We discussed setting traps around the grounds. Lyanne claimed to know someone who would sell her low-explosives we could bury and I had no reason to doubt her, so I decided to do a quick circuit and decide where the best spots to set traps would be, based on points of access and human tendencies to walk down paths.
The main drive was an obvious choice for bombs and booby traps, but after the first explosive went off Tandi would certainly go off-road. She might loop around to the pool, where there was a narrow patch of ground between the edge and the woods that could easily be covered. The area with the gazebo would be more difficult. There was a lot of open ground there and it would be hard to predict the path they would come through. But as a truck driver for the army I was taught the exact kind of spots I was supposed to avoid, and those seemed like the right spots to leave traps.
Unfortunately, I never got a chance to use those skills in action. As I was rounding the gazebo, I spotted three figures rising the crest ahead of me. My heart threatened to beat right out of my chest as I realized what I was seeing-- three women, three robes, and three ivory masks.
The Sisters of Pain were here.
I opened my mouth to yell and warn the others, but before any sound had escaped something hard slammed into my chest and knocked my breath out of me. All that came out was a gasping wheeze as my lungs struggled to fill with air. In front of me, the Sister in the center was spinning a sling in her hand, a fresh metal ball loaded into its pocket. The other two were rushing down toward me, their inhuman speed closing the gap in seconds.
These things were tough enough one-on-one on a good day, yet I was not about to let them get past me and into the house. I wasn't sure how I was going to beat three of them, but I was determined to find out. I called on my weapon and sucked air into my lungs, ready for the fight.
The Night Flail came to me, its chain wrapped around the cast on my wrist, and I swung it around in time to deflect the next ball shot at me. The impact resounded like a car slamming into a metal pole, but the flail was stronger and the ball exploded into tiny metal shards that rained down around me in a soft patter.
The closest one had a knife drawn in either hand and came directly at me in a frontal assault. There was no subtlety to her attack, so I brought the chain of the flail up like a whip and lashed out in a savage blur. The Sister cut the air at just the right angle to knock the end of the flail away from her, and she leaped into the opening she’d made with the other knife pointed at my throat. I brought the chain around in an arc and caught the blade as it was an inch from me. The metallic ringing telling me I’d scored a saving hit. I stepped back, letting the momentum of the Sister's lunge carry her forward, and twisted on the chain, pulling the knife from her grasp. She went past me, her back exposed to me, and I brought the chain up to strike her with the killing stroke.
A hammerblow slammed down on my back as the third Sister elbowed me from behind, the bones of her arm snapping from the impact. I dropped toward the ground, barely catching myself with my elbows before I ate a face full of dirt, and pushed myself into a roll just as the Sister's foot came crashing down on the spot where my head had been.
I used the force of the roll to push myself back on my feet just as the Sister was dropping down on me, feet raised in a kind of leaping kick that seemed wildly unfocused, but was so brutal in form that it would have killed me without question. A small grin appeared on my face as I recognized this tactic and how to beat it. The flail came out in a vertical slice, and as the Sister tucked into a ball to avoid the cut, the chain wrapped around her leg. With a powerful tug, the creature was pulled out of the air and crashed through the top of the gazebo, splintering wood and shattering the glass table beneath it.
More instinct than reaction saved me as the glint of another metal ball popped into my peripheral vision. I brought the Night Flail in front of my face just before it would have connected, but not in enough time to fully disperse the energy behind the projectile. The ball battered into the chains, pushing its force against my arms. I could feel the pain in my wrist under the cast as something was popped out of place, and I fought the urge to shake out my arm in an effort to regain some sensation.
“What the fuck is it with your kind and my arms?” I growled, but there was no answer.
The ball dropped to the ground, its force expended, as the Sister on the rise loaded yet another into her sling. On my left, the second Sister had picked up her fallen knife and let out a tortured moan as she twirled both blades in her hand. On my right came the sound of shifting glass as the final Sister struggled to her feet.
I couldn't win like this. That was just simple fact. Even if I continued to do an admirable job defending, they would grind me to dust under the weight of their cumulative attacks, and they knew it. For them, it was a waiting game, but for me, it was just the opposite. If I could just get out of the range of that sling, maybe I could deal with the two others at close range. Maybe. It certainly would be easier to fight if I wasn't concerned about my brain getting knocked out of my head at any moment by the world's ugliest David and Goliath fan.
That thought in my head, I turned on my heels and ran in the direction of the house.
“Follow me, ladies. It’s time to stretch our legs.” I churned my legs like pistons, running at a speed that I didn’t know I had in me.
The Sisters pursued. I knew I could never outmatch their inhuman speed, but I hoped I could trick them about my destination. They rushed in front of me, blocking my path to the house.
Just as I’d hoped. I took a sharp left and came to the gardens. During the estate's rehabilitation, Lyanne had the workers put chest high stone walls on all sides except for the path to keep Handsome Teddy from stomping on her flowers again. My hope was this time the wall would stop the aim of a monster wielding a sling.
