Hunter of the Damned

by Jennifer Martucci

  I drive down the long lane leading to Hickory Hill Farms is longer than the stretch of road that leads to Hanover’s. A distinct chill cools the air. The sky is an ethereal shade of electric blue, lending the landscape an otherworldly quality. The former version of myself would’ve marveled at the glow, but not this version. Not the Daniel Callahan who left the Hanson Mansion a year ago broken beyond repair.

  Everything about the way I view the world—the way I view life—has changed. Every aspect of me has changed. Even my physical appearance. Growing in height nearly five inches—a record I’m sure—and filling out enough to balance the considerable gain in stature, coupled with my new haircut, I hardly resemble the boy who left Patterson last year. Granted, I still don’t look twenty-one, but definitely more mature, more man than boy. Still, I receive strange looks from most of the patrons when I walk through the door of Hanover’s.

  No longer asked to show my identification as I am now considered a “regular” I behave as I always do, heading straight for the bar. I will order a beer, sip it without tasting it and order food, never engaging in conversation with anyone. Instead, I will sit alone and fixate on the fact that I’ll never see my family again, will never finish high school or attend college. I’ll live a useless life until the day I die, which from what I understand is unlikely to happen.

  The gravity of that realization hits me with the force of a cannon blast, as it always does when I absently amble to the bar. Pushing aside a stool to make room for myself, I wait wordlessly as a plump, middle-aged woman baring tattooed cleavage makes her way toward me. I’ve come to learn that, in addition to having a penchant for black eyeliner and clothes two sizes too tight for her, the bartender’s name is Maddie.

  “The usual?” Maddie asks.

  “Yes, please,” I answer as she pours me a light beer.

  She hands me the mug without charging me. She is familiar with my routine and knows I always settle my bill after my food is ordered and eaten.

  Nodding, I take my drink and head toward the corner booth I sit at daily. Eyes follow me as they always do. I feel their weight, feel the questions burning in them. Some locals mumble under their breath while others merely stare. I suppose I should be used to it, suppose I should’ve developed thicker skin by now, but I haven’t. Only tonight, instead I don’t feel uncomfortable and upset by it. I’m in a bad mood. Anger has edged up alongside the misery and regret I experience relentlessly. I don’t feel like dealing with the nonsense tonight. More nights than not, the drunker the regulars become, the more obnoxious they become. Often times, their intoxication translates to belligerence aimed at me. Those nights, I leave rather than listen to it. As of now, they are relatively calm, they are eating and chatting. Passing them, I slip behind the table and slide into the booth. I place my drink in front of me and stare into the pale amber liquid as small bubbles effervesce up the side of the glass. I order dinner, chicken fingers and fries, looking up at the waitress briefly before returning my attention to my beer. As soon as I do, I’m overwhelmed by a familiar sensation, a pull that rips at every atom in my body, an unseen force that draws me toward it. My muscles twitch, spurring me to race out of the bar and rush toward the location that summons me.

  Struggling to fill my lungs with air, I clutch the glass in front of me with both hands, hunching slightly. My body is rigid. I resist the urge, using every ounce of strength I have to remain where I am. I refuse to yield to a power that seeks to use me as a pawn in a sick game where lives are lost, seen as nothing more than collateral damage. Everything has been taken from me. All is lost. And all because of the energy that seeps into my pores, into my veins, and overtakes me. Swallowing hard, I rage against the pull, struggling not to respond until sweat stipples my brow, the sensation lasting far longer than normal.

  A burst of laughter causes my head to whip up. I see four men staring at me and laughing. “If you have to take a dump kid, the bathroom is over there,” a barrel-chested man with a bushy beard says. Eyes, lined at the corners and hardened by life, train on me mirthlessly. His beefy hand hits the man next to him and their laughter intensifies. They are laughing at me. Their behavior is not new. I’ve been poked fun at before. But tonight, I am having a tough time tolerating it.

