The man on the screen, whose every breath seemed to heave with the weight of his considerable girth, was smiling broadly.
Mr. Slims. The Auctioneer. And very ironically named.
A towering figure, massive form nearly spilling out of the armchair he perched upon, long, white hair cascading down his back in smooth, silken waves, in stark contrast to a dark, weathered face, pocked by all too many scars. His mustache—thick and immaculately groomed—curled with an almost unnatural precision, twirling like the fine point of a gentleman’s flourish, framing a mouth full of gold-plated teeth.
Mr. Slims grotesquely obese body was somehow squeezed in a suit that belonged to another time, cut to perfection and always pressed, even in the heat of summer. A bow tie, starched with care, sat snug against his neck, and his boots clicked on the floor like a symphony of polished resolve.
In one meaty hand that looked three sizes too big compared to the rest of his body, he held, or rather throttled, a delicate microphone cast out of elephant ivory, while the other seemed to move in spasming, random motions, flicking from his pocket, to slam against the mahogany armrests of his seat or point at the widescreen behind him.
I sucked at my teeth audibly, eliciting a chortle from Colette. More than anyone she know just how weird I found this entire thing.
Being part of a task-force of freaks was one thing. I could logic my way through that. Having the assignments be given via a "game show" format and insisting that we auction for the "privilege" of doing the mission? That was just plain freaky.
Apparently, from what Lucien had told me, it had to do with the way the government had set the "collaboration terms" with Fey and how to chaotic bastards fed on the emotional feedback that gameshows provided.
Not like I could fault the "suits" for collaborating with Fey, though. In the supernatural tier-list there was no creature better at divining the locations where trouble was going to start. Fey had a nose like no other for sniffing out burgeoning cataclysms.
As if to rub it in just how easy Fey had it, Mr. Slims tipped his wide-brimmed, gold-inlaid cowboy hat and smiled. A grin three sizes too wide to be human. Made all the more grotesque by the fact that his eyes were nothing more than two black spots. No sclera, no pupils. Just pitch.
With a flourish of his pudgy arm, the motion sending a ripple through the thick folds of his tailored coat, the "man" signaled the start.
"Now then, my fine, fearsome friends, the rules remain the same: each mission will be revealed with all relevant parameters — tier, reward, location, estimated threat level, and all that juicy, delectable data our dear friend Jacob has such a thick, throbbing hard-on for."
I blinked. Colette giggled. Lucien smirked.
"Did he—?"
"Oui," Lucien muttered. "He name-drop you."
"Again?" I sighed, already pulling my notebook back out and flipping to a new page. “This is the fourth time.”
"Because you're the only NSN on record who filed a formal spreadsheet analysis of a Wendigo hunt," Colette chuckled, flopping backward onto the couch again. "Apparently the statisticians at the Department of Supernatural Oversight had a nerdgasm."
A lip curled over my upper lip and I bared my fangs. "I was trying to help. The stat-sheets in the Hunter's Manual are too broad to be useful."
"Know what they of the nail that sticks out, mon frère," Lucien said, cracking open another beer and clapping my shoulder amicably as I slowly shook my head.
On screen, Mr. Slims stood, which was an event unto itself. He had to rock back and forth like a teetering mountain before finding the right momentum to get to his feet. The chair creaked like it had survived multiple apocalypses. The camera panned out to show the full stage behind him — rich, decadent curtains, old brass spotlights, and a giant LED scoreboard straight out of a Vegas sportsbook.
It all looked like someone had duct-taped together a Moulin Rouge set and a FEMA command center.
“Tonight’s Auction will feature four high-tier contracts,” Slims announced. “A sweet little buffet of bad business, handpicked from this week’s most unruly elements. Remember, the moment bidding begins, you may stake your claim using credits. And once it ends, there is no limit to how many can join in on the contract, as long as you have the credits to pay the entry fee. The Lodge firmly approves of fostering a healthy competitive environment” he added, face disfiguring into an amalgam of smile and sneer."
I snorted, bitter and low. The Lodge didn’t need to spell it out—we were meat on the hoof, and they made damn sure we knew it. “Healthy competition,” in Hunter lingo, meant blades in backs and sabotaged ops. If a rival team vanished in the field, well, so be it—one less split of the payout. And poor bastards who ran solo? I’d been one of them, once. No backup, no allies—just a walking corpse with a day pass. The Lodge didn’t care who did the killing, as long as the job got done and no one survived to raise a stink. As far as they were concerned, more NSNs taken from the census was good. Didn't matter if it was "trouble makers" or "Hunters".
