Huntress

by Elizabeth Hartwell

  I smile, reaching down and cupping myself. “Wanna prove it?”

  Lance scoots back, holding his hands up. “No way, man. I’ve seen you whip that schlong out to piss. No way am I comparing with you. I’m just saying I can use what I’ve got to good effect.”

  I nod, and Lance leans forward. “You know . . . the Huntress might want to try some of your big hammer, if you catch my drift. She was tight as hell, but I think that’s because whatever or whoever she’s got back in Solace, they weren’t doing that body right. Just sayin’, she could enjoy you, I bet.”

  I ponder the idea, then shrug. It’s no use to let myself think about such things. They lead to me losing control of my emotions, and that’s dangerous for everyone involved. “We shall see. In the meantime, though . . . try not to look so smug.”

  “Oh, come on, let me gloat at least a little bit,” Lance complains. “I mean seriously, man, I haven’t been with a woman that beautiful since . . . well, maybe that half-fairy chick, but you know how clingy they can be.”

  I roll my eyes. Only an idiot like Lance would do something like that voluntarily. “And you wonder why I don’t want to work with you all the time.”

  “I have wondered,” Lance jokes. “I mean, I make your life more interesting, I watch your back, I make sure—”

  “That you get us into more trouble than it’s worth half the time, that my pile of holochips never grows, and that I spend weeks after every job patching over my connections with the groups that won’t put up with you.”

  Lance grins. “Yeah, well . . . it’s more fun when we’re buddies than enemies.”

  I can’t help it. I shake my head. He won’t get under my skin with his needling, not tonight. I’ve purged my emotions. “Perhaps. But remember, this isn’t a permanent partnership.”

  “Really? Because I was really feeling the bromance vibes just now, man,” Lance teases. “I mean, it’s not my thing, but if you’re really feeling it, I’m sure I can make an exception to my no guy policy.”

  Growling, I get to my feet, knowing Lance is just needling me. “Just remember, trickster. This isn’t permanent between us.”

  “Sure, no problem. Hey, one thing,” Lance says, getting to his feet. “The Huntress, she wants to know about our powers and weaknesses. Now, I’ve been honest about mine.”

  “Why is that, by the way?” I ask, and Lance smirks. “What?”

  “The greatest trick you can ever pull is being completely honest,” he says, grinning. “Because everyone wastes so much time looking for the hidden angle. Anyway, what about you? You’re not that forthcoming.”

  He’s right . . . but I’m not quite ready yet. Instead, I step closer to the fire and sit down in the light. “You’ve seen me at my worst and my best,” I reply. “My strengths are my weaknesses.”

  “And they call Loki the god of deception and tricks,” Lance replies with a chuckle. “Then again, riddles are always good fun. Anyway, I’m going to scout the darkness, see if I can find something to eat.”

  Lance grabs a knife from his pack and in a flash disappears into the night. I know he used his ability, and I’ve seen him use it before, but it still is disconcerting to be looking at him in one instant and in the next instant hear his retreating footsteps ten or twenty yards away.

  Still, it’s that same ability that makes him perhaps the best hunter I’ve ever met. If there’s an animal nearby that can make a good supplement to our rations out there right now, he’ll bring it back. And the predators don’t really stand a chance against him if he’s just looking at running away.

  I shift my mind, watching Cerena sleep. It’s hard to really call anyone or anything beautiful when they’re wrapped in a long poncho-like cloak and they’re sleeping on the sand, but as she turns over, the firelight catches her face in such a way that makes her truly breathtaking. Her eyes are closed, letting me see the long, soot-colored lashes against her cheeks, which are tinted golden in the firelight. Her eyebrows are finely sculpted arches, a little thicker than normal, but it just draws my attention to her eyes all the more.

  Her nose isn’t petite, and as I look carefully, I see a very slight bend at one spot. I suspect she’s had her nose broken before. Even with the autodocs of Solace, it is difficult to set a broken nose perfectly unless the person’s willing to sit and do nothing for awhile. And I am quite certain Cerena is not the kind to ever sit around and do nothing.

