Token Huntress (2 page)

“It’s impractical,” I stated loudly. Corso’s head whipped round to glare at me. He hated being challenged.

“Esmore?” Miss. Femine prompted.

              “It’s slow, heavy, and it is for close range targets only. No better than a blade or sword, weapons that
can
be administered to the chest during battle. We are trained to be of the same speed and stamina as the vampires. And we have been using the same tools for hundreds of years. In what world would something so heavy and bulky ever be practical in a fight? We are not out there to display new gadgets or to show off that we can revive useless items that should have been left to rot. My god, most of the vampires out there are far older than that, they know how a chainsaw works. It is now the year of 2341. We shouldn’t be attempting tricks; we should be sticking with what has kept us alive all these years. On top of that, I have heard it is noisy. This will not only attract more vampires toward us on a raid, but discourage any human survivors from approaching us.”

              “I could easily use it in a fight and I know I would kill far more vampires than you,” Corso spat.

              “You couldn’t stab yourself with your own knife even if you fell onto it,” I sneered. “This isn’t about who kills the most, this is about practicality and keeping ourselves alive out there.” This was our first basic rule in training.

              “That’s all it ever is to you, isn’t it, Esmore? Keeping yourself alive? My, what a huntress you are. I intend on killing those vampires who slaughtered so many of our kind. You can hide behind me if you like,” he winked maliciously.

I briefly looked at James, who looked away from me. Only two months after my mother’s death, and following the death of our Token Hunter, Drue, I was put in charge. Although a lot of the older hunters didn’t much enjoy it, I had since brought almost everyone back safely, with very few deaths or casualties on my record. I had only lost two. “Then may I make a suggestion? On the next raid, you lead, Corso. I mean, it’s not like I know what I am doing as Token Huntress. Why don’t you and your chainsaw take center stage?” I mocked. My eyes steadied on his in challenge. It was like watching an animal be ensnared in a trap. His red eyes glowed at the thought of being in charge.

“I will. Miss. Campture?”

              “Esmore,” she growled angrily.

I never asked to be the Token Huntress and some respect had to be shown. I would much prefer to do raids on my own. Ok, yes, it appeared that I was mostly saving and protecting other hunters than actually dealing a huge blow to the numbers of the Vampire Council, but choices
had
to be made.

             
Campture was shaking her head. “Corso, such a thing will never happen for you,” she said sternly as she stared reproachfully at me.

              “Perhaps, though…,” Miss. Femine ventured, eager to please, “Corso could trial it in the next raid?” My quick glance was diverted to Femine. She wasn’t a part of the raiding teams. She had always been behind the walls, so the realities of this decision obviously wouldn’t dawn on her.

              A low knock on the door interrupted the thick tension. Kelf, an older hunter now in his fifties, addressed Miss. Campture. I narrowed my hearing on their conversation. As they whispered and everyone began to chat amongst themselves, James rose from his seat. He approached my table and requested that the hunters sitting next to me move aside. I ignored him and strained my hearing further. My hearing had always been inexplicably heightened.

              “Two vampires have been spotted not far from our borders. They are alone, but the first raid team are still currently out,” Kelf said quietly.

              “Es?” James interrupted as he settled beside me. He used that tone when he wanted a heart-to-heart. It was usually a precursor to a long and bitter fight.

I stood up sharply, not wanting to endure another one of
those
talks. “There is something I need to deal with,” I said abruptly, grabbing my Barnett crossbow. My leather pants swept past James’ leg. He caught my hand before looking up at me with saddened green eyes.

              I arched my eyebrow, which ordered him not to say anything further.

“Be safe,” he said hesitantly.

              “Always,” I soothed, rubbing my hand over his face and giving him a kiss on the lips. I walked confidently toward Kelf and Miss. Campture.

              “I never said that I wanted you to go,” she said.

              I dismissed her comment with the slightest flick of my head. We both knew that she did. Narrowing my gaze on Kelf, I asked, “Where are they?”

              “Toward the river on the east, within range of our fishing nets,” Kelf said, stepping aside.

              “Thank you, Kelf.”

I nodded to Miss. Campture in respect. Although I had my doubts about her, I did respect her for looking after the Guild. We had now been in this location for fifty years, and it had not once been found by any outsider. I had to remind myself almost daily to curb any other suspicions I had about her. After all, she could read my mind without permission.

