Chapter 9: An Emergency at Work

The Hunter slowly walked into the room. His hands were at his sides, close enough to his service pistols to enable the quickest draw. The building was an office building, clearly occupied. He had cleared the three ground floors and was entering a basement floor. Twenty five demons had been removed. Twenty two rounds had been fired. Griffin was a legend. He never missed. He never used suppression rounds in his service pistol. Griffin had reached the level where he was not given the high powered tranquilizers, or the DKR's for the automatic. He only used his two old fashion looking revolver. He fired special rounds that would kill anything. These rounds are supplied only to those hunters that are very good, the highest ranking. Usually a hunter would only receive a few of these rounds since they are harder to make than the usual DKR's and they cost thousands more per round. Griffin and those others that are legends in the field are given a much larger supply, and are able to get as many as they need. Every round someone of his caliber fires is likely to remove at least one demon.

Griffin was five foot four inches. He looked Asian in descent, possibly Japanese. He was dressed in his usual blue jeans and a white t-shirt proudly proclaiming I heart New York, with a picture of the statue of liberty on it. Over his shirt he had his shoulder harness with the holsters for his two guns and his light. His harness also had a medium sized metal case with twenty eight of his killing rounds, and a silver kbar. His head was completely denuded of hair including his eyebrows. He will tell a story of a fire as the only proclaimed reason for the deformity. At the age of fifty, it would be thought that his joints would be stiffening, and his reflexes slowing, however, Griffin was always in perfect shape and mind set. He was trained, and he was always ready. His body still was not feeling its age, and that is what had kept him alive as a legend.

The first floor of the basement was dark and moldy, the perfect place for monsters to be living. The lights were off. Griffin flipped on his flashlight for the ultraviolet light it produced. It also would deter any weak vampires he happened to face. The light was attached to the left side of his harness, shining light wherever it was facing. Griffin surveyed they area, checking for moving things in the shadows. He took a few steps inside a large room filled with cubicles. The room was partially partitioned with orange cubicle walls which looked very strange in his blue light. The walls were moldy and showed the neglect. This office generally looked this way, a lot of materials were still left, desks, chairs and the like, it was as if the business had just packed up the personal stuff and left. The entire building had been like this, not old or decrepit, just unused. He felt something moving in the room. His instincts never lied.

Griffin suddenly burst into movement, jumping sideways, and landing on the desk of a cubicle. With his movement he also pulled out one of his guns and aimed it at where he was standing. A three horned demon was suddenly in the place he had just occupied. His gun fired once, and the demon hit the ground, green blood oozing from a hole in its head. He pulled his second gun, and fired two more shots into the shadows, hearing the sounds of two more bodies hitting the floor. Griffin jumped back to the floor, and started to walk to the end of the room, he felt something charging from behind. He spun, and fired, finishing the spin and kept walking. The demon fell to the floor with the rest of its head. Five demons became illuminated in his sight. They all were charging from a different direction, two from above on the left and right sides, two from before and behind him, and another one dropping directly on his head. Griffin sailed backwards with a powerful leap, flying over the head of the demon behind him. As he landed he fired at the one now in front of him. Due to space only two of the demons could now come at him at a time, conveniently he had two guns. He fired two rounds at the ones charging in front of him, adjusting his aim to catch one that had jumped over the cubicles at him. He fired another round at the two that were behind the first two, listening to each one fall in the darkness, every round he had fired had found its mark.

Griffin replaced his left revolver, and started reloading the gun he held in his right hand, it only had one round left. He opened the lid to his reload box, and swung open the cylinder of the revolver. He carefully started replacing the rounds. He barely saw the movement before it was on him as a demon came out seemingly from no where. He snapped the cylinder closed and fired a round at the demon. It moved faster than he did, his shot missing. His second didn't miss as he regained control. The demon crashed to the ground. He reopened the cylinder and put in the missing two rounds from the refill. He then pulled out his other gun, it only needed four rounds. Quickly reloading that one, he kept his ears open for the sound of something coming. "Strange," Griffin thought to himself, "these demons are faster than usual."

