SPOILERS!

It’s been three years since I last read James Tynion IV’s Something is Killing the Children. It’s a testament to his storytelling that, barring the occasional Google search, I was able to pick the series back up like I just finished Volume 5 last week.

In Volume 6, Charlotte Cutter from the House of Cutter has arrived in Tribulation, New Mexico to hunt the rogue monster hunter, Erica Slaughter. Charlotte is the antithesis of Erica. Erica is hunted because she refused to kill. A conversation between the Dragon and Cecilia hints that Charlotte Cutter is “hunted” because she kills too well. You get a glimpse of that here when she purposely lets the Duplicitype eat a child but it would have been nice to have a longer peep. Not through flashbacks though. But through short conversations sprinkled throughout the book between different members of the Black Masks and the House of Cutter. Rumors and hearsay are expert architects of reputation and infamy.

Charlotte “lets” the monster eat a child so it gets stronger and easier for normal everyday people to see. Her plan works. The Duplicitype’s next victims can clearly see it as Erica Slaughter (but with a big veiny eyeball in its mid-section). It’s all part of Charlotte’s elaborate plan to “liven up” the act of killing Erica because just killing her “would be so boring. Why come all the way to the Wild West to end it all in a little back room?”

Her plan works a little too well, however. Erica escapes like Charlotte planned but in a satisfying twist takes Charlotte’s totem with her. Charlotte is livid. Reunited after a brief separation Erica shares her plan for killing the monster with Riqui and Gabi. It includes using Gabi as bait to lure the Duplicitype to them. Riqui warns Erica about anything happening to Gabi. Riqui promised Fernanda, her girlfriend and Gabi’s aunt, that she would watch over Gabi when Fernanda passed from cancer.

At the end of Volume 6 I couldn’t help wondering if Gabi is being set up to become Erica’s protegee? Both saw their family slaughtered by a monster and both are hot tempered and unflinching when it comes to doing what they feel is right.