Urban Fantasy 2x06 "It's Always a Nightmare" Free excerpt

Here are two scenes from 2x06 "It's always a Nightmare" a new chapter to be released next week on www.patreon.com/99geek to subscribers for only a dollar a month.

Hana came up the pass towards the front of city hall to find the gathering protesters huddled around a phone. It looked like Rachel’s phone.

“Where’s my daughter!” She yelled, struggling through the crowd to get to the phone. “What have you vultures done with her!”

A number of officers stepped away from the blockade to assist Hana. “She went inside City Hall,” one of them called out to her. Behind them, a number of brown robed individuals slid through the hole in the police defenses and sprinted up the steps towards the entrance. There had to be at least twenty of them.

Hana was going to say something about the men to the police officer but she was suddenly yanked by someone in the crowd.

It was Mrs. Holbrook, and she was holding Rachel’s phone. “How long before my Stacy is better and I get to see her grow up again?”

Hana’s jaw dropped. “Never, you stupid old hag.” Hana snatched the phone out of Holbrook’s hands, and the crowd backed away from her with an audible gasp. “When are you all gonna figure it out? Our children are never going to age, or grow old. They’ll never have anything resembling a normal life ever again.”

A hush went over the crowd. A reporter in the back for a local news station yelled past everyone. “You’re the mother of that girl who’s been on the news.”

“I don’t even know the girl you’ve been talking to anymore,” Hana told the reporter. “She isn’t the daughter I raised.” Hana fidgeted with her daughter’s phone awkwardly, and then finally shoved it in her purse.

“How do we feel safe anymore,” Mrs. Holbrook asked Hana, “knowing that at any time monsters could come and take our children away.”

Hana threw her hands in the air. “I don’t have the answers for you,” she said, laughing hysterically. “I don’t know anymore.”

“Mrs. Lin,” an officer called for her, pushing through the crowd. “You’re needed by the mayor.” No she wasn’t. They just didn’t want her disturbing the fragile peace her daughter had brought to this mob. It was a little too late for that.

What had she done? “Forget everything I said,” she pleaded the crowd. “None of that was on the record.”

Laura Holbrook looked to the other mothers around her. “We can’t,” she said, “We can’t just forget. What do we do now?”

“Who can we trust?” someone else in the crowd yelled.

*

“You,” a police officer called to Erika who had taken to observing the strange creatures scurrying around the garden. She thought she saw a beaver amongst the trees.

“Me?” Erika asked rhetorically. There was no one else there. This police woman was short, as short as Rachel, with brown her and a young freckled face. “Hellooo officer. How might I help you this fine morning.” She flashed the policewoman a nice smile, glad she’d put back on her shades. The woman hadn’t recognized her…

“You’re friends with the girl pretending to be a vampire?” the officer asked. Her name badge said Det. Dae.

“I know it’s hard to believe,” Erika said, following the path back towards the lobby. “But she really is a vampire.”

The detective laughed. “Okay,” she said. “But like, between us. What’s really going on?”

“Look,” Erika said, hooking her finger into the detective’s collar, “You’re really cute and all, but I’m not gonna be the one to convince you.” The policewoman blushed a deep red. “Melissa,” Erika said, pointing to the assistant in the wheelchair. “Do you believe Rachel is a vampire?”

Melissa looked up from her computer screen, where she was typing away at paperwork, and frowned at Erika. “I believe whatever my boss pays me to believe.”

Erika pointed at the assistant and smiled coyly at Detective Dae. “You have to admit that was a good answer.”

Both Erika and Dae noticed the brown robed invaders at the same time, as they stepped off the elevator and proceeded to make a circle around the center of the lobby.

“Are they allowed to do that?” Erika asked Dae.

“Where’s my daughter!” came a loud scream from downstairs. An Asian woman, who could only be the same mother Rachel had been trying to avoid by spending the night at the hospital, came storming up the escalator with her clothes messily disheveled. Her hair looked like she’d just gotten out of bed, jutting oddly to the left.

“Where’s my daughter,” Mrs. Lin said again, passing the robed intruders and making a beeline straight for Erika.

“Are you mad?” Erika said, in her best sweet song voice. “I am your daughter.”

“No you’re not” Mrs. Lin said sternly.

“I know,” Erika said with a grin. “I was quoting a movie. Nicole Kidman. All my references are a little out of date.”

“But you hang out with my daughter,” Mrs. Lin said, ignoring Erika’s joke. “How old are you twenty five?”