  But as she rests in the golden firelight, I just watch, tracing the curve of her cheekbones and following them around to her jawline, which has softened a little now that she’s asleep. Finally, there are her lips, plump twin berries that beg to be suckled on, teased and tasted like fine wine before a man loses himself in the lush embrace of her body.

  In my pants, my cock is straining, yearning to be taken out so I can relieve some of this torturous pressure that’s building up inside me, but I don’t. I’m under control now, and I use the pain to remind myself that I cannot fail again.

  Lance was right. I haven’t told him everything. Nor did I tell Cerena.

  But I’ve failed so often in my life. I’ve hurt friends, family, ruined opportunities with my emotions. I’ve destroyed relationships, I’ve destroyed people.

  I’ve killed.

  Lance is lucky that way. He’s right. He doesn’t have to hide who he is.

  But I do. And I swear on my bloodline that I won’t allow myself to fail again.

  Chapter 10

  Cerena

  I have to give it to Lance, he was right. Walking through the Scorched Earth in the direction of Bane, I feel better this morning than I have in the past two days. Really, better than I have on most of my Hunts. Maybe when this is all over, I need to remind myself to include a dildo or something in my travel pack.

  Still, crossing the hundreds of miles between Solace and Bane is both boring and dangerous, so I keep aware of everything as we walk.

  “Lance?” I ask as we crest a hill and see down below us the cracked, broken remains of an ancient road. They crisscross the landscape in mysterious patterns, sometimes leading to ruined villages and towns, sometimes leading into the red zones that nobody but the suicidal would venture into. Every Youngling, even before they leave Solace for their first training mission, learns which names and places to avoid.

  As the saying goes, only the dead go to New York.

  But this road is generally heading in the direction of Bane, and we can follow it for a little while.

  “What’s up, Cerena?” Lance replies as I come to a stop.

  “Move in front of me, will you? You’ve been staring at my ass for five miles.”

  I really don’t get it. I’m wearing my traveling cloak, so my ass isn’t even visible. But Lance has been a few steps behind me most of the walk this morning, and I can almost feel his eyes glued on my hips the whole time. I’m not annoyed. Honestly, after yesterday evening’s vigorous fuck, I’m flattered. I mean, we’ve been on the road for days now. I’m sure I smell like, well, like I’ve been on the road for days without a shower.

  But still, he likes watching my ass.

  Lance chuckles and moves in front of me. His hand looks better today. He wasn’t lying when he said it’d be all better in a week after breaking it. We’re halfway there now, and he’s moving it well. “Okay, okay . . . so, what direction?”

  “Follow the road for a while,” I order them, pointing in the direction we need to go. “I’ve never been on this one before, but it should lead us to some shelter, maybe a real town to resupply in. Tym, what do you think?”

  Tym, who’s been silent but more relaxed as well this morning, shoulders his hammer. “I’m not familiar with this road. I went to Solace by the northern route. We should be able to find something though.”

  Everyone in agreement, we turn, avoiding the cracked black road itself for the most part because of how broken down and cracked it is. While it looks like an easy walk, hard experience has taught me that trying to avoid twisting your ankle on the b
lack ribbon is harder than it looks.

  So instead, we walk along the shoulder, where the ground is still mostly packed and the path easier. We stay armed, but as we walk, I see something up ahead.

  “Tym, Lance . . . let’s play a game,” I call out, inspired perhaps by Lance’s little ‘game’ with me yesterday. It’s a common game, one that every traveler plays with themselves or their traveling companions from time to time. I learned it as Way Back. “Way back, what was that up ahead?”

  The building isn’t all that large, mostly a steel and concrete rectangle with a collapsed overhang off one side. Closest to the road, there’s a bent over, twisted metal pole, with a large green BP on top.

  As we approach, we look it over, and Tym’s the first to answer. “Some sort of rest station for the road,” he says, his voice calm and assured. “The collapsed portion was a place people could park their vehicles. Maybe inside was a small tavern or restaurant?”

