Hunter policy #02132 (Authorized edition):
All enchanted devices employed by hunters during sanctioned activities must receive informed consent by civilians before being utilized on their person. Silence can be used as consent in emergency situations and only for medical aid.
I awoke to the indelicate smack of a leather glove against my cheek.
“Rise and shine, little girl,” a deep and buttery voice demanded from somewhere above me. I instinctively moved to raise my fists to defend myself from this newcomer, but something held my wrists firmly in place. I hissed as thick ropes bit into my skin, and I yanked fruitlessly on them. One of my eyes was swollen shut, so it took me a second to blink through the agony enough to see my parents similarly tied down in the center of our living room.
Thunder and inverted rain still crashed outside, so I knew I was only unconscious for a few minutes at most. But, in that time, all hope of a quick escape had fled.
“Ah, there you are! Just in time. This is so much easier when you’re awake. Dreams tend to mess with the artifact for some reason. Something about memories and fantasies mixing into one big mess, or whatever that old man had said.” The voice came from a well-built man dressed identically as the other assailants. Unlike the others, he was unmasked. A handsome face well into his middle years greeted me with a warm smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
He sat down and leaned against the only remaining chair on our first floor.
Kaelin’s chair.
“You are quite the troublemaker, aren’t you, Thea Shade?” The green-eyed man inquired smoothly. I felt fear as cold as the winter winds creep across my skin. He knew my name. How did he know my name?!
I spat nine kinds of curses at him in the three languages I knew, but they all lost their bite thanks to the gag once again in my mouth. My eyes must’ve told the true story because he merely laughed at my feeble attempt at bravado.
“Oh, that is quite flowery, indeed. It is nice to know the younger generation continues to pursue the development of linguistic skills, even if they are being put to such crass use. Now, I am willing to chance fate and assume you three are curious as to why my team has you tied in your own home, yes?” He smiled again, and I swore he was enjoying this. My stomach lurched with disgust as his eyes lingered a bit too long on my mother. I heard my dad curse this stranger almost as impressively as I had, but when he showed no signs of getting flustered, we all eventually nodded. Uncertainty and a thousand different scenarios screamed for attention in my head. But no matter what I came up with, I drew the same conclusion:
There was no way out of this.
“Excellent! You see, your dear little son has caused quite the headache for us. He has gone on the run, and we need to reduce the places he can hide. With your help, we shall solve this conundrum. As faithful servants of Halistair, I take your silence as consent.” He leaned farther into his stolen chair and grinned wider at me. Cruelty danced in his eyes as I squirmed against my restraints. I was suddenly all too aware how much of my nightgown had been torn in my failed escape. A shiver raced down my skin, but it had nothing to do with the cold outside. I pinned my knees together in a vain attempt to make myself smaller.
“This will be fun,” he cooed. With casual movements, he procured a device from a leather pouch looped into his black uniform. I waited with bated breath alongside my parents as he patiently unwound the device from its protective covering. When he finished, he held it in the lights of the Everglow lamps like a trophy. I shuttered. Though it was entirely in my imagination, the strange artifact felt evil. I had the sudden instinct to be as far from that accursed thing as I possibly could. To my left, my mother sobbed softly into her gag. I could hear my father strain against the thick ropes that kept him down, and I felt more hopeless than ever.
The man strolled toward us as he continued to inspect the device. Its sleek metal bore the general shape of a morningstar and each point of the celestial icon betrayed its razor-sharp edge as they glimmered in the lamplight. I was no expert, but I didn’t need to be to feel the pulse of magic that emanated from it. It didn’t hurt that it had a complex enchantment intricately carved into each striation. Despite its clear worth, he tossed it around like an old friend.
“Your brother’s blood would be best, but we will have to settle for the three of you. This little guy will erase every memory you ever had of him. Gone, just like that.” The man in his tailored uniform snapped his finger for emphasis. “He can’t run to any allies if they don’t even remember his face, now can he?” The weight of his words landed on me and my parents like a god-beast in labor. Disbelief, confusion, and despair clung to my chest even tighter than the restraints.
Kaelin knew that this would happen? Is that why he warned me?! I thought desperately. My terror must’ve slipped out, as the man chuckled sweetly.
“Oh don’t worry, little flower. You won’t even remember this conversation. All you’ll know is what I tell you! Now, let’s get started.” At his words, one raider came behind each of our chairs and placed their heavy gloves against our shoulders, lifting whatever sleeves we had to expose our forearms. Meanwhile, the other darkly garbed assailants began to tear through our house without remorse or concern for the damage they caused. Enchanted frames of our family were torn to shreds. They broke vases, burned letters, and upturned what few books my parents owned. Each brute of a man was methodical in his savage destruction of everything I knew and loved about my home.
