The Muse by K. Sumner (readict .TXT) 📖

Azrael is beating the living hell out of this thing. Once I see that the thing is unconscious, I see the fairy mother in the corner of the room. She's just sitting on the edge of the couch, watching the whole thing. You'd think it'd be easy, right? You'd think that I could catch a quick break and be able to kill this disgusting abomination? Hell, no! I don't get that kind of luck. As soon as I start toward her, she's not there any more. Maybe she used her fairy magic?, I thought.
    And then, BAM! I go flying. I was originally at the threshold, but after that shove/kick/punch/hit, I ended up practically embedded in the wall. That's gonna leave multiple marks, I thought to myself. I didn't even have time to think that thought as I was pulled out of the wall and I flew into a fist. Whose fist I'm - still, to this day - not entirely sure, but I do know that this fist went in direct contact with my right eye. Which hurt. A lot.
     "What the hell!!??" I screamed. Azrael and Dad always told me to not actually respond to other people's hits, just go for your own. Honestly, though, that really hurt. I heard a giggle or chuckle. The I felt a foot kick my abdomin, which resulted with me caving into the floor. I'm assuming that since I could still see in front of me, yet there was no figure there, the fairy mother went all invisible on me and started taking cheap shots.
     This was when I fell through the floor and into the basement. At first, everything was a little blurry, but then I started noticing things. First, I noticed something black-ish in the corner of the room. Then I noticed that black-ish thing was a cage. Then, there was something inside of those cages. That's when I realized that this was where the children are. I started to run to them, but then I was pulled back and thrown. Then I saw the wimpy bitch - because let's face it, if you turn ivisible to knock your opponent down, that's exactly what you are - right in front of me. Her face was terrifying; her eyes weren't even there, but she did have everything else, it seemed. The skin on her face - which was dry and gray - was sunk in to the point where you could literally see each and every contore of her skull. Her mouth was pretty much a hole, and her nose had the cartiledge, but there weren't any nostrils to breathe through. Her hair was very long, and it was almost gray too. Her clothing was a thin, raggedy plain cloth dress; there was no design or frill, basically just something to cover herself up with. Not an average Tinkerbell, by any means.
     The child in the cage whimpered in fear as the thing in front of me hissed. I grabbed her by the neck hoping to distract her so I could find the key. This is going to be VERY gross, I reminded myself. The distraction worked - consdering the fact that she had no nostrils to breathe through - and I found the key in some kind of hidden pocket on her sleeve. I ran over to the cage, unlocked it, and threw the door open.
     Looks like a job well done, I thought to myself in victory. The kid grabbed onto my jacket and held tight, thanking me, and asking me where his parets were.
     I looked back to find Azrael looking very proud and very satisfied. Which meant that he found the parents upstairs alive, and since the changeling actually looked like changelings, then they must be half-alive. Halfway dead, but still alive. We called an ambulence and got out of there. We didn't worry about explanations or anything; we had to get to the next destination. All About Rick

Normally - if it's on the way - we stop by my dad's old friend's place, Rick. Rick is a hunter, too; he started doing this when his wife was killed by a vampire. Of course, he didn't know about it at first, but when he started looking into the attack a little more, he started noticing that some things didn't quite add up. Then my father showed up - this was shortly after my mother died - to kill the very same vampire, and he met up with Rick to interrogate him about the attack - not exactly a good idea to interrogate a mourning man about his dead wife, but like I said, he was still a rookie when it came to this kind of stuff. After he cooled down from the investigation, Rick convinced Dad to teach him how to fight monsters, and the rest is history.
     The thing about Rick is that he didn't really do hunting jobs anymore. After my dad died, he got really depressed and decided to start helping us with the research and stuff. He helped us out when we didn't know what to do - like if we forgot how to kill a monster or we tried everything that we could think of and it didn't work. Of course, he goes out and does local jobs every now and then - the last local job, though, was three years ago. Nowadays, he normally just sits in his huge house, drinking beer and looking through his library of monster books.