  Determined to ignore the taunting, I drop my gaze to the contents of my mug. I raise it to my lips and take a drink. The liquid is bitter but cold. I resist the urge to wince at the taste. I don’t want to give the group further fuel to mock me. I’m miserable here, miserable everywhere. Without a true purpose to propel me forward through each day, I’m left to toil on the farm from sun up to sun down. I dread returning to work.

  Work is all I have. It’s the closest thing to a social life I have, and even then, the men I spend my hours alongside do not even speak English. They smile and nod occasionally, but for the most part, keep their heads down and work harder than any men I’ve ever seen.

  Anger and resentment at my circumstances builds like lava in a volcano, burbling and mounting pressure until it threatens to spew. I have no one in my life. Not a single person. Sarah is dead. My mother and sister are out there, their lives marred forever by my disappearance. They will never have peace. Even long after they accept the possibility that I’ve died. They’ll always wonder. They’ll never have closure. And all because a power I cannot see but only feel as readily as my heart beating in my chest commanded me to act. I was a puppet. I did as the power instructed. Now I’m here.

  It isn’t until the glass in my hand shatters and cold liquid burns into the multitude of nicks in my skin that I realize I gripped it so tightly it yielded to my strength.

  Laughter erupts, and peering over my deeply furrowed brow, I see that the table of drunken men are the culprits.

  “Looks like junior’s having trouble with his beer!” the man with the bushy beard exclaims.

  “Yeah, maybe you should get him a sippy cup, Maddie!” another yells to the bartender.

  “C’mon Carl, leave him be,” Maddie replies.

  I hear the nervous quiver in her tone. She senses it. She senses the charge in the air similar to that of the atmosphere right before a storm. I’ve sat and listened as they’ve mocked me and attempted to provoke me. They always do. They are sand paper, scratching away at me as all bullies do. But little do they know, they are honing the tip of a spear.

  More comments volley back and forth. I listen but barely hear the words. Energy is blazing through my veins, potent volts that burn like lightning through my blood.

  Unable to withstand the electrical storm beneath my skin a moment longer, my rage overtakes me. I jump to my feet, careful to not topple the table in front of me. I advance, glaring down at four faces that are no longer as jovial as they were a seconds earlier.

  “Can we help you, boy?” the man with the bushy beard says, his positon the official spokesperson of the drunken band of idiots.

  I stand, still as a statue, staring at them for several seconds before I speak. “If you slobs say one more derogatory word about me, I’m going to throw you through that window.” I stab my index finger toward the man with the bushy beard then to the large plate glass window at the front of the bar.

  Four sets of eyes drill into me, shocked that I’m actually speaking, much less threatening them. “You do understand what the word derogatory means, don’t you?” I match the intensity of their stares with my own. “Or are you too stupid?” I’m certain they don’t know the meaning of the word, which is precisely why I used it. And now my words are meant to egg them on, but they sit, dumfounded and silent, and do not take the bait.

  Several beats pass between us. Before long, I’m confident I’ve quieted them enough so they’ll leave me alone. Slowly, I turn and begin to walk back to my table. In the seconds that it takes me to face the opposite direction, I sense the approach of an object. I hear it before I see it and barely have a spare second to react before a bottle whizzes past my right ear and explodes against the wall in front of me. Brown glass rain
s to the floor below and the roar of chatter that drowned out the music playing in the background halts.

  I spin around and lock eyes with the bearded man who smiles like a child who just got away with eating a cookie when his mom wasn’t watching. He is standing now and was the one who hurled the empty bottle at my head. Puffing his chest out, he licks his teeth and advances a step. “You’re gonna put me through a window? Is that right, you little punk?” he grinds out his words. His words, though on the surface are controlled, are betrayed by his face, reddened by rage.

  Before I can say “yes” he is upon me, swinging a fist at my head. I dodge it with ease and grab his arm and launch him over my back. He races through the air and through the window at the front of the bar. Jagged shards of glass fall to the floor and there is a second of stunned silence before I’m charged by two more men. Both rush me with balled fists, taking swipes at me. I sidestep each punch, grabbing the backs of their necks and slamming their heads together. They collide with a loud thud then collapse to the floor.

