Hunting in Bruges

by E.J. Stevens

  “I’m not crying,” I said, pushing past him. “I got smoke in my eye.”

  “Ah, right,” he said. “Bloody cheap candles.”

  “They’re not cheap,” I said. “Just…just leave it be.”

  “Shhh!” someone hissed.

  I looked up to see a row of old ladies giving me the stink eye. I guess that’s what I get for defending the church’s candles. I just can’t win.

  Ash strolled past as I rummaged in my jacket pockets for a tissue. The mischievous look on his face told me it was time to leave. I didn’t feel like being thrown out of the basilica.

  I sighed and started forward, but I was too late.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered.

  Ash stopped in front of the old ladies and started to do the chicken dance.

  “What are you DOING?” I asked, running up and grabbing his arm.

  “Shhh!” the ladies hissed.

  Son of a boggle, he was going to get us kicked out.

  “I’m dancing,” Ash said with an impish grin. “Always wanted to do that in a church. What should I try next? The Macarena?”

  “Are you CRAZY?” I asked.

  One of the ladies let out a strangled growl, grabbed her cane, and started to stand. Her hissing friends weren’t far behind.

  “Sorry,” I said, eyes wide.

  No way was I getting into a pissing contest with a bunch of church ladies. I pulled Ash toward the door, struggling not to laugh…or commit murder inside a church. We took the stairs two at a time and burst out onto the Burg square.

  “Bloody hell, that was fun,” Ash said.

  “Fun?” I asked. “Fun? Are you insane?”

  “You should have seen your face,” he said.

  I pictured me, bug eyed and gaping as Ash danced like an epileptic chicken. A smile tugged at my lips, and I let out a snort.

  “They must think we’re evil,” I said.

  Ash shrugged.

  “So what now, fellow hooligan?” he asked.

  I was wound up from our brief flight to safety, and our close call with geriatric fisticuffs. I needed to burn off the excess adrenaline. Plus, it would be smart to leave the Burg in case those women called the police. I didn’t feel like explaining to foreign authorities why we’d disturbed the peace. I was pretty sure that “always wanted to do that” wouldn’t hold up in court.

  I scanned the area and spied the bell tower looming over the buildings to our left. I started walking down Breidelstraat toward the market square. I needed to burn off some unspent adrenaline, and I knew just the place.

  Ash lit up a cigarette as we walked through the sewer stench and dodged pedestrians, making our way back onto the market square. I frowned and narrowed my eyes at Ash. I wasn’t sure what was more vile, the putrescence of rotting feces or the acrid smoke.

  “Come on,” I said, waving Ash toward the bell tower.

  The food trucks were dead ahead.

  “Hungry again, love?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “I want to climb the tower.”

  I’d felt off balance all day, and part of the reason for that was the break in my routine. I was used to rigorous training. I may not have access to the guild training grounds yet, but a run up the tower was a start.

  “It’s three hundred and sixty six steps to the top, love,” he said, grinding out his cigarette.

  I grimaced, giving a nearby ashtray a significant glance. He sighed and picked up the stub, tossing it in the ashtray.

  “Happy?” he asked.

  “I will be,” I said, a slow grin sliding onto my face. I was about to make him regret that smoke break. “Race you to the top.”

  “Right, then,” he said, tugging on his hat. “Fancy a wager? Say, loser buys lunch tomorrow?”

  “You’re on,” I said.

  I turned and ran for the building, Ash close on my heels. It wasn’t until we reached the top that I realized what he’d done. I hadn’t planned on seeing Ash again after today, but I’d accepted his wager.

  Now I had to see him again tomorrow. It was a matter of honor. Hunters don’t break their promises. Ash looked over at me and winked.

  Sneaky bastard.

  Chapter 10

  “Hunters train daily. When the option is train or die, the choice is simple.”

  -Jenna Lehane, Hunter

  I scowled at the door and pressed the bell, again. It was unlike the Guild to be late, but I’d tried the bell three times since my arrival, and no one had come to answer the door. I was considering calling the emergency contact number in my file, when I heard the distinct sounds of boot treads and the clink of weapons.