             
I struggled with those suspicions now as I hastened from the building, eager to put distance between myself and Campture so that my thoughts stayed private. I suspected that something odd had happened between her and my mother.
My mother was one of the most special huntresses within our guild. Her gift was nicknamed
The Corpse
, and was phenomenally useful in both healing and fighting. She could enter a creature’s body and replace it with her own energy. That was only if she wanted them to live, of course. She had killed many vampires by simply touching them and pulling out their heart. But she had saved many hunter and human lives as well by replacing their damaged organs or limbs with her own healing energies.

Her death, in my opinion, was strange. Our raids were usually planned days in advance unless we had an urgent mission. The fact that it was only Campture, Kelf, and my mother who went on the raid that fateful night troubled me endlessly. It was claimed one of our spotters saw movement close by, but that did not convince me at all. Neither Campture nor Kelf usually left the walls, so it was suspicious that my mother ventured out with them instead of her usual raid team.

              My mother never liked Campture, but for what reason they would kill her I could not guess. But considering they came home empty-handed — no human, no vampire, no… body — it was hard for me to accept their version of events. They claimed to have been attacked by sabers, that my mother had been dragged away. But out of all of them, I knew she would be the only huntress who would have survived such an attack. And yet everyone so readily accepted their story.

Well, everyone but me.

I
walked through the quiet and ghostly white walls of the corridors before turning to the exit. If someone didn’t know the tunnels in this underground system, they could get lost very quickly. Although we had all homes up top, all of our training grounds, classrooms, eating areas, and storage units were below ground. I climbed the stairs quickly and stepped out into the dull sun. It was a depressing sight that greeted me: the large doors in the steel walls were closed to the outside world, just as they always were. The wall around our perimeter protected us, but sometimes it felt as though we were imprisoned. Both the inside and outside were wrapped in the vines of plants so the surfaces would not catch an intruder’s eye.

A bright sky was now a very rare thing to see. The effects of pollution from long ago still hung in the air, staining our vision. Because of the thick layes between the earth and sun, the vampires were able to come out both at night and day now. We had sought this location strategically; there was optimum light where we were based. We were well hidden amongst the forestry, with a river on the east for fishing. The woods also provided a practice ground for hunters who were beginning their training. The roar of the river drowned out the sounds of our animals in the farming section of the Guild.

My eyes fell on some young apprentices who were training with crossbows. Training begins at the age of four. Rules, regulations, and principles are embedded in young minds from the start. From there on various training and tests are administered on a weekly basis. Throughout their whole teenage years, hunters’ skills are evaluated and judged. At sixteen, only a few are chosen to be a part of the raid teams, others provide the labor needed to keep the Guild functioning. By eighteen, their gifts are activated, and they are no longer apprentice hunters.

The original hunters already had gifts, so when the first generation was born, scientists did not understand why the children had no gifts. The only rational explanation they could make was that eighteen was a mature age for the hunter to control such an ability. Perhaps it was nature’s way of making sure our species survived. After all, imagine a baby lighting everything on fire?

I greeted the three hunters who watched over the east side. They slowly opened the doors with thick rope, their bulky arms tightening as they pulled. One of the younger apprentices ran out to me, clutching my long sword. It wasn’t overly thick, but it was elegant, and I could use it quickly on reflex.

“Esmore, you forgot this,” she called, pushing it forward meekly.

“Thank you, Urabell. But I was informed of only two vampires.” This information alone was enough for any raider to know that the Barnett would suffice, but the implication was lost on her. She glanced at me quizzically. Urabell looked to be only fourteen, and she was of lower intelligence than others her age. She would never be a part of any raid team, but perhaps she would excel in the cooking sector. I grabbed my sword and sheath, thanking her once again before she ran back toward the underground system. They closed the doors behind me.

I looked toward the small man-made trail that reached to the fishing nets at the water’s edge. It was always refreshing to leave the walls and be surrounded by the trees, despite the dull sunlight. The sun could be dimly seen behind the clouds. I wished the trees were beautiful and green, like it is said they once were. But here they were dire and dark, almost dead-looking. The trees were almost completely dead, and the leaves had stiffened in time, still attached to the branches.

A thick fog swept through the trees, settling on the land. This was nothing compared to other parts of the land. The pollution was far worse in the old cities. Fog streamed from the sewerage pipes, even though they had collapsed so many years ago. The earth had lost its original beauty. The fog swept past my ankles as I walked even now.

I stepped over a gapping crack in the ground that etched deep into the earth. The result of an earthquake. The ground shifted a lot more nowadays than it did in the technology era. It looked as if the ground was in pain with its open wounds.

