A Hunter By Any Name (9 page)

I reached down and grabbed the knife out of the sheaf strapped to my leg and strode toward her. She screamed but thankfully the sock muffled the noise. I imagine that it would have otherwise been a very high pitched loud scream. No one and I mean NO ONE can scream as well as a teen girl. Too bad that trait didn’t prevent Wizards from targeting them.

As I reached her I couldn’t help but plead with her to stop screaming. “Could you please stop screaming? I am just going to cut you free. I would really appreciate not having to listen to you screaming. I will cut you free either way but it has been a really long day so do you think you could please stop?” The last please may have come out a little winey but I will never admit it.

I set my sword down on the barn floor and felt a sense of loss not having it in my hand or in a strapped to me in its leather holder. Stephanie thankfully did stop screaming but she did whimper a lot when I reached up with my knife and cut the hankie after I stretched it away from her cheek. She spit out the sock. I bit the knife blade in between my teeth before grabbing the sock.

This act earned a wide eyed look of fear from Stephanie but thankfully no screams. Not that I cared. There was no way I could sheath my knife bent down on the floor next to her. There was most certainly no way in hell I was going to set down both of my weapons.

The sock was wet from spit when I grabbed it and I cringed. I hate touching other people’s bodily fluids. But hey at least it wasn’t blood or pee. I grabbed the sock and pressed it against the slice on her arm. I then took the hankie and tied it around her arm to keep pressure on the wound and hopefully slow the bleeding. I tied it in place. Then cut her arms and legs free, stood up and put the knife in its sheath. Then I reached down and picked up the sword with my right hand. I moved around Stephanie so that she was on my left side.

Stephanie had remained silent since I had cut her gag off her and she did not try to get up or move. I sighed and asked, “Are you going to come with me or staying here? I can send someone to get you if you want.”

Stephanie looked at me and then glanced at the dead body of the wizard. The sight of the body must have made her decide I wasn’t so bad because she started getting up. I had to help her to her feet with my left hand which caused the cut in my shoulder to send a sharp pain in protest. However, it wasn’t bleeding too badly and it could wait a little while.

I was just thankful I didn’t have to carry Stephanie. Because no matter what she had decided there was no way I was leaving her here. I just wanted to give her the choice in the hope that she would decide to come with me willingly. It is so much easier when they come willingly.

I was still a little jumpy and had a bad feeling about the whole situation. If felt like the fight was not over yet so I was especially thankful that Stephanie was able to walk mostly on her own. After the first few steps she stopped leaning on me with most of her weight. Granted, she might have been motivated by the blood that leaking out of the slice on my shoulder and starting to run down my arm. By the time we made it to the barn door she was mostly walking on her own. She still held my arm but I think she just wanted to touch me for the comfort.

It was a good thing that the light from the candles in the barn was dim so that when we exited the barn my eyes did not have to adjust to the moon lit night. Because of this I was able to see the two figures that stood next to the wizards red truck. I pushed Stephanie behind me and raised my sword as I assumed a defensive stance.

The men standing next to the truck held their hands up in a surrender motion. It was my two old friends that seemed to have been trailing my during my entire stay in this town. The brown haired man from the Goodwill store and the blond man from the grocery store.

The brown haired man had my sword’s leather holder casually hung around his neck and arm. I eyed the sheath and raised an eyebrow in question as I met his gaze. He grabbed the sheath and took it off and held it out to me as he spoke. “We just want to talk and we also came to clean up the mess. We don’t want to draw any attention to ourselves and this mess would certainly do that if the authorities found it.”

I hesitated and assessed them. The blond haired man had a weapon strapped to his back. The placement on his back made me think it was not a sword but I couldn’t be for sure. I did not see any weapons on the brown haired man. But I experience told me that not all weapons could be seen. However, he did have the leather pouch that I had obtained from the wizard I had killed while visiting Old Faithful around his neck. This meant they had found the abandoned warehouse that I had been sleeping in. I wondered and to be honest hoped, that they had found it after I had abandoned it and not before. I resigned myself to never knowing.

