Accepting the Mantle: Shaman States of America: The Mantle

By Chrishaun Keller-Hanna and W.T. Meadows

Edward Mauer's future looks beautiful. 

 

He's newly married and fresh off his honeymoon, school is going fine, and The Hunt has opened up opportunities most lifelong Hunters will never have. 

As more pieces in his life continue falling into place, and the scars of past Hunts are starting to heal, a sinister presence targets families with small children. 

Edward must throw himself into harm's way to protect those he loves. And learn the lengths that those closest to him have gone to protect him. 

Destinies are intertwined, questions answered, and Edward realizes the weight of the mantle thrust upon him. 

But realizing it is one thing. Accepting it is quite another. 
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chrishaun Keller-Hanna
• Release date: May 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393180081

Chrishaun Keller-Hanna

Hello All, Chrishaun here! Welcome to Allazar! A place of beauty, danger, magic, and monsters.  This is the space where I want to have fun, write crazy stuff for the far edges of my imagination, while still looking at issues like oppression and struggle, where men and women can take on challenging roles. It’s my hope that you will understand my drive to create the magical space for adventure and that you’ll listen to and enjoy my words, these worlds, and thoughts. The Allazar Universe is big and there is room for you.  Meanwhile, on Earth, I live in the Great of Texas where I read, watch documentaries, podcast, and help my husband try to keep our cats from opening the Seventh Seal.

Book preview

Prologue

1997

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This’s gonna be the one, Ariel Buttons mused, not for the first time. Finally, this will be it.

She adjusted the photo of a set of blond twins sitting next to her comm microphone and smiled to herself. They were so different, yet such a perfect complement to each other. After this recon mission, she and Chris’d finally show the Judge how powerful they really were. Even though they’d amassed a small collection of powerful specters between them over the years, they couldn’t convince the Shaman of their Elite status, that same status those Mauers threw away so long ago. Both the Mauers and the Buttons came from families with a long lineage of Hunters. Chris had even fought beside Stefan and Edward in Vietnam. After the war, Chris was shut out of their friendship by the Mauers’ meteoric rise to fame in the late 1970s. In and of itself, their fame would’ve been fine if it hadn’t all gone to Stefan’s head. He’d become insufferable and forgotten about the Hunters who helped get him where he was in the world. The matter was only worsened by the death of Edward in 1980, and the Mauers’ subsequent retirement from the Hunt. The Judge was completely unwilling or unable to force them back in, and the Shaman of the South had refused to let Chris or her fill the Elite role that became available shortly thereafter.

Two decades after the Mauers’ rise in stature in the South, both Ariel and Chris were continually denied the opportunities Stefan and Maria Mauer abandoned. The concept still sickened Ariel after all these years, but part of her missed the friendship of the girl she’d grown up with. Maria had been a fierce and loyal friend when they were kids together. As children, Maria had even protected Ariel from an Earth Elemental they’d encountered while playing in the woods.

An unexpected whisper came over the comm speaker on the desk and caused the hair on her arms to stand on end. There had been nothing on the membrane map when she’d checked moments before, but when she looked again, she noticed the presence of a Troll and pressed the transmit button of the mic sitting in front of her.

Watch yerself, striker. Looks like yeh’ve got a friend.

Ariel wasn’t overly concerned about her husband, despite the Troll that had appeared out of the blue.

Gotcha, Airs, Chris responded, using her pet name. Even though this wasn’t an official Hunt, since they were doing unofficial research to cut out the The South’s Troubleshooters, Ariel didn’t appreciate her husband’s casual tone over the comm. He needed to take this more seriously.Big fella, ain’tcha?

The Mossberg shotgun he carried went off twice over the speaker, and Ariel checked the vitals of the creature represented on the membrane map. They registered a solid hit from at least one of the blasts. Instead of continuing to degrade from the damage, however, the numbers representing the vitality of the creature somehow increased. Corresponding to that, Chris’ statistics jumped around in an erratic pattern. The line of his heartbeat quickened into rapid peaks and valleys. His adrenaline spiked as he started screaming over the comm.

Airs, he’s got— The voice of her husband became incoherent with terror and rage, and another quiet voice cut in.

Muuuuuuuuuuultiples…yeeeeessss. Will dooooooooo niiiiiiiiiiiiice.

