Roy The Dragon

157.

"Everyone always wants to know where a dragon comes from, no one ever asks how a dragon winds up Wyoming." Roy had set out some coffee and crackers on his coffee table, Clarissa was hesitant to eat food from a supernatural creature.

"Well one does seem like the more interesting question."

"Dragons are born like anything else, we live, and then we fuck up and end up in a shit place like Wyoming."

"Can't you just leave?"

"No, even if I wanted to, by order of the dragon council I must remain here, sure I can vacation, or visit other places, but I must return here within a few days or face their wrath." Clarissa was confused by everything in what he said, especially the Dragon Council part.

"Dragon Council? Why would you be banished to Wyoming." Roy leaned back and put his feet up on the table.

"Well I kind of tried to overthrow the council, instead of killing me they banished me here a fate worse than death. Though none of this has anything to do with why there is a hell portal on my property."

"You say there is a hell portal on your property, we still haven't found that yet." Roy sighed.

"True maybe I just brought you here to lament its hard to be a dragon."

"Not exactly a therapist, but eh you're paying my fee." At that they both laughed. They didn't know what to say, so they both drank coffee and sat in Roy's living room. Clarissa noticed he didn't have a tv or a pc anywhere, she figured dragon's must like books.

"Do you smell that?" Roy seemed to be slightly alarmed when he stood up.

"Nah I have a cold or something I can't smell anything, what's it smell like."

"Sulfur." Clarissa got up off the couch and took up her bow, she had a couple arrows she knew would work against something from hell, but she wasn't sure that's what this was. Something about this whole situation felt wrong in a way she couldn't put her finger on.

"Where?"

"All around us? I can't make it out specifically." Clarissa went to the front door and saw a rather large looking portal surrounded by demons.

"Yeah that's a portal to hell why didn't you tell me you had one?" Roy laughed a little bit despite also being scared, Dragons were not immortal by any means and creatures from hell tended to bring a lot of things low.

"So what am I looking at here?"

"Well one portal, fifteen demons, I'm thinking at least five grand."

"Five grand? That's extortion."

"That's business Roy, I mean if you like I could just leave the portal here?"

"Fine fine, just I want a cashback guarantee no more demons or portals to hell for at least five years."

"3 years."

"Deal."

Looking For Hell In All the Wrong Places

156.

The portal to hell wasn't anywhere. Clarissa and Roy had walked the whole property over and found nothing. Clarissa didn't think Roy was lying, but she didn't know what to think of people anymore, let alone why they would or could lie, so she was left without too many options. Roy for his part looked sheepish at each new didn't find anything discovery. Clarissa could see how he felt embarrassed, though she was also getting kind of suspicious of him. The whole farm was massive, and yet she hadn't seen another person or anything suggesting other people worked there. And she couldn't even tell what kind of farm it was.

Like he had a barn clearly and animals that had been eaten/killed, but Clarissa didn't understand what kind of farm he was running. He was not producing food based on her not seeing any kind of harvesting equipment, or silos to store it in. As she walked the property she felt a sinking feeling in her stomach the cowboy wasn't who he seemed, or even what he seemed. She hadn't really given him a second look since coming out to his property. He had looked like a cowboy, a big hat, gun on a holster, a sequin shirt. But now that she thought of it, he looked like a cowboy cowboy, like one from before and not a more recent version. They were riding back to his ranch house when she could sense he knew she suspected him.

"You're not super observant normally are you?" She went to pull her gun, but he already had his out, the truck was stopped and it was pointing at her. It was an old timey looking thing, shined up, but deadly all the same.

"What are you?"

"A dragon." He said it so casually it almost caught her off guard.

"What's going on here?"

"Like I said portal to hell."

"That we can't find."

"And don't that make me feel silly, but I'm no liar, and I didn't bring you here for a nefarious reason just to get rid of the portal to hell." He turned the gun around to her butt first to show his sincerity.

"Why didn't you lead with being a dragon?"

"You didn't really ask, and its not like I hide it, look how I'm dressed." Clarissa could feel her face go flush.

"So that's how you knew all those sigils."

"I'm sure you could find them on the internet if you really wanted to, but yes. I am still perplexed by the mystery though Clarissa, I know you don't have the best of luck with my people, but if you are willing I'd really like to find out what happened to that portal to hell."

"Sure Roy, if that is your real name."

"It isn't, but I don't think you're vocal chords can pronounce my real name."

The Cowboy

155.

"I just got back from an annoying thing, can we do this some other time?" Clarissa didn't need to know what the cowboy wanted, the way he dressed told her it wasn't anything she wanted.

