I pulled into old Ned’s practice. I knew, despite it being four something in the morning, he would be up. I got out of the truck and helped Amber out. She was pretty delusional, mumbling to herself. Something about ‘she’s going to kill me’ and ‘not enough fuel.’ Lauren hadn’t moved the entire drive. I helped Amber into the building, slipping my arm around her waist as she used my shoulders for support.

“Ned! Ned!” I called. I leaned Amber up against the counter after trying to open the door that led past the desk to his back office. I jumped over the counter and rapped on Ned’s office door halfway up the hall. No one answered, but the surgery room lights were on. I pushed through the doors to find Ned and another massive man dressed in scrubs bending over a human frame. Monica was at their sides with a tray of tools. I took another step; it was Grace.

“Get out,” The growl came from the big man who appeared to be in his thirties. The hairs on the back of my neck pricked the moment he spoke. He felt dangerous, very dangerous. I unzipped the front of my jacket, giving me easy access to my 1911. The feeling he exuded was familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. Nether him nor Ned looked up. Monica was giving me a stern expression.

“Whatever you need, Anthony, it will have to wait,” Ned stated.

I swallowed. This was bad. I glanced at an empty operating table in the room. Amber was in bad shape and needed help now, but clearly Ned, Monica, and the big man had their hands full. “When you’re done with Grace, I’ve got two more that need your help.” At this, the big man glanced up at me. His eyes were murderous.

“I am going to rip your head off with my...”

“Smith,” Ned countered, cutting the man off. “I need your level head right now. We will get to them when we are done. Now, Anthony, get out.”

I left the operating room and unlocked the doors separating me from Amber. She clung to the counter, barely keeping herself up. I swept the top of the reception desk off with my arm, showering the floor with pencils, paper and the like. “They are in the middle of surgery. I’m going to lay you up here in the meantime.” Amber nodded in response; her face had dropped a few shades from standing there.

I slipped off my jacket and set it at one end as a makeshift pillow. When I picked her up, she gave a small sigh of relief and let go of the desk, going limp in my arms. I gently placed her on the desk. She seemed more comfortable. There was no good place to put Lauren other than the empty operating table. I thought about going in and getting it but stopped myself. The big man had seemed moments away from fulfilling his desire to free my head from its shoulders. Any altercation in this situation was best to avoid.

I paced from Lauren in the truck to Amber on the desk over and over again, mind racing. What had happened to Grace? She was fae and, as such, was very hard to kill. She had been in this realm for most of her life now, and she was older. But that shouldn’t matter, she was still a high fae. Her body should knit itself back together without the help of surgery unless she were cut up with iron. I paced for a long time before Ned emerged from the operating room. He looked grimly at Amber on the desk, and the mess of office supplies strewn across the floor.

“What have you brought me now, Anthony? Monica,” He called back to the operating room. “We need the second operating table.”

“A third, if you have it,” I said grimly.

Ned gave me a look. “We don’t.” The big doctor brought the operating table to Amber, and his big frame quivered. He ripped off his medical mask.

“What have you done to her, butcher?” He roared. He went to grab me with his big, meaty hand, but I swiftly drew my 1911 and clicked the safety off. This stopped him. We stood there, seething. I prayed he wouldn’t lunge, and he was quivering in anger, muscles bulging under his scrubs. It was Amber that neutralized the deadly moment.

“Are you going to kill each other or get me off this desk?” The big man tuned from me, walking over to Amber. He was still seething, but Amber seemed to get the big man under control. Ned pushed me out the front door.

“Let’s see what else you brought us,” He muttered tiredly. He shook his head at Lauren curled up on the backseat. Rudy whimpered sadly, resting his head on her arm.

“What happened to them?” Ned asked.

“She was stabbed with a silver knife then they were in a plane crash,” I responded.

“Well, I’m glad Doctor Smith is here. He is a bit of an expert with our altered cousins, as it were.”

We got Lauren inside and settled on the counter where Amber had been moments before. Ned put a hand on my shoulder. “Go shut the gate so we don’t get any unexpected customers.” I nodded, heading for the door. “Oh, and Anthony, pull your truck in my barn. I don’t know what it is you have in the back, but, well, they shouldn’t be seen, and you should keep your distance until Grace comes around to keep a lid on Doctor Smith. I don’t need you killing each other.”

I did what he asked, shutting the gate and pulling my truck in to the barn. I was worn out, and I could feel the exhaustion starting to crash down on me. I was surprised I had been able to keep it beaten back for so long. Part of it was trying to stay alive, but another part was me not wanting to relive that nightmare in the Rockies. It had only happened once since I had returned from Edgewood’s compound, but the possibility made it hard to want to sleep over these past few days. I needed the sleep, regardless, so I climbed out of the truck and laid down on a pile of hay. Rudy flopped his head and front paws on my chest, and I gave in to the blackness.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

I woke in a heavy sweat; shadows of a nightmare danced in the back of my mind but not vividly enough for me to recall what they were. Probably my trip to the Rockies with Victor, if I had to guess and most likely the one that he had not come back from. The one when he told me to never come up after him.

After putting Rudy back in the truck, I walked out of the barn and back to the practice. It was well into the afternoon, and I was starving, but that was on the bottom of my priority list. Monica smiled at me with hollowed eyes as I entered. I noticed that the counter had been picked up and cleaned. “You look better. Come here. Grace would like to talk to you.” Monica led me through the doors behind the desk and to a room just past Ned’s office. “She is just through there. I had best keep an eye on the front desk.”

I opened to door gently. Grace was laying on a fold out couch. She was sipping on some coffee and reading something on her phone. She looked up at me, smiling. “You have been busy it seems. I didn’t know you knew Amber,” she said the last bit sweetly, and my gut flipped. She was not pleased.

