As it turned out, a shower was a pretty good idea. Scrubbing off the grime and dried blood helped settle my jangled nerves. Occasionally I thought I saw movement out of the corner of my eye making me jump, but so far, no monsters.

Once I was refreshed and cleanly dressed, Leo's next task was equally mundane. He ordered me to clean my apartment. Normally I would have balked at being bossed around, but under the circumstances, I was highly motivated to reduce the number of hiding spots left for any more spider-ghouls. I set to work on the neglected room.

As I stuffed bags full of the ancient trash I'd accumulated, I took the time to question Leo further.

"So last night, how did you do that? Can you just make me see whatever you want?"

Leo stood clear of me as I worked. "In a sense, I suppose," he said. "I show you what you need to see. Nothing more."

I stopped and looked up, "wait... so are those damn critters real, or did you make me see that?"

Leo pulled a nail file from his jacket pocket and started giving himself a manicure. "Those are real," he said without looking at me.

I frowned, slowly dropping another empty bottle into the garbage bag. "... you sure?" I asked skeptically.

He smirked, "I guess you'll have to trust me."

It took me several hours and multiple trips to the dumpster in the back alley to get the worst of the debris out of my place. Filling the last bag, I glanced up at the final bottle next to Leo.

"Throw me that will you?"

Leo shook his head "This task is for you, I can't intervene."

I rolled my eyes, "that's a cop-out," I chided.

I walked over to pick up the bottle, but stopped before throwing it away. A thought struck me and I turned to Leo.

"Hey, catch," I said, tossing him the bottle.

Leo didn't move, the bottle passed through him and smashed onto the ground. He held his hands out to his side,

"I'm in the Aether, my boy. Not really here. I don't intervene with the physical, and I only interact with the talisman bearer."

I closed my eyes and gave my head a shake, "Then how did you save me last night?" I asked.

"Is that what I did?" Leo replied, smiling again.

Well, that was going to bother me...

I finished taking out the trash, then plopped exhausted onto my recliner. As I surveyed the de-cluttered apartment I felt a small sense of satisfaction; I had a clean room, mom would be proud.

Leo did a walkabout examining my work. "Needs more attention but it's a good start," he remarked. "Are you ready for your next task?"

I threw my hands up, looking around the tidied room. "That took forever man! I need a break!"

Leo rolled his eyes. " You dug yourself into a deep pit, you can rest when you're out of the hole."

Behind Leo, a small spider ghoul skittered across the wall, up the corner, and into an air vent. My body convulsed.

"Fine! What do you want me to do..."

Leo clapped his hands together. "A clean abode is part one, but cleared air is the second. You need to bridge the gap with those you have shunned."

I didn't like the sound of that. "And with who would that be," I asked, already knowing the answer.

"Let's start with him," Leo pointed to my phone on the counter.

It rang.

Reluctantly I got up and picked up the phone. Uncle Chuck was calling again. My gut squirmed nervously.

"First steps back uphill are always the hardest," Said, Leo. "Answer it."

For a moment, I contemplated accepting life with the spider-ghouls. Instead, I answered the phone.

"Hey, Uncle Chuck."

"John?" he sounded surprised, "God dammit boy you had me worried half to death! Where the hell are you?"

I felt a lump in my throat making it hard to answer him. "Just.. at my place. Look I'm sorry about the job, really. I know I fucked up."

I heard him tsk, "Yeah, you did. Put me in a bad way with my buddies too," he retorted.

I blanched.

"... You hungry?" He asked after a pause.

"Uh, yeah sure," I said, taken aback.

"Good, get to the gym. I just ordered some tacos. You remember how to get here or do I need to send you a map?"

I smiled to myself, "Yeah I think I remember."

"Good, get here in the hour or you're licking the cheese off my wrappers." He hung up.

I put the phone down, feeling apprehension mixed with something else. Talking to him made me realize how lonely I'd been, but it also reminded me why I stayed away so long. I was scared.

My uncle helped raise me after dad died. He taught me everything I knew about being a cop, how to fight and shoot, how to work the streets. When I was a kid I worshiped the man. I hadn't seen him in person since Maria's funeral, and I didn't want him to see what I had become. But even after everything that happened, he still asked me over for tacos like it was yesterday. I blinked back an unexpected tear.

Leo leaned into my view, "Tacos sound good."

***

Thirty minutes later I pulled up to the worn-down warehouse on 16th Street and drove around to the small parking lot in the back. The side of the brick building that faced the busy intersection had a painted mural of a large black cat, hissing with its back arched, and a banner overhead proclaiming the place Black Cats Gym. I knew my uncle had named it after his old special ops team, a long-defunct piece of the police department's history.

As I heard it, he and his crew were a group of hardened men whom the Chief called on to hunt down the most notorious and violent felons when the regular beat cops weren't getting it done. Back then, every thug on the streets knew their reputation, and It was a gangster's bad luck to cross paths with one of “those officers”. The team leaned into it, calling themselves the Black Cats, the ones you didn't want to cross.

