by Dave Austin
"Come on, we got to go. Shit. The security guard at the entrance warned me that he was here but we were supposed to get in and out fast." Lipa said, helping Kendra push Maggie.
"Where do you think you're going? You're not getting out of here. I know you're the one who stole that long-range gun business from me. Let's work this out, one-on-one." The man said, giggling like a pig.
We ignored him and continued to walk. It didn't last long, because a knife shredded Kendra's hair, chopping off her tips, and striking a wall in front of us.
"I won't repeat myself, Lipa." He said, tapping his sword repeatedly on the ground, "Stay back." He said, and the few people who were still there, lost or looking for someone, obeyed.
We stopped and turned around, looking at him head-on, broad shoulders but rectangular face. His eyes were lost between his bushy eyebrows and the hollow space where they were. He had a pointed and crooked nose, shaded lips, which were also hidden behind a months-long beard. He wore a black wavy hat, typical of pirates of whom I'd seen images in children's tales, but which didn't hide the fact that he had no hair. Next to him was a young girl with long black hair, black pants and a black sweater that made the round shape of her breasts stand out to the eye. She played with another knife, like the one she had thrown, and even licked the blade. On the other side of the leader, a dwarf was holding an ax bigger than him. He had large blood-colored eyes and his palms were full of superficial cuts. It looked like a challenge from the old western movies that I used to watch. The clock pointer kept moving even if time had stopped there. The dust was sailing around us, each with his hand on his weapons, waiting for the start signal.
"Run away," I said. It was the only chance they had. It was to save people that I became a hunter, and this was my chance. I realized at that moment that fame and recognition would be nothing if I fought for them, if I saw them as a goal and not as an achievement of what I had done.
"But what about you? There are 3 of them! You only have one gun with 9 bullets!" Kendra said, still holding on to Maggie, who worked hard to move her head to both sides.
"Well, I only need three, right?" I told her, even though inside my heart was pounding a mile an hour in the face of a situation that could be my last.
"James..." Kendra started, but I covered her lips with a finger.
"Go. Now. Tell them what we discovered here. Investigate. If I don't get out of here, strive to clear my family's name."
"Survive, please." Those were Kendra's last words to me before she kissed me. Hot, warm and humid.
"Are you finished? We have to go. Thank you, James. I'll be back as soon as I can with reinforcements." Lipa told me and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
Together they carried Maggie through the rubble, disappearing from our sight in a few seconds.
"Well, I'll catch her later. I can't say no to a gentleman sacrificing himself for them, can I? I abhor men like you. They have all the attention they want. What about me? Nothing. I always treat them well!" He said, and pulled the young girl close to him, his fat, greasy hands clutching her hips to her displeasure.
"You can tell. I don't think she's enjoying it very much." I answered him.
No one dared to come between us. The people who remained had flung themselves against the corners, whispering, wishing for the fight to unfold. Others, even amid the hell that the market had become, applauded and shouted for us to start the battle.
"Of course, she's enjoying it!" He shouted and squeezed until his fingertips bruised her skin and she squirmed, "Who do you think you are? Do you think you can speak badly of me, the great Zeryn, and get away with it? I'll take care of you and I'll do it myself. It's been a while since I've dealt with a worm with my bare hands."
He went ahead, raised his sword up to his chest, and waited for me to make a move. He seemed too confident for someone who was just one bullet away from dying. It had to be a bluff, I firmly believed so and pointed the gun at his chest. One shot and everything would be over. I pressed the trigger and the bullet broke the sound, made its way through the fog, and once it was just a few centimeters away from him, he slid his right foot across the ground, placed the sword upwards and used it as a shield. The bullet hit the metal, sparkled, and the casing tumbled to the ground.
"8 bullets." He said and took another step forward.
