Huntsman by Cambria Hebert
35
Earth
Caught between past and present,I moved up the sidewalk, mind reeling.
After all these years, why now? How? Why not just kill me?
I always knew it was a possibility I would be found. Not even a possibility, just really a matter of time. But the timing was… off. I hadn’t done anything unusual. If anything, I’d been lying even lower than ever.
Is that why? It didn’t make sense.
The sharp, unmistakable pop of a gun ripped through my thoughts, slaughtering them all. My footsteps stuttered as I gazed around. Flashback or reality?
Roughly two blocks up, a blur of movement at the corner of a building caught my attention. Even though it was merely a flash and no longer in sight, it was all the answer I needed.
Reality.
I took off, black rose petals fluttering behind me as they ripped from the stem. Breathing heavily, I launched around the corner into the alley but saw no one brandishing a gun.
But there was a body.
Heart and feet pounding, I ran deep into the alley, which wasn’t as bright because the buildings blocked the sun. The closer I got, the tighter my chest twisted, and recognition rocked my core.
I didn’t feel the hard, rough pavement when my knees hit. The wind-beaten rose flopped against the bloodstained chest of the man lying there gurgling and gasping for what I knew would be his final breaths.
My informant. My accomplice…
Perhaps even my friend.
“Riley.” The name ripped out of me as though I’d said it a thousand times. In truth, this was the first I’d ever spoken his name out loud. We never used names when he called me on that secret phone. The phone that now weighed about one thousand pounds inside the pocket of my jacket.
I shouldn’t have waited for him to call. I should have called.
“E-E-Earth.” He gasped and more blood bubbled out of the gaping chest wound.
I slapped my hands onto the gurgling spot, trying to slow the bleeding, as if that would even help. I’d seen lots of people die in front of me. Hell, I’d been the cause of most.
This is different.
How easy it was to remain impassive when the life leached out of someone you didn’t know or ever think about.
How difficult it was to watch when the person dying was someone you knew.
Is this what it was like for the families of all the people I had slain?
“I-it w-wasn’t me.” He gasped, trying hard to get the words out.
“What wasn’t?” I asked, pushing even harder against his wound.
He made a pained sound, and I swore even more color drained from his face. He was young. So goddamn young.
“B-barrr…”
I felt my eyebrows draw together. “My bar?”
He nodded once, then grimaced. His feet moved restlessly on the pavement as though, if he could, he would run from the pain. His lips were starting to turn an unnatural shade, and a helpless feeling overtook my gut.
“I know it wasn’t you,” I told him, glancing around for the person who’d done this.
The alley was empty, but whoever it was couldn’t be far. I thought briefly of running off to catch the bastard to deliver swift revenge, but to do that would leave Riley to lie here and die alone.
Like many of your own victims. My head rocked on my neck. The thought was a swift punch to the jaw.
His hand lay weakly against my wrist. “No use,” he said, barely tapping.
“Just hang in there,” I ground out, pushing harder.
“Making it hurt worse.”
“Fuck!” I yelled, dropping my hands, which were now saturated in blood. “Who did this to you?”
He coughed, a low wheezing that sounded somehow sticky and lurid. Deep-red blood bubbled out as if it were trying to clot, but even the thick clots were being dislodged by the blood pouring out beneath it.
He lifted his hand, moving sluggishly like a zombie. I reached for it, but he shook his head slightly, and I backed off. Fingers fumbled on his chest for a minute before connecting with the rose I’d forgotten lay on his chest.
He tapped it. “Them.”
Hatred lit me up inside. I felt my nostrils flare. Jabbing a finger at the rose, I said, “This is who did this to you?”
His head lolled off to the side, and a rough sound ripped from my throat.
Grabbing him by the chest, I wrenched his shoulders off the ground. “Riley!” I yelled. “Riley!”
His head lolled again, and a sob built in my throat.
A low wheeze accompanied the fluttering of his lashes.
Laying him back on the pavement, I leaned over his weak body. “I’m sorry,” I said. “You’re like this because of me.”
“No… On me.”
My head knew that this kid had made his own choices, but right now, my head wasn’t clear. I leaned down beside his ear. “They’re going to pay for this.”
A sound that would have been a laugh in another time and place slipped from between his lips, followed by a trail of crimson. “I know.”
His feet had long since stopped moving as if he no longer had the energy to run from the pain, as if he’d succumbed to it a long time ago.
If death had a visual, I was sure I would see its sharp talons sank deep into his body, slowly feeding off what was left of his life.
For the first time in my life, death felt like a loss.
For the first time—
Slam!
Whatever hit the middle of my back caused me to lurch forward, nearly falling onto Riley. Bracing my hands on the pavement, I kept myself off the fading man and lurched around just as a fist coldcocked the side of my jaw.
Spots swam before my eyes, and I shook them off, surging to my feet as an Asian man came at me again. When his head snapped to the side from my hit, my eyes landed on his neck, on the top of a tattoo I knew very, very well.
A black rose.
Just like the flower left on my desk.
Just like the one drawn on the dead body in the river.
And just like the one tattooed on my hip.
The man tried to hit me again, but I caught his arm, twisting it around his back and slamming him into the wall. His body slack, I forced him lower so he had to look at the carnage he’d left.
“You do this?” I demanded.
“Stupid kid shouldn’t have been following us around.”
I told him to leave town. Was he trying to get more information for me? Did he see them trash my bar?
The man twisted free from my grasp, kicking me in the side, sending me spiraling sideways. When I straightened, there was a blade in my hand and a gun in his.
His smile was arrogant. “A bullet is faster than a blade.”
He fired as I moved, launching forward instead of to the side. I felt the heat of the metal as it whizzed past my ear, then forgot about it when I tackled him.
“Yes.” I agreed. “But you missed your mark.”
