The Huntress: Becoming a Huntress (9 page)

“Let's go!” I say.

We stand both of us, looking at the dark water in front of us. It is going to be some distance, and I will definitely need to breathe from time to time. Her face doesn't show any more thrilled by the prospect.

“Well, at least there are some fresh sharks out there. It almost makes my mouth watery.”

My mouth gets water after another sort of meat, but I keep my mouth shut. After all, the shark meat that she used to feed me with is not so bad. Slim sinks into the water, advancing until a can no longer see her. Will I have time enough to recover myself until my kind will track us down? Will I be strong enough to save Slim?

“Hey, what are you doing? Aren’t you coming?”

Her head pops out from in glossy waves of water. I join her with a single jump.

I don't want anything more for the moment than the answers to my earlier questions to be positive. After a while, I get up to the surface to take a breath of air. To my surprise, Slim follows me. She's too pale again. And again, she seems tired.

“Look,” I say. “For now, we are safe. We can loosen up the pace a little. So I'm going to swim for a while, okay? In the meantime, you can climb on me, to rest a little.”

“But I am too heavy!” she protests.

I laugh.

“You are as thin as a bulrush. Come on, come up on me and rest your soul!”

I no longer ask her how come she gets tired, since she is a vampire. She already said that she will let me know once we get at her place. With this in mind, I get a chill

At first, Slim just leant a little on me, slightly beating the water with her feet. Then, she gradually climbed on me, stretching her whole body.

“Once we get to your place, I will head it elsewhere.” I say sharply.

Her eyes seem to pierce me.

“No.” she says as firmly. “You can't do that!”

“I have no choice, Slim. I hope that we will arrive safely and quickly, and then I change the way so that I might lead them to me.”

“What if your plan will fail? What if they are still doing to find me? What will it happen with my family? You will just let them to... to die?”

“Oh, my God!” I sight a little pissed. “We are talking here about a whole family of vampires, not about a nursery!”

She fusses a little on my back, irritated.

“Maybe you didn't quite notice, but we're not exactly the kind of killer vampires.”

In her voice, I feel that she is offended.

“Fine!” I raise my voice a little. “And what do you suggest, then?”

“What? To... to stay with us, of course!

I suddenly roll over, and she falls into the water with a splash sound.

“Let me see if I understood well what you just said. Are you saying that you expect me to live with I don't know how many vampires altogether?”

Instead of thinking, Slim is raves.

“You will just love my folks, I know you’ll do! They are great, you know?”

“I'm quite sure that they might seem that way to you!” I say in a tone a little disgusted. “But let us not forget that there are still some abominable vampires.”

It fallows a moment of silence.

“Listen,” I say, “I didn't mean to offend you. Neither you or your family Just that, frankly, I don't know how you can believe that I could stay around your family without bidding for…”

I stop, slightly abashed.

“I hadn't thought about the fact that you will suffer by asking this.” Slim says slowly.

Her understanding makes me feel even more humiliated.

“Look, I shall find us a solution, in one way or another. So help me God...”

Her thin hands encircle my neck, and her cold cheek sticks to mine. Our bodies have identical temperatures.

“Now, you look more than ever like me." She says softly.

Just because I left myself beset by her tender gesture, I have managed not to get upset at her remark. Or perhaps now, more than ever, I realized that whatever I’d do, some part of my blood is the same as hers.

“I love you.” Slim tells me. “You are my best friend, you are...”

“Yeah, yeah.” I say quickly, trying to diminish the emotional charging of the moment. “I got the picture: a glass with two straws and so on…”

Slim happily laughs. And for the first time since very, very long time, I feel something very similar, too. I was wrong when I thought that I and she can never be friends. Or maybe I'm wrong again. Because it is certain that we are something more than that. We are...

“We are like two sisters, right?”

Slim's voice that seemed to say aloud my own thoughts, makes me jerk. We know even each other’s thoughts. I turn my eyes toward her. Here, in the middle of the dark ocean, a new feeling comes over me; my relation with her takes a new dimension.

“Watch out!” she says with joy. “That guy over there is a shark.”

She licks her lips, with relish.

“I’ll go catch it.” she says with complicity.

But the shark departs, feeling as though here is something even more dangerous than him, and I am confident that it's not about Slim. Then, her hand catches my arm.

“Look!” she say with her breath cut of emotion.

I raise my eyes to what she shows me. The sun stands to rise, and the colored palette that seems to paint the sky is impressive, especially since it mirrors all over the surface of the ocean. But she didn't want to show me the sunrise.

“Lights!” she says. “We are home...”

THE END OF THE SECOND BOOK

[…]

I myself, am so shocked that I can't realize that what I see is reality. More animal than human, more like a wild beast than woman, and more woman than the girl that I once met... there she still is... I cannot even speak. Any sound I want to articulate it’s just… too much. All I can do is to look at her in disbelief, with obvious shock.

[…]

“Nothing in this world could be more wonderful than to discover that she's not dead. And yet, how could it be possible now whatever, when not even before was it not? To make her love me… A groan is coming out of my chest, without being able to stop. I have to convince myself that it's not just a dream; I must convince myself that what I saw was real, that it was not just one of the dreams that I have with my eyes open for years and years…

[…]

"What favor?” I ask her softly.

I expected her to ask me to leave her alone forever, both myself and my family. I just wasn’t ready anyway to promise her anything like that. But her requirement leaves me with no reply, shocked.

“Are you grateful enough to kill me?”

Her question makes me feel as if I've just been bitten by a hunter who drained me of blood. I realize now that I was right when I assumed she has an obsession. But I never expected her to be really mad. Perhaps my thoughts are read easily on my face.. She stands from the place where she sat until now, and she approaches me, speaking persuasively.

“Only a hunter or a vampire can kill me.” She says softly, caught in her madness. “So you can kill me. Like an execution, you know? I will not oppose any resistance, if this is what you fear of…”

[…]

“And what are you willing to pay for it?”

She does not hesitate a bit when she responds.

“Anything you ask for.”

“You’ll do anything I want? I ask her, unbelieving.

“Anything.” she says with the same conviction, while nodding approvingly.

“Would you even make love to me?”

[…]