Chapter 12: Huntress
A deep, resonant thrum pulled Huntress back. It was a vibration through the metal pressed against her cheek, a bass note shivering up her spine. Her eyes opened to a world tilted ninety degrees.
Cool, textured metal met her palms. She pushed herself up from the floor that was now a wall. Her head swam, a pressure building behind her eyes. Shards of curved polymer glass crunched under her weight. She was inside a tomb of technology.
A wiring harness snaked from the small of her back, connecting to a port in the torn, skin-tight suit. The insulated material was ripped at the shoulder and knee, revealing skin beneath that held a strange, perfect smoothness. She disconnected the harness with a sharp tug. The connection points on her spine tingled with a fading, electric cold.
Memory was a blank wall. The last clear thing was the driving range, the clean arc of a seven-iron under the floodlights. Then nothing. This chaos of sparking consoles and bent metal frames was new. The Vampire Lord. It had to be his work. This was his trap.
A new vibration reached her, a higher-frequency tremor transmitted through the truck's frame. Tires on asphalt. Multiple sets. They were close. Her body felt wrong, a vessel overfilled with strange potential. Muscles thrummed with a dormant energy she didn'tt understand. She was in no condition for a confrontation.
She moved. The overturned door of the box truck was above her, a rectangle of murky city light. She crouched, the new power in her legs coiling without command. She sprang upwards. Her fingertips caught the lower edge of the doorframe, and she pulled herself through with a fluid, impossible strength.
The night air was a cooler layer on her skin. She dropped onto the cracked pavement of an alley. Two blocks away, headlights swept across the building fronts. The vibrations through the soles of her feet confirmed multiple engines.
Her gaze scanned the vertical plane of the city. A fire escape ladder descended ten feet to her left. She took three running steps and jumped. The distance closed too fast, too easily. She caught the lowest rung, her momentum swinging her feet up to hook the grating above. She ascended not by climbing, but by a series of fluid, powerful pulls.
In moments she was on the roof. The gravel bit into her palms, a sharp, detailed sensation. She moved to the shadowed parapet wall and lowered herself into a crouch. Below, three black sedans slid to a halt around the overturned truck. Doors opened. Figures emerged, silhouetted against the spilled neon-blue fluid.
They moved with a coordinated, tactical precision. Not police. Corporate security. New You. Her new mind supplied the label, the connection flaring from some deep, implanted databank. These were foot soldiers.
She watched them fan out, their movements crisp and clean. One knelt, touching the fluid, then scanning a device over it. Another peered into the wrecked truck. He spoke into a wrist comm, his voice a muffled burst carried on the wind.
He spoke into a wrist comm, his voice a muffled burst carried on the wind. A deeper vibration joined the others, a heavier engine settling to an idle just outside the alley mouth. A fourth SUV, longer and blacker than the rest, slid into view.
Its doors opened. Two women stepped out. The air from their direction carried a faint, residual warmth of roasted meats and rich sauces, a thermal ghost of a recent meal. They walked into the alley, their heels producing precise taps on the pavement that cut through the low hum of the idling engines.
The first woman held her body with a rigid authority. Her suit was a dark slash against the grimy brick. “Report,” she said. Her voice carried, clean and cold.
“No body, Director Hayes,” a security man answered, his posture straightening. “Just the fluid leak and significant interior damage. The containment unit is breached.”
Director Hayes—Serena—didn’t respond right away. Her gaze swept the wreckage, then the rooftops. Huntress pressed herself lower against the gravel, her heartbeat a slow, heavy drum in her ears. “Secure a three-block perimeter. I want every fragment of this vehicle collected, down to the bolt sheers,” Serena ordered. “Transport everything to Site Gamma. No digital inventory. Hard copy manifests only.”
“Understood.”
The other woman moved past Serena, closer to the truck. Her steps were different. Each transfer of weight was fluid, efficient, a study in perfect balance. Platinum hair caught the distant light. She knelt by the pool of neon fluid, her hand hovering above it, sensing its temperature.
“This is a catastrophic cascade failure, Serena,” the woman said. Her voice had a smooth, melodic quality that held the air. “The substrate matrix is unstable. Look at the polymerization on the edges.”
“Your professional opinion, Jane?” Serena asked, coming to stand beside her.
Jane stood up, brushing a non-existent speck from her dress. “My professional opinion is that Marcus needs to see this. Tonight. Before your cleanup crew disturbs the entropy pattern.” She turned her head, and the city light caught her eyes, making them glow a soft, impossible blue even from this distance.
Huntress watched her. Looking at the woman—Jane—was difficult. Her form was a disturbance in the night, a pocket of concentrated energy. When Huntress tried to focus on the details—the line of her neck, the curve of her shoulder—her vision blurred at the edges. A pressure built behind Huntress’s own eyes, a gentle, pushing warmth that felt alien. This woman radiated a quiet heat that pushed back against the cool drain of the night. She was a sun in a black suit.
