2002
The only momento I ever received from Sterling was that stupid bracelet I just burned. I'm not complaining. I mean, come on. I live on the road. I don't have a lot of room for personal possessions. That was just one of the few prizes I carried around the country and it kind of sucks that, once she's really gone, I won't have anything at all.
She made it about a year after the whole blizzard incident. I had spent a better part of that year flying solo on the hunting trails when she finally called me...
... okay, fine. She'd called me a few times before that. A month. And I'd answered a few of her calls. I don't know what I was trying to accomplish by keeping my distance from her. Maybe I was trying to blow off some steam. Maybe I was trying to forget the whole thing ever happened. What I was probably doing was throwing a hissy fit over the fact that someone else got what I wanted (something I will never admit if anyone asks, by the way).
And I wasn't completely alone. I hunted with dad more than a handful of times after I had allowed the anger to pass, and my path crossed Sterling's once or twice. Mostly I drank. I hunted and I banged hot chicks. I tried to forget her and that I ever liked her. But no matter how much I drank, no matter how many monsters I killed and how many girls I slept with, she was always at the back of my mind.
Anyway, she called me up and I was finally ready to really talk to her. And by "finally ready to talk", I probably mean "I couldn't take the distance anymore". I obviously couldn't forget her and I couldn't deny how badly I wanted her company.
"So you do know how to answer your phone," is what she said when I picked up.
"Yeah, sorry," I replied. "I've been kind of busy."
"You better have been," she said. "Or I'd be tempted to give you a swirly."
"I'd like to see you try," I told her with a small smile.
"Where are you?" she asked.
"Texas."
"Perfect," she spoke. "That's not too far. Listen, I've got a case up in Crested Butte, Colorado. I've been craving a hunt with you since that draugr we took down last year. You want to shoot on up and check it out with me?"
While the thought of seeing her was more than tempting, I couldn't help wonder who it was she wanted to hunt with; me or dad.
"Uh, sure," I slowly replied. "My dad's not with me, though."
"I know," she said. "If I wanted to hunt with him, I would have called him. Anyway, I took down a harpy with him last month."
My heart sank briefly at the news the woman I was in love with had been hunting with my dad. I quickly shook these feelings away when I realized it was me she wanted to see. This time anyway.
So I agreed to meet her and drove the beat up station wagon I had stolen some months back to the small ski town in the Rockies. When I arrived, I found her right where she promised she'd be waiting, in the only motel in town. This time around, her shaggy hairstyle was longer, falling just to her shoulders in a balanced blend of blonde and a frosty blue.
"I got the last room," she revealed to me when she welcomed me into the small, clean room. "I hope you don't mind sharing with a chick."
Mind? Hell, I could hardly contain the excitement.
"I think I'll survive," is what I casually replied with, throwing my duffel bag onto one of the queen sized beds. "What's going on?"
"I'm not sure," she admitted and I cocked a brow at her response.
"You're kidding me," I almost laughed. "You're telling me the Professor doesn't know what she's hunting?"
"Not yet," she rolled her eyes while she lit a cigarette. "Once in a while I stumble on a case that's not all that obvious."
"Fair enough," I said, sitting on my bed as she turned to gather a notebook from her black duffel bag. "What's the story then?"
"Some kids have started dying," she told me in an exhale of smoke, handing me a few articles. "All tourists from out of state."
"How are they dying?" I questioned as I briefly glanced over the clippings, attempting to keep my head on the case for the time being. Which was harder than you'd think. A, I was with the girl I'd been crushing on for the past year. B, we were hunting without anyone else. C, we were sharing a room. You see the pattern here, right?
"There have been five cases so far," she vocalized the things I could have read for myself. "Two of them died from heart attacks. One of them had a stroke. Another kid died from liver failure. The last one died of, get this, old age."
I furrowed my brows at that.
"They're dying of old people diseases?" I asked and she nodded. "Were any of them sick to begin with?"
"Not from what I found," she informed me, passing over a folder filled with medical records from all five victims. "According to these, up until they got here they were all healthy, happy kids."
"What are you thinking it could be?" I fished for a theory, but she had none.
"Hard to say," she replied as she extinguished her cigarette in a small glass cup. "At first I thought maybe it was some kind of vengeful spirit, but I can't find any local legend that would even begin to suggest a spirit that would go after children, let alone give 'em heart attacks."
"Okay," I said passing the research back to her. "Badge time?"
"Sort of," she said, rummaging through her bag once more to retrieve two plastic coated tags, one of which she handed to me. "I was thinking we work the reporter angle."
I studied the press pass that displayed a picture of me beside the name Joey Ramone.