Striker? Ariel called frantically into her mic, holding down the transmit button. Any desire to maintain comm decorum was lost. Chris? Hun? What’s going on out there? You all right? Please, baby, talk to me!

Chris Buttons bellowed and fired the shotgun again and again, but the vitals of the other Troll continued to grow stronger.

Just right. Perfect, another voice said, but Ariel couldn’t see any presence other than her husband and the Troll.

The screams become more frenetic until they lost all humanity. After a certain point, Chris’ cries of pain, loss, and terror were purely primal. Ariel’s pleading over her mic brought no answers, and there was a sudden wet sound, then silence. Wailing into the mic, the distraught Hunter continued to call out for her husband.

Ahhhh, yes. Hello, the second voice said over her husband’s mic. Don’t worry; I’ll be there soon.

---

***

---

Waiting in a corner of their small cabin, Ariel clutched her sawed-off shotgun, cocked and ready to fire at anything that might come through the door. The experience was like waiting for unexploded ordinance to go off. The concern that it might happen was balanced against the terror that checking on the problem might just make it blow up in your face.

They had rented their ancient-looking slat-wood cabin, complete with stone fireplace, for two reasons. The first was its proximity to the target area for this reconnaissance trip. They were following a tip that landed in their laps about mysterious activity in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. Their second reason was that there were no Hunters’ Lodges in this part of the Tennessee Area. This one-room cabin had plugs to ensure the comm equipment powered on, but not much in the way of defenses. Ariel huffed in exasperation at the cabin’s lack of defensible positions, but she was grateful that there was only one window to the place, and it was across from the door. She could keep her back to the wall and prepare for something to come from either entry point.

After an interminable wait with nothing but static to accompany her from the radio her murdered husband carried, Ariel heard scratching along the walls outside the cabin. It was a singular sound, like something leisurely feeling the side of a boat they were about to board. It headed toward the door, where the noise stopped. Ever so slowly, the screech of a single nail scraped against the door. It was the only thing she could think about, and was maddening.

Hunter… the second voice from earlier said outside the door. Partner was…delicious.

With a bellow of rage, Ariel unloaded both barrels of her shotgun and disintegrated the door to their cabin. Without checking to see if she hit the thing on the other side, the comm cracked the barrel and loaded two more shells. The first pair had been buckshot, as were the second, but she slung an ammo belt around her with incendiary shells, magnum slugs, hollow-point magnum slugs, and silver-encased shells. With the shotgun reloaded, she tentatively investigated the wreckage of the door.

Shards of wood spilled into the cold eastern Tennessee mountain air. Sounds the Hunter would normally expect to hear outside were silent, spooked by the Troll, the gunshots, and the exploding door. Light from inside the cabin illuminated the area just outside the door but didn’t show any evidence that something had been there. Ariel whipped her head around to ensure it wasn’t sneaking up behind her and scoped out the other side of the door to find nothing. She looked up to the roof and saw gaping jaws with the yellow teeth of a Troll. It was taller than eight feet when it jumped off the cabin’s roof at her.

After firing the first of her two barrels point-blank into the creature, she noted that the shot hit the creature, but little or no blood fell. The blasts only slightly adjusted its trajectory as it came toward her. The monster’s black hair trailed behind it, and its green eyes gleamed in the darkness, not unlike a cat’s. The monster landed on top of her, and she fired the second barrel directly into its abdomen.

Ariel expected to see the creature’s intestines flying out of its back, so she was surprised to only hear it bellow in pain. It held her down with one of its arms and its immense bulk and tilted its green head to take her in. Rotten breath hissed at her through its yellowed and blood-stained teeth. An amulet or strap held an enormous skull to the thing’s chest as it looked down at its belly to see the damage. Ariel couldn’t help but notice heat emanating from the creature as she tried to get away from it.

No struggling, it said and slapped her across the face. The strike sent a flash of bright spots to dance across her vision. "It has been a long time. I…we’re hungry. The other one, and all those deeeeeeelicious specters along with him, was such a good start. You’ll be—"

No! Ariel screamed as something inside her broke. Her worst suspicions were confirmed by this monster; Chris was dead at this thing’s hand. Even worse, a shiver ran down her spine at the realization of why the beast had taken so long to travel the quarter-mile between her husband’s location and the cabin. It had been eating the man she loved, the father of their two boys.

