Gilded Destiny

by Nola Sarina

  Trained Hunter

  Desiree

  Anticipation prickled through Desiree’s veins like never before. She sat on her floor, cross-legged, flipping pages without reading a word. Though it was her favorite book and she’d read it many times, the characters could not pull her attention. She glanced at her phone, still dark on the hardwood beside her. Though she knew typical twenty-year-old women would wait for a call from a friend to hop out to a bar and drink the night away, the phone call for which she waited held much greater responsibility, and much graver consequences.

  The creatures I pursue are demons, not angels. Desiree closed the book, tucking it into the little backpack she carried everywhere. A backpack had been her only companion since she was freed from training beneath the Shinobi, though every time a tip came in she was forced to abandon the backpack in case she was discovered by the Vespers. Her trainer and handler, Chopper, was prompt in procuring her new clothing, identity and books after each false lead. Abandoning the backpack had become a sorry ritual that mocked her failure and the failure of the Shinobi and their fruitless pursuit of immortality.

  She closed her eyes and rested her palms on her knees, the relaxation of meditation slowing her heartbeat even before she took her first calming breath. The barrenness of her apartment – a mattress on the floor and a kettle on the stove – helped keep her mind clear and open, ready for whatever came next.

  It’s easier to lose everything when you have nothing to lose. Desiree peeked her eyes open and stared at the phone.

  It vibrated, and she snatched it up and crushed it to her ear with a steady hand.

  “Eleven thirty, north tracks. Tip from the train company manager… might be bogus.”

  “Like every other tip?” Following false leads had grown painfully stale.

  “Try it anyway,” he said, disapproval for her attitude laced into his familiar voice. “It was an expensive tip to acquire.”

  Desiree snapped the phone shut and stuffed it into her bag, pausing in a stroke of her fingertips, lingering on the raised title of her book. It would be the last time she touched that particular copy of the story she cherished. She slung the backpack over her shoulder as she rose to her feet and slipped out the door. When she reached the end of her street, she ducked into the last alley and tossed the backpack and all its contents into a garbage bin. Once again. And then I’ll get new stuff, and never form more than the barest of bond with any material thing, as I’ve never formed more than the barest of bond with any person.

  But if the lead brought her to her fate, atop the train she caught tonight would lurk a Vesper: the dark, serpentine demons that carried the immortality the Shinobi relentlessly pursued. Desiree held onto that faint hope as she left the garbage bin and her small bag of possessions behind. Twenty years of life – will it end tonight? End in death, or in immortality?

  It didn’t really matter, as long as it led her to her mother. Chopper refused to tell her what happened to the woman with beautiful, floral tattoos on her arms who sold her to the Shinobi. Not until she found a Vesper in the flesh.

  Desiree sprinted into the treeline that ran parallel to the tracks. Her heart pumped steadily, trained and healthy as her feet pounded the Earth. The wholesome scent of falling foliage rushed through her sinuses as she set her mouth in grim determination, preparing her body for battle, steeling her mind for whatever manner of seduction, violence or coercion became necessary to attain her goals.

  She cleared the outer edge of the trees and crouched low in the brush, waiting for the train. She checked the small pocket watch in her pocket. Shit! My driver’s license. It would be an unforgivable wrong by her elders to be caught on mission with any documented name to her face. Five minutes until the train arrives.

  Four and a half of those passed before she saw the bright front headlight of the train wind around the curve of the tracks. It illuminated the blades of grass by her feet, casting far longer shadows than could possibly be real. Desiree held her breath and watched carefully, refusing to allow fear to creep into her bones, digging the tips of her fingers into the cold Earth beneath her to steady her nerves.

  Her body was in prime physical shape. Her mind was sharp. Her training was two years long gone and she’d succeeded in surviving a decade and a half of grueling education with her most precious values intact. She blew out her breath and drew another one slowly, her heart pounding a solid rhythm of confidence and strength, and she rose to her feet.

  If I find a Vesper tonight, I will not return the poison to Chopper as he has ordered. Desiree lacked the subservient nature of her Shinobi peers. She knew that to free herself entirely from all those who held sway over her destiny, she would need to do better than merely succeed in her mission.

  If she wanted to control her own future, she’d have to forsake the masters who owned her and become the weapon herself: a Vesper, a demon of the night and an immortal with the power to destroy anyone who dared to stand in the way of her freedom.

  Then, Chopper would have to tell her what happened to her mother. Desiree didn’t even know her name.

  The train’s two engines blew by with a whip of her unruly red curls into her face. She darted forward, running parallel along the side of the train, picking up to her fastest sprint as the cars rushed past. She saw a ladder on the side of one car near the rear, and flexed her gloved fingers in preparation for the grab. She reached out, snagged it, and with a grunt and a tug of her faithful biceps, held on as the train swept her off her feet at a blinding speed.

  Desiree had survived the precarious disorientation of practicing her acrobatics and evasive maneuvers atop the speeding trains several times before with grace, but as she climbed up the side and crossed the first car, something sinister and laughing in the air around the train frightened her. It was as though the great metal beast was shrouded in darkness unmatched by the night that enveloped the world, and the shadows lurked above and between the cars like tangible, seductive evil. She crouched low and crept forward, then lowered her body between two train cars and balanced on the hitch: the only foothold in the narrow space.

  Desiree perched there for a moment, listening, smelling, seeking – using all of her senses as she was taught by her elders. She shook her head to clear all distractions from her mind and slipped across the hitch to the next car. She wrapped her arm through a rung of the ladder - grateful her clothing was tight with no loose ends to catch on the speeding steel - and held on tightly, waiting.

  She waited only moments. A loud clang echoed on the roof of the train by the engine. Desiree quickly shuffled further into the comforting shadows, half-hiding behind the ladder, though her flame-bright hair did nothing to help her camouflage her appearance. She breathed slowly, counting to five on each inhale and exhale, watching the open space above her head, wondering if the sound was something imagined after all.

  And then the footsteps began in a steady rhythm, heavy boots from a large body planting firmly into the metal with each step. Desiree hunkered lower, her eyes angled directly up, waiting for confirmation that the moment she sought and trained for her entire life was upon her.

  The footsteps drew closer and then the man stopped, perched near the edge of the train car Desiree had just disembarked. She strained against the night, but he turned away, checking over his shoulder, his long cape of straight black hair swinging down at least beyond his waist.

  Then, he turned back, and Desiree caught a glimpse of the black of his eyes, no whites to be seen, and black streaks of veins along his temples and brow, and she knew the moment had indeed arrived.

  Upon the train was a Vesper, and Desiree’s grin spread sharply across her face with black anticipation. He hopped to the next train car, oblivious to her presence and the danger she posed.

  Hello, Vesper, Desiree thought, I’d like to meet you tonight.