Several of them went to check the rooms upstairs. It wasn’t blind destruction though. They disregarded our most precious items entirely, like the enchanted blade my dad kept from his days as a Fisher anchored atop our hearth. It took me a second to realize what they were doing.
They were removing all evidence that Kaelin ever existed.
“You FUC—” I tried to scream through the cotton stuffed between my teeth, but it was useless. The man behind me held my arm firmly as the leader of this raid stood up and walked over with elegant and unhurried steps.
“Hush, little flower,” he whispered intimately. Before I could react, he slid one of the morningstar’s edges along the length of my forearm. I groaned at the pain as it crawled along my skin. The frigid blade dug deeply into my flesh and tears sprung from my eyes like hot streams. I faintly heard my father roar in protest and my mum moan in horror, but I couldn’t focus on them.
All I could feel was the knife as it dug a canyon into my arm.
Hot blood leaked from the incision as my house was torn to shreds. Instead of dripping to the stone floor beneath my bare feet, however, the device glowed with a red hunger and it sucked the long wound dry like some insatiable beast. More than that, I felt something inside me give under the device. I didn’t know how, but it was taking more than merely blood from me, and I was utterly helpless to stop it.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
All my bravery was gone, and in its absence, I wept.
More and more blood oozed into the device until I could barely think straight through the hot numbness that crept into my mind from the blood loss and whatever else it stole from me. All the while, he grinned congenially at me, like I was doing him some small kindness rather than the truth of the matter.
He was killing me. And he smiled.
It was an eternity before I felt him slide the razor edge of the device out of my tendons and muscles. He moved on to my parents. Fear redoubled in my heart at the thought of my mum and dad enduring what I just had. Strong fingers held me down as I tried again to escape.
“Quiet, girl, or we won’t be so gentle,” my captor whispered harshly into my ear. His breath reeked of sweet wine and day-old meat.
The unmasked man did my mother next. My father screamed what I’m sure were threats so dark even the long-forgotten gods would’ve turned in their graves. But like my concentration, they were lost behind cotton and the storm kicked up by the raiders in our house. It might’ve been my imagination or lightheadedness, but he seemed to take a good deal longer with my mother. As he dug a new trench into her skin, I felt the echoes of the pain in my own arm resurge like some vengeful spirit.
Then, after another eternity, he used the device on my father. It swept up his blood with clean efficiency, and soon the man returned to his seat in Kaelin’s chair.
I felt sweat cling to my nightgown as I panted for breath. The blood loss was taking its full toll on me now, and so it was all I could do to remain conscious. The man fiddled with the device as he pressed various runes along its core and we watched silently as the men who’d torn our house to shreds all returned to stand around us.
“It’s done, sir. Nothing ties back to that traitor,” one of them reported in a clipped tone. His voice was like an old knife honed across gravel instead of a whetstone. My eyes met his, and I saw the thick chains that had manacled my father just minutes before climb up his arms like basilisks. Darkness deeper than the abyss lingered in those eyes of his.
“Good lads,” the leader remarked in a dismissive tone. He waved his hand lazily as he pressed the few remaining runes. I heard the man grunt in annoyance, but he didn’t say anything further. The device began to glow a sickly red and the handsome man laughed giddily like some child in a sweets store. He stood to his full height again and stepped so that he was directly in front of me and my parents.
“We’ll meet again in just a moment,” he told the three of us. With that, the device glowed to a painful brightness. Red energy poured from the device as he muttered a few words I couldn’t pick up. The magic slammed into my chest, and I felt a wretched pang of terror as something unnatural clawed its way into my mind. I felt images of Kaelin course across my vision like ethereal ghosts, and the weight of loss was as immediate as it was overwhelming.
“No! My baby!” My mother screamed.
Then, as suddenly as the magic invaded my body, it disappeared. And, in its place, a searing heat began to warm my chest. I squirmed. My brows furrowed in confusion.
What the hell is going on?!
The invader holding me down adjusted his position so that he could take me in better. To my left, both my parents sobbed and shook while I remained still. Despite the strange heat against my sternum, all of the red energy had fled my body entirely. I snuck a glance at them and realized they were both seizing in their chairs. The sight was enough to turn my stomach, but I held it in.
“Sir, this one isn’t—” the man holding me started, but he was interrupted before he got any further.
