The bell on the door rang hailing my extremely late entrance. Perfect. I needed to draw more attention to myself.

Sensei was going to kill me. Mirrors lined the side walls and as I glanced up at the clock to see how late I was I caught a glimpse of my reflection. My hair was disheveled and my gi was all out of sorts. I kicked off my sneakers, straightened my hair, and fixed my gi.

Cool air from the fans hit my face, but it was juxtaposed by the slightly pungent odor of sweaty feet and humidity from all of the kids practicing. After years of attending here the smell usually didn’t get to me. Today however it reminded me that I really didn’t want to be here.

The middle schoolers were in rows currently practicing kicks. With each kick a loud “Hiya” resounded through the dojo.

This sucked. I needed to be prepping to kill the monster tonight, not throwing punches and kicks at invisible enemies.

It was not a big dojo by any means. There was barely room for the mats and punching bags, and the standing practice torsos. A shelf against the back wall held all of the various medals our dojo had won from competitions throughout the years. The dojo’s personal emblem, a jade frog, was placed high on the back wall for all to see. It stood as a reminder that through discipline and hard comes transformation.

Before I stepped onto the mat, Sensei called everyone to attention. All of the students turned to face me and I bowed to them and to Sensei before stepping onto the mat. As I approached the front of the class I realized that more parents were here today than usual. Oh crap, was it parent day? Once a month we had parent day where the parents were invited to come and watch their kids practice to see their progress.

I made my way to Sensei and bowed again. “Sensei, sorry I’m late,” I said in a low voice.

I waited for him to scold me, to pull me aside into his office. Instead he resumed practice like nothing happened. “Sempai Sean,” he said, “thank you for joining us today. Now we can all learn the newest kata form.”

Sensei must have been stalling, waiting for me to get there.

Despite the humidity, a cold shockwave hit my body. Not only was it a day when parents attended, it was a session partially devoted to a demonstration of the next kata. It was easier for the parents and students if they knew what goal they were aiming for. And guess who usually gave the demonstrations. That’s right. Ole’ Seanny boy.

Normally I didn’t hate getting in front of everyone and demonstrating my skills, but I usually wasn’t thirty-five minutes late to a sixty minute practice session either.

Martial arts was about disciplining the body, the mind, and the soul. How was I supposed to convey an inner balance when I needed to be prepping to slay a monster? And what was more important? Practicing martial arts, or putting martial arts to practice? I was there though. I just needed to perform the kata, let Sensei scold me, and make the best of the remainder of the day.

As I moved to the front of the class and took center stage I didn’t feel any better. What form had the students last learned? Form five or form six? My brain wracked my memory, but I couldn’t focus. I’d had fitful nightmares and managed to oversleep without getting actual rest all night. My thoughts went back to the Sluagh. I was unprepared like raw pork.

The kids could not have learned Form Five yet. Form Five was the newest form. I nodded my head and closed my eyes. I breathed deeply as we taught the students, trying to center myself. I moved through the kata in my mind recalling all of the steps. But instead of clearing my mind I imagined myself chopping and kicking the Sluagh with Luck Magic infused blasts of energy. Wouldn’t that be something? As I went through the kata I made sure to yell loudly with each kick, throwing my Chi into each strike.

I finished the form, returned to a straight stance, and bowed to the class. That wasn’t so bad.

The students and the parents weren’t clapping as they usually did after witnessing a new kata. In fact the kids looked at me with mixed levels of confusion.

Sensei cleared up the confusion with some ad lib. “Thank you Sempai Sean for demonstrating Form Five once again for us. It’s good to reflect on what we’ve already accomplished and remember where we’ve come from.”

He moved close to me and whispered, “Take a seat please.” I couldn’t meet his eyes and lowered my knees to the mat.

Sensei’s eyes didn’t leave me as he explained to the class, “I’ll now demonstrate the next form, Form Six.”

Had I not been in front of the class I would have face palmed. Way to go Sean. Make Sensei look like an idiot in front of the kids and their parents. Why’d I have to be late today of all days?

When Sensei finished the kata he looked at the clock. “That’s all the time we have for today class. We’ll delve into the new kata next time. In the meantime meditate on what you’ve seen.” He bowed to the class and we all bowed to him.

