by Jamie Davis
“But it’s not good enough. You just said so.”
Naomi shook her head. “I was wrong to say it that way. You’ve done so much on your own, but I believe you have to find a way to work on your skills without drawing on external sources of power. If you can do that, you’ll be much more likely to survive a tough fight, especially against someone who could find a way to block any power source.”
“They can do that?” Quinn asked.
Clark nodded. “Naomi knows what she’s talking about. If they figure out what you are doing, a powerful sorcerer might come up with a way to sever your connection to the ley lines. I don’t think it would be easy, I’d have to check with Miranda about that one, but it’s possible. Even if it drained or injured the caster, if it kept you from using the energy, it would be worth the effort if it hobbled your ability to defend yourself.”
Naomi smiled and said, “The good news is that somehow that VR system Taylor made and the magic infused into it have given you a way to learn things and add skills you didn’t have. That gives me hope that we can get you caught up with the Hunter training you missed.”
“I’m not just an ordinary Hunter, Naomi. I’m a Huntress. I’m building something new and different.”
“You keep saying that, but what does that mean?” Naomi asked. “We’ve had women Hunters before you. I was one.”
Quinn shook her head. “I don’t know for sure. I just know that as soon as I first said it, somehow it felt right. It’s like when the last puzzle piece fits into place and completes the picture. I can’t see the whole thing yet, but I have a feeling I was the final piece to start something that has been waiting a long time for me.”
Clark smiled. “You may be right, Quinn. I’ve certainly seen you do things I didn’t think were possible. But that’s all the more reason for you to do everything you can do to explore your powers and see if you can stretch beyond the ones we know about. That’s all Naomi and I are trying to do.”
Naomi nodded. “Maybe this is enough combat training for now. Let’s mix it up and try something different. It’s possible we can jar loose another sort of Hunter skill.”
“What are you thinking?” Clark asked.
“We’ve got some time before you two normally eat lunch. I’m thinking our girl here could use some scout training. You said she has tracking skills. Let’s see if she can track me.”
“Perfect,” Clark said. “But won’t we have to wait until dark? You’ll sizzle outside at this time of day.”
“Not outside,” Naomi said. “Here, down in the maze.”
Quinn didn’t know what “the maze” was, but she didn’t like the grin spreading across Clark’s face.
The two instructors left the training chamber, with Quinn trailing behind them.
Chapter Two
Quinn Faust stared down the long stone passageway. Even in the relative darkness, the careful placement of the carved stone blocks showed an old-world craftsmanship you didn’t see much in the modern world. Clark and Naomi had led her down a tunnel off the main Hunters’ ceremonial chamber. It sloped downward until it reached this long corridor.
She turned to Clark. “So, what? I just go down there and try to find her in these catacombs? What is that supposed to teach me?”
Clark frowned and shook his head. “It’s called the maze, and your mother was right about you needing to catch up in your training. This is a different sort of skill to build on.”
“I told you, don’t call her my mother. She birthed me, that’s all.”
“I won’t argue with you.” Clark shook his head. “That’s something you need to settle with Naomi. It doesn’t change what we want you to do here.”
Quinn gave a small nod at his use of the woman’s name instead of the other word. “I just don’t see the point. I’ve done well enough, and we’ve been training all morning. The skills I have serve well enough. They did the trick when we took out Handon and his vampire goons.”
“You know as well as I do that was luck as much as anything. You won’t always get a boost from nearby spirits to bolster your power. This is to help hone your inherent abilities. They’re in there, within you. Naomi and I think we can jar them loose by putting you through some specific training scenarios. This one is to teach you to use your other senses to detect when supernatural creatures are nearby.”
“I can already detect werewolves and other shifters. I can smell them when they get close. What am I supposed to smell when I get near a vampire?”
Clark smiled. “I can’t describe it to you, Quinn. You have your own unique way of doing this. You can already do different things than I could at your stage. You have to discover how those abilities work for you, not how I learned it. Now, Naomi is down there. It’s always been called the maze by everyone I ever heard talk about it. You’ll see why once you go down there. Find her if you can. She’s not going to make it easy, so don’t let your guard down. I’ll wait up here. Once you find her, come back, and then we’ll go and grab some lunch.”
Quinn’s stomach grumbled at the mention of food. She and Clark had been training all morning, and she’d worked up a huge appetite.
Clark chuckled at the sound of her churning gut. “Better get going. If you take too long, I’ll head up to eat lunch without you. Naomi just fed, so she won’t care if it takes you all day to find her.”
Quinn clenched her teeth and bit back another complaint. Clark was right. Naomi would take great pleasure in stretching this exercise to fill the whole day. The former-Hunter-turned-vampire didn’t have anywhere to be until after dark.
Walking forward, Quinn muttered under her breath, “Dammit, I need to see.” In an instant, the darkness around her took on a greenish tint, and the whole passageway brightened. With her Huntress night vision enabled, Quinn began her search.
The passage branched in several directions a little way along from her position, with each branch dividing further. These tunnels had been built by the Hunter clan here in Baltimore early in the city’s history. When Quinn asked what they were for, Clark and Naomi both shrugged and said, “Training.”
