You know those Fantasy novels you’ve read about werewolves, vampires, and other monsters? Well, I hate to break it to you, but those are fake. My work with various paranormal creatures, namely werewolves? Real. Grounded. Practical. But then you ask, “What’s the difference?” and I’ll tell you: the former deals with magic and superstitions, whereas people in my profession deal with actual science. Cryptozoology to be precise. And as for me, well, I’m closer to a Veterinarian than Van Helsing… albeit a Vet who goes out tracking paranormal creatures as part of their duties. I’m Victoria Helena Fitzgerald, but despite my best efforts, most people just call me “Vikki Fitz: Werewolf Hunter”.
This story is for my long-time friend and intoxicating conversationalist, who had no idea she was helping me write this. Let’s hope she never discovers the inspiration behind my main character, lest I find myself pushed into on-coming traffic. That’s an inside joke that Nicola and I share…
Chapter 1: Meeting Legendary Hunter, Vikki Fitz!
A strong gust of wind blew past the terrain, with such a force managing to part the clouds, suddenly bathing the marshlands with peculiar lunar rays. Not the usual whitish light tinged with yellow, but a kind of ghostly white, tinged with an ethereal blue. It had been warm earlier, but along with the chilling winds came an eerie silence, as if the normal marsh inhabitants were suddenly on guard against someone, or something. Both were out here, but the someone was lying in wait for the something to appear. She had been staking out this area for some time, hunting it, but what was it, and who was she?
A Hunter. Not of the usual game animals that were often hunted for “sport”, nay, she was a very niche kind of hunter, or huntress to be precise, and this was the night that she proved herself to all those jerks at the academy. Just a rich girl playing at monster hunting, they called her. Well, she’d show them, just as soon as she bagged her mark tonight! There had been a rogue werewolf loose in the area, according to the surveillance team’s reports, and a job had been posted out for the area, except that it was pretty remote and wasn’t considered a priority for many of the professionals, who were after something a little more glamourous for their careers than a werewolf. But she was lucky enough to not need to worry about the bounty amount, she just wanted to secure herself a canine trophy to earn herself some respect from her classmates.
As it had been quiet for hours, she took a moment to take a few photos of the very beautiful, albeit desolate, scenery, rather lush during the day, but definitely somewhat spooky when one is all alone hunting for a werewolf. Then, she indulged herself, and took this chance to switch her phone to selfie mode, and thought how the moonlight was doing wonders for her angles, as she wasn’t the kind of girl to want, or need, filters to look good. With luscious lips framing her Eurasian features, thick black hair currently tied in a ponytail, still visible beneath her Van Helsing style hat, her attire (mainly a dark trench coat and pants) was genuine Italian leather, and the pants seemed as if they were a second skin to her voluptuous thighs. Deciding that she should still apply a filter to her selfies, she was too engrossed to hear the patter of something very quickly making its way towards her makeshift base, and before she knew it something tackled her to the ground, causing her phone to fly from her hands, the screen still bright as it landed on the soft ground maters away.
She attempted to pull out her weapon, (any of her weapons!), but the creature pinned both her arms above her head with his monstrous paws, while using its body weight to keep her from wriggling away. It began to sniff her voraciously, and began to run its tongue against her cheek and neck, before biting into her trench coat and tearing the collar to shreds. Not her coat, she had just gotten it last week for this gig! Stunned, frozen with dread, helpless, she waited for her end at the vicious nature of this beast and all her previous training had seemed only to mock her as she lay facing death, eyes clench shut.
Then she heard a distinct pneumatic hiss, and the growling of her assailant became a whining, pitiful bleating, and suddenly, the great weight on top of her was pulled off as someone hoisted the werewolf the side, the beast now considerably diminished in both size and initial intimidation. She then turned to see her saviour sharply berate the monster as if they were addressing a misbehaviour child, nay, a puppy!