As the students left I waited for Sensei to grill me. Fortunately one of the parents approached Sensei to talk about their kid. Time to get the rags and the disinfectant. Hopefully I could quickly wipe down the mats and get out of there without a peep from Sensei.

“Excuse me,” I heard Sensei say to the parent behind me. “Sempai, Sean. Please wait for me in my office.”

Crap. I was done for. I nodded to him and made my way to the back, rag and cleaner in hand.

While I was waiting for him to bring the hurt, a new thought occurred to me. Why did I have to stop the Sluagh? When I fought the Banshee my family was in danger. And that only happened because the Banshee tracked me home.

But the Sluagh didn’t have anything against me. It was a monster in the purest sense. It operated on instinct. It was drawn to Rob because he was Fae, and to me because of the Keening. Not to mention it could only attack at night. During the day it had to stay hidden, out of the light. So as long as I did what Nehemiah said and stayed indoors and away from my family, everything would be gravy. Right?

But my thought process was interrupted as Sensei entered the room and closed the door.

I spoke first. “I’m sorry for making you look foolish Sensei. I promise it won’t happen again.”

Sensei sat across from me and closed his eyes. When he opened them he said, “This isn’t about looking dumb Sean. This is about you and the kids. It’s about respect, Sean. Respect for others. Self-respect.” He stood up and moved the chair closer to me until his face was pretty close to mine.

“What’s going on Sean? Talk to me.”

My eyes shifted looking everywhere but at him. “Nothing. I was just late.”

How could I tell him that I was attacked by not the first, but the second monster in less than a week? How could I tell him that I had a Keening, a Banshee’s death-curse tattooed to my chest?

Sensei shook his head. He wasn’t buying it. “You show up basically at the end of class. You walk in looking like a train wreck and I can see through your gi that you’re bleeding through a bandage on your shoulder. You can’t remember what form the students are even working on. I sense great turmoil in you. Your Chi is way off Sean.”

His eyes bore into me, laying on the concern thick. “It seemed like you performed that kata out of an inner anger rather than out of inner balance.”

No way to explain the truth to him. So I just remained silent.

He continued. “You’re a leader to these kids Sean. They look up to you. You’re the only volunteer that can make it to the dojo at this time on Fridays so I’m counting on you. Some of the kids come from broken homes Sean. This is one of the only places where they see that order and discipline are good for the body, mind, and soul. But how can they see that when their Sempai is showing up late and can’t even perform kata’s he was supposed to have ingrained years ago?”

If he only knew, he’d cut me some slack. “I’ve had a lot of personal things going on that I can’t talk about. I’m sorry that those things affected the class.”

“I’m more worried about the way these things are affecting you Sean,” he said. Then he lowered his voice. “Is this about your...family?”

It was a subtle way to ask if this was related to the absence of my father and sister. I shook my head. “I’m still...dealing with that,” I said slowly. “But this isn’t about that.”

Sensei shook his head. “It’s okay to feel pain Sean. We’re men. The world expects us to be immovable. But things happen. Our lives change. Sometimes for the worse. But we’ve got to push through. We’re leaders. We can’t let changes, even big changes, ruin our discipline. That’s how character deteriorates. Lack of discipline. Changes and trials hurt. But those same changes and trials shape not just who we are, but others around us that we influence.”

It was a rousing speech. It just didn’t actually pertain to what I was going through. Or did it? I looked at Sensei’s wisdom through the lens of my current monster predicament.

Was it okay to ignore this monster just because it didn’t know where I lived? It was going to capture Rob before I intervened, and it would capture someone else tonight. If I didn’t face this trial, then others around me, my fellow citizens of my suburb and beyond, would be influenced in a negative way. They would suffer.

Still, I couldn’t explain the whole monster-of-the-week thing to him. He’d think I had mental problems. Instead I bit my lip, nodded my head and said, “Thanks Sensei, that’s exactly what I needed to hear.”

“Good,” he said. “I’m glad.”

I rose, rag and disinfectant in hand, ready to clean the mats.

“Sean,” said Sensei. “Leave the cleaning to me today.”

“You sure?” I asked.

“On one condition,” he said. “Next time you’re having real problems, come talk to me about it. Day or night. My door is open to you.”