  Whoever it was, they were taking their sweet time.

  “We’re closed,” a man said, opening the door, and then rudely shutting it in my face.

  From the brief glimpse I’d had of the man, he wasn’t much older than me, early twenties, but unlike me he was tall and blond. Judging from the way his t-shirt stretched tight across his chest and biceps, he was physically fit. He also wore a sword over his cargo pants, belted at his hip. I had a bad feeling that this was my Guild liaison—just my luck.

  I clenched my teeth and rapped my knuckles on the door.

  “What?” he barked, whipping the door open.

  “I have an appointment,” I said, keeping my voice low and steady. Yelling wouldn’t do me any good. I didn’t need to get in trouble for insubordination. “My name is Jenna Lehane.”

  “You have got to be kidding me,” he said. His lip curled in disgust as his eyes traveled along my body. “They sent a little girl?”

  “Hey buddy, size doesn’t always matter,” I said.

  “If you believe that, then you haven’t been with a real man,” he sneered.

  I held myself rigid, calming myself with a methodical analysis of his weaknesses, and how I could exploit them with my weapons. He leaned across the doorway, arm outstretched to block my way. He probably thought it made him look cool. Think again. Foot sweep, elbow to the throat, a dagger to the kidneys…there that was better.

  My breathing slowed and I lifted my chin, meeting his gaze.

  “If I meet one, I’ll let you know,” I said.

  He jerked his head back, nostrils flaring, and I ducked under his arm and pushed my way past his bulk. Being tiny did have its advantages, regardless of what this narrow-minded prick thought.

  “We don’t need any more women in this Guild,” he said, slamming the door shut behind us. “Bitches should be at home where you belong.”

  My hands closed into fists and I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from giving the chauvinistic creep a piece of my mind. I was used to macho bullshit, but this asshole was out of line. I’d flown halfway around the world to run a mission here. A little common courtesy from a Guild brother shouldn’t be too much to ask for.

  “Since you don’t make Guild recruitment policies, how about we skip the chitchat and you show me to Master Peeters’ office,” I said.

  “Master Peeters is in Brussels,” he said, eyes glinting. “So are most of the senior staff.”

  “And my handler?” I asked. “There must be a senior Hunter for me to report to.”

  “That, sweetheart, would be me,” he said.

  Oh shit.

  *****

  As I’d expected from our initial meeting, Simon “Chad” Chadwick was a nasty piece of work. His behavior didn’t improve as he gave me a brief tour of the Guild’s parade grounds and training facilities. I kept my weapons close at hand, fully aware that we hadn’t met a single soul—which was unusual for a guildhall. Hunters train daily. When the option is train or die, the choice is simple. That just made the empty sparring mats and unoccupied weight rooms seem all the more alien to me.

  Chad hadn’t exaggerated about most of the Hunters being called away. The Bruges Guild was running on a skeleton staff. Master Peeters was attending the supernatural community’s version of a UN summit in Brussels, and the Guild master had taken his best H
unters with him. With the possibility of war on the horizon, something the European branches of the Hunters’ Guild seemed well aware of, Peeters had gone prepared for the possibility of battle.

  Unfortunately, that meant that he’d left his least valuable Hunters behind to keep things running here. From Chad’s account, that left him in charge of the rejects. I’m not sure what that was supposed to make me, and I didn’t want to know. Being sent away from the Harborsmouth Guild had been tough enough. I didn’t need to take another blow to my self esteem, though I’m sure that’s what Chad intended.

  That guy had a definite hard on for his ideal of a men’s only, human only Guild. His hatred of women was matched only by his loathing for supernaturals. I suppose that made him a good Hunter in the field. He could use that anger and self righteous belief to fuel him in the fight against the monsters, but there was a flaw in that line of thinking.

  Not all supernaturals are monsters.

