chapter 16
I left the car half an hour away from the Sanctuary, just in case. I didn’t trust anything Noir would give me and besides, it seemed in bad taste to show up at the front gates in a vehicle provided by the vampire I was supposed to eliminate.
When I knocked on the large wooden doors, I expected the inevitable clank of metal against metal and the rectangle of wood to pull back, exposing light brown eyes I didn’t recognize.
“Yes.”
I tugged down the neckline of my shirt and let them see the brand above my collarbone. “Fellowship.”
The doors should have opened then. I never had reason to believe otherwise.
The doors did not open.
The eyes narrowed. “Yeah? So what?”
Momentarily surprised, it took me a moment to respond. “So what? You’re supposed to let me in. Or has protocol changed since the last time I was here?”
The person chuckled, safe and secure behind a six-inch thick doors. “Things have changed. They called in all hunters. All hunters came. You’re not one of them. Nice try. Now piss off.”
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been treated like that. As a hunter, there was a certain measure of respect accorded to me and for this person to use such language with me...it was a new experience and not one I was willing to get used to. “My name is Hwang. My handler is Adrian. My contact is Chang. Let me in.”
The eyes narrowed even more until they were just slits. “Or what?”
Flabbergasted didn’t even begin to cover how I felt. “Is my handler there or isn’t he?”
The man sighed. “Wait.”
There was a hurried, whispered discussion made all the more evident due to the fact he didn’t shut the peephole, and I heard the sounds of footsteps leaving the doors.
The eyes returned, still suspicious. “We’ve sent for the handler. Step away from the doors. Don’t come back. They will come for you.”
Whatever that meant.
I held up my hands and took a step back, just as they asked. Something had happened, that much was certain. Feeling curiously empty and somewhat apprehensive, I leaned against the wall, noting with some surprise that mine were the only footsteps to disturb the snow that had fallen since two days ago.
Two days was a very long time for people to neither leave nor arrive.
What the hell was going on?
My answer came half an hour later when the eyehole slid back again and the same person hissed at me.
“Hey you.”
I merely looked at them, not feeling particularly like replying.
“We’re letting you in.”
“Took you long enough, didn’t it?”
“Shut up,” he snarled and then vanished again.
But the doors were opening with a shuddering sound, knocking the snow off the high concrete walls.
I fought to keep the surprise from my eyes. “A welcoming party? You shouldn’t have.”
A few of the face I recognized, but most of them were unfamiliar. No smiles, just a blank solidarity that made the pulse beat faster in the back of my head. “What’s going on?” I asked, voice shaking.
“Come with us.”
A slightly built figure detached herself from the crowd, two burly Hunters standing aside to let her pass.
Williamson. She had always been somewhat frail, but those scars were fresh. One particularly horrendous one looked as though it had very nearly taken her left eye.
“What’s going on, Beth?” I repeated myself, slowly, carefully.
Her lips thinned. “I think we should be asking you that, Hwang.”
Beth had never called me by my last name before. We just were never that formal, in fact if I’d ever had anything remotely close to a friend, she might have been it. “Where’s Adrian?”
She turned. “Come.”
The guard, for how could they be anything else, swallowed up her again and swallowed me up as well. Being this close to people armed to the teeth made my skin feel as though it would jump off my bones and quietly, I let them lead me through the outer courtyard, past the training fields and into the inner sanctum, where the Elders resided. An attendant dressed in their somber black and gray pulled open a shoji door and I watched, utterly nonplussed as boots tromped on the floors, the snow and dirt creating a mess I had never seen before. It was tradition to take off your shoes before stepping into the living quarters of the Sanctuary.
Just how much had changed since I had left?
I hesitated at the edge of the upraised floor, years of tradition keeping my feet on the snow-covered ground.
A rough shove sent my knees careening into the wooden edge. “Get up.”
This, this was a face I recognized. “Mac. Nice to see you haven’t lost that edge of yours.”
