The Huntresses' Game

by Joe Jackson

  “Well, if no one else has any questions or requests for the lady of the house, dinner is served,” Kyrie said, calling them all to the supper table.

  No one else posed any questions or requests to Kari, so they moved to the formal dining area and sat around the table. It was crowded, as it usually was when Jol, Damansha, and Eryn visited, but the table was big enough to accommodate everyone. Kari only took a brief detour to put Uldriana in her downstairs crib, and then she went and sat between her mate and their son at the table. Kyrie offered prayers before the meal got started, and then everyone was dished out a portion.

  Kari looked at her four-foot-eleven half-brys friend, Eryn, and wondered what might be occupying the assassin’s time these days. Things had been quiet since the Tilcimer was killed, and Kari wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing for the Blood Order, the guild to which Eryn belonged. Certainly political killings were not the only business the guild was in, but Kari didn’t know if Eryn was involved in or even knew anything about the other illicit activities of the guild and its rivals. The thought of rivals brought something else to mind, and Kari decided to risk posing the question to the oft-tight-lipped assassin.

  “Have you heard anything from the Black Dragon Society since I got back from Barcon?” Kari asked. During her hunt for an “underworld” serial killer in Barcon that turned out to be a half-succubus, Kari had uncovered the identities of the assassin’s guild and secret society of that city and its county. As far as Kari had heard, plans were set into motion just after she left to destroy the guild, but she didn’t know if it had ever come to pass.

  “Nope, all quiet down that way,” Eryn said. “Tarek sent some people down to Barcon to see about expanding our own operation there, but they got scragged by Earl Black within hours. Not sure what happened to them, but they never came back, so I think the most obvious guess is the safest.”

  “And nothing out of the ordinary prowling the streets around here?”

  Eryn eyed Frannie for a moment. “Not since that werewolf incident.”

  Kari was glad Eryn kept a lid on the true involvement of the werewolves, not that it was a surprise when it came to the assassin. While Kari and her werewolf companion, Gil, had convinced the Council to occasionally ask the werewolves for help, their existence and presence were both being kept out of the ears of the public. Gil had caused enough of a stir with her little “demonstration” for the Council; to have the werewolves openly aiding the Demonhunter Order would no doubt bring about a stern rebuke from the Duke. Instead, the Order was using them at a distance, typically in investigations outside the major cities.

  “I actually saw that beast!” Frannie said, eyes wide. “It was terrifying. I’ve never seen anything so large before.”

  Kari smiled knowingly. “Well, Damansha and the rest of the guard seem to have gotten rid of the troublemaker,” she said, and the captain of the guard managed a solid poker face, nodding sagely.

  Conversation moved to Little Gray’s antics for the day, climbing furniture and being a whirling dervish while confined to the house. As much as he smiled and laughed about it, trying to keep up with the boy was wearing on his father, and Kari looked at Grakin’s haggard, if upbeat, features grimly. He had survived a remarkably long time for someone with Dracon’s Bane: Kari had lived to the age of twenty-seven in her prior life before succumbing to the disease, and that was considered an incredibly long life. Grakin wasn’t far from forty himself, about two years Kari’s junior, but now the disease was accelerating. Kari stared down into her cooling dinner and tried not to think about her husband’s mortality, no matter how certain it was.

  She blew out a quiet sigh, but it was obvious no one missed it. There was simply so much going on in her life these last few years, and the demands of King Koursturaux for a face-to-face meeting were just going to complicate matters. As preposterous as it was, Kari thought she’d be happier having the demon king come to Citaria to meet Kari instead of the other way around. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time King Koursturaux had set foot on Citaria, and the volatile demon king hadn’t tried conquest the last time.

  No one prodded Kari during dinner, and once the plates were cleared from the table, Frannie gave her thanks and made her way home. With only close friends and family at the table, Kari knew she’d run out of stall tactics, and it was time to tell them all what was coming. She wasn’t really sure where to begin, what with her dreams and the demands of the demon king, but Kari realized the demon king was going to win the battle for precedence. Annabelle was probably going to be Kari’s final test to become Avatar, but King Koursturaux was not likely to wait the months it might take Kari to hunt down the vampire.

