The vampire screamed in pain and fury when the spikes on Kevin's club made contact with its face yet again, directly piercing both its eyes at once. Kevin let out a hiss of victory even as he pulled back to avoid its frenzied, sightless attack as it clawed at the air, frantically trying to seek him out. Now the vamp was effectively blinded, so the rest of their skirmish wouldn't take long.
The creature was not just wounded but severely weakened—one more hit could finish it off. But that meant Kevin had to be careful; after all, he'd learned that a desperate vampire was a wounded one.
It lunged toward him, its bat-like leathery face twisted in a snarl, its talons swiping desperately, but Kevin was ready for it. Easily dodging its attack, he swung the club in an arc, catching the vampire straight in the face. And when it reared back, bellowing, he flicked the lid off of a flask of holy water and threw it right into its face.
The vampire collapsed, letting out an animalistic howl of agony and scrabbling around on the ground. Kevin merely took the opportunity to pour the rest of the holy water onto its head, watching dispassionately as the vampire continued to howl and thrash as its skin hissed and sizzled, its flesh bubbling away. The further it melted, the quieter the vampire became, until its arms and legs went completely still on the ground and it at last fell silent. It lay there unmoving, finally dead.
"About time," Sabrina quipped, striding up to Kevin. "Took you forever to finish that group off."
Ste stopped by the vampire's corpse, giving what was once its shoulder an idle kick to check if it was dead. It was.
Kevin scowled at her. "That's because these bat vampires are much harder than the living dead kind. When they're just walking corpses, all you gotta do is mow them down with your truck once or twice, dump the holy water on them, and then you're done. These live ones, though? You gotta fight them, and they're damn resilient."
"Hmm. Well, at least you got a good workout in the process." Kneeling down, Sabrina removed a dagger and began unceremoniously sawing off the vampire's ears one at a time, keeping one for herself and then handing one to Kevin when she was finished. "Here you are."
"Thanks." Pocketing it, Kevin quickly his Grimoire to see if anything else was needed from him for today, but found nothing past the task requesting him to rid the town of vampires, and that page already had a red inked note in spidery handwriting that read "Concluded" slowly ebbing into visibility across the initial orders. "That's all for tonight, huh?"
"Seems like it," Sabrina said, her eyes glowing slightly as she focused on the vampire. After a few seconds, its body slowly began dissolving into ash. "I'll be making my bimonthly report about you to the Witches Council soon. It's been six months since we began working together. Can you believe it?"
"Not hardly. Seems like it's been much longer," Kevin ribbed her.
"Ha, ha." Sabrina rolled her eyes at him and turned to leave, but tossed him a smile over her shoulder. "Don't worry," she said, just before disappearing in a swirl of leaves. "It'll mostly be a good report."
When Kevin Keller had first met Sabrina Spellman, he had been almost certain she was a total lunatic.
He had encountered his fair share of whackjobs over the years. Since middle school, he had tried to cultivate the image of a well-rounded, multifaceted individual, who was interested in not just sports, but also academic clubs, civic organizations, local committees, and community service. Unfortunately, the more he tried to expand his horizons, the more he was a magnet for a certain brand of people.
Like moths to a flame, the socially desperate, the emotionally needy, and the infuriatingly clingy all ran to him. They were in frantic search for a crutch, a counselor, or a support system, apparently laboring under the mistaken impression he was up for the job. He supposed that it was because on a purely superficial level, his life looked ideal—as it should have, because he worked hard to make appear that way—and thus people automatically assumed his day-to-day routine wasn't rife with his own problems.
So when an unknown girl with a short blonde bob plopped herself down opposite him at his table in the public library, Kevin was at once wary and vaguely annoyed.
"Can I help you?" he asked, carefully keeping his tone polite as he didn't even both to close his copy of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. It was his assigned summer reading for his honors English class.
"Sure!" She replied brightly. "Let me introduce myself. My name is Sabrina Spellman."