Surrendering to the specter she’d received from Pinyin, Ariel’s consciousness left her body in ghostly form. The monster wouldn’t be able to touch her, but she could will herself to pick up and fight with her own weapons. A pale and translucent hand floated down from above her trapped corporeal form to raise the shotgun into the air, along with two hollow-point magnum slugs. Those should rip a hole big enough to kill anything.

How interesting, the black-haired Troll said as it let go of the body on the ground. It stood up and took in the apparition holding the shotgun with a quizzical expression. A small part of the Hunter’s mind was surprised by how well the creature spoke. That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to kill it, salt the earth where the corpse lay, and then possibly burn the whole park to the ground around it for good measure, but it surprised her, nonetheless.

Cracking the barrel to load the new slugs into the shotgun, Ariel snarled at the beast, "You sunuvabitch! You murdered and ate my husband, and I will dance on your grave!"

Before she could finish loading and firing the shotgun, with a lightning-quick motion, the Troll reached down and casually tore out the throat of her body on the ground. Ariel watched in horror as her life’s blood gushed out of her comatose body. She had hoped, insofar as any planning could occur at a time like this, that the Troll would attempt to attack her spectral form and leave the physical body alone. She had known he wouldn’t be able to get a hand on her incorporeal self, but it didn’t mean the beast was privy to that. The body on the ground twitched as the nerves and muscles died. A last rattling breath escaped Ariel’s body as it died.

A terrible smile washed over the Troll’s face, and the still-unloaded shotgun clattered to the ground as Ariel watched the creature’s eyes change color: one to purple and the other to ice-blue. She had never seen anything like it, and she was transfixed by the change. In addition to the creature’s eyes changing, it hunched slightly and lowered its head to let its long stringy black locks tumble toward her corpse. Looking down at her one more time, the Troll’s smile widened into something even more grotesque.

"Gooooooooooooooooood… said the voice she had heard over the comm. It was coming from the body of the Troll in front of her after it had changed. Most of the words were elongated in an accent or speech impediment the Troll’s voice didn’t have. Speeeeeeeeeec-tor traaaaaavelsssss. Willlllll be puurfect."

With the same speed it had implemented to rip out her throat, the Troll thrust its hand inside her spectral form and grabbed the heart, or soul, of her being. The beast pulled her incorporeal form toward its mouth. Ariel could only let out a ghostly scream as everything around her went to black.

***

2003

---

I couldn’t be entirely sure, but I was almost positive the slurping sound echoing from my coconut cup was enough to prompt another drink to replace it. The waitstaff working the private beach where Ed and I were finishing our honeymoon either had impeccable timing or had somehow managed to perfectly anticipate how long it took for either of us to finish our drinks all day. Sure enough, within twenty seconds of placing the umbrella-adorned husk on the sand next to my beach chair, I was handed another delicious fruity drink. Not even Ed’s favorite diner hostess, a woman I’d only known as Dottie, could time or pour drinks with this just-right amount of rum and other such tasty additions. After the first drink, I hadn’t even bothered to try and change the orders; they knew what I wanted and made that happen.

Tomorrow, we’d head back to the mainland and start our married life together in that crazy world my husband inhabited. It was still weird to think of him as my husband, but the thought lit my face with a smile, not the first time. I guess you could say we both inhabited the powered world since I knew about the monsters that surrounded us, even if I couldn’t see them. Sometimes, while taking the cruise ship out here, he’d lean over and tell me about some insane creature my brain would translate into an octopus or whale. One time he’d told me that a shark we’d seen swimming in the distance in the crystal-blue water was something he was glad I couldn’t see. Other times, he’d said the opposite. There were mermaids swimming next to the ship on our third day of tooling around the Bahamas. I’d rolled my eyes at his insistence that they were sporting clamshell bras, but who was I to say if that little tidbit was true or not?