  “What’s going on?” Sonja asked, her empathic sensitivity surely alerting her to the storm of emotions Kari was going through.

  “I had a meeting with Amastri today,” Kari answered, and everyone sat up straighter. “It seems King Koursturaux is getting more impatient, and wants me to come visit her in the next few weeks, I guess before the winter session of the Anthraxis Council.”

  “And you are still considering actually going?” Grakin asked, being allowed to voice the concerns of the entire family to his wife. “Even with what was discovered regarding her ties to Seril?”

  Kari huffed. “That may be the one positive in all this: they don’t know we know yet. So that means if they still have any spies within the Order, they’re not passing along much in the way of sensitive information. But yes, I am planning to go once I can contact Eliza Chinchala and arrange for her to take me to Anthraxis.”

  “How long are you going to be gone, and can anyone go with you?” Erik asked, his thickly-muscled arms folded tight to his chest. He rarely made it difficult to discern his feelings, even when he managed to keep his mouth closed. Erik was bull-headed and could still be fairly overbearing at times, but he was getting better about it, and his objectivity still never wavered.

  “Amastri said it would only be about two weeks, maybe a couple of days more. I’m expected to stay at the palace for a week, and she said it would only take a few days to get there by carriage.”

  “That doesn’t sound right,” Danilynn put in. She turned to Sonja. “Remember how long it took us to cross Tess’Vorg and then Sorelizar? If Mas’tolinor is to the west of Sorelizar, I don’t see how you could get there in just a few days, even by fast coach.”

  “Me neither, but Amastri has no reason to lie about this,” Kari returned. “Could just be that whatever pulls coaches on Mehr’Durillia is a lot faster and more, um…resilient than the horses we have here.” She turned to Grakin then. “As far as who can go with me, Amastri said immediate family, but no one else. So if you wanted to come with the children, you could. I’ve been told we’ll be safer under King Koursturaux’ care than we are here.”

  Grakin shook his head. “As much as I would prefer to stay by your side, even in the face of such danger, I think it unwise in my condition. I think it best if I stay here with the children.”

  Kari let forth another sigh. “I want to take Uldriana with me. There’s something I want to do while I’m there, and I need her with me.”

  Danilynn and Sonja both looked at Kari with interest at that, and the red-haired sorceress reached over and took Kari’s hand in her own. Sonja fought back the tears that welled up in her eyes at the thought of her temporary mentor, the mallasti girl for whom Kari’s daughter was named. Danilynn glanced at Eli, who nodded his head in understanding.

  “What exactly does she want with you?” Ty asked.

  “I’m not sure. It probably has something to do with my rude response to her letter, but it’s more than that. I think after we rescued Se’sasha and made Sekassus look like a fool, she’s realized that we’re useful tools, and I think she wants to keep our relationship positive so she can use me – and the rest of you – to…enact her plans.”

  “I’m sure I don’t need to say how dangerous this all sounds,” Kyrie said quietly.

  Ae
ligos played around with his hair, a mischievous look on his face. “You know, I could go, pretending to be Grakin. She’s never met either of us.”

  Kari chuckled. Grakin and Aeligos, born two years apart, looked incredibly similar, nearly as though they were twins. Grakin’s features were gaunter and he wasn’t as muscular, mostly due to his illness, but it was an entertaining thought for the fact that King Koursturaux didn’t know what either of them looked like. Aeligos was a skilled gambler, negotiator, and deceiver: a natural infiltrator. But risking the wrath of a demon king represented higher stakes than anything he had ever undertaken in his life.

  “Forget it, you’d probably end up bedding her, and then we’d have a demon king in the family,” Ty said, sending hands over mouths all around the table.

  “Ty, do you want Eryn to cut your throat?” Erik managed between snickers.

  “He’s not wrong,” the half-brys assassin said evenly, keeping her own mirth in check behind that stony-faced façade.

  Aeligos shook his head, trying not to laugh too much in front of his girlfriend. “I don’t think that’s even a remote possibility, for what I’ve heard and read about her.”

