Hunters (Out of the Box Book 15)

by Robert J. Crane

  No, Harmon said, and the alarm in the president’s voice sent a chill through me in the warm cafe, their minds…I can’t read them, either.

  16.

  The bell above the cafe’s door jingled a little as one of the toughs jostled it. It clanged through the confined space, a sound that focused my attention on the matter at hand—my imminent attack from these brutes.

  You’re having a rough day in regards to reading minds, I said to Gerry Harmon, in my head. First Rose and now them? Are the two related?

  No, he said. I could tell if it was an empath involved in this; they’re like a black hole. This is…different. Their minds are fragmented and—just bizarre, like trying to read a book through a crystalline glass. I’m not getting anything that makes sense.

  “Uh huh,” I said aloud, mostly because it caused the toughs to look around, disoriented by my inner monologue brought to life. They were trading glances, looking for the action that would send them into motion. It’d be like pulling a trigger, and when it was tugged, these jackasses would all spring into motion at once, like balloons during a balloon drop.

  Except they’d all be heading for me.

  I had a plan to deal with that, though. I was still seated, because I figured standing up would be the thing that pulled that trigger, and I was waiting because it lost me nothing to try and get a full read on the situation and let things unfold in due time. It gave me more time to plan, which revealed insights like:

  In this situation, a confined cafe on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, using Gavrikov’s flame blasts would likely result in the entire place going up, probably faster than I—or the Edinburgh fire department—could put it out. Which would be bad for the cafe owner, bad for the street, and probably bad for me since I was trying not to cause a stir.

  For similar reasons, going dragon was right out. Not that I was ever eager to pull that particular dragon rabbit out of my hat, and not just because it ruined whatever clothing I might be wearing at the time. Though with my reduced wardrobe, that was a concern, no lie.

  Telepathy, my newest ace card, had also been pulled from the deck, which was annoying. Have you ever run across anything like this before? I asked Harmon.

  No, he said flatly. This is new.

  And you’re sure it’s nothing to do with an empath’s ability to block your powers?

  No, he said again. There was certainty, which was nice, because the thought that Rose had betrayed me after I’d known her for all of five seconds…well, that would have hurt. Mostly her, when I beat her sensitive little hero-worshipping ass, but it would have hurt. Also my knuckles, probably. Because punching like a champ does not come without some cost.

  In terms of available options, this left Bjorn’s mind games—assuming they’d work where telepathy didn’t—the Wolfe strength, which was handy for ass beatings, and Eve’s light nets, which were the best non-lethal weapon in my arsenal.

  “Okay,” I said as these boys started to edge closer and closer to my corner table, taking a wide set of approach vectors so that they came at my corner table from all the available angles, “what can I do for you fellas? You want a little blood sausage?” They didn’t say anything. “Or just blood?”

  They angled closer, and the communication between them had ceased, just stopped like they no longer had the ability to turn their heads. I took them all in with a careful glance. If they were humans, this would be relatively easy. If they were metahumans, on the other hand…

  Well, this would get messy. Really, really messy.

  The one with the long coat was closing on me, right in the middle of the pack. The one closest on the far right intersected a table and chairs along his path and reached out, flipping it out of the way with a hard push that sent it out the front window.

  It was easy for him. Like tossing an apple over his shoulder.

  Shit.

  Metas. Or at least one.

  I decided that another step closer was too much to allow from these guys now that I knew they had powers, so at last I whipped my hand up to start the fight, and shit kinda flew off the chain in earnest, a few things happening all at once.

  Aiming low with my right hand, I launched a light net that caught the meta who’d just tossed the table right across the knees. It wrapped him up like one of those bolas in the old cartoons, and his arms pinwheeled comically while his eyes grew to the size of hubcaps. I didn’t wait for the fall, because I was already launching another one, this one out of my left hand and at the guy who’d sauntered between me and the outcrop of wall that sheltered the kitchen from public view. It caught him right in the middle of the chest and plastered him, hands crossed over his heart, against said wall, a dark spot on the drab yellow paint.

