Page 1 of Monsters of Midlife

Chapter 1

RYDER

My polished, black leather boot slammed down onto the throat of the slimy creature that bucked beneath my strength. Its slippery mass slithered around my leg, but I brought my sword down in a single deft blow, severing its head from its monstrous body. The remnants of the beast shriveled up into a puddly mess before evaporating into the ethers.

“Goddamn monsters.” I grunted over my shoulder at my right-hand man, Ratchet.

“Ryder, you wouldn’t know what to do with your manly self if you didn’t have the job of keeping all these bastards at bay.” Ratchet threw a grin at me as he plucked another arrow from his quiver and scanned the periphery of the forest.

“Sure, I do. I’d be sitting on a beach under a palm tree, sipping some exotic drink out of a coconut.” Part of me growled at the thought of living in such relaxation; a type of life I had never known. I had tried “normal” life once… it hadn’t worked out so well. Caroline, my wife, got rid of me and I was left with nothing but killing monsters to fill my days. The job I was born to do.

“Watch your back.” Ratchet raised his bow, taking aim with his arrow. I ducked as he steadied and fired at something barreling at us from the shadowed trees. It fell with a thud on the moist dirt. But the creature was not alone. We looked toward the forest and a thundering herd of monsters came pouring out. The masses were headed straight for us. Ratchet let off a volley of arrows as we prepared for the onslaught.

I backed up next to Ratchet and watched as the throng came rushing out of the woods. The rift must have opened just long enough for these monstrosities to come through. Now it was up to us to get them back again before they hurt the local population. Jackson Hole, Wyoming wasn’t ready for this type of an invasion.

“They’re coming in too fast!” I made an arching curve with my sword and swiped off the grotesque heads of three monsters.

“We’re not going to be able to open the rift here again.” Ratchet pointed at the bloody monster mess at our feet.

“Fuck.” One of the dead monsters was a dybbuk. Rift openings didn’t like dybbuk blood. They stayed determinedly shut when monster blood had been shed within their vicinity. It was useful if we wanted to keep a rift shut but it sucked if we needed one open.

“The only way we’re going to get them into the rift is to open it somewhere else.” Ratchet moaned giving up his bow and arrow for the axe he had strapped on his back.

“We need a to get them to Mount Targhee.” I squinted in thought, arms raised in front of me, my sword ready to slay the first monster who attacked. “It’s the closest entrance to the rift around here.”

“Where the fuck is Mount Targhee?” Ratchet swung his blade, slamming it through monster flesh.

“There’s one in the base of that mountain.” I pointed northwest to a mountain in the far distance. “There.”

Ratchet shot a glare at me. “Are you shitting me?”

“No, and the entrance is on the other side of the mountain range.” A grimace pulled at my face as I buried my sword in monster flesh, feeling its warm guts ooze around my hand. “And halfway up the mountain.”

“How the fuck are we supposed to get these monsters through the pass and into a cave halfway up the mountain?” Ratchet grunted as his axe severed another creature’s head.

I glinted a smile at him. “You forget my demonic friend, there is one way to catch a monster…”

“… and that is to think like a monster.” We said the words together. That’s how long we’d been fighting together. Ratchet was not only my best friend; he was my fighting partner. In every battle he always had my back.

It was a bit odd because he was a demon and they didn’t usually like monsters, but the demon king, Thrain had given him in service to the demigods to show his good faith. They had given him to me. It was a situation I hadn’t been comfortable with, so I had freed him of his obligation. Since then, he had never left my side and now I was pretty sure I couldn’t live without our partnership.

Still, he was a demon, and as much as I trusted him with my life, I always kept it in mind. Demons were wily creatures treading the line between the demigods and the Fae as if their lives depended on it, which in a way they did. With the world divided by the Fae and the Demigods, the demons were left to balance in between; always playing their cards carefully so they didn’t piss off either side.

Ratchet was removed from all that. The lucky son of a bitch got to work with me instead of watching a portal like a typical demon. Instead, he wandered around the edge of rifts sniffing out and destroying monsters. Bringing me in on the extreme cases, which were happening more and more often over the last couple of years.

I reached into the leather pouch I carried on my belt. Any human would think I was flashing the retro fanny pack but most of the supernaturals knew better; this was where we carried our tools. Whatever our job was, whatever our species was, they held tools of the trade. The Fae carried powders, the witches carried potions, and Demigods carried something from everybody. Thank fuck I was a demigod. I pulled out a bright purple potion.

“Not that crap again.” Ratchet wrinkled his nose in disgust and turned away.

“Ah,” I inhaled deeply. “The fine stench of a female monster in heat.” I stifled a chuckle knowing how disgusting the scent was to humans and how much it made monsters go crazy. For me, the child of Typhon, the god of monsters, and a human, it had no impact. It was like the smell of lightly turned soil.

“You cannot tell me you are attracted to the scent of rotten meat mixed with sickeningly sweet moldy apples.” Ratchet insisted, his face puckered up as if he was about to vomit.

“Pull yourself together man. We have to run.” I looked past Ratchet and saw more monsters heading towards us at breakneck speed. I started moving.

Fast.

If we didn’t get out of there, we’d be doomed. The monsters would attach themselves to somebody and then either mentally or physically torture that person until such time that they were put back into the rift by someone like me.

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