Chapter 31

Ryan left.

He stayed long enough to unstrap Aleda’s hands from the training claws and give her a few last pointers before telling her that he needed to go home and get some sleep. Aleda was left to take a much-needed shower and finally put on some regular clothes. He had come earlier than usual—it was barely ten o’clock by the time she got back downstairs for breakfast—and she still had plenty of time to catch up on chores and homework.

Nate called again.

She talked to him on the phone for a little while. He had gone ahead to the movie the night before and spent a solid twenty minutes telling her about it. She listened with one ear while she dusted the upstairs. Just as he was getting ready to say goodbye, he asked her if she wanted to go out that night instead. If Ryan hadn’t already told her to follow the hunters that night she would have said yes in a heartbeat, but as it was she didn’t want to give up that kind of an opportunity.

She spent the rest of the day in her room with her textbooks. She was keeping up the pretense of homework, even though she couldn’t quite get herself to do any of it. She got a little of it done, anyway. When it was obvious that her parents weren’t going to bother her, she gave up the pretense entirely and settled on her bed with a book. She was determined to outlast her parents. If they still thought she was horribly busy when they left, they would never suspect that she could be following them to a vampire nest at night. The only times she left her room were for lunch and dinner. In truth, it was very relaxing to just lounge about all day. She would probably go stark raving bonkers if she did it any more than once a week or so, but for one day it was nice.

Mom asked her a couple times about how she was doing, when she came downstairs to eat. Aleda made some stuff up about long papers and moaned about her evil teachers. Mom could usually tell when she was lying, but if she knew this time it didn’t show. She just made sympathetic noises and went back to practicing her violin. Not that she needed to.

After dinner Aleda went back up to her room and immediately pulled some more appropriate clothing out of her closet. It was December, now, and the weather was getting frosty with a vengeance. The sun was about to set. Mike arrived as the last rays of sunlight were shining through the trees. Talia and Ryan pulled up a few minutes later.

“Honey!” Mom called. “We’re going out hunting! Don’t stay up too late on that homework!”

“Okay, Mom,” Aleda yelled back. She was already pulling on a hat and the same cut-off gloves she had found in the basement. As soon as she heard the door slam shut she raced downstairs. New coat from the hall closet and ratty purple backpack from the basement. She peeked out of the front windows to check on her family. They were a block away. She made sure she had keys and went through the door as quietly as possible, locking it behind her with a soft click. Now she just had to hope that none of them turned around and saw her.

She followed them for a few miles. It was a shame they had to walk so far. She was soon wishing desperately for a bicycle, or at the very least a good pair of roller skates. Up ahead, the five hunters were having some sort of discussion. Talking about their tactics? She couldn’t think what else it could be. They turned a corner. Ryan was the last of the group. Just before he disappeared around the corner he looked back and winked.

Aleda hurried to keep up.

 

 

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There was really only one problem with Ryan’s sleeping schedule. In his years wandering the wilderness he had nearly forgotten: Anything that happened in the morning, before he made it to bed, took on a vaguely surreal quality. Almost as if it had been just another dream. Add that to his tendency to then dream about those events and he end up waking later that afternoon feeling incredibly disoriented. He woke up that particular afternoon with the deep suspicion that he had dreamed extensively about the morning’s training session. He couldn’t for the life of him remember what had really happened and what had not.

The possibilities disturbed him.

He got dressed and heated up his breakfast. Goodness only knew if Aleda would come. She wanted to, he could tell, but the orders of that overprotective father of hers might still win out. Well, it was up to her now. He had come close to telling Talia—after all, she was just as much in favor of getting Aleda some real experience as he was. Talia was too likely to slip up and say something in front of the girl’s parents, though, so he had kept his silence. It was enough that he would know she was there, and be able to intercede if anything should happen. He didn’t want her going into the house itself, but there were several trees on the overgrown property so she should have plenty of places to hide and peek in through the windows.

He wondered if she realized that she probably would not have a chance to kill any of the suckers herself, since as soon as she shot one she would immediately betray her presence to her parents. If she were smart, she would simply watch, and use the crossbow only as a last resort.

They had to take Talia’s rustbucket. He had optimistically offered to drive them on his motorcycle, but Talia complained about the temperature and that was that. She could be quite the delicate flower when it suited her. There was a light on upstairs when they got to Aleda’s house and he could just glimpse the top of a dark head of hair through the window. Either she wasn’t planning to come or she was better at throwing her parents off the scent than he had previously given her credit for. Granted, her visit Friday night should have tipped him off to that. He stalled a little once they were inside, just in case she needed a little more time to get ready.

He couldn’t stall too long, though. The sun was setting and if they didn’t get to the nest soon the suckers would be gone for the night. Mike, who had gotten there first, hurried them out the door. Aria called upstairs to tell Aleda that they were leaving, and was answered with only an ‘Okay, Mom’. It really didn’t sound like Aleda was coming.

Damn it.