  Swiveling my attention between the extreme right and extreme left of the attack was kinda risky, yet, I deemed, kind of important. Now I was left with three foes, and all of them were squarely in the center of my vision. No flanking risk, which was just as dangerous to me as it was to anyone, because although unlikely, I could still be killed by a really well-placed punch to the back or side of the head.

  Or worse, I realized, as the guy in the middle, the one with the long coat, swept a shotgun out of the depths of his long coat at metahuman speed. He raised the barrel so that I could look right down it for the briefest of seconds before I saw the flash as it fired, and at this range…I knew it wouldn’t miss.

  17.

  Wolfe

  Republic of Athens, Greece

  453 B.C.

  The air was hot and thick and heavy, warm like blood sliding down Wolfe’s skin. He was crouched, shoulders hunched, the smell of prey in his nostrils. This was as it should have been—no cave, no grinding flesh against rocks. This was the way of the Wolfe—to hunt, to feed, to kill.

  They were lingering in a copse of trees, green cover and underbrush keeping them well hidden as they watched the movement at a spring ahead. The water tinkled lightly, a quiet noise pervading Wolfe’s consciousness. A breeze rolled through, rattling branches and swishing the leaves.

  The daughter of death waited silent just ahead of him. She didn’t hunt on all fours, but she was near-silent in movement, a quiet that even Wolfe could appreciate. She’d shed the rags that she’d worn in the caves, dirty, naked flesh unashamedly on display without care for how it looked or how Wolfe leered at her. He couldn’t help it. She wasn’t a prey animal as the others were, a thing to be destroyed, used, eaten, cast away. There was something about her…

  She caught his gaze flitting over her, cold iron look that directed his own away, back to the thoughts of the matters at hand. The smell of prey filled his nose again as he concentrated, leaving the scent of her sweat, her body, out of his mind.

  He wrinkled his nose. This was not the prey he would have preferred, but…at least it would be fresh blood, fresh meat.

  The daughter of death reached up, taking hold of the tree branch above. Silently, she climbed, bough after bough, dirt-streaked skin rising above him as she strained to lift herself up without making noise from rubbing her feet against the branches. Wolfe watched carefully, waiting for her to look at him so he could swiftly turn away.

  She did not look, though. She was far, far too intent on her prey, ahead, at the banks of the spring.

  It was a stag, antlers high and wide, an impressive trophy for men, presumably. Wolfe had no interest in trophies. If he had, his chamber in the cave of Hades would have been filled to the brimming with human skulls. Servants would not have been able to walk in without bones crunching underfoot—already a peril.

  The daughter of death balanced expertly upon a branch above, testing it with her weight. She stood extending her hands out, perfectly balanced as she walked along its length to a point where it began to bow, the first signs of strain presenting themselves. She stopped there, bare feet perched expertly as if tethered to the tree branch, knees slightly bent, the light, curly, dirt-streaked hairs that covered her legs up to her bottom standing on end as she waited, ten
sed, on the bough.

  It came in an instant. She dove and landed on the back of the hart before it could scarcely stiffen its body. Wolfe cringed slightly at the impact. It had surely not been without discomfort, that landing.

  Anchoring her hands to the sides of the stag’s neck, the daughter of death held on as it reared back on two legs, fearful noise stampeding forth out of its nose and open mouth.

  Wolfe bounded ahead, the sign given, and slashed one of the does that had been lapping up water at the edge of the spring. It took two steps and folded, guts squirming from the wound like worms as it collapsed from his strike. It tried to stand again but faltered, landing on its face as he sprang forward, ready to aid his charge.

  But she seemed not to need it. The stag was already faltering on its back legs, and as it fell he saw its head hung at a strange angle. She hadn’t even waited for her power to work, assuming it even did on such lesser creatures. She’d seized it by the antlers and broken its neck.

