Dark Huntress

by Nia Night

  I shook my head, let out a slow breath. “You don’t understand.”

  “You’re right, I don’t.” He took my hands. His fingers were calloused, but warm and strong. I should have pulled away. The Code itself demanded I pull away. I didn’t. “But you do understand, Iliana,” he added. “With your help, I think it is possible.”

  “And if we do manage to retrieve her, then what? What do you plan on doing with the child? Where will you take her? What will you do?”

  “At ten years old, Vida has had three guardians up until this point,” he said. “The first lasted only three months. People came for her in the night, and the guardian was compromised while protecting her. The next was with her for the following six years. She was a diligent protector to the child, a skilled and sharp female. Again, they were found, and those who’d like to pull the tide of the future toward their means came for the child. The second guardian escaped with the child, but later died of wounds she sustained. The third guardian, Elias, was with her for the following four years, and you were present during the end of that one.”

  I flashed back to the event in the park, when I’d stood by and let the Accursed kill Elias in front of Vida. I hadn’t known any of this at the time, and had been slated to kill Elias myself, but I wondered how things would have been different if I had jumped in. It didn’t matter. If I’d saved or refused to kill Elias that night, I would have had to answer to the Superiors, and that would have been a whole other path of nonsense.

  “I think maybe a better question is what side is the Sisterhood on,” I said.

  When Kieran only looked at me, I continued. “Elias was a Mark, meaning someone hired me to kill the child’s guardian. Unless the Superior Sisters wanted the child for themselves, but that doesn’t make sense, because the Sisterhood is an independent agent. We’re contract killers. Why get involved in this mess if not for money?”

  Kieran was silent a moment, and I could tell he wanted to say something but wasn’t sure how I’d react.

  “Spit it out,” I said.

  Still he hesitated, handsome face deep in thought. “It makes plenty sense, if everything you believe about the Sisterhood—everything they taught you to believe, was a lie.”

  Now I understood his hesitation. He was telling me to reexamine everything I thought I knew about the world, and in general, people didn’t handle those shifts in paradigms very well.

  I couldn’t find words for a moment, so I held my piece.

  “What do you know about the people you’re asked to kill, the Marks, as you call them?”

  My eyes narrowed. “That they need to die. We’re given a picture, a location, and a timeframe.”

  Kieran sat back in his chair, his expression telling.

  “We gotta eat, too,” I said between clenched teeth.

  “And killing is the best way to put food on the table?”

  I stood from my seat, needing to put some space between us, not sure how to handle this line of questions. “I don’t need this shit,” I replied, pointing a finger at him. “For all I know, you could be the one deceiving me. I hardly know you. By helping you steal the child from the Sisterhood, if they do indeed even have her, I could be making a huge mistake. In all honesty, if you want her to grow up with strong morals and discipline, and be in a place where she’s safe, the Academy is the best place for that.”

  “Is that what you have, Iliana?” asked the Angel. “Strong morals and discipline?”

  I was standing over him, my hands clenched into fists at my sides, teeth bared in anger before he even had the words fully out. “Don’t you fucking judge me, Angel,” I said. “Just because the morals don’t align with yours doesn’t mean they aren’t morals. I’ve always worked with what I was given, and done the best I could. You don’t know shit about me. You don’t know shit about the Sisterhood.”

  There was nothing but calm in his blue eyes as he looked up at me, handsome face annoyingly collected and reasonable. “I know what I’m asking you to consider is difficult. I know you have no reason to trust me…and I also know you’ve been struggling with your way of life for a little while, questioning things that your other Sisters dare not question. It makes you brave, Iliana, not weak.”

  I took a few steps back, realizing our proximity as I stood over him, willing myself to keep my cool. “Your flattery won’t work on me,” I said. “And you still haven’t answered my question about what you intend to do with the child if you do retrieve her.”

