“Let’s get you lying down then, just so you don’t fall over and hurt yourself.”
The elder hunter raised a finger. “I’ll get the first aid kit, just in case.”
Lying on the couch in the living room, she noticed the huge wooden crossbeams and the white stucco ceiling. Kneeling beside her, Liam wore oven mitts.
She thought he looked silly, given her assessment of his nonexistent culinary skills. “Are those really necessary?”
“Nobody’s touched your dagger with their bare hands since you defeated your wraith in Michigan. Let’s keep it that way.”
“Okay, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”
She extended her right hand, and the hunter pushed the bronze handle into her palm. As it gave off a bluish glow, its energy pulsated into her, infusing her with the sense of infinite possibilities. Resting it on her chest, she extended her other hand. “It’s not as blue as the last time I grabbed it.”
Seated on the edge of a coffee table behind his son, Connor offered an explanation. “That’s because it doesn’t need to be. Before you, it had been a millennium since a virgin held a dagger, but the learning suggests that the energy it generates is reactionary to the needs of the virgin.”
Again, the labelling based upon her sex life. “Can we stop calling me ‘the virgin’?”
“I’m sorry, young lady, but it’s the term we’ve always used. I’m happy to use a different term, if we could conjure up a better one.”
Liam surprised her with his candor. “We’re all virgins here.”
“Really? I didn’t know you guys were… sworn to it?”
The young hunter sounded like he was trying to convince himself. “It’s a valuable virtue of our lineage.”
“Well, isn’t it silly that a bunch of male virgins call the woman they try to rescue ‘the virgin’?”
Connor blushed. “I believe it to be a matter of reverence. A woman gives up so much more by foregoing the ability to grow life in her womb.”
“I guess that makes sense, but I still don’t like being called ‘the virgin’.”
“She’s ‘the empath’, Father.”
“So be it. Dianne is our esteemed empath.”
“Sweet. I like being ‘the empath’.”
The young hunter smiled, displaying a charm that had escaped her. Maybe he was a true knight. “You were special. You are special. You deserve a special term.”
She thought she might be happy with “Liam’s wife” if she could get a break from stopping possessed maniacs long enough to get to know the younger hunter.
“Get ready for the next dagger. Here we go.” Liam lowered the new, lethargic knife into her palm, and its feeble sanguine glimmer became a darker, chocolatey red. While the bluish-azure weapon felt weightless in her right hand, the sickly one was an anvil in her left.
She grunted.
Liam extended his oven mitts over her. “Let me help you.”
“No, I’ve got it.”
“You’re sure?”
“No. But I have to try. It feels heavy and cold, but it’s no big deal so far.” During a minute, nothing changed. No matter what she thought or felt, the glow of each dagger remained constant in color and intensity.
“Is anything happening?”
“I don’t think so. I’m holding two daggers that don’t want to have anything to do with each other.”
“Should you try to think about the energy moving from one to the other?”
“What do you think I’ve been thinking about?”
“Sorry.”
After his apology, she admitted to herself she hadn’t been truthful in her claim. As she reflected about her recent thoughts, they’d been exploratory. She’d been subconsciously probing the power of each dagger in hopes of learning to control them.
She shifted her mind and imparted her will upon the bronze items in her hands, commanding energy to flow from one to the other. Nothing.
Connor shifted his weight on the table. “I fear this is bearing no fruit.”
“Let’s not give up so easily, Father. Dianne, do you remember anything about your mindset when I threw your blade to you and you were fighting the wraith in Michigan?”
Of course, she did. She replayed the scene in her memory multiple times daily, and her subconscious mind rendered varied distortions of the episode during her sleep. “Yeah.”
Kneeling closer to her, Liam blocked his father from the conversation. “Well, how about recreating those thoughts or feelings? That’s when your dagger produced some amazing magic.”
“I was pissed off and scared, but I don’t think that’s going to help anything right now.”
“But what about your feelings towards the dagger?”
Being unaware of the answer, she had to reflect upon her regard for her weapon when she first met it. “I don’t know. At first, when it changed colors from red to blue and moved under its own power in mid-flight, I was exhilarated.”
“Yeah, so was I. What else were you feeling?”
“Hope?”
“What about love?”
Ugh. Love again. She’d nearly died trying to love an enemy as she’d invoked her telepathic power over her Michigan wraith. Advice from a ghost had guided her by reminding her of love’s constituent parts–acceptance, patience, kindness, empathy, selflessness. She was capable of feeling all those emotions for anyone.
Or anything alive.
As she reflected upon her first encounter with her glowing blue dagger, she realized it had a life, and she’d loved it from the moment she’d clutched it. “Yes, love. It saved my life. I love my dagger.”
“What about ours? The sick one?”
Her honesty struck her as she spoke the words. “I resent it.”
Liam’s words eased her guilt of harboring the negative emotion. “Understandable. We’re all struggling with the new burden it represents and its inability to help us.”
“I need to love your new dagger, the one that failed your predecessors fifty years ago.”
“I think so.”
