by C. B. Haight
Jarrett shrugged, her words didn’t tell him anything that he didn’t already know. Using The Faction’s commonly used mantra, first come, first serve, to suit him, Jarrett replied, “First to come, first to die. The order of who dies hardly matters to me.”
Her brows drew together angrily, and her mouth pinched into a tight slit. She spun the intricate dagger she held around with a proficient ease, as she considered his words with less care then she probably should have.
“Tell me,” She said with a curious tone. “In the interest of self-preservation, I’m curious, what did you do to have him calling us all out to take you down?”
He tilted his head to the side, “Don’t worry, you won‘t live long enough to be able to make the same mistake.” Moving quickly he leaped forward right over the large bed that separated them only to meet empty space.
Jarrett didn’t bother to scan the darkened room with his superior sight. He identified where she stood almost right away. Not only could he smell her pungent perfume, but his hunter’s instincts were with him. He could feel it, sense it.
She now stood in the back corner of his sparsely furnished room. He immediately knew she was using magic to enhance her speed, otherwise she would already be dead in his grasp. Her cold grey eyes stared back at him with a lifelessness he’d seen often. It happened to any who lived like her, on the hard edge of a life with The Faction.
He didn’t rush her though. Jarrett knew how to play this game, in fact, he was an expert. He learned over the many years of his life, patience was the key. In life or in battle, Jarrett never made any moves unless it brought purpose to his own designs.
He also knew, whether through stupidity, confidence, or greed, the people whom The Faction recruited always made mistakes. They were mistakes that he, as the Hunter, capitalized on, costing many their very lives.
He held his position right there in the middle of his room and waited patiently for the witch to do that very thing. He adjusted his neck around to display his annoyance, “If you leave now, I might let you live.” He said it with a low raspy voice that promised death.
She shrank back slightly from him. His deadly gaze penetrated the darkness with an eerie and unsettling glow. She could only make out his imposing silhouette in the darkened room. The moonlight clung to the bare skin of his muscled chest, and glinted off a green gem that hung from his neck. The site of him there was so disarming. It gave the illusion that the night welcomed him within its dark embrace, and the moonlight that fell around his form, existed solely for him.
Shaking off the peculiar thoughts, she reminded herself that she dealt with killers and fighters her whole life. Her skills as yet were unsurpassed, evident in the fact she was still alive today. Straightening her shoulders, she sauntered forward a couple of steps on her spiked, high-heeled boots. The sound of her heels, clicking on the polished wooden floor beneath her, echoed ominously through the silence.
She gave Jarrett what he assumed to be a coy look, and then spoke low trying to make her words sound sultry.
“Sweetie, I’ve played with many of your kind before and lived to tell the tale. You‘ll be no different.”
As Jarrett predicted she would, the witch made her first mistake. She assumed him to be like any other bounty. He arched one of his dark brows, “Well then, did you come to kill me or did you come here to talk me to death?”
Something about the way Jarrett stood there, completely relaxed, looking at her with his precise and controlled gaze, made the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Suddenly, she realized that he would be different. This man wouldn’t be like any of her past assignments. His corded muscles were not even tense in the slightest way. He didn’t look ready for battle. His easy tone, and his relaxed demeanor, hinted at his comfort level with the current situation, as if the event was an everyday occurrence.
“Who are you?” she uttered, before she even realized she said the words out loud. She took a step back, this time cautiously squinting in slight confusion.
Jarrett grinned devilishly. She may no-longer be so glad she got here first. Mistake two. Hesitation. Jarrett understood, knowing your opponent was really the first rule of hunting. Rule two, make your play and complete your kill quickly. Hesitation was a death sentence.
His excited eyes flickered red. It was all he needed. Really one mistake was enough, two of course was better.
Using the witch’s hesitation and her new-found fear against her, Jarrett made his move. His body flew forward. He moved so quickly, he held the half-demon witch in his grasp before she could even blink her eyes. Barely any sound was made as he whipped her around with unnatural strength, forcing her against his body, pressing her back against his front.
He underestimated her though, something Jarrett rarely did. She was not without a trick or two of her own. She was after all half-demon. With practiced skill she aimed her dagger behind her, and plunged the shining blade deep into his low right side. But the odd angle of her attack caused her to lose her grip on the dagger.
Her effort impressed him. He admitted to himself that the woman was skilled with the blade. It was something he would have normally appreciated, except the blade in question was now embedded deep in his side.
While Jarrett stood still, growling from the sharp burning pain running down the entire right side of his body, she stomped the heel of her boot down as hard as she could, stabbing down into his left foot.
Though caught off guard, and now in severe pain, Jarrett didn’t release his grip on the scrawny woman, if anything he tightened it. He sensed her surprise.
