Huntress Initiate

by Jamie Davis

  It was unlocked.

  He pulled it open and pushed Miranda’s hazy form inside, following her in as the door to the gym opened behind them.

  Voices filled the outer room as the group of men grumbled about some ceremony that had failed, requiring them to return the following day. They all sounded like they planned on staying to work out for a while.

  Clark and Miranda stood face to face, pressed very close together inside the awkward confines of the closet. He let his masking ability drop as Miranda cleared her spell. They avoided each other’s eyes as they waited for the men using the weight room and gym equipment outside to leave.

  As he waited, trapped inside the closet, Clark’s thoughts turned to Quinn. He hoped she was being smart.

  Somehow he knew otherwise.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Quinn hung up from the call with Clark. She knew all he was going to do was yell at her, and she didn’t need some old guy to tell her it was a risk to go after the gem on top of everything else she needed to do. She wasn’t an idiot.

  Her problem was, it was the only way she could think of to stop them from continuing to use it to possess people.

  Quinn started toward the elevator down to the tunnels. She couldn’t be sure all the cultists from the ceremony had returned. It seemed as if most, if not all of them, had left for the night. If any were still down there, she’d have to deal with them.

  After taking the elevator down, Quinn stepped into the tunnel and headed back down it. She stopped briefly in the side chamber, where Taylor and the other candidate remained comatose on their respective tables.

  Quinn went in and laid a hand on Taylor’s arm. She was freezing cold but still breathing steadily. Quinn considered finding a robe or a blanket to drape over her friend’s body. She couldn’t afford anyone seeing it, though. They’d know someone was down here who didn’t belong.

  Quinn sighed, returned to the passage, and made her way to the ceremonial cavern. She moved slowly, taking her time and listening for voices or footsteps. The smooth stone floor made it easy for her to move quietly, but that also meant others could do so as well.

  She paused for a few seconds and tried to use her amulet’s power to help her hide. It didn’t work.

  Quinn wasn’t surprised. She’d used a lot of energy blocking the spell attempting to possess Taylor.

  The amulet wasn’t the only thing that needed to recharge. The pit in Quinn’s stomach reminded her of how hungry she was.

  The sandwich! There was one more in her gym bag, which was slung beneath her robe.

  Quinn opened the robe and retrieved one of the two water bottles and the remaining sandwich.

  She stopped at a bend in the passage and wolfed down the Kaiser roll filled with turkey and cheese. She ate so fast, she barely tasted it.

  Quinn chugged the water, washing the last crumbs of the sandwich down with it. Her hunger pangs hadn’t disappeared completely, but she definitely felt better.

  She thought about trying her hiding ability again but decided against it. It would use energy she might need later. If it worked, it was best to save its limited duration for a moment when she really needed it.

  As she started downward again, Quinn wondered what other abilities or powers she possessed that might be enabled or awakened by the amulet. She should have gotten Clark to tell her more about them.

  It could be almost anything. Did she have super strength? Could she draw on some sort of stamina reserves to increase her physical capabilities? It was something to consider.

  Quinn was so lost in thought, she almost stumbled into the cultist standing guard at the entrance to the ceremonial chamber.

  She stopped herself just in time and stepped back around the final bend in the tunnel before she was spotted.

  Luckily, the guy in the robes wasn’t looking her way. He seemed to be watching the center of the chamber. The flames from the brazier left the room with a flickering orange and yellow light that cast strange shadows on the walls.

  Quinn wondered what fueled the fire for it to keep it burning like that. The basin at the top of the pedestal wasn’t that large, and the coals in it should have burned out by now.

  Perhaps the person standing guard here was tasked with feeding fuel to the fire. Of course, it could also have some sort of magical origin. Either would make sense.

  Quinn peeked around the corner and studied the guy. It was definitely a male, judging by height. She couldn’t tell otherwise because the hood on his robe was up, just as hers was.

  Quinn decided to try something risky. If it worked, it would avoid a potentially noisy fight. She was pretty sure she could take the guy, especially if she caught him by surprise, but that might raise some sort of an alarm, and she couldn’t tell if any other cultists remained inside the cavern.

  Taking a deep breath, Quinn clasped her hands in front of her, bowed her head in what she hoped was a reverent pose, and turned the corner. She walked with confident strides toward the chamber. She made it a point to not disguise her steps, scuffing her feet on the stone floor on purpose.

  The cultist below turned in her direction right away. “What’s up? Did you forget something?”

  Quinn lowered her voice in an attempt to disguise it. “I was sent to relieve you. Since you all contributed blood to recharging the gem, I was told to take the next shift watching the chamber.”

  Quinn tensed, ready to attack if her ruse failed.

  Relief flooded through her when the guy said, “Oh, that’s great. I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. The giving of blood and energy like that saps so much strength.”

  “Glad I could be of service. Why don’t you go get some rest? I’ve got this.”

  The cultist didn’t wait for Quinn to reach his place by the cavern’s entrance. He rushed past her after a brief nodded thank you.

