Shadow of the Hunter Complete

The creature dropped his cookie and curled into a terrified ball in the chair as the pup approached. Chad was surprised for a moment, then realized that even the vargr puppy could probably do a great deal of damage to the little guy.

Chad took hold of the collar and gently pulled back on it. The pup looked up at Chad then reluctantly stepped down. Chad crouched down and pushed on the pup's hind quarters.

"Sit," he said softly but firmly. The pup sat. Chad picked up the cookie and set it aside.

"Hey, hey," he said, softly touching the trembling shoulder. "It's okay, he won't hurt you."

He carefully looked over to Chad. The pup was indeed sitting obediently next to the hunter. He uncurled cautiously, never taking his eyes of the vargr. When the pup didn't make an aggressive move towards him, the creature visibly relaxed. He took up another cookie and munched on it.

"Is he yours, hunter?"

"Looks that way."

"How is he called?"

Chad looked over to the pup. During the course of the evening he had considered and rejected dozens of names, from the standards of Rover, Rex, and Spot, to the dramatic like Spartacus and Brutus, to the mythological, such as Zeus. Nothing seemed to fit.

"He doesn't have a name yet."

The creature studied the pup, then offered him the rest of his cookie which the pup took gleefully.

"Mistweave," he said after some consideration.

Chad thought it over. "Not a bad suggestion. I'll keep it in mind. What's your name, by the way? I'm Chad."

The creature looked up at Chad with wide-eyed amazement. "Did you just ask my name?"

"Uh, yeah. Don't you have one?"

"Yes. But nobody asks a little unimportant nix like me anything."

Chad sighed. He didn't like where this was going. "Well, I just did. So what is it?"

He pulled himself upright. "Kith," he said. He tried to make it sound important, but Chad could see the case of hero worship that was building in his expression.

"Well, Kith, it's nice to meet you. Did you stop by for a reason?"

"Oh yes, hunter." Kith hurriedly finished the cookie he was eating and took another drink of the eggnog. He then gathered up his sack and made a "back up" motion with his hands. Chad took a few steps back while directing the pup back by the collar. Kith dumped the contents of his make-shift sack onto the floor. Syringes, baggies filled with white powder, pills, or weed, little jars with crystalline rocks and cash fell onto the floor. Chad kept a tight grip on the collar when the vargr tried to go over to investigate.

"No," he said giving a sharp tug. "Sit, stay." The vargr sat with a little whine. Chad crouched over the pile. "Fuck," he breathed, then looked up to Kith. "Where did you get all this?"

"From those humans you told me to make sport off." He smiled broadly. "And you were right, great sport they are. Oh so serious about their poisons and their positions. So easy to trip. So fun to watch fall. But I didn't know what to do with the spoils. I couldn't find you again until tonight." He looked down at the pile and back up to Chad. "So what's to be done with it?"

Chad shook his head, then sat on the floor and sorted drugs from cash. The cash he placed on the table and the drugs he shoved back into the bag. He then carried the bag into the bathroom, watched with great interest by both Kith and the pup. In the bathroom he sorted out the little baggies and flushed their contents down the toilet with the fervent hope that Sebastian wouldn't be too offended. Then, he stuffed the emptied baggies back into the pillow case and took it back into the main room, grabbing a trash bag from the kitchenette counter as he passed through.

Back in the main room, he proceeded to the corner where butcher paper was laid down. It had been used, but there wasn't much of a smell. Chad suspected whatever it was Qiang had done to minimize the vargr pup's presence. Chad folded the pillow case with the syringes, baggies, and vials of crystal as small as he could make it, set in the middle of the messed paper and rolled them up together then stuffed the entire mess into the garbage bag and tied it close.

"Well, that takes care of that," he said as he settled into another chair and started counting the cash. Kith continued munching the cookies until they were gone and finished his eggnog. The pup settled in next to Chad and dozed off. Chad counted twelve hundred dollars with nothing over a twenty.

"Now what do I do with all of this?" Chad asked to no one in particular. He considered keeping it, but that felt wrong from the outset. He decided to heed his feelings.

"Well," Kith said timorously, "I thought the money might go to the man with the cauldron collecting for those who have not."

Chad sat back in his chair. "You know, that's not a bad idea. There's way too much here to put in one kettle. But splitting it up over all of them in the city, that could work."

Chad worked over a plan; a path through the city to distribute the cash as surreptitiously as possible. He would need help. Chad looked at the clock. It was a quarter of five. He knew someone who would be more than willing to help, but didn't have the first idea how to contact him. He mulled over his options when an idea occurred to him. It was silly, but on a whim he decided to try it. Chad rose from his seat and opened the window.

"Yo, Ambrose," he shouted out the window. "When you got a second, I need to talk to you." He then shut the window and retook his seat.

Kith watched with confusion. "What was that?"

"Really fucking stupid. If it works, I'll be shocked. If he doesn't show by sun up, we'll start making rounds and hopefully run into him."

Kith perked up and leaned into the arm of his chair in Chad's direction. "We?" he asked, hopefully.

"Yes," Chad said with a tired sigh. "All three of us: you, me, and," he paused and looked over to the vargr pup. "Mistweave, I guess."

Ambrose arrived by five-thirty.

**************

Chad fixed a simple breakfast and the group set off. As their first stop Chad went to an all night Wal*Mart and purchased a leash for Mistweave. It took all of Ambrose's efforts to keep the pup from following Chad into the store and he whined until Chad's return. He accepted the leash from Chad with the same stoicism he accepted the collar.

The cash was split evenly between Ambrose and Chad and they canvassed the city, the malls, the stores, and just about every other place they could find Salvation Army collection stands. Kith rode on Chad's shoulders. There was a stop for lunch and dinner. It was well into the evening before Chad returned home.

He was exhausted, as was Mistweave. The pup immediately climbed into the bed and went to sleep. Chad sighed. It had never been his intention to permanently share his bed with the vargr. In the next few days he would have to find a proper bed for the pup. Convincing him to use it would be another matter.

Chad turned on the Christmas lights and grabbed some eggnog and cookies from the kitchenette. As he settled into the chair something caught his eye. A small wrapped package was set under the tiny Christmas Tree Ambrose had set up. Chad set the plate of cookies and mug down on the table and reached for the package. It was a book, he could tell, wrapped in bright Christmas paper with ribbons, a bow, but no gift tag. Chad looked it over curiously. He looked at the clock; nine o'clock.

He hefted the book, thinking. Well, it wasn't Christmas just yet, but still... He debated for a few more seconds, the removed the wrapping paper.

The book was a hardcover with no dust jacket. The white linen cover was dusted with metallic blue snowflakes. Chad looked at the front,Collected Christmas Stories and Essays of Charles Dickens it read. There was a blue ribbon book mark sewn into the binding and it was marking a section about a quarter of the way into the book. Chad opened the book to where the marker was placed.

A Christmas Carol In Prose, being a Ghost Story of Christmas. Chad smiled in spite of himself and settled in with an old friend. His eye went to the beginning of the story, though he found he still remembered the words.

Marley was dead, to begin with...