The burn he felt around the weapon and in the wound told him that the blade buried deeply in his flesh must be silver. So, she did know a little bit about him, he thought grimly. The intense burning sensation coursing through his blood, caused by the cursed metal for any of his kind, was a distinctive and unforgettable pain that would get worse and fast. The silver would infect his blood hindering his natural ability to heal quickly.
The witch ground her spiked heel in harder and made an unsuccessful attempt to grab the protruding dagger. He dodged her attempt. Despite her fierce struggling to gain freedom from his bruising grip, he held her firm, which only seemed to make her struggle harder. He wrapped his left hand around her fragile neck and held her arms down firmly with his free arm while trying to decide what he wanted to do, kill her or leave her unconscious.
She suddenly went still. Jarrett heard her quiet chanting. Knowing her intent and also knowing the unpredictability of magic all too well, his decision was made for him. He knew if he let her go she would come back. They always came back. End it now, he told himself.
A strange sort of disappointment coursed through him. He felt none of his usual satisfaction. There was no excitement from the justice in this. She’d killed many before, and deserved to die, but he was sick of it all, tired of the game. He grew tired of it years ago, but it always seemed to follow him no matter what he did. How many will I have to kill to buy my freedom? He wondered.
He knew she would be still until the spell was cast. Keeping a firm grip on her neck, he released her captive arms. Jarrett didn’t even bother to flinch as he reached down and viciously yanked the offending blade free from his body. The ease in which he did the gruesome act would lead someone watching to believe that he just removed a thorn from his finger instead of the dagger from his bleeding side. Crimson blood flowed freely from the fresh wound. Jarrett gritted his teeth against the pain and lifted the blood covered blade before his eyes.
He ignored her quiet chanting and focused his attention on the finely crafted silver blade for just a moment. It was only mere seconds, but to him, it seemed to play out in long slow minutes. Shaking off his strange attitude, Jarrett waited patiently for her to finish every delicate syllable. When she did, he felt the slight distortion in the air around him as the spell tried to take effect. He tightened his grip on her neck, cutting of her precious air flow, and heard her breath wheeze in response.
True fear made its way through her cold and evil veins. He could smell it, feel it. Her panic rose. Her spell didn’t work on him of course, and he was sure the demon-witch must have never seen such a thing before. People can often fight effects of paralyzing magic, but it takes them several moments to do so. He, on the other hand, was immune to it.
She shivered. He knew she understood. He wasn’t affected in the slightest way by her spell. Because of her error, she would die.
He tilted his head toward the ceiling and closing his eyes, he let the hated demon within him rise. Though his body made no change, his senses heightened. He took in a deep draw of the rich, fear-scented air in the room. “Tell me.” He said mimicking her earlier words, his voice a growling whisper in her ear, “What did you plan to do if this went badly?”
She couldn’t answer of course, due to his painful grip on her throat. She began to struggle once more. Rule three, he thought, always plan a contingency.
Almost with an easy and casual movement, Jarrett flipped the blade, caught it, and buried it with deadly precision deep into her breastbone. He spun her around to face him, and looked right into her wide, shocked eyes, and said, “Because it just did.”
Jarrett let the body fall and inspected his side. Pressing his hand to the injury he winced slightly from the sensitive wound, and cursed himself for being so slow. Ever since his encounter with Cade, Jarrett seemed to have lost his edge. This happened to be the second-time someone almost got the drop on him, and the first time in many years he found himself wounded so severely. It made him wonder what could be happening to him, and could he fix it before it was too late.
His memories of the past plagued him regularly now. That was something he never allowed of himself, at least not since he’d been no more than a boy, with little control. He forced those painful images down deep long ago, burying them under his fury, and that’s where he wanted to keep them. Unless he could find a way to push them back, the nightmare of his past would continue distracting him.
Jarrett could only figure his recent encounter with the woman named Collett was the cause of his unwanted recollection of the long-forgotten images. It was a cruel irony that the woman in question, was currently shacked up with his estranged brother Cade, and she was the same woman who forced him from his burning home as a boy centuries ago.
No. Jarrett thought to himself. Not forgotten, but repressed. In truth, he knew he could never forget anything about Rowena. Even if the curse of his life would be to live for 1000 years, he would never forget.
Sweat dotted his forehead, and he cursed again. The infection from the silver began spreading already. He grabbed a hand-towel from the bathroom, pressed it firmly to the stab wound and tied it there with one of his belts. He winced at the applied pressure. Then he dressed quickly, threw a few belongings into a black duffle, and left without looking back. It wasn’t the first time Jarrett left everything to start over.
Where he would end up remained unknown even to him, he didn’t have a clue how to get out of his latest predicament. It wasn’t like anyone he knew could, or even would help him. His contingency had always been in place. He had hired strong people to watch over his substantial assets, like his club among other things, to offer him time to figure it out.
And if he didn’t, well, Jarrett mused glumly, maybe the world would be better off without The Hunter.