  “Halt!” a high voice screamed at the edge of a thicket across the spring. A rustling came, and a moment later a woman emerged with a fine spear, hunting leathers covering her taut body. Wolfe went to all fours by instinct. Seeing her spear, and a bow slung across her back, he could sense the conflict brewing and did not wish to chance it unwinding into a fight without him being ready for it.

  The daughter of death tensed as well, her kill clutched in her hands. Wolfe could read the lines of her body in that movement, catlike and ready. If the woman with the spear chose to throw it, the daughter of death was prepared to raise the stag as a shield in front of her. It was a canny move, and Wolfe prepared himself to advance if needed, to kill the woman with the spear before she could unsling her bow.

  “Who are you?” the woman asked. “Who are you to hunt these grounds?” Her manner was brusque, tense, and she held herself stiff and steady, the spear high and ready to loose. Wolfe recalled her voice from days past, and a slow dawning of recognition trickled over him, though he did not stand.

  The woman’s gaze flitted from the daughter of death, tensed over her kill, to Wolfe himself. At the sight of him she did not relax, nor barely even acknowledge him. “A dog of death, is it? One of the three brothers? The cerberus?”

  “You know who I am, then,” Wolfe growled. “And I know you as well, huntress Artemis.”

  “You have no license to be here, dog,” Artemis said, a low fury matching Wolfe’s growl. She was no light goddess, ready to shrink from violence. She was the Goddess of the Hunt, and she knew the threat she’d seen displayed here. Her spear throw would certainly pierce through the stag; she would see to it. Wolfe was leery, now. If it had been just him and the goddess, perhaps she’d be dinner, but given this…situation…

  “She has reason to be here,” Wolfe said. The daughter of death was still frozen in place, ready to move, ready to defend, probably prepared to counter attack once the spear had been loosed. He had his doubts that it would miss, given Artemis’s power of reflex. She did not miss, as far as he knew, and she would not waste her spear on him now that she knew who he was. “This is a daughter of Hades.”

  “Then she, too, should be in your realm of caves,” Artemis said, the fury in her voice giving way to a hard iron. Her resolve was unwavering, and this would not go…well, Wolfe reflected, a slow ebb of worry, nearly unfamiliar to him, bubbling up like the waters of the spring.

  “You have no right to deny a goddess her kill,” Wolfe said, trying so very hard to find words that would not further inflame the situation. “She is not a mere human trespassing on your lands. She is a child of Hades, one of your own, whether you like to admit it or not, whether you shun her and all her kin—”

  “I am aware of what she is,” Artemis said, the tension ready to spring loose like a taut rope. “Of who her father is. There is a reason you were sent to those caves—”

  Wolfe’s mind raced. “Not all were sent.” If he could not stop this nascent conflict, the daughter of death would surely take a spear, perhaps a fatal one. Hades would be…displeased, and further, he would have to kill Artemis upon the spot, which would doubtless cause…conflicts with the other gods. “Her mother is Persephone. Persephone was not exiled.”

  Artemis turned her head and her full attention to Wolfe for the first time since this had begun. She measured him, saw him, and he could sense the fear behind her eyes that he had missed before, when she had failed to look at him. Within them he could see her own worry. That a daughter of death had gone beyond the bounds she thought proper was perhaps worrisome, but Artemis must have known that her throwing of spears or slinging of stones or hailing of arrows could not stop him. It was all there, right on her face beneath the high cheekbones, along with something else, some other worry—an advantage she held in reserve, but was now unwilling to play, perhaps…

  Wolfe sniffed. There was other prey here, and he could sense it. He did not dare to smile, did not dare to make this a threat other than veiled. “Surely you must realize, Goddess of the Hunt,” Wolfe said, patronizing her with her title, “the lengths to which Hades would go to avenge a daughter.”

  Artemis stiffened, eyes catching ablaze like dead brush on a hot, windy night. “You would dare threaten—”

  The brush rustled to Wolfe’s right, and there was a girl, no more than seventeen, only a shade younger than the daughter of death. Her face was hard as carved marble and her bow was drawn back, ready to loose in Wolfe’s very ear. That would undoubtedly hurt, possibly even kill him. It was very canny, and as he looked sidelong at the new threat, he tried very hard not to pay it much attention. This was not a fight that they would win by fighting. “He would die,” the girl said, her own muscles as tight as Artemis’s, her voice confident and strong, the unchallenged, undoubting words of a teenager who had yet to collide with hard reality.

