by Jamie Davis
Clark growled, “Whoever they were, the attackers disappeared without a trace. I found trails leading away in two directions, but they ended a few steps away from where he was killed. There was no evidence left at the scene. I tasted the residual magic that remained, though. It had the same taint as the spell that’s been cast on you.”
Quinn shook her head and laughed. None of this made sense. A few days before, she would have assumed Clark was an insane homeless person.
After the events of the night, she wasn’t so sure.
Quinn didn’t know what was real anymore. Her experience today with the VR system at VirSync, the strangely related death of the city councilman, and now these crazy claims by Clark, a man who thought he could smell magic on her, shook her understanding of reality to its core.
Quinn reached for the door handle. “This is all too much. There’s no such thing as magic. I need to get out of here.”
As she did, Clark waved two fingers of one hand in a circular movement, and the door locks engaged. She tried to unlock the door, but it wouldn’t open for her, no matter what she did.
Quinn spun to face Clark. “How’d you do that?”
He smiled. “Magic, what else? You may try to deny its existence. Most people do, but that’s because they don’t know about the hidden battle going on out of sight all around them. A fight happening in the sort of dark shadows most people avoid.”
Clark pointed at her amulet. “You know about magic. Your amulet has protected you, even though you don’t know how to use its full abilities. Has someone ever attacked you from behind or tried to sneak up on you? The amulet warned you just before they were able to launch their surprise or attack, am I right?”
Quinn had always called it her magic, but she hadn’t really believed it. Her little-girl self had called them her cold warnings. She’d always chalked it up to her imagination and wishful thinking. What kid didn’t want to believe they had magical powers of some kind?
She’d always sort of known, hadn’t she?
She’d used the magic as she grew older, even though she pretended it was a childish fantasy. Whether it was to avoid contact in a fast-paced lacrosse game, or even when a friend tried to sneak up and surprise her, Quinn always knew when to step to the side or shift direction.
Even given her understanding of it now from Clark, it was a lot to confront when the reality of magic smacked her in the face like this.
Quinn leaned back in her seat and settled herself. She glanced at the locked door and then at Clark. Her pendant—no, he’d called it her “amulet”—wasn’t warning her anymore, like it had tried to when she’d ignored it getting into the Jeep earlier. She figured she was safe for now.
Clark hadn’t made a move to hurt her, at least not since his initial attack. His blade was still on the floor beside the driver’s seat, unless he had some way to teleport it back to himself.
Of course, he wouldn’t let her out of the car, either.
Quinn decided she was entitled to answers of her own. “All right, I’ll bite. What do you mean by a hidden fight in the shadows?”
“Our world sits at a nexus, a sort of gateway between the planes of light and the planes of darkness. We don’t know why this is so, only that it has been that way for as long as the hunter histories have been kept.”
Quinn remained silent and waited for more explanation.
Clark continued, “There are some who believe our world was created for that purpose, to serve as a meeting ground between the two opposing forces of the universe. That necessary neutral ground keeps the universe from devolving into chaos as the two sides fight a war where no one wins.”
“Instead of using it to just meet, they use our world, our Earth, and those who inhabit it, to meet, negotiate, and seek opportunities for advantage over the other. It might have saved the universe, but it has made our world a battleground.”
“Millennia ago, hunter clans rose up to defend mankind against incursions by the dark forces who sought to enslave them. The light created in us the ability to use free will in a way that gave us each a choice over good and evil, as long as our souls were clean. We who walked in the light received gifts of magic and power that enabled us to meet our otherworldly adversaries on an even footing.”
Quinn stopped him. “I don’t know what people usually say when you tell this story, Clark. Even with everything I’ve seen in the last day, I’m reluctant to believe this is all some sort of fight between demons and angels.”
“Not just demons and angels, Quinn. All sorts of supernatural beings have been brought into the battle over the years.”
“What, like werewolves and vampires and things?”
“Exactly. The councilman was a Lycan, what you would call a werewolf, which is a type of shifter.”
“So, all those so-called creatures of the night are real? That makes no sense. You said you sought to protect him. If he was some sort of monster, why would you do that? You’re a hunter. Aren’t you supposed to kill people like him?”
“Once that would have been true. Over the years, though, many of the supernatural creatures switched sides, seeing as how they were being used to fight a war for the dark. The work of the hunters became less necessary, and people forgot about the fight for the light and dark. The clans fell from prominence and eventually became a coalition of disparate family groups that worked in the shadows of a world no one believed in anymore.”
“What does any of this have to do with me? I might concede the existence of magic or maybe some sort of strange super-science I don’t understand.” Quinn paused as something Clark had said earlier came back to her. “You said you were the last survivor of the hunter clans, or you thought you were.”
Clark sighed. “I’ve been alone for such a long time. For twenty years, I’ve hidden and run and fought. I’ve carried on the battle as best I could, always trying to find out who it was that betrayed us. The purges took two years from start to finish. By the end, there were only a few of us left, living on the run from place to place. I didn’t even know I was the last of my family until I couldn’t find any of the others, at least not alive.”