The darkly tanned Scotsman grinned at me. It was not a friendly one. “You’re lucky you’re not dead. We don’t suffer traitors easily.”
We don’t suffer traitors easily.
I blinked. “Are you calling me a traitor?”
Instead of replying, he grabbed me by the arms and physically lifted me off the ground, setting me firmly on the wooden inner walkway. Inwardly, I cringed at the mess I was leaving on the polished wooden floors that should have never seen a scuff, much less the mess everyone else was making.
Stupid thing to worry about, really. Especially when it seemed as though everyone I knew had this strange misconception that I was a traitor.
Painfully aware of just how easily someone could slip a dagger through my ribs, fully aware of just how the Fellowship treated traitors, I let my hands dangle by my sides, trusting in the Hunters sense of honor. Or something like that.
The group stopped, but I could not see over the heads of those taller than I. Considering I was taller than average, it did not escape my notice my guards had been chosen for the express purpose keeping me from seeing outside, or people from seeing in.
A door opened and I followed a tall brunette with a ponytail longer than mine. The broad shoulders as well as the crisp smell of Old Spice told me the person was male, that and the exposed forearms were covered with curly hair, slightly darker than the hair on his head.
The Hunters spread along the small concrete room, bare with a single chair in the middle, a swinging light bulb hanging from the ceiling.
I was very well acquainted with the interrogation chamber.
Although I never thought I would sit in the wobbly chair that very desperately needed a wad of paper underneath the back right leg. It was interesting to see the room sitting down. A completely different point of view, so to speak.
Beth paced in front of me, hands held behind her back. “Why did you come back?”
Painfully aware of the eyes on me, I shuffled my feet on the concrete floor. All the nervous energy in my body needed some place to go. “I told Adrian I’d be back. I thought Chang would need some kind of status report.”
The first slap took me across the face, catching me completely by surprise. Beth was small, but in her case, small did not equate with little strength. She was rather infamous for her punches and the slap took my breath away.
Blinking blearily through the hair in my eyes, I tried to catch my breath. “That was...unnecessary.”
“Isn’t it?” Teeth bared, she stared down at me. There was something in her eyes, something I couldn’t trust. On anyone else, I would have said she had grown power drunk, but not Beth, not the orphaned girl who came to the Fellowship at the age of fifteen, half crazy from an inhuman strength that only the Elders could harness and turn into something useful, something needed.
This person in front of me was not the girl I remembered. “No. I think I deserve an explanation.”
She sat back down on her haunches in front of me, hands dangling in the air. I thought about how easy it would be to reach down and break her wrists. Then I thought about how easy it would be for the fourteen Hunters to take the head off my shoulders before I even took one step off the chair. “An explanation? I think we should be asking for one.”
“Then ask for one.”
Her face hardened. “Who are you working for?”
“Elder Chang.”
The second slap was even harder than the last and darkness sparked at the corners of my vision.
“Liar.”
I shook my head, almost hearing loose bearings rolling in my mind. “You know, this is starting to get really old, Beth.”
She stood up to her full height, which admittedly wasn’t that much. It had always been something of a sore subject with her. We Hunters were not known for our subtlety.
“You think I like doing this?” The look in her eyes betrayed her. Something had happened while I was gone. Something...wrong. For Beth to inhibit such wanting for violence and bloodlust, even to members of the Fellowship...suddenly, I felt cold, colder than I had in a very long time. “You think I like beating up people I thought were my friends?”
I didn’t bother answering. She wouldn’t have liked my answer and I didn’t feel like getting slapped again by a woman who once punched a hole through a foot thick brick wall.
“We have heard the most disturbing rumors,” she said and even though I tried to maintain eye contact with her, she was having trouble meeting my gaze. Her gaze kept going all over the place as though she was high on something. “Something about you joining the other side. Heard you became an Ailward.” She tsked, somewhat more dramatically than was necessary. “Really, Ran. I thought you were better than all that. It’s such a shame to be proven wrong.”
