Daughters of Dusk 1

by Michael Hudson

  Haverson, a girl with short, black hair, a fair chest, and outfitted in her dress uniform, as she had been instructed to do for this immediate meeting with the brass in charge of the Daughters of Dusk program, merely rolled her eyes. It was something that many of the leaders of the program had come to know from her, as they had mistakenly told her to be casual with them and she had never stopped doing so. “Sirs, I suggested against the mission in the first place. After all, with the new files on Subject X, we knew that she had the power to level whole towns with a thought. She’s strong enough that she’s why the rest of these girls have powers beyond human limits. What made you think fifty or so men could take her?”

  “But that monster didn’t even do this!” He slammed his fist into the table that was before him, growling as he looked over the reports. From what could be told, she could maybe be blamed for the explosion and slicing deaths, but they also had files on both subjects Wren and Ovelia that would explain those too. The bullet wounds were too many to account for friendly fire to explain those, which meant at least one of the other girls had been involved in every ballistic death in the case. One of the others that they had thought wouldn’t defend someone like X. “Do you think they know about X’s purpose back in the facility?”

  Haverson shook her head. She had pushed for Peter to take X, mostly through cases for the location making it hard for her to hurt others, a good sized home in a small neighborhood meaning that she wouldn’t have contact with many others, and that extraction would be possible. That last one now seemed to be incorrect, though where she was likely didn’t matter for that. “No. After all, while X’s vocal cords could work again, it will take some time for them to be proper enough for her to articulate what she’s been through, if she even wants to. I don’t know why they protected her, but it does mean that extraction is impossible.”

  “Then what do you advise, because I don’t think anyone will like hearing that we have no plan for a walking doomsday device that we can’t deal with.”

  Haverson shrugged, before looking him dead in the eyes and stating, “We trust Peter, just as I keep telling you to do.”

  ======+++++======

  Peter yawned as he made his way down the stairs. He hadn’t slept well, especially after what had sounded like a cannon went off last night, but he also assumed that was a dream. Or did one of his neighbors now have a cannon? If they did, why weren’t they telling him? He wanted to fire a cannon!

  But he just assumed it was a dream, and walked towards the dining room as he sleepily found his way around the banister. Only X was at the table, with the other girls watching a movie in the living room, and he waved to her. She gave a small wave with the barest hint of a smile back. At least, until he went to open the curtains that led to the front yard. “No!”

  Peter didn’t stop though, his mind first celebrating hearing her voice, hoarse as it was, before it stopped. Stopped entirely as he looked out at what the street still looked like, and the men who were trying to clean… Clean…

  He closed the curtains slowly, his body shaking as the other girls stepped into view. They were all now staring at him, waiting for his response as he stared into nothing.

  When Peter finally moved, he spoke very slowly. “Okay. That… Was nothing. Nothing is out there. Nothing is great. Nothing is wonderful. Nothing also sounds like what I’m going to do today. Yep. Nothing but video games, and some pizza, I’ll order that later when nothing is gone outside, and…” He wobbled on his feet for a moment, before he began running up the stairs and all of the girls could hear him begin violently throwing up.

  Ovelia blinked a few times, before clapping her hands together. “Well, I think he took that as well as he could have.”

  Wren raised an eyebrow before stating, “I don’t think he took it at all.”

  “Are you going to say you want him to be able to acknowledge us as killers?”

  All of the girls were quiet for a moment, before from up above they heard, “Write what toppings you want and I’ll huuuurhg!”

  To which they all smiled, looking forward to pizza and whatever may come next with the man who still seemed to accept them, even after ‘nothing’.

