House of Slide: Hunter

by Juliann Whicker

  “Are you all right?” Smoke asked, concerned, but I pulled away from him.

  “I’m fine.” I leaned myself just enough that it was almost true. I straightened and saw Osmond, the Hunters, many of them warm-blooded humans who looked like football players instead of the Hotbloods with their ink tattoos and leather. The demons had seemed to come in the darkness, like they cut through space and time or unraveled space and time, maybe punched a hole in it.

  “The demon men can time travel?” Smoke asked and I realized I’d been mumbling out loud.

  I shook my head and tried to be less crazy without leaning myself any more. “I don’t know. I’m not sure what’s possible with demons. My mother would know. She’s Slide now. She married my Trainer. My dad died and my mom remarried. Just like that.”

  He frowned at me. “I didn’t know.”

  I shrugged and started walking, not looking up to see anyone’s faces as I passed through the group of Hunters.

  “Sand,” Chloe said, her voice startling me into looking up at her.

  She had her head cocked, dark eyes questioning me while her dark hair stuck close around her head. She must have cut it all off. She hadn’t spoken to me since I’d been at the camp.

  “Sand,” another guy said to my left who I didn’t know.

  “Sand.” Voices rose around me, my Hunter name chanted by people I’d worked hard to not know. “Sand, Sand, Sand.”

  I shook my head and tried to take up less space as I moved through the crowd. I felt ridiculous in my feathers, even if my mother had made them functional. A glowing-eyed Hotblood caught my gaze, his admiration clear enough to see as he took in my scarred face. Something about him seemed familiar, but I couldn’t remember through the pain of remembering other glowing eyes, warm hazel instead of this Hunter’s blue-green. When I danced with the darkness, Lewis was beside me, just beyond my peripheral vision. No. He wasn’t.

  I shoved open the plastic curtain and turned the handle until the spray of acid hit my face. I closed my eyes, letting it eat away any taint and blood, turning until all of me was soaked. It wouldn’t dissolve leather, feathers or hair, but it took off a layer of skin.

  Chapter 14

  After that, in my tent where I sat on the floor, staring at the dirt, counting scars, I heard, “Can I come in?” a man’s voice through my tent door.

  I frowned, broken out of the concentration that kept the gnawing misery at bay. I’d felt Lewis beside me and now he was dead, worse than dead. A man ducked inside without waiting for permission, the blue-green eyed guy I’d noticed in the crowd.

  “Get out,” I said without giving him more than a glance.

  “I brought something,” he said, holding up a bottle with questionable contents while his eyes flared.

  I sighed and frowned at him, leaning him slightly with the weight of my dangerousness. He didn’t flinch, only grinned back at me.

  “You don’t remember me,” he said, his blatant amusement coming across as belittling.

  “Apparently you’re not worth remembering,” I said, smoothing my feathers.

  “I’ll just leave this here. Autumn. I thought you could use something after that impressive display back there.”

  He didn’t give me a chance to kick him out, ducking out of my tent as easily as he’d come in.

  I picked up the bottle, hefting it in my still trembling hands. Fighting had taken a lot out of me. I opened the bottle and took a swig. The taste of death, of dying and decay couldn’t have been appealing, but it was. It did. It flowed through my veins making my heart beat stronger, my stomach burn with hunger I hadn’t felt for too long. With my eyes closed, Lewis started whispering to me, words I couldn’t quite hear.

  I leaned myself slightly even as I cursed the obnoxious Hotblood. I had to leave my tent, had to be with people, real people, and fill the furnace in my stomach that burned. I walked quickly to the mess tent. Jones, my old Hunter trainer grinned at me as he slopped a huge helping of rich stew onto my plate.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled, feeling uncomfortable under his delighted gaze.

  “You did good,” he said, grinning at me, his double chin telling the story about how much fighting he’d done lately. His fury burned off his fat reserves, so he worked very hard to keep them high.

  “No eating in personal tents,” he said, putting a warm hand on my shoulder. “Sit with the Hunters,” he urged, nodding at the people I’d tried not to make eye contact with. “They think you’re a snob.”