  Staggering and slow to get up, the two men remain down. The last man leaps to his feet, and I ready myself for him. Only as I do, I sense a presence. Immediately, a voice bellows, “What are you doing?” Rich and ripe with righteous indignation. Arms encircle me like hoops of steel. I flail and fight but it’s no use.

  “Let me go!” I shout as I’m lifted off my feet and dragged backward out of the bar. “Hey! Get off me!” Writhing and using every ounce of strength I have, I try to wrestle the unseen person who’s accosted me. But it’s no use.

  My mind spins and adrenaline saturates every cell in my body. Have I been found? Has my past caught up with me? These and so many more questions spin through my brain in a cyclonic whirl.

  Elbowing, kicking and screaming, my voice is raw and ragged when I’m finally released. I whip around, every muscle in my body readied to strike, when shock freezes me dead in my tracks. Pale green eyes the color of fire-lit malachite slice into me. Luke Carmichael glowers at me, his ebony hair reflecting silvery moonlight. Disgust carves his features, and in the moments after our eyes lock, I know the miserable life of obscurity I’ve been living is over.

  Chapter 3

  ̴ Daniel ̴

  “This is what you choose to do with your life, to waste your calling fighting with drunken locals?” Luke erupts, his eyes flaring with thinly harnessed rage.

  Chest heaving and panting slightly, I reply as I would to my mother when I was six, coming dangerously close to stomping my foot to punctuate my point as I did then. “I don’t!” I shout. “It was just this time! They’ve been harassing me for months. I just couldn’t take it anymore.” The words spill from me in a continuous stream and appear to infuriate him further.

  “That’s your excuse? Are you kidding me?” Luke shouts. He leans forward, hands that were previously planted on his hips and balled into fists fly into the air. Closing his eyes briefly, he clenches his jaw so that the small muscles around it work. He pinches the bridge of his nose. Several seconds pass before he lowers his hand and opens his eyes. When he speaks his tone is controlled. “Fools picking on you in this dump of an establishment is hardly an excuse to do what you did. You’re better than that.” He fairly spits the words, saying them through his teeth. He heaves a sigh. “You can’t go around drawing attention to yourself by tossing people through windows like ragdolls.”

  It’s on the tip of my tongue to interject and tell him that the bearded man I threw, who I guess weighed close to three-hundred pounds was far from a ragdoll, but judging from the furious energy radiating from Luke, I decide against it.

  As if sensing what I wanted to say, Luke narrows his eyes at me and curls his upper lip. “Do you understand what I’m saying to you? You cannot draw attention to yourself!” He shakes his head and glares at me. “We need to get out of here now before the police come.”

  I don’t hesitate. I scramble to my Camry parked in the lot just to the left of the bar. Purchased after I sold the CRV my mother gave me, the sedan is as plain as a brown paper bag, keeping me inconspicuous and untraceable to my past. I open the door and slide behind the steering wheel, starting the car and stomping down on the accelerator so that dirt and gravel kicks up. I pull behind Luke’s shiny black sports car, already facing the road and ready to go. Though the windows are tinted and he takes off immediately, I catch a glimpse of what appears to be a passenger. Squinting only briefly, I don’t have time to waste guessing whether or not I’m seeing things. Luke tears out of the parking lot and I must follow. Heart thundering in my ears, my brain struggles to understand how he caught up with me, how all of my life came to be as it is right now in this moment. From losing Sarah, being forced to leave my mother and sister and existing in total isolation, resisting the pull that grips me and is about as easy to deny as the gravity holding me bound to the earth, and this fight tonight, my life in the last year has changed as dramatically as a human being’s can—and that’s assuming I am human at this point.