There was always another wave of fresh recruits, wide-eyed and desperate. Work was hard to come by for us Not-So-Normals.
“What’s the play, frè?” Lucien muttered, casting a sideways glance as I flicked open my phone to scan messages.
“Nothing yet. My contact’s supposed to tip me off on the gold-mine gig. We sit tight.”
“You trust this contact?” Colette asked, her voice smooth as whiskey as she leaned in, chin brushing my shoulder.
“More or less. It’s Jolene from Accounting,” I said, deadpan.
They both stared, blinked, and then the dam broke—laughter rolling out of them like gunfire.
“Fre! Jolene? The fang-freak? What’d you offer her—moonlight cuddles while you nibble at her neck?”
“Da,” I said flatly, refusing to meet their howling grins, keeping my eyes fixed on the screen as the pre-auction minutia droned on.
It wasn’t that Jolene lacked appeal—far from it. Forty-three, blonde, built like a model sculpted at twenty-one. But heaven help me, the woman was a walking tribute to the knife. She’d singlehandedly kept half the plastic surgeons in New Orleans in business. Fake lips, fake breasts, fake hair—and to my vampiric senses, she stank of it. Not perfume. Not blood. Plastic. The cloying reek of melted silicone clung to her like a second skin. It's like seeing a beautifully decorated cake and then realizing it's just a deco model. There's no appeal left.
Still, she had her uses. Jolene nursed a well-known fetish for vampires, and that gave me an in. She was also a gossip-queen, and no one knew the Lodge goings-on better than her So if I had to suffer through a few nights tangled up with her—choking back bile and praying I didn’t sink my teeth into plastic instead of a vein—well, there were worse ways to earn a lead on a contract.
I just wished she didn’t insist on roleplay. That part was hell. I was too broke to fake being a baron, and she was far too old to be anyone’s “shy village maiden.”
Lucien crouched in front of me, eyes alight with mock solemnity, and clamped both hands down on my shoulders.
“Using your meat-stick to win favors from lonely dames? Mon ami, you make this old teacher so proud.” He nodded slowly, theatrically, as if I were receiving a medal instead of whoring for intel. “Go now. You have graduated. Spread their legs and fly, my little sparrow!”
Colette wheezed, then pitched off the couch in a fit of laughter that rattled her lungs like broken glass in a tin can.
“Yeah, hate you too, brother,” I muttered, thumb flicking across my screen. “Bidding’s about to start.”
They drifted back to their places, smirks still twitching.
And I smiled—just a flicker, but it came. Strange, how nearly dying beside people—again and again—could stitch them to you tighter than blood ever did. I never had this in my mortal days. No friends, no fireside mockery, no one to watch your back when the knives came out. Now? I had two lunatics who’d charge hell at my side, grinning all the way.
Almost made this whole Hunter life worth it.
Almost.
Contract One:
-
Code Name: “Twilight Slaughter”
-
Tier: A
-
Target: Rogue Proto-Vampire Cell, presumed blood cult
-
Location: Memphis, TN
-
Payout: $30,000 (base) + $5,000 per confirmed cell member
-
Modifiers: Intel Uncertain, High Risk of Civilian Exposure
-
Current Bid: 0 credits
Slims grinned, gold teeth glinting. "Look at that beauty. A real mess in Memphis. I don’t need to tell you lovely nightcrawlers what a vampire cult gone feral means. Public exposure risk is through the roof. The Lodge wants this one cleaned up fast, and clean."
Colette glanced at me. "Your kin causing trouble again?"
I scowled. "You know they're not my kin."
“Still your kind.”
“That's like saying all witches are the same.”
"Fair enough" Colette shrugged.
Lucien waved a hand. "Focus. This one pays well, but they said 'intel uncertain' which is Slims-code for 'we’ve got jack-all'."
I nodded. “Could be six cultists. Could be sixty.”
“Could be a trap,” Colette added with a grin.
On screen, the numbers lit up as one of the squads threw their bid in. 10 credits. 15. 20. Mr. Slims was rapid firing and auctioneer's drone as the numbers rose.
Credits. The lifeblood of the Hunter’s Lodge—the bait, the whip, the collar. Complete a contract? Sure, you get your money. But more important were the Credits—earned based on difficulty, risk, and body count. Stack enough of those, and you could toss your hat in for the bigger game.
That’s where the bidding came in.
