by Maya Daniels
We’ve lost so many hunters that it’s morbid to walk through the halls of our home thinking, Say something, it might be the last time you see them. No one in the sanctuary talks about what is going on, but we all feel the tension building like a ticking bomb with the patrons. The entire Forbearer’s ministry has been holed up in the library, only coming out to send us on hunts in groups. The excitement of the chase has gone. No more jokes or slaps on the back while making plans to hang out when we get back. Now, only dull eyes track our movements, like we are going in front of a firing squad. For many, that is precisely the case.
Lifting my face towards the showerhead, I hope the water can wash away the gloomy thoughts clouding my mind. I have the urge to go kick the doors in, storm the library, and demand answers, but after that cursed night, I have secrets to keep. Secrets that might create a bright flashing arrow pointing at my head with the sign ‘Imposter’ and a reason for me to defend my loyalties. Goosebumps cover my entire body and a cold wave of nausea hits at that thought. My team is the only one not to lose a hunter, and it’s not because we’re better than the rest. The abominations are more interested in getting to me than trying to stay alive. The four people in my group all keep their mouths closed, even though they watch me from the corners of their eyes. There is a new wariness surrounding us.
Loud pounding on the door sounds over the noise of the water. I turn the shower off, smoothing my hands over my face and hair. The liquid glides down my back, but it’s painful instead of soothing. Pulling the screen door open and snatching a towel, I hurry to open the door before whoever it is wakes the entire place up.
“There you are!” Amanda prances inside, pushing past me and acting like she didn’t just try to break the door in.
“Are we under attack?” Closing the door, I lean back on it, crossing my hands over my chest.
“No.” Grinning, she jumps on my bed, bouncing few times before she settles. Innocently, she blinks her big eyes at me.
“Why are you here at 4 AM?” I’m glaring because this is my time, a time when I can think, collect my thoughts, and not worry about anything or anyone.
“I’ve been waiting for you to let me know when you’re ready to talk because I figured you needed time to process what happened.” The mask of playfulness is gone. “Since you want to play stupid, I figured I’d invite myself in for a heart to heart talk.”
“I have nothing to talk about!” Snapping at her, I gather my clothes, snatching them as if it’s their fault I’m grumpy, and walk towards the bathroom to dress.
“I beg to differ, and I assure you that neither you nor I are going out that door until we talk.” Her voice floats to the bathroom where I drop everything on the floor and lean on the sink with my head hanging down.
She has a point. I know it. She knows it, too. The problem is that I honestly don’t know what to tell her. When I look back on that night a week ago, I hope if I ignore it, it will go away.” But I must face the music and get to the bottom of it, no matter what it is.
“Did you hear what the abomination that raked my arm said?” My voice is low, but I don’t need to lift my head to know that Amanda is standing at the door. Her eyes poke at my back like accusing fingers.
“No,” she says softly, as if scared to speak louder in case I stop talking.
“’Soon, all of you will regret getting involved in things that you know nothing about.’” Lifting my head, I lock eyes with her in the mirror. “After that, we lost dozens every night, and each night only our team comes back with the same number as when we left. They don’t fight or even try to protect themselves. They’re too busy trying to get their hands on me. You can’t tell me that you haven’t noticed.”
“Oh, I’ve noticed!” She nods adamantly. “But you’re a hot piece of ass, so you can’t blame them for wanting all those yummy curves!” Her eyebrows go as high as her hairline and the ring she has on the side of her left eyebrow sparkles in the light. She sighs and stops the charade when I just glare at her. “Listen, girl, they’re demons! Who knows why they say and do half the things that they do? Our job is not to exchange pleasantries with them. We’re there to kill the suckers and send them back to hell. It’s what we’ve been born to do!” Spreading her hands wide, she looks at me as if expecting applause for the speech.
“What if it was right?” Searching her eyes through the mirror, her forehead furrows. Turning around, I lean on the sink. “What if something has changed that we don’t know about? I mean, they’ve never spoken to us.” Frowning, I nibble on my lower lip. “Right? They’ve never spoken before now?”