“I’ll give it a shot.”
With her high emotional intelligence, she shifted her perspective of the ailing weapon from condemnation to empathy. The rapid switch opened a channel to her acceptance, her love of it, and the effect was instant.
The blue light pulsated, as did the dark chocolate red, locked in opposing phases of the same frequency. When one lit the room, the other swallowed light, and in an undulating rhythm, energy flowed from right to left across Dianne’s body.
Her breaths shallow, she forced a faint whisper. “It’s working.”
Reminiscent of her prior first attempts at new empathic tricks, a supernatural force overcame her and drew her into a deep slumber.
CHAPTER 6
Liam removed the blood pressure cuff from Dianne’s arm. “Normal. A bit low actually, probably because she’s resting so calmly. That aligns with her low heart rate.”
“We assume so, but we should’ve measured her vital signs beforehand as a baseline.”
Somehow, he knew she was okay, but his father had insisted on checking her. He gave the cuff to the elder hunter, who handed him a small flashlight.
Liam lifted her right eyelid and saw a round, dilated pupil. He shined the light, and the dark circle shrank. He removed the light, and the pupil widened again. “Looks good.” He checked her left eye, stimulating similar results. “They both respond to light, both have normal roundness, and the sizes are the same. No sign of neurological damage.”
“A CT scan would confirm that.”
His recent success in stopping Dianne’s wraith gave him the confidence to challenge his father. “Don’t you think you’re overacting?”
“Perhaps, but I don’t like her helping us. We spent our entire lives preparing to save her, and we did so three weeks ago. I don’t want her placed at further risk.”
“She’s fine, Father. She looks like a sleeping…”
“Angel?”
&nbs
p; “Yeah.”
“I think you’re becoming too emotionally attached to her.”
“Careful. She’s an empath. She can probably hear us. Her consciousness may be hovering in this room laughing at us.”
“You’re confusing her with ghost. Per my reckoning, an empath needs a host to reside in. To hear us, she’d have to be inside one of our minds.”
With a strong attraction to her, Liam wondered if he’d notice her invading him, but he kept that possible vulnerability hidden from his father. “You’re right. I’m sure I’m just being paranoid.”
“I’m sure you are.”
Liam reassessed the empath as she held both knives. The luminous pulsations continued as energy flowed from one, across their living conduit, and to the other. “Do you suppose I should remove our dagger from her hand?”
“That might interrupt the process. It seems to be working. She said it was before she drifted away.”
“Yeah, but what about her? What’s this doing to her?”
“Like you said, she’s resting calmly.”
“I don’t like it, Father. She could be in pain. This could have long term effects we don’t know about.”
“It’s all conjecture at this point. Do what you think is right.”
Liam put on his oven mitts and grabbed the tip of Dianne’s left finger. Like all her digits, it was slender and elegant, and it yielded to his lifting.
After he’d peeled her hand open, he lifted the dagger, and when its contact with her skin broke, its pulsating dark light yielded to its familiar weak reddish glow. “I’ll set this on the observatory table.”
“Right. Take it directly in. I’ll keep an eye on her.”
“Can you at least unlock the door for me?”
“Oh, yes. Sorry. Stay with her while I tend to it.”
The elder hunter darted off with impressive agility for a man in his mid-seventies, and Liam hoped the distant ancestry connecting him with his adoptive father had gifted him similar genes.
He checked on Dianne, and her breathing remained slow and regular. To free his hands for an experiment, he lowered the dagger from his hands into its box. He then reached back to the empath and tested her grip on her knife, which had ceased pulsating but maintained a shimmering light blue glimmer.
Her fingers were vice grips.
“Bloody hell, Dianne. Nobody’s ever going to disarm you.”
His father’s voice rang from the observatory. “What?”
“I was talking to Dianne.”
“I don’t suppose she can hear you, but that’s open for debate, isn’t it?”
“Here, Father. Try opening her hand.” He extended his mitts towards the elder hunter.
Connor pulled them from his son’s hands, put them on, and tested Dianne’s grip. “Good gracious. I can’t make her fingers budge.”
“That’s why I was talking to her. I couldn’t help but remark about something so, well, remarkable.”
“Right, then. We’ll have to remember this.”
“I don’t think I could forget.”
He reached for his dagger’s box but remembered it was his weapon, belonging to his lineage. He grasped its handle, stood, and walked to the observatory.
He steadied the knife on its last bearing of one-zero-zero and stepped back. Thinking his eyes tricked him, he saw it move. “Father! It’s moving!”
“Coming.” The elder hunter entered the circular silo and closed the door. Without prompting, he looked down to the blade and watched it keep its sanguine luster while rotating counter-clockwise.
“It’s slower than a healthy dagger, but it’s trying.”
“I’d say it’s succeeding, since we can notice it without the need for time-lapse video.”
“It still seems sick, though.”
“It is, but it’s much more alive. Let’s take turns watching it to make sure it doesn’t quit.”
“Can you take the first watch, Father? I’d like to look after Dianne.” He walked to the empath and knelt by her side. Alone with her for the first time without an agenda, he wondered who she was.
