Eaten

I stood in the lobby of the Richards and Benz Department store and lit my last cigarette of the day. It had been a slow month and my cash flow was beginning to run dry, still if you decide to run in a niche market a low income is to be expected. Detective work in the occult and paranormal though isn’t exactly on the top of any boys list of what he wants to be when he grows up. It’s not if I or any of my forefathers had a choice though as from a young age we were taught about the things that lurk in the shadows, and with this knowledge we were to do whatever we wished, after all someone had to know about these sort of things. The police themselves don’t know how to deal with these situations so I sell them my services for a price. And by ‘these situations’ I mean being approached by a creature that looks like it fell out of a back end of a dog in a Super store with a terrified Sales-manager cowering behind my back.
‘Pardon me’ He panted and took a step back with me ‘but you still haven’t explained what this thing is’ poor guy had drawn the short straw. Still someone had to show me where this ‘creature’ was couldn’t have me just lurking around the place until the thing jumped on me.
‘It’s a taka’ I answered ‘sort of like an octopus really’ although this was a pretty large exaggeration as the taka was inadvertently humanoid and was as far from a octopus as a human is to a monkey. It had two arms and legs and what could be called a head but that was about it, it seemed to have an excess amount off skin on its head and legs and was the colour of bad cheese. Its body was overrun with suckers and warts and what were possibly eyes and it drooled excessively from a vertical mouth full of distorted teeth and a long flat tongue.
‘Well, excuse me, uh, sir’ he was getting panicky, not that I blame him ‘just why is it here’?
‘We’ll these things sort of just turn up out of the blue sometimes, no one really knows where they come from just that they need to be sent back, that’s why I’m here’ I began to explain
‘So you’ve dealt with one of these creatures before’ said the sales-manger, I decided not to lie
‘Well I’ve dealt with similar things before and I’ve yet to fail in banishing but I’ve red enough about this gentleman here to know what to do’ I’m not the most reassuring man in the world.
‘For one I know that Takas are amphibious but will be tempted to go onto dry land if someone or something trespasses on their territory’ ‘and that’s the store now’? Asked the sales manager ‘oh no’ I replied slyly ‘this fella must of been living in the lake underneath Haven City, must of come up through the sewer system and into the store’
‘And why is that’? Asking question after question must have been the boys’ way of calming his nerves, although it was as sure as hell beginning to get on mine.
‘Well you’ll be relived to know that rather than eating the flesh of other creatures the Taka eats their excrement and if it had to have a favourite type it would be human, what with all the junk we eat our leavings would seem like caviar to a Taka. Ugly here must of caught scent (although not literally as Takas only have a strong sense of taste rather than scent) of the sewers and decided to arrive at the biggest producer of waste which happens to be the ultra store we are currently standing in. But the fact that there are humans walking over his newly proclaimed territory is probably why he’s in a bad mood and has decided to scare off any intruders by squeezing his way out of a toilet’. The kid didn’t relax as he like everyone else who had been in the store at the time knew what Takas were capable of when angry, heck the whole reason I got called in for the job rather than a normal detective was because they found a man mangled and tore up like a wet piece of toilet paper in a bathroom cubicle.
‘So’ the kid managed to blurt out ‘what do we know’?
‘You hide’ I said I had my guts full of his quivering ‘ I’ll lure this guy’, and I cant believe I would ever find myself doing this ‘with a little snack’ and I took out a plastic bag filled with a mixture of animal faeces that the nice lady from the pet department several floors below had collected for me. The kid quickly dove behind a counter and I began to strafe left to right like a crab, the creature flapped out it’s tongue like a snake and snapped at the fruit cocktail I had in my had, it’s tongue shot at me and whizzed past barely grazing my cheek and penetrated the shelf behind me.
I ran and it followed on all fours and then began to swipe away with its arms knocking downs various shelves of various consumer goods. I ran backwards to a circle shaped clearing where there were several benches, I hopped over one and the Taka spat out its tongue again whilst I was still in mid air, it caught my leg and pain shot up my calf muscle and up my spine, it felt as of someone had just swiped my leg with a piece of sandpaper. I fell and landed shamefully on my ass before even more embarrassingly scrambling to a shelf like the kid had done. I dropped the stool collection on my way hoping the Taka would take the bait. It merely stopped a second to glance and poke the contents with its tongue I had bought myself several seconds, but that was all I needed. I shoved my hands to the floor and the room lit up like tinder box, the Taka looked around the room confused and then at the glowing circle full of runes that I had lured it into. The room then went white and a shockwave rippled through the air breaking all sorts of things as it travelled through the air thankfully I wasn’t one of them.
I lay on my back for a few minutes before the kid walked up to and looked over me a concerned look on his face ‘what was that’? that was obviously not for me, ‘that’ I said getting to my feet ‘was a banisher, a simple spell really all you just need to do is get whatever you want to get rid of to stand in it and then set it off and you never see it again, sort of like taking out the trash in a way’ I laughed, the kid didn’t ‘so where did it go exactly’? Enough with the questions kid is what I wanted to say but I just sighed ‘away’ I said tired ‘to a place you can’t even point to and where I can’t come back’
‘Right’ he said staring at the smoking hole in the floor and the wrecked goods strewn about the floor ‘and about...’ he began but I cut him off ‘Tell Mr Richard and Mr Benz to take it out of my fee’ I said finally letting my irritation out, and I began to leave and purposely stood on a piece of broken glass, making the kid flinch, I held in a smile, ‘uh sir’ the kid called after ‘your name I.. Uh... didn’t quite catch it’ he said as if he cared, so I blew smoke from my nostrils as hard as I could and stubbed out my last cigarette on the ground before I turned to look at him and said ‘Jonathan, Jonathon Svetonus’

Well no pay check for me tonight and I’m out of cigarettes so I’m in anything but a good mood when my cell phone rings after I’ve just landed my car in my apartment blocks parking lot. ‘Yes’ I answered as testily as possible. There was a slight pause for whoever was on the other end of the phone line to recover their hearing. ‘Screwed up another job eh, John’ Said the voice, Mathieu, crap. ‘Can this wait Mathieu’ I said bitterly ‘well not really John’ Mat said apologetically ‘I’m afraid we’ve got another case in the Lowerwalks he said ‘you heard been watching the news right’ he said after I gave him a long pause of silence ‘oh yeah’ I said ‘seeing as I haven’t really left the house for several weeks, what with you know, the lack of jobs coming in’ I said bitterly. ‘And I’m sure a job is what your about to offer me, even though the Lowerwalk killer case is in your department and not mine’ another pause and then a sigh ‘Just come down to the crime scene john I’ll mail the location to your cars computer and I’ll see you in five okay’ said Mathieu ‘sure’ I said flatly. Typical, I was about ready to drop out for the night and I get more food added to my plate this better be good.