Field Trip

Field Trip

A Slayer of Evil (Prices Negotiable) Story

By

Andrew E. Moczulski

Copyright 2012, Andrew E. Moczulski

Smashwords Edition

***

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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

It all started with a phone call that, if we're being honest, I probably should have ignored.

I am not used to having a home phone, honestly, doing most of my work via disposable cell phones. I really only got it because this is the first time in ages that I've had a home, and even then, I probably wouldn't have bothered if my roommate had not insisted it made the place feel more 'cheery'. Considering she cannot answer the phone, or interact with physical objects at all unless my life is in danger, I felt that this cheer was debatable, but I seriously cannot say no to her when she gets pouty. It's painfully adorable, even if she is a ghost. Spirit. Thing.

She's dead, is the key point.

I have a pretty cool roommate.

So the home phone rang, and since the only other person in the house was non-corporeal, I answered it. The voice on the other end was refined, soft, and so dry it made my throat hurt. Excuse me, have I reached the phone of Mr. Thomas Faux? he said, pronouncing it like 'Fox', which was even the 'right' way to pronounce it.

I blinked. That was one of my fake names; my real name is Eric Margrave, Professional Monster Hunter and Arguable Badass, but I may have possibly at some point in the past maaaaaaybe gotten put on one or two wanted lists for crimes that may or may not have resembled murder, but which were not murder, I swear. Those human-looking corpses were a lot bigger and more fanged when I killed them, I promise! But the point in this particular instance was that the fake name he was identifying me by was one I hadn't used in years. I mean 'Faux'? Come on, that one's just painfully obvious. I only used a name that bad when I was a younger, stupider man who thought it sounded clever instead of just silly. More importantly, though, it definitely wasn't the name that this house and, by extension, the phone line, was registered under.

Whom is on the phone, Eric? asked Lydia, my roommate and sorta-ghosty-thing, her voice echoing through my mind. If it is a contract, please hang up. You promised we might finish that delightful movie about the skeletal pirates this evening, and I shall not allow you to leave at mid-show again. I found it quite thrilling!

I never should have gotten her a DVD player. "Lydia, I am on the phone and you are ghosting in my ear," I snapped. Sorry about that, she's almost as incorrigible as she is intangible. Intangicorrible.

Excuse me? asked the voice on the other end of the phone line. Is someone with you? I didn't hear anything.

I'm sure it isn't important because ghosts are not real and neither are protective spirits so I obviously can't be talking to one, I said very quickly. People will very often agree with you if they aren't sure what you said, I've found.

Of course, said the voice, in admittedly a more accepting tone than I'm used to. Maybe whoever it was, they were just so bland that even when they were surprised, they simply weren't physically capable of showing it. In any event, Mr. Faux, my name is Henry Dawson, and I am calling on behalf of the estate of one James McAvoy.

Big Jim Mac? I asked, eyes widening in genuine surprise after a brief jaunt down memory lane trying to recall the man, who I really had only known briefly and far more by his nickname than 'James McAvoy'. "He's dead?"

I regret to inform you that yes, Mr. McAvoy has passed away, Dawson replied, his tone still suggesting this news was, in fact, extremely boring to him. It sure as Hell wasn't boring to me though... Big Jim had been a monster hunter, like me. We'd worked together once, a long time ago when I was just starting out, and, well... there was really only one response to this.

Whoooooooooooo-hoo! I cheered, slamming the phone down. Lydia! Lydia, awesome news! One of my ex-partners died!

... Are you quite sane, sir? said the house's resident guardian spirit, fading into view as she was wont to do, still wearing the same old-fashioned frilly peach dress she had been wearing when she died.

Lydia was a Lar, a kind of combination of a guardian spirit and a household deity, who was created when she had been killed in defense of her family by a very nasty entity back in 1903. She technically only existed to protect residents and invited guests of this, her own former home, from black magic and evil spirits, and as such could only take on a physical form when someone in the house was in actual danger; the woman standing before me was completely insubstantial, a simple projected image in the shape that Lyd had taken in life. That said, being incorporeal didn't stop her from talking. A lot. She could even speak to my mind directly, so earplugs were totally useless. She was a decent sort, so I mostly didn't mind except when I was trying to sleep and kept trying to get me to turn pages for her so she could read a book, or getting me to press 'play' on the DVD player. She was a persistent little thing, and sleeping when she didn't want you to sleep was hard.