  It’s a reasonable idea, but Lance laughs. “No, it’s a whore house. See how small the first room is inside?” he says, pointing toward where there had once been a window. “That’s the reception area. Behind it are numerous small rooms and the one large one for the kinkier customers. See it? They even advertised . . . Self-Service.”

  “Yes, but who would pay for servicing themselves?” I ask, knowing Lance is full of shit but still enjoying his imagination and creativity. That’s what makes Way Back fun, even if you know your answers are wrong. It’s almost like who can bullshit the best. And it passes the time and miles.

  “How should I know? I mean, our ancestors were some perverted fucks if you consider they got to the population they did. Probably self-servicing in front of others was the only way to control the population. Better than snipping the tubes or something.”

  “Ouch,” I complain, imagining surgery on that area of my body. Yes, the autodocs are programmed with all sorts of gynecological services, but that doesn’t mean I want one done on me. “Well, I think it’s a fuel depot. See the word painted next to Service? Oil?”

  “Meh, they probably had oil massages or naked oil wrestling,” Lance retorts. “Come on, these places are boring. Looks like there’s a town ahead.”

  Lance is right, and unlike the previous one, the residents are either too afraid to come out or the place is deserted. I think it’s likely the latter. The buildings all look like they’ve been ravaged by time, and there’s little to give rise to the idea that anyone other than scavengers or looters has been through in a long time.

  “Why do you think nobody ever resettled these communities?” I ask as we stop for water in front of what had once been a statue of some kind. “I don’t mean the big cities, but towns like this, the buildings look untouched by the war. The records in the shelters said nothing, and when Solace was built, nobody really talked about it. Why’d they leave a good town like this?”

  “Because it was a good-looking town,” Tym says quietly, sipping his bottle. “Sure, some were because of damage or changing climates. These buildings look like they’d have been very cold during the nuclear winter. But the biggest reason was towns became magnets for the looter gangs that fled the cities, roaming the land for the next decade, trying to scavenge their way to survival. It was a lost cause from the beginning.”

  “So they would come to the towns, and what? Suck them dry?”

  “When the townspeople didn’t fight back,” Lance interjects. “My grandmother passed down a journal from those times, written by someone in my family. I never quite figured out the connection. Let’s just say a cousin or something. It was pretty damaged and the writing was faded, but it talked about the time right after the war, when the bandits started coming through. It got pretty nasty, at least until both sides started running out of ammunition.”

  “So they left, forming defensive camps?”

  Tym nods. “Until the bandits burned themselves out through infighting . . . or founded Bane. Good question as to which came first.”

  We keep going, the game continuing as we make our way through town. Each time we call out a building, it’s fun, and it gives me a better insight into the guys.

  Tym’s so intelligent, his answers always serious and thoughtful. “A large trading post,” he says as we pass something called a Walmart. “Such a large world would need large markets, and the painted sign does say household . . . I think.”

  “Why would such a small town need such a large market though?” Lance retorts, firing up his own answer. He’s always been silly, obviously striving for the ridiculous or the laughable and never forgetting to work in some sort of sexual overtones into what he says. “Seriously, it’s like that outdoor stadium we passed ten minutes ago. It was used for some sort of adult initiation rite.”

  “An adult initiation rite . . . where all the teens of proper age enter into adulthood in a wild orgy?” I repeat back to him, recalling his last answer. “Who’d need self-service then?”

  “Duh, all the older people who couldn’t participate,” Lance replies, a seamless if ridiculous use of logic. “Of course, as part of their religion and culture, they had to observe the events. That’s what those huge stands were for. But then, when they were worked up and couldn’t do anything about it, that’s what self-service was for. This place was just the indoor location, for winter and bad weather.”

  “Then why does it say Pets on the side of the building?”

  Lance throws up his hands, mock aghast. “Cerena! I had no idea . . . well excuse me, but I guess some people just still have the twisted ideas of our ancestors running around in their heads.”

  Lance jogs ahead, leaving Tym amused and me chuckling under my breath. “Does he think of anything but sex?”

