Institute of Supernaturals: Savage

by J. E. Cluney

  “A kitsune?” Leon gaped as he held Wesley in his arms.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off the mumbling little thing. God, this was always weird, whenever he died. It was also why he was the most reckless.

  Still, those little chocolate-drop eyes looked pissed and confused all at once as it looked around at us.

  “Why the fuck would a kitsune be hunting other supes?” Damien growled as we all milled around inside her room.

  “She said we were lying, maybe she doesn’t know what she is?” I suggested. It would explain a fair bit.

  “Why? Why would she be a huntress then? It’s not exactly something you get into. And surely her parents know what they are, why would they become hunters?” Leon chewed his lip as Wesley squirmed in his grip.

  “Maybe she’s being forced?” Damien muttered, although I could see he was annoyed and frustrated with this whole thing.

  Not that I blamed him. But damn, did I want that little vixen. The sight of her half naked had been tempting, and I had desperately wanted to take up her offer for sex.

  “Why the sex?” Leon muttered, shaking his head in bafflement.

  “Kitsunes are meant to have mates, multiples. They’re lustful creatures, and supes and humans are even drawn to them,” I said, remembering what father had told me about them. Kitsunes were rare creatures, almost extinct. Powerful beings with incredible strength and speed.

  “From my understanding, the few that are around, are protected and cherished. They’re said to bring good fortune to those they hold dear, so getting on their good side is always a good idea,” I continued, trying to draw forth all the stuff I’d been told about them.

  “Well, guess we’re in for a shitload of bad luck then,” Damien sniggered.

  “Only you guys really attacked her,” I pointed out.

  I checked my phone, frustrated that father hadn’t called back yet.

  “Where do you think she went?” Damien murmured as he began searching around the room. The bathroom was empty save for clothes, we’d checked in there first to make sure she was alone.

  I spied the messenger bag jutting out from under the bed, and reached down to tug it out.

  Maybe we’d find some information on our little vixen.

  I tipped the contents of the bag onto the bed as Damien checked all the drawers in the dresser and bedside tables, not to mention the cupboards in the small kitchenette.

  “Did you check her clothes for a phone?” Leon sighed as I rifled through the makeup and and other bits and pieces. There was a lock picking set, a toiletries bag with other stuff, some biscuits, and bunch of scrunched up receipts.

  My eyes fell on the red object that had fallen out, and I picked it up with a grin.

  I flicked the button, and the rabbit vibrator whirred to life.

  “Put that down,” Leon groaned as he stuck Wesley on the floor.

  He sighed as he headed into the bathroom, and I switched the vibrator off as I chuckled and sat down on the bed.

  I pulled the laptop close and opened it up, pursing my lips at the password lock.

  “Damien, got the unlocky thingy?” I asked as Damien reached into the bar fridge and pulled out a chocolate bar.

  He nodded and headed out to the car, while I clicked on the password hint in hopes she was one of those girls who just wrote it in there. No such luck.

  ‘Get fucked’ was the hint. I smirked at this. I liked her. Too bad she wanted to kill us. I’d take the compliment though that she wanted to screw us first.

  “Got a phone!” Leon called out from the bathroom, appearing in the doorway with her bundle of clothes and an iPhone in his hand.

  “Passcode?” I asked, and he nodded. Ugh. Modern technology.

  I bounced my leg as Wesley moved around on the floor, making annoying little sounds. Why’d she have to kill him and reduce him to that?

  I hated it. Him being stuck like that, although it was amusing. Leon had to take on his care.

  Damien returned and tossed me the small device and multi cords. I plugged it in, watching as it worked on decoding her password for us.

  Having good witchy contacts was always useful.

  Within two minutes, I was going through her files, looking for information on her. Mostly police reports, some erotic fan-fiction of supernatural, clearly labelled in a folder named ’Supernatural Erotica Fan-fiction’.

  There was an album on it too of photos synced from her phone. That was a good start.

