Bereft: Foretold

20 | A Huntress's Mentor

In a simple summation of the natural universe, its state, and all entailed within, I could say one thing; I was surrounded by morons.

Killing vampires didn't necessarily make a person a moron. I had spent many years searching for and disposing of Sethan's mistakes—but I'd been a Sin, and despite the vampires' speed and strength and their penchant for swarming their prey like a riled pack of hyenas, they had not been capable of killing me. Any confrontation between us had only one possible resolution: their death.

For a human to think they could do the same was moronic. No matter their skill or their weaponry, they would come to a violent, bloody end.

"Okay..." Saule replied, a thin line appearing between her brows as the skin about her eyes tightened. It was a small, inconsequential thing, but the reaction proved the witch shared my sentiment on vampire hunters, which was odd because I'd been convinced Saule and I shared no common ground. Considering the dens in Verweald were substantially more dangerous than those outside the city, I guessed her coven had problems with the fanged creatures in the past and understood the dangers in dealing with them.

"Since you two ain't screaming and one of you did that—." The huntress tipped her head toward the gunk dripping from the car roof. "—I'm guessing you ain't human?"

Saule shook her head, dirt falling from her curly hair. "I'm a priestess. He's...."

The witch chanced a look in my direction, the motion frantic, unsure. I said nothing, only held my features in a firm, unyielding expression as I stared into the woman's red-rimmed eyes. Tell her and you're both dead.

"He's just a human," the witch said with a wave of her hand and a tight, painful laugh. "A friend of mine."

I still wore the mage coat. Given that the huntress didn't see anything strange about a human wearing part of a Blue Fire Syndicate uniform, I gathered she was either ignorant of mage culture or that her knowledge of them was generalized. Yet another mark against her. Her profession wasn't sanctioned by the syndicates and, had she been caught by them, the huntress's memory of magic would've been wiped. She should have been able to recognize a bloody Blue Fire Syndicate coat. 

"If you're a witch, did you come from the coven?" Connie asked, tossing a hand toward the west, where the blip of firelight remained on the horizon. "Something big's going on there tonight. It's gotten the attention of these blighters." She toed one of the dead vampires. 

"No, I'm not one of the La Voisin girls, but we're—um—visiting." Saule scratched the back of her head—then jumped to pull her mutt away from another corpse before he could take a bite out of it. "Y-you said the vampires were drawn here?"

"Yeah." The woman lowered the crossbow until it rested against the dirt. Only now did I ease my posture. "Not sure why. I think the magic attracts them, as they'd been riled up for a few months now. You probably noticed that if you've been out traveling." She sniffed, glancing over out filthy clothes and the ruined state of the car. "I was tracking that group from when they left their den at sunset—but I lost sight of them when I noticed the fire and whatnot....Anyway, I'm glad I found y'all in time. Like I said, I'm Connie. And you are?" 

"I'm Saule, and this is Bram." The witch gave her dog a friendly pat on the head. "And this is Da—."

"David," I interrupted, taking one of Cuxiel's standby names. When I didn't elaborate more, the witch continued.

"Yeah, David, and—uh—we're on our way to Itheria."

"Itheria?" The huntress was confused if the sudden wrinkling of her nose was anything to go by. "You're a long way off. Why don't you just fly or take a train or something?"