Next time I have an emergency, you’re helping me for sure. Plus you owe me a new staff.

The wizard’s words echoed in my head.

I raced down back roads between Vallejo and the neighboring city Benicia in my black ‘69 Mustang Fastback with my hobgoblin riding shotgun. Speaking of shotguns, I had my dad’s old Mossberg in the back seat along with the holster and lanyard.

Beneath my jacket, under my t-shirt, my chest irritated me. Well not really my chest. It was a cursed scar that I obtained a month ago now. Wow, had it really been a whole month? Anyway, all you need to know about the Keening is it makes me feel pain almost constantly, but especially when monsters are nearby. I already had the innate ability to sense monsters somewhat, but the Keening amplified those sensations. It also draws monster to me. Win, win.

As I suspected, the nearer I drew to Benicia the stronger the sensations in my chest grew.

I crossed an overpass, cars on the freeway passing underneath, and turned into Benicia State Park. By now the sun plunged towards the horizon, but had not quite set yet, so it surprised me to find the entrance to the state park gated and master-locked up for the night.

“Crap! They’re not supposed to lock the gate until sunset exactly.”

“Why do you always expect these things to go according to plan?” said Rob.

I glared at my sometimes lovable, sometimes annoying shapeshifting hobgoblin companion, otherwise known as Rob the Hob.

“Zip it, shortstop.”

I’d saved Rob’s life a few weeks ago. Supposedly that now meant he was indebted to me forever or until I died, either or. Since he was roommates with me now, I told him he needed to dress more modern and not like he’d popped straight off a Lucky Charms cereal box.

“I’m not a leprechaun!” he had said, stamping his foot to make a point. He didn’t clean my house for two days after that. Which is crazy for Rob, because he loves cleaning.

Then one day I came home from my part time job and I find Rob head to toe in Celtic’s gear. And I don’t mean a plaid kilt, I mean the American basketball team. The freckled fool wore a white and green jersey with a matching green and white flat brim sports hat. I told him to ditch that crap around me because I’m a Warrior’s fan. Steph Curry is my boy. But he really fell in love with the hat. He wouldn’t take it off for nothing, even when he shape shifted into a cat. So even now in the dark as we were about to go monster hunting, he was sporting the emerald abomination.

I looked around the area, but didn’t spot Nehemiah’s car.

“Where’s the wizard at?” That guy was so hard to reach. He didn’t have a cell phone. Something about his Bad Luck magic interfering with modern tech, blah blah blah. Even homeless people had cell phones these days. To find the guy you had to call the landline at his house. Yeah, a landline. Or you had to respond to the nearest otherworldly disturbance, the weekly Bat Signal as it were. “

He’s the one that called me. Where’s he at?”

His pickup truck was nowhere to be found. Since I wasn’t actually in the parking lot of the state park but outside of it, my car could get towed if I left it in the turn-around zone. Thank goodness my car is jet black. I pulled off to a dark corner and killed the lights.

Rob squinted back in the direction we came from. “You gonna wait for him?”

“A few minutes,” but even as I said it, the Keening’s pulse grew stronger.

I waited for what seemed like eternity. In the meantime I turned off the car, stepped out, donned the holster and placed the Mossberg in it. I looked in the backseat for my katana but then remembered that it had been shattered two weeks ago.

“Missing your blade? How many times are you going to look in the back seat for it?” said Rob.

“I need a new sword.”

Swords were second nature to me. My parents put me through years of Kenjutsu training, as well as basic Jujitsu, and Taekwondo. I’d even picked up a little Wuxia. But Kenjutsu was my favorite. In fact even now I volunteered a couple of times a week at the dojo I frequented all those years of childhood. So running into a life-or-death situation without a sword was like stepping onto a basketball court without a basketball. It left me feeling empty handed, naked, and purposeless.

But I wasn’t completely unarmed. Besides the Mossberg I also had my Good Luck. I patted my pocket where I knew I had an Oak leaf from the tree that guarded my mom’s front yard. That was my backup, all-else-fails plan, though. Unlike Kendo, I’d only been using my Good Luck for about a month, since the night I met Nehemiah. At the thought of the wizard, my Keening pulsed even stronger.

“Let’s go,” I said to Rob, who shifted into a large barn owl, complete with a backwards Celtic’s hat. I shook my head at the hob and locked up the car, hopped the State park gate with Rob flying ahead of me.

We moved along a two-lane asphalt road. It was meant for small cars, bikes, and foot traffic. Like many a kid who grew up around this town and the neighboring cities, this state park provided a particularly good bike ride alongside the waterfront. My dad brought me and my siblings here plenty of times.

The cool air smelled of muddy wetlands mingled with wild five foot tall fennel that grew everywhere, meaning it smelled like stagnant licorice. Not a great combo, but only one that could occur in the great outdoors. On the right side of the path tall trees rose into the night sky, dead bark peeling away from them, like hangnails. On the left side of the path, wind rushed through armies of tall cattails and a massive blackberry thorn bush.

I wanted to reach out and try to sense the wizard, but so far I wasn’t too good at distinguishing between magic users and mythological monsters. All I knew was that something bad was out here in the state park and that some people almost drowned here a few nights ago.

I’m in shape, but jogging in jeans sucks. So does carrying a shotgun in a holster while trying to move quickly. A scream cut through my thoughts, severing the silence of the night. It came from my left, the side of the path that was sticky, muddy, and wet.

“Crap.” My pulse pounded. I ran towards the scream.

“There’s a footpath up ahead,” hooted Rob. He landed on the ground and shifted into an orange tabby. Yeah, my companion is also an Irish Garfield. He’s not into lasagna so much as mayonnaise, or as he calls it, salty ice cream. Yuck.

My high top black and white Chuck Taylor All-Stars crunched over dead weeds on the dirt path. Another scream sounded in the night. This time it was a lot closer, but I couldn’t tell exactly where it was coming from. Definitely a man though. I hefted the Mossberg and pumped it. Magic was my fallback. Ole’ faithful is my go-to.

The weeds and cattails died down and I came to a place where the path ran alongside the water. Struggling, splashing and a woman screaming reached my ears. Then I saw her, a blonde in a long loose t-shirt and yoga pants with her cell phone flashlight pointing into the water. Tears streamed down her face. I followed her gaze towards the water.

That’s when it decided to strike.

From the water erupted a huge creature. At first I thought it was a wide-headed snake, which sent shivers down my spine. But the way it moved told me it had four legs. Moonlight reflected off its sheen coat of wet fur. The only detail I noticed about its massive oval shaped head was the sharp teeth that held a man captive, latched onto his shoulder.

“Jeremy! Jeremy!” the woman screamed.

The dude, Jeremy, scrambled, trying to break free from the monster’s hold. Blood stained his tank top, running down his back. Jeremy was no punk though and slugged the thing, managing to get free for a moment. But then, another identical monster emerged from the murky depths.

“Dobhar-chus!” I yelled to Rob.

These were large demon otters. Don’t sound that frightening? Imagine a normal otter but then make it ten feet long on stubby muscular legs with teeth the size of a man’s forearm and round glossy eyes on either side of its head. Then add a hunger for human flesh and a jaw that can probably dent the hood of a car. The rib cages bulged underneath the sleek wet fur which meant that they were starving.

Without hesitating I yelled at the woman,

“Get down!” I brought up the Mossberg to eye level.