  “There’s something else, too,” Kari said, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. The house was warm, and she wasn’t cold, but the expected reactions of her family gave her a chill nonetheless. “As some of you may have noticed, I haven’t been sleeping well lately.”

  “You’re not pregnant again, are you?” Ty asked when she paused.

  “Good grief, Ty, being crippled hasn’t had any effect on your mouth, has it?” Erik admonished him.

  “Nope.”

  Kari half-smiled. “No, but I wish that was the reason instead of this: I’ve been having nightmares for a few weeks now, the same one over and over. I keep dreaming about when Annabelle Sol’Ridachi was my partner, except at the end of the dream, she’s…well, I guess I should explain about her first. Annabelle served as my partner for close to a year. After being separated by assignments, she went north to hunt a demon, and to make a long story short, she was turned into a vampire by a black dragon named Zaliskower.”

  Kari glanced at Erik, who nodded. She had shared a few of the details with him years before, so he was at least familiar with the tale, if not where it was headed. Kari continued, “I fought her a couple of times, but wasn’t able to kill her. Zalkar never brought it up again in my prior life, so I had assumed someone else had gotten the job done. But if my dreams are a clue of some kind, she’s still out there, undead, and causing problems. In my dream, she bites me, and that’s when I always wake up.”

  “This is my final test to become Avatar of Vengeance; the Council and I are almost sure of it. So when I get back from Mehr’Durillia, I may be headed right back out into danger. I think I’m supposed to take care of Annabelle alone, but I’m not sure. That didn’t work out too well the last couple of times I tried, so maybe the lot of you can go with me and help. If not,” she said, looking directly at Grakin, “you may at least be able to come as far as Flora, and then wait for me there.”

  “No wonder you can’t sleep!” Damansha fumed. “As if having two little ones isn’t taxing enough, you have all this on your mind to go with it? Demon kings, werewolves, and vampires…and gods know what else.”

  “And owning and running a household,” Ty put in.

  “And learning the infernal tongue,” Danilynn added.

  “And hunting Taesenus, and keeping an eye on the syrinthians, and trying to find out more about Jason Bosimar,” Erik continued with a grunt and a shake of his head.

  “And a dying husband,” Grakin said quietly, silencing the others. He pulled Kari to him and held to her tightly, and it was all she could take. Tears ran without pause down her cheeks, though she managed to keep from sobbing or weeping bitterly. All of her accomplishments, all of the goals and victories she had achieved or was in pursuit of, none of them made a lick of difference when it came to her mate. She could keep herself busy to try to take her mind off of it, but every day she came home from work and the delighted laughter of Little Gray and the needful love of Uldriana could only dull that knife edge so much.

  “Anything you need, I can try prodding my guild for help,” Eryn offered meekly. It was rare for a half-brys to show emotion, but even through her tears, Kari could see that her friend was perturbed on her behalf. “It’ll cost money, of course, but if it eases some of your burdens, it’s worth it.”

  “I’d like to think that becoming Avatar of the Order would ease some of them, but I’m smart enough to know it’s just going to mean more problems,” Kari finally managed with a sigh, sitting up straight again. “Anyway, tomorrow I’m going to make a list of things I need done while I’m on Mehr’Durillia. Ty, I don’t really need to go over the house, because you’ve got things pretty well in hand, right?”

  Her blonde brother-in-law nodded. “Yea, not a lot going on here,” he said. “I’ll take care of those bonuses and whatnot, like I said.”

  She turned to Erik. “I have a big responsibility to give you and your father, and I’ll make it official with the Order when I go to work tomorrow. If anything happens to me while I’m on Mehr’Durillia, you’re to kill Amastri and deliver her body to Celigus, so he can give it to King Koursturaux. Understand?”

  Erik looked like he was going to ask if she was serious or otherwise protest, but he bit back whatever it was. “Understood.”

  “Amastri is a good information gatherer, so I’m pretty sure King Koursturaux isn’t going to put her in a position to be killed as…collateral. Just keep an eye on her,” Kari said. “Mom, if you could do me a favor, I’d appreciate a chance to speak with Celigus before I go. Kaelariel usually seems to know where he is, so if you could ask?”