Quinn’s hand drifted up to touch her amulet as she listened. “And you think I’m…what? A lost hunter or something? I’m not some sort of magical monster slayer.”
“Why is that so hard to believe? You don’t know anything about your parents. They could be anyone. They could have been related to me. You could be related to me.”
Quinn snorted a laugh. “Seriously? So I should call you Uncle Clark?”
Clark seemed uncomfortable with the subject. He looked at something or someone who wasn’t there out through the windshield for a few seconds before answering, “I think we can dispense with that.”
“Look, I appreciate that you think there’s something special about me. Special enough to attack me in my Jeep while I was driving. We could’ve both died because of what you did, by the way.”
Clark shook his head. “Hunters are hard to kill. Centuries of protection magic, along with our amulets, have toughened us. We heal faster than other people, and it takes more trauma than a normal person can stand to cause enough damage to finish us off. We’d have both survived any ordinary accident that didn’t decapitate us or end in a fiery explosion. Have you ever noticed you don’t ever get sick, and you heal faster than your friends?”
Quinn thought back to her sophomore year in high school when she blew out her knee in a lacrosse game. The docs said she’d be out for eight or nine months.
She was back and cleared to practice in just over a week. The orthopedic specialist had said it must’ve been a glitch in the MRI recording system that swapped images with another patient before the diagnosis. Could it have been her hunter genes instead?
Quinn didn’t recall being sick, not ever. She found it funny in elementary school when friends missed school because a stomach bug ran through the class over the course of a few weeks.
Clark just sat there studying her e
xpression.
He smiled and nodded when she looked his way. “I’m right, aren’t I. Based on your expression right now, I think you know it, too.”
“So? It doesn’t change anything.”
He laughed aloud. “It changes everything, Quinn. It’s proof you’re a hunter, or at least have the background and skills to become one. You also know you’ve got a connection to the death of someone, and the loss of an innocent bothers you. That was why you came down here.”
Clark shook his head before continuing, “Quinn, the man who died tonight was a person who’s stood in the way of bad things happening around here. He was the leader of the supernatural community, and kept them from drifting toward the darkness that started moving in after the clans disappeared.”
“What kinds of bad things?”
“Since the purges, I’ve had a theory and have been tracking a small group of missing hunters from each of the clans. They all disappeared just before the purges began. Once the attacks started in earnest, everyone initially thought the missing ones had been among the first to die. However, I started to run across traces leading to them over the last few years, long after they should’ve been dead and gone. I’ve found these hints here and there, telling me they not only survived but may have been instrumental in exposing and betraying the rest of us.”
“Why would anyone do such a thing?”
Clark shrugged. “Power and greed, the same old human weaknesses. The other side offers a great many benefits to their acolytes and followers. They become endowed with great power. The flip side is, their masters don’t tolerate failure. There are no second chances for those who follow the dark.”
“And you think these rogue hunters are somehow behind the killing tonight? You know there was more than one. A dozen or so candidates went into the system with missions tonight.”
Clark paused, taken aback by her revelation. “I’ll have to check on that. I only know about the one you killed…”
“I told you, I didn’t kill him.”
“Fine, the one you were involved with killing. I was only protecting one person. I couldn’t protect everyone, so I chose the most important leaders to keep an eye on. What you just told me has me worrying about who else was killed tonight.”
Quinn shrugged. “I have no idea. We were all hired to test some sort of virtual reality training system. That’s all I know. I went into the VR system, and the next thing I know, I’m chasing a werewolf down the streets of Baltimore. I had no idea it might be real until after I’d left work for the night.”
“Just tell me everything you know. Don’t leave anything out.”
Quinn thought about her company orientation the week before. She and the other candidates had all signed nondisclosure agreements. Of course, that was before she’d realized that somehow VirSync had implicated her in a murder and seemed to be doing a whole lot more than just testing some sort VR training software.
“I will tell you what little I know. Nothing I thought was true this morning seems to match up anymore.”
“That’s fine. Just tell me. Perhaps I can make sense of it for you.”
Quinn nodded. She started off slowly, explaining how she and Taylor had been offered jobs right after graduating from high school. She described the offer and the initial orientation and training, as well as the testing room and the strange loss of time that had occurred that evening.
Clark listened in silence, waiting through her numerous pauses, giving her ample time to gather her thoughts.
When she’d finished telling him everything she knew, right down to the description of Fergus’ attack on the creature in the game, she stopped and stared at Clark. “This doesn’t make any sense, does it? “
“Unfortunately, it makes a whole lot of sense, especially when I add it to things I already know. After the purges, the few of us who were left thought the demon masters behind the attacks would make their move right away. We prepared to fight to the end. When nothing happened, a few relaxed, assuming the danger had finally passed. They were picked off one by one, even as I warned them the attacks weren’t finished.