  “Aren’t I?” I asked the old Hotblood Hunter.

  He shook his head, his smile fading. “Whatever gave you that face wouldn’t have been easy to get through. I’ve seen enough Hunters who lost so much that they couldn’t lose anymore. But if you don’t have anything to lose, you’re only half human.”

  “With the amount of Nether blood I have, I think I’m a lot less than that.”

  I shook my head and bracing myself, slid onto a bench beside someone.

  The person to my left fiddled nervously with his food until he took off, replaced almost instantly by the Hotblood from earlier.

  “Here,” he said, sliding me a plate full of barely cooked meat when I’d finished my stew.

  I stared at him, at the glowing eyes, the proprietary way he was acting. Should I remember him? My mind was so full of the memories that hadn’t happened. I liked it that way.

  “I do recognize you but I don’t remember how we met.”

  “You stopped me from killing someone, interrupted my fury. You’re a bold little thing.”

  I raised my eyebrow as I looked him up and down. “Little?”

  He showed his teeth as he smiled, leaning dangerously close, dangerous for him. “They call me Sieve.”

  “That’s an ominous name. Sounds like a Bloodworker.”

  He shrugged. “I guess since you were friends with Axel, you won’t let that bother you.”

  He was a Bloodworker. Disgusting. I turned away, focusing on my bloody steak. “What do you want, Bloodworker Sieve?” I said, between bites. I tried not to eat as ravenously as I felt. The Autumn had made me far hungrier than I should have been. Maybe he’d put a little something extra in it. I shouldn’t have drunk it without thinking. He could have poisoned me.

  “I want to help you,” he said simply. He sounded sincere.

  I glanced at him skeptically, but he wasn’t looking at me. Instead, he stared at the palm of his hand where a scar cut through his life-line.

  “Why and with what?”

  “You know House of Grasse.”

  I clenched my jaw and felt my runes ache. Raoul, House of Grasse had sold me to the demon mistress. I would return the knife of my Intended at the next possible opportunity. Where was the dagger? Had I left it in Sanders or at Slide? He had abilities with metal like the metal imbedded in my skull and back down to bone. He could manipulate that metal and render me mostly helpless.

  “His sister is worse,” he said, placing his palm flat on the table, like he could press out the memory of that scar.

  “You didn’t just drain her?”

  He frowned at me. “I tried, but she’s tainted.”

  I wrapped my arms around my waist and felt suddenly nauseous from the bloody taste in my mouth.

  “Tainted. A demon-wild woman? How awesome.”

  “Not a demon Wild, a demon mistress.”

  “A demon mistress,” I said as my heart began pounding furiously in my chest and I felt my stomach twist as it tried to heave up all that I’d eaten. “As in more than one?”

  “That’s right,” he said, leaning back with his arms crossed over his chest. He had scars on his wrists where his long sleeved shirt pulled up. Deep scars, more scars than Lewis had had.

  “Are you tainted?” I asked, searching his eyes.

  He shook his head and looked up at me. “The smell after I cut her…” He shook his head and I felt his fear. “She’s strong blood. To be tainted with that much Nether should not be possible.” His eyes search
ed mine while I looked back blankly. My mother’s heritage was a gift to everyone. The burden of that responsibility filled my chest with a heaviness I couldn’t shift.

  “Where did you run into her?”

  “In Slide’s city,” he said, leaning his elbows on the table. “Before Axel disappeared, he was working with Hunters in the area. We fought so many demon men. However many we fought, more kept coming. Not real ones, not like Samaliel, or Galresh, but the sheer numbers shouldn’t be possible. Who is corrupting all of these people? If we could stop the recruits, maybe we could win the war.”

  “This world thrives on corruption,” I said staring at the table, smoothing it with my hands. “If there are more demon mistresses, they would be able to have rallies, like Osmond had, I imagine, only appeal to people’s vanity, insecurities, desire for power…it’s not a new program. You fought with Axel?”

  I looked up at him. I couldn’t help it.

