Forrest Wollinsky: Predestined Crossroads (Forrest Wollinsky: Vampire Hunter Book 3)

by Leonard D. Hilley II

  While watching the trees from the corner of my eye, my mind returned to Albert again. I couldn’t make any sense out of why he had set us up. His actions surrounding Varak were sinister and hypocritical. Several times he had offered to turn me into a were-rat, but I had declined. I couldn’t see that being the reason he’d sent the Hunter after us. If he were truly vindictive about my decision, he could have clawed or bitten me in the tunnels during our pursuit of the vampire or the Gypsy witch, but he had never made any such attempt. He seemed to honor my refusal without bitterness, which was why his underhanded betrayal angered me.

  Something else troubled me now as I continued down the road. Thomas and Madeline. Albert had offered their services to me because these two owed him favors, but I wondered if that were true. After encountering a Hunter dead set on killing me for the baby, were these two we traveled with trustworthy or did they have ulterior motives?

  The descending road arced toward the left. I partway jogged. I was about a mile from the small town we had intended to reach before the roadblock had slowed our pace.

  To the right side of the widening road, the forest ended. A crude rock wall lined the edge of the road, perhaps to prevent a wagon or coach from slipping over the embankment during the icier times of the winter, but it also offered a nice overlook of the town below.

  A flickering torch caught my attention. Parked farther down at the edge of the rock wall was our coach. Thomas stood in front of the horse with a bag of feed slipped over the horse’s mouth. Frothy sweat dripped from the horse and steam rose off its body.

  Thomas turned at the sound of my heavy footsteps. He gasped. I guessed his reaction was from how the brightness of the moon had obscured my shadow on the roadway, but I was wrong. It was what stood behind me that horrified him. The air grew even colder, making my next breath so painful that I expected it to be my last.

  I sensed something behind me. Glancing over my shoulder, I swung around to the shadowed outline of a creature that made me flinch. My eyes adjusted enough for me to see more details. Its ears were pointed. The creature was nude. Its skin was ebony and hairless. Its bald head was dome shaped. The beady red eyes shimmered like flames and it had rows of sharp jagged teeth.

  At first glance, I thought this was a ghoul. I grabbed the torch from the sconce on the coach.

  “No, Forrest,” Thomas said. “Don’t. It’s a plague-demon. If it touches you, you’ll die within minutes.”

  Was this what had followed me through the forest?

  The demon gnashed its teeth. I held the torch between it and me. Small bubbling pustules formed all over its skin, swelling and popping, leaking pus, and cycling through the little eruptions over and over.

  “Fire won’t hurt it,” Thomas said.

  “How do you know this?” I asked.

  “Because it has come for me.”

  I stared at him over my shoulder. “What?”

  He nodded. Fear shrouded his face. “Albert sent it.”

  “Albert?”

  “Yes.”

  “He sent this demon after you? Why? To kill you?”

  A look of utter gloom overshadowed his face. “I owed him a debt. One I could never repay. He offered me a challenge that either freed me of what I owed or I paid with my life. Either way, I didn’t owe him anything afterwards.”

  “What was the deal?”

  Thomas sighed. “If I could get you, your father, and the child to Freiburg before the plague-demon caught up to us, I kept my life and owed him nothing, provided I never returned to London.”

  “And after you died, we became essentially stranded?”

  Thomas looked down. “Yes.”

  “Well, you’re not dead yet.”

  “Let me accept my Fate, Forrest. Don’t jeopardize your life for mine.”

  Perhaps this was why the entire time he had driven during the worst winter conditions he had never issued a complaint. It certainly explained his nervousness when we had come to the roadblock. His goal had been to stay ahead of the demon. But I didn’t think this creature was able to pursue a horse and coach so quickly, even with our delay at the bridge.

  “Thomas, I’m a Hunter. No need to sacrifice your life to it. There has to be ways to kill it.”