  “I plan to take her to the divine city between the realms, where she will be surrounded by the forces of good, and where she can be allowed to grow into an adult without fear. There, I will stay with her and guide her, train her to be strong, until it is time for her to step into her destiny, and fulfill her role in the dark times that will inevitably follow.”

  I folded my arms over my chest. “The Academy protected me. The Sisters taught me to be strong.”

  “And your emotions, Iliana, what did they teach you to do with those? Your heart, did they encourage a strengthening of the vessel, or the opposite?”

  We both knew the answer to this question, so I only narrowed my eyes on him. But after a moment, I sighed and claimed the seat beside him again, tired of standing all of a sudden.

  “The child belongs with her guardian,” Kieran added gently. “And in case you are wondering, I did not ask for the job. Much like your occupation, it was thrust upon me. I’m just doing my best to achieve the task I’ve been given, because I know in my heart that it is a noble one. I’m only asking you to truly consider whether you can say the same about the tasks you’ve been given. Does your heart tell you they are noble?”

  I slumped back in my seat and rolled my eyes. These actions felt petulant but I couldn’t really care less. “Well, good job, because now you’ve got me questioning fucking everything,” I mumbled.

  “It’s good to question. Otherwise we do not receive answers. Seek, and you shall find.”

  I scoffed. “Do you ever run out of ridiculous shit to say?”

  Kieran raised a brow, like he wasn’t quite sure what I meant.

  “Ugh, never mind,” I said, and stood once more. “I need some time to think. This isn’t a decision I can make right now.” Grabbing my jacket, I slung it over my shoulders and headed for the door. “I’ll let you know when I’ve come to a decision.”

  Kieran was beside me at the door before I could blink, moving in that supernaturally fast and silent way of his. He did not try to stop my exit, did not put himself in the way, but he captured me with those sapphire eyes, held me there as if by snare.

  “Very well, Iliana,” he said, his voice so deep, so calm. “But, please, don’t take too long. The literal fate of the world depends on it, and whatever you believe about the Academy, good or bad, you must agree that being there changes a person. I would wager every minute spent between those walls ascribes some indelible meaning.”

  He stepped back from me, and I left before I could drown in his gaze again, shaking my head as I closed the door to his hotel room behind me.

  I may not like what he had to say, may not want to face the questions he’d posed to me, but I had to admit, on that last bit, at least, the Angel was not wrong.

  The Academy did change a person. Every minute there did indeed ascribe indelible meaning.

  15

  The alarm, loud and shrill and insistent, blared through the dormitory, rousing us from our beds in an instant.

  The hall was dark, the moonlight seeping through the high, arched windows providing the only illumination. I scrambled to my feet, fixing my sheets and blankets, tucking them in, pulling them tight, arranging my pillow at the perfect angle atop it.

  I’d only been at the Academy for three weeks, but I already knew that in all of one’s tasks—like, say, making the bed—perfection was the expectation. I’d also learned that expectations here were unfailingly met.

  The Sister who led our platoon marched down the center isle between the duel
rows of beds, shouting orders and insults.

  “Get up, you lazy fiends!” said Sister Nur. “Get the fuck up! It’s time to rise and fucking shine!”

  I was already in my boots and uniform, my hair pulled back, my body standing at attention. Sister Nur came to a stop in front of me, anyway. I was new meat, and an apparent favorite of hers to pick on.

  “What’s up, cry baby?” she said. “You gonna break down like a little bitch today?”

  “No, ma’am!” I replied.

  And I would not. Gods help me, I would not. She was referring to the first week I’d arrived. I’d been on toilet cleaning duty, and had thought of the night I’d lost my mother, had pictured her face, and had started crying as I scrubbed the latrine. I’d made the mistake of letting Sister Nur see me, and she had punished me by making me stand on a post outside in the yard for twelve straight hours.

  The post was only wide enough for one foot, requiring one to remain balanced the entire time. To fall meant another hour added to the prescribed time.