  Tym nods. “Money and food as well. But yes, sex is one of his primary thoughts. It’s . . . understandable right now.”

  The way he says it makes me flush and surprises me as well. It’s the closest Tym’s come to outright hitting on me. It’s not that he’s shy by any definition of the word, but instead . . . reserved.

  Just as we reach the edge of town, something starts to rise in the distance. It’s big, whatever it is, and as we approach, I look up at it, confused. “Is that . . . a woman?”

  The statue’s been damaged, either by time or warfare, I don’t know, but the green coppery bronze outside is still intact enough that I can make out a woman, her head adorned with some sort of pointed crown. Her right arm’s thrust into the air, and at the top of it looks like a torch, or maybe a sword, the flame or blade missing.

  I think it’s a torch, though. Her face, weathered and beaten down, doesn’t seem angry but more dedicated, stern, perhaps . . . but not angry.

  “What is that she’s wearing?” Lance asks. “A bed sheet?”

  “I don’t know . . . but I doubt it’s a bed sheet,” Tym replies as we come to the base of the statue. It towers above us, and I wish I could have seen it when it was intact. The entire left arm is missing, with only a hand and bit of forearm left against her body. “Whatever she was, she was important to these people.”

  I nod, looking at it. This . . . this feels too big for a game like Way Back. Instead, it feels like we’re at an actual holy site, like whatever our ancestors were, with their red, white, and blue flag, their huge vehicles that spat clouds of smoke behind them, and their love of something called football, this thing, this . . . this lady, meant something to them.

  “Hey, look at that,” Lance says, pointing to a plaque fixed to the stone base. “Maybe that’ll tell us.”

  We approach, and as we do, I resist the urge to shiver. Whoever this lady is, it feels like she’s looking at me, judging the world she sees now through her sightless bronze eyes . . . and she isn’t pleased.

  “The New Colossus,” Tym reads, his voice faltering as most of the words have been weathered away. “Here . . . a mighty woman with a torch . . . mother of exiles. Give me your tired, your poor . . . yearning to breathe free . . . I lift my lamp.”

  He stop
s and looks up at the face in the statue again, his face full of wonder. “Is that what the world was like then? Where there was a home for all?”

  “I doubt it,” Lance replies, but his voice doesn’t have that same scoffing dismissal of everything that he normally has. “Everyone puts on a good face for the public but ignores the rats in the walls.”

  “Still . . . to even dream of such a place is amazing,” I murmur, looking up at the statue. “I mean . . . to even say something like that today would get you laughed out of town.”

  Lance nods. “True . . . true. Maybe those Americans weren’t so bad after all.”

  We step back, walking away until we can look at the whole statue from head to toe again, and I’m struck with a sudden tightness in my chest. “We could have had it all,” I murmur, feeling tears threaten for some reason. “Humanity, I mean. We could have . . . and we fucked it up. That’s why she’s still here. To remind us . . . to show us how much we fucked up.”

  “Perhaps,” Tym says quietly, putting a supportive arm around my shoulders, “but with every reminder, there’s also an opportunity. Maybe our ancestors did make a mess of things. Maybe people are on our last chance. But it’s still a chance, and maybe, just maybe . . . that torch can light the darkness again. And she’s going to remind us about that.”

  I nod, leaning into Tym for warmth, and it feels right as he hugs me from the side. Lance squats, for once saying nothing until Tym lets go and I step away, clearing my throat. “Regardless, we need to put in some miles before sundown. Lance, you want to take the lead?”

  “I’d rather take your rear, but okay,” Lance says, walking ahead. “I’m calling dibs on the next whorehouse though.”

  We keep walking, leaving the town and passing through a relatively unoccupied section before another town comes up. This one is bigger, and as we enter, I keep my eyes open, Lance shifting from his knives to holding his Gauss rifle while Tym keeps his hammers handy. We walk through a mile of rubble and more broken skeletons of what used to be America when Lance calls for a stop. “Guys? Danger ahead.”