  Quinn took up the position where he’d been standing and watched him go around the bend in the tunnel. As soon as he was out of sight, she let out a long, slow breath, then stretched and flexed to remove some of the tension in her muscles. She’d been ready to attack and disable him or worse. Quinn had only half-believed this plan would work.

  She waited for a few long minutes to ensure he’d returned to the surface before she moved on with the rest of her plan. Quinn checked the passage one last time, walking up to the bend to check the portion beyond.

  It was clear.

  Smiling, Quinn returned and entered the cavern, heading straight to the burning brazier in the center of the room. The gemstone was still perched on a brass plate over the coals. It pulsed with a sickening, bloody-red color deep in its core.

  Quinn’s nose wrinkled at the residual sickly-sweet odor that she realized was from the blood shed by the cultists to recharge the gem’s power. She didn’t know what would make people do something like that.

  She pulled the sleeve of her robe over her hand to protect her from the heat and reached out to grab it from the plate in the center of the flaming brazier. An wave of revulsion instantly swept over her, stopping her hand before it got close to the Ruby Heart.

  Quinn took a step back as she almost vomited right there next to the pedestal.

  Bent over and gulping air, she steeled herself to push through the sickening sensation.

  After gathering her resolve, Quinn straightened and reached out again. This time she snatched the gem quickly, grabbing it before nausea set in again.

  The moment she lifted the gem from the brass plate, Quinn’s amulet sent a powerful chill through her. The evil nature of the artifact assaulted her, and her hunter protections fired up as soon as she touched it, even through the cloth of her robe’s sleeve.

  Guttural whispers came from all around her as she dropped it in her pocket.

  It was as if the gem was alive somehow, just as Miranda had warned her. She could sense its desire to exert control over her as soon as she touched it. She was glad it was hot enough that she hadn’t wanted to use her bare hands. That might help
her get away with this in the long run.

  The whispering voices grew louder now that the gem was in her pocket. She could make out parts of the muttered suggestions.

  They all wanted her to do things, horrible things.

  Quinn squeezed her eyes shut and took several deep breaths to try to clear her mind of the suggestions, but the whispers continued to pass through the back of her mind. They told her to do everything from thrusting her free hand into the brazier’s flames just to see what charred skin looked and smelled like to returning back up to passage and snapping Taylor’s neck.

  For a split second, it seemed as if the voices would win. Quinn focused on the icy chill against her breastbone, and to her happy surprise, the whispering stopped.

  The experience left her flustered, though, and she considered putting the gem back and giving up on her plan to steal it.

  She stood by the pedestal for nearly thirty seconds, trying to make up her mind.

  In the end, she shook her head and said aloud, “No, this has to be done. I have to go through with this before others are turned.

  Quinn turned back toward the cavern’s main entrance. As she did, voices echoed down the tunnel from up ahead. A lot of voices. It sounded like way more than just a few people.

  Spinning around, Quinn searched for a place to hide and spotted two other openings, narrow, unworked cracks in the cavern walls. They looked like they led from the cavern, heading deeper into the network of caves beneath the company buildings.

  Quinn didn’t have much time to make a decision about which way to go. The people behind those voices had almost reached the cavern.

  She ran to the right, darting out of sight through the closest of the two dark openings as a group of six cultists, led by Myles Hickman, entered the room.

  All of them wore street clothes, except for the guy she’d relieved from guard duty and two others she couldn’t make out. Quinn crouched in the shadows just inside the crack in the wall and watched to see what they did. Perhaps they’d think she’d headed back up to the building.

  “The gem,” Myles exclaimed, pointing at the empty plate on the brazier. “It’s gone.”

  “My Lord,” the tall man Quinn had relieved said. “I had no reason to believe she was anything but one of us when she offered to take over for me.”

  “I’ll deal with you later. She couldn’t have gone far. Search back up the main tunnel. See if she’s hiding in a crack or crevice somewhere. She didn’t come back up the elevator, so she has to be down here somewhere.”

  Two women at the back of the group turned and ran back up the corridor, heading for the surface to search for Quinn. Two others turned toward Myles. As soon as they turned around, Quinn recognized them.

  Cindy and Fergus studied Myles for a few seconds, then turned their black eyes to search the rest of the cavern.

  Cindy lifted her head as if sniffing the air. “The gem is near. I can sense its presence. She has not gone far. I do not think she’s heading toward the surface.”

  Cindy’s black eyes continued scanning the walls.

  Fergus spoke as well. “There is something else. Something old and familiar. I sense hunter magic.”

  Myles barked an uncomfortable laugh. “That’s impossible. The hunters are all gone. Even if any of that ilk remain alive, there are none who would dare come here and attack us in the our center of power.”

  Cindy stopped scanning the cavern and shifted her gaze back to Myles. “My comrade is correct. I didn’t sense it at first, but it is there. It is faint, as if colored by something else. Nonetheless, it is definitely hunter magic.”

  Myles blanched at the pronouncement. “I assure you, we will find her and do with her what we did with the rest of her kind years ago.”

  Cindy had returned to scanning the cavern, her black eyes approaching the place Quinn hid. She didn’t dare use her hiding ability for fear it would increase their sense of her magic nearby.

  In the end, it didn’t matter.