My mind drifted to the last batch of humans that were carted to the camps. Although it was my job to save them, I didn’t feel a loss as I watched them go. We had a protective instinct for humans. But over time it became merely a job to us, we held no special feelings for them. In fact, the more research I did, the more repulsed I was by their selfish actions. I would continue to do the task I was born to do until the day I died, but I held no respect for their kind. When found they were transported to the camps we created for them.

Our camps were efficient, and most importantly, safe. They cropped their own food, gathered their own water. Finding a location for camps is hard. Soil for farming was scarce. The camp nearest to us was connected to the same stream of water as us. The humans then had to boil the water to purify it and make it drinkable. Every two weeks our transport team would go to them, supplying them with what we found on raids and what we had hunted for them. In the human camp, only few could hunt properly. It made me question whether all human camps were like this, or if other Guilds across the world had to provide so much more to keep their humans alive. I had never come across another Guild. There were less of us than there were humans.

I heard a splash of water and I crept to the ground as I listened. The vampires were ahead, not that far from me. I crept closer to peer at my unsuspecting prey. There was a female figure caught in the net. Her very youthful, glowing skin implied that she was not a vampire, but a human. I examined them for a moment. The male vampire wasn’t overly aggressive toward her. Instead it seemed he was using his elongated nails to cut through the net. He was obviously on the border of becoming a saber. Sabers were vampires of any age that had lost their minds. Once they become a saber they cannot retract their claws or fangs. They were monstrous and animalistic. At least the vampire members within the Council could control themselves slightly, but this kind was the worst. This one had not fully turned. I estimated he had about a week. Actually, I estimated he had about twenty seconds.

I stood out from the bushes. The girl looked up at me, frightened. “Run, Chris!” she shouted to him as she noted the crossbow in my hand. I cocked my head slightly to the side in curiosity. Was the human trying to protect the vampire?

The pale, blue-eyed vampire turned on me, his fangs ejecting as he stretched out his fingers. I must admit that the absence of the iridescent eyes that marked me as hunter often gave me an advantage. Usually they did not know who they were pointing their disgusting fangs at.

I raised my crossbow to him. If I were only human, I would never be able to match his speed. I would never be able to pull the trigger so quickly. But human was something I was not, and pulling the trigger brought me much satisfaction. His instant, surprised expression startled the girl and she screamed. I had pierced him through the chest. He staggered before falling backward into the dark water. His pale skin turned to a ghastly black as he floated limply in the water. By nightfall his corpse would deteriorate into the ground, polluting the earth further.

“Nooooo!” The human girl tangled herself up more as she tried to reach him. Her scream pierced my sensitive ears. She thrashed in the water as she tried swimming toward him.

“You do understand what he was, don’t you?” I asked her, mostly out of curiosity. I had never received this reaction from a human I had just saved from a vampire.

“I love him!” she wailed. My eyes bulged at her confession and then I simply laughed. I strapped my crossbow to my back. “Dear child, vampires do not feel. He was merely trying to eat you.” Within seconds I was by her side, cutting away the fishing nets.

“Don’t touch me!” she screeched, pointing her finger at me. “We only just escaped the Council together, and now I have nowhere to go!”

“The Vampire Council?” I asked in surprise. “Where is it?”

She lifted her head in defiance, but quickly crumbled under my intimidating glare. “I don’t know,” she admitted, looking back at the decomposing vampire corpse. “When we fled, he took me on his back. I was asleep. We just wanted to be happy…” she trailed off. “I loved him.”

“You don’t know what love is. We need to go now,” I stated bluntly. I assessed her age; she must have been sixteen at the most. What could she possibly know of love?

“With you…? No, you’re a murderer,” she whimpered.

“No, I am a huntress.”

Her blue eyes widened again as she looked from me to the vampire’s body. “But… your eyes?”

The mere mention of it insulted me. Was my skill not enough to show I was huntress? “You either come with me now so I can have you shipped to your fellow humans, or you can be eaten alive here,” I looked down at the vampire’s corpse. “Beside your
love
.” I began walking toward the Guild. My job here was done. Whether the human followed or not, I didn’t overly care.

Whether vampire, hunter or human, we all had something in common and that was a desperation to survive. And, like a moth to a flame, she followed. Together we walked in silence toward the Guild. The hazy mist darkened as the sun slowly went down. Howling rang out as the most barbaric kind of vampires swept through the forest.