by Tisha Wilson
She braided her hair, which had grown past her waist, into a single long braid and tied it with one of Braden’s hair ties. She grabbed a glass filled with the bagged blood she had found in the refrigerator and downed it in one gulp. The baby seemed content with that and settled into the center of her body. Taking a fortifying breath, she zipped up her jacket and strode towards the door. She caught sight of herself in the floor length mirror inside the closet that stood open beside the door.
Braden was so right. Becoming a hunter had done something to her. Where she had once been all softness and frizzy things, now she appeared sleek as steel, as hard as stone. She thought again of her sister and felt the now familiar ache in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t know why this had happened to them, but she had been entrusted with this job. Katie was gone, but Katie had been gone long before that beast in her body had shown up to the motel parking lot outside. Her Katie had disappeared from existence the second she had been drug from the minivan that fateful night a month ago. The monster that had shown up here was willing to destroy people, to eat people, and that monster had nothing to do with the Katie she had raised and loved.
The Katie she had known would probably be cheering from the rafters to see Miranda now. She would be her biggest fan and if Miranda and the other hunters didn’t do their jobs, then Katie would never make it to that grand cheering section in the sky. Perhaps one day, the fight would end, and they would all be free of this cycle. Miranda wanted to see Katie again one day, the real Katie, and she would do all in her power to make sure that happened.
She spared one last glance for Braden who looked pale in his healing death like state. She wanted to kiss him again, to reassure herself that he was alive, but none of them would be alive for very long if she didn’t get out there and do her job. She stepped out into the night air. She popped the ear buds of Braden’s IPod into her ears. She had been surprised to find the music player in his coat pocket, and even more astonished at his choice in tunes. He carried some classical, some R and B and a lot of pop.
She turned to Let’s Get it Started by the Black Eye Peas and ran swiftly towards the tree line. The sun was sinking fast and she only had so mach time to draw the creatures away from Braden and from the innocents whose lives could be ruined by the creatures bite.
* * *
Braden emerged from his mind in stages. First he recognized how low he was on blood and how slowly his heart was pumping. Then he became aware of Mira’s blood sitting unused in his stomach. It was like a bright light in the deteriorating center of his body. He entered the blood and let the euphoria of its healing freshness wash over every bruised and broken part of his body. The wolves had done a lot of damage after he had passed out.
In fact, as many organs as he was missing, he would guess that they were well on their way to eating him whole. Why had they stopped? Miranda. Her name was like a balm to his soul. He hurried to heal himself before he opened his eyes. He was lying in the hotel room’s bed. He sat up and felt a pinching pain. He reached down beneath the cover, ripped off the blood soaked bandage that had covered him, and pulled at the sutures that peaked from the now healed skin. The skin bled again but only for a moment.
Miranda must have given him a lot of blood. He threw back the covers to find that she had left him in a clean pair of briefs. His clothes must have been ruined in the attack and she had done her best to make him comfortable. Love swelled in his breast like a river. He couldn’t recall the last time someone had cared for him in such a way. He was usually the one in charge in these situations. He had been so close to giving up before she had come along and now it scared him to think how close the creatures had been to completing their mission. Miranda had to have saved him.
He swung his legs to the side of the bed and reached for his hair tie. It was then he realized the strangest thing of all. His head felt… weird. He stood and went to the mirror that covered the back of the closet door. He pulled the bandage from his head and gasped. He reached up a hand to confirm what his eyes saw. His long golden mane… was gone. He blinked as he touched the shorn locks. He had not cut his hair in so long… he did not even know what he looked like without it.
He looked somehow more… dangerous. He looked the way he felt as his eyes turned cold as ice. He turned from his image in the mirror and headed towards the bathroom. He sensed before he got there, however, that she was not there. He ripped the bloodied bandage off his neck and called her name. Rage and panic seized his insides. She wasn’t anywhere in this room. She was out there in the cold fighting the creatures all alone. What if something happened to her? What if something happened to the baby?
He hurried to pull on some clothes and felt like he had been hit in the middle of his stomach to find his jacket missing. She had loaded up and she meant business. Her hot pink wheel chair sat glaringly vacant in the corner. She was barely out of training and she thought she was going to go out there and fight them all by herself. He felt love and anger for her selflessness. Well, he wouldn’t let her get herself killed. Not on his watch. He strapped a few automatic weapons on, his large hunting knife, and a bandolier of flash grenades before he went to the door.
The frame had been cracked were the wolf had slammed it open last night, and it was doubly cracked now as he pulled it open and didn’t bother to close it. He headed into the night like a flash on the wind.
* * *
It didn’t take Miranda long to find what she was looking for. They were coming for her. She felt them before she saw them and she was ready for them this time. She made her way towards a moon lit clearing and waited low on her heels. The red glowing eyes appeared at the edge of the clearing, surrounding her completely. She felt razor sharp as she recalled again what she’d had to do last night.
