Stalking Fate

by K. R. Fajardo

  That has to be Vincent. She thought, watching him as Duncan, John, and Hatchet closed the distance.

  As they neared, Vincent’s icy gaze fell upon the trio with an irritated sneer. Stopping before him, John bowed slightly at the waist as he began to address the group. “Boss. Sorry to disturb you and your guests but…”

  “You can go.”

  Mouth hanging open, John hesitated, appearing unsure if Vincent was addressing him. “Sir?”

  A barely discernable twitch of his eye signaled Vincent’s dwindling patience. Unfortunately, John, being the halfwit he was, didn’t pick up on his boss’s irritation and began speaking again. “Boss, I brought…”

  Narrowing his gaze, Vincent was about to speak when Duncan cut him off. “I believe he told you to get your ass out of here.” Duncan snapped. Pushing John to the side, he stepped in front of him. John, unsettled by the interruption, finally caught sight of the murderous glare in Vincent’s gaze and quickly retreated back down the stairs without another word.

  “Boss.” Standing tall before him, Duncan greeted Vincent with a slight nod of his head.

  Silence descended between them as Vincent continued to swirl his amber drink around inside his cup. After several minutes of nerve racking silence, Vincent lifted his cup to his mouth and tossed back the drink. Turning to the men sitting apprehensively next to him, he spoke. “Would you gentlemen mind giving me moment?”

  They didn’t have to be told twice. In choreographed unison, that would have been comical had the situation not been so serious, they leapt from their chairs and abandoned the platform, leaving Hatchet and Duncan alone with Vincent.

  “Have a seat.” Gesturing to the abandoned chairs, Vincent poured himself another drink.

  Without taking his eyes off Vincent, Duncan took a seat in a chair directly across from him. Soundlessly, Hatchet moved into position directly behind Duncan’s chair, giving Senka a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  Stars Duncan, I hope you know what you’re doing.

  True to his nature, Duncan held his cool and kept his expression emotionless. Not even when he reached out to take a glass from Vincent, did she notice even the faintest tremble of his hand or any other clue that might reveal how he felt sitting face to face with his former boss for the first time in twenty years. Instead, with a stoic demeanor that matched Vincent’s own, he downed the liquid, and raised his gaze to address him. “I can explain…”

  Raising his hand, Vincent cut him off. “You’re an Alpha now?”

  Duncan blinked several times, seeming surprised by the question. “I am.”

  “Do you have a pack?”

  “Yes, with the Northern Tribe a few days from the Zerdandan border.”

  “Hmmm. Let me make sure I understand this right.” Lifting a decanter from small coffee table next to him, Vincent poured some of the amber liquid into both his and Duncan’s glass. “I sent you to kill an assassin. But you chose instead to kill an Alpha, take his power, and start a pack of your own?” Raising his glass, Vincent saluted Duncan, “Must admit, I’m pleasantly surprised. I mean, I knew you liked the power, would have never taken you for the self-serving type who would kill someone just to become an Alpha.”

  “It wasn’t like that.” Duncan protested, shaking his head. “He was a rogue thief with no pack. I was hired to kill him, it just happened he was an Alpha.” Lifting his own cup to his lips, Duncan quickly downed the liquid, which must have burned, given the slight scowl that furrowed his brow. “As far as the pack goes, I came across the Northern tribe in my travels. Being as close to the Zerdandan border as they are, they had quite a large influx of Shifters over recent years and the current leader was having trouble keeping them in line. So when she found out I was not only an Alpha, but one with the skills necessary to control the rogues and their unruly behavior, she asked me to join them.”

  “Nice bed time story.” Vincent scoffed. “However, none of that changes the fact I sent you to do a job and you failed. Then you disappointed me again by not being man enough to face me and the consequences of your failure… and now I know why.” Pausing he opened an ornate gold box and pulled out a cigar. Biting off the end, he offered one to Duncan, who declined with a wave of his hand.

