Jazz, Monster Collector in: Back To Work (season 1, episode 7) Read online

to see into the magical spectrum. But in the realm of fairy, everything was awash with magical energies. My special vision wasn’t going to do me much good here.

  “Jazz,” DJ wined.

  I hopped onto Ship’s black and yellow striped wing and yanked open the small, parallelogram shaped hatch.

  “Oh gods, I didn’t think I’d make it,” DJ groaned as she squeezed out of the hold. I grabbed an arm and helped her straighten up. As soon as she had she made a bee-line for the trees.

  “Not too far,” I called to her, still watching the trees. I walked back to the open cockpit. “Are the sensors showing anything?”

  “No,” Ship moaned like a toddler in time out. “Not that they’d do you much good here, too many trees and too much magical interference.”

  “So what do your demonic instincts tell you?”

  “Oh gods, oh gods, you’re gonna die.”

  “Aside form that.”

  Ship paused a moment, as if considering before speaking—highly out of character. “Something’s really off here; I just have no idea what.”

  “Me either,” I said as I stood and holstered the revolver. I pulled my rucksack out, closed the hatch, and secured the latch. “Try to blend in.”

  “I’d blend in a lot better if I still had a body.”

  The reminder of his suffering made me smile. I raised the antenna on my com-mitter and slid the pack on. “I’ll stay in touch.”

  “Do I have permission to take off if I’m discovered or you’re killed?”

  “No.” I hopped off the wing just as DJ emerged from the trees. Her neon yellow suit with the parallel red racing stripes stood out against all the browns and greens of the forest.

  “Where to?” she asked.

  I pointed a direction though the pines. “There’s a small lake though here, that’s a good place to start.”

  I kept my eyes and ears open and my revolver in hand, hammer cocked. The bed of needles made our going quiet, but any enemies would have the same advantage.

  DJ stuck close behind me, maybe a little too close, her mallow-dart gun in hand. My solitary nature would never have allowed me to admit it openly, but I felt better knowing she had my back. DJ was a good trusty sidekick.

  We stopped at the line of trees and looked out over the lake. A light mist clung to the calm, clear water. The sun was approaching the top of some small hills that made up the opposite shore. Everything looked serene and smelled of pine and fresh water. I could almost believe I was back on the Earth of old, but the trembling in my gut told me that Mirth’s monsters were all around.

  Sure enough a black arrow stuck in the tree trunk not an inch from my nose. I dodged back, not that it would have actually done me any good, elves were dead-shots.

  “Jazz, look out!” DJ shouted and fired off a wild shot.

  “No!” I grabbed her gun hand, drew it down, and then dragged us both to the forest floor. DJ grunted with the impact and my nose filled with the smell of pine. With loud thwacks a bevy of arrows lodged in the ground all around us like chalk outlines. When the volley ceased I looked up at the pack of forest elves surrounding us with bows drawn.

  I tapped DJ on the back. “Get up slow and easy, leave the weapon.”

  She looked up with dry pine needles stuck to her face and hair. Her eyes widened at the sight of our hosts. She looked to me for encouragement.

  I flashed her a smile with the best of intentions, but the worried look in her eyes as we stood, hands raised, told me that I’d been less then successful.

  For what felt like a very long time nobody moved and I started feeling board. “Oh, hell, are you gonna make me say it?” Hands still in the air, I stepped right up to the pointy tip of the biggest elf’s arrow. “Take me to your leader.”

  He showed me the teeth in the back of his mouth, growled, and drew his bowstring back another nine millimeters, the bow creaked with the added tension.

  Anther elf, this one bowless, pushed though the circle and shoved me back into DJ.

  I lowered my hands. “Hello Truvinn.”

  “You got some gall com’n here, Monster Collector,” he said in a thick, cockney accent. The forest elves had first learned English in the British countryside, back when this planet still had separate countries.

  “I’m not looking to tussle with you. Frankly I couldn’t care less about what goes on out here,” I lied.

  He tipped his head slightly and narrowed his already pointy eyes—as if I’d be so threatened. As he did his long, ash colored hair swung off his shoulder. His cedar skin glistened with the long rays of twilight. “Then what you doing here if you ain’t come to tussle?”

  “That’s none of your business, pointy-ears!” DJ snapped from my side. She could be very overprotective.

  I took one of her overhead arms and lowered it. The hot rage on her face only made her even cuter, though I wouldn’t hurt her feeling by telling her so. “We’re tracking a paleo-bear that’s been snacking on the Welmont elite’s pets. The bear is all we want.”

