Lame-Named Sword
The first couple steps were disorienting because it felt like my body wasn’t fully awake. Everything was oddly numb and prickly. So, I stumbled to the right and nearly crashed into one of the many machines lining the room.
Being drugged sucked balls, seriously…
But I got my shit together and shook away the fog in my head. Slowly opening the door, I peered out into the low-beam hallway.
It looked like something out of a horror movie, and I absently wondered if zombies were a thing.
If they were, I was sure as shit never going to sleep again.
Brainless monsters with their gnashing teeth and decaying bodies freaked me the fuck out as odd as it sounded.
Give me a vampire or howling wolf the size of a bear any day, but ghouls and fleshy human corpses were a hard pass even for this superior Hunter.
My backside was on full display, but I’d been in weirder situations and couldn’t care less how I looked.
Whoever reviewed these security tapes was going to get the middle finger while I was at it, though.
I offered the security camera a look and gestured to whatever asshole watching to fuck off, then slipped out of the room door.
It was a standard hospital-like facility—everything glaringly white and undecorated. Practically sterile to look at. Nothing about the hallway stood out, aside from a door a few feet to my right with a pin-access handle.
That’s my ticket out of here.
After ensuring no one was nearby, I made my way over to the door and keyed the code Donna gave to me into it, hitting the buttons hard enough to satisfy my frustration. The light blinked green before I dragged the heavy door open and slipped inside the room.
It was definitely a far cry from the rest of the place.
Little trinkets, a horde of papers, and a laptop littered the mahogany desk off to my left.
Books were organized into a shelf behind the desk, all with long medical titles I hadn’t any hope of pronouncing.
Each one worn-out by excessive use, their spines broken in by long hours spent poring over the pages.
It was clear she took her job seriously, though I wasn’t too sure how that made me feel knowing it was people like me who they experimented on.
But Donna’s office was cozier and a much more loved room than the rest of the place.
It definitely had character, and despite not really knowing the woman, it felt like her everywhere I looked.
As I grabbed my militia-grade clothes—black military boots, dark pants with pockets for days, leather jacket, and several body belts to hold my weapons—I changed out of the hospital gown I’d been wearing.
Looking over at a single picture frame on Donna’s desk, I noticed the smiling faces of two small children held in the arms of a woman whose beaming blue eyes hit me right where a memory lived.
It was the same woman in my dreams, crying at our doorstep and begging for Grams’s forgiveness.
She’d been on her knees, mascara running from a never-ending stream of tears, expression riddled with the strongest grief one could feel, and all I remembered was reaching out to her, doing my best to comfort a sad woman when I was barely out of diapers.
Donna.
The little faces next to what I now concluded was Donna were her carbon copies, and I didn’t need to be Sherlock to know she probably meant her kids when she asked me to get them to safety.
She was a mother. Yet, Donna was out there trying to rectify something that wasn’t her damn fault.
I mean, not really. All while two little kids relied on her to come home.
I’m not going to be the reason she dies. No one should grow up without a mother like I did.
I slipped several throwing daggers into my belt and then, eyes widening, took hold of a sword I’d recognize anywhere. Its beautifully crafted handle had several jewels imbedded into silver, and the design of it was absolutely one of a kind.
Blood Slayer.
How did they get this from him?
For sure I’d imagined the Austrian going to the grave with this sword before handing it over to anyone, and something nagged at me to see it here. Something told me its presence was significant.
The lame-named sword glinted as I lifted it from the wall.
Swallowing, I eyed the spectacular craftsmanship, wondering how I’d spent all this time with Phillip and never truly looked at it.
Not even while he rambled on about its fantasy origin story.
Even now I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at how a grown-ass man had droned on about its history and how it came into his possession.
It was literally the stupidest shit Phillip ever uttered, and that was saying something.
I strapped it to my back, determined to get it back to the man it belonged to, and tied up my hair. Right now, I didn’t have time to reminisce or think about Phillip; it was time to get the fuck out of this prison.
Sneaking back out of Donna’s office, keycard tucked into my pant pocket, I crept down the hallway, listening for anything that could give me a hint to where she’d gone. Then the low howl of a siren filled the air, causing me to freeze.