Well, they still had to get rid of this nest.

“You’re sure you counted twenty?” Mike asked when they were out the door.

“No more, no less,” Aria confirmed.

“Because you know if there were any more we would need another hunter with us. It’s regulation.”

Talia shook her head. “You and your regulations,” she said in a lightly teasing voice. “Suck all the fun out of hunting.”

“It’s for your own safety. You know that, Talia,” he admonished.

“We’ve all faced worse odds than four-to-one,” Aria reminded him. Damn straight. Ryan had cleared out nests this big on his own.

Mike sighed. “Yes, I know. That’s why I called you, instead of somebody else. I don’t want to be taking any more risks than we have to. We’re off the books enough already, what with that stunt you pulled on the eighteenth.”

“There was a feeder nest half a mile from my home,” Alejandro defended himself. “We did what was necessary.”

“You should have called me!” Mike protested. “That’s also necessary! And I’m the one who has to explain what happened.”

“You always tell such good stories, though,” Talia joked, trying to lighten the conversation. Ryan hoped her attempt worked, but Mike wasn’t dropping it.

“You did it,” he grumbled. “You should have to explain why you took a runner on an unplanned nest-wipe.”

 “I thought we planned it rather well,” Ryan finally interjected. Mike was starting to get on his nerves. As if Talia wasn’t perfectly capable of hunting with the best of them.

Mike turned on him. “Don’t even get me started on you,” he warned.

Ryan put on his most innocent smile. “I’m sorry,” he said sweetly. “I thought I was supposed to be killing demons.”

Mike opened his mouth to respond but Alejandro cut him off. “And to whom, exactly, do you have to explain anything?” he asked.

“The Council, obviously,” Mike said.

“Mike, we are the Council,” Alejandro pointed out.

“That’s beside the point.”

“Hey, guys?” Talia interrupted. “I know this is important and everything, but shouldn’t we be worried about the sucker nest right now?”

She was right, of course. They could work out the bloody red-tape bureaucracy bit later, something that Ryan had never had any use for anyway. If it was so important to Mike, then let him deal with it. They had to concentrate on getting to the suckers’ nest and clearing it before the demons left for the night. They were still too far away for him to tell if they were at home. He did feel something nearby, though…

He grinned to himself.

Apparently Aleda had decided to join them after all.

There was a turn coming up and he slowed down just a bit, trailing the rest so that he was the last around the corner. Just before the road behind them disappeared from view, he glanced back and winked at her. She had brought the crossbow. She had also found her mother’s cut-off gloves, and must have realized what they were for. That was good—if she had to use the crossbow, her hands wouldn’t be stiff and her fingers would still be free. Now he just had to hope that she would have the sense to stay outside. He also hoped none of the suckers would find her. If they did, there was always the chance that they would get to her before he could.

In retrospect, he could sympathize with Alejandro for wanting her to stay at home.

She had to learn somehow, though, and she wouldn’t learn by sitting safe at home and never coming within a mile of any demon. Her mother had managed to set herself up as a mercenary hunter long before she had even heard of such a thing, and Ryan had a feeling Aleda had the potential to do the same. Maybe she would even be able to get herself a kill tonight.

They walked the rest of the way to the nest, while Talia distracted Mike as well as she could with the unending inane chatter that only she could conjure up, without fail. The property sat with only a few others, abandoned by the previous owners for rather obvious reasons. The only thing he could say about it was that it would probably house a half a dozen people quite comfortably. He had no idea how suckers could stand such close quarters, though, seeing as how there were over three times that number in the nest. Unfortunately, the other nearby properties had not been abandoned, and there were a few tell-tale lights on inside. The presence of people so close to where they would be hunting made him nervous. If they were lucky, those people would be busy watching television or something else equally distracting. The people living there were already lucky—they hadn’t yet been killed by their ‘neighbors’.

Talia went first, of course. She crept up to the darkened house and peeked through the first-floor windows, then nimbly hopped up a convenient tree to peer through the windows on the second floor. When she was satisfied she jumped back down to the ground, landing silently on practiced feet.

“Fourteen down, nine up,” she reported in a hushed voice. “Most of them in the living room.”

Mike turned to give Aria a reproachful look. “You said there were twenty,” he whispered.

Aria’s eyes sparkled. “Must have miscounted,” she said. “Whoops.”

“We ought to come back with another hunter,” Mike muttered, mostly to himself.

Ryan held his tongue.

“What is the plan, Mike?” Alejandro asked. Mike sighed.

“Well, with this many, we don’t want any wandering off. Talia, can you do your ‘Little Lost Girl’ act?”

She grinned and saluted him. “Born to do it!”

“Right. You do that. The rest of us will come in after a few seconds. Alex and I will take the group in the living room. Aria—you and Ryan catch the ones coming down the stairs. Talia—you’re the fastest, so if you see any heading for the door I want you going straight after them.”

“Sir, yes sir!”