  That was a lesson I was continuing to learn. Before being assigned a werewolf roommate, I too had reservations about trusting supes. Jonathan had been a wake up call for me. Our friendship helped open my eyes to the possibility that supernaturals were not all villains waiting to sink in their fangs. Ivy Granger, a half human faerie princess, and Kaye O’Shaye, a powerful witch, had further helped to banish my prejudices when they risked their own lives for the human inhabitants of Harborsmouth.

  I might have pitied Chad’s blind ignorance, if he hadn’t been such a dictatorial prick. Master Peeters had given Chad power over the few Hunters left in residence here, and he didn’t miss a chance to abuse his superior position.

  When I didn’t cow from his ongoing demeaning monologue, Chad upped the ante by showing me the dormitories and introducing me to Celeste Dubois. If I thought Chad treated me bad, it was nothing compared to how he behaved around Celeste.

  Celeste was female, and a witch. That made her less than garbage in Chad’s eyes, and he made a point of letting her know how he felt, repeatedly.

  “I’m done wasting my time with you, Lehane,” he said. Chad smirked on his way out of Celeste’s room, the twist of his mouth as ugly as his soul—if he had one. “She’s yours, witch. I’ll leave you two to gossip, or whatever it is your kind is good at.”

  He swatted a basket of herbs from a shelf on his way out, knocking them to scatter on the ground.

  “Clumsy, witch,” he said. “Clean up your mess.”

  Celeste dropped to her hands and knees, hastily sweeping the herbs into the fallen basket.

  “Sorry,” she muttered.

  “On your knees, eh,” he said. “Good, that’s about all your good for.”

  With that repulsive comment, he walked out the door of her room, his laughter trailing his movements down the hall. I reached down to help the woman up and she staggered to her feet.

  “Is he always like that?” I asked.

  “Chad?” she asked. She shrugged and went to sit on the edge of her bed, eyes glazed. “I guess so.” She scrunched up her face as if trying to concentrate. “He’s been worse since Peeters left, I think.”

  “Why would Master Peeters leave someone like Simon Chadwick in charge in the first place?” I asked.

  Even if the sudden usurping of power was what had made Chadwick a tyrant, he obviously had some deep seated issues. At a guess, I’d say he was probably a bully, with or without his newfound position as interim leader. I frowned. Placing Chadwick in charge had been a foolhardy decision. Most Guild masters wouldn’t make that kind of mistake.

  “Simon’s father hunted with Peeters until an ogre ripped out his spine,” she said. She turned vacant eyes on me, and whispered as if forgetting I was there, “How long must we remain indebted to our fallen?”

  “So,” I coughed, giving Celeste a moment to pull herself together. We were all haunted by the memories of those we’ve lost—some more than others. I didn’t want to intrude on her grief, but understanding the local politics was important. “Chadwick is in charge while the others are away in Brussels, because Master Peeters feels he owes a debt to the Chadwick family?”

  Celeste attempted to shrug, but lost her balance and fell back against a pile of cushions.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  Had she hit her head? She’d dropped to the ground pretty fast when Chadwick had knocked her herbs all over the floor. I leaned in to see if she was alright.

  “Oh, I’m fine,” she said, smiling wide.

  It was creepy. She shouldn’t have been smiling like that. There was nothing to be that happy about, ever, and Chad had just treated her like a discarded toy he enjoyed stomping on from time to time.

  As far as appearances went, Celeste and I were opposites. Where I was pale, she had an olive complexion. Unlike my dark blue eyes, her eyes were a light golden hue, like honey, and almond shaped. She was also tall, curvaceous and looked sexy as hell in her tight fitting mini dress—not like me at all.

  There was one more thing that set us apart and it wasn’t her witch powers. It was the sickly sweet scent of Mandragora smoke on her breath. Mandrake root, and the drug made from it, is highly poisonous to humans. Witches, though otherwise human, have an extra set of chromosomes from which their magic was thought to come. That genetic difference was also notable in their reaction to mandrake. Not only did they not die from ingesting it, but witches had also found a recreational use for the plant—a drug they called Mandragora.

  The drug caused hallucinations, euphoria, and was highly addictive. When taken regularly, it could cause attention deficit disorder and memory dysfunction. That made Mandragora a highly dangerous drug. The last thing you wanted in a witch was ADD and memory loss. Mental focus and the ability to recall incantations were integral to spellcasting.

