Friday, March 31, 2017

Aftermath

10.

"What is Santinni?" Clarissa went with the more obvious question to start off.

"He's a game warden of sorts, demon, though there are angels. Most of the creatures we end up needing to destroy escaped from one place or the other Santinni is here to make sure much like any game warden, that they are destroyed and not kept like some kind of pet or experiment." Clarissa was just so baffled, yesterday she had been a hard A atheist and now not only were monsters real, but heaven and hell? Like she'd fallen down the crazy hole, she almost worried this was a mental break and Gilbert was just a nice orderly trying to talk her down.

"I'm so lost."

"The more important thing is getting you licensed, I didn't bring it up before because I didn't know if you wanted to stick around, but much like any other trade we don't just let anyone out here to exterminate creatures, and there is a cost to be paid."

"You say cost in a way I'm not comfortable with."

"You're not going to like it."

"Hit me Gilbert, I can take it."

"You're soul." Clarissa laughed, she just didn't know what else to do.

"My what?"

"You're soul, you have to put it in a kind of pawn like situation with the eternal powers, that way if you break the covenants they take a price that no human would ever want to pay."

"So Santinni is a demon game warden who wants my soul so I can kill monsters for a living."

"Yes this is the long and short of what I'm saying."

"Man my world is so fucked up right now." Gilbert didn't say anything in response he just drove, and Clarissa her one pressing question answered went to sleep. The rest of the drive was uneventful.

****

Clarissa woke up with a start. She was in a bed that she didn't remember falling asleep in. She was still the clothes she was wearing when she went to sleep in the work van. She could tell it was dark out, but had no idea where she was. She got out of bed and saw her shoes were placed at the end of it. She looked to be in someones guest room, there were no pictures on the walls, and only a bed and small night stand with a lamp on it. Beyond the room she could hear talking and one of the voices sounded like Gilberts.

"I'm just saying you said temporary and this has been going on for six months, you have a weird definition of temporary." Gilbert had some anger in his voice. Clarissa was in a small hallway off a kitchen, she could see yellow light and a range in front of her.

"This is how you treat family? Especially after Dad died I thought you'd..."

"Don't you throw that shit at me Joseph, don't you dare try and act like he just died, he died five years ago, and it has nothing to do with your dumb bullshit."

"You're an asshole." There was a door slam and Joseph was gone, Gilbert showed up at the end of the hallway and spotted Clarissa.

"I hope we didn't wake you."

"Nah I had gotten up, I'm at your house?"

"You mentioned you didn't have a place to stay, and you were pretty tired when I pulled up, figure better in our guest room than in the van." Clarissa walked the rest of the way into the kitchen and saw it was a fairly large and older in design, something from the sixties by her guess.

"So that was your nephew?"

"Yeah Joseph, I didn't mind him being here at first, but now the little shit is setting up shop. And I'm not a halfway house for his failures. He uses my brothers death like a club against me at any and all opportunity." Gilbert looked tired to Clarissa, she wondered if he had slept at all. Before she could ask him there was a ring of a doorbell.

"You're nephew?"

"Has a key, and he never rang the bell." There was worry in Gilbert's voice, Clarissa recalled Santinni saying he had a week, but maybe the demon got impatient.

"Creatures?" Gilbert chuckled and the doorbell rang two more times insistent.

"They don't ring doorbells, but you'll learn that in time, no come on lets not leave Francis Dufton on my door step." Clarissa wondered how he knew who it was, but she figured with experience came expectation.

"Mr. Dufton this is my residence this is not how we do things in this industry." Dufton was a thin tall man, pale white skin and really black hair. He was dressed in a black suit and a had a couple of large looking men in suits with him.

"You have something for me Mr. Dunkley."

"A bill at my office which you're welcome to come get in the morning." Gilbert went to close the door and Dufton stopped it with his hand and came inside unasked, his men remained outside. Clarissa could see this upset Gilbert.

"The ax Dunkley, I'm here for the ax."

"I knew you double booked on me."

"Vasilly told me you had the game warden run him off, now as your employer..."

"You should know all my contracts say I keep what I kill, if you wanted the ax you should have specified."

"Don't fuck with me Dunkley."

"Don't fuck with me Dufton, you are an uninvited guest in my house and if you think those two outside scare me you obviously don't know what I do for a living. Keep this up and I'll add an asshole charge to your bill." Both men stood staring at each other looking for an opening. Dufton eventually put his hands up and went toward the door.

"This isn't over."

"Not until you pay my bill." Clarissa looked at Gilbert who was breathing kind of heavy.

"That was kind of scary."

"Yeah, more than a little bit."

"Is every job like this?" Gilbert smiled.

"Gods no, just the shitty ones. And this one is seeing more and more like the worst of the worst. I'm going to have get that axe in here and give it a once over, something ain't right."

"Can I take a shower first I smell awful." Gilbert laughed.

"Yeah please do, might even have a change of clothes if you don't mind wearing some of my wifes." The tension seemed more defused, still Clarissa was as interested in the Ax as Gilbert was. She figured something was wrong, and the sooner they figured that out, the sooner this whole thing would go away.

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