The Huntress: Becoming a Huntress

by Mihaela Gheorghe

  “You mean I could get anything worse than that?!”

  My voice is horrified.

  “I said that we don't know.” Kyrya responded slowly, with her face transfigured of regret. “However, in all your reactions so far, you're on your way to becoming a complete Hunter. You will develop many skills, many instincts. Above all, you'll react violently and instinctual to the smell of a vampire, that is unmistakable.”

  Dom interrupted her, adding:

  “When your mouth will be filled with venom, when you canines will break through your lips, when the smell will become unbearably pungent, when everything that you are is going to become just the instinct to kill, you will know that you have around a vampire.”

  His voice is full of hatred. I've never heard such inflection in his voice, and I look intrigued at him. His words terrified me, but the impassioned inflections in his tone and voice make me get over all that stuff, which, at the moment, I find implausible. He easily reads my face.

  “You wonder why do you hear me speaking like that. For us, it's not just about the instinct in us, but also about a personal revenge.”

  Kyrya let out a muffled sound. Doom takes his head in his hands in despair, and then he continues to speak, very slowly. Good thing that my sense of hearing is perfect and now I can hear perfectly all he says!

  “You know that we had a girl, our daughter.” he heavily explained. “You know that she died. What you don't know is that she died, killed by vampires.”

  The news has fallen for me like smashing me. I don’t need more than a jump to get near them, and hug them. I feel strange, like I want to cry, but tears no longer flow on my cheeks.

  “Now you are ours.” says Kyrya, muffled.

  I am thrilled, again. I don't know if it's a good thing or not that I haven't managed to get rid, in this transformation, of my emotions. But it seems that these hunters have a soul. That's very clear. And in the end, only that matters. What you have inside you. Nothing forces me to be like them. Because even they said that it is not known what I shall become, because the mixture of the blood in my veins was never met until now. Anyway, all my life I've been over my senses, over my instincts, acclimatizing myself with almost anything. So I know I will become familiar with what I now am, with what I shall become.

  The three of us remained embracing each other, while I was convinced that I will never suppress a life, whether it's about a vampire.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I’m almost smiling now, reminding myself of the naïve decision that I made it in my mind. And I don't know if it's a smile, a grimace, or a smirk - expression of sorrow, of disgust as well as of satisfaction…

  During the long, very long time that passed, we have traveled around the world, we have moved from country to country, from state to state, with other names, even if we still called between each other Kyrya, Dom and Patricia. You would believe that, after decades, while nothing is changing at or in you, you'd be able to say ‘I’m done with it! I'm bored!’ But the truth is that no one can get bored when you live a luxurious existence, forever young, without drawbacks of any kind, be they even human senses.

  I don't want to bore you with details about the current fashion or related to current technology, the very advanced weaponry in the world that even in your most terrible nightmares you couldn’t imagine; the present world currency or drugs that are far more advanced and more legal than before. The fact is that clothes are mostly of leather and metal, which is actually the trend. And now, back to what interests us, the truth is that, apart from the fact that I loathed the idea of eating a being; I have lived these decades with maximum intensity, with maximum pleasure of life, if one can call it that way. I no longer can call it life, because you could understand something limited by this term. Well, I want to tell you now that I think about my life like an existence which I only know when it started, but whose end is not known, or even imagined, yet. Because, after all, I cannot be talking about the end of our existence. We will live forever, always happy.

  Anyway, I said that I loathed the idea of eating another being, no matter who or what would that being might have been. But that's just the beginning. Because, after a while, I got used to. And the truth is that I just fed when I no longer resisted, only when my body took control over my reason. If you remember, I am accustomed with hunger. It doesn’t seem to me a too great sacrifice if it means a cleaner conscience for me. So I feed myself much less frequently than Kyrya and Dom do. And I've never hunted for my food.

  “Don’t we ever get old?” I've asked once.

  Kyrya laughed.

  “For a woman, to be always young and beautiful, it's not so bad, don't you think?”

  “And yet, the two of you are pure hunters.” I emphasize the words. “That means that you were born all babies, you grew up, you've matured...”

  “Yes, Yes,.” She says, miffed. “I know what you mean. We, who are pure hunters, have a limited existence. We may live for millennia. But from time to time we add a period of time to our age, until we perish altogether.”

  “What about me?”

  I know she gets upset that she doesn't have all the answers.

  “I wouldn't say. I know that created hunters remain exactly as they were at the transformation. But you, with that mixed blood in your veins...”

  I wonder how she can still sit in my presence, knowing that through my veins I have vampire blood, too. I know that my smell is different than their own. What I don't know is whether or not they feel disgusted by it. Never, absolutely never, I have read on

  their faces the slightest trace of annoyance in my presence, never made the slightest gesture of disgust toward me.

  What I do know is that I am different from them. For example, their body temperature is very high. Certainly, mine is the same. But, unlike them, my temperature changes. When I'm really hungry, or at the very strong emotions of any kind, I'd be able to burn you if you’d touch me. But I also have moments when my temperature goes from 0 degrees to minus. That's one of the differences. Another difference is that, unlike them, I can eat human food. It certainly not allay my instinctual hunger, but nor does it disgusts me how it happens to them, which can't eat human food at all.