"Nice," I smiled at the name she had chosen for me. "We work for World Ski Traveler, huh? Is that even a magazine?"
"Does it matter?" she said with a small roll of her eyes before handing me an expensive looking camera. "You be the photographer, I'll be the writer."
"Really?" I wrinkled my nose at her suggestion, hesitantly accepting the Nikon that probably cost more than the heap I drove there. "I'm not that great at taking pictures."
"I guess it's a good thing we're not really reporters then, huh?" she rolled her eyes again. "Anyway, it's not like they're going to ask to see them." She paused to give me a stern look. "I swear to god, if you break that thing I will break your leg."
"Why do you even have this?" I had to ask, looking over the high end and professional level camera I carefully held in my hands.
"I actually do photography on the side," she informed me with a small shrug. "It's an easy way to make a few bucks."
I assured her I would hold it like it were my own child before we ventured out in the brisk winter air and up the mountain. We stopped at the font desk at one of the resorts and checked out the "bunny hill", pretending to interview workers and children alike. Not gathering much information there we made it to the "children's center", aka the elaborate daycare for parents who preferred to do their skiing away from their kids. The large room held a tri-level plastic play center complete with a yellow tube slide and monkey bars. Long, short tables were set up around the room where kids could do any kind of craft imaginable from coloring to bracelet making. In one corner sat a small wooden playhouse and a box of costumes, in the other a large shelf of books and new looking toys.
The center was mostly empty when we arrived, something we attributed to the time of day (the standard dinner time). One of the few remaining people was actually an adult, a short blonde woman with dusty blue eyes and a timid demeanor.
"I'm Brodie Armstrong," Sterling introduced herself to the woman. "This is Joey. We're with World Ski Traveler and we're doing an article in next month's issue on family friendly destinations."
"Nice to meet you," the woman spoke with a shy but pleasant tone, extending a small hand for us to shake. "I'm Tara Ryder. I'm the director of the Children's Center here."
"Perfect," Sterling said with a smile. "You're just the person I wanted to talk to."
"Would you mind hanging out for a few minuets?" she politely asked. "I have a few phone calls I need to return before it gets too late."
"Not at all," Sterling replied. "We'll just... um... take a seat..."
Glancing around we noticed the only chairs were built for small children. We sat down anyway and awkwardly watched the few kids that remained run around the room while Tara excused herself to the back office.
"You wanna start taking pictures?" she asked me as she glanced over the craft supplies neatly spread out along the short table.
"Not really," I admitted. "This place isn't exactly giving me the monster vibe. Besides, I'd feel creepy taking pictures of kids while the baby-sitter's not looking." I paused and carefully extended the camera towards Sterling. "You wanna take some pictures? Since you're apparently an actual photographer and all."
"Nope," she shook her head before pulling a translucent box closer to her. "You're right, I'm not getting the supernatural vibe off this place either. I still wanna talk to Tara, but I'd rather do crafts while we wait."
"What are you, five?" I jokingly asked as she extracted a pair of rounded scissors and a roll of black leather chord from the box.
"I wish," she said with a small laugh, her eyes on the black chord she carefully cut into six even strands. "Life sure was a hell of a lot simpler back then."
Not for me. I didn't tell her that, though. Instead I tried to swallow the childhood memory and grabbed the closest coloring book and crayon box. If my best friend was going to revert back to adolescence, I wasn't going to miss the opportunity to do the same.
"Wow, I'm an asshole," she spoke in a guilty tone as she paused long enough to give me a sorrowful look. "I'm so sorry, I completely forgot how you got started in the hunter's life. You must think I'm a total dick."
"Don't worry about it," I told her with a small shrug before I really thought about it. After a few moments coloring I realized a small detail that made her apology somewhat strange.
"Wait," I spoke. "How did you know about that?"
I couldn't remember ever detailing my childhood to her. She knew my mom had died when I was a small kid, but it was all she knew. At least, that was all I had ever told her.
"Your dad told me," she spoke simply, her azure eyes back on the leather strands she knotted and twisted in a rhythmic pattern. I could feel my face growing hot upon hearing that.
"When?" I asked. "When you were hunting that harpy?"
"No actually," she replied. "It was when we were hunting a manticore." I must have made a face in distaste because she quickly added, "what was that about?"
"Hum?" I pretended to be busy with my coloring book. "Oh, nothing. It's just... You've been hunting with my dad?"
"We've gone on a few hunts together," she spoke with a small shrug. "You sound... disappointed."
"No," I lied. "It's just... My dad usually likes to hunt alone."
"Yeah, well, you ever hunt a manticore?" Sterling questioned and I didn't let on that I had no idea what a manticore even was. "It's hard for two people to take one down. Hunting one alone is just plain dumb."