  I turned toward the demon and thrust the torch at it. It didn’t move, nor did it show any fear of the fire. Its intense stare focused on Thomas and ignored me, not even regarding the torch or me as a threat.

  “Fire isn’t one of them, Hunter,” a female said from the hillside above me. “I’ve been tracking him for hours through the woods. Don’t you dare rob me of my kill!”

  I glanced in her direction. Her silhouette showed her pull back the bowstring and fire. The arrow pierced into the back of the vile demon’s head and disintegrated. Its black body stiffened. Red flames surfaced on its skin through its leaking pustules and the demon crumbled into a heap of ash.

  She ran down the road toward us. Her hand dusted away the thick ash until a polished stone the size of a small grape became visible. She picked it up and examined it in my torch’s flame. With a slight smile, she said, “An emerald this time.”

  “An emerald? From a demon?” Thomas asked with keen curiosity.

  “Reward for my service. The last three had been sapphires.”

  “There were more?” Thomas asked.

  She nodded.

  He glanced toward me. “He mentioned only one.”

  “Albert cannot be taken at his word,” I replied.

  Thomas whispered, “I suppose not.”

  I held the torch above my head to look at the young lady. The bright flame revealed more of her. She had streaked her face with mud, which had dried and become cakey and was starting to crumble. Dead branches and weeds had been tucked into her oily braids. I supposed to help conceal her as she slinked through the trees and shrubs. In her disguise it was difficult to judge her true appearance.

  Her odor, on the other hand, was ripe like soured sweat. I had seen fewer boys with less filth upon them after a day of labor in the muddy fields than what she had traipsed during her hunt for these demons. Of course, I had no idea how long she had been out on this particular hunt, either.

  Around her neck hung a strange pair of goggles. The lenses were bulged and connected with a leather strap. She tucked the gem into a small pouch on her narrow belt. Then she took a wide mouthed jar from the small pack on her shoulders. After unscrewing the lid, she filled the jar with the smoldering ash and sealed it shut.

  Her eyes glanced toward me. Her soft voice was more pleasant than I expected. “Thank you, Hunter, for not robbing me of my kill. Did you really think fire would affect a demon?”

  “I had hoped.”

  She laughed in a wild high-pitched tone. “Demons come from the pits of Hell where they find comfort in the flames. You offered no real threat to him at all.”

  “We greatly appreciate your help ... Miss—” I said, looking at her.

  “Penelope,” she replied. “And you are, Hunter?”

  “Forrest, and this is our coachman, Thomas.”

  She did a slight elegant curtsey in spite of her grimy exterior.

  Thomas removed the feedbag from the horse’s mouth. “We should get going, Forrest. If she’s killed four of them, there’s bound to be more.”

  I nodded.

  “You need to take me along,” Penelope said.

  “We don’t have enough room,” I replied.

  “That’s gratitude for you. Leave me out in the cold after I saved your friend’s life.” She scrunched her nose.

  “There’s hardly room in the seat for me,” I said.

  She grinned. “Then it will be nice and cozy, eh? I don’t mind. Really. As cold as it is, it will keep us warm until we reach our next destination.”

  I stood with a long awkward silence, which was broken by Thomas smacking my shoulder and laughing softly. “The two of you will manage quite splendidly, regardless of how little room you have.”

  My b
row narrowed as I watched him climb up onto his seat.

  “Besides,” Penelope said, “more of these demons will appear. They seldom travel alone, but these seem determined in infecting whomever they’ve been sent after. Even though I’ve only encountered one at a time, I’ve killed four in the last half hour. They’re coming after Thomas, aren’t they?”

  He nodded nervously.

  “Interesting,” she said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “With their dedicated determination, I would’ve assumed they had come after you since you’re the Hunter. He’s just a coachman.”

  “No, the demon wasn’t my problem,” I replied.

  “He has another Hunter hunting him,” Thomas said.

  She cocked a brow and pursed her lips for a moment. “Really? Why?”

  “It’s a long explanation,” I said.