What music did she like? What were her political views? Why did she sacrifice her needs behind those of an autistic brother? What were her career goals?
Did she want to get to know him better?
Unless she woke up, he’d never have a chance to know, but he expected her full recovery. He’d lost her to supernatural slumbers while she’d been imprisoned in her wraith’s Michigan basement, the longest outage lasting a week and a half.
She’d always returned from her sleeps unharmed, but this was the first time she–or anyone, to his knowledge–held two enchanted daggers. He could only hope she’d recover. With her empathic work proving draining as she learned it, he questioned if his father’s doubts about her chasing the next wraith had merit.
Long before meeting her, his purpose had been saving her, and rescuing her from one wraith seemed like a first protective step of many.
But then he remembered his ordained duty was protecting the next virgin, the one sought by a wraith who’d caused the death of two hunters of his lineage. Duty trumped feelings, and the thought of choosing between Dianne’s safety or that of a stranger crossed his mind. It tormented him until he could wrestle it away.
Though unnecessary, he palpated her wrist and enjoyed the warmth of her smooth skin. He tried three times to count her pulse, but his attention wandered, and he gave up.
He closed his eyes to quiet his thoughts and let himself notice if she sought a telepathic link with him. He’d communicated to her several times through links with other people, but she’d never been inside his head. With her slumber placing her beyond his communications, he found her frustratingly distant despite her physical proximity. He missed the comfort of her company.
But within his mind, he sensed only himself, and she remained motionless except for her basic life functions.
“Liam!”
“Yes, Father.”
“It’s stopped.”
“Coming.” Liam trotted into the observatory and saw the stationary dagger. With his father’s silent approval, he rotated the straightedge over the blade and noted the orientation. “Bearing zero-nine-seven.”
“We must map it.”
With the Ethernet cable feeding the laptop on the table, Liam typed the numbers into a page showing bearings originating from his home in Glengarriff. After tapping in the direction, he watched the line curve across a flat rendition of the earth. “That crosses or approaches the borders of nearly half the nations of Europe. Then it passes through half the nations of the Middle East.”
“That’s accurate only if we trust the dagger. I’m not sure what to believe, but I will report this to the order for confirmation.”
Liam’s instinct made him optimistic. “I’m sure they’ll agree it’s accurate. After Dianne helped it along, I can’t see it failing.”
“We’ll know the accuracy as we circle in on the location.”
“I’m sure of that, but we’ll face the same old problem of stale data. By the time we find where he killed his last tribute, he’ll be long gone.”
“Tributes.”
“What?”
“Tributes, lad. Three per full moon, with only three full moons of homicides preceding the life-stealing virgin sacrifice.”
“What’d I say?”
“You mentioned only one tribute, which is now history after our mission with Dianne. Our new duty is to catch a savage beast who operates on a different killing cycle.”
Liam found his father’s stating of the obvious patronizing, but he feigned reverence. “Yes, Father. Tributes. When we find the location of his offering of the last tributes, we’ll still be facing the delay.”
“It’s a delay we’ve always faced. We may not catch this wraith this year. After I’m gone, you may not catch him fifty years later. Nobody guarantees success, and the odds are dreadfully against us, but this is our lot.”
Liam expected a b
etter reward for rapid and decisive success against Dianne’s wraith. A champion deserved better. But looking inward, he tapped a lifetime of lessons in humility, and he kept his ego in check.
But he wasn’t sure how long he could suppress it.
Being a hunter, a knight, and a man of virtue was difficult. “What do we do now, Father?”
“It’s quite simple. We follow our first clue. We travel.”
CHAPTER 7
Edric clicked the remote controller to the warehouse’s only automated door, waited for its rise, and then aimed the van into his home’s ground level.
After clicking shut the portal behind him, he parked the vehicle on the concrete, turned off the engine, and stepped into the air-conditioned coolness. Reconsidering his tactics for deploying his four purchases into their jail cells, he climbed back into the driver’s seat and then cut a tight semicircle to reorient the van.
With the cargo space and his four new prizes aimed towards the vast expanse of the warehouse’s former storage floor, his possessions would see a small swath of their depressing confines. More importantly, the three tributes would see him discipline the fourth woman–his toy to dispose of as he wished.
He walked to the back of the van and opened its doors. Four restrained and distressed women looked at him. Having forgotten a blindfold to prevent the captives from seeing too much of their confines, he marched to a workbench and grabbed a rag. When he returned to the vehicle, he pointed to the closest prisoner and waved her forward.
She cowered and crawled from him.
He gestured again, and using the broken Arabic he’d learned over a century of exposure to multiple languages, he ordered her. “Come or I will hurt you.”
Obeying, she moved to the edge of the van.
He tied the rag around her eyes and then reached into his back pocket. After grasping his keys, he raised them to his face and found the one for the vehicle’s shackles. Reaching forward, he stuck the key into the irons at the nearest captive’s ankle and disconnected her from the leg cuff.
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