A Search For The Unknown

Asher sat in the study of his family home in his favorite chair that was easily the most comfortable chair in the study, but it was his favorite chair because it was his mother’s chair. He was deeply invested in reading a book about how Dragons went extinct. Asher’s favorite hobby is studying to learn new things about the creatures he hunts and spells to help him in his work with creatures. “Hey Asher, we got a job.”  Asher looked up from his book to see his father Eric standing there with a large grin on his face. Asher's father was in his early 40s and his red hair was greying quite a bit now and thinning as well. But his blue eyes held the same youthful spark that Asher’s eyes held, though Asher had his mother black hair. “What’s the job?” “The Winters International Corporation wants to hire us to hunt something down that is destroying stuff around one of their facilities. We have a meeting later tonight with a representative for the Winters International Corporation to hear all the details from him.” Asher and his father are a cryptozoologist team that specializes in hunting and capturing creatures for people. They are well known and have been hunting creatures for years, but never has a company as large as  Winters International Corporation ever asked them to do work for them.  “Why would they want to hire us? With their kind of money they could get the government hunters to go in and capture it for them.” “Maybe they don’t want the government hunters sniffing around? Maybe they have been capturing creatures and one got loose or maybe they took one of the creature’s babies and it's trying to get it back and that's why they want to hire a private team like us because we're not bound by law to tell what we see.” “Who knows with a big company like that what they could be up to in there or why.” Asher looked away from his father and looked at the painting of his mother over the fireplace. “Do you think it will be dangerous?” Asher asked his father. He started to have a bad feeling about the job. He had a six sense when it came to things like this he could feel ahead of time when a job was going to go south, maybe it was just a part of being a witch. He wished he could ask his mother but she had been dead since he was two years old. “Nah, I doubt a big company like Winters International Corporation would hire such a small team if it was something big or dangerous.”  Asher looked at his father dubiously “how much are they offering you for the job?” “Why do you ask me that?” “Because I know you and the fact that the only time that you are willing to throw all worries out the window is when there is a lot of money involved.”  “You wound me son, how could you think that your father would care more about money than our own safety?” “Just answer the question, old man.” “Okay you caught me, they are offering us enough money to pay the bills for several months plus they are going to fly us to the site and pay for food and bored while we hunt the thing down. And pay us half up front.”  “It seems a bit fishy, why would they do so much to get us to do it rather than a local?” “I can answer that I did some asking around after we got the job request. They angered the locals by buying up a lot of land where the locals see the wood as a sacred place and the home of their guardian. And by building their facility there. So no local hunters would hunt for them. And they picked us because of you.” “That is a bad move, they might have an angry woodland spirit or worse. Why me?” “Because you're a witch and know tracking spells so they hope we can do it quietly and quickly. Plus if it is an angry spirit you can exercise it.” “I should have known that it would be their plan to get a witch to undo their bad Karma of showing no respect to the sacred woodland spirits. You know if it is a woodland guardian or scared spirit it is going to be a pain to find and convince it to let it’s anger go right?” “We will worry about that when we get to that point, let's not worry to much about it,tell we know that it is a woodland spirit. There could be so many things there are a lot of creatures that live in the area that could be causing the problems too.” Asher stared at the fireplace for a long time deep in thought, all of the possible outcomes and creatures it could be running through his mind. “Don’t get your heart set on all the money until we know all the details of the job, and don’t just agree to the job until we are sure we can do it. We don’t want to make an enemy of the Winters International Corporation.” “That's my boy always thinking ahead and planning everything out, that's why you’re such a great hunter.” After his father left the study, Asher walked over to the computer to do research on the Winters International Corporation. The Winters International Corporation also known as WIC for short was founded by the Winters family, a family that has old money the family brought their fortune over with them when their family came to this country nearly two hundred years ago. The family has many business ventures, but the Winters International Corporation is their flagship company that is involved in almost everything from drug manufacturing to food processing and even have ties to a large online realtire shop that you can buy almost anything on it. The Winters family are eccentric billionaires that are almost never seen in public. Few people even know what they look like. Recently the Winters International Corporation has been in many news reports with workers speaking out about the working environment of many of the facilities and about the living arrangements the company provides for its works. The reports state that a lot of the people who work for or live near some of their factories are getting sick and that people are even dying. The report doesn’t state what is making the people sick or how they die.  The Winters International Corporationhas also been buying up land everywhere and building factories. They have facilities in every state in the country and facilities all over the world. It seems they have their hands in business everywhere they can. Asher pulls away from the desk and gets up from the desk to walk over to his bookshelf and looks into different creatures that could cause sickness. But there are too many to pin one down and until he knows which facility is being attacked he can’t figure out what spirit they might have angered. Asher walks out of the study to the kitchen to find his father. His father is sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal. Eric loves cereal, he could eat it for every meal and probably would if Asher wasn’t there. “What time is the meeting with the Winters International Corporation representative and where is it?” “Ten P.M. and at the Grand James Hotel.” “Why so late at night and so far away?” “I would guess that he is a busy man and that was the only time he had an opening. He probably wants to get the problem resolved as soon as possible. Also he is probably staying there because  Winters International Corporation is looking to buy land in the area to build a factory on. It was in the paper a while back that the Winters International Corporation was going to build in the area and that they were looking for a large plot of land out in the woods by the Grand James hotel, so they probably settled on a spot and are getting ready to buy or start building there.” “Yeah, it is crazy how many factories and labs Winters International Corporation has.” Asher looked at his father trying to gauge his reaction but he only shook his head at his son. “Don’t get paranoid about the size of the company, that's how businesses are, they just get bigger and bigger. You don’t need to worry about every little thing Asher, this job is going to be great and we are going to make enough money that we will be set for a long time. Hell, we could even go on vacation after this job. And think about all the books you could buy with your cut. This job is going to be no different then all the other jobs we've done. The only thing you're getting caught up on is the fact it's a big company and not some nobody.” Asher's father smiled at him. “I really hope you're right.” “I am you, wait and see after we meet with the representative you will see I’m right.”