Taming the Hunter

by Michele Hauf

  “I know that, boy. And there is a lot of history in that dagger. I traveled to Thailand with Edison Winthur on a spelunking expedition, which is how I came to own this beauty. Edison happened across the blade while we were in Bangkok, about thirty years ago. He bought it. Played around with it a bit, but lost interest quickly enough. Though he said something once like ‘it picked me out, wanted me to buy it.’ I thought it kind of kooky at the time, but I’ve since learned—or rather, remembered—that the universe will put a man where he needs to be, when he needs to be there. Because that dagger?” He placed a hand over his heart. “I have known it.”

  Great, another hippie woo-woo believer in past lives. Dane smoothed his palm over the wooden case. He desperately wanted to open it. The eight-year-old child in him wanted to rip off the cover and—But he was even more curious about any information Mr. Stuart could impart about his father.

  “I did some research on the dagger and came up with the witch hunter information you have,” Harold continued. “It meant nothing to Edison. In fact, as fantastical as that man’s mind was, it insulted him that I would suggest the dagger could be his. He left the city before me,” Harold said, “but left the dagger behind. I’ve had it all these years. Sort of a remembrance of your father. But as well, I always had hopes of finding its true owner.”

  True owner? Yeesh. Dane didn’t want to ask.

  “What can you tell me about my father? Why was he fantastical?”

  “Oh, he was always talking about writing stories about faeries and elves. That kind of funny stuff. We met in a spelunking club, of sorts. Edison loved exploring caves and geodes. Liked to take in the energy of the crystals. Said it fueled his stories.”

  Dane almost choked on his own breath. He curled his fingers over the box lid, bracing for the wild story that would no doubt follow.

  “We got high a lot.” Harold chuckled. “We were young.” He offered a shrug as explanation. “Your father was a remarkable man. He told me he wanted to have children someday. And he did. You were born the year after we met.”

  Dane nodded. “I have a difficult time believing he was so...fantastical. I understand he used to teach geology at Caltech. I started there.”

  “But the Agency came looking for you.”

  “How do you know that? I was the one who contacted you. You couldn’t have possibly—”

  “I know some things.” The old man winked at him. “I’ve done research over the years. And no, your father had no idea about the truth behind that dagger. The damascening on the blade tells a story. Legend says it adjusts and reforms into a new design with every kill.”

  Dane cringed at that word. He gripped the cover.

  “No, don’t open it here. There’s so much energy connected to that old thing, I’m not sure my heart can take it.” Harold patted his chest pocket. “Had to take my nitro pills on the flight home. Whew! That trip wore me out. I’m not a young man anymore. Just...take it back to wherever you’re staying. Open it up. Breathe it in. Handle it. You’ll know. And when you do, give me a call. Because that, my son, is your dagger.”

  Dane shook his head. “It’s not. It wasn’t even my father’s. It was just a trinket that caught his eye on a shopping trip.”

  And he had traveled all this way for that: a trinket. Disheartened was describing his mood right now.

  “Dane Winthur.” Harold leaned forward and tapped a stiff finger on the top of the box. “I made that dagger for you.”

  “What?” Dane stood, unnerved at the man’s intensity. “This dagger is centuries old. As you’ve stated, thirteenth century. I’ll have to bring it back to the lab to test—”

  Harold stepped up to Dane. “I made it in a former life.”

  “Ah. Well. Not you, too?”

  “Too?” The old man thought about it, his eyes seeking out the door. “Right. The witch. She needs dealing with.”

  Dane’s mouth dropped open at the man’s blatant suggestion that perhaps he might “deal with” the witch across the street. But he didn’t say anything. Yet the shock he felt was combined with curiosity and desperation.

  Harold knew about witches. Eryss. And past lives. And he had made this dagger? Every fiber in Dane’s being wanted to laugh and put a spin on the ridiculous suggestion, but he was no fool.

  Not anymore.