That was the thing about the world he lived in and my proximity to it. The Shaman States of America had some weird stuff. Some of it was beautiful, like the Bröthe his statistics professor kept as a pet. I had even had it eat from my hand on one occasion. He’d described it once, but my brain didn’t want to make that kind of connection. To me, it’d looked a bit like a tame sloth—out of place in Tennessee, but something my mind could account for. Often the things from the powered world were terrifying, like what I’d seen after drinking Clancy’s potion the previous New Year’s Eve. Monsters ambushed a party we were having that night and dreams about the giant man-boars and car-sized alligators still woke me in the middle of the night. I could still only imagine the horrors my poor little sister, Mako, went through before being rescued from otherworldly creatures by Ed three years prior. She still wouldn't talk about that night, even though she knew I was in on the secret. Hopefully, I’d be able to help her heal from that trauma someday.

We were heading into a very strange time. Our wedding had been presided over by the single most powerful man in State of the South, which Ed had told me was Virginia and south, all the way over to Arkansas. Arkansas and a few states west of it made up a state called Texarcana. He’d told me about those two, as well as the other six states that comprised the entirety of the Shaman States of America. Prior to our engagement, a year earlier, I’d never heard of any of that, let alone the people running a shadow government protecting us from the crazy monsters hell-bent on killing humanity. Ed, bless his heart and all that, as a good Southerner, had hidden it from me while we’d been dating, which had even caused us to briefly break up. All I’ll say about that is the poor man was in an impossible situation, but I’m glad he finally pulled his head out of his ass to tell me the truth. I didn’t know what was ahead of us when I agreed to marry him, but I was glad to be on the journey with such a good man. Together, we’d tackle this zaniness, even if I couldn’t see what was going on.

The rest of the summer, however, was apparently going to be dedicated to Ed training hard. His previous success with an Elite Hunting team called the Magnolias, along with the Shaman of the South officiating at our wedding, had vaulted Ed into the spotlight for more than just the South. I’d had no idea my husband was such an important figure until I was gawked at by an absurd number of people at my wedding. Let me tell you, it was pretty damned annoying to be upstaged by your husband’s fame at your own wedding. Ed deserved the completely reasonable amount of hell I’d given him for that happening. He’d borne it well, bless him.

With all that, though, I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect this summer or during our last year of college. I was set to graduate in December, and he’d hopefully finish up the following May. Something that bugged me to no end was that my husband would soon be sharing his body with another woman, a bodiless hunter named Ray who’d possessed him against his will for a portion of the previous year. If I were more gracious than I often found myself wanting to be, he’d learned exponentially more in that time than he had in his previous training with a man named Clancy. That man was the usual host of the aforementioned body snatcher, but she’d apparently managed to whip my husband into shape in a way Clancy hadn’t. The plan was for her to jump back over for some hopefully limited amount of time and get his training to whatever next level before pissing off somewhere else. I honestly didn’t care, as long as it wasn’t inside my Ed.

Shifting the umbrella out of the way of my straw, I slurped my newest fruity concoction with a smile. Ed, who seemed utterly incapable of enjoying a day at the beach to simply relax, was bodysurfing in the beautiful blue waves of our private heaven. As powerful as he was, due to his magical or spectral or whatever they called their powers, my husband was a lanky and ungainly mess of a man. Arms flailing awkwardly like a bag of sticks in a hurricane, he mistimed a wave and ended up ass-over-teakettle before being slammed into the sandy beach. He came up from the surf moments later, spraying water and sand. Blearily, he looked around to see who had seen his crash landing. I smiled when our eyes locked before giving him a thumbs-up and miming a condescending head-pat. He stuck out his tongue and headed back out toward where most of the waves crested.

The crash wouldn’t have been bad for most people, but it did bring to mind the thing I couldn’t quite shake. Assuming some monster didn’t make me a widow, which I was terrified would happen, he would outlive me by quite some time. Hunters, or powered people, as they referred to themselves, lived much longer than the rest of us, due to their specters healing them. He and any of our potentially powered children would stay young while I aged in front of them. Feeling petty and selfish, I couldn’t get it out of my head that eventually, I’d be some ancient hag while my family was still more or less young and spry.

While I loved the thought of having kids someday with the man I adored, I wasn’t going to be comfortable with bringing those kids into the world until I could wrap my brain around my place in his world. It was something I’d have to accept at some point. I loved kids, but I just wasn’t ready. Thankfully, I was on birth control and shouldn’t have anything to worry about for a while yet.