“Fine,” Serena said, pulling out a slender comms unit. “Take my car. I’ll finish here and meet you at the lab.” She spoke a few clipped commands into the device.
Jane nodded, gave the wreckage one last look, then walked back toward the mouth of the alley. Her movement was a continuous, elegant flow. A sedan with darkened windows pulled forward to meet her. A door opened, spilling a wedge of warm interior light onto the pavement.
Jane slipped inside. The door shut, sealing the light away. The sedan pulled into the slow river of traffic on the main street.
Huntress uncoiled from the rooftop. The woman was a question. The woman was warmth. The woman was connected to the metal tomb that had birthed her. She needed answers more than she needed safety. She moved to the far side of the roof, took three steps, and leaped across the chasm to the next building. Her landing was a whisper of impact. She dropped to a lower fire escape, then to the street, a shadow detaching itself from the city’s skin.
The sedan was two blocks ahead, stopping at a light. Huntress followed, a predator drawn not by blood, but by a deeper, more confusing heat.
Huntress followed, a predator drawn not by blood, but by a deeper, more confusing heat. The sedan moved through the city like a blood cell in a vein, obeying every traffic signal. She matched its pace from the rooftops, a silent shadow flitting across gargoyles and satellite dishes, her body thrumming with each effortless leap.
The car slid to a smooth stop at the loading zone of a monolithic tower, its darkened windows reflecting the street’s perpetual glow. The rear door opened, and Jane emerged into the pool of light from a single security lamp. She adjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder and walked toward a seamless section of the building's polished granite facade.
A portion of the wall recessed and slid aside with a quiet shush of compressed air. Warm, conditioned air spilled out into the cooler night. Jane stepped into the private elevator cab revealed within.
Huntress dropped from a low ledge, her boots meeting the pavement with a soft tap. She was a blur of charcoal against the steel and glass. The elevator door began its silent, smooth slide to close.
Huntress lunged. She crossed the street in two strides and slipped through the narrowing gap just as the door sealed behind her with a solid thunk. The sudden enclosure, the shift from the city's hum to a near-silent ascent, was immediate.
Jane turned, her body language more curious than alarmed. Huntress pressed her against the polished metal wall, one hand gripping Jane's wrist, the other braced beside her head. The elevator’s gentle rise was the only sound.
Up close, Jane was a divine creature. The elevator lights cast a soft sheen across her flawless skin. Huntress stared at her, chest rising and falling from the chase. She couldn't speak.
There was something about her. A warmth radiated from her, a gentle, pushing heat that filled the small space.
Huntress leaned closer, drawn by an impulse she didn’t understand. Her head dipped toward the curve where Jane’s neck met her shoulder. A scent there—rich, metallic, alive—wrapped around Huntress’s mind.
Her eyes lost focus. A sharp pressure erupted in her gums as her fangs extended, a swift and painless click into place. The desire was a physical weight, anchoring her to this spot, to this woman. It was an ache in her jaw, a dryness in her throat that had nothing to do with thirst.
Instinctively, she bit down into Jane’s shoulder.
Jane gasped, a sharp intake of air. Then she moaned, a low, resonant sound that vibrated through Huntress’s teeth and into her skull. The warmth under her lips became a flooding heat.
Huntress drank two slow sips of Jane’s crimson nectar. The world dissolved into a deep, pulsing red. Her knees buckled.
She collapsed forward into Jane’s embrace. Strong, sure arms caught her, holding her upright. Her head lolled against Jane’s collarbone. She could barely stand.
Jane cupped Huntress’s face in her hand, tilting it up. Her pupils were wide, black pools eclipsing the blue. Huntress’s venom coursed through her veins, a visible surrender in her blissful, unfocused gaze. "You found me," Jane murmured, her voice thick and syrupy.
Her thumb stroked Huntress’s cheekbone. "Don't be afraid," Jane whispered, the words soaking into Huntress’s fuzzy mind. "You belong to me now."
The elevator chimed. The doors opened onto a serene, minimalist foyer.
"You're safe," Jane said, guiding the dazed Huntress out into the apartment. "You will always be safe."
Jane led her to the vast white sectional before the fireplace. With gentle pressure, she guided Huntress to lie down, then settled beside her, letting Huntress’s head rest in her lap. Jane’s fingers began to comb through the voluminous raven hair, slow and methodical.
The fire’s warmth played across Huntress’s skin. The strange, perfect skin of a Michelle++ frame. Jane hummed a tuneless little song, her other hand resting possessively on Huntress’s arm.
The main door’s lock disengaged with a soft electronic click. It swung open.
Marcus stood frozen in the threshold, his keycard dangling from his fingers. His gaze swept from the pile of charred leather by the door to the two women on the sofa, one cradled in the other’s lap like a prized pet. His design. His mistake. Both of them, here.
Jane looked up, her hypnotized smile serene. "Marcus. You made it."
She gestured to the figure in the silk kimono with a tilt of her head. "She followed me home."
Her fingers never stopped moving through Huntress’s hair. "Can I keep her?"