Chapter 20

 

“No…no! Absolutely not!”

Talia did her kicked-puppy look at him.

“Sorry, no! How many times do I have to say this?”

Ryan growled exasperatedly at his sister, who continued to follow him around the living room. The little girl was pouting over on the couch. He closed his eyes for a moment when he realized she was watching that same stupid soap that Talia was addicted to.

“Look, I have to go watch these bloody feeders now. And I do not have time to baby-sit some little girl. I don’t care if she is hunterborn. Doesn’t she have homework to do, or dolls to play with, or something?”

Over on the couch, unnoticed, Aleda sneered in his direction.

“Oh, who cares about homework?” Talia demanded. “I’d say learning how to hunt is probably a tad more important. Come on, you’re great at this—she’s got to learn, and you’re the best one to teach her!”

Ryan gaped at her in utter incredulity. “Wh– How? You know just as much about them as I do, and you’re the one that decided to adopt her as your little protégé in the first place! You take her scouting.”

“Don’t be silly—I just got back. I can’t take her while she’s at school. Now’s the perfect time, and it just happens to be your shift.”

Ryan groaned and covered his eyes. Hunter or not, his beloved sister was doing her damnedest to give him his first migraine in almost forty years. He glanced over at the couch where the little girl was concentrating rather fiercely on her soap opera. As far as he could tell, she didn’t seem the slightest bit interested in tagging along into the woods anyway.

Shite! This was so typical of Talia. Once she’d gotten an idea into her head, it was damn sure not coming out again. And this idea was in her head, sure enough. He muttered an oath against whatever devilment had gotten it in there in the first place.

Talia was still standing in front of him, arms crossed, staring at him expectantly. She glanced pointedly at the clock on the wall. Ryan bared his teeth a little at her, but his heart wasn’t in it.

It didn’t do any good, of course.

Talia sent the pouting little girl after him as he turned to leave, telling her only, “You promised.”

Well, that would be an interesting turn, wouldn’t it—if she had coerced the girl into doing this as much as she had him.

“Come on, then,” he said, stalking out the door. He didn’t even look behind to see if she was following him.

There was one kindness in this whole situation that he did appreciate—the girl knew how to keep quiet. She didn’t say a word the entire walk into the woods. She didn’t even speak for at least an hour while they waited in the woods, although he was sure she must be bored to tears. He was bored as hell and he came close to enjoying this sort of thing.

When she did speak, it was after one of the feeders left; she whispered that she recognized it from the morning before.

“Are you sure?” he asked. The girl nodded.

“Just before eight o’clock, the last two days.”

Ryan only nodded slightly to her, but he was a little impressed. The same feeder left every night at the same time; if what she said were true, then they had the routine of one more feeder completely worked out. That made nine of them so far. With this kind of luck they might have the nest cleared within the week.

It was actually kind of nice, having a few people around to help keep an eye on things. He could almost get used to it. Only a few months ago, he had been obligated to camp out near a nest for days at a time, all by himself, in order to keep tabs on the damned things.

Still, though, he didn’t see why there had to be any more than one person on watch at a time. It wasn’t as if a hunter could miss any kind of demon—even a feeder—passing within a hundred feet, and it wasn’t as she was helping him in any way by sitting there with him. At least she was quiet about it. If she had been a chatterbox like Talia, he would have rather clawed himself in the leg than put up with her for all these hours.

A few more feeders left the nest that evening. Ryan had seen all of them leave on other nights, although not at exactly the same time. He finally sent the girl home a little after ten o’clock. He would be staying out in the woods for another hour and a half, and she ought to get some sleep for school.

She hadn’t brought a flashlight, which would have given her away, but she seemed to know where she was going, and he could barely hear her footsteps retreating into the darkness. He supposed that meant she would get back alright.

Talia gave him hell the next day.

“You were supposed to teach her things!” she scolded him. On the couch, Aleda rolled her eyes.

“Like what? ’Oh, look, a feeder nest. They’re demons, you know’?” he demanded, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

“You could start with how to kill them,” Talia suggested. “That’s a useful thing to know.”

“You tell her how to kill them!”

“No-o. I have to get to work. It’s your shift, you tell her.”

