A Hunter Called Night by Tim Waggoner

Author:Tim Waggoner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: supernatural horror; gothic fantasy; dark fantasy; flame tree press; creepy stories; undead; fiction without frontiers
Publisher: Flame Tree Publishing
Published: 2023-03-30T10:59:20+00:00

Chapter Ten

Collier, Ohio. Now.

Jordan gazed upon Night’s prone body lying on the asphalt, her face a mangled ruin of blood and torn flesh. She looked dead, but Jordan didn’t believe it for a second. A creature like her – a being of power – might go down, but she wouldn’t stay down for long. They had to finish her while they had the chance. She’d been weakened during their last encounter, and she had further depleted her strength by casting a Blight on the building – just as they’d planned. They would never get another opportunity as good as this one, and they had to take advantage of it. Unfortunately, the three surviving Harriers were not about to stand by and allow their mistress to be slain. They came bounding across the parking lot toward Jordan and the others, fury blazing in their yellow eyes.

He turned toward the rapidly approaching cats, pumped the shotgun to eject the spent shell and chamber a fresh one, then shouldered the weapon.

“You know what to do, Darla,” he said.

“Damn straight,” she said, voice filled with grim anticipation.

Lucius and Krista joined Jordan, Lucius on his right, Krista on his left.

“You two ready?” he asked.

Krista clicked her scissor-fingers together.

“You know it,” she said.

Lucius said nothing, just flexed his bird-claw hands.

The three watched as the Harriers raced toward them.

* * *

Darla couldn’t see the big cats, but she could hear their massive paws thumping the ground, their breath chuffing in and out as they ran. She did her best to tune out the sounds. Jordan, Krista, and Lucius would hold off the Harriers long enough for what she had to do – she hoped.

For the last five years, the four of them had traveled together, learning to use their new abilities while helping each other deal with the physical changes that had accompanied their transformations. Darla thought of her companions as fellow freaks. Each had become something more – or perhaps less – than human, and they were the only ones in the world who could understand and empathize with what they’d gone through. They’d also spent their time together preparing for their revenge against Night. To that end, they’d traveled extensively, seeking out the darker places in the world, areas where what most people considered reality overlapped with a realm known as Shadow, seeking knowledge of how they could destroy a creature like Night. They learned much on their journeys, but at a price: repeated exposure to Shadow caused them to mutate further, rendering them less human. But the cost had been worth it, for after years of searching, they discovered the existence of a mystic weapon called a mortuum blade, an ancient weapon carved from a stone said to have been taken from the great forest on the back of the King of the Wild, and which possessed the capability of permanently harming – and even killing – any of his subjects.

Like Night.

Of course, learning about the existence of such a weapon was a far

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