  And then I found that my senses are much sharper, much more significant, my resistance much larger, my recovery much faster. This is probably due to all the mixture of blood in my veins. But do not think that I have only advantages in this. Nowhere near! Because when the instinct to kill totally dominates me, I am also much more difficult to be controlled.

  Then, with the passage of decades, so many memories appear as flashes, as some photos. In all of them, I am with Kyrya. Or me and Dom, or the three of us, together. We laugh. Or we smile. We have fun. In one of the mental images, I see myself with Kyrya in a train of death. And we yell and scream with the others, only that we do not do it with fear, of outrage, but of pleasure. In another memory, I see myself with Kyrya eating cotton candy, while Dom shoots on target for plush monkeys. I laugh when I remember the despair of the man who has seen all his prizes earned. In another photo, I see myself with both of them, at the table, in a fancy restaurant, our mouths to our ears. Another memory is about the three of us in a club, Kyrya and me dancing, while Dom throws angry and jealous glances at the men around us. Then, of course, are the memories of home, when we sat watching the TV; I am eating popcorn, and they smash in their teeth vampire bones. Then, another image, of me licking a huge candy, and them, doing the same thing with some vampire bones. Then there are those memories too, with us at the rink, or at the pool, laughing and having fun.

  How could I get bored of such a life? A such of an existence? And its’ not necessarily about the material goods that go with it, but especially of affection, love and all the feelings that we have shared for so many, many years. I assure you that you haven’t had in your life someone so close to you as I have. Because you have had and will have a few years to love, or to be loved. But I... I already have lived decades, full of
love around these people. What do you think I could feel for them? You cannot even imagine, I assure you.

  “Are you thinking about the immortality of the soul?” I hear Kyrya’s voice.

  I smile slowly, and I look back at her.

  “In fact, I was thinking about how happy I am.”

  Her face is visibly touched. She responds with the same love in her voice.

  “I am glad. You know what? After my daughter died, I never thought that I will ever be able to come back to my senses. I don't want to say that I have forgotten her, or something like that, nor that you've taken her place. If, at first, you were indeed a substitute for my dead daughter, now you really are my beloved daughter. And I know that Dom feels the same way.”

  “I know.” I say slowly.

  The emotional charge of the moment is too high.

  “Anyway, “ she composed herself again, “I wanted you to know that tonight, we have to go to a special dinner party, with all the dress code and all.”

  “And what should I be wearing?”

  Kyrya’s held breath makes me pick my eyes towards her.

  “What is it?” I ask her.

  “Eeeer…, actually you're not going. It is a meeting of the Hunters. A kind of session that will get you bored to death. Well, that's the thing that happens only once every 50 years.”

  I sigh. When are they going to realize that my reactions, my thoughts, are much faster and more penetrating than theirs?

  “In fact, you don't want them to know me, eh?”

  Kyrya’s head suddenly jumps.

  “Just because... You know... You have mixed blood… And...”

  “And you are afraid of their reactions.” I continue her sentence.

  “Yes.” she says softly. “I am afraid of their reactions. I am afraid that once they will feel your smell, they won’t have the patience to judge and they will kill you. And neither I, nor Dom, can assist that without trying to fight them, to stop them. And More likely, the three of us will end up dead. I don't want to quit yet to our happiness.” she says, cuddling me on my hair.

  “Then I think that while you are going to get bored at the meeting, I am going to watch a nice movie, and eat some popcorn.”

  Kyrya crooked her nose, disgusted. But I see that she's quieter.

  “You behave yourself!” they said to me for one last time, before exit the door..

  The movie doesn’t capture my attention. I’m nervous and agitated. It's hard to keep a Hunter in a single place. It's like you ask a wild beast to stay motionless. My boredom soon turns to irritation. Either I’ll do something, or I go out of my minds. In no time, I put on a pair of tight jeans with a sparkly top. My hair is now very long, reaching my waist, in big curls, black with red strands. The lipstick I’m wearing is dark red, and I put some huge circles earrings. I hope you realize that I am preparing to go out to the club.

  So here I am alone, surrounded by strangers, on the dance floor. I go to the bar and order a drink for egomaniacs, happy that I can consume it, because no matter how much quantity has no longer any effect upon me.

  The sudden smell I feel stings me up in the brain. You’s say that you poured sulfuric acid on my nostrils. My mouth is overrun by foam that I now know that is poison. I am not hungry. I have no desire to kill, but my fingers stunt. My large red nails suddenly become claws.

  “I’ll pay for the lady.” I hear a male voice.

  I do not pay time to say ‘thank you’, because I go through the crowd, desperately trying to get out in the fresh air.

  I push the metal heavy doors with more force than I proposed. They hit noisily the walls. That uproar from the inside covered the powerful sound! I avidly breath the fresh air. You say that I am a woman who was just about to drown. My whole body is trembling of my effort to get in control. It is true that never before I have been near a vampire and I honestly thought that Dom and Kyrya slightly exaggerated their reactions when it came to them. I thought they were more subjective, given the fact that their daughter was killed by these creatures. But I found on my skin that they have not exaggerated at all.