  “You sent me on a suicide mission, Vincent.” Duncan bit out, accentuating his name. “You sent me to kill a fucking ghost. A legend that many believe is immortal. Anyone who has ever been foolish enough to go after that man has either gone missing or wound up dead.” Narrowing his gaze, Duncan leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “But that was the entire point wasn’t it? To get rid of me?”

  Slamming his fist down on the table, Vincent shattered the glass in his hand into thousands of tiny pieces. “If I wanted you dead, you would be dead.”

  The sudden angry outburst caught Senka off guard, who startled and nearly toppled off the beam she was precariously perched on. After managing to regain her balance, she righted herself, but not before one of her smaller knives slipped free of its sheath. In horror she watched it topple end over end, before embedding itself into the floor next to the boot of a very unsavory looking Shifter. The bald man, with as many rolls on the back of his head as he had wrinkles in his forehead, bent over and jerked the steel blade lose from the boards. Knitting his eyebrows, he cast his gaze into the rafters above.

  Even though she knew he couldn’t see her, Senka held her breath and remained still. It wasn’t until he shrugged and tucked her blade into his pants pocket that she dared to breathe again.

  “Everyone is killable. And ’Marchand de Mort’ is no exception.” Vincent added, once he had calmed himself enough to speak again.

  Eyes stretched at the mention of her father’s assassin name, Senka turned wide eyed back to the interaction between Duncan and Vincent. “And despite what you believe, I didn’t send you after him to get rid of you. I sent you because you were the best.” Tilting his head, Vincent sucked in a large puff from the cigar as a smug grin spread across his face. “Do you know to this day you still hold the record for the most kills? And I doubt that will ever change, especially with Night Stalker numbers being as low as they are. Hell who am I kidding, they’re almost extinct.” He added with a chuckle.

  Senka. Couldn’t. Breathe.

  Feeling as if she were going to pass out, she lowered herself from her crouched position to sit straddling the beam. Her head shaking no, she stared at the only other person, besides her sister, she had ever allowed herself to get close to as he stared stoically back at Vincent. Please deny it, please, please deny it. She pleaded over and over again in her mind as she struggled to control the shaking of her hands.

  Running his tongue over his teeth, Duncan exhaled a large breath. “What can I say, even with all my experience, Marchand de Mort was more than I could take on.”

  Senka felt as if her heart had been ripped from her chest. Certain she was dying, she slapped a hand over her mouth to muffle the agonizing scream that threatened to rip free of her lungs.

  It’s not true, it can’t be true. Her heart argued with her mind, refusing to believe the words to be true. He just means he has a lot of experience hunting. That doesn’t mean is he is a Hunter. She tried to rationalize, desperately not wanting to believe the man she felt such a connection to, was one of the monsters who hunted down and murdered so many of her people.

  Even if you want to convince yourself of that lie, the voice in her head chastised, the man just confessed to trying to kill your father.

  “Shame.” Vincent sighed, pulling her pained expression back to them. Picking up the decanter and grabbing a new glass, he poured a little more of the amber liquid into both his and Duncan’s glass. “Can’t win them all right?”

  “I suppose not.” Unaware she was dying inside just a few feet away from him, Duncan tipped his glass back and downed the rest of the drink in one large gulp.

  “There was always one thing that bugged me though.” Vincent said after finishing off his drink. />
  “Yeah, what’s that?”

  “For decades, I orchestrated the largest bounty hunter ring in the Council’s territory, without anyone ever finding out I was involved. Then one day I send you to kill Marchand de Mort…” Leaning back in his chair, Vincent narrowed his gaze on Duncan. “And loe and behold, everyone in the Council’s territory knows my name. Not only that, a bounty suddenly appears on my head courtesy of the very man I sent you to kill. Now as much as I would love to think this is all a coincidence, I’m sure you can see how suspicious that looks, especially when out of all the men I sent to kill ‘Marchand de Mort,’ you are the only one that still lives.”