My blade did not.
It went right through his heart.
Once a huntsman, always a huntsman.
Even though the life drained from his eyes instantly, I twisted the blade to make sure it didn’t come back.
Glassy, lifeless eyes that were surprised even in death stared up at the city sky as I stood, yanking my blade out of that blackened, shriveled organ he considered a heart.
I turned back to Riley. He was dead too.
“Earth!” A familiar voice made me look up.
Beau was running down the alley, followed by Fig and friends.
“You called the cops?” I accused Beau, making a face.
“Hell no.” Beau grimaced. “Heard the gunshot and saw them rushing up the sidewalk and got worried about you.”
“I’m fine, as you can see.”
“Can’t say the same about everyone else in this alley,” Fig announced, standing up from checking the pulse at Riley’s neck.
His friend Paul was doing the same to the other body.
“What’s going on here, Earth?” Fig asked, puffing up his chest like it made him a better cop.
It didn’t. He just looked like a bird with ruffled feathers. Stupid.
“Looks like some people died,” I said.
“Well, no shit,” Fig spat. “Seeing as how you’re the only one left alive, makes me wonder if you were doing the killing.”
I didn’t even react. Why bother? Fig was a moron, and all he wanted was for me to get all bent out of shape. “That one killed that one,” I said, pointing first to the asshole, then to Riley. “Then that one tried to kill me too.”
“And you defended yourself?” Paul questioned.
“Was I supposed to let him shoot me?”
Fig glanced down at the knife I still clutched. “That’s a pretty big knife. That yours?”
“Yep.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“Had it for years.” I shrugged.
“And you just happened to be carrying it around today?”
“I carry it around every day.”
“Interesting.” Fig narrowed his eyes a bit.
“We live in the Grimms. It ain’t that interesting,” I countered.
Fig turned to Beau. “He carry that knife around every day?”
“Yep.” Beau lied.
To my knowledge, Beau didn’t even know I wore this thing around. I always kept it hidden beneath my jacket and when I didn’t carry it, it was locked up in my bedroom or with my car.
There wasn’t an ounce of doubt in his voice, though.
“And you don’t find that shady?” Fig pressed.
“I’d find it shadier if a bar owner in the ghetto didn’t carry around some kind of protection,” Beau refuted.
Fig turned back to me. “You got a permit for that?”
“Wasn’t aware I needed one.”
“What happened here?” Paul asked, changing the subject.
I experienced death for what felt like the first time.
“Someone broke into the bar and trashed the place,” Beau said when I remained quiet.
“And you chased the culprit into this alleyway and killed him?”
“I didn’t kill him,” I said, glancing at Riley. “I was out on the street, looking for anyone who might have busted up my bar, and I heard the gunshot. I went toward the sound and found this.”
“That’s a nice and tidy story,” Fig observed.
Beau moved a little closer to my side, and I couldn’t help but glance down at Riley. He’d been loyal to me too.
“You sure that gun ain’t yours?” Fig pressed, hitching his chin toward the black piece lying beside the dead man.
“I don’t like guns.”
“Probably also don’t like getting robbed.”
“What are you saying?” Beau challenged, folding his arms over his chest.
Fig didn’t answer right away. Instead, he meandered back over to Riley’s body, acting like he had all the time in the world, while Paul stood off to the side angled away, probably holding back the urge to hurl.
Guy needed a desk job.
Squatting, Fig reached into the jacket that had fallen open against the pavement, and I bit my lip against telling him to keep his hands off Riley. Seconds later, he made a low sound and pulled back, his hand coming up with a wad of cash, some of which was stained with blood.
“Well, what do we have here?” He stood, holding out the wad as though he’d won the lottery. “How much was stolen from your place?”
I shrugged.
“You mean you were robbed and you didn’t even bother to count how much you lost?”
“I was busy.”
“How do you even know that’s from the bar?” Beau put in.
Fig opened the folded wad, and something fluttered from the middle, falling like a feather toward the bloodstained ground.
The cop whistled between his teeth when he picked up the paper and held it out.
It was a label from one of my beers.
They planted it all on him to make him look guilty.
“You know, chasing robbers out of your place is one thing, but running them down the block and shooting them… that’s a whole other.”
Beau made a sound, arms dropping to his sides.
“You think I shot that kid?” I said, my voice level and cold. “He was one of ours.”
Fig gave me a long-measured stare. I saw the doubt, but it was quickly overcome by his usual arrogance.
“What better way to remind folks here in the Grimms that they shouldn’t mess with you?”
It was becoming increasingly hard to remain impassive and cool. This man was a class-A moron, and I’d had enough of his posturing.
“No one was even in the bar when we found it,” Beau told him. “Earth couldn’t have chased them here.”
“Or maybe you’re lying for your friend.”
The sound of my knuckles bouncing off his face filled me with sweet satisfaction. “You want to come at me…” I spoke low, standing over Fig where he was half lying on the ground. “Come on. But you leave my brother out of it.”
“E,” Beau called, not really an admonishment but more of a reminder to keep myself in check.
Fig sat back, body bumping into Riley’s. Reaching over, he plucked the withered rose off the young body. “Pretty sure you told us you didn’t recognize this mark.”
Tension knotted in my shoulders, squeezing muscles so tight it radiated dim pain up the back of my skull.
“Ain’t that what he said, Paul?” Fig tossed out as he stood, bringing the black rose with him.
“This one has the same mark,” he replied, pointing to the side of the Asian man’s neck.
Paul glanced at me, resignation in his stare. “Sorry, Earth. But this don’t look good.”
Reaching behind him, Fig pulled out a pair of handcuffs. “We’re gonna have to bring you in.”
It was ironic really. Of all the people I’d actually killed, I was finally being arrested for the one I didn’t.