Kevin smiled cautiously, deliberately not making any move toward her, omitting the customary handshake. "How nice for you."
"And you're Kevin Keller. Which is pretty nice, too," Sabrina said with a wink.
Kevin paused. "You know my name."
"I know a lot about you." Sabrina leaned forward conspiratorially. "Including things you don't even know about yourself."
"Oh, really?" Inwardly, Kevin rolled his eyes. He didn't mean to sound like a put-on upon martyr, but it was just his luck to get stuck with some screwball when he was only trying to study. His mind racing desperately, he set about determining a method to make this weirdo go away, and decided that refusing to indulge her antics would send her packing. "Well, I have all the knowledge I need for the moment—"
"If that was true, you wouldn't be reading that book," Sabrina returned mischievously. With a covert glance around, as if ascertaining no one was watching them, she gave a simple twirl of her fingers. Without warning, the book in his hands jerked from his grasp, slamming shut and sliding across the table to rest before her. Folding her arms, Sabrina let them rest on top of the book, looking at Kevin with a challenging expression.
Distinctly unimpressed, Kevin only arched an eyebrow. "If you don't mind, miss, I'm trying to study. So if you could just take your magic tricks somewhere else—"
"Tricks, huh?" Sabrina smirked. "How's this for a trick?"
She fluttered her fingers in his direction, and suddenly images flashed through his mind at a rapid. Men and women battling creatures—demons, goblins, vampires, werewolves, spirits—throughout the centuries, gaining scars and losing friends and families as they continued the draining, endless conflict. Brandishing weapons and emblems, they charged off toward danger again and again, even when they knew the fight was hopeless. But they ran toward the fray, confronting death with courage, dignity, and grace, refusing to show any type of fear as they invoked the ultimate sacrifice.
The visions ended as abruptly as they had begun, leaving Kevin whirling, struggling to refocus on his physical location. As he regained awareness of his place in space and time, he noticed he was clutching the library table in a white-knuckled grip. Unprying his fingers, he laid his shaking hands on the table before him.
"What—what the hell was that?" he managed.
"Weeeell, it's like this." Sabrina spun lock of hair around her finger. "I don't mean to be be cliché, but it turns out you're kinda-sorta the chosen one . . ."
What Sabrina then told him basically boiled down into three main points. First, she was a witch, second, he was something called a "Forest Guardian," who was supposed act as an intermediary between the mortal and supernatural worlds, and third, he was acting on behalf of the Witches Council, who were the primary governing body of the supernatural world.
Along with providing him the armor he would need for his duties as a Forest Guardian, Sabrina also gave him several warnings.
"I wouldn't really tell anyone about your position," she cautioned him. "Too many mortals don't believe in the supernatural, so you'll only look crazy if you try to explain these things to people. What's more is that mortals are really good at rationalizing, so even if you try to show them evidence, they'll just come up with some way of invalidating you by justifying what they're seeing with logic. Really, it's better if you just don't get them involved."
Preoccupied with admiring his armor, Kevin didn't answer right away. Sabrina had given him a black leather jacket and a pair of ribbed black leather motorcycle pants. They were both enchanted with barrier spells to protect the wearer from most harm, but as she told him, they were mundane enough to help him blend in when he needed to pass as a civilian.
"Kevin." A hint of annoyance crept into Sabrina's tone. "Do you understand what I told you?"
When he didn't answer, she reached out and tapped his armor with two fingers. To his astonishment, it vanished, his streets clothes returning, the only a change a brass filigree ring appearing on his finger. The ring's design was of branching vines that wound from his knuckle to his first joint; it reminded Kevin of the Elvish jewelry characters wore in The Lord of the Rings movies.
"I got it," Kevin replied somewhat sheepishly.
"Good." Sabrina pointed to his ring. "That ring contains your armor. It won't leave your finger, no matter what. It's enchanted not to. If you want to wear your armor, just tap it once to activate it. Only you can decide to when to wear it or not."