Shit. I didn't even know it was possible to defend bullets with a sword. Where the hell did this guy who was twice my size and had a sword that was almost my height come from? He took another step. And another. The distance between us shortened. The crowd around us was shouting his name. The people moved apart and formed a circle around us. There was no way out of there other than by defeating him and it wouldn't be an easy task. A drop of sweat ran down my forehead and as soon as it fell off my chin, I fired again. The bullet had the same fate as the previous one.
My heart beat faster. The same drums as before, the usual rhythm. My head felt like a time bomb, my legs were frozen, and my feet were sinking. I felt the muscle in the back of my leg, but I couldn't get out of there, out of that place, as if I was trapped in an invisible square. And now what? I asked myself, keeping my breathing under control, not for long, looking around, seeking anything, or even someone, who could help me. I wouldn't stand a chance in a physical combat and even if I simply wanted to get close enough to shoot, I would risk being caught by him. The experience he had in battles completely overshadowed my advantage.
He kept coming. The loud chuckle, rising above all the other voices, bathing in the despair he saw in me. But, no, I couldn't give up there. Kendra and Maggie were waiting for me at the house. I couldn't leave them, I couldn't leave halfway through my second day as Hunter, let alone disappoint my father. I trained for years for a high-risk situation. I recalled a situation that happened at the academy. A training match against someone bigger than me who, incidentally, didn't find me very funny. Knowing that I could not beat him in a head-to-head fight, I tackled his feet in one go, knocking him down and keeping him on the ground as I could. Okay, I already had a plan, I just had to put it into action.
"You seem very nervous. Come here." He said, just a few feet away from me, still dragging the tip of the sword across the ground, leaving behind a trail.
"I'm just getting started," I answered him. I adjusted the folds in my cloak, put one foot behind the other and bent down. I had to gain some momentum to shoot myself out of there like a bullet.
I waited for the right moment. The clock tower marked 5 pm. The building hadn't been affected, nor had the cloud machine. The sky was full of black clouds, some white cotton-like clouds along the way. The sound frightened the present crowd who thought it was another bomb. Fear was on the surface, responding to any noise. A hellish rush began, some people taking cover, others throwing whoever they could to the ground in order to escape.
I seized the distraction. I fired 3 blasts. The man still had his eyes on me and moved the sword diagonally, ready to block the shots. Just as I had predicted. He was so focused on the trajectory and precision of the bullets that his background became blurred. I ran like never before till I reached him. The wind flew down my face, my clothes clung to my body, sweat-soaked me, but nothing stopped me. The bullets hit the metal of the sword and leaped to the ground, the spark earning me the last seconds I needed. When he noticed me, it was too late.
I threw myself at his knees, knocking him down, punching him until my fists were wounded and using the handle of my gun to hit him in the face. He used his arms to protect it, suffocating under all the pressure. He stretched out his arms trying to pick up his weapon, but it had bounced away. Blood flowed from his face, but I found myself unable to stop. The people no longer screamed. The only sound I heard was the metal from the gun shattering his nose. The adrenaline was feeding on my fear, but also on my courage, and my arms refused to stop.
I only did it when a knife scraped my cheek, peeling the skin and cutting it off at the surface, landing meters away from me.
"T
hat's enough." The young girl said, her eyes already wet.
"Oh, I... I didn't want to exaggerate. I should go," I told them, scared of myself, looking at the man's face, wrecked, covered in blood.
"You are not going anywhere. We will avenge our leader!" The midget said. He raised the ax and began rushing towards me.
His legs were tiny and his feet even more. I could see him approaching me and yet he seemed distant. I grabbed my pistol and was about to shoot when someone tossed a smoke ball into the middle of the street. A black curtain separated me from them, isolating me, whether for my own good or for theirs. I leaped back when I felt a hand touching me. Smooth fingers slipping through mine, but I saw no one around me. I swirled around and only spotted black, some of which were dimmer than others.
"Grab my hand. Quickly." A docile voice said, a glimmer of light at the end of a tunnel.