“Be quiet, you wuss- I avoided all your vitals! If you don’t stop, I’ll tag you something stronger, and not just silver-plated rounds, I’m talking about nitrate! You’re lucky the price of silver has gone up, so I don’t want to waste a bullet on you, but I’m sure someone with your rap sheet knows what silver nitrate will do, don’t you?!”
The creature wasn’t capable of understanding human speech, but it was subdued equally by both the pain from the previous shots, as well as the authority in her voice; she meant business, and he knew who the alpha was in this situation. She then pulled out another gun from her side holster, and as she did the girl on the ground could tell by the outline that her saviour was female, probably. Loading the gun with a vial of some yellow liquid, the other girl injected it into the werewolf’s neck, which promptly caused it to slump into a deep state of unconsciousness. Deciding it was time to check on the other girl, the pro-hunter was bemused to see that they had been conscious the entire time, yet were still laying down on the floor in a state of shock. She asked her, not unkindly, but brusquely,
“Hey, are you still alive? If so, help me secure this thing,”
Meekly, and with a very flustered expression, the would-be victim quickly got to her feet, brushed aside the tatters of her once very luxurious trench coat, helped the other girl bind the creature’s arms and legs with cables. Feeling that she should make conversation while doing so, and that introductions were in order, she blurted out,
“I’m Isabella! Isabella Montario, in my final year at the Academy! Do you know about the- oh, you do? Okay then, um, you can call me Izzy, that’s what my friends call me, but we’re not friends of course as we just met, but you did save my life, so I guess if ya want, we could be friends… I’m sorry, I’m acting like a total idiot. I can’t believe I let that thing get the jump on me tonight… Thank you, really!”
Somewhat amused by the other girl’s nervousness, the pro-hunter simply smiled and waved off the awkward introduction, before teasing Izzy,
“Well, young lady, I don’t know what the Academy is thinking these days, but you look fresh out of high school- are you sure you’re old enough to be a hunter?”
“Hey, I’m 20!”
Izzy wasn’t small, in fact she was of a larger build than the other hunter, but her proportions mostly arose from being a combination of willowy and buxom, not at all intimidating. She felt the other’s continued scrutiny as they glanced over her outfit and gear, before being further reproached.
“Final year, huh? And that’s what you thought was appropriate to wear for a hunt? Also, where do you keep your rounds? ‘Always have access to a weapon’, don’t they teach anything at The Academy these days? If I wasn’t here, this fellow would have had a field day with you!”
“Hey lady, I know you saved my butt just now, but that doesn’t give you the right to lecture me! Who do you think you are, anyway?! Um, actually: who are you? You still haven’t given me your name.”
The other girl looked her over coolly, impressed that Izzy could still muster so much spunk after her blunder tonight, and she softened her expression, before replying,
“I’m just saying that you should count your blessings kid, this isn’t a game. Trust me on that. And it’s Victoria. Victoria Helena Fitzgerald, if you must know.”
“You- you’re- Victoria… you’re Her… Oh my god, I never thought I’d get a chance to meet Vikki Fitz, this is literally my dream come true!” She immediately reached for the other girl’s hands to shake them, as if she were meeting a celebrity. Which was somewhat true, if one were in the business of monster hunting.
Victoria Helena Fitzgerald, here of all places! Izzy was a fan, and even kept of photo of her in her inspiration journal, which she turned to every time her insecurities got the best of her. The other hunter had medium length sandy-brown hair that could pass as dirty blonde in some kinds of lighting, tied back with a beige headband, making her oasis blue eyes even more pronounced. A starkly pale face with shapely features and lightly dusted with freckles seemed at odds with her otherwise sun-kissed arms and legs. She wasn’t a typical runway-model, but undeniably sported an untamed and unabashed brand of beauty. That was the photo Izzy had of her, but looking over to the real deal in front of her, she was even more in awe of the famed Vikki Fitz. For instance, her body language was always professional, but she could tell that Vikki knew how to enjoy herself when the occasion called for it, something you could see when she genuinely smiled, though often her lips were tightly pressed, owing to her practical nature. Fearless and almost comically domineering due to her deceptively wiry frame, with muscles as toned and firm as her attitude towards her profession: werewolf hunting. Of course, she did hunt other kinds of supernatural creatures, but everyone knew that she was one of the leading experts in the field of werewolf control at only 24, and widely regarded as one the best hunters out there. Izzy continued to fangirl over meeting her hero, or heroine to be precise, which was beginning to tread on the other girl’s nerves,
“I can’t believe I get to meet one of the most famous slayers in the world!”