"But you just—"
Sabrina shook her head. "That was only to demonstrate. Now that I've shown you how to put it on and and take it off, I no longer have any control over it."
"Huh." Kevin sent Sabrina a questioning glance. "I've still got some questions. No offense Sabrina, but how come you're the one to tell me all this? And why me, of all people? Being a Forest Guardian seems like a pretty important job, so why entrust it to a teenager? And why ask another teenager to be the one to tell him all about it?"
"Well, initiating you into the supernatural world and then serving as your point of contact—'liaison,' they called it—is just one of the many tasks I have to do to get my official Witch's License. As for you . . ." Sabrina shrugged. "Who's to say why the Witches Council decides to do what they do? For all I know, they just randomly picked your name off of a list. I'm honestly not sure, but I'd guess the selection process is pretty informal."
"How flattering," Kevin said dryly.
"While we're on the subject, I would appreciate if you didn't tell anybody I'm a witch. You're allowed to know, because you're no longer a mortal, but if a mortal finds out and then they tell someone else, I then have go and turn that first person into sand," Sabrina informed him.
"Noted," Kevin replied.
Sabrina tapped her finger to her chin. "I'm trying to think of if I'm forgetting something . . . oh, yeah! You might run into the local Night Rider when you're carrying out your missions. It would probably be a good idea for you to coordinate with him, actually. The Council doesn't encourage it," she told him, lowering her voice as if telling him something deeply clandestine. "But I think it only makes sense."
"Fascinating. What the hell's a Night Rider?" Kevin asked skeptically.
"A special type of witch who fights the supernatural," Sabrina explained. "They aren't selected by the Council. They just choose it as their own path."
"Then why bother with me? Why didn't the Council just go to those people when it comes to needing a hired thug?" Kevin questioned.
"Ehh." Sabrina shrugged. "They figured that witches need to be free to pursue their own lives, and that it's a mortal's job to protect other mortals."
"So, basically I'm stuck with a job because they think it sucks."Kevin grimaced, then frowned, perplexed. "Wait a minute, I'm supposed to fight vampires and werewolves and stuff, right? How will I know who to fight and where?"
"Oh, that's right." Sabrina snapped her fingers, and a book materialized before Kevin. The tome was a handsome one, bound rich mahogany leather with symbols and scrollwork etched into the front cover. "This is your Grimoire, or your one-book library on all you need to know about the supernatural. Whenever the Witches Council has new task for you, it will automatically update itself with all the information needed."
"Like a mission dossier!" At last feeling somewhat enthused, Kevin tossed open the book, only to be disappointed. He looked up at Sabrina inquiringly. "It's blank."
Sabrina smiled. "That's because you don't have your weapon yet."
"I get a weapon?" Kevin raised his eyebrows.
"The Witches' Council may be a wacky bunch, but they're not going to send you to battle ogres without a weapon," Sabrina assured him. "Hold out your arm."
Kevin did as she asked, pushing up the sleeve of the plaid shirt he wore over his ACDC T-shirt.
Taking his wrist in her hand, Sabrina closed her eyes in concentration.
At first, Kevin watched her closely with a mix of curiosity and apprehension, but then he was distracted by a tingling in his arm. Glancing down, Kevin was startled to see glowing threads of energy snake from Sabrina's fingers to his own, shifting from one color to another as they twined across his skin. The tingling intensified once the energy stopped at his elbow, and Kevin couldn't hold back a sharp inhale as the sensation shifted to a sudden stabbing pain.
But in an instant, it was over and the energy was gone, leaving something of a small, white brand in its place. Examining the marking, Kevin found it to be some sort of symbol that did not look unlike the Celtic Tree of Life, but the tree was contained within a diamond rather than a circle. The image was faint against his flesh, its outline almost blending into the natural color of his skin, not especially noticeable at first glance.