  He nodded and smiled slightly. “I loaned him my phone once so that he could call you. You melted it and three satellites. Who does that?” he asked, grinning hugely.

  I shook my head ran my hand over my face. “I melted it? I thought he hung up on me.”

  “Hung up on you is what he was. It’s gotta be tough to love a soul-mate, particularly one who didn’t drain you when he had the chance.”

  I laughed. “Right. The most romantic thing about it is that he didn’t kill me.” I frowned down at the plate, the delicate leaf designs around the edges. “I can’t even think how we could succeed against more than one demon mistress.”

  He pulled out steel needles and some beautiful red yarn and began casting on. The powerful Hotblood’s muscles bunched as he incongruously knit.

  “It freaks you out, too,” I accused. Hotbloods always knit to stay calm.

  “I wouldn’t be here with this Hybrid band if I weren’t completely terrified.”

  He didn’t look terrified, but I felt his fear. It echoed mine in a way that made me wish that I had more than feathers to count.

  “Here,” he said, breaking his purling to hand me some needles with delicate blue yarn attached.

  I took them and began knitting where it had been left off, feeling the stress ease out of me with every row.

  “You two look cozy,” Osmond said.

  I looked up and saw him, short sandy hair, blue eyes, arms crossed over his chest, lightly tanned like a model for a sporting goods catalog. I opened my mouth to tell him about the demon mistresses then closed it. In the middle of the mess hall, people watching us, we didn’t need panic and terror like the panic and terror that threatened to send me screaming out into the streets. Not that there were streets.

  “We’re sharing war stories,” Sieve said with a smile that didn’t touch his eyes and came across barely beneath mocking. He did not belong among Osmond’s hunters, not as a big bad Bloodworker who saw nothing valuable in Osmond’s blood.

  I stood. “I’m going to keep this,” I said, holding onto the happy blue yarn. “If that’s okay. Osmond, why don’t you take a walk with me?”

  I left the tent, not waiting to see if he followed or not. I ignored the Hunters who looked at me, who wanted to find out how I’d fought, inspiring them all to dance like that. I couldn’t talk about Hunting. I didn’t really remember it. It had been a blur of blood and death with my birds fluttering around me, all instinct and no mind.

  “Sand,” Osmond said after we’d left the tent.

  “Oz,” I responded, still walking.

  “You should know that Sieve is a Bloodworker.”

  “I do.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  I shrugged, holding tight to my yarn. “It’s not my business.”

  “Are you all right? You completely lost it back there, in the woods last night.”

  I gritted my teeth and leaned against a tree, watching my needles flash in the morning light as I stayed calm. “I’m Devlin’s little sister who you have to keep safe? Thing is, I’m not little. I mean, I’m smaller than you, but I am capable of taking care of more than myself. Now say that you’re sorry for doubting me.”

  I looked up to glare at him, to meet his eyes, but instead of anger, of disapproval, I felt a wash of his fear for me surrounding a softness and vulnerability that had me gasping and turning away from him. This reality. This one didn’t have that. I couldn’t lean him. Whatever I’d felt must have come from somewhere else. He did not feel any way towards me that was not brotherly. He couldn’t. Otherwise, Lewis would kill him.

  I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, captain. Let me know what you want me to do. I think that we need to increase defense of the camp, but I’m sure you’ve already got that taken care of. The demons are playing a game with us. We need to win.”

  He gazed back at me, his blue eyes steady and calm, whatever I’d thought I’d felt hidden beneath layers of in control. “We will.”

  Chapter 15

  I walked around the camp with my knitting, studying the defenses, making eye contact with people until Smoke fell in beside me.

  “A drum circle,” he said, answering a question that no one had asked.

  “What?” I asked, staring at him. He had gadgets in his hands, some kind of electrical thing with wires coming out of the sides, like exploded guts.

  “You’re Hunting demo was awesome, but we can do more. Organize it. Drum circles will pound in rhythm to help keep the rune wards up. Everyone who fought with you was awesome, but we should all be like that, united, working together perfectly. That’s how we’ll up the game, stay safe, keep all us un-runed lacking in superpower people from turning into burnt toast.”