I stopped in the center of the garden and took a moment to catch my breath. They only gave me a moment before a Sister of Pain appeared at either end of the path. In front of me was the knife wielder, slicing at the air in front of her with looping, lazy arcs intended to ratchet up my fear and give her a hit of pleasure. Well, fuck you too. Behind me, the other Sister shook glass shards out of her robes. That black ooze they had instead of blood seeped from dozens of cuts and into her robes, but she didn't seem to pay it any mind.
“You ladies here to admire the garden? I'd recommend staying away from the roses. They have thorns.”
Taking deep breaths, gently swinging the flail from the end of its chain, and using focus to clear away all the pain, I prepared myself for what was coming.
Both Sisters charged me at once. I swung The Night Flail in a wide arc, letting it cut a swath in front of the knife-wielder and forcing her to leap back. I followed through with the swing, carving at the space behind me, and she ducked, but not in time. The flail crashed into her mask. Ivory shattered and the featureless face underneath cracked and sizzled from the collision with the weapon that is their bane. She stumbled back and fell into a patch of rhododendrons, and in a flash, I wondered if immortal ash was good for flowers.
Guess we’d find out next Spring.
With a loud cry, the first Sister rushed me, one knife angled for my throat and the other my heart. The flail went up and down in a rapid series of parries, keeping the knives out of striking range and putting the Sister on the defensive. With a snap, the chain cracked out and the flail collided with the Sister's right hand, crushing and burning it, leaving it a mangled remnant of what it once was. The knife in that hand fell from her powerless grasp, blade flashing as it spun harmlessly away.
Behind me, the other Sister rose back to her feet. Some of the flowers stuck to her hair, creating a twisted image with her seared cheek, broken jaw, and featureless face.
I went into a spinning dance braided of instinct and rage, unknown to me before that instant. I knew as both Sisters renewed their attacks that my ability was unfolding, and I was becoming something different, and perhaps, I hoped, better.
T
hey came at me from both sides, but the chain seemed to be at every angle at once, foiling their attempts to move in closer. The knife-wielder was roaring at this point in her, cutting at the flail like it was an angry snake trying to bite her. The other Sister ducked and dodged and weaved to try to get around, but I couldn't find an opening large enough. She spat hissing moans at me through her mask, the muffled sounds taking on an animal quality as her anger grew.
There was a moment of elation as I felt I really could win here. With each pass, the Night Flail was getting closer and closer to landing a serious hit, and once I took out one I could focus on the other.
That all came to an end when the knife slipped past my guard. The chain had snagged for just a fraction of a second at the end of the cast on my wrist, and that was all the opportunity the Sister needed. She darted past and stabbed her knife in my torso, directly below my ribcage. I stepped back, trying to pull my body off the knife, and the Sister pulled, opening a gash along my side.
I clutched at it, trying in vain to stop the rapid flow of warm blood that was now spilling out of me. With the other arm I tried to bring the Night Flail up and found my legs swept out from under me by the Sister with the broken jaw. I scrambled, desperately putting space between us, and reached the wall. Summoning my reserves of strength, my will to not die here, I pulled myself back up to my feet.
Which I only kept for a moment. Right as I turned around, I felt an impact in my head, followed by a penetrating darkness. Flickering images battled for supremacy in my vision as it cleared, while my body dropped like a sack to the ground. I saw a metal ball. The Sister with a sling, perched atop the garden wall like some of songbird. The Sister with the broken mask stepping slowly toward me.
Darkness.
I was dead. Or, I was pretty sure I was dead. At the very least, I was dying.
They say some people see a white light when they do. Others have their lives flash before their eyes.
Me, all I could see were the faces of the people I had failed. The people who had put all their faith in me only for me to die with our work unfinished.
Lyanne, who had willingly given up her power, joined me on my quest, and had been not only my lover but my closest confidant and friend. She would fight to the end, but how could she defend herself against these monsters?
Eve, who had struggled to come to terms with the loss of her curse, the return of her humanity. All she wanted was to make up for the things she had been forced to do by circumstances outside her control. Now she would again be victim to the one who had turned her in the first place.
Sara, an innocent victim of an Incubus who just wanted to repay me for saving her. She was full of energy and ideas, but her brains might not be enough to find a way out of this one.
My mother, who had entrusted this mission to me, came to me in visions when I was at my lowest and asked me to seek out the Night Flail. I may have failed her the most of all.
Was that why my image of her was lingering? It was so clear. Just like those visions I had half a year ago. Only this time I wasn't in a drunken stupor, but knocked senseless.
She was still smiling at me. Her faith in me had not diminished a single drop.
“But I lost.” I spoke at the vision. “What more can I do?”
Use your vision, son, and hunt well.
My vision. Did she mean the danger-sense? It was useless against these things. They turned everything to static.
Use YOUR vision.
The emphasis of the statement suddenly became clearer. I realized where I’d made my mistake.
Ever since I had received the Night Flail, I had come to rely on it, not just as a weapon but for the power it provided. It gave me skills to fight that I never knew, it let me sense where my enemies were, and it moved as if it had a mind of its own. Sometimes it felt like it was the hunter and I was just the host.