"It's like a white ink tattoo," Kevin marvelled, tracing the lines of the design.
"The tree is the official sigil of the Forest Guardians," Sabrina explained. "The weapon of a Guardian is closely bound to its wielder, both in its appearance and nature. The magic creates the weapon, but your personality shapes it." She nodded at his brand. "In times of danger, you will be able to pull your weapon out of your skin. This way, your weapon will always be a part of you."
"Like Marrow from X-Men," Kevin remarked.
"Yeah, I don't know who that it is," Sabrina told him. She glanced at her watch. "And I actually have to run. I'm supposed to be getting magic lessons from my aunts in about five minutes." She rose from her chair, waving goodbye as she started to walk away.
"Wait!" Kevin called after her. "How will I know how to contact you?"
"I'll call when you need it," Sabrina said. "Sort of a 'don't call me, I'll call you' type of thing. But don't worry, I'll be in touch soon. Gotta run!" With a cheery if hurried wave, she dashed out the library doors.
Somewhat flummoxed by her abrupt arrival and departure, Kevin watched her go. Honestly, now that she was gone, he couldn't resist questioning all that she had told him. Witches, the supernatural, Night Riders, the whole of it—it had somehow seemed much sensible when she was explaining it to him.
Idly opening the Grimoire again, Kevin was surprised but then comforted to find that instructions had appeared on the first page.
Evergreen Forest. Execute the ghoul.
Doubt plagued Kevin's mind the entire drive over to Evergreen Forest as his stomach churned in anticipation of his first mission. The Grimoire had gone on to give a description of ghouls (reminiscent of a baboon-human hybrid, but with no hair and gray skin), as well as signs they were nearby (an usual amount of large dead mammals that appeared to be mauled by a bear or mountain lion). But Kevin wasn't sure if he had the proper amount of skill to win a fight against an untested magical creature. Hell, at this point, he didn't even know what type of weapon he had.
But he had some confidence, at least. His father had insisted Kevin take self-defense lessons as well as attend wilderness survival camp every summer. Currently, Kevin held a brown belt in Krav Maga and had completed courses in outdoor tracking, so not all of his skills were totally irrelevant.
Besides, he had brought with him the spare revolver his mother kept hidden in its box beneath the couch in the front parlor. For good measure, he had also brought along his own hunting knife, a gift from his father for his thirteenth birthday. He thought the engraved sheath strapped to his thigh went well with his leather armor.
There were only a few other cars in the parking lot when Kevin pulled in, but that was to be expected for eight o'clock on a weeknight in late August. Stepping out of the truck, he locked the doors and looked around as he began walking toward the central path, the gravel crunching beneath his steel-toed work boots. No one was in sight, not even at the wooden picnic tables off to the side beneath the trees. Good; the fewer people in potential danger, the better.
He followed the trail about fifty yards, until it split off into three separate paths. Evergreen Forest was a favorite running spot of the cross country team, and so Kevin knew all of them by heart. The one veering off to the left went down to what was basically marshland. The area was always incredibly muddy, but it was good for younger kids who wanted to catch frogs or turtles. The trail going right went up a long, steep hill that was often used for team endurance workouts. And the trail that went straight ahead would take him on a meandering journey through the forest, but it would put him close to Sweetwater River.
The river trail was the one Kevin selected. After all, the Grimoire said that ghouls ate large mammals, and all mammals needed to drink.
His hunch proved correct; about a dozen yards off from the trail, not far from the water's edge, he found a freshly dead but thoroughly mauled deer carcass.
With a mix of satisfaction and revulsion, Kevin knelt down by the disemboweled corpse. The animal was only in the early hours of decay, and its stench was mild rather than overpowering. While the treeline was dense, the day had been hot and muggy; the deer would be rotting already if it had been dead all morning and afternoon.
The ghoul was nearby.
