FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Go fish."

"We're playing poker."

"But I hardly know her!" Steel tossed down his hand and looked at the barricaded door. The rumblings inside didn't ease up quite yet, "Do you people have another game?"

The owners of the house were getting increasingly upset by how long Steel was taking to cleanse their house. Even though he explained multiple times that trying to eliminate a black mage, or lich as modern people called it, during a rampage was likely to cause great destruction and pain, they insisted that he do something, "Steel, why can't you do anything again?" Cleopatra insisted on coming along, though she was forced to wear a disguise that covered most of her body.

"Like I said, I could. I could try. I would probably fail, be torn into a million shreds of flesh, the lich would then tear the rest of you up, and then use our life energies to increase its power and destroy the town, then the state, then the country... I told you already. Not a pretty sight."

"So you've seen that, and no town had that trouble, so it had to be stopped. Just do that!" The wife was very upset, Steel was very expensive.

Steel yawned, "Love to. I just lack an army of disposable souls, the Grim Reaper's powers, and a decimated country to work with. Listen, just relax, I'll get it done when it calms down."

A knock could be heard from the front door, "Your services are no longer needed, we hired a real professional."

A young woman in a trench coat entered the house. She was adorned with religious symbols, jewelry, and carried a briefcase, "Oh how precious! You hired the wannabe! Ain't she cute?"

"Oh, wonderful... I'm glad you've come to your senses and hired a real investigator, not this fraud." She set down her briefcase and removed her coat, "I'll be done in minutes."

She grabbed a bottle of holy water and quickly marched to the door. As she reached out, Steel jumped up and grabbed her arms, "Not yet kid."

"Let go! You're interfering!"

"I'd rather not have to deal with a super-powered black mage, okay? So sit your dumb ass down and wait until the thing stops."

The woman snarled, "You know nothing! This thing can't harm me!" A small explosion could be heard from inside the bedroom and the barricaded door almost flew open, "What in the world..."

"Sit. Down. Now. Or do you need another beating from a werewolf?"

Cleopatra sighed. She was bored, and she thought that being on a job would be exciting and fun, not sitting around and doing nothing, "So when do these things start to calm down?"

Steel scratched his chin, "Well... it's been a few hours, then you people added a new soul to the mix and its appetite grew. I'd give it another hour or two, then it'll be as easy as eating a taco."

"Are you sure about that?"

Steel nodded and shuffled the cards, "Of course, I've done it at least three times before. When they are out of energy, they're just a pile of bones." The silence set in, puncuated by the undead screams in the closed room, "Owners of the house, did you have any questions?"

The husband was fuming, "When are you going to act?! That thing is destroying everything we own!"

Steel laughed, "Well maybe if you morons didn't summon it into your room it wouldn't have happened this way, eh?" The anger blurred into confusion, "Oh... so who summoned it? Not really important at this point, but maybe you can direct your angries to the right person."

A young man stepped out from another room in the house, "How does one... summon a monster?"

"Boom, answer to the question right there. My life is complete for today, time to pretend to be awake." Steel began work on a house of cards.

The other investigator was tapping her foot, "Young man, tell me what is in there."

"Well, uh... I... uh..." He was nervous. Not a buff young man, he was most likely a bit of a geek. Bullying was a high probability, so he may have been desperate to try something to get back at his enemies. Steel figured this out quickly, but the other investigator...

"Spit it out! I need to know what it is and if I can tame it now."

The young man's parents were in shock, common of those that didn't understand the supernatural. It wasn't just the sting of knowing that it was preventable, or that it was casued by someone they knew, but the spiritual pressure from the summoned being. It interfered with cognitive function, motor skills, and reaction times. Steel was the only one in the room aware of this, "A... a lich... they are... undead wizards... I think..."

"What else?"

"Good for revenge... but hard to... um... control..."

The woman investigator stood up, "Undead... holy water for control and a silver cross will prove the best tools for taming. A quick chanting and the bones should lose their power, making it easy to permanently disenchant and dispose of... I have my strategy."

In theory, what she said would work. After all, lesser undead skeletons fall quickly to water and silver, not necessarily holy or crosses. A lich was the Superman of skeletons though, and only by attacking at their weakest point could they be defeated. Steel was the only person in the house that knew of this, and yet, "I wonder... dare I add another story to my magnificent house?" His cards were only stacked up two levels. He was terrible at building card houses.

Cleopatra was sleeping on a couch as the woman investigator decided to take down the barricade. Steel jumped up to intervene, but he wasn't fast enough. His house of cards was blown down by the dark energies, "Stop! I will do my job!"

"Do you realize how many innocent imaginary card people you killed? Also, if you don't stop I'll kill you now."

"So the jester thinks I take him seriously? What a pathetic joke. Let me pass!"

Steel hardened his expression, "You feel it... right? The tugging on your heart? It's as though someone reached into your chest and gripped down tight. They're pulling you, and the closer you get to them the harder they pull. They marked their prey, and now they simply have to wait until it comes near the fangs." He shoved her back.

The investigator panicked and was clearly drenched in sweat. Steel knew that it was due to his reading of her mind, which in reality was simply a re-cap of what he's seen before. Still, her hyperventilating and mad dash for the furniture was an unexpected turn of events, "You will not fool me!"

She was able to tackle away the barricade, and just then the door burst open. Dark tendrils of magic flowed out, and it was Steel who shoved the investigator out of the way and got pulled in, "Dumbass!"

