have said I’d never forget it. Now I’m not so sure. He said, “Bobby, I understand you. What you do, someone needs to do it. It’s not so different from the job that I do.”
“What job is that?”
“Righting wrongs,” he said. “Looking after my people, no matter how far the winds have scattered them.”
I shook my head at him. Couldn’t believe it. “Blowing up old ladies ain’t righting a wrong, it’s murder. Call the cops next time.”
“You tried to murder me,” he said, and he kind of had a point. “On the fringes of the world, the only justice is vigilante justice, and hunters have known that for thousands of years. What you don’t know . . . is that you’re not the top of the food chain. Everyone thinks that they’re the lion, but somebody has to be the gazelle.”
“That make you the lion?” I asked.
He nodded. “One of the lions.”
“So what was all this? A lesson?”
“A warning.”
Anansi wanted me to keep hunting. He put just about everything back the way it was, minus my leg, which he said I needed to patch up myself. His warning was simple: don’t presume that I was the only force out there trying to set things right. And don’t for a second forget that there were things in the world that could snap me like a twig.
After Anansi had gone, I looked around the salvage yard, at all the cars, now peacefully resting. His lesson had worked—I’d never think of myself as king of this place again. There’s always gonna be something bigger than you, stronger than you. And they’re probably closer to you than you think.
And Then, I Ran
I WAS JUST OUT THERE AGAIN, looking at the Chevelle’s windshield, the word “Karen” scratched into the glass, and it hit me. This could really be it. My last tango, my last hunt, my fuse finally fizzled out. The hour come ’round at last. Maybe all “Karen” means is that I’ll be with her soon. Kind of comforting.
There’s a reason I didn’t tell you the rest of the Karen story earlier. It didn’t begin well, and it don’t end well, either. It’s important, though, the rest of it. . . . It’ll tell you who I really am, and that’s the whole point of this, right? To get the real story out there, so people don’t have the wrong idea about the reasons I did the things I did. Besides, I don’t have any other leads at this point, just that one word. Just Karen. So here’s how that story ended.
See, after Rufus exorcised the demon from Karen’s body, he gave me the starter course, Monster 101. The same starter course I’m giving you, only he didn’t spare me from any of the darkest stuff, didn’t pull any punches. He told me about things he had seen in the line of duty that made me sick to my stomach, and that was the entry level stuff. Rufus had a purpose behind the grisly info-dump: for whatever reason, he thought I had potential.
Rufus had been tracking the demon across several states, knew its MO, so he was expecting a bloodbath when he got to my house. He had seen omens (which I had seen too, but dismissed as South Dakota weather), and followed them right to my front door. What he found inside didn’t match up with his expectations—yeah, there was blood, but it wasn’t mine. I hadn’t been able to expel the demon, but I’d held my own against her, and I guess Rufus saw something in that. Thought I’d make a decent hunter, if I got the proper training. It just so happened that Rufus was starting to feel a little lonely out on the road, and was looking for an established hunter to partner up with—only most hunters aren’t the extroverted sort. Everyone he’d talked to about it had dismissed it out of hand. Training a partner suddenly seemed a hell of a lot easier than recruiting a veteran.
Rufus was different from a lot of hunters—he had a family. He had a girlfriend of sorts in Omaha who he was madly in love with but couldn’t stand to be around. He had a daughter with her who was about nine or ten
“What job is that?”
“Righting wrongs,” he said. “Looking after my people, no matter how far the winds have scattered them.”
I shook my head at him. Couldn’t believe it. “Blowing up old ladies ain’t righting a wrong, it’s murder. Call the cops next time.”
“You tried to murder me,” he said, and he kind of had a point. “On the fringes of the world, the only justice is vigilante justice, and hunters have known that for thousands of years. What you don’t know . . . is that you’re not the top of the food chain. Everyone thinks that they’re the lion, but somebody has to be the gazelle.”
“That make you the lion?” I asked.
He nodded. “One of the lions.”
“So what was all this? A lesson?”
“A warning.”
Anansi wanted me to keep hunting. He put just about everything back the way it was, minus my leg, which he said I needed to patch up myself. His warning was simple: don’t presume that I was the only force out there trying to set things right. And don’t for a second forget that there were things in the world that could snap me like a twig.
After Anansi had gone, I looked around the salvage yard, at all the cars, now peacefully resting. His lesson had worked—I’d never think of myself as king of this place again. There’s always gonna be something bigger than you, stronger than you. And they’re probably closer to you than you think.
And Then, I Ran
I WAS JUST OUT THERE AGAIN, looking at the Chevelle’s windshield, the word “Karen” scratched into the glass, and it hit me. This could really be it. My last tango, my last hunt, my fuse finally fizzled out. The hour come ’round at last. Maybe all “Karen” means is that I’ll be with her soon. Kind of comforting.
There’s a reason I didn’t tell you the rest of the Karen story earlier. It didn’t begin well, and it don’t end well, either. It’s important, though, the rest of it. . . . It’ll tell you who I really am, and that’s the whole point of this, right? To get the real story out there, so people don’t have the wrong idea about the reasons I did the things I did. Besides, I don’t have any other leads at this point, just that one word. Just Karen. So here’s how that story ended.
See, after Rufus exorcised the demon from Karen’s body, he gave me the starter course, Monster 101. The same starter course I’m giving you, only he didn’t spare me from any of the darkest stuff, didn’t pull any punches. He told me about things he had seen in the line of duty that made me sick to my stomach, and that was the entry level stuff. Rufus had a purpose behind the grisly info-dump: for whatever reason, he thought I had potential.
Rufus had been tracking the demon across several states, knew its MO, so he was expecting a bloodbath when he got to my house. He had seen omens (which I had seen too, but dismissed as South Dakota weather), and followed them right to my front door. What he found inside didn’t match up with his expectations—yeah, there was blood, but it wasn’t mine. I hadn’t been able to expel the demon, but I’d held my own against her, and I guess Rufus saw something in that. Thought I’d make a decent hunter, if I got the proper training. It just so happened that Rufus was starting to feel a little lonely out on the road, and was looking for an established hunter to partner up with—only most hunters aren’t the extroverted sort. Everyone he’d talked to about it had dismissed it out of hand. Training a partner suddenly seemed a hell of a lot easier than recruiting a veteran.
Rufus was different from a lot of hunters—he had a family. He had a girlfriend of sorts in Omaha who he was madly in love with but couldn’t stand to be around. He had a daughter with her who was about nine or ten
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