My tongue probed what felt like a loose molar. Damn. “I was under orders by Elder Chang to eliminate Noir.”
A hand reared back. “You going to continue to lie?”
I stared at her, outwardly calm but inwardly already flinching. “Slap me again and see what happens.”
Not the smartest thing to say, but maybe there was some brain damage to blame for such impetuous words.
The hand wavered in the air and she smiled. It was not a pleasant sight. “Oh? Are you going to kill me, too?”
“Kill you too? I haven’t killed anyone.”
And vampires didn’t count.
She exchanged a look with someone standing next to me, a rather tall, spare man dressed in motorcycle leathers and enough piercings to make airport travel an impossibility. I didn’t know who he was, but that was not surprising. Most Hunters I knew via reputation, not exactly by appearance. “You killed Adrian.”
I closed my eyes. I would not let them see how badly the news had shook me.
Then again, I wasn’t terribly surprised. The Fellowship had a way of culling the older members, and Adrian had been old, by Fellowship standards. “The last time I saw him was a couple of days. He told me Elder Chang had rescinded his orders and I was to return to headquarters. He left and I never saw him again.”
And I would never see him again. I closed my eyes again before tears had time to form.
I wouldn’t cry. Death was my everyday companion. I had seen it happen to far too many people in my life. Another person dying was nothing new, nothing special.
The first flickers of doubt ran across her pale, almost elven features. “You are denying a great deal of things.”
“I had no reason to kill my handler,” I said and stopped talking before my voice could break. I had no intention of letting them see my emotions. That was no one’s business but my own. “How did he...die?”
Almost lost it for a minute there.
She regarded me carefully and then sat back down on her haunches again as if she could see the truth from a foot off the ground. “Garroted. There was a lot of blood.”
Bitch. She didn’t have to say the last sentence. Probably just to see my reaction, of which I had no intention of letting her see. “There usually is if a wire is used. Leather or fabric, not so much.”
“You really are a cold bitch, aren’t you?” she asked quietly, carefully. “How long have you worked with Adrian? Ten years? And yet, you sit there, cool as the f*cking Queen of Sheba. Can’t you even fake some tears?”
I smiled. “For you? For the Fellowship? F*ck you, Beth.”
I didn’t get slapped this time.
Instead, a hand tangled in my hair and pulled me abruptly off the chair. Pain exploded across my temples and a small sound escaped my lips as I fought to keep from having the scalp torn off my head.
“You think this is funny?” The smell of alcohol was almost nauseating as a heavy set face with a jaw a bulldog would have envied pushed itself into my line of sight. I presumed it was his hand pulling my hair. “There are people dying out there. Someone knows who we f*cking are and they’re picking us off like flies in a f*cking blizzard. Is it you? Are you the one setting the bloodsuckers on us?”
I let him see the surprise in my eyes. It wasn’t hard. Considering how well identities of Hunters were guarded, the fact someone knew enough Hunters to get them killed was something very, very new. And very, very dangerous. “I have given my life to the Fellowship. The Elders were the ones who’ve given me a reason to live. I considered Hunters to be family.”
Until now.
I might forgive, but it wasn’t going to be any time soon. Considering how much I had given the Fellowship, the pain and horror I’ve been through, my treatment at the hands of Hunters made anger seem almost too easy.
He pulled me closer until I could count the individual pores on his face. “You think you’re so tough, don’t you?”
I wasn’t an idiot. “No. I don’t. Every day I am thankful I am still alive.”
Although, if I had my way, this one wouldn’t be this time tomorrow. I never forget a face and his would stay engraved in my mind for a very, very long time.
With a snarl, he let go of me and I staggered on wobbly knees, one hand on the chair back. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing me fall.
“Sit down,” said Beth, eyes hard as rocks. “We’re not done with you.”
I shook my head. I refused to be the whipping boy any longer. “No, actually, you are done with me. Elder Chang told me to infiltrate Noir stronghold. I did that. Now, all I have to do is kill him. Why is that so hard for you to understand?”
