Cunning Men

Chapter 2

It was a dark, chilly night that February in Lafayette Square. This neighborhood, with its pastel-colored victorians and red-brick houses, was an anachronistic blend of gothic, old world horror and modern urban blight. The buildings were tall and narrow, leering at you like feral, animal faces. This gothic corner of the city hit its high-water mark a hundred years ago, back when stagecoaches and Vaudeville were the height of fashion. But then, in 1896, the Tornado hit. The rest of the 20th Century wasn't too kind to it either, and by the time The Gateway Arch was built on the Mississipi's western shore, Lafayette square was a mangy, flea-bitten werewolf.

Howie and I were sitting in my black '69 Road Runner, parked on the intersection of Lafayette and Missouri Avenue. We were wearing thick trench coats over our winter clothing, and we still were freezing. From my seat, I could see the entrance to Lafayette Park and across from that, the funeral home, a decrepit, white victorian mansion.

"Richie..." Howie paused for a second. "Have you ever killed a man before?" I spun around and looked daggers at him for asking the question, the one you're never s'posed to ask a veteran.

"W-What kind of question is that?" I sputtered. "Look, if you think I'm soft, and that I'll just be slowing you down, then go ahead and say it. I won't hold it against you."

"I'll ask you again." Howie's face was hidden by the crow's mask, but underneath it, his face must've been as hard as the leather bird beak. "Have you killed a man before?" I sighed and stared back into the street.

"You know how it is, Howie. You're stomping through Charlie's turf, trying to pick a fight with him in his own back yard and beat him. You're at your wit's end, wondering if he's gonna show, or if you're only gonna step in a Punji Pit or pull a tripwire. Suddenly, you're taking fire. Maybe a bullet just whizzed by your ear, or maybe one of your buddies is on the ground screaming for a medic. You hit the dirt, or hunker behind a tree, then start shooting back. If you're lucky, maybe you see the bastard who tried to waste you. But even if you do, it all ends up being a giant pissing contest. You spraying fire at him, him spraying back at you. Both of you are trying to shoot each other. But deep down, you don't really wanna blow his brains out. You just want him to stop shooting at you. Whether that means you got him, or he just turned tail and ran, it doesn't matter." I swallowed hard, trying to think of words to say. "So I don't know. I'd like to think that I haven't killed any more people than any people have killed me. But if that's not the case, then it'd just be an accident or just their plain bad luck." Howie grunted knowingly.

"I thought you'd say something like that. Korea was like that for me, at least. But this is different." Howie reached behind his seat to grab the suitcase. "Most Combat will be close quarters, sometimes hand to hand. Monsters aren't people, Richie. Sometimes they look like people, maybe even talk like them, try to convince you they're people. but they aren't. They're animals. The kind that when backed into a corner, fight tooth and claw. The kind who treat humans as meat to be butchered and eaten raw." He passed me the suitcase and looked gravely at me. "It's not about reflexes and aim. Any man trained hard enough can keep a steady hand and duck behind cover. Very few can stomach fighting up close and personal."

I reached behind the car to grab a suitcase containing the hardware. Inside were a sawn-off, double-barreled shotgun and a handful of transparent-cased shells, near bursting with grains of industrial-grade silver.

"Salted meat, Silvered teeth," I muttered. Howie taught me that little rhyme. Mortal beings that were tainted by magic, like zombies, vampires, wraiths or revenants, can be put down with salt. But silver, while still dangerous to salt creatures, was the bane of things with more supernatural origins. Howie looked at the equipment and snorted.