  As he tucked the box under an arm, he got the intense sensation that he was standing out in the snow, dagger in his hand and blood dripping from the shiny blade. He could smell the metallic taint of the ruby snow, and a shiver at the back of his neck stiffened his muscles.

  He shook his head. The vision blurred back to Harold’s face.

  “It’s talking to you, isn’t it?” Harold asked eagerly. “You were lost for a moment there. I saw it.”

  “I don’t...” No, he wasn’t going to dignify the man’s conjectures with an affirmative reply. Not when he had such little sense of what the hell was going on. “How much do I owe you?”

  “Nothing. It is your blade. You’ll realize that soon enough!”

  And Dane found himself swiftly walking away from the crazy old man, box clutched to his chest. As he neared the front counter Gladiola held out the cookie plate. He reflexively grabbed one, mumbled a thank-you and headed out into the bracing cold. As he stood before the antiques shop door, staring across the street at the brewery, the cookie crumbled and scattered on the sidewalk dusted with white salt.

  “I am not a witch hunter,” he muttered.

  Chapter 16

  Eryss watched Dane exit the antiques shop and veer directly for the parking lot down the block. He didn’t glance in the direction of the brewery. Instead he clutched a long box to his chest, which looked just the right shape to contain an ancient dagger.

  Did he look...determined? Almost driven to avoid looking across the street in the event he might spot her?

  She blinked, sending the teardrop down her cheek in a hot, stinging trail. “Stop it,” she admonished her dramatic heart. But it was too late. She’d fallen for the guy. Hard.

  Valor strode in with a box of T-shirts in hand. She dropped it on the floor and tugged her ponytail back over a shoulder. “Was that your man I just saw rushing toward the parking lot?”

  “He’s not my man. Never was,” she said with a choking swallow. Yes, he was. Had been. Through so many lives. Oh, Dane. Who are you? “He’s headed to the hotel to take a look at his new sword. Or blade or whatever it is.”

  “He didn’t stop in to show you?”

  “Apparently not.”

  Valor looked out across the street, where Gladiola was currently hanging Valentine’s Day decorations in the window. “Huh. What’s up with the old lady?”

  “I don’t know.” Eryss joined Valor in looking out the window. Gladiola noticed them, crossed herself, then skittered back from the window. “Whoa.”

  “That was unusual,” Valor said.

  “Ya think?”

  “I know Gladiola knows we’re witches, but I’ve never known her to go all cast out thee witches, with protective gestures. Strange.”

  “Curious. And worth some research. You got time to look up Harold Stuart on the internet?”

  “Nope. I’ve got a date. And you’re the internet chick, remember?”

  “Right. Have a good time.”

  As Valor left in a breeze of sage and motor oil, Eryss opened the laptop and skirted around the end of the bar to sit on a high stool. She typed in Harold’s name and the city, but the only hits were the Stuart’s Stuff antiques store. Hmm...what was up across the street?

  * * *

  Dane closed the hotel room door behind him and set the box on the edge of the bed. He almost opened the latch, but pulled out his phone instead and selected the camera app. Then he opened his laptop to the browser. He would take pictures as he methodically went along. An unboxing of sorts. It would have been standard procedure had he been back at the lab with any other newly acquired weapon or artifact. And all Agency field workers were required to re
cord as much as possible.

  This was exciting. And nerve-racking. Harold’s weirdness had gotten to him. The old man couldn’t know a thing about what this dagger meant to him or his father or anyone. He was just a fanatic capitalizing on the paranormal vibe for which the city was famous.

  Opening the fridge door, Dane pulled out an overpriced bottle of water. Two swallows later, he tossed the empty bottle in the trash can.

  “Okay.” He patted his chest, then nodded. “I’m ready.”

  His father had bought this dagger on a whim thirty years ago. What would have happened if Edison had not died and perhaps had been around to hand this blade to Dane himself?

  According to Harold, Edison had been uninterested in the weapon’s lore. And yet Harold had confirmed his father’s whimsical nature. It seemed such a man should have been fascinated by the dagger. How could Harold possibly have known to keep it after his father had abandoned it? To save it for the real owner, whom he suspected was Dane? At the time, Dane hadn’t even been born.