The sword was still slung over my right shoulder. Either they were stupid or...no, they were just stupid. Overly confident. Pride does come before a fall. If push came to shove, in the most literal and figurative sense, I would draw to save my life. I would die, but at least I would not die alone.
Surprisingly, she did not force me, but opted to stand herself. Standing about half a foot shorter than myself, I saw her look up, up and let her see me smile. I was petty enough to want to make her uncomfortable. It was a careful line between annoying someone and angering them and I had little wish in angering Beth.
“Since you left, we’ve lost thirty-seven Hunters.”
I blinked. “You assume I keep track of casualties. I don’t.”
Her lips thinned. “On any average month, losing ten would be bad. You’ve been gone for a week.”
“And you think I’ve been feeding Noir information.”
“Who else would?” she asked, eyes blazing. “How can we trust you when you have broken the one rule we hold sacred?”
Obey.
I clenched my teeth and looked around the circle of Hunters, all of them very unhappy. Their fear smelled like burning leaves and I pinched my nose, trying to dispel the unsavory scent from my mind. “It was for the greater good. An opportunity unlike any other presented itself and I took it. If that is wrong, then fine, I am sorry.”
“Sorry isn’t going to cut it,” she spat out. “I’ve lost five friends and I intend to see their deaths revenged.”
I stared at her, incredulous, all rational thought gone from my mind. “Are you joking? Even though I haven’t done it, you’re going to kill me, just to satisfy some twisted sense of justice?”
Her fists clenched and unclenched at her sides. “Someone has to pay.”
“Right,” I murmured. “If my death should appease your pathetic revenge quest, then so be it. But just you. Has anyone else here have anyone they want to avenge? I’ll take you all, one by one, until this is settled and only one person still stands.”
Several of them opened their mouths, and I realized that while I was good...I wasn’t good enough to take everyone in gladiator style. “But before you put your hand up, let me at least appeal to your common sense. I have given everything to the Fellowship. My mother was killed by a bloodsucker. My father was turned into one of them. I have nothing to gain by following their orders. Indeed, I would have everything to lose.”
A stout, bearded man with a chest as wide as he was tall spoke up. “Oh yeah? Then why are you protecting one of them?”
Frustration turned my voice hard, sharp. “Accuse not, unless you know the full truth. The one I protect was a human until five days ago. He was part of the Fellowship, looking for the vampire who turned his fiance and killed their unborn child. Like me, he seeks the downfall of the entire race.”
“So he turned into a vampire?” Beth asked, sarcasm turning her words sour.
“I sought entrance into Noir’s house. He provided me with an entrance. Together, we’ll take them down. But if you kill me here, everything will have been for nothing,” I said and then drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “But if you want to try your luck and see if killing me will bring your friends back, then by all means. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a match like this.”
I was only half-bluffing. But a half-bluff is still a bluff. I didn’t want to fight, didn’t want to waste energy on a pointless fight, but if it meant the difference between walking out of the “interrogation” room and being a stain on the floor, then I would fight.
No one could accuse me of being bloodthirsty, but if it came down to it, I would fight to kill. Experience taught me that people in the Fellowship, or maybe just people in general, did not take to defeat kindly.
Would anyone take my bluff?
“If I kill you, they’ll quit hunting us,” said Beth, a disturbing finality to her voice. “I know it.”
I’d known she probably wouldn’t back down, not when she looked so sure of herself and her misguided convictions. But if I could just get to everyone else... “Well? Anyone else think she’s right?”
No one met my eyes, not even the guy who almost scalped me.
That was reassuring. Somewhat.
“Don’t be f*cking ridiculous.”
The voice had changed, rougher than I remembered, but the soft drawl was the still. “There’ll be no fighting, not on my watch. Williamson, you’re on probation. No, on second thought, get the hell out of here. Don’t come back until I call you. That’s an order.”