Why bid? Because the winner got the prize—three sacred hours. Three hours' head start, and more importantly, the exact coordinates before anyone else. In this line of work, that kind of lead usually meant two things: you walked away with the pay-out… or you got pulped and left your meat scattered across the dirt like breadcrumbs for the teams behind you.
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And the Lodge? Oh, they loved this system. It kept us NSNs at each other’s throats—just enough unity for small teams, but not enough for anything stronger. No alliances. No uprisings. Just a steady churn of cutthroat scavengers too busy chasing the next payout to organize or ask questions. You weren’t just sent to kill something. You were sent to race to it. Beat the rest. Because if you didn’t, you didn’t just lose the contract—you lost your Credits too. Burned them on a bet you didn’t win. And then? Back to the grind. Scraping together another pile, just to throw it on the fire again.
The Lodge didn’t care who died. As long as someone collected the kill—and paid the entry fee to get there.
On screen, the numbers lit up as one of the squads threw their bid in.
Winning Bid: 75 credits
Squad: Blackwater Bastards
Lucien hissed. “Fucking Bastards.”
“We not bidding?” Colette asked, her fingers poised over my tablet.
“The Bastards are the largest squad on this side of the continent. 10 Freak-strong” I muttered. “No one outbids them. Too many cumulated credits.”
I looked down at my notes, doing quick mental math. “Not for this one. Let's hold out hope my contact comes through.”
Slims rolled into the next pitch.
Contract Two:
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Code Name: “Dry Bones Rising”
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Tier: B+
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Target: Class-III Necromantic Disturbance
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Location: Tallulah, LA
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Payout: $20,000 flat, plus ritual salvage rights
-
Modifiers: Time Sensitive, Psychic Contamination Likely
Lucien straightened up. “That one’s local.”
Colette leaned forward, eyes glittering. “And it’s ritual salvage. That’s my payday. Necromancers always got the most rancid good stuff. It's goanna be at least 4 grand each just off the salvage.”
I immediately jotted down the mission code in my notebook, already running cost estimates in the margins.. It was one to keep an eye on in case Jolene didn't come through.
"Your decision. Lead's still up in the air. You wanna hold out or bid?"
Colette bit her lower lip, in that cute way she'd always done when thinking hard. "Nah! Let's hold out for now. Worst comes to worst, we can just double back on it and enter it anyway. Necromancer contracts are slogs anyway. Even with three hours, I doubt the winning squad's gonna be able to cut their way through a small army of zombies enough to make a difference."
Winning Bid: 75 credits
Solo- Hunter : Arcturus Bronson.
"HAH!!!" Colette jumped, clapping her hands once. "Papa Legba loves me today, non? Bronson's a necromancer too. It's goanna take him half a day just to raise an army, let alone carve through theirs."
She was right and no mistake. Necromancer vs Necromancer battles were long wars of attrition. But everyone knew that. The competition would be fierce for this mission. A lot of jackals lying in wait.
"We're half down the high-tier ones, mon ami. And Lucien would like a sure thing this time around".
"If by the half-point of the next auction there's still no message, we're gonna start bidding!" I answered back.
Colette plopped her firm behind back on the sofa, leaning against me, attention fully drawn on the TV.
Contract Three:
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Code Name: “Ashes to Ashes”
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Tier: A-
-
Target: Unlicensed Alchemist. Ifrit Posession.
-
Location: Baton Rouge Industrial Sector
-
Payout: $18,000 + $18,000 bonus if confirmed entity is trapped in a Catalyst.
-
Modifiers: Time Sensitive, Psychic Contamination Likely
“Ashes to Ashes,” Slims announced, grinning like a dog that knew where the bones were buried. Too many teeth. Too much glee. “Greasy little devil-worshipper. Loves his fire and blood. Real crowd-pleaser. So—who’s tossing their hat into the infernal ring, hmm?”
Colette wrinkled her nose like she’d caught a whiff of brimstone already. “Hard pass. Sorry, Lucien. Ifrits are demon-adjacent, and you know I don’t touch that filth. Not even the adjacent kind. Nothing worse for a witch than drawing attention from their kind.”
Lucien let out a whispered curse, but didn’t push. He knew better. We all did.
See, the Inquisitors and their rabid choirboys liked to paint witches as devil-sucking lunatics—naked in the woods, howling to the moon, making blood-pacts with old scratch himself. But reality? Couldn’t be further.
