by Tisha Wilson
“Why do you need mentors when you have all this?” she asked pointing to the website.
“We need them because traditionally a hunter cannot train or be around another hunter. If you had been anyone else and you jumped on my back like that, I would have probably flipped you over and pulled your heart out through your rib cage.”
She made a face and shook her head. “I see how that could hinder more than help.”
“Oh, as a hunter you would have been able to survive it. I would have shoved it back into your chest at some point or given it back to you so you could do it yourself.”
She felt the color drain from her face until she saw that little twinkle in his eye. “Are you… are you teasing me again?” she asked with shock.
“Sorry. I’m not good at it. I’ve lived alone for a hundred years now with only these lowly worms for conversation,” he said pointing towards the site.
“A hundred years?” she asked in wonder. “You’re a hundred years old?”
He gave her a sly look. “No. I am one thousand and three years old.”
She felt her eyes nearly bulge from the sockets. He had to be joking. “Are you teasing again?” He shook his head in response as he began to type.
Norse Hunter: Have you heard anything back from that bastard Bateman?
Tiger Hunter: I have not seen him or your new mentor since you messaged me last. I will e-mail you as soon as I hear something.
Norse Hunter: Is their stupid conference over yet?
Kangaroo Hunter: Naw Mate. They seem 2 have something serious 2 discuss.
African Hunter: It probably has something to do with the balance. And please, don’t start with the abbreviations kangaroo girl. Take your time and type like you have more than a grad school education.
Kangaroo Hunter: It’s spelled g-r-a-d-E and bite me monkey boy.
African Hunter: You didn’t like it when I did that last time. You lost a body part if you recall.
Kangaroo Hunter: That’s because you and the Irishman tag teamed me, and you wouldn’t ever try it alone. I could take care of a few choice body parts for you.
African Hunter: I bet you could.
Kangaroo Hunter: In your dreams monkey boy. Stick it out there and see what happens.
Highland Hunter: Why are you pulling me into this? I have nothing to do with it.
Norse Hunter: Children. Settle down. I have a serious problem here. The woman who was bitten. She began the change but she didn’t complete it. Has anyone ever heard of that?
The curser blinked for a while as they waited. No one responded and when it was apparent no one was going to he began typing again.
Norse Hunter: Thanks for nothing you arrogant asses!
Highland Hunter: Hey. Don’t blame us because your mentor ran off playing commando.
Le Petite Hunter: He’s probably off bonking the new mentor for that region. I know I would. She’s hot.
Kangaroo Hunter: Ewww Merisel. I don’t want to hear anything about your lesbian fantasies. I’m signing off.
African Hunter: I could stand to hear a little more.
Braden signed off then. “They’ll go on like that for hours. Trust me, it will only get worse from here.”
She smiled and shook her head. “They seem like an… interesting bunch.”
“Yeah. A real laugh riot.”
She laughed out loud and was shocked to see him actually smile a full lingering smile. It was like watching the sun break free on a rainy day. He was so much more appealing with a smile on his face. She hoped she wasn’t going to be one of those people who ended up having Stockholm syndrome, though with a man that looked the way he did...
“So… when do I get my secret password or whatever?”
“God help us all when that happens. Bateman will take care of all that when he surfaces and better takes care of your training. You need to go through our boot camp.”
“You have a hunter boot camp?” she asked.
“Yes. It can be difficult to adjust to being a hunter. As humans you are used to seeing things in black and white. You shouldn’t be able to regenerate limbs, you shouldn’t be able to lift cars or bend steal with your bare hands. It can take time to get used to your new strength. You snapped my neck like a twig without meaning to. It takes some getting used to and some training not to hurt every innocent you come across.”
“Innocent?”
“Human,” he clarified.
“So we hunt the werewolves and protect the humans, like superheroes?”
“No. Not like superheroes. There is a side of this that… It can be really dark sometimes.”
“Like when you have to drink blood?”
“Among other things.”
“What other things?”
He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Do you get headaches?” she asked curiously. “I mean if you heal the way you say I wouldn’t think you could get headaches. So you told me you already ate this morning, did you go out and bite someone? Will I have to drink blood too? I don’t think I’ll like blood very much.”
The cold impassive look stole over him again as he sat beside her, staring down at her. It made her skin crawl when he looked at her like that, as if he could look straight through her.
“Am I going to stay here with you? Are you going to train me? Do you think my legs will ever be healed while I am not a hunter? If I’m not a hunter then what am I? Did I have fangs when I jumped you earlier? Do you think you could make me that mad again? I mean if I know you’re making me mad, I might be less inclined to get mad, but I think you might have a talent for making people mad. Can we try again right now?”
When she finally wound down she looked up at him expectantly. “First. You have to learn how to find your quiet side.”