“I probably would never have met her had you just picked up your...” I paused deciding against riling her up any further. “What I mean is: where were you, Grace?”

“Oh, we will get to that, but how did you meet my daughter?”

“Amber?” I don’t know why I was surprised. Amber’s fiery attitude was similar. I thought I would have known if Grace had children.

“That is correct. How did you meet her, Anthony?”

“You know a fae named Mr. Edgewood?”

“Don’t tell me you got caught up with him as well? This is what I get for trying to do a thane job. Yes, I know him,” She responded.

“Well, Amber was under the impression that Edgewood was holding you captive. She found me instead.” Grace frowned deeply. It wasn’t the first time I met Amber, but Grace didn’t need to hear that story right now.

“Foolish girl. I told her to avoid him under all circumstances. Why did he want you?”

I settled down into an armchair across from her. She gave me an eye of disapproval, but I wasn’t subservient to her, and my body ached. “He wanted me to catch Sinew. You know... the Grendel.”

Grace’s pupils widened ever so slightly. “No. Not even he is that mad.”

“Not anymore,” I laughed darkly.

“You killed him; didn’t you,” Grace stated.

“Sure did.”

“You know he’s a high fae, right?”

“I figured it out,” I chuckled again. “Speaking of high fae... what put you in the state that you needed surgery from my vet and a goliath doctor? Victor said give you a day, and you would look no worse than if you had just gotten back from paintballing.”

“I am still unsure of exactly what I ran into,” Grace stated dryly. “I was looking into a mess up in Utah. Campers were... I should say... are getting eviscerated by something up there. It’s not a wolf like Chris seemed to think. It stuck me in the neck from behind and then gave me a slice through my guts. I would probably still be there, my body helplessly trying to heal from the iron cuts, had Smith not gotten impatient and gone looking for me. He affirmed that there were not wolves in the area. Well, none that are rampaging around killing people, that is.”

I sat in silence, trying to come up with an idea of what it could be, but with such limited information, I had no idea. “What are its patterns?”

“I couldn’t tell you. It got me three days into my investigation. When I left, ten people were missing or found dead. Now there are twenty-five,” She replied. I nodded. Grace rubbed the dressing around her neck absent-mindedly, then glanced back down at her phone.

“Do you know how Amber and Lauren are doing?” At the mention of her daughter’s name, I got another one of her sweet looks.

“Amber is fine. Thank you for asking. She will be back to herself in a few days; right now, she is sleeping off her injuries. Miss Lauren I don’t know. Smith rushed her to his clinic. She seems to be in some sort of coma.”

“How long have you known Doctor Smith?”

“He has been with me for a long time. He just hates you, so I never thought it prudent to introduce the two of you.”

“I would ask why, but I’m guessing I killed someone he knew.”

“Oh, much worse, you’re pretty thorough, Anthony. He has to deal with the ones that escape your grasp.”

I gritted my teeth. “He has to finish them, you mean?”

“No, he has to save them. Oh, don’t give me that look, Anthony. My people know to stay clear of you, but sometimes it can’t be helped; you just run into one. There is a handful of people I managed to whisk away without you knowing.”

I looked at her, no glared at her, as the realization hit me. “You could have just told me.”

“You’re hunted by the myths and legends as much as you hunt them. Second thoughts will get you killed, so I run damage control the best I can. Unfortunately, Smith has to take on the brunt of it when I don’t get there in time.”

I let out a long breath. I could think of half a dozen instances that she might have been referring to. Victor, and Grace for that matter, had drilled into me that I should always default to killing on sight. Anyone, or thing, that was harmless should know to stay out of my way. Now it appeared that policy was not nearly as foolproof as they had made it sound. It’s true, if I found a person or creature that seemed harmless, I was supposed to call Grace, but I had only made that decision once before Lauren, and it had almost gotten me killed. “How many Grace?”

“It doesn’t matter. Like I said, you need to focus on staying alive. You will get killed if you start second guessing yourself.” Her unwillingness to give me a number was not reassuring in the slightest.

I stood up. I didn’t know exactly how I felt about this new information. I had maimed and probably killed quite a few people who were not a problem. On one hand, I didn’t care; accidents happened and trying to distinguish peaceful monsters from true monsters seemed an impossible task. The other part of me thought of Lauren. I had almost killed her; it would have been safer for me if I had. The issue being, I have become certain she wouldn’t hurt anyone, intentionally that is. Bringing her to Grace was the right choice, which made me wonder how many others I could have given the chance. How many others deserved it? I reached for the doorknob.

“Where are you going, Anthony?” Grace asked sweetly. She clearly wasn’t done talking to me. I turned.

“We need to stick to our jobs. You can’t pick up my slack because I’m too scared to go west. It’s not leaving you with enough time to find ways to keep innocent people from running into me. I don’t need to be adding to the problem,” I rambled.

“We have no choice as long as the Grendel lives. If it gets your scent, there’s no one who can kill it. If Victor would just show back up, then the two of you could deal with the Grendel, and we could get back to normal,” Grace retorted. Her words stopped me in my tracks, but I didn’t dare tell her Victor had tried and failed to kill the thing. She wouldn’t believe me if I had; she thought the man was unkillable.

“I’m going to Utah. There something there that needs killed, and I should have been on it weeks ago.” Grace opened her mouth, probably to contradict me, but I shut the door on her mid-sentence. I left quickly. Rudy was frantic when I opened the door. I barely caught him as he tried to leap out. I pushed him back over to the passenger side. “Sorry buddy, we’ve got bodies to bury and a plane to catch.”