It seemed like a lot of work for a training course. They could’ve accomplished more with an above-ground setup. The twisting maze made no sense at all. Sometimes the tunnels opened up, with side passages branching straight up into the ceiling. Other times, there were pits and tunnel openings in the floor she had leap over.
An hour later, Quinn stopped at an intersection with another passageway and tried to decide if she should come up with a better plan. She still didn’t understand how she was supposed to find Naomi. For all she knew, the vampire wasn’t even down here. Clark could have cooked up a fake hunt to test her.
Quinn concentrated, and a faint map overlay appeared in front of her eyes, just like in the HUD in a video game. The blinking dot showed her location, and as she traced the twisting tunnels on the map, she cursed. She’d traveled this part of the course before.
Thinking back to what Clark said at the beginning of the test, Quinn realized she needed a new approach. She hadn’t found the vampire hiding as she searched, and that probably meant Naomi had moved to stay ahead of her. Recalling Clark’s earlier instructions, the Huntress considered the different ways she could track someone. The initial tracking skill she’d gained from the VR system didn’t seem to work with vampires. Maybe it could only track the living.
Quinn focused on her five senses. She’d been using her eyes, and that wasn’t working. With shifters, she could smell when they were nearby, especially werewolves. Their distinctive wet-dog scent was hard to miss. She wondered what a vampire would smell like.
Quinn closed her eyes and flared her nostrils, drawing a deep breath, taking in the various smells around her in this underground tunnel system. Odors of earth and a faint dusty mustiness filled her nostrils. She took another breath, concentrating the same way she did when opening her HUD, trying to meld her sense of smell with her Huntress abilities like she had with shifters. This time
a vague hint of another scent reached her. Her nose wrinkled when she realized it was the odor of death and decay.
Turning her head, Quinn sniffed the air in the direction of the branching side tunnels. She picked up more of the scent from the opening to her right, so she opened her eyes and started up that tunnel.
The scent grew stronger, and she picked up speed. The passage angled to the left up ahead and Quinn ran forward, sure her prey lay just around that bend. She turned the corner at a dead run.
A leg extended from a hidden crack in the wall, tripping her. She tumbled to the paving stones, skidding on her chest along the floor.
Quinn recovered and tucked her shoulder as she slid, allowing her to roll back to her feet. She drew her Bowie knife as she rolled and popped up, holding it out in front of her, ready to defend herself.
Naomi stepped from the shadows of a hidden space in the wall. She pointed to the weapon in Quinn’s left hand. “Put that away unless you want to spar.”
Quinn glanced down at her knife and returned it to the sheath nestled beneath her right armpit. “Have you been here the whole time? I checked this passage at least one other time.”
“Twice, actually,” Naomi said. “I was tempted to jump you the second time you passed, but I realized you hadn’t detected me; you were just wandering around trusting you’d get lucky. This time, you moved with purpose. You figured it out, didn’t you?”
Quinn nodded. She sniffed the air again. The faint odor of decay was stronger now that Naomi stood only a few feet away. “How come I don’t smell you all the time?”
Naomi shrugged. “You should be able to. I could before I was turned. Learning the different smells of common supernatural creatures was something taught to me while I was learning to read and write. It should become second nature to you once you match a smell to a particular creature.”
Wondering about that, Quinn concentrated on the display only she could see. Right away, she spotted a new triangular icon appearing where her other skills showed up as she activated them. She shook her head. “I don’t think it’s there all the time. It just popped up as a new ability in my HUD.”
Naomi smiled. “I wish I could see what that looks like. I envy you the ability to gain skills that way. It should make it easier in theory. At least there’s a way to reach into your dormant abilities and activate them somehow. You should be happy. This is a move in a positive direction, Quinn. Clark and I have been struggling with ways to get you to open up that hidden part of yourself.”
The vampire reached out to lay her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. Quinn stepped back, avoiding the gesture.
Naomi withdrew her hand and dropped her arm to her side.
Quinn didn’t miss the frown or the sadness in the other woman’s eyes. Looking away from Naomi, she said, “Come on, Clark’ll be waiting at the maze’s entrance. He’s probably annoyed I took this long to find you. Besides, I need to eat something.”
Naomi nodded and the pair returned to the central hall. Neither of them said anything as they walked, and the silence weighed on Quinn. Naomi had made several overtures to show affection and try to get Quinn to open up. Each time, as in the training course just now, Quinn moved to resist contact. In a few instances, she left the room.
Conflicting emotions warred within her. The hurt of learning her mother had always been there, watching her from a distance most nights without telling Quinn she was alive warred with the joy of discovering she wasn’t alone. That joy had been magnified when Naomi agreed to join the newly-formed Huntress clan. Conflicting emotions roiled beneath the surface and kept Quinn from returning the affection her mother showed from time to time.
Clark sat waiting on a stone bench inside the Hunters’ ceremonial chamber as the two women emerged from the maze. He stroked the sharpening stone in one last pass across his short sword before returning it to his pocket, then laid the sword across his knees and looked up.