    He lives in Norton, Virginia, which is only about 6 hours away from Elko. Luckily, our next destination was Lexington, Kentucky - which was three hours away - so we could just stay the night at Rick's until the next night (it was already pretty late in the night by the time we left). We got there at about three in the morning. I was wide awake at this point - I was very used to staying up during car rides - so I walked straight up to the door, holding it open for the boys so they could bring in the bags.
     Rick's house was very, very big; it was kind of old-fashioned, though. It wasn't even really all that pretty, although it probably once was. The house was a dirty cream color, which - about eighteen years ago - was probably once an actual white. That very same paint was peeling off in so many places, though, that there was some metal paneling showing. The windows were big, but they were just wood now; the paint is pretty much missing completely on those bad boys. The porch was wooden and wrapped around the whole house, but it was so rough that if you walked in a pair of flip-flops you could get blisters. The steps leading to the door were concrete and very steep, and there was about ten thousound scraps of metal thrown every which way across the yard. 
     The same description spread to the inside of the house, as well. The furniture was scanty, limited to necessities only. Rick decorated the place with one picture in the living room, which was of his wife, as well as a picture or two of her in his room. Upstairs he had three bedrooms, each one with a bed and a dresser. The only one that wasn't limited to just those items was Rick's bedroom, which had everything that his wife decorated it with before she died. The two extra bedrooms were just painted white, with absolutely nothing to give them any flavor or personality. The walls and beds were painted with white, and the furniture was just wood. Normally, Azrael would sleep in the living room on the couch, allowing me and Briley to sleep in the bedrooms, but sometimes Briley insisted that he sleeps in there, instead.
     "Hey, beautiful!" Rick said to me as I held the door open. No matter how late or early we come in, Rick is always up. I never really knew why, though.
     "Hi, Rick. What's up?" I asked.
     "I just got finished making some dinner for you guys - " said Rick, but he was interrupted momentarily by Rae goaning in happiness. Rae loves it when Rick cooks for us. I think Rae wouldn't mind cooking, but he would burn a motel room down in a matter of seconds.
     "What'd you cook?" asked Briley, as he brought in the last of the bags. We only had three - one for each of us that held all of our clothes and toiletries. I grabbed mine and started to pull it upstairs.
     "Breakfast, since I figured you guys wouldn't get here until the morning anyway," he answered. Rae called him on the ride up.
     Once I came back downstairs, I found the guys in the kitchen, Rae and Briley chowing down like they've never eaten eggs and buiscuits in their lives.
     "I put a big plate in the microwave for you. Figured they'd eat it all," said Rick. If Rae ever misses something when it comes to making up for my father figure, Rick pretty much evens it out for him.
      I smiled at him. "Thanks," I said. I walked over to the beat up microwave and brought the plate over to the table. By the time I sat down, the boys had finished up their plates and were going in for seconds. I just watched them and ate my food slowly.
     "Okay, Rick. Have you figured anything out about this next town?" Briley asked.
    Rick just looked at him like he was crazy. "Oh, I'm sorry!" he said sarcastically. "I wasn't aware that I had to look up your monster information. I thought you guys were old enough to do that already," he said. It was a pretty awkward silence, until I broke it by giggling.
     "I guess he told you," I said to Briley, very ammused. I thought it was funny because normally Rick has a little bit of information, but he probably just forgot this time. If I know Rick, by the time we get up in the morning, he'll probably have a good idea of what it is. He might act all sarcastic about it, though.
    Azrael just kind of laughed, and then Rick joined in. Briley started off looking all pissed, but then he joined us with the laughter. "Whatever," he said, still kind of laughing. 
     I finished my plate and took it to the sink to wash it off. After I was done, they had already started the monster-talk again, so I decided to go to bed. We were probably going to leave almost as soon as we wake up because every second counts.