  I try to force those thoughts to the back of my mind as I speed down dark and winding roads, barely able to keep up with Luke’s vehicle, which flies along and hugs tight curves as if it’s attached to an unseen rail. I almost lose him when he abruptly veers into a field. He switches off his headlights and his black car is swallowed by shadow. He turns off his car. I do the same, exiting my car as soon as I see Luke’s driver’s side door open. The interior light reveals a form in the passenger seat. “Who’s with you?” I ask.

  “An old friend,” he replies cryptically.

  Arcing an eyebrow and leaning forward, I repeat what he’s said. “An old friend? As in, I don’t know, your college roommate from way back when? Who the heck is this old friend?”

  “One of us,” he says as if that statement explains all. Admittedly, I do feel a spark of excitement at the notion of meeting another being that shares the same gifts Luke and I possess.

  “One of us?” The hint of excitement in my tone betrays the sarcasm and strength I exuded moments earlier.

  Luke, capitalizing on my slight show of enthusiasm, comments. “Please Daniel, don’t start repeating everything I say. I don’t have the time or the patience for you to parrot me.”

  “What? That’s obnoxious!” I start to protest but he cuts me off.

  Raising a hand to halt me, he speaks. “Who is with me and the fact that I can’t bear to hear you echo my every word is not important.” He runs a hand from his forehead to his crown, smoothing hair that resembles liquid onyx. Once he’s finished, he trains keen eyes on me. “Do you even know what’s happening?”

  “With what?” I ask. I haven’t the vaguest idea what he’s talking about.

  Dim moonlight reveals that he flares his nostrils. “With us, with our kind.”

  I don’t pretend to understand what he means. “Luke, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “We’re being hunted.” His eyes lock with mine and his words chill the marrow in my bones. “The Servants of the Underworld know where we are. They’re being drawn to us the way we’re drawn to them.”

  “What? How? How is that possible?” I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

  “It’s possible because he’s back, that’s how.” Luke’s head swivels left then right, his gaze sharp and alert as he surveys our surroundings. “We need to go now and figure out what we’re going to do.”

  We? Is he kidding me? Does he not remember what I said back at the Hanson Mansion? “I’m not doing anything. I already told you. I’m not living my life like that, not after what happened.” I make reference to Sarah’s death and feel my stomach corkscrew.

  Luke lunges forward, jabbing his finger inches from my face. “You don’t have a choice now,” he yells. While I’ve seen him angry before, I’ve never seen Luke this way. A lightning bolt shaped vein zigzags down his temple and his complexion is an unhealthy red. Does a small dose of fear drive him? I wonder. And if so, if he’s even the slightest bit afraid, I should be terrified. �
��They’re going to come for you, and if you are who I think you are, you’re the only one who can stop him.”

  “Luke, you’re not making any sense!” I match his tone and shout back at him. “Who is he?” I ask. Who’re you talking about? Who do you think I am?” My hands launch out at my sides. “You talk in riddles and expect me to understand but I don’t!” My hands slap against my thighs when I allow them to fall and I search Luke’s face for an explanation.

  My chest rises and falls quickly and my eyes are wild. I wait for Luke to explode. But he doesn’t. Instead, he surprises me by lowering his tone so that he is uses a normal speaking voice. “Look, I was able to find you for the first time in more than a year. I can sense others like us now too. It’s only because he doesn’t know you’re Gideon. If he did, he would’ve come for you already and you are not even close to being ready to stop him.”

  Thoughts spinning like tires in mud, I furrow my brow and shake my head. “You’re crazy! What you’re saying is crazy! None of it makes sense. You’re just trying to get me to come with you!”

  “No Danny!” he snaps, his voice a clap of thunder. “This is real! It’s happening. And the first order of business is to kill off as many of us as they can. Once we’re gone, he’s free to turn the world into a dark and vile realm where no decent person would be able to survive.”

  “That sounds a little dramatic, doesn’t it? How could this mysterious ‘he’ turn the world into a dark, vile place?” I ask and don’t bother to mask my skepticism.

  “He succeeded four thousand years ago, and almost did again a few centuries back, but Gideon stopped him. You stopped him.”