I bowed and left.

---

I still had some time before I headed to Mom’s house. Game plan time! And the best way to defeat your enemy is to know your enemy, which meant research.

I ended up at the Springtown Library and hopped on the Internet. I wasted a whole bunch of time searching “Slaw.” I couldn’t think of any other way to spell it than “Slah.” I should have asked Rob how to spell it.

Frustrated, I clicked over to the local news. Maybe I could find something out about the monster in the news. I scrolled through the headlines again looking for something, anything.

What I found was disturbing. A lot of people had been reported as missing lately. Skimming the Vallejo Times Herald I went back as far as far as a few months ago. People were just leaving their homes and not coming back. Their ages ranged from young adults to people in their fifties. There didn’t seem to be any correlation.

I had heard talk around school about people going missing, but I hadn’t actually realized how many people were gone. I began reading reports from other nearby cities and towns: American Canyon, Benicia, Suisun, Cordelia, Middleton, Crockett, and Martinez. All of them had at least one person missing in recent months, but many of them had way more.

I made tally marks on a piece of scratch paper and by my count I was up to thirty total. But by far, Vallejo had the most coming in at seventeen over the past three to four months. Why wasn’t this front page news? Why wasn’t this on TV?

I also saw some people had been reported dead. At least three victims apparently died from animal wounds which authorities had only tied to the fact that mountain lions were sometimes seen in a suburban area like Vallejo. The reporter in the article reminded readers that mountain lions do technically live in the hills at the edge of the east side of Vallejo. Other possibilities for these natural deaths were that people had been attacked by large stray dogs or even coyotes which have been known to roam Vallejo recently. The article comforted readers with the fact that authorities were taking proper measures to ensure that these wild animals, be they mountain lions or coyotes would be put down on sight by the proper authorities.

It had to be the Sluagh. It had talons that could appear like large feline claw marks. Plus the mainstream media wasn’t known for telling the truth. If forensics didn’t know exactly what was killing people there was no way they’d say that a giant bird monster was the culprit. That would be inviting all of the conspiracy nuts to crawl out of their basements demanding answers. The MSM would go with whatever seemed probable. So in all likelihood authorities had lied to the reporter to keep things quiet because they knew that supernatural things were going on just like I did.

About thirty people were missing, and only three people turned up dead. That meant the monster captured most people and brought them elsewhere. The people that turned up dead were the exception, not the rule. I sighed. It’s not good, but being captured by a monster is way better than being eaten by one.

Then another realization hit me. Where was it taking all these people?

I opened up another tab to Google Maps and began noting where people were last seen. I took a screenshot of Vallejo for starters and opened it up in the layman’s Photoshop: Microsoft Paint. I started dropping red dots on the map where people were last seen. Some of the information just wouldn’t be helpful. There was a chance that some of these people skipped town or were legitimately abducted by good ole’ natural means. But as I applied dots on the map I began to see a pattern. Most people were last seen heading to or on the West side of Vallejo near the waterfront. I didn’t have time to cross check every other city or town on my list. But this was a good start.

It made me wonder how much of the stuff had been going on before I got my powers, before I gained the ability to sense these things, before my sister died. How much of this crap had I been spoon fed and bought it face value? Obviously Rob and other Fae had been around for thousands of years. Despite their Glamour, evidence of them must be everywhere if anyone actually looked for it. I would not be surprised if some organization was suppressing the truth, for whatever reason. I’d probably never know.

But that didn’t matter really. What did matter was that innocent people were being caught in the clutches of this crazy bird monster and I needed to prepare myself. With my Keening curse mark I was a walking target for this thing.

I switched over to Wikipedia (the most reliable place on the web) to learn what I could about the Sluagh, but then I got a text.

Mom: Just a reminder sweetie. Please babysit Tain

Me: Okay. Be over soon

It was late afternoon now. If I could get to my mom’s in a half hour I’d have time to grab the dog, head back to my apartment, pick up Rob, and then get ready to confront the Sluagh. No big deal Sean. Take a deep breath. You’d figure all this out.

While I was at Mom’s house might as well grab Dad’s shotgun. And the katana. I had a better chance blowing the Sluagh’s head off then using my katana to swipe at it, but better to have both. It was either that or die.