Chapter 2 2

When the hunter awoke the sky was still a dull glow of light as the sun barely peered over the horizon. His mind was noiseless and so was the world. Lying on his back still as stone and with eyes blazing a golden glow like flames gently catching air, the hunter stared at the W's on the ceiling.Cracks that had formed with time and age, crossing and uncrossing each other, gentle tributaries that traced from one end of the ceiling to the next.

His solid figure sat up from the bed which creaked and sighed as the mattress inflated itself once more in relief from the absent weight. The ground was cold beneath his bare feet and, drawing on a shirt over his bare torso, he rose and made his way across the bedroom to the hallway.

He passed by the bathroom and performed his daily routine of brushing and washing his face, running a damp hand through the curls of his brown hair and sleeking it back.

Almost time for a shave, he thought while angling his face in the mirror and scratching at the whiskers still rough against his calloused palm.

The scar that ran horizontally from the corner of his mouth until his earlobe twitched like the flank of a horse. He favored it with a glance and the memory of its origin winked back.

Funny.

The door he walked past was still firmly shut and behind it he could hear the steady cadence of her breathing, the predictable rise and fall of her chest. He saw the outline of her figure in his mind's eye, the single sheet drawn over her body as she remained motionless on her back. The haphazard postures of her hair spread wide on the pillow as if she had gone through a storm.

As the coffee boiled on the stove, the hunter heated up leftover beans, cabbage and a few tortillas which he ate while leaning against the kitchen counter gazing at nothing in particular.

Slants of golden light spilled through the windows now as the sun began its ascent highlighting all the motes of dust which spinned and wheeled about, winking in and out of his sight. He made a mental inventory of what things had to be fulfilled during the day just before the winter storm and lockdown began.

Washing the plate in the sink, he dried his hands on a kitchen towel and placed it on the dish rack before halting halfway to the stove where the coffee was bubbling and eyed the towel. He reached out and straightened it.

The day waned by at a sluggish pace. Lacing up his boots, he walked out of the house and down the front steps unmoved by the wintry morning chill that jolted his skin and brought a stinging flush to his cheeks.

Nine hours.

It had been nine hours since he hauled the girl into his home. She had been lighter than he had anticipated, and without much thought he found himself climbing the stairs with her warm body pressed against his shoulder and one hand firmly grasping the back of her thighs.

He was careful to lay her on the bed undisturbed, and hovered over her like a looming sentinel casting a shrewd eye over the layers of winter clothing which hid more wounds than he suspected.

And he was right.

A few quick assessments and he knew what he was dealing with, at least for the next few weeks.

The hunter stopped dead in his tracks – a few weeks?

His breath plumed before him and a bird chirped in the woods somewhere.

He tested that thought, touching it like a bruise still throbbing and sensitive. As if he had just realized it had always been there hidden to the plain eye yet deliberately growing and festering.

A few days.

Yes, days were what he would allow himself to be inconvenienced. Curious as he was about the young woman and her origins, much less how she arrived within lycanthrope territory.

His thoughts only allowed him to see the line that had been drawn firmly in the sand, the line that withheld him from crossing over into unknown territory. Forbidden territory.

She was a broken bird that somehow landed on his window sill on a stormy night too strong for her fragile wings. Unexpected and uninvited yet still there pitifully broken.

There was an itch, an inclination to tend to the bird with her fractured elbow and broken leg, bind up all her wounds and set her straight in the little cage before setting her free.

Back into the human world.

Grabbing his rifle and a few items, the hunter made his way back into the woods for a time. His pacing measured and unhurried, stopping once in a while to check out the traps he had lain in particular spots, raising the barrel of the rifle and taking aim of a wolf when he saw it whimpering in the snarls of a bear trap.

The killings were brief and clean.

Usually he left them where he found them and dropped a pin for the collectors to come fetch. Today, however, was different.

"Come to finish me off?"

The snarl held a righteous rage that could hardly be contained and it stopped the hunter in his tracks as he stared at the man lying in a pool of dark blood and matted fur. He had shifted in between the agony and his lower half was still wolflike while the top was all skin and flesh. His eyes were wild, this one, with a mouth drawn back in a a snarl as he bared all teeth to the hunter that stood between the trees calmly watching.

A rare occasion for a wolf to shift halfway and dare him. They begged usually, oh how they begged despite knowing the inevitable end to their lives. But this one was different and it made the hunter consider him all the more.

... a few weeks

"Well come on then bastard," the man continued his voice tight. He turned his face and spat a blob of red, the veins in his neck stood out like thick cords and one pulsed extravagantly in on his temple. "Filthy, cowardly bastard... setting traps out here like a coward cause you caint kill 'em without immobilizing them huh... coward."

Oh the venom. The anger. It pulsed from his victim like a heartbeat.

"Think your kind will be hunters forever eh?" A pained chuckle, he laughed maniacally and his trapped leg shifted causing a jolt of pain up his shuddering body. He screamed and the hunter listened. "You watch..." a film of sweat glistened on his skin, "you watch... there's always bigger predators out there..."

He was talking and had much to say yet the hunter heard it all. He was not one to be ignorant of such devices, the prowling of enemies much larger than he, more insidious than lycanthropes. There was always someone, something, that hunted the lycanthropes, just as they hunted wolves and wolves humans.

Yet, he cared not. Or very little.

... a few weeks...

Curious

She was missing a wisdom tooth. The incision just recently sealed with ragged stitches in the back of her left mouth. He knew this because while she was passed out in the night he had the pleasure of exploring her, respectfully.

"Well?!" The hunter's eyes dropped back to the man, unfazed. "Come at me! What are you waiting for?!"

A tattoo the shape of a home, simple like a child's drawing, was imprinted on her inner wrist. He knew this too because he had touched her wrist inorder to count her heartbeat.

... a few days at best...

"They'll seize you eventually! I can't wait for it to come and get you! Tear you apart bit by bit–" the maniac's head fell back in rapturous laughter, spit rained all about him and his eyes bulged from the pressure of the pain. Altogether it should have been a disturbing scene but the hunter thought nothing of it.

All he saw was the figure quiet and steady beneath the white washed sheet.

Broken bird. Human girl.

All was silent around him.

"... hey!"

He blinked and his vision focused once more on the man who was leaning back and breathing heavily, beads of sweat glistening on his upper lip.

He wondered if she - when - she sweated, did her upper lip glow with salinity?

You could find out in a few weeks.

"Bastard! You hear me?"

"You talk too much."

When he spoke it seemed the whole forest had fallen silent to hear the heavy drag of each word, as if he had mused over their interaction and came to a conclusion that could summarise their encounter.

The man blinked in surprise and that, yes that, finally sparked some inclination towards him. Hiking the rifle higher on his shoulder, the hunter gave the man a final once over and pivoted on his heels walking away from the scene.

"H-Hey!" The man yelled, "Hey!"

His voice grew distant, the anger that had driven him now waning as something cold set in. The realization that the hunter was not going to kill him, no. He was not that merciful.

Let the forest have its way with him.

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