All of the creatures had once been someone’s loved ones. And now they were forces of destructions, snatching the lives away from innocent people. She felt anger, frustration, and power surge from the deepest parts of her and for a moment it was as if nothing else existed in the world but this moment, this fight. The baby within her, which had been sapping the life out of her up until this point, seemed to be pouring more and more electricity into her veins, giving her added strength.
She was as still as stone, as immovable as a mountain as she waited. The beginning strands of a concerto began slowly and the tension of the song built and built and built until finally there was silence. Then, just as the song burst forth in brilliant melody, they rushed forward, a snapped snarling mass of decaying flesh. It was in that moment that she launched forward and knives sliced swiftly though the air, hitting every target with graceful ease.
In her mind she moved fluidly, gracefully, slowly, and on step, but in reality she had to be moving at the speed of light. The creatures were not fast enough to get to her and by the end of the song the small clearing was lit by the many fires of burning bodies filling the air with putrid death.
Once again she sat herself down in the center of the clearing and closed her eyes, breathing hard, waiting for the next attack. She had never had focus like this in her life, not even when she had been a teenager. She used all of her senses to feel the evil that surrounded her and she recognized in that moment what hunters really were. They were the light in this darkness. They were the light. That thought filled her as she launched head first into the next attack. It felt almost like flying the way she moved.
Despite her earlier fatigue, she now felt energized, as if she could do this all night. As long as she was here, the creatures would be preoccupied, giving Alicia enough time to arrive and take over. She was just finishing this most recent batch of monsters when a familiar scent slammed into her senses. She was drawn up short and one of the creatures still standing made a huge gash in her arm. Turning on him she threw a dagger and he went up in flames. She took a moment to think her arm healed and then turned to her distraction.
Braden stepped into the clearing and she saw the flash of silver at his neck. She then saw the Day Wal
ker who had been plaguing her ever since the desert step into view behind him. He pushed Braden out into the clearing and Braden turned on him like a snapping viper as he stood between him and Miranda.
“Isn’t love just grand,” the day walker said in a mocking way. His eyes glowed an eerie color in the fire light. “It made your boyfriend here so blind to anything but getting to you that he didn’t hear us stepping up behind him.” A few more day walkers stepped from the shadows and Miranda felt her pulse quicken.
“And it has made you stop in your wonderful ballet of destruction, nearly getting yourself killed. May I never know a foolish love such as yours.”
Miranda made to step forward but Braden made a gesture that she should stay put. He backed slowly toward her, keeping his eye on the day walker as he did so. She felt the electricity spark between them as he grabbed a hold of her wrist. Joy surged through her to see him alive and healthy. She hadn’t known how he would recover.
“What does a soulless fiend such as you know of love?” Braden snarled.
He never felt anything more lovely than the pulse that beat in Miranda’s arm beneath his fingers. “The head must be severed from the body with a silver blade in order to kill them,” Braden whispered over his shoulder to her.
“That’s right. A silver blade which you do not have seeing as I have disarmed you,” the day walker taunted.
“Silence evil one. You have no noble place in this battle. Your day walker companions are always foolish enough to carry a silver blade. In this case they have brought to me the very tools of their destruction. If one of them dares to place a hand on her then I will use his blade to kindly separate his head from his body.”
The day walker made a tsking sound as he came forward. “Waarom spreekt u deze primitieve taal? Why do you speak this primitive language?”
“Waarom kan het jou schelen wat ik spreek? Why do you care what I speak? Geen kwestie als het Nederlands of Engels mijn woorden zullen het zelfde zijn. No matter if it is Dutch or English my words will be the same. U gaat vandaag sterven voor de dingen die je gedaan hebt. You are going to die today for the things you have done. Was jij het die schoot haar? Was it you who shot her?”
“No.”
Braden looked towards the woods. A robed figure stepped out and came towards them. The hair on the back of his neck stood up. The hooded figure threw his hood off and looked upon Braden with black soulless eyes.
“Albion,” he hissed.
“Ah. So you remember me.”
“I would never forget the very face of evil. Why do you send this inexperienced child after me?”
“Who? Tristan? He’s the only second I’ve had that I haven’t ripped the head off of… yet.”
Braden crossed his arms and left his defensive stance. If Albion wanted to harm them there would be little they could do to stop him. “I haven’t seen you since Vietnam,” Braden commented.
“Yes. I was disappointed when you didn’t get involved in this last conflict. The rules are so much different with all of this technology. Did you like the skills I picked up with bombs?”
A growl rumbled forth from the depths of Braden’s chest without having been called at the mention of the compound bombings. “The twins have contributed plenty to this war effort I would say.”
“Petrov and Alec Digorfeski? Mine comrades. Did you not hear what happened to them?”
“I heard. And I also heard what happened to Cherish.” Albion’s wife, Cherish, had used the wolves to overrun the twins before the hunters could arrive with aid. Before Alicia beheaded her in a cellar basement and set her dead body on fire.
This time it was Albion’s turn to release an involuntary growl. Braden allowed a satisfied smirk to surface to his face. He focused his attention on Albion as his nails descended even further. Tristan had been correct. He should have felt the great evil such as this gathering from miles and miles away. It should have woken him from even the deepest healing slumber. He recognized with a start how soft Albion’s scent was and where he had recently smelled this softened version of his scent.