  Faster than she could blink, Hatchet produced a garrote from the pocket of his pants and was over the back of Duncan’s chair. In a single fluid motion, he wrapped the thin metal wire around Duncan’s neck, then crossing the line in the back, pulled the device tight. Still reeling from the fact Duncan was a bounty hunter, Senka watched stunned as the same man that had laughed and chatted with Duncan like they were the best of friends only a few minutes prior, leaned back and pulled the thin wire tight.

  Duncan’s arms flew to his throat, fingers desperately clawing at the thin metal wire as his foot kicked out and knocked over the table. Across from them, Vincent continued casually talking as if a man weren’t being murdered before his eyes.

  “See, this is how I see it. I sent you to kill the assassin and you failed. Instead, he caught you and you struck a bargain for your life by offering up my name. Then you found the Alpha, killed him, and waited for the assassin to kill me so you could come back and take over my empire.” Inhaling and exhaling the smoke, Vincent filled the air with the aromatic scent. “Does that all sound about right?”

  Gasping and flailing, Duncan tried to argue, to deny the accusations, but it was no use. Instead, Senka was forced to watch as his face turned bright red and his lips began to turn blue. Torn between saving him and allowing due justice to take its course, she turned away, unable to watch any longer.

  He deserves this. She thought, trying to block out the sounds of his struggling. He killed them and he tried to kill my father. So many lives taken, and for what? Money?

  But as the sounds of Duncan’s struggling began to slow, little by little a glimmer of doubt began to creep into her mind. Am I really going to do this? She thought, turning back as his arms began to go slack. Am I really going to sit here and watch the man who has been nothing but kind and caring toward me die this way? Suddenly her mind was flooded with all the good times they had had together. Of days spent fishing and hunting. Of nights spent beneath the stars chatting about nothing in particular. Of all the times he had saved her ass by forcing her to think before she acted impulsively.

  You’re being a hypocrite, judging him for his sins, when your own hands are far from clean. Her voice of reason scolded.

  And she was right. Because truthfully, what right did she have to judge him when her list of victims was probably every bit as long as his. And she didn’t even want to touch on how many of those poor souls were Shifters.

  That thought was all it took to snap her into action. Jerking her knife from its sheath, she flashed behind Hatchet and buried her knife into his throat. He hit the ground like a ton of bricks and a pool of blood formed at her feet from the wound.

  Freed of the garrote, Duncan’s hands flew to his throat as he fell to his knees and sucked in a huge breath of air. Confident he would recover, Senka turned her attention to the pack of very angry Shifters, some in man form, some in animal form, heading up the stairs in their direction. Cursing, she pulled her bow off her back and took aim at the one closest to her, while out of the corner of her eye she watched as Vincent fled toward the opposite end of the platform.

  Coward.

  Maintaining her veil, she prepared to loose the first of her arrows when a bright light filled the entire bar blinding everyone inside. When she finally recovered her vision, Senka’s heart rate doubled as she realized her veil was gone. Stunned she turned her attention to where Vincent stood next to a series of switches with a cocky smirk on his face.

  “Shadow-less lights.” He commented, answering her unspoken question.

  She had barely begun processing that little piece of information when Duncan’s voice pulled her back to him. “Senka!” he shouted. “Stand down!” Positive she must have misunderstood him Senka turned her bow back to the men making their way toward her.

  “I said stand down!” Duncan yelled. Storming her direction he pushed the aim of her bow to the ground.

  “What the hell!?”

  Snatching her bow from his grasp, she glared up at him trying desperately to figure out what the hell he was doing. “Don’t waste your arrows, they are all wearing special garments that protect their torsos” he paused, gesturing to the thick vests all the non-animal guards were wearing. “You would have to hit them all in the head to bring them down and even still the others will keep closing in.” Placing himself between her and the incoming pack, he slid his coat off his shoulders, revealing a holster containing a pair of twelve inch blades.

  “Call them off Vincent.” Eyes locked on the incoming men, he pulled the blades free of their sheaths. “Damn it Vincent, I’m not after your empire, I came here to make a business deal with you.”

  “Lies.” He snarled, gesturing at her. “I sent you to kill a Night Stalker, and now you have returned with one to do your dirty work for you.”