Witches were smart. Careful. They pulled power from the deep roots—the Old Forces, the wild spirits of the world, even divine light if they were more religiously inclined. They didn’t flirt with Hell. They avoided it like plague-rats in a soup kitchen. Because once a demon touched your soul, that was it. It didn’t let go. No matter how clean you kept your hands.
Hell was real. Heaven too. And the soul? Oh, it was very real. I may be undead—fangs, cold blood, and all—but inside? Same soul I had when I was breathing. Still mine. Still eternal.
And Hell loved nothing more than to ruin something eternal.
Collette had described it like a weird pyramid scheme in a way. Only worse, if that was even possible. Sure, a bargain with a demon would give a couple of decades of luxury, but the price was that when the moron that had made it died, they'd plummet straight into the black Pit. The very bottom rung of Hell. Slaves for the rest of time. The only way they'd get a few years of relief from torment would be to corrupt another soul.
See? Pyramid scheme. Malefic multi-level marketing.
Witches knew that better than anyone. They fought to stay clean. Never invited the rot in. Colette was a cut above the rest. She avoided even Ifrit, who weren't demons per se.
Just to be extra careful.
Now, politicians? That was another matter. Those bastards practically formed a conga-line.
Another squad took the bait. Steelborn Syndicate, a bunch of half-drunk grey-dwarf mercs with a fondness for napalm. Poor bastards.
Bid Placed: 50 credits
Squad: Steelborn Syndicate
Slims let the bid hang in the air like a noose. “Do I hear 60 credits, brave souls?”
We didn’t bite. No one was gonna go higher. Ifrit may not burn one's soul, but they could sure as hell burn you into a pile of ash. Then they'd burn that too, just to make a point.
That was when the message came in.
My phone buzzed low, like a wasp in a matchbox. I checked the screen and felt the borrowed blood in my veins run cold.
[CONTACT : Jolene] — Heads up. Next contract’s the Big One. High payout. No takers. So hold out for them to increase the pay. Mermen. I repeat. Mermen.]
I sat upright. “Next contract’s the payday. But it’s mermen.”
Lucien went pale. Even Colette’s fingers stopped moving.
“Shit,” she said.
Mermen.
The word didn’t conjure up images of pretty boys with six-packs and seashell jewelry. No, not in our world. Not in the real world. Mermen were abominations from the blackest pits of the thalasic trenches —twisted shapes born in crushing depths where sunlight feared to tread. They were not beautiful. They were not kind. They were mouths. And eyes. And teeth.
And hunger.
The kind that remembers.
“They’re surfacing?” Lucien muttered. “Now?”
I nodded, my stomach turning. “Has to be. If they’re offering a bounty, something’s breached the Gulf perimeter. Maybe inland. A spawn pod, maybe.”
“God help us if it’s a pod,” Colette whispered.
Here’s what you need to know about mermen—Deepkin, as the Department likes to call them, in that way bureaucracies try to pretty-up horror. They don’t come on land often, because the land isn’t where they thrive. But sometimes? Something drives them up from the trenches—famine, war, or worse, a calling. And when they come, they don’t just kill. They infect. Minds. Bodies. Places.
People disappear. Whole coastlines get scrubbed clean like someone took a file to the earth. Worse still? No one remembers what was there before. That's how they work. Memory rot. Cognitive drag. Truth corrosion.
Just as bad physically. Ever seen a feeding frenzy? Every individual fights like that. The term berserk isn't nearly enough to describe it.
Instinct, raw savagery and hunger of given form and function. To fight against a merman was to fight against a creature that would still try to bite your face off for about a minute, even if you severed its skull.
“Contract Four loading,” Slims announced, voice more solemn than before. “And for this one, ladies and gentlemen, I advise you to pay attention.”
Slims paused. Not for effect. But because even he didn’t want to read what came next.
Contract Three:
-
Code Name: “The Drowned Choir”
-
Tier: A+
-
Target: Deepkin activity in the Mississippi bayou delta
-
Location: Plaquemines Parish, LA
-
Payout: $45,000 flat + 1,000 per confirmed body or egg-sack
-
Modifiers: Unknown biological agents, psionic interference, heavy distortion. Full rights to salvage if successful.
“The bayou’s singing, folks,” he said. “And it’s not the good kind.”
Silence. From every squad, every team, every damned merc on the stream. Just silence. The screen stayed still. No flashing bids. No eager takers.
No fools.
"If they've come so far inland that they're sending Hunters, means the swarm's got a Mermaid Matriarch leading the helm, non?"
