The Hunter

by T R Kohler

  In the wake of it, the world seemed to slow for an instant, every detail coming into sharp relief for Jonas.

  The cool of the air. The slap of stray particles of sand hitting against his skin, striking the side of the barn behind him. The smell of sage growing wild to either side. The sounds of nature.

  And the moonlight illuminating him and Ember, both battered and wounded, no more than ten feet separating the two.

  Feeling his mouth sag open, Jonas stared for another moment at the spot where Micah had disappeared.

  Long and lean, with more than a half-century of experience, he had been grabbed up by Jonas the moment he became available. In the time since, he had been honed into exactly what the team needed him to be, a weapon of the highest order, capable in any situation the middle realm might present.

  In all that time, not once had he seen his cohort bested. Not by a demon like Kaia or even a team of underlings like the one standing before him.

  Already, he had defeated her twice, neither incident particularly close.

  “How...” Jonas whispered, folds of skin appearing around his eyes as he stared out, trying to make sense of what just happened. “Why?”

  Seated on the ground before him, Ember twisted her body back his direction. Planting her heels into the loose dirt, she pushed herself up to her feet, dust striping the fitted black pants she wore.

  With the mirror in one hand and the whip in the other, she made no effort to brush herself clean, instead staring back at him, eyes blazing with defiance.

  “I know I’m new,” she said, “but you must think I’m stupid, too.”

  Saying nothing, Jonas closed his mouth. He pulled in air through his nose, feeling his animosity tick upward, mind already moving to the next step in the progression.

  The tactic was unexpected, it was slightly underhanded, but Jonas couldn’t argue that it wasn’t good. In one quick movement, she had managed to take out her most serious threat, getting around the opponent she couldn’t beat straight up by figuring out the only thing he wanted more than her.

  Likely right now, Micah was somewhere downstream, the current sending him tumbling over submerged rocks, battering his body as it carried him south.

  By the time it spit him out, his corporeal form would be broken and weak, needing days to recover.

  And that was before considering the damage that the whip had done to his hand, the shooting pain rippling through Jonas’s leg proving just how intense the weapon could be.

  Or where the Sword of the Spirit might be.

  “Where are Tam and Kaia?” Ember asked.

  Leveling a glare on her, Jonas made no effort to answer. Instead, he focused every bit of animosity he could muster, letting her feel the malevolence he harbored for her, her side, the situation as a whole.

  “I know you’re new,” Jonas eventually managed. “But there are rules.”

  Just as Jonas had suspected, the woman was completely new. She did not yet know the intricacies that governed the middle realm, wasn’t familiar with the strict limitations that oversaw interactions, keeping things from descending into full warfare on a society ill-equipped to survive it.

  A fact he could play to his advantage.

  Gad was on hand, and he was a great healer, but he could be of no use for what they were doing. That would have to come down to the two of them, both sides having lost half of their force already.

  As recently as a day before, that wouldn’t have been an issue. Armed with size and strength and experience, Jonas would have had no problem besting her, and most anybody else that the opposition placed before him.

  Now, given the state of his leg and the weapon she held, things were much closer to even.

  Or as close as she could ever hope to achieve.

  “The Seeing Eye for your friends,” Jonas said, having no interest in an extended parlay, especially with someone who only loosely understood what they were trying to do or the power she held in either hand. “Those were your terms, right?”

  “Right,” Ember replied. She raised her left fist, wagging the mirror still gripped tight. “And I’ve shown you mine.”

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  There was no way the trick with the sword should have worked. Not given the way it was gripped tight in Micah’s hand or the fact that Ember had only used the whip a handful of times at most, in her previous life or her new one.

  As if the tip of the braided cord was guided by her mind instead of her hand, it went directly where it was supposed to, furling and coiling on command.

  The goal had merely been to get rid of it. To drop the odds slightly more in her favor and hope that the combination of the whip and what she planned next would be enough to get them all out of there.

  Never had she expected Micah to go diving over the bluff after it. Not once had he so much as glanced her way as he sprinted past though, his singular focus on retrieving the object, abandoning all concern for their encounter or even his own corporeal form.

  A detail Ember would have to keep in mind moving forward.

  The fact that it had gone the way it did was more than Ember could have hoped for. Losing not only the weapon that had put down Kaia but the man who had beaten her multiple times already was a veritable boon. It caused the confidence inside her to spike, her spirits buoyed for the first time since waking up in San Diego a day before.

  She was still new. There was no denying that, the look on Jonas’s face across from her relaying as much.

  There would be information to be gleaned, skills to be acquired, but there was no longer any question as to whether she belonged.

  Much like those first days with the Seattle Police Department, and again when she became a detective, and even a third time when Emory was born, the initial moments were marked with doubt. Worries about her own capabilities. Concerns from those standing on the sidelines that she wouldn’t be up to the tasks put before her.

  And just like those, she had now cast aside such apprehension. In her own mind, if not yet those around her.

  But that would come soon enough.

  Beginning now with Jonas.