The next wave of monsters all had wings. They flew above him, and dove down, attempting to catch him, or claw him. A few tried to break him in half with their wings. He was able to eliminate all six of them without many problems. He did however miss two shots. With six rounds left between his two revolvers, the Hunter took the lull to reload. He had just opened the cylinder when he felt the ground shake. The room began to rattle and he heard a crashing sound coming toward him. He quickly readied his guns and turned to face the noise. The cubicle in front of him blew apart as a rhinoceros looking demon charged through it. Griffin jumped sideways, his guns throwing two slugs directly into the demons face.

The monster staggered and stumbled to the ground. Griffin stepped closer to it, trying to find out what it was. His light illuminated its shape, that of a large four-legged monster. It had five horns on its head, and its eyes were small and beady. If not for the thick scales on its body and the heavy plate on its head he might have called it a mutant rhinoceros. However, this monster seemed very similar to a kind of dinosaur known as a triceratops. The horns were numbered wrongly, but the monster seemed the same otherwise. The demon lurched forward, mouth opening to show a huge set of fang like teeth as it attempted to bite the Hunter in half. Two more gunshots entered the air, and another two killing rounds entered the monsters brain. It fell to the ground finally dead.

"You killed my pet." A voice floated through the room. "That is unfortunate... for you." Griffin felt himself flying backwards though he wasn't hit by anything. He slammed against a cubicle and knocked it down still carried backward into another one. He staggered up and tried to see what had hit him. He was knocked around three times by something he couldn't see. Barely able to stand at this point, though still holding on to his guns, Griffin came face to face with his attacker. The vampire simply appeared in front of Griffin. It was about six feet tall, and clearly European in decent. It was wearing a blood red dress shirt, and a long black coat that disappeared into the supernatural shadows clinging to its legs. It looked down on him and sneered, mouth opening with dripping saliva. Griffin fired the last shot in the revolver in his right at the vampire. He watched in slow motion as the bullet left the chamber, and traveled three inches forward. He stared in amazement as it stopped moving. He fired the last round from his other gun. The bullet did the same thing and the vampire's smile became bigger.

"Don't you have something better than that? Aren't the Hunters the bane of my kin's existence? You have been hunting us for a thousand years and you still can't kill me. It is such a shame that warriors like your tribe once was, have fallen so. But then again, you warriors never were a match for us." The vampire slashed his hand across Griffin's chest fingernails sliding inside. His hand coming back to his mouth so he could lick a few drops off of it. He watched as Griffin's body slowly separated and fell into two pieces, cut by the shock wave of the blow, not its deepness.

"Come out, come out wherever you are. My children are hungry. I am hungry. We will not be controlled by you any longer. Warriors, the war is finally here. Hunters, you are now prey."

"Falcon this is Base, report back immediately. There is an emergency."

The morning had been very interesting for Falcon. He awoke and jerked out of a bed that wasn't his. He found himself beside the person he went to bed with, which might be usual for most people, but almost unheard of for him in the morning. He even remembered the name of the girl he went to bed with the night before, Megan. When he woke up his head was pounding with an ache, the kind of which he hadn't felt in a long time. He was dizzy and tired, pretty much, he was miserable.

The lines of the net were much less obtrusive. However, the voices were pounding inside his skull. He opened his eyes and looked up, "It looks like he is awake." He saw Megan lying beside him. His head was rested on her chest, and she was stroking his hair. "I hope you are feeling better."

"Yeah, thanks. But my head is pounding."

"What was that? I didn't say anything." Megan's lips only moved through half of her comment. Without speaking she continued, "I hope he isn't insane. That would be just perfect though. I sleep with a random guy I met at work whom happens to be crazy. Why did I sleep with you in the first place?"