One

Anna Benjamin-Noble struck the kind of pose a newly minted seven-year-old would find heroic. Her teeth were bared in a way she thought was epic, but which all the adults found endearingly awkward and creepy and yet cute at the same time. Her head was thrust out, and the wind blew her mane of tight curls out behind her majestically. The billowy skirt of the yellow sundress she had chosen to wear for her first Hunt draped around her hands, which were firmly planted on her hips. The legs of her pink carbon fiber suit was tucked into well-worn brown combat boots completed the image captured by her father’s camera. Clancy smiled when he looked at the preview on the tiny screen.

You look amazing, baby girl. Remember the plan, all right?

Sure will, Daddy! She beamed up at the white-bearded man with closely cropped hair. His black t-shirt was tight enough to make his student, Edward Mauer, roll his eyes. Clancy towered over his daughter even while down on one knee. "I run in there and find the very best Floof. Then, I grabbit and run back to you and Mr. Edward. S’at right?"

Edward found this kid adorable and loved how she reminded him of his sister-in-law, MakoThe thought of Mako being a part of his family after marrying her sister Kana a week prior still sent a shiver of excitement down the young Hunter’s spine.

S’right, baby, Clancy said as he pulled the child into a hug. He stood and marked a line in the dirt along the edge of the clearing in front of them. The Elite trainer pointed at the line and addressed Anna again. Get over this line before you slow down, you hear me?

Anna put on a serious expression and nodded to her father. Ready for me to go?

Hold on just a moment, baby. Gotta take care of one more thing, Clancy said before turning to face his student. You’ve had your honeymoon, but now it’s time to get back to work. Ready for a visitor?

Edward nodded and felt a different kind of shiver as Ray LaCoure appeared in her traditional flannel button-down shirt inside the cockpit he used to represent his mind. Her hair, much like her daughter’s, fluttered in the ghostly wind the woman generated inside the cockpit. She wore a red headband that held the hair from her face, and her teeth shone in a contrasting smile against her dark brown skin. Ray’s eyes shone at Edward, who pressed the button on the cockpit rig to set their upcoming greeting into mind-time. Inside the mental construct of the cockpit, he and Ray could converse at the speed of thought, which allowed them to mostly pause the outside world for brief periods of time.

The young Hunter hopped down from the pedestal that represented the person driving Mechward, the pet name they’d given Edward’s body, from the cockpit and hugged the Soloist. The two of them had a complicated history, but had developed a friendship based on mutual hardship and the harassment of Clancy. She’d lived in the Elite trainer’s mind for the previous years since he had shot her in the head while being compelled by the Shaman of the South. Not for the first time, Edward marveled at the complexity of the relationship Clancy and Ray shared.

They embraced before she took his head in her hands and looked him square in the eyes. Seriously, you ready for this? This ain’t no joke here.

Totally. Anna’ll get her Floof, whatever the hell that is, and I get to deepen my well, whatever that means.

Don’t be obtuse, Edward, Ray said, giving him the hairy eyeball. "You know what deepening your well means. We’ve talked about this. You can’t pull that doe-eyed nonsense with me anymore. I’ve literally been inside your head."

Nyah, nyah, Edward replied with a dismissive wave. Still works with most everyone else, since I still have a few rough edges with things most Hunters take for granted.

"Sure, sure, but I ain't most Hunters."

Indeed, and I know I’m headed into this to get some more specters to round out my powers. We’ve talked about quite a list of powers since coming back from the honeymoon. You sure whatever’s in that forest is gonna want to spare them?

Yeah, well, she’ll be willing to give them to you if you are worthy of the responsibility. That’s gonna be the hard part, but I got faith in you, peaches.

"She? So, there are people who just give out specters? That seems like a weird thing. Who, or, I guess the better question would be what, can just do that?"

Oh, you’ll see. Don’t you worry your pretty little head. She’s got plenty to offer. Even if she were to give you the absurd numbers I have rummaging around in my physical body, wherever Trey’s got that thing at the moment… Her voice trailed off, and she shot a wistful glance to the west before continuing, Even if she was gonna give you hundreds, she’d still have more than your little mind could comprehend.