I could not decide what to do. If I fought them chances are myself or Stephanie would be hurt, well in my case hurt worse. If I surrendered to them or let my guard down there was the possibility they were deceiving me and we would die.

I looked to The Goddess for guidance and examined the effect the men had on the nature around them. They seemed to not be disturbing the trees, bushes, grass, insects or even the night creatures that rustled in the darkness surrounded the barn so I sighed with resignation as I decided to trust in The Goddess that they meant me no harm.

I stood up and let my left hand reach back behind me to grab Stephanie’s arm. I did keep my sword out away from my body ready to swing if needed. I also kept Stephanie slightly behind me. When we had walked most of the way toward them I stopped us and let go of Stephanie. I held out my hand and looked at the brown haired man, waiting for him to meet us the rest of the way and give me the sheath to my sword.

He shrugged and stepped forward. Thankfully the bond man stayed where he was like I had hoped. This way I would at least have a fraction of second to prepare before I had to fight them both. If it came to that. When the brown haired man handed me my sheath I hung it around Stephanie’s neck with barely a glance in her direction. Thankfully she helped me when she realized my intention. Yes, she was a smart girl and she seemed to be coming out of her shock or at the very least working through it. She was going to be one of the survivors. But I still grabbed her arm in a protective manor.

“Well thanks for cleaning up the mess.” I said with a nod. “We are going to be going now.” I started to push Stephanie around the opposite side of the truck that they stood on. This would mean that we would have to walk around the truck and circle back around to head in the correct direction of my car but I felt that was the path with the least amount of danger.

The brown haired man chuckled. “Don’t you even want to ask us our names?”

“No. I’m good. I don’t expect to see you again so no names are fine with me.” I said as I pushed Stephanie back with my hip. For some reason the girl just didn’t seem to be getting the hint to move.

“I have a question.” Stephanie said startling me. Yes, this girl had audacity I will give her that. “Are you devil worshipers too?”

“No!” The blond man barked out. “We do not worship the devil. Neither did the wizard who attacked you. We are part of an organization that fights wizards like that.”

I felt Stephanie flinch at the sharp tone he had taken with her. Blondie was irritating me. Once again I felt the Queen of Hearts was once again jumping up and down in my head yelling “Off with his head!” I tightened the grip on my sword desperately wanting to give into her chants.

The Goddess knew my thoughts and the night became deadly still around us in response to her irritation at my thoughts. The crickets became silent, no rustle of small animals could be heard and the wind remained eerily calm.

The brown hair man’s shoulders tensed and he looked at me. There was a hard look in his eyes as he studied the situation. His hand twitched with an urge to reach for a weapon, confirming my suspicion that he had one. My body twitched wanting to raise my sword and take a battle ready stance but I remained still and waited for him to make the first move. I saw his eyes flicker and a gray shadow seemed to pass over them. However, he continued to evaluate the situation.

In an instant his tenseness in his shoulders left as he relaxed them. The gray shadow passed out of his eyes and the hard look left them and a thoughtfulness replaced it. Even though Stephanie had asked the question Mr. Brown addressed me when he spoke. “We are Arihants. You have been keeping company with the wrong sort of people for far too long. Now you don’t even recognize the allies of The Goddess?” The last part came out as a question.

I must admit that it made me pause to have him admit that they were Arihants and. Here were two men standing before me that should have been doing the job I had been doing all alone for years. Rage at this fact tried to fill me but I stomped it down and kept tight control over my emotions. In the end I decided to keep things civil and not confront them about that fact.

I was tired and my shoulder was reminding me it was hurt with sharp pains. Also, I felt the blood that had been warm when it had ran down my arm had turned cold and was making me chilled. Not to mention the fact that it was getting thick and sticky, soon it was going to start itching. However, I suppose this was preferable to warm blood that kept leaking out of my wound, running down my arm and dripping to the ground.

So instead I asked, “What makes you an ally to The Goddess?”