His senses on full alert, Kevin continued up the river to where it widened and deepened, its flow more rapid and intense, crashing over the rocks. Ghouls were said to favor cold, damp places, and there were several half-submerged caves along the deeper areas of the river.
As he traipsed along, he was very aware of the cicadas' persistent hum that accompanied evening's fade into night. He was losing daylight, the sun retiring, and there were few places where the loss of light was more pronounced and noticeable than in a dense forest.
Kevin could practically feel his mood dimming with the sunlight, even as he reached the caves, standing on the riverbank above them. What the hell was he doing, honestly? Fighting monsters with zero clue of what he was doing, all because some people he had never met expected him to? Was it not enough that he was a star cross country runner, sophomore class president, and leader of the community service, biology, history, and outdoor experience clubs? Why did everyone rely on him for everything?
Then again, Kevin mentally countered, he was never one to back away from a challenge. Maybe this Forest Guardian thing was perfect for him after all.
Still, though, he wanted to get this confrontation over with as soon as possible—he had laundry to do when he got home.
Removing his hunting knife from its sheath on his leg, Kevin eyed it speculatively, the blade gleaming in the remaining sunlight. Another piece of information he had gleaned from the Grimoire was that ghouls were enticed by the scent of fresh blood. Why not put the accelerated healing Sabrina had told him about to the test?
Positioning the knife against his palm with the hilt meeting the edge of his hand, Kevin pressed down as hard as he could, slicing into his flesh. He was unable to hold back a gasp of pain as the knife cut deep. His blood welled from the wound, trickling down in rivulets . . . until it didn't.
As Kevin watched, amazed, the blood seemed to retract, flowing backwards into the wound. Within seconds, the gash was sealing itself, leaving only a scar, but then the scar faded, too. Turning his hand over and back again, Kevin couldn't detect any sign he had ever even come into contact with the knife. It was incredible—the wound was just gone,like Logan and his healing factor from the X-Men comics.
He had to see the healing in action again.
Raking the blade over his arm and gritting his teeth through the sting, Kevin stared in fascination as the injury reversed itself, his flesh knitting back together, leaving no mark of any kind.
"Bitchin'," Kevin whispered to himself in awe.
Thirsting to see the healing once more, he used the knife on himself again and then again. But just as he was poised to repeat the process, a low, guttural growl reached his ears, and sudden pins-and-needles sensation overcame his right wrist, as if his arm had fallen asleep. For a split second, Kevin felt his stomach drop in dread, but then he was struck with a pervasive sense of calm. Sheathing his knife, he whirled to see what awaited him.
It was the ghoul. Matching the diagrams within the Grimoire, the creature rested on its haunches with it short legs bent at the knees, overly long arms planted on the ground. Bat-like ears protruded from its wrinkled head, and pale, milky eyes stared out of its gray, leathery face. Even from a distance of fifteen feet, Kevin could smell the odor of decay rolling off of its body.
For a moment, the ghoul stood like a statue, observing Kevin. Then its lips peeled back in a snarl, exposing yellow, jagged teeth, and it charged forward.
The weight of a weapon suddenly materializing in his hand, Kevin found himself rushing to meet it. As if he were operating on autopilot, he found himself swinging his weapon with precision and accuracy, landing a blow on the ghoul before it could even touch him. Even as Kevin questioned how he had managed that, he found himself unable to concentration on thought, just action. And his actions were with certainty.
His favor was not short-lived; he found himself scoring hits again and again, as if guided or programmed for strategy. Before long, triumph was his, and he was left grimacing down at the lifeless body of the ghoul, wondering exactly what he had accomplished and how he had done it.
The success was improbable. Kevin should have been nervous, fumbling, and inexperienced, and yet he was the victor of the fight, as if he had instinctively known what to do. But he knew that he didn't know. Just minutes earlier, Kevin had been flummoxed about how to deal with the ghoul, and now he was totally clueless as to how he had won.