I stretched out my hands until I felt one of her fingers and did not let go. She walked and I roamed through the darkness with her. I didn't know how long it took. The path was cleared, and the voices were no more than mere whispers in the distance. Suddenly she took a detour, we left the smoke and entered an alley far from the mayhem. I was going to ask her who she was when she threw me against the wall and grabbed my neck. My gun fell to the ground and she raised her knee until she was pressing my balls. I could have stopped her, but I wanted to find out who she was, why she had helped me and, no doubt, how she had gotten a new generation ice glove. Her long orange hair covered part of her face, her blue eyes escaping through the strands. We were even further away from the clock tower than before.
Chapter X
"Are you James? James Crusher?" she asked, her fingers pressing down on my neck until I felt my breath through a string.
"Yes, shit. Yeah, who the hell are you? Did you help me just to kill me?" I asked her, between hiccups, my voice losing strength with every word I said.
"Ashen told me to keep an eye on you. Apparently, he already knew you were going to get into trouble." She answered and let me go.
"We didn't... Well, I guess now it doesn't matter how it started, anyway. Are you a hunter?"
She laughed,
"No. I used to be. They were far too nice for me. But you, you have something else within you. I saw how you left his face in a swamp of blood."
"How did you meet Ashen, then?" I asked, ignoring part of what she had said. To answer her was to admit the truth, that I had lost control for fear of being there. There was still so much to do, so many dreams and unfulfilled desires.
"You're asking a lot of questions, boy." She answered me. She tossed her hair back and tied it into a ponytail.
"Boy? We're the same age." I answered her and this time I grabbed her by her hips, turned her over and leaned her against the wall until I felt her breathing warm and panting before me, "How do we get out of here?"
"We do not leave... Oh, I mean, we have to go that way, there, yes." She said, switching several times. She shoved me, straightened her clothes and took a deep breath, "There's something I need to pick up before we leave here. We have to go to the tavern."
"And can't you pick it up some other time?"
"Steal, James, we need to steal." She said and blinked her left eye.
"I'm a Hunter. I can't steal. You know that."
"I assume you can't get into direct fights with criminals either or almost kill them, but I don't think that was an impediment before. Don't worry. It will be our secret. Something only, we will know. Don't think that having a pretty face is enough for me."
"Okay. I don't think I have any other choice, do I? But on one condition. I want to know your name and what we're going to steal." I asked her, my eyes wandering between her thick, damp lips and her tits under the brown soldier's top.
"Fair. I am Elisa. You don't need to see it as stealing, it could just be borrowing... forever. It doesn't matter what it is, at least for now." She said and turned her back on me.
She peered outside the alley. Seconds later, she threw me against the wall and kissed me. She had vanilla-flavored lips and orange-scented hair. I opened my eyes halfway through the kiss and, through the corner of my left eye, I noticed that there was a group of 3 black hooded men covering their faces strolling through there. We pretended to be madly in love, seizing the confusion to venture into our passion. They didn't even look at us twice.
I followed her through secondary streets, mostly empty, and some narrow corridors where we had to pass one at a time. The houses there were different from those around the main avenue; small and cozy, with reinforced windows, metal doors, and most of them had a lamp on the outside illuminating their part of the street. The flowering blue lights did not reach that reclusive part of the city, where the white roofs were all at the same level and the walls were made of marble. I asked her where we were, whether it was safe there and, above all, whether she knew which way to go.
"This is where they store their weapons. Houses are made to resemble vault boxes. As long as you don't make any noise nobody will bother us and there is no safer place than this. The tavern is just down the street."
I didn't answer her. We continued to walk down the street until we returned to the main avenue. Nearly empty, unlit, tents splattered all over the floor and a horrible shit and piss smell. In the background, there was a rectangular wooden building, from where inaudible shrieks came, mugs beating on tables and a disgusting alcohol smell. I, an alcohol fan, had to ask for a few seconds. The stench of liquor, wine, vodka, all blended together and, as if that wasn't enough, there were several fresh vomit puddles at the tavern's wooden door. It was too much even for me.