"Can't do that, I need your help, I was told this is something you do."

"What help can you even need?"

"I got a portal to hell on my property."

"I'm listening."

****
Roy had made the trip from Wyoming (Clarissa actually laughed a little when she heard his name was Roy). He had made an assumption about the portal being to hell, just he had a portal that was putting out scary things and the DSA was refusing to help because he wouldn't sign away part of his property for their "investigation." Clarissa was mostly interested in the portal to hell, but that the DSA wanted it for an investigation had her hackles up after the recent unpleasantness.

"It's over here." The portal had appeared in a barn, killed all the animals inside, Roy had "locked it up" as he claimed with some sigils he'd found on the internet. Clarissa was almost amused at that being a thing now.

"You found these sigils on the internet? Yikes." They were a hodge podge of several religions in Clarissa's estimate, some she'd seen Gilbert use, most seemed useless, but a couple good ones had kept the things inside at bay.

"They worked didn't they?"

"Worked is a stretch, held is more likely, some of these are very dangerous, like they won't do anything against a creature, but a person who didn't know what they were doing, blow you up."

"Really?"

"Really, this is like a bomb of spiritual power, you have to be careful with it Roy." Clarissa had found herself always warning people now in the new world about playing around with all the shit they previously thought was just dumb stuff in movies and games. She'd already seen it end tragically.

"Well next time I'm facing demons from the pits of hell I'll call you Clarissa and you can tell me the optimal way to keep them locked up." Clarissa peaked into the barn and didn't see anything, she could see the bodies of farm animals, but no portal, no demons.

"You sure was in there?"

"Yes?" Roy himself looked between the slats and was surprised to not see anything.

"Ok I know this looks bad, but I swear there was a portal to hell in there."

"But its not there now."

"It would appear so." Clarissa sighed, she knew this was a bad job, and it just got worse.

The DSA

154.

Their van had been there all day, no one had come to do anything about the creature in the house. But no sooner had Clarissa killed it than backup arrived. When she exited there were at least forty men with guns waiting for her. There was no love lost between her in the DSA in the new world, but she felt this was excessive. They handcuffed her and brought her to regional office. She was placed in an interview room and had to wait. Government loved to keep people waiting, it was something Clarissa felt every time she'd dealt with them since Gilbert's passing.

"Sorry about the wait we were doing inventory on your vehicle."

"Am I being charged with a crime?" The man who had come in was a tall thin white man, the kind of person who screamed career bureaucrat.

"Should you be?" Clarissa never liked this I know what you don't style of interviewing.

"Well if I'm not under arrest than I want out of here I got shit to do."

"Not so fast." Clarissa slumped into her chair.

"We lost five people in that house, and yet you walked out of there no issue."

"You're agents suck, are we done here?"

"Sit down." The voice was more commanding now, Clarissa just didn't feel like she had the time to care about it. "Lot of good men lost their lives to your former employer, lot of good families are still in danger do to what he did."

"What you all did, Gilbert only took over for the government, but it was the government who were tromping into the fey in the first place, hell that creature that killed your men was some form of Imp, I imagine it held ill will after the recent unpleasantness."

"I don't like you, and you don't like me, independent contractors like you are dangerous, so stay out of the way of the DSA, or next time maybe we won't just arrest you, you can go." Clarissa wanted to say more to the thin man, but felt it was better to just leave it be. On the way out of the office someone handed her bags of her stuff they'd taken from her truck, the guy doing the handing was a rude asshole with a crew cut and a smirk like what he was doing was funny. Clarissa took her things, filled out the dumb paperwork that came with it and got down to her truck to leave.

The DSA office was in Seattle, so it took her a few hours to get back to Ellensburgh, by the time she was there it was very dark out. The wind was also howling fairly aggressively as it often did in the winter. Clarissa had barely sat down again before the door opened and the cowboy stepped inside.

"Its far too late in the day for this bullshit." The cowboy tipped up his hat and smiled.

"Sister you don't know the half of it."

6 Rounds, And You'll Need Ever One.

153.

Clarissa approached the DSA van cautiously. She had her bow strung up on her back with some arrows, and she had taken to using a modified revolver much like Gilbert used to, though she preferred a .357 over what Gilbert used it was easier to manage. She had the pistol out with a flash light in her off hand. The Van looked intact without obvious damage, the doors were locked and Clarissa didn't really feel like forcing them open. It was in front of the address that had in theory sent the help message. Clarissa had sent a message saying she was there, but no one had returned it.