  “I’ll get my laptop and we can try to figure out who she is,” Leon said as he strode past me and out the door.

  There were photos of her with two men, one her age roughly, another older. Brother and father perhaps?

  Photos of buildings, like she was scoping places out, including jewelry stores. Interesting.

  Well, hunters didn’t get paid for their work.

  Was our little vixen a cat burglar?

  I left the photos of her and her family open as I looked through her documents. Nothing informative, just hunt details, notes. Nothing great.

  “Try the phone,” Damien suggested as he sidestepped Wesley with a look of utter disgust.

  I tugged the decoder out of the laptop and plugged one of the multi leads into the end of it.

  I plugged the iPhone end into the phone, and waited as it unlocked.

  Phones always took longer, hell, Apple products took longer. At least her laptop was an Acer.

  Leon returned with his laptop just as my phone sounded off, and I set the laptop aside as I stood to take the call.

  “Found the vampire?” father asked gruffly.

  “Sort of. The huntress got him, but she’s more than that. She killed Wesley too,” I said, glancing down at Wesley’s new form.

  “Damn, how’d that happen?” he growled.

  “We underestimated her. It won’t happen again. She’s a kitsune,” I informed him, hearing the sharp intake of breath on the other end.

  “Why would she be killing supes? Innocents?” father murmured.

  “I don’t know, she bailed on us pretty quick when I tested her power with possession. She blocked me out with ease, but it flared her power up massively. The energy I felt, it was like it hadn’t been accessed in a long time,” I frowned. This little huntress was an interesting one all right.

  “A kitsune is rare, killing one will bring bad luck on you. You’re lucky you didn’t succeed,” father said with a relieved tone. “But we must find out more about her. Can you bring her back here? There are few kitsune lines around anymore, so she should be protected.”

  “Yeah, we can do that, we just have to find where she went,” I sighed.

  “You boys will figure it out, I’m sure of it,” father said firmly. “Keep me updated.”

  With that, the line clicked off and I shoved my phone back into my pocket.

  “New mission. Find her and take her home,” I informed my companions.

  “Seriously? He wants us to bring a huntress home. You told him she killed Wesley, right?” Leon said as he wildly indicated at the pathetic thing on the floor.

  Wesley made some grumbling sounds at this.

  “She’s also a kitsune. And I think if we can find her and get her to sit still while we question her, we might find the answers we need. Besides, having a kitsune around who likes us will give us good luck,” I said with a mischievous wink. Not to mention she could

  kick ass, was hot as hell, and wanted to fuck us.

  Yep, she was perfect.

  Too bad she tended to kill her fuck buddies.

  “How are we going to find her?” Damien growled as he crossed his arms and shoved Wesley away with his boot.

  As if on cue, her iPhone lit up with access.

  I snatched it up before Leon could get to it, and scrolled through her contacts and checked her Apple ID.

  “Savage Harlow, fuck, that’s an awesome name,” I grinned. “But we’ve got dad’s number here, so I’m guessing that’s where she’ll go. No mom in here,�
� I said as I scrolled through her tiny list of contacts.

  No Facebook for me to check, not that any of us even had it. In our line of work, you didn’t get something like that.

  Her emails were linked and pathetic, just phone bills and stuff she’d emailed to herself. There was a flagged one though that caught my interest.

  “Give me his number, I’ll see if I can track it down,” Leon said as he sat down at the table and opened up his MacBook.

  I did as he asked before returning to the email.

  It was an email labeled the Harlow family, and a quick scan through it revealed it was something her father had emailed her. Information on some hunting family with rare bloodlines, the ability to see shifter auras.

  I’d never heard anything like it, and it was starting to put me on edge.

  She was a kitsune. I knew that for sure, so what was this shit?

  “Got a location,” Leon declared. “Few hours from here.”

  “Is she seriously going to ride a few hours there in her underwear?” Damien shook his head, a smirk tugging at his lips. The thought was quite hilarious.