Elisa advised me not to maintain eye contact for more than a few seconds with anyone and to avoid bumping into someone. She knocked on the door and a thick voice, on the other side, asked for the password.
"Niko." She said to the door, "Owner's name" she told me, low enough so that the man wouldn't hear her while he opened the door.
The room was even bigger inside. Four long tables spanned from one end to the other, and dozens of small tables filled what was left of the space at the back. There were also chairs at the bar, some of them empty. The floor was full of vomit puddles, alcohol, even shredded food pieces, in a mixture of colors and smells that made me nauseous, puke coming up to my throat. The men sang and toasted; the booze jumped on their already stained clothes, on their long beards and sprinkled their grown-up faces, already wrinkled and with prominent contours. I only saw two women at a table, in a corner, both drinking a pint.
I followed Elisa, straying from men larger than me and looking at the floor until we found a space behind one of the tables, where there was no one. She signaled me and pointed at an albino man, playing cards with five other men, his rotten, yellow teeth catching my eye. He had a wooden tipped knife next to him, where the sharp part was just a piece of glass taken from a shattered window. Only when he turned the right side of his face to us could I see that he had a cut that went from his eyebrow to the middle of his cheek, and sometimes he would put the cards on the table, face down, so he could scratch himself. In addition to the five men who bet thousands on a single move, the table was full of others watching and a few even standing, with their fists closed, shouting at every card that was placed on the table.
"Many securities guards. We need a distraction." Elisa said, "Let's have a drink first."
"Security guards? All I see is the red-haired one with the knife between his fingers." I answered her, my eyes looking for the rest.
"That one, yes. He must be new. He's nervous. You have the one with the short black hair, the one with the sideburns all the way to the middle of his face and the other near him, with the blue shirt and black pants, who has been looking at us ever since we entered. Standing still and having no drink in our hand makes us stand out. Let's go."
We sat on two empty chairs at the bar. A man, I assumed to be Niko, asked us what we wanted. Elisa asked for a gin and tonic and I asked for an original vodka. I
shouldn't drink on the job, but it's also not like someone is going to find out or, after everything, as if I didn't deserve a five-minute break. As the cold drink descended my throat, I wondered if Maggie, Kendra and her sister had managed to escape. Whether they were in Lipa's hiding place or already on their way to our base. Whether they focused on the hope that I had survived or whether they were already mourning my death. I took another sip and pushed my thoughts away from my mind. They wouldn't help me get out of there. I would go back to them, healthy and safe, we would solve our trust problems and lie in bed to enjoy victory.
"You just asked me how I met Ashen, right? You might as well know it now. He was in a group, him, a girl, and two other boys. That was a good couple of years ago. Let me be blunt. They were murdered, brutally slaughtered. Do you believe in fate, James?" She asked and took a sip of gin, "It all started with your father. Ashen believed in it. After everything that happened, Ashen tried to create a clandestine group. There were 3 of us, playing outside the law, going further than any other group. The other boy disappeared without a trace. Ashen ended up kicking me out and quitting, or so I thought. Apparently, he continued to investigate on his own, with the help of Gordon, who was already our watcher at the time. And here we are. By fate or coincidence, you are following your father's path."
It took me some time to think about what to say. It was too much information at the same time, "I... knew nothing about it. Did Ashen know my father? Was he a rank S before the first group?" I asked, Gordon's words about Ashen's secret past echoing in my mind.
"Maybe. I don't know much more than I told you. I know Ashen believed in him, but not if they ever talked. I don't think so. Ashen would still be a young Hunter when your father was already rank A." She replied, paused and looked at the albino man once again, "He was rank A at the time of the first group. There was a period between what happened to the group and him calling me in which he spent the days somewhere between drinking and vanquishing monsters. This led him to be rank S and to be awarded individual honors which he refused to accept. Come on, enough of this, drink what's left and let's get to it. I have a plan. Don't ask what it is, just follow my lead."