“Shut up, you rat. How dare you interrupt my sacred duties like this?! Be still, or I’ll make sure that license of yours stays revoked,” the leader retorted before he returned his concentration to the device. The man grunted, but didn’t speak again.
The pain in my chest shifted from irritating to downright agonizing. I felt my skin bubble and blister under the intense heat there, and it was only then that I realized the source of my new misery.
The amulet.
It thrummed with energy as it combated whatever strange incantation the man was performing. Kaelin’s words rushed back to me. Red waves of light pulsed from the morningstar device and another round of thunder rumbled overhead. I tried to act like my parents and I closed my eyes in false loss, though the pain was still quite real. My mother gave out one final wail before she slumped forward in her chair. I screamed. It wasn’t an act. I didn’t see her chest move at all.
“Please! She’s not breathing!” I tried to yell through all of the commotion, but they either didn’t hear me or didn’t care. The man holding me back threw me against the chair with enough force for the amulet now imprinting itself against my chest to shift.
“Hey, wait a minute,” he muttered as he leaned forward toward my neck in the crimson light. Before he got any closer, the device shuttered and the strange gemstone in its center winked out.
“There we go! Untie them, gentlemen. It is time we were properly introduced!” the leader commanded, and the various men shuffled around in a frenzy. My wrists were freed and the hunters shifted so that they all stood at attention behind this man. He finished packing up the device, and a sliver of relief poured through my heart when I could no longer see it.
“Dear citizens, be at peace,” he intoned in a voice completely at odds with his former demeanor. “I am Alaric Hawthorne from the Orion division. We are here under reports that a known serial killer was on the loose here in this district of Halistair. He is known to employ taboo enchantments that alter his victim’s memories while he destroys their homes for his twisted pleasures. We did not catch him, but it is clear from the state of your house that he was here. We were just in time. Our healer will address the wounds he left you now.”
“Thank you, lads,” my father offered gratefully. I turned to him, shocked as he smiled warmly at the men in front of us. Tears still streaked down his cheeks and into his thick beard, but I caught no insincerity from his words. He stood up from his chair, and wobbled slightly on his feet. “Whoa!” he exclaimed humorously and laughed as a few of the men rushed to help him stabilize. “We can’t thank you enough, sir.” My father raised his hand and Alaric shook it.
“Do any of you need any tea for the road?” My mother asked from her chair, ever the hostess.
My heart sank.
I stared blankly between them and the hunters. This was wrong. This couldn’t be happening.
“Are you alright, miss?” Alaric inquired as he knelt to address me. Nausea swept over me like a tsunami. Before I could stop it, my stomach upended itself as the cocktail of my emotions imploded and bile ripped through my throat. A chorus of startled ‘oohs’ rang out, but I ignored it all as I reeled to figure out what in the gods’ names was going on.
“My sweet daughter must have a weaker stomach for all this worry than I do!” My mother chortled from where she sat. I glowered up at her, wiping my mouth with my uninjured arm.
Was she seriously making fun of me in a moment like this? She met my gaze and frowned slightly. No games. No hidden agenda. She was acting like her usual self, like a team of raiders hadn’t just illegally broken and entered into our house in the middle of a gods-damned surge. She raised one eyebrow at me like I was the insane one in this situation.
“It’s quite alright, madame. This is quite a frightening situation after all. We see this sort of thing all the time,” Alaric consoled softly as he grabbed me by the hand to help me up. I flinched back and a scowl started to form across his handsome features.
“Is our house safe now?” My father asked. His arms were crossed, but he too looked every bit like this situation was just another night to him. One of the men removed his half-mask and stood up from beside my mother. He removed a silver cloth I hadn’t noticed earlier from against her forearm. The fabric continued to glow as yellowish light flooded into my mum’s arm and through her chest. She sighed with relief as the injuries left by the very people now helping us disappeared from sight and memory. The man moved on to my father and me next, but he refused to meet any of our gazes.
“Well, it sounds like the surge has finally decided to give up, so we best be off. The trail on that killer won’t grow any warmer, after all.” Alaric stood up and wiped his hands on his trousers. He nodded to each of us solemnly and then he and his team left through the splintered front door.
Hand against the wooden frame, Alaric leaned back as if he’d just forgotten something. “Oh, and if you remember anything, just ask for me at the local hunter agency. Any help you can give us in stopping this madman would be much appreciated.”
“Will do, sir. Be safe out there,” my father responded in his old military fashion. Alaric glanced one more time at me, but then nodded and disappeared into the darkness. We were alone.