HuntersPrayer by Hunter's Prayer

Author:Hunter's Prayer [Prayer, Hunter's]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-11-18T10:22:13+00:00

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16

I hit the door still running as the cab pulled away. Tossed my torn and battered coat over the habitual chair at the end of the hall and pounded into the practice space, barely hearing the creaks and echoes as the warehouse registered my presence.

The reinforced heavy bag hung, its scuffed red sides repaired with tape several times. Before I reached it, both my fists were balled up so tight I felt my bones creak.

I began.

Leather and vinyl popped. The charms in my hair jingled. Left hook, uppercut, right hook, combinations Mikhail had taught me, my second-best boots scuffing the mats on the floor, the heavy bag shuddering as sweat began to drip down my spine, my arms, my legs.

My teacher’s voice, with its harsh song of gutter Russian under the language we shared. Use it, use it use it! Zat is best friend right there. Should be able to do this in sleep, milaya, use it! Hurt it! Kill it! Do it!

How had he seen the potential in me, the scared, skinny, beaten girl in the snow? He’d never told me.

Of course, I’d never asked, too grateful for his care. For the attention he paid me, attention I was starved for. We are supposed to love our teachers, otherwise it’s unbearable. You have to trust your teacher with your heart and soul, with the other end of the thin silver-elastic cord that is your only way of escaping Hell once you descend. And Mikhail and I had been lovers, of course—it was inevitable, so much adrenaline and prolonged contact, two people closer than siblings or spouses or even twins.

But we are also supposed to hate our teachers, because they must teach us how to fight. A teacher cannot afford to be an apprentice hunter’s friend. Soft in the training room means unprepared out in the dark depths of the nightside, and that’s something no teacher wants. Losing a fellow hunter is bad.

Losing an apprentice is a thousand times worse.

So to hear Mikhail’s ghostly voice was a double-edged comfort. I was making a sound, too. A low, hurt sound, as if I’d been stabbed. The skin on my knuckles broke and bled, leaving wet prints on the thick red vinyl. The blood would grime the ring he’d given me when he accepted me as an apprentice, the ring that was singing a thin distressed tone as my furious pain communicated itself to the metal. The carved ruby spat spark after spark, each a guncrack of frustration.

Sweat fell in my eyes, stinging, and I pounded on the heavy bag. The doorbell rang, but I ignored it. Anyone knocking at my door would either come in and get shot or go away.

Throw elbow, solid, tighten up, hit so zey know zey been hit! Not like that, want to lose fucking hand? Tighten up! Vurk it, vurk it, vurk it— Mikhail’s voice, barking through the painful hole in my memory, the years of training peeling away until I was the girl

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