The door wasn’t far. I saw it in my peripheral vision, but as I listened, I heard Donna’s distinctive cry, one that was all pain.
Some would argue I should’ve escaped for the greater good, because if I stayed, I risked being recaptured, and that would mean the Organization—rather, Lux—won. But that wasn’t the Hunter I wanted to be.
Hell, it wasn’t the person I wanted to be.
Donna had a family, kids and maybe a partner, who needed her to come home, and I’d be damned if I let her sacrifice herself over guilt. Mom wouldn’t want it that way. At least from what I knew about her she wouldn’t.
I removed the sword from my back, cranking my neck from side to side and hearing the telling cracks. Then I flitted down the corridor into the room where Donna’s scream had come from. She was already surrounded by four Hunters.
Cowering, she clutched a wounded, visibly bleeding arm, but her eyes quickly found me when the door smacked open, nearly breaking apart with the strength I put into the maneuver.
“Oh, good. I was worried I’d miss the party,” I said, huffing petulantly.
Shit, I’m starting to sound like Phil.
The four Hunters pivoted, and magic radiated from them as they withdrew their respective weapons.
One went for a large sword the size of his torso, growling, and for a second, I could literally hear Phillip’s voice in my head, cracking small D energy jokes right before he sliced the brute to pieces.
“That’s the girl!” another one said.
Captain Obvious over here saving the rest of them from having to brain too hard, I guess.
“I’m not really a fan of being imprisoned or people who hurt others to be quite honest, so I guess this is where you and I are at an impasse, my dudes. Either leave now or die here.”
I really needed to invest some time into writing better lines. Even I cringed hearing the soap opera dialogue leaving my lips. Phillip was always so much better at delivering badass lines. Same with Kris and Sloan. I, however, sounded exactly my age—like I’d trained at Disney.
The world throbbed violently, and then my power hit the four Hunters hard enough that several went scuttling back.
Donna’s eyes widened. “So, it’s true…” Her next whisper confused me, enough to get an eyebrow. “You have the magic of the ancient Chaos Fae.”
Chaos Fae?
My thought was cut short as the first Hunter tried to summon his magic.
At least, that was what I gathered when the dude made a fist and lifted it like he was aiming for the Douche-Bag of the Year Award, fight-movie version.
But when nothing happened, the four stared openly at me.
Like with the Siren, I somehow knew they couldn’t use their magic like before, so I took advantage of their confusion.
I dashed forward and sliced the one nearest me to literal pieces before ending with a swift decapitation. It was the way Phillip would want it, and even though he and I rarely agreed on anything, this was the one time we did. Slice and dice them so much they couldn’t recover.
And that was the motto I now lived by.
Poor Donna was caught unawares by the bloody spray, her eyes perpetually wide, while the rest of the Hunters moved into action, trying to take me down as a group.
But as if in response, my power throbbed again and suddenly they were on fire.
Not just fire, they were burned to ash in seconds by fiery red flames that destroyed everything they touched.
It took me a moment to figure out what was happening, but when I did, I grabbed Donna and dragged her away from danger.
The room quickly filled with thick smoke, and the fire detectors screamed in my ears.
But my training kicked in, and I hurried the woman out of the room and down the hallway to safety.
She tripped several times, looking back over her shoulder.
But when she realized where I was headed, she started to fight my hold on her.
“The others—”
“I’ll get them. You’re going up first, Donna.
I won’t have your death on my conscience, and I’m not about to let you die over some misguided sense of justice for my mom.
I’ll send you up, then I’ll grab the others,” I quickly explained, finally pushing her into the elevator. “Wait for them and hide somewhere.”
Donna’s curly silver hair fell over an aging almond-colored face, glittering blue eyes staring on in confusion. “It’s dangerous…”
Finding my smirk, I eyed her through the closing elevator doors. “I’m much more dangerous, Donna. I’ll be up in a jiffy.”
Once I knew she was safely fleeing to the surface, I turned around. Shutting my eyes, I breathed in deeply. Only four more Hunters to go, and then I’d get the captive scientists out of here. No one who wasn’t already meant to die would on my watch.
Not today.