  Kyrie nodded. “Of course. But are you going to listen to him this time if he advises against your going?”

  “Nope,” Kari said, eliciting chuckles from her family, if uncomfortable ones. “He can take his secrets to the grave if he wants, but I’ll go to mine trying to wrest every last one of them from the other kings.”

  “Anything else you need?” Jol asked, the normally shy half-guardian more outspoken since he and Damansha had been married. He still didn’t talk all the time just to fill the void, but he seemed more sure of himself and willing to be the focus of attention when he had something important to say. And that was to say nothing of his sense of humor, which was well-timed, almost always hysterical, and rarely required being bawdy or foul to elicit a response.

  “A tall drink, a warm bed, and about a week of sleep,” Kari answered, and she thought of the cuddled form of her daughter. “I guess I’ll have to settle for one of the three.”

  *****

  The storms blew through overnight, though the sky remained overcast and the coming deeper chill of winter was obvious in the late morning air. Kari and Danilynn departed down the damp streets into the northern district of DarkWind, where the more luxurious homes were. Kyrie’s old house, now converted to an orphanage by Kaelariel’s people, was in one of the cleanest parts of the city, not far from his temple. The city, draped in the shade of the overcast sky, was cast in gray, which seemed to mirror Kari’s mood. She hoped that whatever it was Eli wanted to show her wasn’t anything too important.

  Traffic was light as noontime slowly approached, though it wouldn’t stay that way for long once people began taking care of their lunch and lunchtime errands. Kari sent word for Liria to meet her at the orphanage for the syrinthian woman’s assigned time as Kari’s assistant. The young woman was coming along quickly as a hunter, and her lessons in Tumureldi’s sword-fighting style under Kari were only helping with that. Liria was becoming a terror wielding two blades, and despite how many others felt about that – the Duke not the least of them – the young snake-woman had given Kari no further reason to distrust her these many months.

  Thinking of the Duke only blackened Kari’s mood more. She had yet to actually attend the Duke’s court, but she was
still incensed at his meddling and the fact that he had eyes and ears fixed firmly on the Order and its business. Attending his court was just another in this seemingly endless line of things and people that required Kari’s attention, and consequently pulled it away from her dying mate. Impotence, worsening chronic fatigue, and frequent vomiting were sure signs Grakin was slipping away from her, and yet she was torn: as much as she wanted to simply stay home and be with him, she couldn’t leave all of her responsibilities in the hands of others. It simply wasn’t who she was.

  “What do they teach you about death in Garra Ktarra’s church?” Kari asked.

  Danilynn clearly understood the reason for the question, but still seemed stunned to have it posed to her so bluntly. “It’s simply a transition into another state, one of peace and comfort, apart from the pains and toils of this world,” she quoted. “Kari, you know what’s waiting for Grakin when he dies. He’s spent his entire life healing and comforting others, at the cost of his own health. There’s no greater gift a person can give, and the rewards for it…”

  Kari nodded as the priestess trailed off. “He showed me a spot on the property near the house where he’d like to be buried,” she said with an almost numb calm. “He asked me to bury him there and plant a tree over his grave, so I could…” She paused and swallowed a sob, but it didn’t stop the tears from escaping. “So I could sit in the shadow of his wings and remember him.”

  Danilynn half-hugged her as they walked. “I can’t pretend to know what you’re feeling. Even all of the friends I adventured with were fortunate enough to survive our endeavors. All I can really do is remind you to take comfort in knowing where he’s going, that he’ll be waiting for you, and that you have two beautiful children because of him.”

  The demonhunter sighed and shook her head. “I’d like to spend more time with him, but there’s just so much to take care of. Thank you, by the way, for helping Sonja fill the Order in on most of what we learned on Mehr’Durillia.” The priestess nodded. “At least my duties keep me here in DarkWind, behind a desk, in a place where he and the children can come visit me if they want to. But now this stupid bitch wants me to go to Mehr’Durillia and waste my time playing chess…the timing of this makes me want to punch her!”