  “We have plenty of time.” Her face beamed beneath the layer of dried mud. Bits of loose debris flaked off her skin.

  I looked up at Thomas. “What exactly did you owe Albert?”

  “Now isn’t the time to discuss it, Forrest. Honestly, we need to be moving onward. I will drive through the night, if necessary, to prevent us from encountering any more demons.”

  Penelope nodded. “That’s wiser than stopping along the way. Plague demons seldom appear during the day.”

  “So travel at night and sleep during the day?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Shouldn’t be any different than what a Vampire Hunter does anyway, correct?”

  “Depends upon the vampire,” I replied. “I’d rather stake them in their crypts during the daylight hours whenever possible.”

  Thomas glanced over his shoulder to the road behind us and then he narrowed his gaze at me. “Please, Forrest, let’s go.”

  “What about Madeline?” I asked. “Was she indebted to Albert as well?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. You need to ask her. Now get inside, so we can travel on.”

  Penelope smiled and opened the coach door. “Should I get in first?”

  I shrugged. “Only if you want me to crush you by accident. It’s probably safer if I get settled first.”

  She waited for me to squeeze inside the coach and seat myself before she climbed in. I slid over as far as I possibly could, and she fit beside me with more room than I had imagined she’d have. She placed her bow at our feet and yanked the door closed.

  Father snored, and Madeline opened one eye momentarily before closing it and returning to sleep, if she had awakened at all. I doubted our presence had even registered with her. At least I hoped she was still deeply asleep because I wanted to learn more about the Demon-hunter without any interruptions from Madeline or Father.

  Chapter Seven

  “How did you kill that demon?” I asked.

  “You worry about slaying the vampires. Let me kill the demons.”

  “What’s that hanging around your neck?”

  “My spectacles? You like them?”

  I nodded.

  Penelope untied the leather strap and handed the odd glasses to me. “Take a look.”

  I placed the spectacles against my eyes and peered through the lenses. Immediately everything in the coach brightened as though we were in daylight or had several bright oil lanterns lit. The outer rim of the glasses was solid brass with thick brads fastening the goggles against the thick leather. On the right lens were crosshairs to zero in on a target. I pulled back the curtain and gazed outside. Everything was bright in the forest. I marveled and turned toward her. “Where did you get these?”

  “I had a craftsman make them for me,” she replied. “Since most demons are active during the night, I needed a better way to see in the darkness. No need to give them an advantage over me.”

  “I’d love to get a pair of those. Were they expensive?”

  “I had to kill one Astaroth demon and two lesser abyssal demons to earn enough money to pay the metal crafter.” She picked up her bow and pointed at a round lens. Brass protected the glass. “He also made this, so I can have almost pinpoint accuracy.”

  “Do all of the demons you’ve killed leave behind gems?”

  Penelope shook her head. “No. An Astaroth is extremely rare to happen upon. They are seldom seen. It left me several large diamonds, which I sold to a gem crafter. The lessers each left large garnets of rare colors, so I fetched a good bit of money for those. But I have killed dozens of demons and not reaped a single gem or gold nugget. These plague demons have been consistent thus far, but I don’t understand why. Of course I’ve never seen them travel alone or have a replacement emerge soon after I have killed one. They usually are sent in small numbers to infect an entire city.”

  “What did you kill it with?”

  “You saw the arrow, didn’t you?”

  “I thought I had, but it must have dissolved when it struck the demon. The arrow wasn’t there after the demon turned to ash. That’s why I asked.”

  She smiled. “The arrow was consumed by the plague, which is a protective measure for these demons. But the poisoned arrow destroyed the disease, causing the demon to incinerate. These demons don’t have blood. The plague oozes through their veins, keeping them alive until they gut themselves inside a group of people in a town or city and the disease is released. You kill the plague and they die. Fire can’t hurt them, but the poison I use can.”

  “So you have a poison that destroys the plague? How’d you happen upon that?”

  “A healer. But most folks would probably consider her a witch.”