She laughed and slapped his arm playfully before she reached out and turned the laptop towards herself. “Do you think I could e-mail my mom or call her? Maybe not. They would be able to track me then right? Will they give me a new name? I like Miranda Jamison but I am willing to sacrifice for the cause.”
*
Braden felt his temper rising. He should have expected this from someone who saw the world through rose colored lenses. First she wasn’t willing to accept that there were werewolves and vampires, and now she wanted to romanticize it. She was looking over the website with an excited eye, the way one of those wannabe’s might look at it. He snatched the lap top away from her.
“This is not a game Miranda. You are not going to receive a superwoman costume. You are not going to fly in in the nick of time. All you can do is what you were born to do. Sometimes innocents will get bitten and YOU will have to be the one to put a bullet between their eyes. It is not a thing of beauty. Death is messy and complicated. Every wolf you come across is someone’s loved one, another person that people will cry for and miss every day of their lives. Do you understand? Like your sister!”
She pulled back as if he had slapped her. He wanted to yell at her in frustration. Now she was going to do that whole whimpering thing. He began to rise but she grabbed his arm.
“No wait! You’re… you’re right. I don’t want you to leave me right now. I need… to not be alone right now. What do you think I should know? I won’t ask anymore question. It’s just… Sometimes when I’m nervous I ask a lot of questions until I feel more comfortable.”
Against his better judgment he stayed put. Something about her touch… He nodded and heaved a sigh. He would have to see this through her eyes. This was all brand new to her. It wouldn’t be easy.
“Okay. You must know that you are not going to know all there is to know in one day. It’s overwhelming. The easier thing for you to know is that most superstitions and fairytales have roots in truth. There was a time when people knew and feared what went bump in the night. Since the invention of motion pictures, however, and the birth of the age of reason, people tend not to believe in what they don’t see.”
She nodded as she continued to grasp his arm and wat
ch him with rapt attention. Was it necessary for her to sit so close to him?
“Everything?”
“Everything,” he confirmed.
“Demons?”
“Most certainly.”
“Flying monkeys?’
“Not in this age.”
“You’ve seen a flying monkey?”
He gave her a look and the mischief in her eyes told him that she was teasing him. Once again he had that awkward feeling in his heart. People didn’t tease him, at least not in person. People didn’t smile and laugh around him. He didn’t have much to smile or laugh about. Had he even smiled or laughed in his last marriage?
Dawn had been a severe woman who understood what he was. She had fought alongside him until she was cut down by a so called witch hunter also known as a human on a self-righteous mission. If the human had only known how much Dawn had done for the good of mankind...
“So… You’re an immortal vampire?”
“No. I am a wolf hunter. I have attributes that some might call vampire, but I am not one. I can walk in sunlight. I can turn into a hunter in the daylight as you have seen. I don’t sleep in a coffin.”
“So werewolves, they don’t become human during the day.”
“No. Sunlight kills them. They hibernate in the day and if you can find their lair and open it up to sunlight they won’t be around to stalk innocents another day, for the most part.”
“But even the wolves were innocent once. What happens to them after you kill them?”
“They return to the collective group of wolves. These wolves are not natural wolves. They are one collective evil operating in separate bodies. Once they capture a body that soul becomes trapped, strengthening them, until the end of days. Until the world no longer exists and we all return to creation.”
“You mean the souls of the dead stay with those creatures until the end of time? Can they kill us? I mean we don’t become one of them or get trapped like the other innocents do we? What can they do to us?”
“Not much unless they can get a hold of you and devour you completely. Then you will be a part of their collective conscious until the end just like the humans. You will feel what they feel, be consumed by the evil they exist in. One of us is the equivalent of a hundred humans, however, and the wolves that ate you would come that much closer to a human form.”
“Human form?”
“The older wolves, they are stronger, smarter. Eventually they will learn to change, to be day walkers.”
“Day Walkers?”
At least she was asking one question at a time now. “Day walkers are more like the wolves you’ve seen in the movies only they can change at will weather it is day or night. They are nearly composed like snakes with the ability to bend their shapes. They are like chameleons. They can look like anyone and they are hard to keep track of. They are always moving. We kill them when we can but they are smarter, harder to catch than the creatures.”
“So the only way they can become day walkers is to eat hunters?”
“That or a few thousand humans, or they can capture a balance and mate with him.”
“A balance?”
“A man born once every thousand years that can mate with a wolf or a day walker and produce more day walkers.”
“So day walkers cannot produce more day walkers themselves?”
“They can lay with each other but no new life can be created from them. They are unnatural.”
“So… There is a balance alive right now?”
“Yes. He surfaced briefly but is under the protection of the mentors. I think Bateman might be off setting him up in a different life to prevent the day walkers from finding him. I’m sure that they will find him again though.”
“Why don’t hunters protect him?”
“Because hunters are far more attracted to him than wolves are, males to fight him, females… for other reasons.”
“All hunters?”