  “We should take her stuff, a peace offering?” I suggested, and Leon groaned.

  “She’s lucky she only killed Wesley,” he muttered as he stood up and eyed the thing on the floor. It farted and made gurgling sounds, and I rolled my eyes. Great, now we had to take it in the car with us.

  5

  I pulled into the driveway, feeling humiliated and on edge. My father would surely be home any minute now, not that I had my phone on me anyway.

  I’d sneak in and put some pants on. He was going to be pissed I’d abandoned my phone and laptop behind, not to mention my dagger.

  My dagger. The one thing I had left from my real family.

  I shut my engine off and ripped my helmet off, blinking wildly at the incredible sight. Everything was so vivid and enhanced now, I could see the stars so well in the night sky, the scattering of what looked like mist. Galaxies.

  I could see the goddamn galaxies and shit up there.

  I growled as my eyes flickered across the suburban street, where a cat stalked out from under a shrub. It hissed and bolted back to the darkened house. Only the streetlights illuminated the street this late at night, but I could see everything so easily.

  What the hell had that demon done to me? Hopefully dad could fix it. Then I’d find them and kill them, get all my stuff back. Maybe I wouldn’t tell him about my stuff being left there, yeah that was a better idea.

  I crept around the darkened house, grateful that his old pickup wasn’t parked in the drive. I slipped through the cover of darkness, silent like I’d been trained, my chest pounding with all my new senses.

  Hell, I could smell things, things I couldn’t explain. Squirrels? That was one, but how the hell did I know that? The trash reeked as I walked past the bins, and I covered my nose as I found the backdoor.

  I jimmied the back window open and pulled myself up and inside, grumbling as I landed softly on the floor.

  Hunters normally kept on the move, but not my family. My father had settled down, getting too old to stay on the road. He afforded it thanks to all my thieving. Just a specialty of mine, robbing people and places.

  Apparently I could never be ID’d on footage, something due to my family lines.

  I tiptoed through the house, as to why, I didn’t know, since I was home alone.

  Being able to see in the dark was pretty cool I did have to admit, but what had that demon guy done to me? I felt more alive than I’d ever felt, like every fiber inside me was pulsing with electricity. At least the glowing had faded down at some point out on the highway.

  God, the amount of honking horns I’d endured on the way home, I was just grateful I had my helmet on to hide me. And no one had followed me home.

  I reached my room and headed straight for the drawers, grabbing out some jeans and throwing them on. The night was a little cool, but I felt like fire was pulsing through me.

  I spun towards the front of the house as I heard an engine rumbling.

  Daddy was home.

  Good. I needed answers.

  I flicked on the kitchen light as I sat down at the dining table, playing with a lock of my hair nervously.

  How would I even explain what had happened to me?

  I listened, impressed at my keen hearing as I heard his boots scraping on the path to the house. Despite the fact that the kitchen was at the other end of the house.

  He trudged up onto the porch, and I even heard him grumble as he fumbled with his keys. He did delivery driving at night in the area, along with security other nights. He liked night work just like me. It was one of the few things we shared despite not being properly related. I was a distant cousin to their family lines, and dad had taken me in when I was just a small kid.

  “That you Sav?” he called out as he walked through the door. I heard the resounding click as he locked it behind him.

  “Yep, it’s me,” I called back, my chest tightening. I was going to be in so much shit. When my brother had been caught under a witch’s spell and couldn’t talk, he got in deep shit. I don’t know what had happened to me, whatever he’d done, it seemed the demon had just made me better, which was strange.

  “Wasn’t expecting you home,” my father said as he came up the hall and stepped into the kitchen.