  Sitting on the bed, he stroked the edge of the wood box. He wondered if residue of his father’s essence remained imbued within the rosewood. When he was little, he’d had a pillow his grandmother had made him from one of his father’s shirts. Sometimes, as he lay there wondering what his father might have been like, he’d fallen asleep with tears spilling over his cheeks and into the fibers of the fabric. Would his father have tucked him in at night and kissed him on the forehead, as his mother had?

  You don’t have to believe in reincarnation for it to exist.

  Had he ever crossed paths with a reincarnated form of Edison Winthur’s soul? It was a fantastical notion. And it was something Dane wanted to believe in. If only to feel his father’s presence now, as an adult, when he had the faculties to put that experience to memory and keep it forever.

  And if witches, vampires and demons did exist, why not the renewed soul? Had he discounted something as myth when he so easily embraced those legends of which he’d been given proof? Vampires and werewolves? Yes, they existed, because he had seen them and witnessed their supernatural power.

  Yet how to prove a soul’s return to a new life after death?

  Eryss believed she had been reincarnated many times. She simply knew it. In her soul.

  Dane shook his head. The more he thought about it, it didn’t get any easier to accept. He wanted to accept it for the simple reason that it would give him comfort regarding his father’s soul. Or maybe not. Shouldn’t his father’s soul be at rest?

  “Hell.” All this talk about reincarnation had really messed with his beliefs. He didn’t know what to believe anymore.

  So he’d start with the tangible.

  He glanced at the box. It didn’t feel like the closure he’d been seeking. Come to think of it, he’d always had closure. What Dane really desired was an awakening, a knowing. What had his eight-year-old self been up to?

  He should be sharing this moment with Eryss.

  He straightened and crimped his brow. It didn’t seem right not to share such an interesting discovery with her. And yet, what Harold had said resounded within him. This was something so personal to Dane. He’d show her later tonight.

  Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling he was missing out on something—or rather, someone—by sitting alone in the hotel room with a box of hope and mystery beside him.

  Then again, he did like making new discoveries on his own. It was always easiest to attribute findings to him alone when it came to filling out the forms for headquarters.

  “Very well then.”

  He leaned over the box. The carvings were smooth and deep. Not Celtic. Maybe Scandinavian? His father’s side was Dutch, as far as he knew. But this box could have been anything that Edison Winthur had picked up in a shop. Perhaps it was Swiss? Dane didn’t suspect the box’s design held importance.

  “Let’s see what was worth spending a week in the tundra for, shall we? I mean...me.” He looked across the bed to where Eryss might have sat, feeling as much anticipation as he did. “Later,” he promised his heart.

  As he laid a palm over the box top, he smiled, because he knew he hadn’t suffered the elements simply tucked away in this room, bemoaning the terrible timing of the antiques shop owner’s dead family member. Instead, Dane had met Eryss Norling, and he was pretty sure his life would never again be the same.

  Pushing back the unlatched lid revealed a tangle of crimped brown paper shreds often used to pack artifacts. The thin strips scattered as he nudged them aside and felt the hard, smooth edge of what must be the blade handle or hilt. Curling his fingers about it, Dane pulled it out and couldn’t contain an appreciative whistle.

  “Nice.”

  He’d laid hands on many a fascinating weapon in his service to the Agency. Some were wildly curved blades like something depicted in fantasy paintings; others glowed or were even so cold he could barely touch them. A few took a while to figure out. And the first time he’d ever held a titanium stake from the Order of the Stake, the tip had plunged out from the protective column so quickly it had poked his wrist and he’d dropped it in the garbage bin because he was so startled.

  He laughed now to think of that. But this blade wasn’t going to cut him on its own, and it probably wouldn’t hum or glow, either. It looked...insignificant. Like your average ancient weapon. It was old. Cold iron? Early Renaissance? Thirteenth century, as Harold had said? Dane couldn’t know without some research. It could even be older. The blade was about a foot long—longer than most daggers. It could almost be taken for a short sword. A baselard, most definitely.