“Not that I know of, no.” Pursing her lips, it looks painful to admit that fact.
“So, my point is,” I say, pointing a finger at her, “Why now? And why me?”
“It could’ve spoken to anyone if it was a Chatty Cathy.” Cocking her head, she looks like she is seriously considering her ridiculous statement.
“Amanda, be serious for a second, please. I’m not joking!”
“I know you’re not, Hel.” Coming closer, she grabs both my hands in hers, squeezing gently. “You are overthinking, as usual. We’re the good guys, remember? There’s nothing to question or even think twice about.” There is so much sincerity in her big eyes that my chest hurts with how much I want to believe everything she says. If only that damn night hadn’t happened. “They tell us where the abominations are, we go send them back to hell, and everyone is happy and safe. The good guys always win.”
“The good will always win,” I repeat, and the pressure in my head and chest lessens. “Thank you! I think it’s just the number of deaths this last week that’s messing with my head. It all just hit out of nowhere.” Pulling my hands out of hers, I rub them over my face.
“Yeah, I figured it was something like that. You’re always the one that takes our losses the hardest. It’s not your job to babysit all of us, and you can’t save everyone, my fearless, beautiful friend. I just wish you knew what a great person you are and how much we love you for it.” Tugging me to her, she wraps her arms around me, squeezing me tight. “Even George, the jerk!” Snickering, she pulls back to look at my glaring face, “I think being a jerk is his way of flirting with you.”
I push her away as she laughs in my face while making kissing sounds. Shaking my head, I can’t help but laugh with her as I try to place a hand over her mouth to make her stop.
“You’re the jerk now! Stop this crap!” Laughing, we wrestle around, and she chortles even louder when I almost lose the towel. The pounding on the door has us both sobering up in a second as I rush to open it, clutching the towel to my chest. George stands at the door and looks me up and down slowly before his dark eyes settle on mine.
“We’ve been summoned to the library. Another team never made it back.” His words feel like punches to my chest as I numbly stare at him.
Twenty-five minutes later, I follow my team through the heavy double doors, carved with Holy symbols and intricate crosses, into the library. The musty smell of old books and parchments calms my thundering heart, which is doing its best to push out of my chest and hide as I turn around and pull the doors closed behind me. Reluctantly turning around, my eyes scan everything, marking all corners, shadows, exits, and potential weapons. It’s an ingrained reaction I developed in my training through the years, and all my mentors were proud of me for it. At the moment, I’m not so sure they feel the same as three of them narrow their eyes at me when they notice my reaction.
The large room is as big as a public library, but that’s where the similarities end. Three walls are lined top to bottom with shelves full of books, one broken by a large window, and a wooden ladder with wheels leans to one side. Between them, a large mahogany desk long enough to accommodate twelve people is nestled with high-back chairs around it. Only four are occupied when we enter, and all the occupants are watching us walk towards them like we’re the dirt on their shoe.
My boots make clicking sounds as they touch the fishbone
wooden floors and the sound echoes around me as if I’m walking inside a tomb. I don’t know why I feel this dread that keeps rising with each breath I take, but my gut feeling has never failed me to this day. I doubt it’ll start today, so I know something terrible is about to happen. It even bothers me to know that behind me, when I stop to face those sitting at the table, are rows and rows of books as far as the eyes can see. I feel open and vulnerable. Which is ridiculous, since the sanctuary is an old monstrosity that used to be a church and it’s built of blessed soil. It’s not a feeling I’ve experienced often, not that I can remember, anyway.
I’m the last one to stop as we line up shoulder to shoulder and my eyes subconsciously flick to the letter opener that resembles a sword sitting idly on top of the polished desk. That, too, doesn’t go unnoticed by the men facing us.