I let her usual dig at my sanity slide and just smiled, though. I was in a very good mood at the moment, and not even Lydia could depress me. "Big Jim McAvoy, dead! This is the best news I've gotten in years!"

Why, praytell, are you so enthused by the death of a friend?

"... Friend? Friend? I said 'ex-partner', not friend," I replied, blinking in confusion. "He was a bastard."

I sense a deeper story here, perhaps?

Well... not much of one, I said. Basically, when I was first starting out, I worked with a lot of more experienced hunters. Most of the newbies do; gives them needed field experience, gives the older hunter a chance to go over their old skills again, a fresh set of eyes, and if needed a meat shield.

... I have never understood why you persist in that barbaric career, Eric, Lydia said, looking down her nose at me. She did that a lot, in fact. She was a real, old-school aristocrat, and she could look down on someone ten feet above her.

God, she was lucky she was cute or I would exorcise her so hard.

I like the adrenaline, I said. But anyway, like I was saying; I worked with a bunch of old hunters, and learned a lot from all of them. My dad taught me the basics, of course, but after I parted ways with him, Lucas Gibbs taught me the best tactics for bringing down a werewolf, Jonah St. Clair taught me the right way to perform an exorcism, Sara Dorne taught me how to set a building on fire in such a way that whatever is inside is unlikely to be able to get out alive...

I paused, letting the misty memories roll through me. Sara then taught me that a certain type of woman is very, very turned on by the sight of a burning building. Then she taught me how to have sex with her. Then she taught me to never be so distracted by a woman's amazing legs... and they were stunning, you have no idea... that you don't check to make sure if that woman is married to an ex-Navy SEAL. Then her husband, Rob, taught me how to set a broken limb, which I thought was really nice of him considering he was the one who broke the limb in the first place after catching me in bed with his wife. Very reasonable man, totally believed me when I said I hadn't known she was married, and let me off with just a broken arm. Lot of guys wouldn't buy that excuse, but he was a class act.. I still send them an anniversary present every November.

Lydia just kind of stared at me for a few long, somewhat awkward seconds, before finally saying, in a very dull, dead sort of tone, You continue to find new ways to make my afterlife a fresh and ongoing trauma with each new day.

Aw, you love me.

I tolerate you, she corrected me. Brat. But in any case, you did not mention this Mr. McAvoy in your... colorful list of acquaintances.

Ah, Big Jim, I said, wiping away a tear of nostalgia. He taught me the most important lesson of all.

Which was?

That sometimes, the hunter you're partnered with will try to kill you and take your share of the pay after the job is over, I said. I smiled, still letting the memories of old times wash over me. We were going after a... what was it again, a Kappa? Nah, they live in ponds and stuff. I think it was some kind of ogre. Anyway, it was a big thing, and we were hunting it through an old slum neighborhood in Cleveland, and we have the thing cornered in an old condemned apartment building. Jim says we should go in separately and try to catch it in a pincer. I would go in from the front, lay suppressing fire and try to keep it under cover while he looped in from the back and took it by surprise.

I sense this did not go as planned.

"Oh, it went exactly how he planned it, the old bastard. You see, while I was inside, trying to be stealthy and sneak up on the, y'know, man-eating monster, Jim never actually followed me in. He sent me in alone as bait to make sure the thing would be focusing on me instead of trying to run for it, while he went around to wedge shut all the ground floor entrances and trap me and the monster inside. Then he set the place on fire."

... I admit, I begin to see why your memories of the man are not fond.

Yeah, it wasn't a good situation for me, I'm not gonna lie, I said cheerfully. I figured out what was up pretty quick, so I knew that if I jumped out a window, I was leaving myself wide open for Jim, but if I stayed inside I was either gonna burn to death, or be ripped apart by a fire-maddened monster. Neither sounded very appealing, so I decided to say 'screw the hunt', and tried to find another option. Luckily, I had some decent experience with fire thanks to Sara... also experience in other th-

"I remember the story," Lydia growled, the room temperature dropping about fifteen degrees with the ice in her voice. With most women that's hyperbole, but Lydia could literally do it. Frost was already forming on the windows.

"In any case, I couldn't get out of the building, but I remembered that big old buildings