  The hilt was only an inch and a half wide, and was formed from two pieces of ivory bone riveted together. The shape formed an I, which was indicative of the baselard.

  The blade tapered to a tip that wasn’t pin-sharp, but it could do some damage if stabbed into something. It was damascened with a pattern that, upon comparison to the box, Dane realized was similar. More Swiss design? He picked up the phone and snapped a few shots from hilt to tip, then moved over to the window and tilted the blade to get the best light on the patterning.

  Had he held this very dagger when he was eight? He couldn’t remember what it had looked like then, and he didn’t get a pang of recognition. But then again, he couldn’t recall the toys he’d played with when he was little or the clothes he’d worn. And he’d held the weapon for such a short time back then.

  The witch must die.

  It was too incredible to disregard that dark but innocent statement made by one so young. One who could have had no knowledge what it meant.

  Dane winced to imagine being stabbed in the heart with such an instrument. Then that thought suddenly flashed into vivid clarity...

  He pressed his free hand to his chest, and for a moment, the feeling was real. He stood...not in a hotel room, but in the stark white expanse of a snowy field. Crimson spattered the snow. He gripped his chest. His breath fogged out, pulsing hot and burning, cutting into his muscles and bone.

  Dane cried out, unsure what was happening. He tossed the phone onto the bed and was about to set the blade down when he twisted at the hips and saw another standing before him in the snowy landscape. Snow? Yes, the walls of the hotel room had dropped away and he stood outside. He shivered. Blood poured over his bottom lip. And the blade he held was no longer in his hand but sticking out from the chest of a...woman.

  “No.” He shook his head. Her scream crackled in his ears. He reached for her. He could not see her face...

  And as quickly as it had manifested, the image dissipated. The warmth of the room hit his skin as if it were a sea wave rolled onto the surf. Dane inhaled and touched his lip. No blood. Slapping a palm over his chest, he realized there was no piercing pain. Nor did he shiver or see a glint of snow at his feet. And yet his fingers touched something wet.

  “What the—?” He pulled them away from his shirt. They had blood on them.

  After unbuttoning his shirt and pulling it off, he examined t
he skin just under his pectoral. He stood before the mirror and studied the weird presence of blood, but he couldn’t find a cut. Yet the blood was real.

  Did the blade have some sort of mystical power? It was entirely possible in his line of work. And if, indeed, a witch hunter had wielded it, it could very well be warded or even cursed. By holding it, he may have tapped into some long-shrouded energy.

  Disregarding the blood, he turned the weapon lengthwise before him to inspect the blade, which was rusted and pocked from centuries of use. It was a double-edged blade, and it glinted in the stark winter sunlight.

  Dane ran his thumb carefully along one edge, not pressing, but—

  “Ouch!”

  That had required no pressure at all to cut his skin. He pressed his bleeding thumb to his mouth and sucked at the stinging pain. It wasn’t long or deep, but felt like a paper cut, the kind that seemed to burrow down to a man’s very nervous system for the pulsing in the wound.

  “I’m a fool,” Dane muttered. “Can’t even handle a weapon properly without hurting myself.” Though when he smeared his thumb over his chest now, he winced at the lacking wound.

  He set the weapon on top of the stuffing in the box and then pulled the laptop forward as he sat on the bed. He connected his phone to download the pictures, planning to search the agency database to correctly identify a year of origin for the blade.

  Beside him, the bubble of blood on the blade seeped into the narrow blood groove and slowly made its way toward the hilt. Once it reached the bone, it infused the ancient material with Dane’s very DNA. A memory his soul carried from lifetime to lifetime.

  And the becoming began.

  Chapter 17

  Eryss sat on the floor in the basement below the brewery. At her shoulder level, a plywood shelf hosted a small altar the Decadent Dames used to bless the beers. Scents of sage and ashwood charcoal drifted into her nostrils. Valor had performed a blessing before leaving.