“Yeah, listen, I’m no slayer, Izzy. Just a Bounty Hunter. And of you want to keep working in this business, I suggest you stop dreaming and wake up! All those stories that were going around of me year ago are highly embellished, and they grow more fantastical every time I meet someone like you. Now, can we please focus on getting back to my vehicle?”
Izzy wasn’t deterred, especially as Vikki had called her Izzy, meaning they were implicitly friends: she kept gushing with admiration, sharing a little too much than one should in the process. But perhaps that was typical, and understandable, when we consider that Izzy was meeting a celebrity of sorts.
Vikki merely pursed her lips and let the other girl continue as they took her Jeep over to the half conscious mark and threw him into the back. Izzy looked inside, and saw that it was full of boxes labelled “treats” and “discipline”. As Vikki previously stated, she wasn’t a Slayer, which were people who actively tried to eliminate supernatural threats, though it was a common misconception for people meeting her, as Slayers were also referred to as ‘Hunters’: she was strictly a Bounty Hunter, and part of her personal code had never killed anything she hunted. Not yet, anyway. It’s also why she was widely regarded as the best, at only 24, because a lot of her peers agreed that simply capturing something took more skill than just killing it outright. Izzy was still trying to make conversation with Vikki, who had given up on cowing the younger girl into silence, and now that her target was acquired, she offered to take Izzy to her own transport as a professional courtesy. Deciding that this was an excellent opportunity to get some insight into the field, Izzy asked Vikki about her methods, and while the older girl wasn’t usually so forthcoming about such information, she couldn’t help but start to feel a little flattered that someone had taken so much interest in her tactics. When asked about they didn’t drag the werewolf, who was still unconscious, back to the vehicle, Vikki explained,
“You’ll wear yourself out if you did that. Look at us- we’re not exactly pro-wrestlers or bodybuilders, are we? Plus, I’ve been checking the area for the last few days, and I know that this was the only one around, which means that I could take the risk of leaving our boy alone for a little bit, especially as he’s been tied up with custom cables of mine- even if he did escape, they’re not easy to get off as werewolves hate touching the material it’s made out of.”
“Why? Are they made of Blessed Silver, or something?” This caused Vikki to laugh at her naivete but she answered the question seriously,
“No, that’s money I don’t have! But Blessed Silver actually burns supernatural creatures if it makes contact for long enough, and while I get rough with the doggies, I’m not keen on torturing them. My cables have silver inside the lining, but they’re actually a type of carbon-fibre, much stronger than normal ones, and they don’t inflict lasting damage to the targets either. Okay, pop-quiz time: you know why silver is used against the supes, right?”
“Huh? Oh, um, yes! Uh, in my classes they explained that silver emits a kind of soft frequency which interferes with magic in general, but it’s also particularly useful against the normal biological functions of supernatural creatures.”
“Very good! Maybe you’ll make a pretty good slayer once you graduate. If you graduate.”
It was a back-handed compliment, but Izzy took it to heart and glowed with affirmation. Vikki, meanwhile, glanced over, wondering if anyone had every given the poor girl some actual career advice? She didn’t seem cut out for this kind of business… Or maybe they had all been too distracted by her face and figure, and told her what she wanted to hear in order to get on her good side- that was natural, she supposed, when most people in the supernatural hunting business were male. She was about to indirectly ask about what sort of career counselling had been provided to her, but seeing as how they were almost at her car, Vikki decided to keep her mouth shut to avoid prolonging their time together.
Solosopher & Solosophy 