After The Hunt

●●Green Boots, Mount Everest, Himalayan Range●●●

"Oh, hello? Richard, are you there?"

"Dad! I'm cold!"

"Oh, my. It seems to have shrunk a few centimeters. Appalling!"

The Greythorne family, clad in thick wool clothing, stood around a frozen figure wearing green boots, blue pants and a red jacket. It had been over an hour when Archibald's satellite phone began ringing, but unfortunately, he had fumbled the device and ended the call. Being a stubborn man, he began calling the number to an ungodly amount.

"Oh, good!" He exclaimed as he looked towards Anastasia, tasting the snow that fell atop the mountain peak. "My love, I have Richard on call!"

"Good for you!" She replied absentmindedly. "Child, is that man over there sleeping? A Jotnar mayhap?" She points towards the man frozen in the ice.

"Dunno? Should I wake him up?" Annalise shrugged, a snowflake ever so gently landing on her shoulder before a magical protective aura expels the flake off her body. "Hey, mister! Wake up!" 

"Oh, hush, child!" Anastasia admonished, quickly casting a spell that silenced the child's voice. "You must never wake up a sleeping giant, more so one blacked out of mead. If he enlarges, then we'd lose this mountain."

"Oh, sorry!"

"As long as you know." Anastasia's smile brightened her daughter's day, for she had never seen her mother so carefree before. In fact, she had never seen her leave their home, much less travel to other places. And what grand and beautiful other places were, filled with people and creatures she had never seen before.

"Archibald, finish your call so we can reach the top." Anastasia zipped past the father of her child. "The Bonne Vierge must be plotting something sinister to enlist our help."

"Alright, then! Good luck!" Archibald finished his call and turned to his family. "Now, where were we?"

●●American Museum of Natural History, Fossil Hall●●●

Irwin handed the Blackberry phone to Garth as soon as his Archibald ended the call, a chuckle bubbling out of him. "Well, at least they're having fun. Visited the Louvre, met some Corsican mob, and the Virgo sent them to the Himalayas."

"Oh, cool! Who's the Virgo?" Garth replied, taking out a brochure featuring the Museum's dinosaur exhibit.

"A powerful Hexer working for criminals. They make luck charms." Seeing Garth's confused looks, Irwin shrugged, "Hey, it's the recession. You gotta do what you gotta do."

The two soon entered the western wing of the museum, where a large, monolithic tail of a stegosaurus lay in a display case.

Soon Irwin toured the Fossil Hall with a radiant smile on his face, using his own phone to take hundreds of pictures until his storage took a hit. 

Garth would, every so often, help placate the adult patrons whenever Irwin would brush past the other kids who were just as or more excited as him.

After a few hours of being a personal chaperone, Garth grabbed Irwin by the shoulder and led him towards the other halls, at the very least enjoying the other exhibits.

Gordon met up with them in the Hall of Biodiversity, abashedly eating a cotton candy in the shape of a Dodo bird. 

Beside him was a teary-eyed Samantha Suarez, wearing a black shoal and her usual thick-framed glasses. She, too, was eating a Dodo bird, though not that embarrassed by the fact compared to her companion.

"Hey, Sam! You alright?" Irwin asked, shooing Gordon away and sitting next to her.

"Y-yeah." She whispered. It was understandable, given the series of events that had happened in her life in the past few days.

"How's your wounds, man?" Gordon asked.

Irwin snorted, rotating his shoulders. "I'm good. Just gotta take it easy for a little while. Should be healed in a day or two."

Gordon scoffed, envy evident on his face. "Damn you and your magic."

"It's not magic. Just pure old genetics." Irwin replied with a smirk. He turned his attention to Samantha. "Did you do it?"

"Uh, yeah. I-I contacted my aunt in Nebraska. She said she'll take me in."

"That's good." He said, gazing at the fifteen-year-old teen. He could not help but think about his own sister back in his old world, pushed into the wide world with nary a cent and a single help from their relatives. She even had him to worry about. "Sam, be honest with me. Do you really want to go to Nebraska?"

Samantha tried her best not to cry, for she had loved this city. This is where she grew up. This is her world and, because of an 800-year-old grudge, her world had been taken away from her all in two nights.

"I-I do." She muttered in confirmation, more to herself than to Irwin.

"Bullshit. Ain't nobody wants to stay in goddamn Nebraska." Gordon said, rolling his eyes.

Garth scoffed. "Hey, Nebraska is cool! The enormous ball of twine!"

"I-I think that's in Minnesota." Samantha corrected.

"That's enough." He ordered sternly. He gazed at Samantha's magnified eyes, earning a weary sigh. "You know, you remind me of someone… she's not as nervous as you. She's shameless, cunning, and, sometimes, downright an insensitive ass. But you have the same grit underneath all that crying."