  “Good,” Truvinn said and his men set arrows back in quivers and bows over shoulders faster than I could easily follow.

  “It is?” DJ asked in a week voice, and then lifted her chin high. “Yeah, you bet it is.”

  I think I caught a few of the tall warriors flash DJ a smile. Forrest elves were tall by elf standards, as some of them nearly reached my five-foot, six-inch stature.

  Don’t be fooled by their size though, they were adept fighters; very dangerous.

  I crossed my arms without tucking my fingers in, a fighting position meant to look passive. “So you know where it is.”

  Truvinn pointed though the trees. “It’s been keeping to the crags of late. Go there and it will have no trouble finding you with that stink.”

  “Hey!” DJ shouted, balling up her little fists. I raised a hand to keep her fury at bay.

  I picked up our guns, holstered mine; set the safety on DJ’s then passed it to her. “It’s rouge?”

  For a second I didn’t think the elfin leader was going to respond, he seemed to be gauging me and I made a mental note of it. He nodded at last. “Yeah. He’s hit some in the forest. He even attacked one of our out camps; badly injured a scout.”

  When I looked back I caught DJ sniffing inside her jacket. She looked a little caught when she spotted my stare. “Why not track him yourselves then?”

  Truvinn’s mouth closed. I answered for him. “The forest elves swore an oath to protect all in their realm, even the chaotic beasts. But the likes of us, being less than elf, if we kill one of theirs it’s no surprise. No one expects humans to behave civilized. We have no souls so there’s nothing to taint.”

  “That said, best be on your way,” Truvinn said and his men parted, forming a clear path for DJ and me.

  I walked through and into the clearing, DJ kept close to my heels. I stopped once we were both clear and looked back. “There’s more to this than a rouge bear.”

  “You know what ya need ta. Best get going, dark soon,” Truvinn said in a tone that implied his threat.

  “Yeah, best we should,” I said in my best cockney, and lead DJ around the south end of the lake and toward the crags.

  We were halfway down a steep, rocky slope when I spotted the paleo bear lumbering its way toward us. It was trying to keep out of sight, but a four meter long, seventeen-hundred kilogram brown beast is hard to conceal in grey rocks, even in the first light of a full moon.

  I tapped on DJ’s shoulder as she hopped from a boulder and landed beside me. She gasped as she spotted the bear, and failed trying to conceal it—understandable. Aside from being huge, paleo bears have thick, bony protrusions on their heads and shoulders that act as armor, and long, sharp incisors that run up from their lower jaw over their upper jaw.

  Yeah, they’re scary looking. The bad news is that they’re even more dangerous than they look.

  I drew my MacDaddy revolver and checked the carrousel for the hundredth time. It w
as still fully loaded. I pointed DJ in a westerly direction. She drew her gun, gave me a nod as she built up her courage, and headed through the rocks.

  I watched her disappear behind a large boulder, and then started working my way down.

  The crags were a deep valley of rocks, nothing but rocks. They weren’t in and of themselves dangerous. They tended to me smooth and a bit slippery, so one had to be aware when climbing on them. The most dangerous part of the area was that the haphazardly strewn rocks created a lot of nooks and crannies for all kinds of terrible things to hide in. But that also meant that there was plenty of places for me to hide in, and I was about the most terrible thing around.

  The beast was moving our way, and I wanted it to find me and not DJ. But I didn’t want to get too close either. I climbed on top of a flat-topped boulder, shifted the revolver to my left hand, drew the tazer-rang from its sheath on my right leg, unfolded it, charged it with a chirp and a flash of blue light, and listened.

  Nothing. Paleo bears are alive, not undead and not a demon, meaning they produce body heat. Mt shadow sight should spot it easily. I caught a couple of glimpses of DJ moving between the rocks. So where was the bear?

  I caught a whiff of foul breath and wet hair and my eyes rolled skyward. “Oh crud.”

  The bear leaped and slashed me with claws that could break tree trunks wide open when searching for an insect feast. The damned thing had been right below my feet. Not only had it moved faster and stealthier than I thought it could, it was apparently a lot smarter than I’d given it credit for.

  “Ahhhh!” I dodged back, my feet went out from under me, and I landed hard on my back. I managed to hold onto the tazer-rang, but dropped the revolver trying to cushion my fall. In an instant I was sliding down toward the massive jaws waiting for me.

  Looks like Ship was right, oh gods, oh gods, I’m gonna die.

  …to be continued.

  Jazz, Monster Collector, Season one, Episode Eight: Too Many Ultimatums, Not Enough Friends...coming soon from Tricorner Publishing

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