It hurt to turn my head and my cheeks felt hot, heavy. I was going to look like I’d been hit in the face with a van which I guessed wasn’t entirely far from the truth. “Trent. It’s been a while.”
It wasn’t just his voice that had changed. The scars were new, almost painfully new.
His trademark sparkling smile didn’t look the same. Not with a scar bisecting the left side of his face, starting from under a startling silver eye and ending somewhere past his high Chinese collar.
“It’s pretty bad.”
Guiltily, I drew my gaze back up to his face. Was this how a man felt when he got caught staring at a woman’s chest? “I was just thinking how painful it would’ve been.”
His smile widened until he was practically leering at me. “Bet you weren’t.”
I almost rose to his bait. But almost is a far cry from actually doing so. “Is this how you greet people now?”
The smile faded away in an instant and he took another step into the room. The temperature seemed to drop a few more degrees. “I’m sorry, Ran. This wasn’t how I wanted you to be welcomed. I heard from...” he stopped and then shook his head. “I heard from Adrian what you were doing. If what he said was right, then you should be given a hero’s welcome, not...not this,” he said and nodded at my blazing face. “Beth will be punished, make no mistake.”
“Now, hold on just one second. The Elders--”
“Never told you to turn this into a blood bath,” interjected Trent. “It was supposed to be an investigation. Threatening your own team members is not an investigation. As of now, you’re off. Pack your bags and find somewhere to cool your head.”
She looked away but not soon enough to hide the shimmer in her eyes. “They have to pay. Someone has to pay for what they’ve done.”
Something in Trent’s face softened. Not much, but the furrow between his eyes relaxed, almost imperceptibly. “Someone will pay, but not Ran. You have no idea how much she has given us. Accusing her of treason would be like calling me a traitor.” His voice hardened. “Or is that something you want to do? Would you like to beat a confession out of me as well?”
She shook her head mutely and rubbed a wrist over her eyes.
Idiot. That’s why I never got close to anyone. I wasn’t unfriendly to those I came into contact, but I was all too aware of the dangers of our mission. To not expect death was to open yourself to pain and I was no fool. That I had survived this long was always something I marveled at. I walked into every encounter prepared to die and the Gods or Fate had smiled upon me. That Beth let the sorrow control her emotions, her moves made me think less of her. More than her urge to take my life. If she had any other reason for killing me, be it to show her strength or through some long hatred, I would have taken her challenge gladly. But to accuse me of a cravenly crime...that I could not, would not accept. “The pain will pass.”
My words felt woefully short and yet it was nothing but the truth.
She turned on me, one hand clenched into a fist that could knock me senseless in one blow “You know nothing! Don’t you dare to patronize me, you cold bitch.”
Trent put a hand on her shoulder, as if to remind her of his presence. “You don’t know this. It’s the only reason why you aren’t taking her words to heart.”
“Know what?” she asked, eyes flashing.
He looked at me with his silver eyes over her head and in them, I saw memories I thought I had forgotten. But even I’m not that lucky. “Fourteen years old, Ran was part of the Fellowship. She was training here.”
Someone gasped. I hoped it wasn’t me. “You bastard.”
He squared his jaw. “Your doubters need to know. They need to understand. They need to know why you hunt monsters. They need to know you have lost more than they could possibly imagine. A lesser person would have gone insane. But you...somehow, you channeled that rage. They took everything from you and you became stronger.” He closed his eyes for just one moment as if seeing memories playing on the insides of his eyelids. “Before we were raided, you were...passable. Not really anything to write home about. But after...Jesus, Ran. It was like watching someone completely different.”
I remembered. My scars twinged at the remembrance of the pain. “Please. Stop. It’s in the past. It’s over.”
The hate was still there, but it was tempered by something else. Pity? “Who did you lose?”
I felt like the highlight of a circus freak show. Still, if it kept me alive, then I could stand the stares and quiet speculation. “Family.”