  “I see. Is she in your town?”

  She shook her head. “No. She lives in the forest. Deep in the forest. She doesn’t like visitors.”

  “But she likes you?” I asked.

  Penelope shrugged her narrow shoulders. “After she accidentally summoned a demon during one of her rituals, she sought me out. I killed the demon for her, and we sort of entered into a bartering exchange. She has … medicines I need, and I trade her things she needs.”

  “Like what?”

  “Witches need a vast array of ingredients for their incantations. Demon dust is obviously something easy for me to obtain. Vampire dust, on the other hand, I occasionally get whenever a Hunter is kind enough to allow me to go along on one of his kills.”

  I was still staring at her through the goggles. She batted her eyelids at me with a flirty smile, which might have worked better if she didn’t have the cakey mud smeared across her face and the twigs and ferns tucked in her matted hair. A bath would have helped as well.

  “I’m all out of vampire dust,” I replied.

  She rolled her eyes, sighed, and looked away. “Like you’d be carrying it on you to begin with.”

  I chuckled. “To be honest with you, our funds for our journey have almost depleted, so my father and I will probably seek to find a place where a reward is being offered to kill a vampire.”

  “Your father is a Hunter, too?”

  I shook my head and whispered, “He hunts them, but he’s not one of the Chosen.”

  She winked. “Ah, I see. I suppose he’s sensitive about that?”

  I nodded.

  “I know a place,” she said, looking toward me with a broad smile. “Where you could earn money for killing a vampire.”

  “Is it far from here?”

  “We should reach it by daylight, depending upon which route your coachman decides to take. If any other plague demons are following us, they won’t likely surface after the sun rises. It would give us enough time to find the lair. You kill the vampire, I get its dust, and then you return to get the money. Afterwards, your coachman heads to the next point of your destination. Where are you traveling to anyway?”

  “Freiburg,” I replied.

  Her brow rose. “That far away?”

  I nodded.

  “Why?”

  “The child Madeline’s holding. We’re taking him there.”

  “To the Archdiocese?”

  “Yes.”


  Her eyes widened with excitement. “Would you mind if I traveled there with you?”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve heard about the beauty of the cathedral and the town. It’s always been a place I’ve wanted to venture to. Since I do most of my traveling on foot, it’s unlikely I’d ever get to go. So do you mind letting me ride along?”

  “If you’re not too crowded?”

  Again her broad smile widened. It was cute in spite of her ... muddy cheeks. “Not at all. I have plenty of room right here beside you. You put off enough body heat to dispel the cold. Do you think the others will mind? My coming along?”

  There was something about her that intrigued me. Maybe it was the softness of her voice or the look in her eyes when she stared at me, but I rather liked the thought of traveling with someone who was closer to my age. Besides, she had not only saved Thomas from the demon, she had ensured that I hadn’t been infected by it. I didn’t have much knowledge about demons. By having her with us, I could learn a lot from her.

  Her eyes showed her eagerness for my answer. I smiled. “I don’t think there will be any objections.”

  “Thanks.” Penelope scrunched her nose and scooted against the doorframe. She tucked her arms tightly to her sides. “I hate that we’re traveling through the night instead of stopping at an inn though.”

  “Why?”

  As she closed her eyes, a grim smile formed on her face. “I’m embarrassed to say that I have developed quite a foul odor from tracking and killing those demons. I apologize. I didn’t ... realize it until after getting inside these tight quarters beside you.”

  “I probably don’t smell any better after my earlier run-ins.” I thought about my plummet down the mossy hill and landing in all the half-frozen mud and debris, not to mention how much I had sweated from my nervous near-death encounter with Philip.

  “I’m afraid it’s much more different.”

  “Why is that?”

  “You’re a man, and well, men tend to sweat a lot, especially after a hard day’s work. There’s seldom a man in my village that you cannot smell far before you see him. Even deer musk isn’t that bad.” She grinned. “But a lady needs better cleanliness.”