Clarissa moved beyond the van, she didn't want to get arrested for messing with government property, and she knew whatever was the problem, wouldn't be there. The house's front door had been kicked in, there was light coming from the inside but it was flickering either through damage or by whatever the DSA was there to kill/remove. Clarissa was torn between announcing she was coming inside, or just entering and hoping that if someone from the DSA was alive they wouldn't fire on a human, it was a calculated risk.

The inside of the house was where the war was fought, bullets, magic residue, all kinds of things were scattered and splattered. Whatever got the DSA agents they had fought back with a variety of things at their disposal. Clarissa didn't see any bodies, though she saw a laptop still open to a messaging program with her information inside it.

"Shit." Trap was the most obvious conclusion, but who had laid it, and why or what? Clarissa didn't like the situation. She didn't know enough and she had blundered into it, hubris was the most dangerous of problems. Clarissa tried to slowly back out, to avoid the fate of whatever hit the DSA, but she sensed it was too late, the creature was already there.

"Foolish." One word foolish. The door slammed behind her, she could feel the sizzle from the magic that did it. Like passing too near a car. Clarissa had learned some new things post being Gilbert's assistant. She pulled a packet of fairy dust from a pouch on her belt and threw it up in the air, the dust smelled like a spring meadow, but more importantly it would coat anything magical that was hiding with an irritating burning powder. The creature was at her back and it howled as the dust coated it. Clarissa jumped back and fired a shot from the .357. The first round she packed was a hellfire bullet, it was normally able to at least stop most creatures if not outright kill them. This large mass seemed to not be affected by it too much.

It moved on her, one long arm smashed her backwards and into a wall. She fired three more times, each bullet a new secret sauce of monster killing, each one didn't seem to do shit to the powder covered creature. She was down to her last two bullets, the ones that she had loaded as a "just in case shit has gone wrong" way, and feared they too would do nothing. The dark shape was advancing on her, menacing in a way she hadn't felt in the new world. First of the last chance bullets hurt, but didn't stop it, with a prayer to whoever Clarissa fired her last bullet. The creature looked to keep advancing at first, and then it caught up to it, the being came more into view as some large imp looking thing and then crashed into the floor boards. Clarissa breathed a sigh of relief, and then she heard the sirens.

"Great just what I needed today."

What Can Be Broken, Can Be Fixed

152.

Things weren't ok immediately. Going to war against the supernatural and invading hell tends to fuck things up. Clarissa knew everyone would calm down. She and Demurra helped where they could, but for the most part the world did what it always does, it recovered. Cities got rebuilt, government recovered, and a year later even Clarissa was back to just working as an exterminator. She had more calls than before, but the work was pretty much as it was before minus Gilbert and Doris.

Clarissa was working solo now. Demurra broke up with her shortly after she got back from hell, something about how she couldn't deal with Clarissa and the work she did. It made sense at the time, but the wound was fresh everytime Clarissa felt herself alone and picking at old wounds. Just like she woke up in Gilbert's house and kept hoping to hear his voice. She lived with all the ghosts now. She did change the name of the business to CS Exterminators. She didn't have the tag line like Gilbert, but she couldn't bear to see his name as much anymore.

On the majority of days Clarissa was just in the office, cooling her heels waiting for the phone or email to show up. It had been busy post the world almost ending. Most of the time Clarissa was just cleaning up after the new "Department of Supernatural Affairs", who did the best they could with all the problems in the country, but Clarissa felt they focused a little too hard on what effected rich people, and not enough on the regular folks. It was a snowy wednesday morning when she got the email, it simply listed an address and "help" ordinarily this wouldn't have been enough for Clarissa, but the sadness at the office felt cloying and so she replied "on the way" without a second thought.

The Van was gone now, Clarissa drove a pick up truck, something she'd been gifted by the government. She liked how it was less bulky than the van, and it was a reward for something she'd done and not something Gilbert had used, so it felt more hers. The truck also had better gas mileage and since Clarissa was doing the books now that was important to her as well.

Roads were taking longer to repair than a lot of other things. The drive out anywhere often needed more off roading than Clarissa liked, but she accepted road construction in the rural areas she worked were lagged behind repairing cities and power infrastructure. It did make travel estimates a pain to manage. She assumed it would take a few hours to make her way near Vancouver, but it took the better part of a day, by the time she arrived at the address it was already night.

It was a residential neighborhood, rows and rows of similar looking houses lined the streets. Clarissa took a bit to even find the specific address she was looking for. Once there she could see a DSA van out front, blaring from its speakers was a warning for others to stay in doors. Clarissa was confused, usually she didn't overlap with the DSA, they had their methods and she had hers and never the two met. When she got out of her truck one of the neighbors ran up to meet her.

