When the two reached me, Lauren’s eyes were wide, and the other woman’s were fiery and angry. “You put on quite a show,” the redhead snapped, “Like you could get one woman, much less lead two on.”

“I don’t know; you seemed quite interested,” I spat bloody saliva on the pavement at her feet. Lauren took a step away from me. At the same time, the redhead took another deep breath, and an irritated smile broke across her lips. I spat again.

“Please, stop,” Lauren pleaded from the other side of the truck. My face still throbbed, and I was still mad at the redhead, but I did what Lauren asked and swallowed the blood instead.

“You didn’t answer my question, Miss. Are you here for lost property?” I asked.

She looked from me to Lauren, “I came to find a missing person, but she seems to be in more trouble than I had bargained for.”

“Well, you seem to know a thing or two about the trouble she’s in,” the redhead glared at me as I spoke.

“You should let her come with me; it would be safer for both of you.”

I shook my head smiling, “No,” I turned to face Lauren, “Lauren, get in the truck. I think it’s time we left.”

“Don’t do it. He will kill you,” the redhead told Lauren. Lauren didn’t move. “I know what you’re going through,” continued the redhead, “It’s a rough world for us. I promise I won’t hurt you. I’ll help you get back to normal.” She pleaded, “Just don’t get in the truck with him.”

“Who are you?” Lauren asked.

“My name is Amber Andersen. I’m a private investigator, but more importantly, I know what you are going through. You don’t have to be locked in a cage, held captive, or killed to keep you from hurting people.”

Lauren seemed torn. She looked from me to the redhead. I was in no position to stop her. “Will you hurt Rudy if I leave?” The question hit harder than I expected. It was my turn to take a deep breath.

“She is lying, Lauren. If there was someone who rehabilitated vampires, I would know. In my experience, vampires can’t be rehabilitated, with one exception.”

“You must not have met very many,” the redhead spat.

“More than you, I would guess,” I said drily.

“Will you hurt him?” Lauren asked again.

A long moment of silence passed before I answered, “No.”

“Then, I’m going with her,” Lauren asserted.

I shook my head; she was making a mistake. “You’re sure?”

Lauren nodded, “Very.” She took a step back from the truck.

“So be it. I hope I never have reason to find you. Grab your things and go.” Lauren didn’t move until I took a step back, and then she pulled her bags from the cab.

I scowled at the redhead, and she smirked back. “Come on, dear. Let’s get you somewhere safe.” The redhead pulled out a set of keys, and a nice, gray Jeep lit up a few stalls down. She walked after Lauren, keeping an eye on me the entire time. I watched them get in the Jeep and drive off. If this were a normal encounter, I would have followed. Should have, but I didn’t; I went against my instincts and stood there for a long time before getting in my truck and driving home.

I pulled into my garage, bitter and angry. Perhaps that was why I didn’t notice that something was wrong. I threw my truck in park and trudged in the front door, flicking on the light. There, sitting at my table, was the man I had shot and left for dead in the lake. He smiled at me. “Where is my asset?”

I could hear the sound of boots on the porch behind me. I didn’t look back but stepped into the house and walked to the cupboard. I pulled a pack of dried roses out and poured a few in a cup. Someone entered and closed the door behind me. I grabbed some powdered ginger from the cupboard and dumped a scoop in the cup. “Tea?” I asked.

“No, but feel free,” the man replied. I started the pot and turned to lean on my counter. There was a rough looking man standing in the doorway and a couple more standing in the living room, looking at me with their tommy guns trained on me—an interesting choice considering modern weaponry. “Don’t make me ask a third time. Where is my asset?”

“Six feet under the ground with a silver dagger through her heart. Looks like I should have done something similar to you. Pardon my unprofessionalism.”

The man chuckled, smiling. He produced a flask from his jacket and took a swig. It smelled like whiskey. My pot whistled, and I poured it into my cup before sitting down across from him. I took a sip. Rudy’s cage was empty. “If that is the case, then why is my man telling me her tracer is flying across the country? At this rate, she will be in Canada and out of our range.”

Well, now I know how they found my house. “Hm, perhaps I am not as good at my job as I had assumed.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“I find that hard to believe. I paid a pretty penny and am not disappointed in your work. Those Fae hounds are very hard to kill, and you killed three after blowing my brains out. You also killed my guard in a half second. I must say your skills are impressive. It’s rumored you even fought the Rocky Mountain Horror,” the man replied.

“What do you want?” This was getting more and more uncomfortable.

“My property back, but, if I can’t get that, I may have to settle with something else. The Rocky Mountain Horror seems like a fair trade. You cost me my entire operation. Seems like the least you could do to repay me.”

Ice ran through my body, though I did not show it. “It’s not real. You’re just going to have to put a bullet through my skull and cut your losses.”

“Oh, it is real,” he slipped an envelope from his suit jacket and placed it on the table. Three grainy satellite pictures showed a group of men in a fire fight. The second showed what appeared to be a black arm dragging a body into a cave entrance. The next picture shook me. It was older. A young Victor stood with a group of backpackers. They all looked hollow-eyed. What surprised me even more was that my dad stood on the far left of the group with a pump shotgun held loosely in his hands. Victor’s face was stitched up poorly, hard to tell what they used due to the picture’s age. It was strange to see his young face freshly scarred. He had never said what did it. At their feet was a massive, lanky human form, dark beneath a white sheet. I looked closer at the picture. They weren’t in the Rockies; the vegetation was more tropical.