Cleopatra shot up and ran to the now shut door, "Steel! Can you hear me!"

The sound was deafening, as though a tornado was contained inside that little bedroom. The owners and their sun fled the house, but the tricked investigator was left in a daze. Cleopatra tugged on the door handle, but even her supernatural strength wasn't enough to get it open. Gunshots echoed through the door, barely noticeable through the wind.

"Steel! Answer me!"

The door creaked, Cleopatra backed away, the sound stopped, then the door collapsed. Steel stumbled through, covered in gashes and his own blood, "Where... is she...?" Cleopatra pointed at the investigator with a shaky finger.

Steel limped over and lifted her by the neck, "What?!"

Steel made sure to make perfect eye contact and whispered in a silent voice. She felt burning on the left of her neck and he let her fall to the floor, "We're leaving... get the money..." He did his best to stay on his feet and get outside. It was dark, quiet, and empty, "Oh great..."

"Steel, we need to talk." The Grim Reaper was waiting for him.

Cleopatra cautiously approached Steel, "What is SHE doing here?"

"Well, some thing have come up. You head on home, mommy and daddy have to talk." He smiled at Cleopatra just as the Grim Reaper raised her scythe. She brought it down on him, and they both vanished.

In the Grim Reaper's castle, Steel found himself tied to a wall, "When?"

"Hmm... I would say... maybe a few minutes ago?"

The Grim Reaper wasn't satisfied, "Surely you're joking. You went in to a fight with a black mage without knowing if you had magic?"

"I didn't want to fight, but that moron kinda removed the option of patience, you know?" Steel fidgeted, "Can I come down now?"

She sat on the edge of her bed, "You-know-who is awake then..."

Steel shrugged, "Yeah, but what else is new? Some people are awake, some asleep, some dead, some alive, some in-between. At least I got my magic back, right? Now I can get into another fistfight with you and not die."

The soul flame crackled in the fireplace, "Some good came out of this at least. Do you remember your spells? If not, I have your old books."

"You're a sentimental embodiment of death aren't you? That's kinda adorable." He freed himself from the bindings with some fire, "I remember most of it I think, though I seem to forget that I have it back... want your gun?" Steel held out the damaged remains of his revolver.

"It was a gift, but I'll put it in my collection if that is what you desire." She reached into her robe and pulled out another revolver, coated in a black material, "Take this then, it will be easier for mortals to understand how you fight."

Steel reached out and set his hand on the gun, "Hey... think it'll be as bad as last time?"

"Last time it was a miracle that you made it out without losing limbs."

"Yeah, plus the whole magic-power-sacrifice dealy." He slowly picked up the revolver and placed it inside his coat, "But I'm older and slightly wiser. I also lack an army... I didn't really think this through even though I had nothing to do with it..."

The Grim Reaper stood up and stared directly into Steel's eyes, "I have a proposal, one that will give you strength enough to defeat her without immense casualties."

"Already? Wow, shit has really gone downhill in the past few years... something is up. And down. But mostly up. The demon, the increase in supernatural activity, reminds me of the old days before I slaughtered thousands of demons." He smiled a weak smile, "I don't like it."

"Neither do I, but nonetheless-"

Steel waved his had around, "Yeah, I'll get the damn contract. Wonder who I'll have to fight through after they learn what that paper really was." He forced tiny bolts of lightning to dance between his parted fingers, "I have some demands, but for now send me back."

.............................................

Steel marched into the office building and fought off an inevitable headache, "Hey, where have you been?!" Liliy shouted, her succubus features sprouting out quickly, "We've had so many calls we can't handle things!"

Cleopatra attempted to slap Steel, but his tight reflexes allowed him to dodge the potentially fatal hit, "You left me in the middle of the street! I had... difficulties in driving." Sabrina and Aqua were answering the phones, though the calls came in too quickly for them to handle.

He walked over to the filing cabinet and pulled out the paper filed away under his name, a gift from the Reaper and now a tool. A twinge of pain entered his brain, and Steel decided to grab the mini-gun mounted on the back wall. He set it up on his desk and aimed at the front door, "I've been busy... by the way does anyone have a needle? No? Fine... everything has to be a pain today."

Steel did his best to ignore the confusion filling the air and bit down hard on his pinky finger, just enough to let out some blood, "What are you... are you mad?!" Cleopatra had lost her composure.

"I have to do this because reasons... important reasons. World altering reasons... crap."

Liliy had to ask, "What?" Even she knew that there were many more questions to ask, but she was doing her best to learn politeness and etiquette.

"I forgot my real name... I swear, don't use it for a few hundred years and it's gone. Wait, nevermind, it's in the contract..." He wrote his true name in his own blood, "There, done and done. Now all that's left is the awkward ceremony and a mind boggling honeymoon. Not because of the sex mind you, but the mechanics of it... please stop staring like that, it hurts."

Cleopatra was the most displeased and also the first to understand what Steel had just said, "You got married?!"

"Oh, it's not the stares that are hurting. Funny." He gripped the handles on the mini-gun and aimed at the door.

A gentle, almost serene knocking echoed through the office, and then the door opened. A stunningly gorgeous woman stepped into the door frame. She wore an amazing crimson dress, designed for an old-fashioned ball perhaps, a beautiful crimson floppy had, she also had deep crimson eyes, "Oh my, how rude of you! Treating a lady like this... you should know better."

"Gals and ghouls, the one and only..." Steel switched off the safety and slammed down the trigger buttons, "Bloody Mary."