Ollie woke up late the next morning, feeling anything but refreshed.

He stared at the 1970s popcorn-textured ceiling, flushing away the residue of his nightmares. He hadn’t had any really bad ones since coming to California. Not until last night, when he got hit by a double whammy.

He dreamt of the goblin king, Karshak, and the war he’d raged against the Hauks. He saw his mom, lying on the ground, her lifeless eyes staring up at nothing. His sister, thrashing in the water, screaming as she was pulled under.

And then his father, and the real-life nightmare he’d turned into.

He sat up and rubbed his eyes. His life sucked. He didn’t need these nightmares to keep reminding him of that. He dragged himself out of bed, ejected Grika from the bathroom, and took a long shower. Good showers were a rarity when traveling a lot, and he wanted a good one before leaving this place. After the shower he toweled dry, then brushed his teeth at the sink. An unfamiliar face stared back at him in the mirror. He hadn’t cleaned up just to show off to Kimmie. He’d done it to show himself to the world. The beard and the shaggy hair were hiding him, a shield to keep people away, and to keep him from getting invested.

He sighed at the man in the mirror. Grika was right. He’d opened up to Kimmie way too easily. He’d seen something in her, some unquantifiable trait that connected them to this dark underbelly of the world that Ollie travelled. He thought he could focus her impulses, and turn her into a partner. And maybe even…

It wasn’t to be. He needed to leave California, for multiple reasons, get back to New Orleans, and accept what he was. A hunter. A good one. And nothing else.

He threw his clothes back in his duffel bag, forced Grika into his carrier, and left the room only slightly less tidy than he’d found it. He checked out of the hotel and pulled out of the parking lot, intending to make only one more stop before leaving Eureka, and northern California, forever. He wanted to drop by the library and email Roy that he was on his way back to New Orleans. He didn’t care about the Arcata theft anymore, or his business in Redding. Thanks to Kimmie, plenty of other hunters were in the area. They could take care of whatever was in that cemetery or whoever stole those ingredients from the occult store. It wasn’t his job to solve every mystery and kill every goblin. He wasn’t as relentless as his father.

Right now, he wasn’t even as relentless as Bobo.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Bobo. That was an interesting idea.

He drove past the library, headed instead for the Econo Lodge hotel. He’d tell Bobo about the goblin, Buka, or whatever its name was. Bobo would find it and kill it, and then Ollie’s hands would be clean. Just in case Kimmie guessed wrong. As charming as it may be right now, its goblin instincts would kick back in and Kimmie would get hurt. It seemed wrong to make someone else do the dirty work. Maybe he wanted an out, a way to explain to Kimmie at some point down the road that while it still needed to be done, he hadn’t been the one to do it. It felt cheap, though. What Grika called him all the time, with a different, worse meaning.

Ollie pulled into the parking lot of the Econo Lodge Inn, only to come to a screeching halt at the sight of four cop cars bundled together at the far end. Ollie slowly backed up and found a spot near the manager’s office, around the corner from the main lot.

“Cover,” he told Grika, who pulled the tarp over with a groan. Ollie climbed out of the Chief and wandered over toward the small crowd of onlookers watching as uniformed police and plain-clothes investigators walked in and out of a room on the far side of the hotel. A room that looked suspiciously like Bobo’s room.

He spotted an older man in a shirt and tie standing nearby, wearing a hotel name tag that said Marcus.

“You work here?”

The older man gave a curt nod. “I’m the day manager. Are you a tenant?”

“No. Visiting.” He pointed at the second floor. “What room number is that?”

“213.”

A sense of dread filled Ollie’s bones. He felt the blood drain from his face. “What happened to him?”

The man gave him a look. “You know him?”

“Sort of. Hunting buddy. From back east.”

The manager gave him a skeptical look. “You know his name?”

“Robert Roberson. Called himself Bobo.”

The man nodded solemnly. “Cops say they found his body out in the spillway southeast of Ferndale. Torn apart. Looked like an animal attack at first, but now …” He shook his head. “They’re trying to find out if anyone here had reason to hate the guy.”

“When was this?”

“They found him early this morning. But I heard one of them say it probably happened last night.”

Ollie’s mind raced. Kimmie’s goblin had been in shackles for a day and a half. It couldn’t have been him. Had he been lying about his pack? Was it still around?

“…talk to you.”

Ollie turned back to the manager. “What?”

“I was saying, if you knew him, the cops might want to talk to you.”

Ollie winced. “I didn’t know him that well.”

“Still…”

Ollie looked over the small army of police officers and decided against getting involved. “I’ll give them my statement later.” He walked back around the corner to the Chief and hopped in. Cops had a way of bogging things down, and he didn’t want them sniffing around, especially with Grika and some hard-to-explain tools in his vehicle.

“That was fast,” Grika said. Ollie didn’t respond. Instead, he drove away from the hotel, his mind suddenly occupied by more pressing concerns. Bobo was dead, and Ollie suspected the same thing that killed Kimmie’s aunt and uncle was back.

Assuming it had ever left.

He hopped on the 101, headed south for Ferndale. His return trip to Louisiana would have to wait.