Before the Hunt

The snow in the Arctic never stops moving.

Some nights, it dances like powdered diamonds; tonight, it howls like something alive. The storm rolls across the frozen plains like a beast pacing in circles, clawing at the cottage walls just to remind me I’m the intruder here, not it.

But here I am, sitting in the warmth of my small cottage near the edge of the Arctic forest. The wind keeps slamming against the wooden walls as if trying to remind me I’m one step away from being buried under ten meters of ice. The temperature outside is so cold that you can feel it just by touching the window—cold enough that your fingers sting before your brain even registers the pain. The blizzard doesn’t help. Snow is falling sideways, the whole world swallowed in white.

I toss a few more logs into the fireplace, listen to the crackle, then take a slow sip of hot cocoa.

I always preferred cocoa over whisky when fighting the cold, and it does the job pretty well.

For a moment, I glance toward the frosted window. My reflection stares back, blurred and pale. Beyond it, the storm rages, shifting just enough that for a second, I think I see movement. A shadow sliding between the trees. But it’s probably just the blizzard playing tricks again. The Arctic loves doing that.

Out of habit, and for safety’s sake, I walk around the small house and recheck every sigil I’ve drawn. The symbols glow faintly under the lantern light, each stroke still sharp and unbroken. Thanks to an old angel friend, I learned enough Enochian and protective charms to keep things out—not everything, but most of the things that matter. Once satisfied, I settle back onto the warm sofa beside the fireplace.

As the flames rise, I can’t help but reminisce about my younger days.

Old hunters tend to do that.

When all you have left is time and a quiet place with only fire as your partner, the past becomes a little too loud.

Ah, I haven’t introduced myself.

The name is Dexter. I was a hunter.

And what I hunted... wasn’t your everyday animal.

I hunted the supernatural.

My gaze drifts to the wall above the fireplace, and even after all these years, the sight of my old arsenal still makes something tighten in my chest. There’s a whole lifetime hanging on that wall.

A silver-forged sword with faint scratches from claws you wouldn’t believe existed, a spear whose tip still carries the dried blood of Jesus—yes, the real thing; don’t ask me what price I paid to get it from the hands of an alpha Vampire—and the staff of Moses itself. That one... that one has a story long enough to fill another book, and I still have nightmares about the desert I almost got lost in.

Beside those, there’s a lineup of guns and tools that look like a museum curated by a madman. Shotguns loaded with silver pellets for werewolves. A rusty barrel pistol filled with salt—did you know? A blast of salt can disperse a ghost long enough for you to run—and an old Colt, its bullets carved with ancient sigils. They say it can kill anything on earth.

I never fired it.

Not because I didn’t have the chance.

But because some bullets are better left unused.

All in all, yes—angels, demons, creatures of nightmare and legend, pagan gods... they’re all more real than people would ever accept. And I spent my younger years hunting them. Not for glory, not for coin.

We only hunted when a creature turned on humans.

Someone had to deal with the things the police could never understand.

You’re asking how I ended up in the Arctic?

Well... it’s not because I enjoy the cold. At my age, my joints creak louder than the wooden floorboards.

I’m turning sixty-five this year. My strength, my stamina, the muscle in my legs—they’re not what they used to be. I chose this life because my wife... was bitten by a werewolf. And in the end, I had to kill her myself.

That was the day I stopped being a man and became a hunter.

For a long while after that, I wandered.

I slept in cheap motels, ate whatever I could find, and hunted anything that dared show its face. But grief sinks its teeth deeper than any monster. Some nights, when I woke up sweating, I couldn’t even remember if I was chasing creatures or running from memories.

Everything changed when I met two young boys—barely adults, but their eyes were older than mine. They never spoke about their trauma directly, but it showed in every scar, every silence. I won’t name them, but those six months I hunted with them, riding in their baby, an old 1967 Chevrolet Impala, were the best months of my entire career.

We fought ghouls beside abandoned train tracks.

We exorcised demons in cornfields at 3 A.M.

We faced pagan gods in old forests where the trees whispered in dead languages.

We brought down vampires so old their names had been erased from history.

We weren’t heroes.

Just tired men doing the job no one else could.

But... look at me, rambling again.

Back to the question.

Why am I here, in the middle of a snowy mountain where the nearest town is a three-hour snowmobile ride away?

Part of the reason is the artifacts I’m hiding. If the staff of Moses ever falls into the wrong hands, humanity will be dealing with the Plagues of Egypt all over again. And trust me, frogs falling from the sky aren’t even the worst part.

So secrecy is necessary.

Isolation is safer.

And the Arctic... well, it’s the perfect place to disappear.

But that’s only half the truth.

The other reason is... my last hunt.

Even now, sometimes... on nights like this, I hear something move out there. Something that walks against the wind, not with it.

My final mission before I retired, before I ran from the world, before I shut myself in this wooden box surrounded by eternal winter.

I...

... was hunting an Amarok.