Bend it Like Oregon

131.

"The universe hates me, there can be no other explanation of this." The city of Bend was empty, or translocated or not on this world as it existed. Trezlan didn't know for sure, he only knew his own dumbassery had once again screwed him. He'd been wandering around down town for what felt like a day and nothing had changed. Everything was empty, everyone was gone, and there was no way of leaving. Anytime Trezlan attempted to leave he'd return back to the town like he'd never attempted to escape. Bend was also immensely boring. The kind of place you accidentally stop in on the way to somewhere more interesting and woe be to you for stopping. Several rituals, lots of bloodletting, and even attempting to just burn the town down had failed to illicit a response. Trezlan was 100% stuck there, and now he had to hope for the one thing he didn't want initially, Gilbert to show up.

****

"Absolutely nothing in Bend."

"Well there has to be a town or something."

"I mean beyond that, no clubs, no activities, just some rando town in Oregon." Clarissa had looked it up on her phone. Gilbert figured there would be nothing, and he was proven right, just like most things in Oregon. The road to Bend was deserted. Just one long empty highway, this worried Gilbert more and more as they approached. He stopped when the GPS said they were twenty miles out.

"No traffic, either direction, its fucking spooky its midday."

"Well it is eastern Oregon."

"No this is unusual even for this part of a state. There should be someone coming or going, though I fear I noticed this too late, whatever is here has already gotten us. Look to the horizon and notice there is a vague fog in the distance? We're stuck here now."

"Shit."

"Don't worry this would happen eventually, this kind of shit tends to just exist in my life."

"Well its somewhat new to me Gilbert." Just then a car came speeding at them, Gilbert wondered if it had just been a slow day and they weren't trapped. Until the car stopped and Trezlan got out.

"OH THANK THE GODS YOU'RE HERE!"

****

"So that's where I'm at with all of this Gilbert." Trezlan had recounted everything he'd figured out up until that point.

"Impressive you've been here for hours and found out nothing Trezlan."

"Words hurt Gilbert."

"Would you two stop christ we've been here two days and you're still arguing." Clarissa's comment shook Trezlan and Gilbert, it had only be a few hours or so they thought.

"Clarissa what are you on about, we've been here less than an hour."

"Yeah I'd certainly remember arguing for two days."

"WE'VE LITERALLY HAD THIS CONVERSATION THE LAST TWO DAYS! LOOK AT YOURSELVES YOU'RE UNCLEAN SHAVEN!"

"There is no need to sh..." Clarissa yelled to the air and walked off, this conversation had played itself out several times over and it was driving her insane. Gilbert and Trezlan like a broken record went right back to what they'd been saying.

Concern Noted

130.

"You're not worried at all about what he did?" Gilbert and Clarissa were back in the van, Trezlan said he'd get an uber back up north. The missing person's group were cleaning up the the skin walkers. Gilbert felt very successful, yet not at all satisfied with the outcome.

"I mean my arm feels tingly, but I'm sure it'll be fine, I'm more concerned Trezlan Lorentino isn't just a liar like I'd thought of for years, that's going to hurt my ego."

"Gilbert I'm serious he used hard M magic on you."

"I'll be fine Clarissa really, its not even the first time I've been healed with weird shit, believe me, if anything that was one of the least intrusive versions of it."

"Fine be all Gilbert about it."

"What does being all Gilbert about something mean?"

"It's just that..." Clarissa was interrupted by Gilbert's phone was ringing, he figured it was probably Doris wondering when they'd be back, but he could see it was coming from Trezlan and he wanted to hang up.

"What?"

"Sorry to bother you I was on the way home with this lovely carriage driver when I was hit by a specific blend of memories from the walker skins, I won't go into why I have their memories, but I do. Anyway long story short those weren't the only things after you."

"Telling me shit I already know Trezlan."

"Well look at you Mr. Everyone wants to kill me, fine fine. Just stay out of Bend Oregon." Trezlan hung up at that. Gilbert looked at Clarissa who looked back equally bewildered.

"What's in Bend Oregon?" They both wondered as they drove into the night.

****

"I wouldn't worry about the dumb shit Trezlan says, he one time told me that I should watch out for an arms dealer named Hanlon and I looked the name up and aside from the name of a character in a western it was a nothing, on your left." It had been two days since Trezlan's warning, Clarissa and Gilbert were in a ware house exterminating "dire rats" which were rats the size of small dogs.

"But why warn you about bend, wouldn't that encourage you to visit bend?" Clarissa fired an arrow through one of the rats and skewered it head to tail.