That was all I could, would give them. Anything more and I was going to embarrass myself in front of a group of people who wanted more than to see if I bled just the same as them.
She turned away and left the room without so much of a backwards glance, not another word and after a moment of awkward silence, everyone else milled out, leaving me alone with Trent.
“Thank you.”
He let one shoulder lift and then drop carelessly. “Why? All I did was tell them your history. Now, let’s get out of here. This place always rubs me the wrong way.”
Trent had a set of rooms in the Sanctuary, near the edge of the compound, but we chose to sit outside on the upraised platform, feet dangling in the air. I couldn’t remember the last time I sat like this. “It’s cold.”
He nodded and stared up at the dark sky. “Do you think it’ll stop snowing?”
I ignored him. “Is it true then? About...about Adrian?”
He swallowed and tucked his hands into the wide Mandarin sleeves. “She told you about that?”
My throat felt tight and a strange heat rose in my nose. “So it is true. Adrian’s dead.”
Anyone would have avoided my gaze. Trent did not. It was one of the many things I admired about him.
“I’m sorry, Ran.”
“Yeah,” I said, voice hoarse. “Me too.”
“We don’t know who did it.”
Wetness streaked my cheeks and I rubbed my cuffs at the moisture, trying to vain to keep down the roiling emotions that fought to break loose. “I thought so. If you knew, then the murderer would already be dead.”
He made a small sound in the back of his throat and tactfully turned to look up at the swirling snow that looked more like small feathers from a dove.
Minutes passed. Much of it with me silent, a fist pressed to my lips. After that speech about pain passing, it just didn’t seem right to let go.
That and I hadn’t done so in ten years, and I wasn’t sure if I remembered how.
“Why was I not told?”
“No one knew where you’d gone,” he said softly. “You weren’t at home. Adrian knew you were with the mark who was supposed to be dead two weeks ago. That was all. Sooner or later, I figured you’d come back.”
Always the practical one. “I called a couple of days ago. Someone told me Chang was not available. Why didn’t they tell me about Adrian?”
His lips thinned. “Another bit of a bad news, really. With Chang down, I guessed he kind of get shunted off to the side.”
I sniffed. My nose was running. “Sounds like the Elders.”
“He’s in a coma.”
I never felt anything for Elder Chang, except for a bit of mild affection for it was obvious that he cared about my well being, although it was never certain as to whether he cared about me as a person or as a tool to be used against the monsters of the darkness. But in the end, I supposed it never really mattered. “What are his chances of survival?”
“Who knows.”
“Any idea on who it might have been?”
Another casual shrug. “They also stabbed him in the chest with a combat knife. Ironically, or maybe not, it was the falling that almost killed him. He hit his head on the edge of his table. Guess the bastard’s harder to kill than anyone ever realized.”
I thought he smiled although it was hard to see through my vision gone uncontrollably blurry. “He’s an Elder. It’ll be a cold day in Hell before one of them dies that easily.”
My cuffs were starting to turn into a mess. “Trent, do you have a tissue?”
“I have something better,” he said and then opened his arms. “Come here. You’ll feel better.”
I shook my head fervently. “No. I don’t think so. I’ve come this far. I’ve made it this long without losing control. I can do better.”
Arms still open, he gave me a pained look. At least, I thought so. I was rather distracted trying to keep the sounds from leaving my mouth, trying to keep from drowning in the tears soaking into my coat. “You going to just leave me like this? Man, Ran, I knew you were cold, but I didn’t know it was this bad!”
I inched towards him and my lips wobbled. “You even smell like him.”
He nodded. “Of course I do. That son of a bitch always stole my cologne. Said he was sick of smelling like you. “
And despite everything, a laugh felt my lips. “You’re a lying bastard.”
He sighed deeply. “Oh, all right, then. I know which cologne he uses and I thought you might either get comfort from it or run screaming. Since you’re still here, I guess you like it. Now, how about that hug?”
I looked at him and then let myself fall into that warm comfort, that warm circle.