He chuckled at his words but continued nonetheless, "She knew that it took all that to survive in a helpless world, but… all that changed her. It took her, corrupted her. Sometimes, you don't have to do what she had to do because she had nothing. You have people that will help you, Samantha."

"I-I do?" She asked, head higher than ever as she gazed at him.

He smiled, taking out a business card. "You have me. You have the whole of the Greythorne clan at your side. One call, one message, that's all it takes, and I'll move heaven and Earth for you!"

"And you have the greatest living hunter in the world!" Added Garth, earning a mocking chuckle from Gordon.

Suddenly, tears flowed freely from Samantha's eyes as she embraced Irwin earnestly, her Dodo bird cotton candy being smashed by their chest. "T-thank you!"

It took another minute or so for Samantha to cease her sobbing, not that any three of them minded. He then tasked Garth with being her chaperone while he and Gordon walked towards the hall where the sword was stolen.

"So, I asked around and found that multiple custodians were playing cards on the new exhibit." Gordon began recounting his investigations. He pointed towards a group of janitors, nervously looking around whilst having a deeply concerning conversation. "One of them got too drunk and tried to mess around with the exhibit."

"Jesus christ," Irwin cursed. 'I guess people are stupid, whichever world they were born in.'

"The chief custodian caught them, tried to stop the drunk and got accidentally wounded by the sword." He concluded, pointing towards a sweating, lanky man with two black eyes, one fresher and deeper than the other. 

"Might've gotten a few hits from me." Gordon shrugged when he saw Irwin's curious gaze.

Having noticed the agent that clocked him in the eye, the custodian quickly stood up and tried to defend himself. "L-look, mister, I already said I'm sorry! I-I didn't even know that I caused-"

"Shut up, tony!" Another portly man in a tweed jacket stepped up, hushing the custodian. "Good morning, Agent Fredericks! This must be…"

"This is Richard Greythorne, the heir to the Greythorne line." Gordon introduced Irwin, the latter having a quizzical look on his face. "Richard, this is Dr. O'Malley. The curator for the hall."

Dr O'Malley's eyes widened, his hands faster than his thoughts as he took Irwin's hands and shook it with great intensity. "I do appreciate your family's generous contribution to the museum. The fact that you had it sent from England is more than enough, but to actually contribute other effects… We thank our lucky stars."

"W-we did? I haven't heard of it, but I suppose the family back home no longer uses it." Irwin tried to play it cool, but had a bad feeling about his words. "I just hope that the other items are taken care of, unlike the sword."

Dr. O'Malley, receding hairline, dampened with sweat. "But of course, I do hope that the legal matter regarding the sword…"

"It's just a silver sword. The armor is what matters. It has the family's ancient banner." Irwin waved off his worries. To be perfectly honest, he neither cared nor wanted to access the other items in their inventory, for he already had the only weapon that can actually seal a god. The others are just junk with little historical value. "Anyway, I just wanted you to rescind the theft case. I don't want any trouble bothering the family."

"Done!" The curator laughed obnoxiously before trying to goad Irwin into talking more about his family. Fortunately, Gordon used his fake authority to escape the clutches of the man.

After visiting the museum, Irwin took the other three to a diner in East Harlem, where Samantha frequents. His luxury car gained the interest of the entire neighborhood.

As they sat down and ordered one after another, Irwin could not help but let out a sigh, having unburdened himself from the clutches of Woden. The curse on him, as he checked, having been lifted when he destroyed the god out of existence.

"So, what's next for you, kid?" Asked Gordon, putting half of the sugar into his cup of coffee.

"Maybe, uh, go to school in Nebraska. I-I don't know." She pursed her lips, but soon found herself being stared off by three grown men. "I, well, I've always wanted to go to culinary school? But it's like $20,000 per semester."

Garth whistled. Even his dental school didn't cost as much.

"Done." Irwin said as Samantha and Garth gave her a horrified look. "What? 20 grand a pop is easy. You're going in when you're 18."

Gordon chuckled silently, sipping his liquid sugar.

"A-are you sure? What if I-"

"Don't care if you can't cook an egg. You'll study there if you want it." He stated as a matter of fact.

"Can I join her?" Garth japed, earning a giggle from Samantha.

"Hell, no. You're going back to your apartment. Finish that basement." He replied, earning a groan from Garth. Before he turned his attention to Gordon, he took out a small ornate box. "Here's the blade back, by the way."

"What about me?" Gordon asked, much more malleable than before.

"Well, with your skills, I'm going to need you to track down someone. It'll be hard, though." He said, a smirk on his face as he subtly stated a challenge.

Gordon knew this, but still took the bait. "Who?"

"Anna Milton. Somewhere in Ohio."

"Already done," Gordon scoffed, shaking head as he drank his coffee. "What about you? What are you gonna do?"

Irwin pursed his lips and shrugged. "Me? I'm gonna wait for a phone call!"