  If Celeste continued smoking Mandragora, she’d lose the ability to use magic, and in the meantime she’d become a menace to other Hunters. I wasn’t going to sit back and let that happen.

  Celeste lay back against a pile of pillows, humming happily to herself, and I took a slow, methodical tour of her room. The shelves of herbs and other spell components weren’t unusual, but the long stemmed pipe and bag of resin coated mandrake root certainly was.

  I reached for the pipe, but jerked to a halt at Celeste’s screech.

  “Don’t touch that!” she yelled.

  She held a pointed finger out toward me, her hair floating around her head. Her lips were pulled back, baring her teeth, and the whites of her eyes showed around large, dilated pupils.

  She probably couldn’t reliably cast a spell while under the influence of Mandragora, but I couldn’t take that chance. I wouldn’t be able to save too many humans from the monsters if Celeste turned me into a frog.

  I backed away, hands raised palms out.

  “Easy,” I said. “It’s alright, Celeste.”

  Once my steps took me to the door, her face broke into that hideous smile. Her hair fell limply to her shoulders, and she lay back on the cushions of the bed, singing softly to herself. Celeste thought that the threat to her stash of drugs was over.

  She was wrong.

  Chapter 11

  “It’s never a good idea to startle a man with a scalpel.”

  -Jenna Lehane, Hunter

  I slipped out of Celeste’s room and hurried down the hall, winding through the dormitory, and taking the stairs down to the lower levels. If this building was designed anything like the guildhalls back home, an infirmary should be located down in the basement.

  There it was, right next to the morgue—just like back home.

  I always thought that having the morgue at such close proximity to the infirmary was depressing, but the Hunters’ Guild was nothing if not pragmatic. Patients don’t always survive their injuries. Having the morgue and infirmary side by side kept things efficient. I could get behind that idea, if it wasn’t for the ghosts.

  The ghosts of dead Hunters wandered in and out of the morgue. At some point the location of the doorway must have been moved, be
cause more than half of the ghosts passed through the wall a few yards to the left of the actual opening. That wouldn’t have been unusual in your garden variety ghost, but Hunters tend to follow the rules, even after they’ve reached their expiration date.

  I pushed up my sleeves and strode to the infirmary, pointedly ignoring the hungry looks from the men and women staring at me from the morgue. I’ve never understood why, but some ghosts get trapped in a place where their body spent time. Morgues, hospitals, battlefields, and graveyards were the worst. They attracted the dead like blowflies to a corpse.

  “Hello?” I called out, stepping into the infirmary.

  It isn’t smart to walk into a Hunter’s territory unannounced, and our doctors were no different. Most got their training as combat medics, which meant they spent time on the front lines like the rest of us. Plus, it’s never a good idea to startle a man with a scalpel.

  “In here,” a man said from the back room.

  I pushed past a white curtain, senses heightened as I took in the unfamiliar rows of cots. There were privacy curtains between each cot and I checked the area behind each before continuing on.

  “In the supply closet,” the man said.

  My eyes cut to movement in a dark room at the far back of the infirmary, in the same direction as the muffled voice. A white, medical coat fluttered past the open doorway so quickly he resembled a ghost.

  “Sorry about that,” he said, carrying out an armful of supplies.

  I followed him past the empty beds to a desk at the front of the infirmary. It gave me a chance to study him. The man was older, maybe late twenties or early thirties. He wore a bright white lab coat over scrubs, but that’s where the good hygiene ended. He hadn’t shaved, he smelled like I’d interrupted his dinner, and he was covered in dust.

  He slapped at his clothes, ran fingers through greasy hair, and held out his hand.

  “You must be the new girl,” he said. “Sorry about the mess. I was doing inventory while things were slow.”

  I shook his hand quickly, and resisted the urge to wipe my hand down the front of my jeans. He may be a bit ragged around the edges, but he seemed nice and I appreciated having at least one of the Hunters greet me with a smile that wasn’t drug induced.