“I’m happy to see you finally decided to grace us with your presence.” Samuel, the youngest of the four patrons, glares at each of us in turn. “But I see what the delay was.” One of his bushy eyebrows goes up when he settles his mud-brown eyes on me. “Are we all dressed presentable to satisfy your liking, Helena?”
I knew that it would eventually come down to this. For some reason, it bothers the patrons greatly that I’ll always style my hair and do my makeup, even before a hunt. Amanda looks like an anime character, and still I bother them more. Apparently, I have too much potential to waste time on unimportant things. They just don’t know what’s important to me. All four of them now have their eyes on me, and I see Amanda and Cass fidget out of the corner of my eye. No amount of fidgeting can keep my mouth shut, unfortunately.
“I didn’t think it would be appropriate to show up here wet and wrapped in a towel, sir! If I knew it was that urgent, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it and would’ve rushed here just as I was when George knocked on my door at 4 AM. I didn’t think you would feel comfortable with me standing here half naked,” I tell them evenly while doing my best not to smirk when their faces start turning red with each word that comes out of my mouth.
“You should be set on guard duty for showing such disrespect, young lady!” Samuel stutters his floppy cheeks, reminding me of a bulldog. I almost snort at the image.
What the hell is wrong with you! my mind screams at me, but I feel like someone else has taken possession of my body and the words coming out are not my own. Too bad we can’t be possessed, so I can’t really blame it on that, only on my own stupidity. As I’m arguing in my own head, I see the gloating look that enters Solomon’s eyes, and they almost glitter with satisfaction, as if I’ve given him the reason to keep me from going on a hunt. The dread I was feeling earlier doubles.
“I was told a team didn’t return last night. I meant no disrespect, I simply wanted to be ready if we had to leave straight away to search for them.” Hurriedly, I try to remedy what my big mouth messed up.
“They were found,” Adam says in a hollow voice, cutting off whatever Samuel was about to say.
Silence descends around us, and I look from one patron to the other, waiting to hear more. No one says anything as they stare at us with vacant eyes, not seeing us at all. Absentmindedly, I glide my right hand over my gun, the cold feel of the metal calming the whirlwind of thoughts that are making me dizzy. Something makes me look at Hector, the last patron in the room, and my heart skips a beat as I notice one side of his mouth quirking before he schools his features. What’s going on? Or have I started hallucinating?
“Did anything unusual happen this past week on your hunts, or with your assigned tasks?” Samuel continues as if they didn’t just tell us five of the people we’ve known our whole lives are dead.
“Who?” Hearing my own voice makes me flinch internally, and I hear the barely-audible groan from both Amanda and Cass. I want to know which team is lost to us, but I get ignored like I haven’t spoken at all.
“There were more demons than usual, sir!” George speaks loud and clear in a voice that would make any drill sergeant proud. “It started a week ago on the day, and it increased daily.”
“We all know about the increasing numbers, child.” Hector speaks for the first time, his voice deep, fatherly, and even. “We are asking about something unusual, something that’s never happened before.”
While Samuel looks like a bulldog with his floppy cheeks, bold head, and chubby sausage fingers even when wearing the black robes, Hector is regal and grace incarnate. Slim and tall, his white hair is cut short and it matches his lined face perfectly. His presence alone demands respect and obedience. The other two, Adam and Solomon, are identical twins. Lucky for us, and unlucky for him, Adam has a deep scar cutting his left cheek from under his hairline to under his chin. Sitting like a reminder that someone has tried to cut his face off, but failed, it helps to know which twin you are looking at. They both have salt and pepper hair cut the same way and brushed to the side, as well as narrow angular faces with a long, pointed nose sticking above thin lips. Built like jocks, it’s not hard to guess they used to be hunters like us at some point in their lives.
My breath freezes in my lungs as I consider that question. To make things worse, the twins are looking at me intently, as if trying to read my mind. I’m sending prayers to Heaven that they can’t hear the screaming my brain is doing at the moment. When George clears his throat and appears about to answer, I can’t take it anymore.