"Why would I visit Oregon? I mean if I want to watch people confused by pumping gas I can watch videos on youtube."

"You just can't get over that can you?"

"Nope, and I never will." Dire rats were not much of an issue, almost the kind of thing you could call a regular exterminator for, if not for the hell portal they normally came from. You needed a real professional for that.

"So what are you going to do?"

"Close the hell portal."

"Well obviously, but beyond that?"

"Sleep? I don't care about Bend Oregon, and Trezlan's warning might as well be 'Don't visit the moon'."

"Fair enough when we wind up in Oregon don't say I didn't warn you."

****

Gilbert drove past the welcome to Oregon sign and Clarissa made a slight laugh.

"Don't say a fucking thing."

The Usefulness of the Useless

129.

"I'm still at a loss as to why I was punished with you." Gilbert and Trezlan had been paired up, Clarissa would go with the two missing person's detectives in a move Gilbert was still wondering how he agreed to it.

"You brought me, clearly they felt I should remain with you, well that and I don't do well with authority."

"You don't say."

"I do say, very often, so why are we in the woods looking for these walker skins?" Gilbert sighed, his arm was feeling numb from the injury earlier he was getting worried it was worse than he thought.

"Skin Walkers, and this is where they wanted us before, so..."

"So you think the best way to stop a trap is to walk right into it? Bold move, stupid but bold, though I guess you could be one of these walker skins things and just leading me into a trap, in which case that's stupid and stupid."

"Stupider than you just bringing that sword and none of the things you sold me that kill them?" Trezlan laughed, compared to how everyone else was dressed, his suit and light coat with the sword did seem out of place. The detectives had actually questioned what he was doing there.

"There is very little in this world my magic and this sword can't kill, Trust me Mr Dunkley I'm not using a stake like some kind of lesser person." Gilbert was about to ask what the lesser person crack meant when he heard an odd yowling. Trezlan heard it too, it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

"Well we know they know we're here."

"I hope you've got something actually planned Mr. Dunkley we're alone in the woods in a trap you specifically said they set for us."

"Was hoping I could just turn you over to them honestly."

"Ha that was my plan Mr. Dunkley." There were four of the skin walkers. They had emerged from the woods in partial human coyote form, their skin glistened unnaturally in the moon light. Gilbert guessed this was the extent of the pack after he and Clarissa had killed one earlier, which meant Trezlan and he would have to take on the rest of the pack.

"Give us Dunkley, and we'll let you live." The voice sounded gutteral and too high pitched, like the imitation of human speech Skin Walkers were known for.

"Sorry he's a paying customer, and you're a walker skin." Trezlan took up a posture with his sword, Gilbert took out the elk horn stake in his good hand and prepared for what he didn't know. He felt like this whole thing had gotten out of his hand and now he had to rely on either Clarissa and the detectives finding him or worse Trezlan not being a complete idiot. Gilbert feared death was certain. The four skin walkers spread out, surrounding Gilbert and Trezlan, and then slinked back into the forest temporarily. Gilbert and Trezlan both knew it was to attack where they couldn't see them.

"I'm open to ideas Trezlan."

"Is that you asking for my help?"

"Well you're here they are going to eat you too."

"Too true, these walker skins are kind of dumb though, who leaves a necromancer by himself before an attack?" Trezlan pulled the sword up into his hand and pulled it once slicing it open. Gilbert was going to ask what that would do, but then Trezlan spun around them in a circle and the blood seemed to float from his hand to the trees and ground around them in some form of magic circle. The walkers ran through his circle for what good it did, Trezlan did not seem at all concerned.

"Fool you think your attempt at magic can harm us?"

"Think? No, know? Yes." Gilbert feared he had trusted Trezlan to do something in the exact way that he'd get killed by an idiot, but the skin walkers didn't advance. They didn't move, they were stuck in place as if something was holding them there. "Go ahead Mr. Dunkley use your little stake on these creatures they can not move."

"What did you do to them?"

"A blood curse, they crossed the circle uninvited and were detained." Gilbert moved from one of the skin walkers to the other with ease killing them with a shove of the stake. When he got to the last one Trezlan held his hand.

"Trezlan I don't know if your blood curse will keep them here forever."

"It won't, but one moment." Trezlan put his hand on the creature and then touched Gilbert, the pain in Gilbert shoulder got intense, like a searing burning pain, and then it was gone, his shoulder was fixed. The creature shriveled like an Indiana Jones villain, turning to dust as it fell.

"What was that?"