But I was the Hunter, and the Night Flail was just a tool. I had to be in control. There was a reason I was chosen as the Hunter. My vision. I just had to use it.
The world came back into focus just as I was being lifted off the ground by the unmasked Sister. My sudden struggling shocked her and she released me, drawing her hands up in a combat pose as the shock of my revival wore off. I stumbled back, stepping over Lyanne's petunias, and steadied myself back against the wall.
Everything was pain. I gritted my teeth and pushed it all away. There would be time for me to collapse from agony later. If I survived.
The three sisters watched me with curiosity. They had clearly thought me finished--not that they had been far from the mark. Slowly, they began to converge on me, taking their time, enjoying the suffering of their cornered prey.
I needed my vision. My vision. My senses were clouded with the static the Sisters produced. I focused, forced that away, pushed it down with my pain, my fear, and my hopelessness. It was just one more distraction keeping me from seeing.
And I saw it. The sickly dark power that permeated them, surrounded them. The black ooze that flowed through them like blood. I saw it as it pulsed with each step they took, as it flared as they prepared to attack.
The unmasked one reached for me, but the pulse of darkness came first, warning me of where she intended to strike. I was dodging long before that hand came within reach of me, and I started to bring the Night Flail around. The next pulse told me that she intended to jump to the right to get out of my reach, so I stepped right as well and lashed out. The flail wrapped around her back, across her shoulders, and settled on her chest. Her whole body flashed, as if a million matches had been lit at once, and she was gone with an incendiary eruption, leaving only ashes behind.
The knife-wielder roared and flipped her blade in her hand. As menacing as she was, her darkness was steady, with no sign that she was about to attack. She was a distraction.
I saw the pulse from the Sister on the wall right before she flung another of her metal balls from her sling. The Night Flail swung horizontally like the world's strangest bat and I redirected the ball toward the closest enemy. It smacked her dead in the face, blasting the ivory mask to pieces, and sent her stumbling into the rose bushes. The flail struck again, and a second later the Sister's ashes were fertilizing the roses. Ashes must be good after all.
The last remaining Sister stood on the wall, suddenly still, as if she was a gargoyle statue that had always been there. Then she dropped the sling and kicked off the world toward me.
The darkness showed me the exact path she would take as she sped at me like a missile. I dropped to one knee and swung the Night Flail up in a vertical slash right across where I knew she would be. The flail caught her in the mid-section and seared her body straight in two. Both halves lingered in the air for a moment, then turned to ash as they fell toward the ground.
I felt like I could have collapsed then and there, just fallen in the garden and hoping someone found me before I bled out, but I couldn't stop yet. I had to check on the women in the house and make sure they were safe.
The gash in my side wasn't as bad as I had feared, but it was still bleeding freely. I tore off a piece of my shirt and used it as a makeshift bandage, hissing in pain as I pushed the fabric in place. Lyanne might scold me later for treating such an expensive piece of designer wear like that, but at least now I was slightly less likely to bleed to death.
My steps toward the house were labored, slow, and riddled with pain. I wasn’t entirely sure I was going to make it.
Then I heard a scream coming from inside. My own pains seemed to dissolve as a new wave of energy burst through me and I rushed toward the front door. I just hoped the three of them remembered the plan to retreat to the wine cellar if the danger was too much, then a chill raced over my skin as I thought of a weakness in our plan.
The fucking wine cellar. The one place away from our eyes, where we were susceptible to Tandi’s greatest trick.
A portal.
17
I burst into the house and entered into absolute chaos. The S
isters of Pain seemed to be everywhere, and the three women, instead of retreating, were putting up a fight, and giving a damned good account of themselves, too.
Eve was at the first barricade, swinging a shotgun around by the barrel as if it was a club. Several oozing black holes in the Sister's chest and stomach told the story of what had happened to all the gun's ammo. The creature lumbered at her, clearly slowed by the damage she had taken, and Eve got several good hits against her. The butt of the shotgun slammed into the Sister's face and put a decent crack in the ivory mask.
In the foyer, Lyanne and one of the Sisters were having a strange staring contest, Lyanne focused intently on the spot on the mask where the eyes should have been. With my vision, I saw the flow of energy between them and realized that Lyanne was holding the Sister back with the remnants of her Succubus power. The thrall effect would not hold the creature back for long, however, as I could see the difference in their powers was enormous.
Off near the staircase, Sara had somehow gotten on one of the Sister's backs and was holding her tight around the neck. The Sister flailed around, confused and unsure what to do against this strange tactic. It spun around in rapid circles, attempting to use the power of its speed to throw the small woman off, but Sara held on with all the skill of professional cowgirl in the rodeo.
A fourth Sister came from out of the kitchen and charged toward the foyer and Lyanne. I rushed between them, leaving Eve, who seemed to be doing alright, to herself for the moment.
The Sister had a long, black blade that curved at the end. I could sense the power behind it and knew instinctively that this weapon had been used to harm and kill many people. She pointed the tip of that wicked blade toward me and made a sound like a baby cooing.
Succubus Hunter Page 17