"You said that you hoped I was feeling better didn't you? Oh... and I am sorry if you are regretting the time we spent together last night."

"What are you talking about? I didn't say anything." inside, "Freak."

"Now that hurts. If you are insistent of having such an attitude can you wait for me to leave, or at least get some pain killers?" Falcon was starting to realize something was wrong. He wasn't usually dense, though it did feel like someone was taking a jackhammer to his skull. He sat up and turned around, staring at Megan. He just stared silently for a minute. Megan opened her mouth to speak and he placed a finger on her lips to silence her. He wanted to sit in silence until he heard it. He didn't have to wait long, after fifteen seconds of silence, "What is he doing? Why is he so silent? You sure know how to pick them."

"Hahhahhaha... This explains so much. Don't worry, I am not crazy. I am also not going to hurt you. I just kind of woke up on the wrong bed."

Falcon ignored Megan's inside voice, her thoughts were private. He didn't care about her privacy, but he didn't want to get confused by what she was not actually saying. "So... I can read her thoughts now, this is just perfect. How could this get any worse?" Seeming as if someone was reading his mind, Falcon's phone began to chime. He got out of bed and walked over to his pants, pulling his phone out. He had a text message, 'Work 911.'

"Sorry I have to get this. I'll be right back."

Falcon went out side and called in. "Base this is Falcon, what's the situation?"

"Falcon this is base, report back immediately. There is an emergency."

"Megan," Falcon called as he walked back inside, "I need to go to work, there is an emergency. Sorry... I want you to know that I really enjoyed last night. You were great." Then much to his surprise, "Can I get your number? I would love to see you again soon."

"Sure Brandon, my number is 453-2691. I would really like to see you again too."

Falcon hurriedly gathered his things, as he was dressing, Megan started to ask him some questions, making small talk. One of her questions really hit him hard, "So what do you do?" It wasn't that he was unprepared for this one, he usually that he was an independent contractor who did a lot of work internationally. However, he felt strange lying to this woman. It even struck a nerve when she called him Brandon, that isn't his name. "I work in sanitation."

"Sanitation?... You've got'ta be kidding me."

"Hey, shit is no joke."

"So... what do you do in the field of sanitation?"

"Pretty much I go around and remove the unwanted and unacceptable before they bubble onto the streets."

"I hope to see you soon," Megan had decided that she had spent enough time with this psycho, come on he works in sanitation. He spends all day with shit. It's a crappy job, pardon the pun. Megan walked over to the door to let the freshly dressed Falcon out, as the door opened, a blurred shape flew in. It was opaque, but quickly solidified. Right behind it, four more came in. Falcon kicked the door closed, and with the back spin, he pulled Megan to the ground and stepped in front. He reached for where his holster should have been, remembering that for some stupid reason he had left it at home.

"Stay with me Megan, and keep your head down." Falcon searched around for a weapon, this was not something he wanted to do without. They were in the living room, kitchen, dinning room, entry way of the apartment. As with any kitchen, there were knives. Unfortunately, there were five quickly solidifying things hovering in front of the counter where the knives would be.

"Megan, do you have any guns or knives not in the kitchen?"

As he spoke, the five figures finished forming. They were all horned demons, about five feet high, green skin. They wore armor made of scales, and had vicious claws extending from their fingers. They all charged at the same time, seeming like a headlong rush to catch the lone Hunter. Falcon stepped forward, getting Megan out of the way, he crouched down caught the first in his hands, one on its neck, the other its stomach. He drove both hands up, sending it flying backwards. Using the momentum of the push to spin, he kicked the next in the head, his combat style boots breaking off a horn. Then, three were on him. He punched and kicked. They bit and scratched.

Falcon entered combat mode, as he called it. His mind went somewhere else to think as the rest of him fought. "I need a weapon he thought to him self."

"What do you need?" a voice that was not his own reverberated within his head.

"Who was that?'

"Does it matter, you are about to die. Take this and live."