  It had rained the entire twelve hours I’d been out there, and I’d fallen three times. By the third time, I’d been so determined not to fall that I would have sooner cut off my arm than jump from the post.

  It had been jarring and painful, but I hadn’t thought about my mother and what had happened to her the entire time I’d been standing there. I could focus on nothing other than the pain of my body, the fatigue of my muscles, the jittering of my teeth.

  The entirety of it was not enjoyable, to be sure, but the reprieve from the heartache was something that I came to value highly. When one is focused on physical agony and survival, there is no time for emotional turmoil, no room for it. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was a lesson I would learn over and over at the Academy. Like all of the others, it was one I would carry with me long thereafter.

  “You’re fucking right you’re not going to!” replied Sister Nur. “Because we don’t raise Gods damned cry babies here at the Academy, do we, soldier?”

  My response was immediate. “No, ma’am!”

  She gave me a shove, and I stumbled back a few steps, tripping over the end of my bed and landing on my ass.

  “Get the fuck up!” Sister Nur said, already marching away down the center of the rows of beds. “We got shit to do!”

  Within a handful of minutes, my platoon and several others were gathered outside in the training yard. When I arrived at the Academy three weeks ago, the end of the fall season had still been holding on by a thread. But in the weeks since, the weather had transitioned into winter, the days growing short and frigid, the nights long and bitter.

  As the sun was yet to break over the horizon for another two hours still, the frozen breath of night crept into every crevice of our uniforms, slipped her icy fingers down our backs, across our necks. My body ached from the physical hardships we’d endured these past weeks, muscles aching in places I wasn’t aware could register pain.

  There were several times I’d thought I could take no more, only to be shown that I could. For the past several days, I hadn’t thought of my mother or the sadness that had followed me into the Academy once, because there had been absolutely no time for it. Time was spent training, cleaning, working, eating, being punished. There was no reprieve from these tasks, nor from the watchful eyes of the Sister Superiors.

  Part of me was glad for it. The physical pain was better than the emotional. It was a trade I made willingly, and no doubt why I would rise through the ranks quickly, though not by any means easily. I had only just begun. There were eight more years between me and a chance at stepping into the world as a Sister. Most fledglings didn’t make it past their first year.

  But I was determined. Like the rest of them, I was a Halfling Demon child without a family, without a home, and that meant that I needed a purpose. Having a purpose, I would learn, could soothe through any transition, any hardship. One must only hold tight to it.

  “Let’s go, ya little bitches!” cried Sister Nur, who had been joined by Sister Cari, Sister Betty, and Sister Zea. “Move!”

  As one, we marched through the mud, our breath pluming in front of us, limbs already frozen. Abri was on one side of me, Sai on the other. Of all the other girls, these two were the only who even bothered to speak to me in those first few weeks, and I was grateful to them beyond expression. Now, we followed one another down the hill, across the training field, and further still, into the thick tree line beyond.

  We marched further still. The wood was marshy, and a low fog hung over the ground, drifting through the trees like wayfaring spirits. The moon and stars did little to penetrate the gloom of the place, so I followed my fellow fledglings by sound, each of us only aware of who was in front of us, and who was behind.

  As the water from the marshes sank into my boots, my feet became numb and tingly. We pushed further still, crawling through mud and muck, the branches scraping our faces, yanking out our hair.

  When we finally stopped moving, I realized that I was alone with Sai and Abri. I’d learned later that we’d been separated from the others strategically, the platoons having been broken into groups of three. Abri, the oldest among us at twelve years old, and a fourth year fledgling, pulled out a map and her flashlight, and shone it over the parchment.

  She pointed to a spot marked with an X as Sai and I huddled closer, the silence of the night deafening around us.

  “This is the point we need to reach,” Abri told us, voice grave, jaw set. She glanced up at the moon, the sky. “And we have to get there before sunrise.”

  A chill raced up my spine. I suppressed a shudder with effort. “What happens if we don’t make it before sunrise?” I asked.