I tried not to read too much into her hunting adventures with my dad. I didn't want to think about what they could be doing between hunts. Not when I had her all to myself.
An awkward silence fell upon us as we crafted at the short table. The remaining kids took off when their parents showed up, leaving Sterling and I alone. Whoever Tara was talking to, it sure wasn't a short conversation.
"You like it?" Sterling broke the silence to show me the bracelet she had made.
"Yeah," I quickly replied. "That's neat." I paused temporarily in thought as I continued my coloring project. "I think that's the first girlie thing I've ever seen you do."
"Yeah," she let loose a fond but sad smile. "My mom and I used to make bracelets when I was a kid." She paused to shake away her fleeting moment of sorrow away. "It's for you."
"Thanks," I said with a smile. I paused to rip out the picture I had been coloring, holding it up for her to see the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. "I made this for you."
"Awesome," she giggled with a delighted smile as she accepted the picture. "Raphael was always my favorite. I'll treasure it forever."
I smiled as I watched her fold it up and carefully place it in the back pocket of her light colored jeans for safe keeping.
"Here," I said, extending my left wrist out to accept my own gift. "Put the bracelet on."
"I will," she said. "I just need a bead or something to tie at the end."
I took a quick glance in the bracelet kit box. One of the dividers was filled with brass, dime sized charms with black symbols etched across their smooth surface.
"Here," I said, selecting one of the charms. "Use this."
As I placed it in her hand, the smile on her face slowly began to disappear. Suddenly her interest had shifted from our kid play to searching for the still absent Tara.
"What?" I asked when she maintained her look of concern.
"Do you know what this is?" she asked me in a low tone.
"Sanskrit for fish?" I made a non-serious guess.
"No," she shook her head, staring at it. "I've seen this before."
"Okay..." I said. "Where?"
"Witchcraft."
So it was a witch we were hunting.
"I'm so sorry," Tara returned from her office with a haggard look on her face. "That took much longer than expected."
Within seconds, Sterling was on her feet and making a quick advance on the young woman with that scary "don't fuck with me" look I remembered from high school.
"What are you doing to these poor kids?" she demanded, getting right in the woman's face. Any pleasant demeanor Tara once had washed away at Sterling's loud accusation.
"What...?" Tara fumbled, looking between me and Sterling. "What do you...?"
"This," Sterling shoved the brass charm under the poor woman's nose. "What the hell are you using this for?"
"I don't... I'm not... I couldn't..." Tara stammered, clearly agitated by my friend's tone.
"Calm down, Sterling," I spoke, jumping up from my own seat to defend the poor woman. "I don't think she's doing anything."
"Where did you get these?" Sterling pressed, her angry tone relentless and harsh.
"I... I brought them from home," Tara confessed. "I..." She trailed off for a moment as a frown creased upon her otherwise terrified face. "I thought your name was Brodie?"
"Not important," Sterling barked.
"Sterling!" I said again. "Relax! I don't think she's doing anything."
"She knows what these are," Sterling insisted, staring down the blonde as she spoke. "I wanna know where these came from and what she's doing to these poor kids."
Tara remained silent as she looked between us.
"You're not journalists," she stated, her expression softening into understanding. "You're hunters, aren't you?"
"Is that a confession?" Sterling demanded to know as she sent me a sideways "told you so" glance.
"It's not what you think," Tara said. "These are protection charms. I brought them from home because something here is hurting these poor kids."
"Something or someone?" Sterling grilled and Tara blushed.
"Someone," she slowly admitted. Sterling stared down at her for a moment, determining the woman's sincerity.
"And this is the best you could do?" she asked skeptically, still holding the charm under the woman's nose. "Hand out protection charms to kids who might not even wear them?"
"Look, I'm just a Wiccan," Tara spoke. "I can't even begin to match the magic this witch has."
"You know who it is?" Sterling wanted to know, her tone calming a degree or so.
"Yes," Tara nodded vigorously. "I mean, I think so. I just figured it out."
Sterling looked down at the brass charm in her hand before glancing back up at Tara. Gradually she began to back off, but not by much.
"You believe me?" Tara asked hopefully.
"I believe a witch is using dark hoodoo to gank these poor kids," Sterling said. "But I don't know if I trust you."
Tara sent me long a look, hoping I would take her side.
"Sorry," I shrugged. "I'm with her."
Tara let loose a short, anxious sigh.
"Come on," Sterling said, taking a tight grip on Tara's elbow. "You're coming with us."
"Where are you taking me?" she nervously asked as Sterling lead her towards the door.
"With us," Sterling repeated cooly. "We're not letting you out of our sight until we know you're not lying."