  “Send them out,” Ember said, her tone making it clear that things were non-negotiable.

  Once more, Jonas looked back over his shoulder. This time, he held the pose an extra moment, his chin pressed into his shoulder, before turning to glare at her.

  “The Seeing Eye first.”

  Whether it was arrogance, self-righteousness, or simple misogyny that permeated his words, Ember could feel wrath welling within her. Curling back one corner of her mouth, she snorted, a single sound meant to let him know there was no way that was coming to pass.

  That his moment of making demands was now gone.

  “Or what?” Ember challenged. Raising her hands to either side, she added, “I have the mirror, I have the whip, and I have two good legs.”

  Handfuls of additional lines came to mind, though Ember let them slide by without voicing them. The time for such things was over. There were now only two ways things could go, additional talk having no way of changing that.

  “Now.”

  Lowering his chin almost to his chest, Jonas stared at her from beneath a heavy brow. Nothing about him appeared the least bit angelic, or Heavenly, or whatever the proper term was as he stood and glared, his nostrils flaring with each breath.

  Holding the pose, keeping it long enough to ensure she felt the animosity roiling through him, he slid his top teeth out over his bottom lip. Pushing out a sharp breath, he gave one loud whistle, the shrill sound piercing the quiet darkness. Seeming to carry over the rocky soil, Ember could hear it echo in the distance behind her, every nerve in her body pulled taut.

  Neither side made another noise, locked in a stare-down, each refusing to look away, until the first sounds of movement could be heard from the barn. Low and uneven, it resembled something being dragged across a wooden floor, scraping punctuated by sharp jabs.

  More than a half-dozen in total, the
noises found their way out, announcing the arrival of what Ember had been waiting on even well before a misshapen shadow appeared. Stretched out in the splash of light coming from within, it began as little more than a haphazard amoeba, steadily growing wider, the length of it stretching longer across the ground.

  Flicking her gaze from Jonas to the barn, Ember could feel her hands twitch, the handle of the whip tapping lightly against her thigh.

  “Now the Seeing Eye,” Jonas said, his voice barely more than a whisper.

  Ignoring the statement, Ember remained silent. She waited, continuing to shift her focus, as the sound grew ever louder, the shadow expanding further still, until finally most of the light was blotted from within.

  Making it no farther than the edge of the structure, it took a moment for Ember to make out the source of the blockage. Folds of skin appeared around her eyes as she stared on, trying to make sense of what she saw, before things finally clicked into place.

  The thing standing before her wasn’t one extremely large, very lopsided figure. It was two people, one unable to stand or move under their own power, propped upright by the other.

  On the right was a man Ember assumed to be John Lee Tam. Not that his features were recognizable, most of his skin blistered and peeling, his clothes stained with various forms of bodily fluid.

  Clasped across his shoulder was Kaia, her wrist clutched in his hand, her weight causing him to pitch forward at the waist. With both legs splayed out beside her, she looked to be barely able to move of her own power, her head sagging listlessly to the side.

  Her mind fighting to process what she was seeing, Ember felt her lips part slightly. Her core pulled tight as she stared, the air sliding from her lungs, palpitations rippling up through her.

  “What...” she managed, her voice trailing away as she stared on.

  Tam and Kaia weren’t her friends. One was a colleague, the other a man she had been tasked with finding but had never so much as spoken to. But they didn’t deserve what she was staring at.

  Nobody did.

  And nobody, regardless of what side they claimed to work for, what affiliation they might have, was within their rights to do such a thing to someone else.

  “What did you do?” Ember seethed, rotating her gaze back to Jonas.

  Matching the look, Jonas said, “What I had to.”

  The words were exactly what Ember expected, just what she needed to hear.

  Untethered from any further concerns, for any notion of how she fit into things, if what she was doing was right, Ember snapped her right hand up. The tip of the whip sliced through the air on command, the glowing braid cutting a wicked line as it spooled toward Jonas.

  For an instant, the man seemed surprised by the move. His brows rose, releasing some of the hostility he carried, as his gaze flicked to the incoming projectile. Rooted in place, he watched as it came ever closer, cutting the gap between them to just inches before managing to fold his body backward.

  Bending at the knee, he dropped a hand to the ground, supporting his weight perpendicular to the soil, as the flames whizzed by above him.

  Driving upward off the same hand, he pushed himself upright, his injured leg extended at an angle as he bounced back out of range. His hands he drew up into loose fists before him, preparing to fight, watching as the whip finished its revolution.

  Bringing it to a stop on her hip, Ember squeezed it tight, feeling the acrimony coursing through her, heightened by the weapon held firm in her grasp.

  Every part of her wanted to continue. To push forward, slicing the whip through the air, aiming it at any exposed piece of Jonas she could see.

  And just like he had done to Tam and Kaia, she wanted to continue until his body was marred beyond recognition. Until he was unable to stand under his own power, a prisoner in the broken husk of a body he inhabited.

  But there was no point. The reason she had come to the desert was to finish her task. To find Tam and bring him back, freeing her to work another case.