“Where is this?” I found myself asking.

The Collector smiled. “Somewhere in Brazil.” I sat back in my seat and shook my head as he continued. “I have had a hard time tracking down anyone in this photo. Apparently, the one I have been trying to find has gone missing. Imagine my glee when I heard he had a protégé. I had to see what you were capable of, and I’m not disappointed.”

“So, you were testing me then?”

“Yes.”

“You shouldn’t be surprised that I ruined your little operation.” I took a sip of my tea.

“In retrospect, no, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let it go,” He smiled sardonically.

“Then kill me. I am not going after the Rocky Mountain Horror. I don’t care who it killed in your life; I can’t kill it. It can’t be killed.” I set down my glass, splashing a mouthful of tea on the table.

“Oh, it hasn’t killed anyone I know. I want it alive for my collection,” the man chuckled.

“That is the most clinically insane statement I have ever heard. That bullet must have really scrambled your brain!”

He chuckled again. It was getting disturbing. “Why can’t you kill it? Certainly, you must know something?”

“It moves through the woods like a wraith. The big thing is guns don’t work; silver does nothing; raw iron is useless. Your best chance is to lure it into a large woodchipper or industrial shredder, but it’s too smart for that. There are stories of trappers disappearing, and all that was found was their mangled bear trap,” I could tell by his expression I was not getting anywhere.

“Why not lure it to a steel shipping crate?”

“If you could, I would be surprised if it held, but you can’t. It’s a hunter and will not fall for a trap. Perhaps C-4 or claymore mine—if you could blow it to pieces you might kill it, but I doubt it would present you with an opportunity. You don’t hunt it; it hunts you.”

“You should see my collection. It might surprise you what a man can hunt and even take alive.”

“I don’t care if you have Dracula himself,” I stated slowly, emphasizing every word. “You are not capturing or killing the Rocky Mountain Horror.”

“They did,” he pointed to the picture of my father, Victor, and the three other men standing over the massive body.

“Possibly. If that is the same type of creature, then they never told me how or that they even did it.”

“They? You know more than just this Victor character?” He asked. I cursed in my head, but it was too late. I back pedaled.

“Yeah. They,” I replied.

“Who else knows about this thing?”

“Victor is the main source, but there was a marine friend of his who seemed to know a lot,” I pointed to one of the random faces in the picture. “I don’t know him. We had drinks at a bar once, and they talked a little, but Victor is the one you would want to talk to.”

“Well, he is missing. You wouldn’t know where he went, would you?” He took a sip from his flask. “If you told me, perhaps, I could overlook our recent misunderstandings.”

“Dead. Four years ago, he went up to the Rockies with a special team from the government to end this threat,” I pointed to the covered body. “He and ten other men are now missing, and the government has taken a hundred miles of the Rockies as ‘training ground’ to minimize the number of people who go missing each year. You want Victor? His remains are probably hanging at the bottom of a lava tube with every bit of skin stripped off his decomposing body. It eats your skin like string cheese and leaves the rest to rot off the bark rope it hung you from.”

The man’s eyes gleamed greedily, soaking in the information. “Does it really? That would be quite the spectacle.”

The scars on my back would agree, though I did not remember the strips of skin being torn from me. “Without a doubt.”

“Have you seen its victims?”

“No, but Victor’s word is more than enough.”

“There’s no chance, then, that he survived?”

“Not if we want to be truthful. You can come up with a fairy tale of how he’s possibly still alive, but you would just be living a delusion.”

“Having a few faes myself, I am willing to play with the possibility, but you are right; it seems slim. I guess I will have to settle with you,” he stood up, returning the flask to his pocket. “If you prove yourself, you will be rewarded very handsomely. I need to get going and retrieve the asset you stole. We will continue our discussion on how to catch this Rocky Mountain Horror soon.”

I went to stand but felt a heavy hand on my shoulder and a muzzle shoved in my back as the man walked out the front door. He pulled my arms behind my back and cuffed me. The man behind me stood me up and quickly searched me. He took my gun mags and silver knife. He examined the gun, ejecting the mag and looking at my alternating rounds. He popped a couple out and looked them, then glanced over at me. “They are very well crafted. We could use something like this,” he mused, fingering the silver tipped round. “You got any more laying around?” I didn’t respond and kept my expression blank.

He emptied my three mags onto the table and sorted out silver tips from the regular rounds. He swiped the silver rounds up and pocketed them, leaving my gun and the other rounds on the table before escorting me to a black sedan. They were thorough chaining my hands and feet to eye hooks welded to the floor of the trunk. A big, fat man got out of the sedan with a briefcase.

“How much do you weigh?” he asked cordially, pulling a syringe from the briefcase. “I’m guessing 180.”

“175,” I corrected. He nodded to himself and filled the syringe then stuck it through my jeans into my thigh. I could feel fire starting to run up and down my leg. My vision was starting to go blurry. I was rolled onto my side and propped up so I couldn’t roll over. The trunk slammed, and waves of blackness and fire began cascading over my body.