As much as it is a truism, it should probably be said a story that details the giving of one's blood to appease a demon dog on a weekly basis doesn't leave the best first impression.
I am happy to report that as it would turn out, I am (probably) not as crazy as I previously thought.
I guess introductions are an order, I am Joseph Bayeux, born and raised in Blanchisseuse, Trinidad. Until recently, yes, I was donating my blood through probably not the most sanitary method to keep a giant black dog from wreaking havoc on my town. No, no one asked me to do this, yes the dog really did exist.
I'd say my life has gotten simpler since the dog or as I later came to know him, Dee Baba, was killed, but I would be lying. Since then I have become the prize of a three way battle between the local gods, and my current patron wants me to save the world. Well, he didn't put it in exactly those terms, but the total eradication of fear? That's like asking for world peace or something. Or so I thought.
Turns out, fear can be killed, no, not with hope or some other bullshit, with sticks actually, magic sticks, and lots of blunt force trauma.
First, the dog. Or Dee Baba, whatever you want to call him, it.
After a particularly taxing session, I was headed back to my house, limping really. I stopped to rest in the shade of a tree and soon fell asleep. I was woken by the sound of someone coming up the steep muddy road. It was an old lady, well, not actually old, but her clothes were right out of the portraits they hang in the summer houses they rent out to tourists at the end of my street. Frilly lace, long, layered skirts, and a hat so ridiculous I couldn't help but laugh.
Evidently she must have heard me, because as she passed I got the worst cut-eye known to man, and that's including my grandmother. She passed me by without a word, but then called over her shoulder, "Naughty boys who play with dogs will get bitten!" Needless to say, I didn't have an answer to that. I made to get up to follow, but she was already out of sight, on a straight road, that went by a harvested sugar cane patch. If I wasn't already creeped out by her words, her footprints would have done it, there lay in the fresh, untrodden mud, one human foot, one cloven hoof, one human foot, one cloven hoof, lather, rinse, repeat.
When I got home I would like to say I ran to my granny and told her what I saw, but really, I googled it. An hour later and I was reasonably certain I had been visited by La Diablesse, and she apparently knew about my dog problem.
Now any normal person would have rationalized the situation, and gone about their business, me? I went back out looking for more tracks. I found tracks, two cloven hoofs instead of one, and being in the most definitely clear state of mind that I was, I followed them.
There last thing I remember was the sound of a bamboo reed swishing through the air.
A/N: So this is going to be my big project! I have decided to take all the Trinidadian mythology I was exposed to as a child, morph them into Fears, and have my hero then hit them with a stick. Sorry if the tone is giving you whiplash from the previous story, but I kind of meant to do that? It may have plot significance later and prepare for more tonal whiplash later on.
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