"Something you probably don't want to know about, but your shoulder is fixed you're welcome." Gilbert didn't like what he did, but he couldn't argue with the results.

"So you have a use after all Trezlan."

"Shhh don't tell anyone or I'll be so hassled on this world I'll have to go to another one."

The Worst Help From the Worst Person

128.

"This van smells bad."

"No one invited you!" Clarissa and Gilbert said it in unison. They'd been driving for thirty minutes and twenty nine of those minutes was Trezlan complaining.

"Rude of both of you to attack me like that when I'm providing my extensive experience in aiding you on this adventure."

"You bribed your way onto this adventure Trezlan." Gilbert thought to himself he should never have agreed. A thought that kept repeating itself to him.

"What even are you anyway?" Gilbert wanted to tell Clarissa what she just asked was the worst question to ask, but it was too late, he could hear the inhale of breath from Trezlan.

"Well since you asked unlike your rude employer. I come from a land your gutteral tongue can't pronounce so I shall not try. I arrived here mostly on accident, I had been adventuring myself in a cave when a portal opened and deposited me here several hundred years ago." Clarissa looked to Gilbert who shook his head in a 'this guy is full of shit' sort of way.

"So you're hundreds of years old?"

"Several hundreds of years, I'm a necromancer, I keep my life force going by taking from others."

"Just to let you know Clarissa he's some kind of something, but between his bullshit and lies I haven't been able to tell specifically what he is other than stupid and dangerous."

"You're contributions to my story is appreciated Gilbert, I really enjoy these allegations from you."

"Glad I could help Trezlan."

"Anyway, I take life from others to keep my own going, I was very thankful even though this world seems to lack the magic of my world, my magic still works here, mostly. It's just a lot harder to do stuff like conjure fire."

"Conjure fire?"

"Yeah like this." Trezlan had a fire ball manifest in his hand for a brief moment before it disappeared. It surprised Clarissa to see like actual real magic.

"It's a parlor trick, you can see people on the vegas strip do the same thing."

"I highly doubt that Gilbert, people on the Vegas strip can't engulf their whole bodies in flame, well not do that and live for long after I should say."

"So are you unique where you come from? Or is it a planet full of necromancers?" Trezlan shivered at the thought of a planet of necromancers.

"No its just me, and one other person I hope to kill one day when I get back."

"Oh well good talk." Clarissa could see why Gilbert didn't like Trezlan. Gilbert could see in her face she had come to the correct position Trezlan was stupid and dangerous.

"Look he totally earned it ok, like if you knew Morley like I know Morley. Ok nevermind just drive on."

****

"And who's this asshole now?"

"Don't like start Garcia."

"Trezlan Lorentino I can explain my presence here..."

Trans Dimensional Liar Thank You

127.

"Trezlan this is no time for your bullshit." Gilbert could feel the injury with each step, but he still wouldn't put up with Trezlan no matter how hurt he was.

"My bullshit? Ha this from a monster exterminator who doesn't even carry a sword. But since you have a younger companion with you an apprentice of some sort perhaps I'll be kinder, today one time only I'll allow you to bother me with your demands." Trezlan talked almost too fast for Clarissa, like a conman well aware you aren't buying into the con.

"You're too kind."

"It's my worst character trait I admit, since I've been stuck in your world I've grown weaker, its exposure to you people, like a virus I feel infected to be kind, I can not return fast enough."

"Wait you're not from this world?" Clarissa was surprised by this even after everything she'd seen.

"So he claims, but Trezlan also claims to be hundreds of years old, he's the kind of liar you run into if you're unlucky once in a lifetime."

"And Gilbert is one of those uninteresting dullards who does not believe you even when the local natives have stories of you that date back to before this land was settled!"

"Yeah the natives also have a name for you too Trezlan, I can't get the sounds right, but it translates to 'bald man who lies'." Trezlan frowned.

"After everything I've done for them some of it even they asked for, just goes to show you no gratitude for the helpful, speaking of which we're done here out of my shop so paying customers can arrive." Gilbert turned around and looked at the no one in the store.

"I am a paying customer Trezlan, if you let me tell you what I want." Trezlan glowered, but didn't leave his place at the front of the store.

"Well what do you want?"

"Living Elk Horn."

"I don't sell animals here." Trezlan smiled, Gilbert was not having it.

"You know what I want."

"I do, but making people miserable is my favorite thing."

"Mission accomplished, now the Elk horn."