“So you are using a Witch to mask your hideous odor,” Braden asserted.
Slowly Albion caught hold of himself and let the rage from the mention of his dead wife’s name fade from his face. “Ah yes. My little Witch has been able to lead most of you astray. She even masked the scents of the day walkers who delivered the special packages to your military compounds. She is very talented.”
“And you have been using her to draw the wolves to Miranda? Why?”
“Oh no. Not just to Miranda.” He began to pace before him as the other day walkers stood like statues awaiting further instruction. The only one who dared bat an eyelash was Tristan. He watched his leader but Braden saw very little respect in his gaze. Only pent up frustration. Rage barely controlled.
Albion snapped a look at his second that made the other man lower his eyes. “Pardon him. He doesn’t like the way I’ve been running things. He seems to forget himself. He would do well not to forget himself one too many times or he will find himself headless.” With his dark Middle Eastern looks and youthful face Albion put him in mind of a young Pharaoh bossing his subjects around, no matter the age or rank of the lesser. Because of his great age and power he tended to behave more like he was a God than a dark evil.
“What do you mean, not just Miranda?”
“Oh yes. Back to my devious plot. As I was saying. I have acquired two very exceptional gems. A pair. A sister and brother team, both with the very rarest of talents. They come from such ordinary parents, one would never be able to tell what luck their bloodlines carry. My plan in originality was to capture a young beacon.”
Braden felt his blood run cold. He had never thought what might happen if the day walkers could get a hold of a beacon.
“What’s a beacon,” Miranda whispered from behind him.
He shook his head in an effort to keep her out of the conversation. It was too late. Albion turned his attention to her and moved around to where he might see her. Braden felt her trembling hand clutch the material at the back of his vest. There was nothing that could be done. He would do his best against one as old as Albion but in truth he wasn’t sure at all that he could prevent them from getting to her. At least not surrounded as they were. They would have to come through him first. That was for deadly certain.
He had dreamed of this day, being surrounded on a battle field by his enemy, facing a foe worthy enough to take his soul into oblivion, but now that it was here, he felt like his heart might leap from his chest. This was not looking good for them at all. Albion appeared to be no more than twenty. He was tall and elegant and lean but something in his movements, in his carriage, spoke of his great age. No one knew for certain how old he really was.
“A beacon,” Albion went on, his deep red, nearly black pupils fixed on Miranda, “is a person that is able to find those with a special blood. They rarely have the talent to find hunters, but they can pick up right away on mentors, telepaths, witches, warlocks, demons, skin walkers, and protectors. This last part is where the two of you come in.”
“What does that mean, a protector? What does that have to do with me?”
He sighed heavily as he shook his head. “To be so ignorant. Do you know what a balance is?”
“The balance. Like the guy who just surfaced, born once every thousand years? Wolves get the hots over him.”
“Yes.”
“She knows what a balance is,” Braden snapped, not wanting the man even looking at her let alone talking to her.
“Manners,” Albion tsked as he paced yet again, circling about them in a wide disconcerting way. “Well, once the balance has met the hunter that is to be his mate, the one that he will impregnate, then there comes those hunters who are to mate and produce many more protectors for the one offspring of the balance. And you see I intend for that not to happen. So I found myself a beacon who-”
“Sir. Do you think it wise to tell them all-” Tristan
did not get to finish with his interruption Albion was on him so swiftly. Braden blocked Miranda’s view as the other man lost a few body parts and scooted away yelping and cursing at the same time. It happened so fast that Braden hardly had time to block her before the whole thing was over.
The sight of Albion as a wolf was a true horror to behold. It was like looking into the face of an unbelievable night mare. He was grotesque and ugly beyond measure. It was as if the beast in him was three times his size with misshapen lumps covering his face, arms, and disappearing beneath his robe. His eyes were huge and ugly, and his teeth were like a sharks, rows upon rows of them sinking back nearly to his throat. Braden had seen him nearly vacuum men up whole into that stinking cesspool leaving little but blood and urine in the aftermath. He had taken so many during the Vietnam war, from both sides.
Braden tried to continue to block her view but Miranda was able to see anyway. He heard her gasp before she buried her face in his back. Braden waited until the man looked like a man again. Albion wiped the blood from his mouth onto his sleeve as he rolled his eyes. He shook his head sending an apologetic look Braden’s way.
“It’s so hard to find good help these days. As I was saying. I found a beacon. What I didn’t count on was his sister coming after him, and what a talented little witch she turned out to be. Once her brother found out who the two of you were and how close you were to each other, I had his sister put a spell on you, drawing the wolves to you, making sure that the woman was bitten.”
Braden grabbed Miranda’s arm again as she stopped her trembling and moved out from behind him. She had a look of pure horror on her face as tears gathered in her eyes. “You mean… you set them on us? You set them on me and… and Katie’s dead because… You bastard,” she raged as she tried to run towards him. Braden held firm.