  Before his nearness hit me again, and I hear his voice.

  “Is something wrong?”

  Can’t he tell what I am? Then, I remember the mixture of blood in me.. Perhaps for those like him, the smell of my human blood covers any other smell? My heart is pumping more than 400 beats per minute, I am sure. As I am sure that he hears it as well; I think my temperature has gone up to 45 degrees. Under my tongue, I gather venom foam.

  “Please!” I manage to babble. “Just go away!”

  I try to hold my breath as much as I can. I know that vampires don't need to breathe, but hunters do must. But once again, thanks to the mixture of my blood, even if I need to breathe, I am able enough to keep my breath for a very long time. But he did not pay attention to what I said. Instead, he approaches me increasingly more. And as he approaches, I feel how my pupils grow. I close my eyes, yellow flames beginning to burn the back of my closed eyelids. When he touches me, independent of my will, my canines turn into fangs, surpassing my lower lip, and my nails begin to turn into fatal knives.

  My efforts to control myself disappear like magic. I hit him with my backhand in the chest. The strong blow throws him on his back, a few yards further. Before him realizing what just happened, I throw myself upon him again. I don't need more than a jump.

  “What are you?”

  His question passes near me without me paying any little thought. I stand over him as if I would ride him, with my teeth uncovered, grinned, and slobbery. I pull out from my throat a strong snarl. A few drops of my venom fall over his face. I see how he grimaces, like he would be hurt. Whitish foam that falls on his skin literally burns him. I see his red eyes, and feel frenzy madness. I have the impulse to stick my claws to take out his heart from his chest. The thought of it makes me lick my twisted lips.

  “Hey, what's going on here? You two get a room!”

  The voice I hear beyond the craving of my brain loosens my tense body. Not much, but enough. For a second, I see myself with the eyes of my mind. The picture I imagine is enough to make me lose my concentration. Enough to make him push me, to stand, and to disappear. I fall over a dusty dumpster. I don't feel any kind of pain. I'm terrified about what I was about to do. The still human side in me is terrified. I get back home, very conscious that what I've become is a heavy burden for my conscience. That is why I do not want to think about what I'm going to become after years and years.

  “Patricia, what’s the matter?”

  Kyrya sees the horror of my eyes. I make a groan of helplessness.

  “What is it? What happened?” She repeats the question.

  But I still can't speak, but to be all of a tremble. But she sees my canines who still have not returned to their normal size.

  “Dom!”

  The panic in her voice makes him appear on a second.

  “Vampires!” Kyrya hissed.

  Dom let out a cry and he goes out. After a few seconds, he returns.

  “I don't feel anything.” he says. “There's nothing out there!”

  Then he sits next to us. Kyrya tries to calm me. When I stop from trembling, my canines are back in their place, and the flames in my eyes are extinguished.

  “Now can you tell us what has happened?” she asks me very slowly.

  “I didn’t believe you!” I confess a little hacky. “I didn’t believe you when you said about my reactions to vampires, but it's true.”

  “Did you kill a vampire?”

  Dom’s question in a satisfied and proud voice upsets me a little bit. He talks as if to suppress a life, any life, it's an easy thing to be done, and even something pleasurable. I shudder.

  “Lord, no!”

  My cry yanks them other cries.

  “What?”

  “Oh my God, Oh my God...”

  I don't understand why they scream at me like that.

  “Do you realize what you have done?�
� Dom asks me in a high tone.

  “Dom...”

  Kyrya tries to ponder him a bit. I am so amazed by his attitude towards me, that I don't have time to get upset. It is for the first time in dozens of years when any of them bastes me.

  “Dom-nothing!” he cuts her short, one other thing that shocks me.

  And what stuns me is that Kyrya keeps her mouth shut. Then, I see them entwining each other’s hands. I get a thrill of horror. What do they mean by that? Their gesture gives me a strange presentiment.

  “What... What... Is it?” I ask them.

  But none of them take me into account. They just stared at each other, eye to eye, with their entwined fingers.

  “Is there any point in trying to cover out her weird smell?” Kyrya asks.

  “It is unmistakable. They will track us down, no matter what.” Dom answers to her.

  They talk without paying me the slightest attention. As if I was not present. And then, Dom talks to me.

  “Did you even rush to get back? Do you have any advantage?”

  I look at him without understanding what he wants to say. What does he mean by haste and advantage? Then, he passes a hand over his face.

  “God help us then”! He says more slowly.

  “And yet, I won’t resign to this!” says Kyrya. “We're leaving! Right now!” she says loudly. “No time to lose! We do not pack anything, don't do any baggage. We shall hurry as we can until the first water that we’ll find, and then try to lose our track!”

  She jerks me.

  “Come on, Patricia! Dom, let's go!”

  But when we are in front of the door, we all feel the same scent.

  “I think it's too late!”

  Dom's voice is like a groan.

  "What?” I ask, with a kind of dread that I have never felt before.

  Now, my voice is trembling with fear. I don't understand why Dom and Kyrya are so desperate.

  “They will be here soon.” Dom says.

  “Would there be many of them?”