"Popular item that Elk horn, had a park ranger type in here the other day looking for some." Gilbert felt a twinge of pain go through his shoulder at the mention of the park ranger. Clarissa tensed up herself.

"Did you? Last guy I talked to that said that turned out to be one of the things we're hunting."

"I KNEW SOMETHING WAS WRONG!" Trezlan was triumphant like a child, which assured Gilbert he wasn't most likely a Skin Walker, but he wouldn't put it past them to try and trick him either. "I mean anytime someone said Roy Smith recommended me, ha not in this life time, so what are they some kind of changeling?"

"Yeah skin walkers, they can look like people, but they ain't."

"Ooh skin walkers let me write that one down." Trezlan produced a fairly large book and pen and started to write. Gilbert went to say something and Trezlan shushed him. Clarissa found the whole scene funny.

"So do you have the horn or not Trezlan?"

"I do, but you can only have it one condition." Gilbert sighed he knew what was coming, but also knew he needed the horn.

"What is the condition?"

"You have to take me with you!"

Every Good Trap

126.

"Shit you want isn't cheap Gilbert." Roy Smith was Gilbert's native american artifact supplier. He was an elder in the Duwamish tribe or so he told Gilbert despite his very anglicized name.

"Come on Roy you can't have that much of a need for living elk horn." This was the dance he always did with Roy. It was a tiring endless parade of  this thing you want is too expensive, I guess I could see myself letting it go for blah blah, it tired Gilbert, but he felt under the gun and the dance was obnoxious.

"Actually I'm fresh out, a park ranger bought all the stock I had." Gilbert felt that chill run down his spine, the trap being set by the skin walkers was expanding.

"A park ranger named Simmons?"

"I can't remember for sure, something like that."

"You don't remember for sure? You've got video right? Lets just check that out." Roy tried to say no, but Gilbert had already barreled past him into the office with Clarissa trailing after. The office itself looked like a fight had taken place there, papers and office furniture smashed about. The video player itself lay in pieces. Roy attacked Gilbert with large claws from his hand. Gilbert dodged to the left and ran into part of the wooden desk in the small office, his side burned from banging into it, and then the claws got him on his left shoulder, digging deep in.

Clarissa didn't have her bow with her, it wasn't supposed to be that kind of trip. She did have one of her knives though and she buried it into the skin walker's shoulder. The blade couldn't kill the creature, but it sure did harm it, the creature which was looking less like Roy Smith and more like some a hairless bear turned its attention to Clarissa. She backed out of the office and it followed after her. She tried to look around the shop for something to use against it, but it was all baubles and native american tourism stuff.

"You fucked up now girl, after I eat you, I'll go back for your friend." The skin Walker pulled her knife out and threw it into the wall, the blade went all the way through showing the strength of the creature.

"You'll struggle to do that with my fist in your god damn face." Clarissa just attacked the skin walker, she didn't know why or for what good, but with the options of fight or flee, she took fight. She landed a solid right on the skin walkers jaw which surprised it briefly, but it recovered quickly and snatched her by the throat. With minimal effort it flung her towards the wall and she went through it landing next to Gilbert. Everything hurt for Clarissa, even though the wall wasn't wood she was pretty sure she smashed hard into something.

The Skin Walker advanced on her, it looked bigger than it had before. Clarissa heard something behind her, it sounded like Gilbert. He passed something to her hard and sharp and she knew what it was. The Skin Walker lunged on top of her and she stuck the elk horn hard in its chest, she didn't know if the heart was in the same place as a person, or even where a heart normally was. But she aimed and stabbed. With the aid of the creatures own leap the elk horn stake went through all the way to her hand. The formerly aggressive creature went limp on top of her an almost crushing amount of extra weight.

"Can you like move?" Gilbert who was trapped behind her and in pain from the mauling he'd gotten just wanted to be free.

"I'm trying, but he's heavy and I got thrown through a wall Gilbert."

"Yeah well... can you move?" Clarissa wanted to smack Gilbert, but felt he was probably in worse shape than she was. With a lot of exertion of her legs and some whimpers from Gilbert when she leaned into him, she got the corpse of the skin walker off of her and got Gilbert free. His shoulder looked really bad to her untrained eyes, just too much blood and skin being loose.

"I'll be fine, but this isn't the only skin walker, they are pack hunters and we need to get out of here before others show up."

"Where will we go?" Clarissa didn't like that they only had a couple of the elk stakes to use, and the one she'd used already looked pretty worse for wear.

"We need to get more living elk, I know another guy but I'm so loathe to use him, but he's our only hope here, you'll have to drive, I'll do my best to patch up." Clarissa agreed even if she felt she should be driving him to a hospital.