“One of the demons spoke to me!” Relief for finally hearing it out loud washes over me a second before the realization hits me that it’s not my own voice that said that. It was Amanda’s, and my head whips towards her while a sharp pain zings through me from my shoulder to the base of my skull from the movement.
“Saying what exactly?” Steepling the sausages, or fingers as others would call them, on the desk, Samuel leans over it, his eyes betraying his excitement. Hector hasn’t taken his light blue eyes off my face while I’m gaping at Amanda like a fish out of water.
“Something about regretting getting involved…” Tilting her head, she taps one finger on her lips as if thinking. “I believe. Something along those lines, but I didn’t pay much attention.”
“A demon spoke and you didn’t pay attention?” Adam snaps, almost growling at her through clenched teeth.
“I’m sorry, sir! I was trying to kill it and stay alive. I didn’t know I should try to chat it up.” Her face dead serious, and she blinks those big, brown, innocent eyes at them, looking from one patron to the other. My heart jumps to my throat where it tries to choke me for a second before it drops to my feet. What on earth is she doing?
“Did any of the rest of you have something similar happen?” Adam glares at us in turn.
“I doubt it.” Amanda keeps talking and I fight the urge to slap a hand over her mouth. “No one can hear themselves think, let alone listen if a demon is talking when Helena starts using her girls.” Nonchalantly she waves a hand, indicating my guns. “I was away from the group, chasing the abomination, when this happened.”
“Out!” Samuel snaps, and I jump a little from the volume in his voice.
They’ve been angry before, many times. But they’ve never screamed like now. All of us turn at the same time and start walking towards the doors as fast as our legs can carry us without running for the exit. Jared grabs the doors and pulls them open, and I calm down a little when the fresh air from the hallway hits my face like a breeze.
“Not you, Amanda!” Adam’s words feel like they hit me at the back of my knees and I stagger, bumping into George’s back. “You stay! They can go.”
Pushing myself off George, I turn around to walk back inside, but both he and Jared grab hold of my arms, while Cass grabs the multiple belts I like to wear around my hips like she’s trying to reign in a horse. Amanda winks before pushing the doors closed in my face. All the adrenaline that was making me crazy inside the library leaves me at once, and my eyes roll to the back of my head while my body crumbles to meet the floor.
Gasping for air, I flail my arms, trying to grab hol
d of something substantial to anchor me to reality. My chest hurts as if my ribcage is ready to burst through my skin, and my eyes snap open when my upper body jerks me into a sitting position. Sucking in short, sharp breaths, I look around me, not recognizing where I am. Everything is gray, including the closed door that I’m eyeing so I can bolt out of here.
“Easy there, Hel! Breathe!” Jared’s smooth voice makes my head jerk in his direction, my hair flying around my face. “Breathe,” he repeats, his blue eyes calm and steady on my face. He’s sitting on the chair next to the bed that I’m apparently occupying.
Unable to answer him from lack of oxygen, I stare at him wide-eyed and he starts taking deliberate slow, deep breaths, as if trying to teach me how to breathe. Subconsciously I follow his directions, and after a few moments, I can finally feel enough air enter my sore lungs.
“That’s it! Keep breathing slow and even.” His voice is soothing, and I nod jerkily, following directions until I feel the muscles of my body unlock from the state they were in.
“Amanda!” Still gasping, I manage to utter my friend's name, searching his eyes.
“She’s fine. They’re downstairs getting instructions for our hunt tonight. I was told I should stay here to look after you until they come back.” With a sheepish smile, he rubs the back of his neck. “It’s Amanda we’re talking about. She’s always fine.” Awkwardly chuckling, his boyish face relaxes me even more.
“It wasn’t her.” The words hurt my throat, but I have the urge to say them out loud. “You know it wasn’t her that the abomination spoke to, right? It was me!”
“Yeah…” Still rubbing his neck, Jared won’t meet my eyes. “We know. But we can talk about that later when the others come. They’ll tell you better what we think the deal is. You know me, I’d rather just tag along and let you guys do the talking.”
