Hugh walked down the sidewalk path in a recently built park in eastern China. The street lamps where new but still the old fashioned bulbs, so he was bathed in an orange light like the kind that comes from jack-o’-lanterns on Halloween. It was a warm summer night, and Hugh smelled fresh cut grass and heard teenagers riding skateboards through the rapidly expanding suburban paradise. These things were far from his mind though.
In the last three years that he had spent working for G.O. as an “aggressive exorcist” he had racked up over sixty successful take downs. He had seen some scary things and been in some chilling situations. A life hunting down dangerous spirits and rogue demons is not a life for the weak, but it seems he had not seen anything yet. G.O. had recently asked him to be a part of the newly formed Strike Force 41. Hugh knew that to some degree this newly formed all paranormal unit was a political stunt by G.O. to try to recruit more paranormals by showing them that they would be offered equal treatment. Still Hugh had been firmly guaranteed that this would be a fully functioning strike force, and everyone knew that strike forces received the most dangerous assignments. They took only the kind of assignments that no one person could possibly handle alone.
Hugh looked up and realized he was no longer in the park. He was in a construction site for the recently built suburban neighborhood. G.O. had sent him here to bring down a rice kami who had become violent and dangerous after the developers of this new neighborhood had plowed over the rice fields that had been there before. Inside, Hugh felt that the kami really had every right to seek revenge for the destruction of his home at the hands of the people whose fields he had blessed, but it was his job to stop the vengeful spirit before it graduated from property destruction to death dealing. Hugh felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. After over sixty successful encounters, he knew better than to ignore this. He quietly drew his pistols.
They were magnificent weapons that gleamed in the harsh orange light. Custom made for him; they were modified to use special fifty caliber clips that held ten shots each. The barrels were longer than standard models to improve accuracy, and the body was made of a heavier alloy to prevent damage. The barrels were tipped with matching silencers and red laser sights for use in urban areas. The hammers were both engraved with a tiny incantation to Hecate the titan goddess of witchcraft, just to give the bullets even more potency. They would have been like beautiful sculptures, if they were not so good at what they were made to do, and were going to do again tonight.
As if on cue the ground began to shake. The earth itself began to rise up and take shake. Sand, gravel, and smashed pieces of brick and cinder block began to form themselves into a large, grotesque, and vaguely human shape. This was a shell- soon to be possessed by the kami- and Hugh had seen this before. He knew better than to panic and try to attack or run. Instead, he stretched and slid a pair of clips out of his pocket and into his guns. He hoped to settle this peacefully, but he was not naïve enough to hold his breath.
The ugly shell stared at him with bright dark eyes that reminded Hugh of some kind of insect. It was evident that the kami was waiting for him to make the first move, so he did. Calling out in a voice that was calm from experience, Hugh said, “You need to come with me. If you leave the shell and come peacefully, I promise no harm will come to you.” The creature just snorted, and when it spoke its voices sounded like a gravelly old man and a melodic young woman speaking in unison. “Why should I trust you? I trusted them for thousands of years, and look how long it took for them to betray me. A month! Oh no, this is a lesson I shall not forget for another thousand years. I will avenge myself, and if you wish to be these traitors’ champion, I will end your life first!” “That’s what I thought you would say.” Hugh sighed, raised his left pistol, and fired.
The iron core bullet struck the shell in its leg. While these bullets did not have the power to bring the creature down, they would keep the kami pinned inside this physical form, so that it would not be able to flee. The shell began to hurl debris and small pieces of construction equipment at Hugh, and he sidestepped quickly, circling and continuing to fire his left gun. When the clip had been emptied and Hugh was satisfied that the shell was not going anywhere, he slid behind a tractor and reloaded the pistol with a clip that contained the same type of bullets as the right side pistol. These high velocity Teflon coated rounds were the ones that were going to bring it down.
The wide eyes of the shell meant that the kami had just realized it was trapped. Hugh leapt out from behind the tractor and sprinted at the crude body while firing both of his guns. The damage was amazing, and huge holes could be seen where parts of the shell’s body were blown away by the bullets. As Hugh was about to collide with the badly damaged shell, he leaped into the air and kicked it with both feet square in its chest. It crashed to the ground under the heavy booted kick with Hugh on top of it. Standing on its chest, Hugh leveled the pistols at the shells head and fired the last bullet out of each gun ending its life.
The kami was still alive of course, but trapped inside of the corpse. Hugh pulled out a small gold Egyptian Ankh amulet on a leather strap and a glass test tube with a silver stopper that was engraved with several symbols from his back pocket. He held the Ankh over the shell’s mouth and captured the kami in the form of white mist in the test tube. He stood up with a sigh. He would release this kami in one of the great rivers (probably the Ganges because it was closest) then go home. The sun was rising over the suburbia that had once been rice fields and over his last solo mission. As he watched the sunrise, all Hugh could do was marvel at how the world was changing.
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