Soldier or Saint - The Hunter

Someone or something is watching him

Supernatural, horror with a touch of erotica

This story continues from part 1

Soldier or Saint

I enter a small monastic cell and shuck off the robe. I wash in the cold water from a bowl placed in the cell after being blessed by the Abbott. I smile, the forces I fight are much more ancient than the Abbott’s religion, but then a little holy water would never hurt and it washes away the smell.

I become a civilian again in chinos and a light shirt. I check the phone and money in my zippered jacket pockets and look around the cell. I had brought nothing else with me but checking before I move out is an old habit from my army days.

Satisfied, I walk out of the building and across the sunlit courtyard. A monk dressed in a similar habit to the one I have left behind opens the heavy oak gate and I step out onto the street.

They are drawn to me, the beasts, the demons, those that are not of this world. I used to be a hunter, tracking them down, exterminating them. Humans would say killing them, but how do you kill something that is from this world’s beginnings, that has lived alongside us for centuries, eons, that emerged from the primeval swamp before our ancestors? They can be pushed back, banished, so they are no longer of this realm, forced to regroup in the darkness. They suck in minute streams of energy until, once again powerful they can push through the barrier from their world to ours.

I was a soldier, fighting, killing, other humans in senseless conflicts brought about by greed and religion. I have seen death and faced it at the hands of my fellow beings. The supernatural thrives on these wars, emotions power through us, sparking into the ether until it is released by death. Demons, succubae, those we call vampires lap at this energy and our blood like hungry dogs at a bowl.

They move across our battlefields largely impervious to our bullets and bombs and unseen by most humans, except those whose death they hasten. I have discovered that I can see them, even sense their presence. The monk called it a talent, to me it is a curse. They can be killed or at least reduced to billions of atoms in a swirling cloud of energy that is sucked back across the boundary between our part of this world and theirs.

To feed they need to assume a physical form and a bullet, a bayonet or a sword in the right place penetrates the centre that holds their shape, the centre that some may call their heart. The succubae are quick, lithe, they need to be lured out by one like me and banished with a different type of sword.

They are very close to us. This is their world as much as it is ours, they live on the same surface as us but just in a slightly different dimension. They can move from their plane into ours but no human has moved from ours to theirs and lived to tell the tale. Not in living memory anyway, maybe Theseus, Orpheus and others from a time when humanity was more in tune with the natural world, crossed the threshold and their exploits became legends.

When they assume a physical shape it can be a human form. There could be one walking next to you now and you would be unaware that contained within their cells, in their core, is a seething mass of energy. Some believe that they are, or were once part of us, of the same species and that they evolved into what they are now.

In human form, some can impregnate our species. Their essence blends with ours weaving a human and supernatural being together in the same body. These hybrid beings have two sides to their minds, sometimes they coexist, the human eats and the demon feeds without killing. In others, there is conflict, a continual fight for control as the demon tries to tear itself from the body and devour its prey. This is at its worst when the human element is psychotic. I have even seen cases where the supernatural side is trying to restrain the human. Not all demons are evil.

I am not a hybrid being but, somewhere in my lineage one of my ancestors mated with a supernatural. Whether they were taken or went willingly I do not know, but their offspring continued to thrive in the human world and now, deep inside me there is a spark, a tiny ball of energy that is my supernatural heritage. I have a link with the otherworld, a part of me is of them.

The monk sought me out. He recognized this element in me but he did not want to destroy it. He wanted to harness it. I remember his words. “The beings who inhabit this world need to coexist, to be at peace. What I am asking you to do is not to eradicate those that are different from pure humans. None of us could be considered pure anyway, there is a little part of the supernatural in all of us. There is good and evil on both sides of the divide. What I want you to do is be a protector of all who live in this world.” I can still see him smiling as he said, “A policeman if you like.”

“Have you ever tried reasoning with a demon?” I asked.

He smiled again. He did a lot of that, it seemed as if his face lit up, his eyes held your gaze as if to distract you from the hole you were about to fall into. “I will train you,” he said. You will have the weapons you need and the skills to use them.

So here I am, walking down a sunny street in southern Italy and I know there is one following me. I can sense it, not its sex, not its type, just that it is there. I glance across the street. A pretty girl is staring at me. She appears stationary, frozen, whilst the people around her blur with movement. It’s like one of those photographs where one person stands still amidst a crowd of scurrying commuters whilst the camera’s shutter opens for a second or more. The moving hoard become a blur whilst the stationary person is rendered sharply.

I have never understood why I see them this way, it is the reverse of what a lot of humanity sees. Have you ever thought you saw a blur of movement out of the corner of your eye? When you turn and look you see nothing. Walking in a wood something seems to flash across the path ahead; you convince yourself it was a deer or maybe a bird. In a dark alley you sense something behind you, hear a breath, maybe a rustle of blowing leaves but, when you turn, you see nothing in the darkness. All of the things you tell yourself may be true or it may be another being. It may not be stalking you. The supernatural go about their lives with their presence intertwined with ours, they may just be going in the same direction as you or crossing your path but there are those amongst them that are predatory. It is those beings that I hunt.

The girl is strikingly beautiful, an oval face, delicate features and long dark hair. She is wearing tight faded jeans and a white halter-necked top. The human figures moving past her come back into focus but, despite her appearance, no one seems to notice her. A succubus maybe? She is standing in bright sunlight at the edge of the road. Maybe she is a hybrid, half human, half supernatural. Not that full supernatural beings are allergic to sunlight, that is merely a convenient fantasy created by low-budget horror films, but some, especially the ones that mean us harm, prefer the cloak of darkness just as many antisocial humans do.

I turn and walk on.

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