  My Thanks

  Thank you for purchasing Daughters of Dusk Vol. 1. Without fans, or even those of you who may have hated this book, like you, none of this would be possible. I wouldn’t be able to keep having a reason or chance to hone my craft. However, if you would like to support me more, I do have a patreon where you can help me figure out what one of novels I’ll work on and get chances to talk to me one on one, at https://www.patreon.com/mdhwrites . If you would like to keep up with me on social media, you can follow me on twitter @MDHWrites, or follow me on Tumblr where I’m trying to put something out for free every Friday, whether that be side projects I’m doing for fun, analysis on media of any sort, or such like that, at https://mdhwrites.tumblr.com/ . No matter what you decide though, thank you so much for your time, I hope you enjoyed the book, and I look forward to seeing you next time. Now, on to others I have to thank.

  Acknowledgements

  Jensen Nguyum: (https://www.deviantart.com/thegamingdrawer/) The illustrator for the cover, who did marvelous work with it and captured what I was going for perfectly. While this was a little more risque then he normally does, his work with game and anime characters is top notch and I recommend you all go check him out!

  Darkigoland: (https://www.deviantart.com/darkigoland ) Another person who does a lot of anime and game fanart, this person’s style is simple, but expressive, and I love the amount of emotion and character they can get out of them. They did a piece for each of the girls, Peter, and even a group shot that, while not wholly accurate to the book, would make for a neat AU story if the four were truly a team from the get go. Check em out!

  Vampiricpig: (https://www.deviantart.com/vampiricpig ) Sketches that pop would be how I’d describe their work, and it looks absolutely lovely. They did three pictures for Wren, X, and Ovelia, with modifications to their suits to help match their personalities, and each of them look absolutely wonderful and ready for their jobs, even while their cuteness could melt your heart.

  ColdSixThousand: (https://www.deviantart.com/coldsixthousand ) They specialize in sexual cyberpunk, with big tiddies, and big personalities to boot, and they brought both of those talents to re-imagining X in her own sort of specialized combat suit while keeping her all too ready to kill at a moment’s notice. A true sight to behold, and perhaps the closest representation to just how ridiculous our silent visitor’s chest is.

  A preview for another of my series currently available on Amazon,

  Sarafune Monster Preserve Vol. 1

  The Interview

  In, out. In, and out. One, two, three, four, five, pause, one, two, three.

  The boy in the car that had pulled into the reserve a few minutes ago continued to do this, along with other, simple exercises to calm himself. His name was Charles, and to call him nervous would be an understatement. In short, the poor, black haired, skinny, white guy had anxiety issues. Sure, he'd learned to control them, but they were always there and ready to derail his thoughts at a moment's notice.

  To make matters worse, this was the sort of thing that his mind lived for to bring him into a spiral. It had started a few months ago when he graduated from college with a degree in psychology, hoping to put it to use so that he could help others who suffered from anxiety like himself. As most would tell you though, a psychology degree doesn't always get you very far, so he hadn't been able to put it to use, or even really find a half decent job. So, when a position at a research, habilitation reserve on the elusive monsters of the world came up and was emailed to him, he had immediately applied.

  He hadn't quite expected to get the position though. Sure, his immediate reaction had been one of delight, as this was the largest reserve on the planet and he had been fascinated by the creatures since he was young. To actually work with them was a different matter, especially since h
e had expected not to actually be qualified. He had assumed someone needed and he assumed someone needed to know self-defense skills, experience teaching before now, and half a dozen other little things he didn’t have that they simply had failed to mention in the job listing.

  But, Charles had applied and been accepted, so-

  "Hello."

  "Ah!" The poor boy jumped in his seat from the raspy voice that was outside of the car. Looking over, he noticed a man who looked like he was probably eighty or ninety years old, hunched over and breathing hard.

  "I'm guessing you're Charles?" The old man gave him a small smile, before stepping away from the car. "I understand your hesitation, but you have nothing to worry about. I'm pretty bad about giving too many chances, otherwise I'd never have been able to drink with a minotaur. So come on in. I haven’t rejected an applicant yet."

  Charles swallowed hard while the old man laughed. He'd never seen a minotaur, a real one that is, even in the news. Then again, these preserves had only started about thirty years ago, and only the most intelligent monsters had left graduated from their respective Habilitation Programs. The best and brightest, and of those characteristics, most minotaurs lacked at least one of them.