  Abri looked at me. “We have to get there before sunrise,” she repeated.

  I would learn very shortly to stop asking such questions.

  Abri pulled out a compass and handed it to me. I took it and looked down at it. I’d never seen such a device in my life. Abri gave me a quick rundown, shooting me a look that had me snapping my mouth shut when I tried to inform her that I had no idea how to use such a thing.

  Guns were slung over our shoulders, and another twenty pounds of gear slowed us down further, but with Abri’s direction, we pushed deeper into the marsh and forest, the whisper of the wind and the occasional hoot of an owl our only companions.

  We’d gone maybe a few hundred yards when shots were fired in the not too far distance. The sound was enormous, a prattling that seeped into the bones, shook the core. Both Sai and I ducked instinctively. Abri only glanced in the direction of the gunfire, and barked at us to pick up the Gods damned pace.

  Another couple hundred yards, and we faced our first obstacle. It appeared in the form of two Demon Wolves. Creatures from nightmares, three times the size of normal wolves and ten times more aggressive. Their glowing golden eyes appeared within the darkness. I gripped Abri’s arm, bringing her to a halt, nodding in the direction of those glowing orbs when she looked at me in question.

  Her response was immediate, immovable. “We have to kill them,” she said. “Or they will kill us. Shoot to kill. That’s an order.”

  I had barely processed her order before the Demon Wolves spread out, their eyes disappearing and reappearing at intervals.

  “They’re flanking us,” Abri said. “Be ready, sisters.”

  Panic rose up in me. I was not ready. Who in the ten hells could be ready?

  The Wolves drew closer. Closer still. My hands gripped the assault rifle, a bulk that still felt unsteady and unnatural in my arms. My finger poised behind the trigger, my heart hammered in my chest. Though I did not have much control over my fire magic at that age, I still would have preferred it to the gun. For the past week, I’d fired the thing in training every day, but something told me that shooting at a live target would be an entirely different feat.

  The Demon Wolves moved with deadly grace, herding us into a ravine. More gunfire sounded in the near distance, and my breath tore in and out of my
lungs as the adrenaline in my veins reached unprecedented heights.

  The first wolf leapt out of the brush as if exploding into existence midair. A flash of fur and fangs, the sound of a snarl so terrifying that it rippled along my skin. Abri was ready. She raised and fired her weapon, a three-bullet burst that struck dead center the wolf’s chest.

  Sai jumped out of the way to avoid the impact of the wolf’s body, and at this moment, I saw the next wolf leap from the cover of the trees. He was right behind Abri’s back, his maw wide and fangs poised to sink into the back of her neck.

  I didn’t think. There was no time for thoughts, only reaction. My weapon was already raised, my guard up as high as I knew how to lift it. I saw the wolf, aimed, and pulled the trigger. The weapon recoiled in my hands, but I held firm, watching in fascination as my bullets drove home.

  Abri spun, but the Wolf I’d shot still would have hit her if Sai hadn’t knocked her out of the way. Utter silence followed the sounds of our gunfire, the snarls and yelps of the beasts becoming mere echoes in our ears. For a handful of heartbeats, the three of us stared down at the Demon Wolves, creatures that had been no doubt raised for this sole purpose.

  Abri cleared her throat, jaw still set in that inscrutable expression, and nodded forward. “Let’s move,” she said. “We have to beat the sun.”

  Sai and I followed quickly after.

  The wolf in the woods was the first creature I’d ever killed.

  Countless others would follow.

  16

  I awoke later that evening to a text message from the Superiors.

  It was my next Mark.

  A feeling of dread wove through my stomach, a first in relation to receiving a Mark. The feeling scared me. I didn’t want to examine it too closely, for fear of what I might find.

  At least I had the normal forty-eight hours to complete this one. I’d told Kieran I’d need a little more time to figure things out, and I was still doing that, though not necessarily the best job of it.