  He was wearing a thick brown coat over his black tee. He had on his usual cargo pants and heavy black duty boots. His brown hair was a ruffled mess, and his hazel eyes looked tired yet alert all at once. He was always prepared for anything, always ready for any supes to be waiting for him. He was a solid man, but not in a fat kind of way. He was built like a pro wrestler, and packed a hell of a right hook to boost. Nothing like my adopted brother. My father had a strong, square jaw and a hooked nose, whereas my adopted brother had an angular jaw and more prominent facial features. My father would sometimes call him ‘pretty boy’, but he used that to get female supes.

  Not to mention all human females he loved to play around with and then brag to me about.

  The amount of times in our teen years that I’d wanted to jump him, fighting the urge to slip into his room, damn, let’s just say I lost count, but I never did. He was my brother.

  But when dad wasn’t around, we did flirt in some sense.

  I don’t think either of us thought much of it. We weren’t really related. Just grew up together. He was my best friend in life, as I had a habit of losing female friends. I was apparently a slut, and they didn’t like that, especially since I’d flirt with their partners. I couldn’t help it, I had this unquenchable desire in me.

  “Sav?”

  “Hmm?” I looked up at my father as he dumped his bag on the kitchen table.

  “I asked why you’re home,” he repeated. Guess I missed that. Off in my own head.

  He frowned as I tried to think of what to say, and then he lurched forward, catching my chin in his forefinger and thumb as he stared hard into my eyes.

  “What are you doing?” I frowned, taken aback at his weird behavior. The way he was looking at me unnerved me.

  He hissed as he pulled back and let go of me, cursing under his breath.

  “What happened,” he growled.

  Fuck. He knew. Somehow, he knew.

  “Some supes followed me after the vampire thing, they found me at the motel and attacked me. I killed one of them, but the demon tried to possess me, something happened and I got out of there as quick as I could,” I practically vomited the words out.

  “I told you to always be careful! You can see demons, I’ve told you to be careful, never let them get too close, kill them quickly!” he snarled as he slammed a hand down on the table and making me flinch.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled. I’ll be damned to hell if he ever found out I fucked a lot of them. He’d disown me in a heartbeat.

  But what had the demon done to me? My father knew something was different. How?

  “He got to you,�
�� my father growled, his eyes flicking around wildly as his mind whirred.

  Damn. I knew something had happened. God, was I going to do something? Was I in some in between state of possession?

  “I need to lock you up, you could hurt someone, I need to figure out how to fix this,” my father sighed as he gave me a hopeless look.

  My stomach flipped and my chest tightened.

  I just nodded, my throat constricting and blocking off any words. What had I done? I’d let him get too close. I’d gotten careless.

  My father grabbed my arm and I allowed him to lead me into the hall and to the locked door midway down, where he undid the deadbolt and flicked on the light.

  “I’ll call your brother, see if we can figure this out. You need to stay down there for now,” he said painfully, unable to look at me.

  I’d really screwed up this time.

  “Okay,” I murmured as I stepped onto the top step of the staircase and glanced back at him.

  Emotions stormed through those hazel eyes as his jaw set, and he just nodded at me in a silent command.

  I turned back, my heart in my throat and my body tingling. This was bad. Really bad.

  I padded down the steps, cringing as he shut the door behind me and the deadbolt clicked into place.

  I sighed as I reached the bottom of the staircase and looked around the small basement. At least there was a bed made up in the corner for just this kind of thing. It wasn’t the first time one of us got ourselves into trouble, but usually it was Jackson, my brother.

  But this time seemed different. The way dad had looked at me, I couldn’t shake it. Like there was… disgust?

  I slumped onto the bed, eyeing my surroundings as I rubbed my arms. Old bits and pieces, dad’s tools all on the far wall, my brother’s old dirt-bike that no longer ran, my bicycle from my childhood.

  I slid under the flimsy blanket as I shivered, every soft sound reaching my ears.

  I felt different within. Something I couldn’t explain.

  I raised my hand to my face, frowning at it. Even my skin had some kind of extra glow to it.

  Something had definitely changed.

  But despite what my dad seemed to think, I didn’t feel like it was wrong.