West Virginia, For Real This Time

62.

"Can't kill a dragon just by cutting her head off." Gilbert and Clarissa were together again. Reverend Timms had wished them well on their way and gone off to whatever place Timms went. Clarissa was relieved Gilbert seemed to be in better spirits.

"But she died."

"She made you think she did, probably because she's planning some overall bad thing with other bad things and wanted to fall of the radar for a bit."

"That happen a lot?"

"All the god damn time, one time me and Janice back when we were just foot soldiers in the military fell into this conspiracy to replace the president with a vampire, just another week in this industry I tell you."

"Well that's reassuring." Gilbert laughed.

"Welcome to being a monster exterminator. Don't worry Parker will get hers sooner or later, we got this forest shit to work through though, something in West Virginia."

"You sure you are up for it?"

"Not in the slightest, but between what the sorrow said and Parker's actions making it clear she doesn't think I'm going to stick around, I better get this resolved sooner rather than later." Clarissa nodded.

"I'm still scared Gilbert."

"Don't be, not my first time of having something evil inside, this one at least doesn't talk, I had some eighteenth century spirit along for a ride once, good lord was that awful, dude never shut up, just talked all day being amazed by simple shit, by the time it was time to get rid of him I was beyond annoyed with his bullshit." Clarissa remembered the dark spirit she'd given a ride and wondered if this was Gilbert telling her he knew and just was letting her keep the fiction going.

"Monster Exterminating is crazy shit."

"Yes yes it is, but the pay sucks and the hours are terrible." Gilbert and Clarissa both laughed at that for a bit and then drove on in silence. The roads towards West Virginia beckoned.

****

"No."

"What do you mean no?"

"I mean no." Gilbert had checked in with a Sheriff when they had gotten to West Virginia. The man's name tag read Dewey and to Gilbert he looked exactly like a Dewey.

"Sheriff I'm just giving you a courtesy notice."

"You're stepping in shit that I can't walk off is what you're doing, if you and your assistant insist I'll arrest you both, now get out of my office." He slammed the door to punctuate it. Clarissa who had been waiting in the small waiting area shrugged at Gilbert.

"So that's that?"

"No its not that, we'll find another way to do this shit, but we're doing it." Gilbert didn't remember much of West Virginia, but it was coming back to him why he hated it.