"Should we remain inside?"

"You don't know?"

"I don't, that van showed up here like five hours ago, I haven't seen shit." Clarissa cursed under her breath.

"Yeah stay inside then."

"Are you going to do something?"

"Oh yeah I'll do something." The man walked away and Clarissa muttered under her breath "Don't know what I'll fucking do, but it'll be something."

Let Me Toss a Coin

151.

"It'll probably work."

"You say probably in a way my parents used to say we'll see, in that it doesn't make me think this is a good outcome." Trezlan had laid out a blood ritual in a language that Clarissa couldn't even begin to understand.

"You just need to trust the madness Clarissa."

"I think that's what got me stuck in hell in the first place Trezlan, I'd rather the madness stop personally." Trezlan sliced open his hand and threw some blood onto his ritual.

"If only we had a coin, then we can see which odd is more likely."

"What does that mean..." The world became a blur for Clarissa afterword. One minute she was next to Trezlan in a formless hell, the next she was in a horrific warzone. Military bodies lay strewn everywhere, creatures of a more traditional "hell" nature lay next to them, Clarissa could hear gun fire and screams all around her.

"Well this worked out better than I expected." Trezlan was there, because Clarissa figured Hell wouldn't accept him anywhere else.

"I don't want to know what you expected."

"We have to hurry now, Gilbert is close, and I fear he's about to get what none of us want."

"How do you?" But there wasn't any time to question Trezlan, or his knowledge. Clarissa could hear the battle getting more pitched, and she needed to be there for the conclusion. Something had driven her here, and she wanted to see it through to its horrible conclusion. Trezlan and her made their way past the carnage to its zenith. Clarissa could see Gilbert among a bunch of fighting and dying soldiers, he was approaching some glowing object she couldn't discern but she figured was the source of this conflict.

"GILBERT!"She called out to him and he spotted her, his look was that of pain and disappointment especially with Trezlan standing next to her. Trezlan didn't wait or hesitate, he threw his sword at the object Gilbert was trying to acquire, but he was too slow, Gilbert effortlessly batted away the blade and grabbed the object. The fighting stopped, everything seemed far too slow for Clarissa, Gilbert turned toward Trezlan and just made him disappear. He then turned towards Clarissa.

"Don't follow his path Clarissa."

"Gilbert this is wrong!"

"You don't even know what this is." He was glowing now, he descended from the place he was in, walking towards Clarissa glowing with power. "You don't know what this object does, you are pushed forward by forces you don't understand to do their bidding, but you won't Clarissa because you know I'm right."

"I don't even know what that is." Gilbert was closer to her, he was radiating heat, Clarissa felt uncomfortable being near him.

"With this we can be gods, no longer content to let indifferent to our existence dominate the world, with this power I CAN FIX EVERYTHING!" Clarissa heard Gilbert's words but saw the death and destruction around her, and knew what he was thinking was not what would become.

"All you've done is destroy everything Gilbert." He was close now, within grabbing range. He was reaching out to her, a mentor, a father in the absence of hers giving a shit, a friend, and she killed him. She didn't know it would work, feared the power he had now made him invulnerable, but the blade she drew struck true in his neck and with a look of shock and sadness Gilbert died at her feet. The object fell to the ground. Clarissa found a dead man near her with a belt of grenades, she wrapped the object in them and pulled the pin sprinting away with tears in her eyes. She didn't know if the explosion would destroy the object, but it seemed to do the job, when she turned around it was no more.

"Time to go." Satan threw her out of hell, literally, he hurled her through the door she'd come through and she slammed into the ground near Clyde's feet.

"It's done then?" Clarissa could do nothing else, but cry, the finality of the door closing behind her felt more than just one door was shut forever.

****
Trezlan felt the shoe hitting him several times. He remembered seeing the man Gilbert point in his direction and then nothing. He was surprised to be awakened, and surprised still it was Nidget doing it.

"Get up you sad sack."

"Nidget you won't believe where I've been!"

"Asleep? Yeah and we're in real trouble, get your shit." Trezlan sighed, he was back in his own world again and already in demand, such was the life of someone such as himself. He wondered for a moment what happened to Clarissa and Gilbert, but knew that his part in their story however limited it had been was over, and it was time to resume his own life once again.

"First why? Second why and third WHY??!??!" Things were going to be back to the way they were, Trezlan knew it, for ill or for good, mostly for Ill.