“Well all but one. She hunts in the South East of the United States and she seems to be able to be normal around him, or so she claims. I’m not convinced that she didn’t jump him at least once.”
“What’s her handle on the sight?”
“Creole Hunter. She’s a very young hunter. I think she was born in New Orleans.”
“And you? Where were you born?” she asked as she continued to stroke his arm. He wondered if she even realized she was doing it.
“I was born in what would now be called Norway.”
“Do you remember your parents?”
“Not even their names,” he replied.
She paused as if this shocked her. “Did they die when you were young, I mean human?”
“I don’t think so. I became a hunter while out on scavenge and never returned to them. They probably died of old age. I kept a journal back then. I only ever referred to them as mother and father. I’m lucky I can still read it. I barely recall the language at all.”
“Do you remember what they were like?”
He shook his head. “That’s like asking you if you remember what kind of watch the doctor was wearing at your own delivery into this world. Memory, after a time, becomes fuzzy. My life is like yours. A series of days. After thirty years or so you have established an entirely new existence. I could possibly tell you what I personally was doing thirty or forty years ago, I can vaguely recall fashion trends and important events, but for the most part I rely on what I’ve written.”
“How often do you write in your journal?”
“Once every ten years or so I cover major events. Sometimes more. Sometimes less. It’s nearly time for me to write again. I haven’t really had my heart in it since my last wife died.”
“Your wife?”
“I was married about a hundred years ago. I’ve been married three times, though Dawn is the only one I recall at the moment. I think it had been a good three hundred years before her that my second wife died. I would have to pull out my journal to really recall. I can’t remember that far back at all, not even how I felt about it. I only remember at all because Dawn used to be in awe of how long it had been since I was last married. I think I used to tell her that I didn’t want to remember how depressed I was when my second wife died.”
“And your first wife?”
He thought really hard. He didn’t know why he was telling her all this. He hadn’t talked this much in as long as he could remember. “No idea whatsoever. I think I may have been human or newly changed. I would have to get out my journal.”
“Where are your journals?”
“Some are stored in many trunks beneath the house. Some in a storage unit in town.”
“What happens if there is a fire?”
“Then I will loose a few years of my history, but it doesn’t matter too much. They are already pretty much lost to me anyhow.”
She finally stopped talking then and just looked up at him. She had the most curious look on her face and he had to suppress a laugh. “Go ahead. I already told you I won’t bite you.”
She reached out and touched his face. “You feel… human.”
He allowed her to caress his face and his hair until she was satisfied. Her tiny hands felt like a piece of heaven against his face. Her hands were a little rough, he supposed from pushing that chair around all day, but he didn’t mind. Their dainty size made up for the loss. When she was finished he rose and headed towards the kitchen. “Are you hungry?”
“Why are you so nice to me?”
He froze at her question and turned to face her. “You think I’m… nice?”
“I think you try to put on a tough guy act, but that you are secretly nice.”
“You have a lot to learn,” he replied before he turned to pull down some canned beef and potatoes.
He was tempted to leave her to her own devices but his kitchen certainly was not equipped for a tiny woman in a wheel chair. She would likely starve before she got anything properly cooked. Once the food was cooked and he sat it before her, he stalked
from the room grabbing his jacket as he went.
Chapter Five
Miranda looked to the living room table where he had left his laptop. She wondered if he knew he left it. What if she was to e-mail her mother… just one time? The authorities would probably be looking for her right now. It might mean more hardship for her mother if she tried to contact her. She went to the table and picked up the remote control instead of messing with the lap top. It was probably password protected anyhow.
She flipped on the television. It was on the history channel. It figured. He seemed like a history person. With a thousand years of experience he would probably be one kick ass history professor. How many people were there left that could speak and write ancient Norse. Two professions he could occupy, history professor, super model. How many people could say that? She smiled to herself. She bet he would hate it if she said that out loud.
The man seemed to get miffed at every other thing she said or did. She flipped through the channels. Of course there was nothing on the local networks being that she wasn’t too close to her hometown and there was nothing on the national networks. At least she knew where she was. She hadn’t had much clue where he’d brought her last night and it had been disorientating to not even know if she was still in Wisconsin. She and Katie must have been close to home when they crashed.
She forced herself to clutch on to her piece of good news. She was near Hurley, Wisconsin. It was four hours from home but at least it was still in the state. The local station might start flashing her and her sister’s pictures tomorrow once their disappearance went state wide. They weren’t children, so it might not make it to National news. That plus her mother wasn’t stable enough to go on television and make an emotional plea for their return.
She looked over at the laptop again. She sighed. Even if she could e-mail her mother, her mother wouldn’t even remember how to use the computer without her help. Every morning when they sat down to the office desk her mother marveled at this new thing called the computer. She always said, “I thought only the government had computers, and I hear they are as big as rooms.”