  Wolfe looked at the girl out of the corner of his eye. That was what she was: a girl, no more, really. He would have to throw himself sideways, into the arrow, and hope to absorb it somewhere he could take it. He’d not practiced taking arrows, and it might pierce him. If it did so through the head, he had to hope that it would be a non-fatal wound, something he could quickly heal from. He was under no illusions, though—this girl would probably kill him, which meant he would need his vengeful, parting strike to kill her, his dead hand in motion to cut her head cleanly from her body through sheer momentum even if his heart were stilled.

  “Your child will die,” the daughter of death said, voice a low rattle. She did not look at Artemis’s daughter; she stared down Artemis herself. “She will be struck down by the hound’s teeth, his claws, even should she claim his life.” The way she spoke sent little chills creeping down Wolfe’s naked flesh. “Do you value your daughter’s life, Artemis, huntress?”

  Artemis did not flinch, but there was a strange, obvious pullback, as though she recoiled within. “Of course I do,” she snapped.

  “Hades values his daughter as well,” Wolfe said. “His vengeance…would be a terrible thing. Mine…will be more immediate.”

  Artemis slowly lowered her spear. “The daughter of Persephone cannot be denied the embrace of sky and earth, nor of its bounties,” she said at last. “Your mother is not exiled; merely unfortunate in her spouse. And you, in your father.” The huntress bristled. “‘Twas not a choice for any of you, and thus we should not inflict unjust punishment as though you committed some crime. Come, daughter.” She looked sternly upon her own, spear still held in a tight fist at her side, ready to be thrust up at the first hint of betrayal. “I bade you come, Diana.”

  There was no slack in the twine of Diana’s bow. She held it steady, ready to let it loose in Wolfe’s ear. “I have heard tell of this beast, mother,” Diana said. “It and its brothers are a blight to our eyes and our lands.”

  “That may be so,” Artemis said between gritted teeth, “but Zeus is a pestilence and we do not deal with him thusly.”

  Diana’s eyes narrowed and she kept her focus perfectly hon
ed on Wolfe. “Perhaps someone should.”

  “If you do,” Wolfe said, lightly, “I imagine my master would gladly lend a hand in such endeavors.”

  The girl recoiled, slack appearing in the drawstring at last as she brought down the bow. “I would not enlist so perverse and foul an ally in any endeavor I undertook. I would sooner seek actual death than treat with Hades or his spawn.” She spat for emphasis.

  “You are seeking that now,” the daughter of death spoke low and true.

  “Come now,” Artemis said, eyeing the dirty daughter of death. Wolfe watched her for malice, but even Diana began to retreat, soundless footsteps as she made her through the underbrush toward her mother without stirring so much as a leaf. Her control of her body was perfect, and she moved effortlessly, the bow still clenched in hand, arrow nocked, ready to raise should the need arise. “We need not jibe at one another.”

  “Your offer is fair,” Wolfe said, eyeing the daughter of death, trying to convey that message to her. Did she not realize how close they had both been to ending? Only the sanity of Artemis had prevailed over the hotter heads of these young goddesses.

  “And what is your name, beast?” Artemis asked, with little heat. “Which of the three brothers are you?”

  “Wolfe,” he said.

  “You are the Wolfe?” Artemis rippled with surprise. “I was given to believe you were the one without reason, and yet here you reason your way through this strife with a tongue of silver the like of which would impress mine own son, no stranger to such negotiations himself.”

  “The son of Apollo must surely be golden-tongued indeed,” Wolfe said. He had not met the boy in question, though he’d heard of him. Wolfe was seething inside from the veiled insults, but would not dignify her backhanded compliment by betraying his mission now and getting the daughter of death killed.