As Kevin gazed as the corpse, vine tendrils began sprouting out of the ground to surround the ghoul, slowly at first, then at a rapid pace that had Kevin backing away. The vines continued surfacing, wrapping around the ghoul and covering it completely, and then dragging it down beneath the earth, leaving nothing but upturned soil in its place.
Well, that was that. It looked like his task was complete for the night.
Turning to walk back to the trail, the weight of the object he was holding registered with him, and Kevin took it in both hands for examination. Not unlike a mace, it basically amounted to a wooden baseball bat with metal spikes jutting from the barrel. The design reminded Kevin of a World War I trench club. And also of Jeffrey Dean Morgan's baseball bat on The Walking Dead.
"Goddammit," Kevin groaned aloud as he realized the resemblance. Here he was, with a spiked bat and a leather jacket. "I probably look like some pathetic Negan cosplayer."
Beginning the trek back to his truck, Kevin studied the club again. Sabrina had said the weapon was supposed to be a representation of his inner self. Apparently, his inner self preferred viciously and violently beating creatures with a blunt instrument, a tactic that was both laborious and ineffectual. If given the choice, he would rather use a more swift method of execution, with a crossbow or a sword. Hell, he was a member of the archers' league at school.
"Hmph." Kevin kicked irritably at the gravel of the lot, scattering the pebbles before him as he approached his truck. "Maybe I can get it exchanged."
Now, Kevin pulled his truck to a halt at a stop sign to wait for his turn to cross, thinking back to what Sabrina had said about them working together for six months already. Trustfully, he couldn't believe how quickly those six months has rushed by—or, for that matter, how much he'd adjusted to working for the Witches Council, how easily the supernatural had become a part of his daily routine.
Just as he was musing about it, an oncoming car on the opposite side of the street briefly stopped at the sign, but then raced forward. Even though it zipped by before he had a chance to get a good look, he recognized the jalopy convertible and caught sight of two figures with long hair streaming out behind them, one of them blonde and the other one brunette. A bittersweet smile formed on Kevin's face as the jalopy, which unmistakably belonged to Archie Andrews, disappeared behind him into the growing evening. And if Archie, Betty, and Veronica were in the car, he could take a guess they'd also been joined by Jughead Jones.
Back before he was a Forest Guardian, he'd been close with Archie, Betty, and Jughead. They'd been a tight-knit group since elementary school. But once hunting demons and slaying vampires and banishing ogres had become a regular part of his life, Kevin's friendships with them had faded away. He hadn't been free when they'd had the time, and after a few times too many of him bailing on them because he needed to capture a rogue dragon or stake out Sweetwater River for kelpies, they'd stopped asking. And once Veronica Lodge had come to town, they'd been happy to let her fill the empty space he left.
He'd been replaced.
But it didn't matter all that much, Kevin told himself as he reached his destination and hopped down from the truck. So what if he didn't get invited by them to Pop's or serve as Betty's shoulder to cry on when her mom went off on some tirade? He was doing work that actually mattered. Archie and the gang could do whatever petty high school bullshit they wanted, but he'd actually been selected for a special destiny, one with actual stakes and consequences.
True, he admitted to himself as he entered the homey, if somewhat rustic, wood cabin, he still didn't know why they'd selected him.
When he walked inside, Joaquin glanced up from where he'd been sitting in a worn leather armchair by the crackling fire, snapping shut the dusty tome he'd been perusing.
"There you are," he said with a grin, rising to greet him. "I was hoping you'd be back soon."
"Hope no longer," Kevin said, going over to him, and was instantly pulled into a passionate kiss.
These days, the Council's reasons for choosing him suddenly seemed less and less important.
Now that he'd met up with Riverdale's Night Rider, he thought to himself as Joaquin's strong arms wrapped firmly around him in a warm embrace, he was more than content to serve as Riverdale's Forest Guardian. It had seemed like a burden at the time, but in the end, he'd managed to make sure it all worked out.