They disbanded years ago to get ahead of the department's worries of potential bad P.R, and after that, my uncle opened this place as a side hustle. Since retiring, he ran the boxing gym full-time.

I climbed out of my car and walked up to the back door, where he was waiting for me. Charles "Chuck" Morgan was in his early fifties, but still fit enough to give young contenders a run for their money. He had thick arms, a thicker neck, a bald head, and leathery worn skin from a life of working the streets. He munched on a taco as I walked up to the door, crinkling the wrapper in his hand.

On seeing me, he looked me up and down, taking in my bruises without question. He just glanced at his watch.

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"You're lucky I bought too many tacos," he said by way of greeting.

I tried not to smile, "I get it, you gotta watch your figure," I shot back.

He wagged a finger at me, "Don't sass me, boy. Get in here."

I found catharsis in our banter. A normalcy I hadn't felt in months. I followed him inside.

Black Cats was an old-school boxing gym. A half dozen tapped-up heavy bags hung along one end of the room, with racks of jump ropes and hanging gloves along another. The whole place smelled of canvas and stale sweat.

A full sized ring stood in the center where two guys exchanged blows, their coach yelling at them from outside the ropes. The clanking chains and smack of gloves on mitts brought back old memories.

Uncle Chuck used to work me to death in that ring. He also used to teach pugilistics for the academy, and lots of guys working patrol today only knew how to fight because of him.

He led me past the equipment into his office near the front door. The walls were covered in framed pictures, trophies, and medals. Everywhere I looked the faces of his old partners, men I knew and admired, smiled down at me.

On his desk sat a single framed photo. It was Chuck, standing next to my dad, with my four-year-old self on Dad's shoulders. Everyone used to tell me I looked like him, with the same angular features, blue eyes, and black hair. Looking at the picture, I felt my throat tighten.

"Sit," he barked, pointing at a chair in front of his desk. As I did, he slid me a pair of tacos from a bag, and watched me as I opened them in silence.

"Maria wasn't your fault," he said as I opened the wrapper.

Direct and to the point, that was Chuck... I paused, the taco halfway in my mouth, then took a bite without replying. I saw him look down at the photo of the three of us.

"I never told you where I was when your dad died," he offered. "The robbery call came out, everyone was driving like crazy to get there. Your dad got their first."

He picked up the frame, gazing intently at it. After a pause, he set it down and looked back at me.

"I blamed myself for not getting there before him. Convinced that bullet was meant for me, That I fucked up, moved too slow. I decided it was my fault my kid brother was killed."

I didn't know what to say. My uncle had never talked to me about dad's death like this...

"Your Pop was always the good catholic,” he continued, “I was always the sinner. I figured I was being punished. I blamed God, blamed myself, even blamed my first wife at the time. But do you know the dirty secret? The part of life none of us wants to accept?" He leaned forward in his seat, his expression serious.

I shook my head.

"I'm just a lowly human," he said. "The Universe ain't out to get me, it's got better things to do. Your dad died, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do to change that. And it wasn't. My. Fault."

I wasn't hungry anymore. I pushed the second taco way. Uncle Chuck stood up, walked around the desk, and knelt down putting his hand on my shoulder. "Time to move on kid," he said.

I swallowed trying to unstick my throat, "How?"

He sighed and stood up. "First, you need to remember who the hell you are," he walked across his office and started clearing papers off an old wooden trunk in the corner.

I shook my head, "I can't go back to the department."

Chuck looked back at me. "Fine," he said, "but that's not what I meant."

He pulled out the worn and battered footlocker, flipped open the lid, and beckoned me forward. I stood up and peered Inside the chest at a clutter of old antiques within.

"The Morgans have been Lawmen since Sacred River City's founding," he explained. "Over a hundred and fifty years we've been keeping this place safe."

he reached into the trunk and pulled out a chipped and faded baton. The wood-turned handle was carved into the stylized pommel of vintage police nightsticks. At the base of the shaft was a stamped metal nameplate that read, "Morgan".

"The truncheon," He explained, "was the first weapon of an early city cop. This one was your great, great grandfather's. He was one of the first men to step up when they set up the force." he nodded down to a blue wool uniform coat, folded inside the chest. "He served in the Civil War before that. The first police uniforms were just military surplus from the Union. Lots of those guys just wore what they already had from the war."

"No one uses batons anymore," I replied. "Too much bad publicity. You do not want to be caught swinging these in some kid's video post."

My uncle let out an exasperated grunt, "people are always finding something to hate. But do you know why they used nightsticks when they first started? What they represent?"

“No.”

"It isn't like they didn't have guns." he continued, "It was a brutal time, the west was wild and the idea of 'human rights' was not exactly common in the world. Cops could have easily just started blasting people in a fight, But that was not the mission... the early lawmen made an effort to keep the peace without killing," he pushed the stick into my hands.

