.”

I was unconvinced, but Luis’s concern was genuine enough. We increased our pace, though the going remained slow; the trail was rough and treacherous, growing more so as the shadows deepened. It would be full dark before we exited the woods, even barring any delays or accidents.

Within another half hour, our pace had decreased even further, and the howl sounded again — distant, but chilling. I could barely make out Luis’s face in the gloom. The sun was scraping the western horizon, expiring fast, and we were still in the thick of the trees. The temperature was also dropping, bringing chilly gusts of wind to whip the limbs of the pine trees and create a whispering hiss that sounded like a warning.

“We’re not going to make it out before dark,” I said. “I’m sorry. I hadn’t planned for two of us. I was going to stay here for the night.”

“Flashlights,” he said. “Keep moving.”

I had packed two, and so had he — sturdy things, and bright, but the artificial light seemed to only serve to make what it illuminated seem harsh and strange. Our pace increased, but so did our pursuers.

When the howls came again, they sounded closer.

Luis clicked off his light, and after a moment, I did the same. We stood in silence, listening. I felt something echoing through his connection to the earth — something strange and as dark as the falling night.

“What is it?” I asked. “What’s out here?”

“Something old,” he said. “Very old. It’s an avatar.”

Avatars were rarely encountered in the human world; they were manifestations of old powers, very old. Eternal, but rarely emerging from their sleep to possess and drive a human. The Greeks had known of them, and the Romans. The races and tribes even older had a history of encounters with the dark at the rawest levels — a history the Djinn had observed, even if there was little written record of it in the human world.

But here? Now? Why?

“What kind of avatar?”

“Madness,” he said. “Primal madness.”

I felt a cold chill sweep over my all-too-mortal flesh. As a Djinn, I had seen the rites of Dionysius and Bacchus enacted. I’d seen the frenzy sweep through the Bacchae as they were driven to leave behind their human, civilized selves.

I had seen the destruction they left behind.

“The missing women,” I said. “Bacchae. Following the avatar.”

“And they’re hunting,” Luis said. “Tonight.”

The howls sounded again, a high, wild sound that echoed from the stones. Then the howls dissolved into frenzied screaming, filled with triumph and fury, and I heard beneath it the cries of something that voiced its pain without words. An animal. Something large.

A rabbit burst from the underbrush and dashed past us, frantic and glassy-eyed. Then another. A family of raccoons crossed the path ahead of us, fleeing the same direction, and in another moment, a doe bounded in pursuit.

“Move,” Luis barked, and we increased our speed as much as we dared. More animals flashed across the limited scope of our flashlights, fixed only for an instant by the bright beams. None of them paused.

The last, another doe, had long bloody scrapes down her flanks, and she was running flat out, panting, head down. Running for her life.

I remembered the male hikers, bodies torn and half-consumed by predators. They’d never understood their risks. Never had a chance.

That chorused howl again, closer now. Chilling and yet fevered.

Luis kept moving, focused on the path, taking each step deliberately, but with all possible speed. He knew, at least. He understood what little chance either of us stood against the madness of an avatar. Earth powers might allow us to fight, a little, but our chances of truly defeating one were slim, at best.

These were the nightmares of Mother Earth, thrown up in her troubled, ages-long sleep. And they shared her power, deep in their roots.

The air smelled suddenly rank and sweet around us, drowned in rotted syrup. I whirled, flashlight flaring pale against tree trunks, swallowed in dark gaps, then reflecting suddenly from a face. Filthy, bearded and matted with dirt and leaves. A young man’s face, and a bare, tanned, nude body whipped with scars and bruises and old dried blood.

His eyes were ancient and empty and yet full of something so intoxicating that I felt myself falling … falling … I tasted honey on my lips, felt the heat of liquor firing my veins. Felt the universe shattering around me into pieces, fierce hot pieces, and my skin was burning, even my hair, too hot, too hot …

I heard a thump as my pack slipped off my shoulders and fell to the trail, but it seemed so far away now. There was nothing in the world but the glow and fire and dark intoxication of the woodsman’s eyes. I ripped at my shirt, pulling it apart in a frenzy. Too hot. Burning. Had to get cool.

“Cass!” Hands grabbed me and spun me around, a confusing whirl, and my flashlight beam fell on another face, on rich dark skin and wide black eyes and strong, flame-marked arms. “Cass, stop! Stop it!”

I slashed at him with hooked fingers, and he flinched backward. I turned, flashlight stabbing darkness in nervous jerks.

The woodsman was gone. I staggered, screamed, and heard the ring of madness in my voice. The rising, disbelieving tone of loss, of need. I still felt the burning in my veins, my skin, and I ripped again at my clothes, shredding, snapping threads like spider webs.

Luis — that was his name, Luis — grabbed me from behind, twisted my arms behind me, and forced me down to my knees on the hard rock, then forward, on to my face. The pain made me whimper with pleasure, and a growl of hunger came out of my mouth. Violence. That would sooth the burning. If I could run, chase, rip, tear, consume…

Luis put his full weight on me to hold me face down on the path as I convulsed, trying to get up, to run, to hunt.

“No,” he panted, and I was overwhelmed with the smell of him, the rich male animal musk of his sweat, his body, his sex.

If not the hunt, then this. This.

“Oh Christ,” he murmured, and I felt him shudder in response. He was feeling what I felt now, too close for there to be emotional distance between us. The bond that fed his energy into me also echoed back, and he could not fail to know what I wanted. What I needed. “Cass, stay still. Stay still. Breathe. Come on, this isn’t you. This isn’t what a Djinn does.”