****

The sign said TL Antiquities, Clarissa wondered why they'd come to an antique dealer for what they were after, but Gilbert insisted they were at the right place. Gilbert himself looked worse for wear, but he insisted they go inside together. The shop looked like a regular antique shop to Clarissa, if a bit extravagant for the rural area of Bellingham it was located in. The proprietor was a tall thin black man with a red goatee but a bald head.

"The answer is no, now leave my shop." And it only got worse from there.

Shape Shifting Assholes

125.

"Shape shifting assholes." Clarissa and Gilbert had mostly been quiet since they got the cheap hotel room. Both had seen the other in various forms of naked for a while now so neither were bothered by taking showers in the presence of the other. Gilbert was the first one to really speak as he was drying his hair.

"What are?"

"Skin walkers, you hadn't asked, but I figured you would eventually. They are a native american demon, or at least natives ran across them first. They tend to hide as a lot of different animals, even people, but really they are just shape shifting assholes." Gilbert still didn't like what had happened, and unsprung trap is scary, it shows intent but not follow through.

"So what do they want normally?"

"To torture people mentally and physically and then kill and eat them. They are like an evil shape changing cat, usually pack hunters too." Clarissa shivered the air felt too cold all at once.

"So how do we kill them?"

"Elk horn of a living elk right to the heart."

"Living Elk?"

"Means you can't have killed it, not that we have to like get an elk to ram one through the chest, though I admit the idea of tricking a pack of skin walkers into a pack of elk is amusing."

"So do you have some of this elk stuff available?"

"I have one knife, but I know where I can get more, and we'll need more, this pack of skin walkers are not just some monster hiding in the forest, they have a plan here and that's worrying to me, come on lets get to Missing Persons, Garcia and Micheals won't wait all day.

****

Missing Persons was in the sub basement of the sub basement. It wasn't even the official branch of the missing person's department, that was upstairs in the regular department areas. Where Micheals and Garcia worked was next to a bunch of things that wouldn't have looked out of place in the X-Files. Officially the Seattle Police Department did not believe in monsters, nor sending officers to chase them, unofficially if you pissed off the right people you wound up in "missing persons". Tasked with chasing down every bump in the night and every dumb kook in the city who claimed they saw a bigfoot. Micheals actually had some wins since she got busted down from Lieutenant due to a nebulous personnel complaint. She had Gilbert to thank for those when she called him up on a whim when reading the back of some Cryptozoological magazine.

"Christ every time I come here it looks sadder than the last time." Gilbert laughed at the two desk set up and the "wanted bigfoot" poster on big display between them.

"Nothing quite as sad as your sense of humor Gilbert, what took you two so long?"

"Imp juice soaks your skin, you have to scrub for a few minutes." Clarissa ever the haggard old hand at killing monsters spoke for Gilbert.

"I was trying to balance cheap and won't get a disease from being in the room when selecting my motel." Gilbert still didn't like how much he had to pay, but he made due with at least the shower was hot.

"Well while you two were dinking around we found out shit, Simmons the ranger, and the two joggers are now missing, so the trap was sprung." Garcia got up and put the pictures of the three missing people on the board underneath big foot. Gilbert shook his head, that didn't make sense, why kill people after you'd lured them to a location. He paced for a second, no one said anything, and then he stopped and slapped Micheals desk.

"Yeah they are missing, but not the ones you met."

"You're not making sense Gilbert." Micheals was confused, but Gilbert generally did that to her.

"The trap, it wasn't to catch some joggers or a park ranger. If you're a predator you know that you aren't the only one out there, you know that there are other predators, so you set up a trap and see who comes." It dawned on Garcia and Micheals at the same time, the weird awkward nature of Simmons and him being confused missing persons was there.

"Shit they were looking for us." Garcia sat in his chair slightly worried about his interaction with Simmons and the Joggers.

"But what they didn't see was us." Clarissa could feel confidence creeping into her thoughts.

"Right, they saw you two, but I didn't see a park ranger or joggers when I pulled up, so they got your scent but not mine, and the imp guts would have made the actual scent worse. Which makes you two bait for our own trap."

"I don't like this plan at all."

"Sure you don't Micheals, but you'll love it when we catch these shape shifting assholes."

"Or I'll be dead and eaten and not have an opinion on it."

"Try and stay positive Micheals, they might just capture us and torture us." Garcia didn't like the plan either, but he also didn't have plans for the weekend anyway.