"It was messy, rough, and lots of those guys were just brutes, sent out to stop even worse brutes. But the creation of a police force was the attempt at something better, something right. That's the spirit of the law, trying to do something right. You're still going to fuck up, but that doesn't mean you stop trying."

I rotated the baton in my hands, feeling the solid weight of it.

Chuck continued, "You don't have to work as a cop anymore, But dammit, boy don't you ever forget you are a Lawman. That is the spirit of our kin, starting back when they first boated their Irish asses over here. That isn't something you ever get to walk away from."

We stood in silence for a moment. I nodded, not knowing what else to say.

My uncle considered me as I put the baton back in the trunk. "You need to start training again," he pinched my bicep. "You're getting scrawny, boy."

"Yeah, probably," I chuckled.

He raised his eyebrows, "I'm serious son, get your ass in the ring." He walked out of the office.

"Wait, what?" I followed.

Chuck signaled to the sparring pair and they jumped out of the ring. He grabbed a pair of gloves from a ringside table and nodded to the equipment wall.

"Glove up kid, let's see what we're working with."

"Oh, I don't know Uncle Chuck..."

At the far corner of the room, Leo stood against a wall. He gestured at the ring, nodding enthusiastically. I let out a breath, grabbed a pair of worn-out gloves from the rack, and climbed up the side of the ring.

Chuck shook out his shoulders and bounced back and forth on the balls of his feet while I slipped the gloves on. He nodded to one of the other coaches nearby who rang the bell.

To say I wasn't ready would be an understatement. He lurched forward and jabbed me in the face before I knew what was coming. I stumbled back and shook my head, trying to get my gloves up quick as I could, but it wasn't fast enough. He tapped me twice more and snuck one in under my ribs before I could adjust. I saw his disappointment through the gap in his guard.

"Oh my god, it's worse than I thought," he said. "Come on boy, you're better than that."

He slipped in again, feinted to the left, then swung a hook around the top and smacked me in the side of the head.

It was a love tap, I knew it. He was toying with me, and I deserved it. Feeling the hits woke me up a bit. Letting old neglected habits come back, I popped up off my heels, rounded my shoulders, and started circling.

My uncle barked out a laugh, "There he is!"

He came at me again, testing me with a set of jabs before throwing the cross. I slipped them, got around his side, and landed one on his flank before backing out. He never let me off the line though. The old man knew how to stay on point. Back and forth we traded blows. It was nothing devastating, but as we danced the speed picked up. His fists landed harder, and he stopped giving me openings.

Our earlier conversation in the office was not how we normally communicated. This, the ring, was how I knew my uncle. He was telling me something I needed to hear but hadn't wanted to listen to over the phone. His blows landed and said it plain as day, life's hard John, get over it.

As the bout went on, fatigue started to set in. I had six months of deconditioning, and it was showing. I was already out of breath and sweating hard, not to mention still sore from my adventure in the river, but my uncle continued to press me. I got sloppy, my hands kept falling and my face paid the price. My frustration started to grow, and my ego had had enough.

Changing tactic I decided to throw him a curveball and lashed out with a series of kicks to his thighs. They landed, and he buckled for a moment. Recouping, Chuck bounced back, dropped his arms, and stared me down with an intensity that told me I had fucked up... hard.

No one, and I do mean no one, is scarier than my uncle in a scrap. In the blink of an eye, he dived to the mat, rolled behind me, and knocked my legs out from under me. I went down hard and tried to recover, but he was on me before I had a chance to breathe. Two quick blows to my head and I was down seeing stars. I heard something laughing ringside as the bell rang again, signaling the end of the round.

Ten minutes later, I sat on a folding chair outside the ring holding a bag of ice to my face. Uncle Chuck walked behind me and covered my head with his sweat-drenched towel.

"You wanna cheat boy, make sure you can pull it off!" he laughed. "You know, a year ago there is no way I could have landed that on you." He took a swig from a water bottle and passed it to me.

"Yeah, I'm just rusty I guess," I said, accepting the drink.

He laughed again. "Well, that's no good. Mondays and Wednesdays your ass is back in here."

It wasn't a question. I appreciated that.

Once I was sure I could see straight again, Uncle Chuck walked me out to my car. He insisted on putting the wooden chest of family heirlooms in my trunk, saying it would help me get my mind straight. I didn't argue for fear of round two.

As I stood at the driver's side door, my uncle looked me over, nodding to a thought he didn't speak out loud.

"You're going to be OK boy," he said.

I nodded, though I wasn't sure I agreed. He grabbed me for a rough side hug, then pushed me into the side of my car and turned to walk away.

"Call your momma, you know she's worried," he called as a farewell.

I climbed back into the driver's seat and started the car. As I looked into the rear-view mirror I flinched. Leo was sitting in the backseat.

"Is this going to be a regular thing with you?" I demanded.

He acted as though I hadn't spoken, but watched Chuck walk back inside the gym. When he was out of sight, Leo turned to face me.

"I like him!" he exclaimed.

I rolled my eyes and backed the car out.