Mario was great at detective work. At least when it came to monsters, not like… actual criminals. Or maybe he would be if he actually applied himself. In any case, after studying the locations of each sighting and attack by those crazy Lovecraftian horrors that had come up over the last few months, he'd finally pinpointed a few locations within a few miles that would be a perfect breeding ground for demonic activity. He'd checked out two locations prior; an old meat processing factory and an abandoned warehouse, but neither had been touched in years. Tonight he would go to the old Gentry farmhouse, a property that sat on the edge of the county lines that had been abandoned for years. It wasn't the first time he'd go there, as he'd cleared out a nest of vamps there months ago, but as it was far in the middle of nowhere and quiet, it would be an easy place for a pack of insane flying demons with death-vaginas to hide.
He'd left his bike on the opposite side of the treeline so he could sneak in using every bit of stealth he was capable of, sword strapped to his back as he crept into the back of the barn. The weird squelching sounds and the high pitched shrieks that would occur every few moments told him all he needed to know. He'd found his targets. Now he just needed to see what he was dealing with.
He snuck around the corner, ducking under the endless bales of hay as he hastily made his way to the ladder on the opposite end. Quickly he climbed to the second story and crept his head just over the banister to get a lookout. What he saw made him swallow a lump in his throat. Something he was not at all ready for.
Ten, maybe twelve naked women, hanging like slabs of beef in a freezer. But instead of being hooked on their backs, a series of large organic looking vines dangled from the ceiling, connected to the mouth of each woman. Their bodies looked to be in various states of transformation, with some of them having sprouted wings and fangs on their legs, others with the skin of their breasts slowly peeling up to reveal the growing eyeball underneath. The vines connected to a larger organism that comprised the far corner of the room. It looked like a sort of mossy growth with eyes of different sizes covering its body, but it also looked largely immobile. He hoped. Beneath the hanging corpses slept the fully formed demonic women in confusing piles of body formations that he wasn't sure were human nor demon… just strange.
One thing was for certain. He was in over his head. Still, he wanted to be able to know what he was looking for when he researched this later. So he pulled his phone from his pocket and steadied it over the edge and opened his camera. He pressed the button to take a picture. Then his heart stopped.
It flashed.
"Shit. Shit!" He struggled, stuffing his phone back into his pocket. All was quiet below. Had he gotten away with it? He laughed nervously, quietly to himself as he leaned back against the banister and looked up at the ceiling.
But perched on the banister was a demon, clutching the railing with its fingers like the feet of a bird, its legs open and snapping with its fangs as a shrill, piercing scream echoed throughout the barn. The others were waking.
"Fuck. Hi." He said, scrambling a bit backward. The demon lunged at him, but he managed to pull his sword out and swing, knocking it back with a slash as its green goopy blood streaked the ground. He saw the other leathery wings start to flap over the railing and he turned, seeing an old half busted window.
"Time for me to make a very sloppy exit." He said, turning and running before leaping through the old glass and crashing to the ground below in a roll.
"Ow. Ow." He shuffled to his feet, pulling a piece of glass from his side. The demons burst from the roof of the barn, wood flying in every which direction as they swooped toward him. Mario took the glass he'd removed from his side and threw it like a shuriken, handicapping one of the demons in its breast-eyes which sent it shrieking to the ground. He ran full speed ahead toward the treeline, dodging swooping attacks all the while. One landed in front of him and he jumped, driving the sword in its chest like a stake and landing on top of it before rolling off and continuing his run. He dove through the treeline, hearing a few demons slamming into the bark of the trees behind him while he mounted his bike and sped off into the night.
A shriek from behind him as one of them managed to get up from their fall and follow him hastily, zig-zagging through the air like an angry bat. It was focused solely on him and didn't see the covered bridge up ahead, and as Mario drove through it, the creature slammed into the roof before slumping to the road in a pile.
He'd lost them. For now. They may have picked up his scent, or however these demons worked. In any case, he had more of a reason to want them dead today.
Once he'd made it into town, he knew where he was going. Instead of turning left at the intersection to head back to his apartment, he headed right, straight for the Crescent Palms Motel.
Knock Knock
Andrew answered his door in a pair of Power Rangers pajama bottoms, making it clear that he didn't share the same stiff upper lip as his parentage. Mario looked down at them with an amused smile, then pushed past him and peeled off his shirt as he looked at the damage in the mirror. The wound from the glass was small. Were he anyone else, he'd need stitches. But he was a Slayer. It would heal up in a day or so. Maybe even a few hours if he was lucky.
"Do tell me this means you've changed your mind about me being your Watcher?" Andrew said with a boyish smile. Mario looked over his shoulder and ran a hand through his hair before pulling out his phone, completely ignoring the question.
"This is what I found tonight. Bunch of weird ass lady-demons and a big tree with eyes. Not sure exactly what they are but they saw me so I'm gonna say I don't have a lot of time to figure it out." He said, shoving the picture in Andrew's face. He took the phone and cocked his head to the side as he sat on the bed, studying the grotesque creatures in the frame.
"I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. They seem… foreign. As in not from our realm." He surmised. Earth demons tended to be less abstract. The darker the hell dimension, the more bizarre the features.
"It's possible they came to our world during all of those temporal disturbances a few months ago." When the military was fighting giant centipedes in the sky because random demon portals were opening in the sky. That was fun.
"It's curious though… the females in the background… they look like they're being turned into these creatures. It's possible that it's a sort of infection? That this 'tree' is the root of it all… no pun intended." He giggled to himself. Mario just rolled his eyes and sat back on the dresser.
Andrew looked up from the phone and just… gazed at him for a moment, finding his stare lasting a little too long.
"Those scars. Are they from a battle?" He asked, motioning to two little scars on each side of Mario's chest. He looked down and then crossed his arms almost protectively yet again, then gave a small nod.
"My first." He said. Andrew probably wouldn't understand that Mario didn't necessarily mean a physical battle.
"So… tree thing. How do we kill it?" He quickly changed the subject. Andrew smiled and gave a shrug, looking back at the phone screen.
"Oh yes. Um… I'm unsure but this isn't the first plant-like creature I've heard of. I can look in my book. See if I can come up with anything." He slid off the bed, pulling a thick, old looking book out of his satchel on the armchair. Mario raised an eyebrow.
"You're hoping that the answers we seek are in that one book?"
Andrew just grinned and sat next to him on the dresser and opened the book. It was full of nothing but blank pages. He looked over at Mario, giving a sly grin while Mario just gave him a confused expression. Then he pulled the book to his lips and whispered something into it before opening it again. Suddenly the book started filling with information, starting to resemble a book from medieval times.
"How did you…" Mario started. Andrew just shrugged, proud of himself.
"My uncle worked for Wolfram and Hart after the Watcher's Council fell. He was kind of shady but… he did manage to smuggle this out. It's a template, it can summon any demonic reference in any language from any dimension, so long as Wolfram and Hart has it on file. You would think that they'd come after something this powerful, but apparently they have hundreds and I think after the fall of their Los Angeles branch, they stopped caring." He nodded, flipping through the pages. It seemed to be a bestiary of plant-like monsters, but the binding of the book had doubled and there were thousands of pages. It was likely it would take a while.
"I… don't know how long this will take but if those demons know anything about you now they'll likely go to your place. You're welcome to stay here tonight." He looked up from the tome, giving him a charming smile.
"In fact, as your Watcher, I command it." He gave a cheeky grin. Mario gave a gruff look, standing up.
"Whatever. I'll be in the shower." He said in a grumpy manner, sulking off to the bathroom. Andrew watched him walk away, then looked down and blushed.
"He is fascinating."