  The boy stepped out of his car, and the old man stopped laughing as Charles stood up straight. While the nervous boy couldn't tell it from how the old man looked upon him, he was being analyzed. He wasn't too tall, thin on the arms and legs, though that could mean he’s deceptively strong...

  The old man nodded, before gesturing for Charles to follow him. "Come, we'll talk inside, and you can address me as Mr. Sarafune."

  For a moment, there was silence, before Charles ran to catch up, words already streaming from his mouth. "Wait, does that mean you're the founder of this preserve? I thought it was simply named after your work in the courts to stop the eradication of monsters after they were rediscovered. Didn't they need more legal..."

  For a moment, Sarafune just stared him down, one eyebrow raised, before a faint touch of a smile got to the corner of his mouth. "I thought I was supposed to ask the questions, not you."

  Charles looked down, shuffling his feet a bit before nodding. It's not like he was wrong, but his mind raced with what this could mean. Was this why Sarafune was the largest preserve? Why hadn't the preserve's website said anything about him? Was this part of why you didn't hear much about these places in general?

  He could have gone on for another hour in his own head if they didn't reach the one house that appeared to be on the preserve in only a few minutes. Instead, Charles remembered with the sharp sounds of hard heels on wooden boards that he was in fact here for a job. A job that would have him living here if he got it.

  The house itself was rather large, almost more a mansion than a house, which made sense. In here would be all the personnel who ran the facility. The gardeners, cooks, everyone. At least, so he assumed. It was surprisingly cozy despite that, looking like a house you might find in a normal town, only with a third floor to it and about three garages behind it. All rounded out with a white paint job and black trim.

  Sarafune looked back at the boy, smiling as he saw him pause on the front porch. A knock on a small, wooden set of drawers next to the entrance got his attention back, which was good. "So, can you tell me what you know about monsters?"

  Charles clicked his tongue as he stepped in, closing the door behind him silently. "Well, to begin with, back in medieval times, many of the stories they made weren't as much stories, but exaggerations. Accounts made to make the killing of humanoid beings with large changes to physiology okay."

  "These accounts were used for the wholesale slaughter of many monsters over the decades, especially by rich families who started to bear the honor of slaying them with great pride. We can only assume that the grander tales like King Arthur’s were records of some of the largest households that did this. The practice died of though with the Explorer’s Age, when they seemingly went extinct

  "Over the next hundreds of years, the stories..." Charles blinked a few times, first noticing how Mr. Sarafune had an eyebrow raised, and then realizing that he'd blindly followed the man to a small study with a large, wooden desk. Papers littered the table top, along with books covering every inch of the walls which made up any visual flair the small place had. The only other furniture in the room were two chairs, one behind the aforementioned desk, and one before it. "Um, should I sit, sir?"

  A small snort of laughter escaped the old man as he went to behind the desk. "Yes, and you should tell me what you know about monsters, not their history, as I might know a little of that."

  Charles blushed as he took his seat. Of course Sarafune knew the history, as he'd been not only their lawyer, but their representative in Congress, before then going to the United Nations and making his cases there. If not for him, it was questionable if they'd be considered 'people' by today, or if the debates would still be going on.

  But that left a hard question for him. "Sir, what exactly do you mean?"

  Sarafune nodded and leaned back. "Well, what do you know of the people classified underneath the race known as mon-"

  Charles cocked his head as Sarafune stopped talking, seemingly stunned for a moment. His gaze was directed at something behind him, and it only now occurred to the boy that the door had creaked a moment ago. Why would the man be shocked by an employee walking in though?

  Turning around, Charles might have realized that it wasn't an employee who had come in. He might have thought that Sarafune was worried about them being roasted alive, or slashed in twine. At the very least he might have registered more than the gender and species of the being in the doorway.

  That is, if said being was wearing a single shred of cloth.