Colette just groaned, doubling over to nest her forehead against her knees. Was she hyperventilating?
This part I didn’t know.
A year as a Hunter had shown me things that’d twist a man’s guts into knots—things that crawled, howled, whispered in dead tongues. I’d seen worse than nightmares, and I’d walked away breathing. Mostly.
I knew mermen were hell to fight. My fourth contract had been a solo hunt—three of the bastards, isolated but cornered. I barely made it out, dragging half my insides behind me and too stupid to quit.
But mermaids? Never seen one. Not outside the Hunter’s Compendium. Just stories. Murmurs. Fatality rate against a mermaid: eighty percent on land. One hundred percent in water.
Let that sink in.
Only werebeasts, it’s said, have the raw strength to take one down on land. Allegedly. No confirmed kills. No trophies. Just shredded gear, empty comms, and red smears across the shoreline.
The payout screen suddenly shifted. It seemed Uncle Sam had seen the writing on the wall.
Payout: $55,000 flat + 2,000 per confirmed body or egg-sack.
The 1-minute auction reset. 10 seconds. 20. 25. Still not a single bid.
"Payout's getting nice" Lucien spoke suddenly leaning in, all joviality and devil-may-care attitude melting like wax. Collete straightened back up and nodded curtly.
"Salvage right are nice too. Deepkin guts go for good scratch at the Lodge. Good for all kinds of spell craft and alchemy."
I nodded curtly, finger hovering over the bid button. Never been brave. Not in life. But this wasn’t about courage. It was about necessity. About survival. And a hell of a good paycheck.
Just give it a third round...
The screen shifted again.
Payout (Final Offer or it goes to the Texas Branch) : $75,000 flat + 3,000 per confirmed body or egg-sack. Bonus : 2 years reduced for immigrant NCNs required serivce-time.
No time to weigh the looks, the silences. Payout was solid. The Bonus? Even better. Tailored for me, specifically. Real tempting.
But I wasn’t the leader. Hell, I’d never claimed to be, and this wasn’t my call. And they didn’t owe me a damn thing—just because the Lodge had dangled a reward shaped like my own private bonus didn’t mean they had to bleed for it. Especially not against mermen.
The clock was ticking. Fast.
I opened my mouth—half a question forming, heavy with hesitation—when a slender arm slipped past my shoulder. One fingertip tapped the bid button. Clean. Quiet. No fanfare.
Confirmed.
Bid Placed: 10 credits.
Slims leaned forward. He smiled. Not the smarmy showman’s smile. But something else. Something real. Something old.
"Well lookie here, we got ourselves some DAMNNED COJONES FINALLY!!!" and immediately fell in his auctioneer song, rapid-firing bids.
I looked behind me at the smiling face of Colette. Her eyes were still on me—steady, warm in that unspoken way of hers. Not pity. Not obligation. Choice. Just behind her, downing another beer and sitting on my sofa, Lucien just blinked.
I gave a slow nod. Words weren’t necessary. And I turned my gaze back to the screen, tapping the tablet whenever someone else tried to outbid us.
Now that someone had given the start, the bids were piling in like brine from seawater. 30 credits. 35. 40...
"Go as high as we need to, fre. This payday's worth it" Lucien's voice sang out, and I immediately raised the bid to 70.
"Hoho, 70 credits, looks like someone really wants to tango with the deep... AND A 80 CREDIT COUNTER-BID" Mr. Slims howled, jowls jiggling, jet-black eyes wide and filled with hunger.
My upper lip curled, a curious little reflex that'd only made itself manifest since becoming a Vampire, and I snarled, raising our bid to 85.
90.
95.
98.
Among the three of us, we'd saved up a total of 100 credits. Good enough to outbid anyone on a single job, but putting it all on one contract? The tight-purse Balkan in me was screaming.
"Merde, mon fre, you truly are no gambler. You goanna go, go for broke, uoais?" Lucien laughed, flicking a finger over the bid amount and tapping the big blue button.
"And 100... going once.... going twice..... and not three times, because time's up, gentle-Freaks" Mr Slims called out, pulling out a kerchief to wipe the sweat that had begun to cascade off his forehead.
Winning Bid: 100 credits
Squad : Bayou Saints.
“Well now,” the obese man-thing purred. “Looks like we’ve got a winner. Bayou Saints, your funeral just got funded.”
The stage lights dimmed.
The screen flickered.
And I shut the TV, disconnecting the tablet and jotting down the details on my notebook.
Time to get to work.