Clark paused and rubbed the stubble on his chin. “This might be the information I’ve been searching for all these years.”
“Why?” Quinn asked. “VirSync has been around for years, making video games and other electronics. It’s a Baltimore success story. How could they have possibly been involved with these purges the whole time you were searching for answers?”
“Hiding in plain sight is a powerful strategy. It never occurred to me they were operating in the open that way, but it all makes sense now. It allowed them to move around right under my nose while I searched for clues in dark alleys and amidst the supernatural community.”
“I don’t understand something,” Quinn said. “Why didn’t they move in and take over right away? You think they waited this long on purpose?”
Clark nodded. “It’s the long game.”
“What does that mean?”
“We humans perceive things in the small, bite-sized chunks of time that make up our puny lives. However, the plans of light and dark are grandiose and span years, decades, or even centuries. After destroying the bulk of the clans, the demons might have been free to begin the next phase of their plan, but there’s no way they killed off the best trained supernatural fighters in the world without taking significant losses. After that, they needed to recuperate and regroup. It isn’t easy for demonkind to manifest physically here on Earth, and it could easily have taken several decades for them to rebuild the power needed to enact the next part of their plans.”
“Assuming this conspiracy theory you have about evil demons and the grand visions of light and dark are true, what does this have to do with me or anyone else? Why send us out through some VR game interface to kill someone in real life? Wouldn’t it be easier to just hire a hitman or something?”
“If what you say is true, Quinn, they’ve devised an untraceable system that allows them to send a trained assassin virtually anywhere. They’ve proven it works, and it makes me wonder if any other recent deaths in the city or elsewhere in the world in recent months can be attributed to others like you. It’s ingenious, actually.”
“How so?”
“In addition to using you and your fellow candidates to eliminate those who stand in their way, they achieve an alternative goal as well. By tricking you into taking innocent human lives, they cause you to taint your souls, adding a dark price to the balance of your lives. Consider it a checkmark against you. Once there are enough checkmarks in the black, they can use it to subvert your will or worse using their dark demonic rites.”
“What do you mean? Some sort of demonic possession?”
Clark’s grim nod sent a chill down Quinn’s spine.
He continued after seeing her reaction, “I know it sounds crazy. I told you it took a lot of power or magical juice for a demon to manifest here in person. However, for a lesser expenditure, they can send their awareness into a sufficiently tainted soul. The more tainted the soul, the easier the possession. While not as powerful as being here in person, it offers the advantage of being harder to detect until they reveal themselves. One of our tasks as hunters before the purges was to rescue those in danger of such subversion and bring them back to the light by cleansing them of the darkness that put them at risk.”
Quinn considered what he’d said. When he mentioned the risk to someone who had a confirmed kill, her thoughts turned to Taylor. She’d killed in the game that evening. If what he said was true, she’d broken her soul somehow.
”I have to get home. I have to see if Taylor’s gotten back yet. She’s in danger, and I need to help her.”
Clark shook his head. “You aren’t going anywhere but with me. It’s not safe. You’re completely untrained, and it’s only through the most basic of your inherent abilities that you’ve been able to resist enough to see what really happened.”
“Resist, how?”
“That has to be t
he source of the residual magic I smell on you. My guess is they’re casting pretty powerful spells on you and your fellow candidates to ensure no one does exactly what you ended up doing. They can’t afford for any of you to figure out the killing is real.
“Your amulet and your personal defenses broke through the spell halfway through the hunt for the werewolf. That was why you could see the man in his human form. The others couldn’t see that.”
“Well, if that’s the case, I have nothing to worry about. The amulet will protect me.”
“Quinn, I can’t guarantee it’ll work for you again. Plus, if they send you in for another mission, are you going to kill for them, just to stay close to your friend?”
“Of course not.” The question shocked her, not because he asked it, but because she knew she’d do a lot to help her friend. She owed Taylor everything.
As she considered Clark’s question, Quinn knew she’d lied. She would definitely kill if it meant she could rescue Taylor.
“What if I kill one of them, one of the people from this demon cult? Will that injure my soul too?”
“No, they’re not innocents. Your kill would be applauded by the light and would accrue to you that way.”
“Good, then I’m going back. I’m not abandoning Taylor. She’s my best friend. Look, I probably won’t have to go back in there. I just need to go home and talk her into quitting. Then you can clean her up or whatever you do.”
“It’s not an easy process, Quinn. A lot depends on the state of mind of the person involved.”
“Good, then it’s settled.” Quinn tried her door again, and looked back at Clark. “I need to leave. Get out of my Jeep and let me go.”
For a few long seconds, Clark didn’t say anything. He just studied her face. “You’re making a mistake. I can’t protect you from a distance and your lack of training is a liability, especially now that you know a little of what is going on. You know enough to get into real trouble without being able to defend yourself.”