Both men were visibly taken back by the question as their eyes snapped to meet mine. They squared their shoulders and stood up even straighter, although I would have thought that to be impossible before they had done so. It seemed as though my question offended them. To be honest I did not see the offense in the question.

The blond man chose to answer my question. “We do not practice the dark arts like the Wizard you just killed.” He said seeming to think this answered my question.

I had to admit that I did not see the logic in the fact that simply because you did not do evil it made you an ally to The Goddess but I did not argue. Instead I chose to bring up a different topic instead. “What is in the bag around your neck?” I asked the brown haired man.

The blond haired man once again choose to answer me. He was really beginning to annoy the shit out of me. “It contains the essence Wizard that you murdered. Things that symbolize what he believed in and strove to become in his life. He was an Air Wizard and they believe the contents must be scattered to the winds to help carry his soul to his next life. I will take it back to his people so that they can complete the ritual that you deprived him of when you murdered him.” He barked out in contempt.

The blond haired man spoke with a fierceness that surprised me because I thought I was being quite civilized and lenient in letting them live. With this thought I realized the night had briefly come back to life only because it stopped once again. For some reason The Goddess did not like it when I contemplated killing them. This time I sighed loudly and out loud in frustration. Then I resigned myself to the fact that I would not be killing them tonight because The Goddess didn’t want me to.

But that didn’t mean I was going to put up with blondie being rude. He was in for a verbal assault at the very least. “For starters,
I
did not murder him.
I
killed him in self-defense after
he
became aggressive to
me
.” I stressed the “I, he and me” in a loud sarcastic voice. However, by the time the sentence was finished I had less conviction that it was true then when I had started it. Maybe I had misinterpreted his movements and acted rationally which led to his death.

The doubt that he caused made me grumpy and I got personal as I lashed back at them with my next question. “And I would like to know, how does not doing anything evil make you an ally to The Goddess? Does that mean that if I ignore Her and all the bad things in life that I automatically become and ally?”

The brown haired man chuckled in amusement at my irritation. But his tone was defensive when he replied, “
We
worship The Goddess as the mother of earth and try to honor her in everything we do.” He stressed the “We” like I had previously done with my pronouns.

I realized I wished I knew their names so that I could at least curse at them in my head. I guess they would just have to have nicknames. “Well forgive me,
Mr. Brown
if I don’t think that is enough. Forgive me if I think that in order to
truly
honor The Goddess you have to also be willing to stand up and fight the evil in the world.” I stressed “Mr. Brown” and “truly”. Yea, so we were having a little thing going on with to each other.

I had all that I could take and forcefully pushed my hip into Stephanie signaling that we were leaving. This time she didn’t resist and started moving around the truck. I let her lead me so I could continue to face them. But my mouth just couldn’t help but get one more jab in, “Well I am glad the cleanup crew is here to clean up
my
mess. Should I get your number so the next time I have to fight evil all by
myself,
while you are
honoring
The Goddess and
ignoring
evil, you can clean up my mess and save your precious reputation?” I glared at both of them powerfully and with disdain.

I must admit that I had mastered my tones as well as my glares over the years. I had not yet met anyone that I could not make cower before me when I got going. Blondie was no exception and he shrank back in a submissive posture and looked guilty which acknowledge the truth in my words.

Mr. Brown did not shrink back and surprised me when he chose to argue with me further. “Well just so you know
we
were waiting for the Wizard to break his truce with us before acting.
We
were going to stop him tonight. But you beat us to it and seemed to have everything under control so we
let
you take care of it.”

I must admit I had to admire Mr. Brown for not backing down. But still this conversation had gone on far too long. My shoulder was now sending one long sharp pain though my body. We had moved into the early morning hours and I still had to have the “lose your virginity talk” with Stephanie before taking her back to her family without getting caught. So despite my admiration and desire to know his real name. I said, “Good to know but we are leaving now. Goodnight.”

By this time we had made are way around the truck and starting down the road. I took a chance and turned away from them. But I remained hyper vigilant of the night sounds as we made our way down the road to my car.