"And you want me to fight that?" Edward raised a skeptical eyebrow.

Fight’s not the right way of thinking about it, Ray responded while tilting her hand in a see-saw motion. "It’s more that you’ll have to prove you’re worth the effort. If she wanted to, she’d wipe any or all of us off the Earth in a heartbeat. She’s the Wu-Tang that I don’t even mess around with. Her Shaolin style is truly strong."

Yeah, you’re not givin’ me any more confidence with that.

Bring your A-game in there, and you’ll be fine. She knows we wouldn’t bring you if you couldn’t handle it, but that doesn’t mean she’ll go easy on you. This gon’ be a helluva fight for you, but I got faith in you.

Edward simply nodded in response, unsure of what else he could say.

Seriously, Ed, you good?

Gonna have to be. What kind of monster would I be to keep that sweet girl of yours from getting one of those weird-ass Floofy things floating around out there?

The worst kind, and I’d have to beat the ever-loving-crap out of you. Ray’s dry tone was belied by the smile and wink she offered. So, I see your point.

Let’s get to it, then, shall we? Edward turned to mount his dais and resume normal time.

Anna’s excitement could barely be contained as she waited for Edward’s nod to signal her first Hunt. As soon as the young Hunter’s head started to dip, she raced toward the forest, where a series of white puffballs floated lazily through the air. The sundress flowed behind her as she ran with arms outstretched to the flock of creatures. Edward figured them at six to eight inches in diameter and about a foot long. From where he stood behind Clancy’s line in the dirt, they appeared to be entirely made of cotton or some other fluffy substance. He thought they might be some kind of sentient sheep's wool that managed to escape its host and float away on its own. As ridiculous as that seemed, he’d seen stranger things. The previous spring, he and Clancy had been rescued from a forest fire by a sentient cloud. The floating puffballs made as much, or as little, sense to him as Ophelia de

Loch’s cloud friend.

After a short distance, Anna switched her running style to match that of the anime character Naruto, arms splayed out behind her as she ran. It didn’t take long for the girl to arrive at the fluttering puffballs, who danced through lazy arcs. Edward chuckled as she idly hopped from side to side while deciding which one she liked best. Once she started moving, her hair caught its own rhythm and bounced in its own haphazard manner, not dissimilar to how the Floofs moved. The interaction was almost cute enough to take Edward’s mind off his task once she found the one she wanted.

Anna’s body stilled, and she fixed her gaze on one of the larger ones and traced its winding path through the air with her head. When it floated low enough for her to catch it, Clancy’s daughter leaped as high as her tiny form could manage, and she placed both hands around the white puffball. They slowly drifted back down to earth.

As soon as her brown boots touched the ground, there was an immediate change in the air. Visibly, nothing changed, other than the rest of the Floofs retreating into the nearby forest, but the whole area tingled with tension. Edward braced himself for what might be coming as he waved at the little girl to return.

Anna started running toward them, and the sounds from the forest started. They did not give Edward confidence in his part of this adventure.

Anna clutched her prize and raced back toward the line her father had drawn in the dirt. The fluffy creature in her arms nuzzled close to the seven-year-old girl as she held it to her chest. Its white fur shone in clear contrast to the dark skin of her arms. Even her yellow sundress was dark compared to the whiteness of the tiny creature. Edward chuckled again at Anna’s choice of attire for her first Hunt. Her kid-sized brown leather combat boots thudded against the ground as the little girl ran away from the thundering sounds coming from the forest behind her. The sundress flapped around her pink leggings (the bottoms of a custom carbon fiber suit she got from her sister) and caught briefly on taller blades of grass or overgrown weeds of the clearing.

They’ve started to sense the Floof is leaving. Once she crosses that line, all hell’s gonna break loose, Ray said inside Edward’s head. She was standing behind the three-dimensional membrane map that extended from his body to control Mechward. Best be ready for that. Unhook that heavy-ass thing from your back. You worked really hard to make it, so you’d better use it well.

Within the cockpit controls, Edward nodded, and Mechward followed suit in the real world. Reaching over his left shoulder, he unhooked the clasp holding the weapon held there. He’d spent weeks forging it between returning from the extermination Hunt in Florida and the wedding. Lifting it off his back, Edward smiled at the heft of the enormous war