  “Have you talked to Snowy?” I asked. That was her fear, that the untrained Smoke would get killed out here. Maybe I should have worried more about that.

  “Hey, Sand,” Chloe said, falling in beside me, giving Smoke a slightly flirtatious smile that made him stutter and disappear.

  “Later,” he said with an awkward wave.

  “You did that on purpose,” I said after I was alone with Chloe. I felt a flicker of amusement as I looked at her smooth face and beautiful smile. I really wanted to know what else Smoke was going to say.

  “I foresee that his wife will kill him if he talks to any female who isn’t you. Even then,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Your friends are the strangest pack of warm-bloods I’ve ever met. The leader is absolutely strict. He’s the toughest leader I’ve ever followed, not that Jones is much to go by. Probably one of the softest hearts I’ve seen. Who else would take the risk to train a bunch of Hybrids nobody wants?”

  “Jones is great,” I said awkwardly.

  “So, you’re talking to people. That’s exciting,” she said, beaming at me.

  “Isn’t it? What do you think we can do to strengthen our band?”

  “I like Smoke’s idea of drum circles,” she said nodding cheerfully, but something seemed fake about it.

  “Are you okay, Chloe?”

  She blinked at me, and her smile evaporated as she shook her head. “Some of the Hybrids blame you for what happened. Erin mostly. You know her. She thinks your Wild blood makes you the devil.”

  “What happened?”

  Her smile seemed brittle. “After the Wilds attacked the Hybrid camp, the band got dispersed. Some of us ran into a group of demon men. Most of us didn’t make it.” In her eyes I saw a flicker of fear that I knew.

  I jerked on the yarn, dropping three stitches. I focused on the blue yarn, the flashing silver needles until I could get my heart rate steady instead of thumping itself out of my chest. “You saw the demon mistress?”

  She shivered. “I don’t know what she was. All I know is that she took Markus and disappeared.”

  “What did she look like? Was she dark haired, French?”

  She shook her head, no. “Blonde. American. Southern maybe?”

  I swallowed hard as I dropped another stitch. “Do you know what she wanted?”

  “She played with us. I fel
t her intent. She wanted us alive, not dead. She focused on those with the anger, the hatred that she could use, those she could corrupt. That’s what I’m worried about, that one day instead of fighting the usual beasties, I’ll come face to face with Marcus or Erin, even Orrin. I haven’t seen him.” Her shoulders slumped. “This shouldn’t be happening. It shouldn’t be possible. This could be the end of the world, forget about the Hollow One.”

  Forget about the Hollow One. Lewis would help me figure all of this out, but the Hollow One, how could I possibly get him to help me? Was there some way to deal with that devil? I bit my lip as I tried to keep my hands from shaking. Three demon mistresses, if the one from the plane crash wasn’t dead. Three demon mistresses to haunt me morning, noon and night. What did they want? Was there a leader? How could I stop them? Were there more than three?

  “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice sounding hollow.

  “It’s not like it’s your fault that the world’s gone insane,” she said with a laugh.

  It was, though. My mother’s anyway. “Do you know anything about imprints, Chloe?”

  She frowned in confusion. “Like what Cools do, reading whether people have been somewhere?”

  “Yeah. Can you do that?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. All I know is that my Wild abilities aren’t very strong. Maybe if I had a lot of Nether blood boosting my powers. Runes change that, but I don’t think I have enough Wild blood to stay alive through that process, like you. I’ve never seen anything like what those demon men could do. One guy could make the earth just split. He didn’t have a lot of finesse, but who needs that when you can make the ground eat people?” She rubbed her arms, staring behind me. “I’m worried. What if she’s waiting for us to become jaded, with schisms enough that she can take all of us, make us all just like them?”

  I put my hand on her arm. “That’s not going to happen, Chloe. I promise.”

  She gave me a small smile. “What I’ve seen of the future isn’t exactly comforting. Particularly when I look at you.”