“Took you long enough. The course isn’t that big. You should have found her sooner.”
“I found her, that’s all you need to worry about. I also discovered a new ability popped up in the display I see sometimes. I should be able to track other kinds of supernaturals now once I’ve met them and learned their scents.”
Clark smiled. “I’d hoped you could unlock that in some way ever since you detected Handon’s werewolves outside his office building. I’ll try to make it so you meet other sorts of creatures and build up a list of things you can detect.”
“Sounds good to me. Now, can we please go up to O’Malley’s and get some lunch?”
“Yeah, sure. I don’t know why it took you so long to ask.” Clark laughed and sheathed his sword. The three of them headed toward the stairs leading up to the bar and their new accommodations.
Paddy O’Malley, the leprechaun who owned the hidden bar serving supernaturals, smiled as the three of them entered. A pretty decent lunch crowd came in each day from among the locals who worked in the area.
The jolly owner came over and said, “Goodness, Quinn, my girl, what did they do to you down there?”
Quinn realized her sweat-matted hair from earlier had dried in a less than complimentary style. She combed her hair with her fingers to try to tame it a little. A lot had fallen out of her ponytail, and she pulled off the elastic band and gathered her long dark hair again in a fresh one.
Clark came to the rescue. “Just a little training, Paddy. We’re all ready for some lunch now, though.”
Paddy glanced at Naomi. “All of you?”
“I’m fine,” Naomi said. “I had a snack down there. Just some beer for me.”
“Ah, beer, I can do.” A big grin spread across his face as he called to his daughter Juni, seating a group at a table nearby. “A table for our esteemed guests, girl. Quick, before they pass out from hunger and thirst.”
“We’re fine, Paddy,” Clark said. The three of them headed over to where Juni waved them to a table near the bar.
“Don’t pay any attention to him,” she said as she handed them menus. “He’s all bluster. He knows full well I run this place. Now, what’ll you have to drink while you check out our specials?”
“Soda for Quinn. Pick something nice on tap for Naomi and me.”
“Will do. Be right back.”
Juni headed back to the bar to get their drinks. Clark glanced at Quinn. “So, what did she smell like?”
“Huh?” Quinn asked, a little confused.
“She’s half-leprechaun. You should be able to pick up something. You definitely should’ve gotten a scent from Paddy.”
Quinn shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way for me, I don’t think. I have to activate it first to use it, like in a video game. I’ll try again when she comes back.”
Naomi smiled. “That must be pretty cool, having a game inside your head all the time like that.”
“I guess so.” Quinn shrugged. “Sometimes it gives me a splitting headache, especially if I leave the HUD up too long. I think it’s because of the differences between the real world compared to being inside the VR system. In there, it’s more natural and feels like everything is real. Out here, I have to concentrate hard to bring up the display and do anything.”
Juni came back with a tray holding their drinks. Quinn brought up her HUD and clicked on the new triangle icon with her mind. When the short waitress came over to set down her soda, Quinn took in a deep breath.
The scent of new-mown grass and something like hot breakfast tea drifted into her nasal passages. As Juni pulled out her pad to take their lunch order, Quinn grinned and gave her companions a brief nod. Naomi and Clark returned her grin.
“What’ll it be?” Juni asked.
“I’ll have a burger, fries, and add a bowl of the cream of crab soup, please,” Quinn said.
“That sounds good,” Clark said. “I’ll have the same.”
“Good to go. I’ll be back with your meal in a little bit. Flag me down if you need refills on those drinks.” Juni took t
he stacked menus and left.
“You got it?” Naomi asked.
“She smelled like a freshly cut lawn and tea. Is that right?”
Clark and Naomi both shrugged, and Quinn was confused. Clark picked up on her facial expression and said, “My understanding is it’s different for each Hunter—or Huntress.”
“What does she smell like to you?” Quinn asked.
“Aged Irish whiskey.” Clark glanced at Naomi.
“Don’t look at me,” Naomi said. That part of me isn’t working anymore. All I can smell is the blood coursing through her veins. It makes me wonder what leprechaun tastes like.”
“Ewww,” Quinn said. “She’s a friend.”
Naomi dismissed Quinn’s comment with a wave of her hand. “Don’t worry. I don’t feed on anyone who isn’t willing. Besides, I think our host would be angry if I bit his daughter.”
“That reminds me,” Quinn said, turning to Clark. “How long is he going to let us use the apartments above the bar?”
“If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll let us stay indefinitely. He claims not to have been aware of what really happened with Handon and his minions down below. I don’t believe him, and he knows it. As long as that’s the case, I’m inclined to soak him for all the free food, drink, and lodging he’s got.”
Naomi nodded and pointed behind Quinn. “Speaking of lodging, here come Taylor and Miranda.”
Quinn greeted her friends. They’d just entered the bar via the door beside the kitchen that led up to the apartments above the bar. The previous residents had been members of John Handon’s VirSync cultist followers. They were all dead now and didn’t need the rooms, so Clark had suggested to Paddy that he let the clan move in.