Mike rolled his eyes but couldn’t suppress a small grin. Talia had that effect.

“Alright, Little Talia, you’re up.”

She slipped into character flawlessly. The rest of them backed away to the sides so that they wouldn’t be seen by anything that might come to the door. Ryan risked another glance back. Aleda had found a suitable tree, just as he hoped she would: an evergreen that still offered plenty of cover. He felt a spark of pride—if he hadn’t been looking for her, he never would have found her. He was surprised that neither Aria nor Alejandro seemed to notice that their daughter was only a few yards away. Alejandro definitely couldn’t tell, certainly. He wasn’t quite as sure about Aria. Something told him that she wouldn’t necessarily say anything to her husband if she happened to notice what was going on. In the time he’d know her, she’d had a certain tendency to pull an unexpected trick out of her sleeve when needed.

Regardless, Aria’s daughter was doing quite well. The tip of the loaded crossbow peeked through the foliage, aimed at one of the upstairs windows. As close as she was, she might be able to get a bolt clean through the glass. He gave her an almost imperceptible nod, on the chance that she was watching, then looked back to his sister.

Talia knocked on the door with a sound that could only be described as innocent, then called out in her best ‘waif’ voice that she was lost and could they please let her use the telephone, just for a moment. Honestly, the girl could be in movies. The knock didn’t do the trick but the girlish voice did, and two of the suckers opened the door and ushered her inside, their dead eyes full of hunger. Just as the door was about to click shut behind them, Mike stuck out his hand and caught it, ready to push through as soon as they were ready. They were giving the suckers inside a few seconds to congregate on their serendipitous visitor.

They were hasty tonight. Barely two seconds passed before Ryan heard a scuffle start inside. The hunters immediately burst through the front door, catching the suckers inside completely by surprise. Talia had managed to lure sixteen of them into just the one room, and the others were surely on their way.

Ryan attacked the first one that presented itself to him. It went straight for his throat. He brought his clawed hand up without a thought, nailing it through the ribs and moving on to the next before the first had even finished its collapse into dust. A second sucker jumped him a split second later, before he was able to move any closer to the stairs. That one was tossed into the middle of the room, knocking down several and leaving them easy pickings for the others. Let the other three deal with those. He and Aria needed to intercept the ones coming from the second floor.

Aria was the first to make it to the stairs and she caught one on the way up, clawing it through the heart as it sped down the stairs and leaving Ryan, two steps behind her, covered in dust in the process. He gave her a look and brushed himself off. Aria giggled and kept walking. Jaysis, she was so much like her daughter. Ryan shook his head to clear it of the thought and followed her upstairs. Any suckers left up there were undoubtedly staying put, having surely heard the commotion downstairs and not wanting any part of it. With any luck they wouldn’t have any idea what their close proximity did to his blood, or else they would have jumped out of the nearest window. Even if they did, though, Aleda was out there with her crossbow ready to put a bolt through anything that came out of the house that wasn’t kin. He checked again, just to reassure himself that she was fine. As she was.

The suckers were all holed up in the first bedroom. Nine whole suckers, and Ryan only had to share with one other hunter. He grinned. They leapt to their feet as soon as they saw the two of them, and Aria immediately had her hands full with one that was on her too fast for her to get her claws up. He wasn’t worried about her, though—Aria could take care of herself.

Now, wait a moment. That one window should be right… about… Ryan smirked. Perfect. Brainless suckers had picked the bedroom facing the front yard. Seeing that Aria was still busy with her assailant he moved towards the window, sliding it open with one hand while he clawed at a sucker with the other. He moved away, giving the open window a wide berth. More attacked him, all of which were easily destroyed. After his brief venture to the window he stayed near the door, determined not to let any get out. Aria, meanwhile, had killed her attacker and had moved on to at least two others. Ryan soon lost count of how many he had killed.

Finally they were down to one last sucker, one that had stayed to the back of the room while the hunters had cut through its cohorts. It took one look at the two of them and moved towards the window. Ryan swore under his breath and moved to intercept it. He was fast, but he wasn’t fast enough. Before he could reach the sucker it had made it to the window, where it promptly stiffened and collapsed. Only a foot of wood was left atop the pile of dust. Ryan glanced at Aria. He saw immediately that she knew what had happened. The question was: how angry would she be?

The answer? Not at all.

She walked to the window and picked up the bolt, a small but knowing smile on her face.

“I’m going to have to talk to her,” she said. Ryan tensed. “…About the importance of retrieving these things. If she keeps hunting with you, I won’t have any bolts left by New Year’s.”

So she knew. Well, honestly, he wasn’t surprised.

“And Alejandro?”

“Oblivious and easily distracted, like most men,” she said with a grin. “And after tonight, I think I’ll keep it that way.”

“So you’re alright with this?” he asked. He had to make sure.

“She’s my daughter,” Aria said simply. And that was the only answer he needed.

They went back downstairs to check on the others.