“I’m nineteen,” Erika insisted. Rachel’s mother gave her a disbelieving look. “I’ve been smoking since I was twelve.”

The robed men, a good twenty or more, began humming and chanting, as they produced items from their cloaks and began arranging them around their circle.

“They’re not supposed to be here,” Hana said to the Detective, who seemed happy to be staying out of their prior argument.

Erika nodded her agreement. “That’s what I was just saying,” she said.

“Alright,” Dae said, passing the two women to approach the crowd of brown robed men that had formed in the lobby. “I’m afraid you’ll all have to leave. Protestors have to stay behind the barricade.”

Two of the robed men moved to block Dae, but a third stepped in front of them and lowered his hood.

“Blessings to you,” the man said with a spanish accent, as the robed intruders behind him continued to chant and pour some kind of liquid into a jar. Another robed man placed a chest at the center of the circle, and opened it for Erika to see the glistening keys inside. “We aren’t protestors. We’re simply he to brighten up your life. Many Blessings.”

“If you want to conduct any kind of service here,” Dae told the man, “You’re going to have to leave, and call again. Make some kind of appointment.” She looked past the man at the rest of the intruders. “Get consent, if you can.”

A few of the men in the circle started drawing on the ground in some sort of red liquid.

“Is that blood?” Hana asked, watching in horror.

“We’re just simple janitorial staff,” the unhooded man assured them. “There’s no need to be alarmed.”

“Come on,” the detective said, trying to go around him. He just moved with his two muscular bodyguards to cut her off again. “You didn’t really think that would work?” It was obvious they were trying to distract her. The excuse was so flimsy, it must have been that every second counted. What were they trying to do?

A few of the men pulled out curved daggers. Detective Dae unholstered her pistol. Instead of coming after her, however, the men with daggers slid the blades against their wrists, and let their blood flow freely into the center of the circle. They seemed to be drawing shapes.

The unhooded man, short dark hair, with dark eyes and gruff facial hair frowned at Dae’s drawn weapon. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he warned Dae. One of the men behind their talking head dropped a black rod from his sleeve and grasped it, the end sparking to life with blue electricity.

Dae eyed the man cautiously. “Drop it,” She said, but the man didn’t respond. Her arm twitched, as if to raise her pistol, but she held back. The man didn’t move a muscle. She raised her pistol.

The man lunged forward, catching Dae with the end of his stun baton before she could even hope to get a shot off.

“What the hell are you doing?” Erika yelled, getting between them and Rachel’s mom. Dae spasmed to the ground, dropping her gun. The man who had so far done all the talking raised his hood and drifted behind his two goons. They stepped forward, the one taking the lead with his stun baton ready to strike.

“Alright sparkie,” Erika chastised the man as he lunged at her and she grabbed the stun baton to yank it from his hand. “If you can’t play nice, you don’t get to use the adult tools.” The second one pulled out a stun baton of his own. “Didn’t you hear me?” She didn’t even strike with her stun baton, instead using it to slap aside the other one, into the first man. He spasmed to the ground. “I said it’s back to safety scissors with you. I mean look what you did.”

She threw aside her stun baton and the other man did the same, coming at her with fists raised. He swung hard and fast, clearly not holding back, but Erika effortlessly dodged each blow. “Oh hun,” she said, hooking her arm onto his and kicking him in the shin. “This is gonna come as a shocker to you guys, but none of that stuff is going to work on me.”

The man dropped to his knee and she twisted his arm behind his back, putting her weight on his back so he’d bend forward until his face was inches from the ground. Striking with her elbow to the back of his head she smashed his face into the ground, knocking him unconscious.

“Get the detective back,” she yelled to Rachel’s mom, Dae stirring painfully on the floor, in no condition to fight. Three more robed men broke from the circle, and Erika pushed forward to give Hana room to get Dae clear.

“Rachel,” Erika yelled towards the garden. The first new attacker went high, so Erika went low, taking his leg out from under him and dropping him on his head in surprise as she kicked the second guy into the third who fell toward’s Melissa’s desk. “Something’s happening out here!” Melissa started to beat the third man over his head with her keyboard.

The second attacker bounced back towards Erika, who dropped to her knees and let him roll over her back. She then rolled onto her back and smacked him in the face with her arm. By the time she was back to her feet, the first attacker was helping up the first attacker from the first wave. “Come on then,” Erika said, fully aware that behind those guys, there were twenty more still accomplishing whatever dastardly deeds they had planned.

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