  To continue on, knowing that Emory was safe.

  “So how does this end?” Ember said. “How do two people who can’t die ever finish this?”

  Maintaining his stance, Jonas stared at her. Veins bulged in his biceps and forearms, his weight balanced unevenly, his right foot cocked upward, only the ball of it touching the ground.

  Even without him saying a word, Ember already knew the answer to the question.

  The only way for it to end was for both sides to complete their missions. For her, that meant returning Tam back to his home in La Jolla. What happened thereafter, she didn’t know, and it wasn’t on her to find out.

  For Jonas, his goal was the very thing that had first caused him to seize Tam - securing the item she now held clutched in her hand.

  How they’d come to know about it, where the leak announcing the Seeing Eye’s presence had originated, were questions for another time.

  Problems for somebody else to worry about.

  “I mean, this is why you’re here, right?” Ember said, holding the mirror up for him to see. “This is why you tortured that man, tried to kill Kaia, probably still have Will Carlow stashed somewhere inside?”

  None of the tension Jonas held receded as he nudged forward a half-step. He flicked his gaze back toward the barn, the light of it reflecting from the veneer of sweat covering his body.

  He didn’t say a word, though he didn’t need to, the longing on his face almost palpable as he stared at the mirror.

  “Fine,” Ember said, extending it before her, “take the damn thing.”

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  The Seeing Eye was constructed the way one would expect an object with mythical supernatural powers to be. The body and handle of it was all a single piece, cut from marble, giving it a heft that far outpaced its size. Made in such a way, there was not a seam to be found on it, relieving any fear of it ever coming apart. Polished to a glossy finish, it caught the flickering light of the whip, refracting it back with equal luminescence.

  The sole weakness the object had was what inherently made it a mirror, the one thing that couldn’t be altered or supplemented in any way.

  The single pane of glass nestled tightly into the oval end, the edges curled out over it, keeping it locked tightly in place.

  Rotating the mirror in her hand so the glass face of it was perpendicular to her body, Ember gripped the handle of the whip in her opposite hand. Keeping the obsidian knife locked inside it, she used the butt end of it as a battering ram, swinging her hands together in a mighty clap.

  The first collision of the two pieces resulted in a starburst pattern appearing on the mirror, a centimeter-wide divot in the middle of it. Bits of glass dust sprayed across Ember’s thumb and forefinger as she peeled the whip back a second time.

  “No!” Jonas cried, the sound of his feet slipping on loose soil as he fought for purchase finding Ember’s ears.

  Paying it no mind, not bothering to so much as look up, she forced her hands together a second time. Finishing what she started on the initial pass, the glass face splintered beyond repair, the existing cracks splayed like spokes on a wheel from the center fault.

  A piece at a time, shards of glass wrenched free from the marble handle, slapping against the tops of Ember’s shoes. More than two dozen in total, they dotted the ground around her, a dusty film settling over them.

  Using her thumb, Ember punched the release button on the side of the whip’s handle. On cue, the blade sprang from within, locking into place with an audible click.

  Lifting her gaze to Jonas, she used the razor tip of it to scrape away any last bits of the glass inside, as meticulous as a dentist in search of stray tartar.

  As she worked, the man simply stood and stared, his mouth agape, his eyes wide. Having made it no further than his initial failed attempt to sprint forward, he had given up any hope of stopping her, instead standing and watching, his shoulders visibly slumped.

  Casting her gaze down just long
enough to ensure that the job was complete, that the second part of her plan was finished, Ember took a step forward. Hearing the shattered fragments crunch beneath her, she ground her heels into the earth, ensuring that the bits were beyond repair.

  Only once she was certain that the artifact could never again do what it was designed for did she toss the empty casing into the dry grass between them.

  “There,” she said, “now you get your Seeing Eye, I get Tam, we can both move on.”

  A mixture of shock and incredulity settled over Jonas’s features as he glanced to the ground. His gaze picked out the mirror lying askew, a tuft of grass keeping it tilted upward.

  “I...you...” he muttered.

  In no more mood now for debate than she had been when first arriving, Ember felt her annoyance peak. Keeping her shoulders square, she took a step to the side, careful to ensure the distance between them remained the same.

  “Yeah, you and I,” Ember said, “are done here.”

  Shifting to keep her directly in front of him, still moving slowly on his injured leg, Jonas said, “That’s not quite how this works.”

  “It’s going to have to be,” Ember said.

  The Seeing Eye was done. What they chose to do with Bob or Carlow or anybody who had looked into it was up to them.

  All she cared about was getting the two people she was responsible for out of there and back to San Diego.

  What happened after that, she guessed she would find out come morning.

  Taking another step to the side, she shot a quick glance toward the barn, Tam and Kaia still in their misshapen stance, having made no effort to come any farther.

  Across from her, Jonas continued to watch her, his face almost unreadable, a menagerie of emotions mixed together, each lasting no more than a moment before ceding to the next in order.

  “You know there could be consequences for this,” he said, having made almost a full rotation as he watched her move for the barn.