  Cindy’s arm snapped up, finger pointing directly at Quinn.

  “There!”

  Myles and the acolyte who had been guarding the chamber before ran toward the opening where Quinn hid.

  She scrambled backward and turned, working her way farther into the narrow gap and scraping her exposed skin as she pulled herself over the rough surface.

  As she went back, it quickly became pitch-black. She tried to navigate by feel alone, but knew she needed to go faster.

  Quinn tried to activate her night vision ability but nothing happened. She scrambled to remember what she’d done back in the room with the other candidates.

  Her mind rolled through the earlier part of the evening until it came to her. As she crawled through the darkness, trying to get away from those coming, she whispered, “Dammit, I need to see.”

  Instantly, the familiar bluish hue from before lit the narrow passageway. Quinn smiled despite the desperate nature of the situation. Those were probably not the words Clark would have trained her to use, but they worked well enough, and they suited her.

  Now that she could see where she was going, Quinn picked up speed. She moved as fast as she dared while trying to remain silent. The rough tunnel opened up at times enough that she could stand upright. At other times, though, it narrowed to the point where she wriggled along on her belly.

  The voices of Myles and the other cultists echoed through the caves behind her. She was sure they hadn’t seen her, but clearly they trusted Cindy’s sense of smell or whatever she’d used to detect Quinn’s presence.

  When Quinn glanced behind her and saw the flashlights illuminating the path of her pursuers.

  She reached a point where two passages branched off. One sloped down, and the other angled to the left and ran gently upward. There was also a pool of water roughly the size of a big jacuzzi tub off to one side.

  Quinn knew it was likely she’d get stuck in here or hit a dead end, and then they’d find her. She worried what would happen when they caught her and retrieved the gem. She’d never be able to overcome four of them at once, and she was sure they’d use it to bring a demon into her body.

  Making up her mind, Quinn pulled the now-cool gemstone from her pocket, once again using the sleeve of her robe to keep from touching it directly.

  Swallowing the bile that rose in her throat, Quinn went to the pool of dark water and tossed the gem into the far corner.

  The pulsing red stone sank, slowly fading from view.

  The voices grew louder behind her, and Quinn glanced back again. They’d almost reached this area. Making a snap decision, Quinn took the passage that sloped upward. Maybe she’d be lucky, and it would come out on the surface somewhere close by. If that was the case, she could get out and possibly still find a way to get back in to rescue Taylor.

  Quinn scrambled upward. The passage continued for about a hundred yards before it narrowed to the point that Quinn could go no farther. A distinct draft of fresh air came through the narrow gap ahead of her, but unless she could transform herself into a mouse or a rat, she wasn’t getting out that way.

  Desperation gave way to despair. She was so close.

  Turning back, Quinn started in the other direction. Hopefully, Myles and the others had opted to search the other passage, leaving her a way to slip past them.

  The movement of lights ahead of her told her she was not going to be so lucky. Someone was coming this way.

  Quinn searched for a place to hide. Seeing none, she pressed herself against the wall near a bend in tunnel. Maybe if she caught them by surprise, she could attack them one by one.

  It was her only chance.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Judging by the grunts of effort emanating from it, someone was in the process of coming through the rough crack she’d emerged from moments before.

  The beam of a flashlight preceded the robed arm of the cultist guard she’d relieved of duty earlier.

  Quinn waited until the tall, lanky guy had almost cr
awled completely through the opening before she pounced on him from her hiding place above and behind him.

  Still unwilling to kill anyone, she reversed her grip on the Bowie knife’s hilt so she could lead with the pommel. She landed with her feet straddling the cultist and brought the pommel down hard on the back of his head.

  He let out a soft groan, spasmed once, and lay still.

  Praying he wasn’t dead, Quinn grabbed him by the waist and rolled him out of the way. Once he was free of the opening, she shoved the unconscious form with her foot to roll him down a short slope to land wedged against the slanted wall.

  Quinn returned to the opening, resumed her position, and waited to see if anyone else came through.

  No one did.

  Instead, a few seconds later, Myles called through the gap. “Rutherford, where are you? Is she in there?”

  Quinn started to answer but realized she’d never fool them into thinking she was the unconscious cultist. Instead, she stayed put and readied herself to fight whoever came through to check on the first guy.

  “Rutherford, are you there?” Myles repeated his question.

  Another flashlight beam shone through the hole, moving around and illuminating the far wall of the cave. Given the narrow opening, Quinn knew they couldn’t see much.

  Cindy’s voice, tainted by the demonic undertone Quinn had heard in Fergus’s voice at the ceremony, came from inside the narrow passageway, “I’ll go through and find out what’s wrong with your underling. If she truly is a hunter, she’ll be more formidable than you lot can handle.”

  The woman wormed her way through the opening until Quinn saw her head emerge from the crack.

  Once again, Quinn waited until Cindy was most of the way through before attacking. The plan was to repeat her attack and stash her with Rutherford.

  That turned out to be a bad idea.

  Possessed Cindy was much stronger and faster than Quinn.

  Quinn jumped down as she had before, straddling the woman’s torso.