  “Senka is not here to assassinate you. She’s here as my body guard.” If the situation hadn’t been so intense, Senka might’ve found amusement in his reuse of that alias. “I brought her for my protection… which obviously I needed. Now call off your men or I can personally guarantee not another one of your shipments will make it out of Zerdanda ever again.”

  “You’re bluffing.”

  “Have you ever known me to bluff?” Duncan growled.

  Dropping into a low stance, he prepared to take on the men who now had them encircled. Discarding her bow to the floor, Senka freed her own knives from their sheaths.

  “My second in command is a rouge, with more marks decorating his skin than Hatchet over there. He knows the location of all your secret trails and routes, as well as the schedule of your regular deliveries. If I don’t return to him in next few days, he has been given orders to ransack and burn every shipment that dares pass down those trails.” Pausing, Duncan glanced over his shoulder at Vincent. “Now does that sound like a bluff to you?”

  Vincent narrowed his gaze on Duncan as he ran his hand over his clean-shaven chin. Silence descended over the room as he took a moment to consider his options. Time seemed to drag on forever, though only seconds had passed. Next thing Senka knew, Vincent turned his back on them and with a flick of his wrist issued the command that would seal their fate. “Kill them.”

  At the issue of Vincent’s command, all hell broke loose as men and beasts rushed them. Cursing under his breath, Duncan blocked several attacks as he drove his knife into the chest of one man and the gut of another. Suddenly a large grey wolf made a leap for his neck, but before the beast could latch ahold of him, he landed a punch that set the animal flying over the rail into the bar below.

  Screams rose from the crowd and more chaos ensued. Praying he hadn’t harmed an innocent bystander, Duncan drove his blade deep into the thigh of the giant man charging his direction. Yelling out in pain, the man dropped to the ground crying like a baby. Duncan rolled his eyes, and took advantage of the moment of reprieve to check in on Senka and watched proudly as she sliced the throat of one wolf while simultaneously gouging another man in the eye.

  Together they continued to stab and slice both men and animals. However just when it looked as if they had overcome the worst of what Vincent had to offer, the sound of a large number of heavy steps slamming against metal pulled Duncan’s attention back to the staircase.

  “Shit.” Cursing, Duncan dodged a punch as more men exited the stairwell onto the platform. “Senka we�
��re outnumbered. Get your ass back onto the beams and get out of here! I’ll hold them off!”

  “Like hell!”

  “Senka, damn it, this isn’t the time to argue!” He snapped, while continuing to block and punch incoming attacks. “I am going to shift and you are going to get your ass out of here and that is final!”

  “I’ve got a better idea!” she yelled, as she ducked to avoid the fangs of the wolf lunging toward her neck. Momentarily clear of danger, she jerked one of her light weight throwing knives from her pants. “Hey Vincent!” she yelled as she sent the blade careening his direction.

  Vincent glanced back at the sound of his name being called and jumped out of the way just in time to avoid having a knife skewer him in the eye. Momentarily stunned by how close he had come to meeting his end, Vincent gaped at the silver handle of the blade, protruding from between the eyes of the wolf insignia painted on the wall. After taking a second to settle his nerves, he then turned and grinned smugly at Senka. “Sorry dear, you missed.”

  “I never miss.”

  With a cocky smirk, Senka tapped the spot just beneath her eye.

  Arching his brow, Vincent raised his hand to touch his cheek and became wide eyed when his hand came in contact with the warm stickiness of his own blood. In a panic he rushed across the room to a nearby mirror and stared at the red line that ran from his nose, almost all the way to his ear.

  “That knife hit exactly where I intended it. Now if you take that in consideration along with the fact that I sat next to you on that beam for nearly ten minutes and you never knew I was there…” Senka paused, watching as Vincent narrowed his eyes. “Not to mention the conversation I just overheard between the two of you, then you should count yourself lucky that I need you alive at the moment.” Senka began glaring at the men very cautiously closing in on her again. “Now I suggest you call off your men or I can personally guarantee the next blade I throw will not be hitting the wall.”