Ryan gritted his teeth against the frustrated growl that wanted to come out. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“Alright,” he said carefully, “I’ll ‘teach her things’. Let’s go, kid. Talia—I’ll see you in the morning.”

He didn’t even need to turn around to see the satisfied grin that had erupted on his sister’s face.

“You’d better have a sharp ear,” he informed the girl while they walked towards the nest. “I have no intention of letting the feeders know we’re around.”

She nodded petulantly.

“So,” she asked—a little too innocently—when they had settled down, “How do you kill a feeder?”

Of course she would be doing exactly what Talia would want her to do. Damn that girl, even if she was his sister.

“I’ve found that stabbing them through the heart works well,” he replied dryly. She kept looking at him, expectantly. He sighed. “A hunter can injure a feeder anywhere, and it’ll take at least a day for it to heal. To kill it, though, you have to either get it through the heart or take off the head. Otherwise you’ll just be pissing it off.”

“What about silver?”

“Depends on the breed. Hurts some, makes some break out in a rash, and doesn’t have any effect on others. These kind,” he said, motioning towards the nest, “Are usually allergic. A silver bullet through the heart will always do the trick, but then again, why waste good silver?”

“So… no point in carrying around a silver stake?”

“Not for a hunter. Although I did know a guy who wore a silver torque around his neck. Cracked a few demon teeth, if nothing else. That was damned funny to watch,” he admitted.

The girl was silent again for a few minutes.

“You said ‘this breed’,” she said finally. “What other kinds are there?”

He raised his eyebrows. “In all? …We’ll be here a while,” he warned her.

“What, like we weren’t stuck with each other for another six hours anyway?”

He had to bite his lip to keep from smirking. Touché.

He cleared his throat.

“Around here, it’s mainly therions, although there’s always a few rakshasas around. Goblins, too, with this many woods. There used to be some simioli in the area, but they’re mostly up in the mountains these days. Of course, with therions and rakshasas there are also a few dozen subspecies depending on their alternate form and how to kill them.

“These are lupine—wolves. Just about every carnivore has its corresponding breed of therion: bears, snakes, crocodiles, all the big cats, you name it. Even some birds. Those are the ones you have to look out for, because they’ll fly away if you’re not careful. Rakshasas are the same, except they don’t live as long, and they don’t have to shift in order to feed.”

“Papá always calls them all ‘therions’,” the girl said with a slight frown.

Ryan nodded.

“Some people do. They’re the most common species; it’s even possible your papá was always talking about that particular one. I prefer ‘feeder’, myself—descriptive, easy to remember, and you don’t have to worry about being wrong.”

“That makes sense,” she said. “It doesn’t sound like all that many, though.”

“Oh… There’s more…”

Ryan, having decided he may as well tell her everything his sister wanted him to, went on to list the rest of the species. They did, after all, have close to six hours before his shift ended. He supposed he’d catch hell for sending her back early, too. To her credit, the girl listened with surprising patience as he rattled off the names of all the local varieties he was familiar with. The problem, of course, was that feeder demons evolved as much as—if not more than—humans did, and ended up filling all kinds of niches. There was a species for every animal, climate, and geographical oddity on this little planet.

It took him the better part of an hour to tell the girl even the basics of all the feeder species he knew. Ryan was surprised at himself when he realized how long he had spoken. By the end of it, the girl’s attention had completely drifted off; she looked like she was about to fall asleep.

He prodded her shoulder.

“Hm?”

“I hope I didn’t disturb your nap,” he said sourly.

“Oh…” She quickly stifled a yawn. “Sorry. I was listening. Is that all of them?”

“That’s all the kinds I’ve hunted. So, it’s possible.”

“Ugh. I’ll never be able to remember all that sh- stuff.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You had better be able to, if you don’t want to get yourself killed.”

“But why do I have to know every different kind? Can’t I just claw any demon I run into and leave it at that?”

Good grief, was she whining. He felt his eye twitch.

“Claw whatever the hell you want, just don’t come crying when you screw it up and lose a limb!” he snapped.

“Geez, fine! How did you learn all this crap, anyway?”

“My father,” he said, staring into the darkness. “He taught me everything I know.”

“Did he teach you how to be such a jerk, too? Or does that just come naturally?”

His eyes snapped to meet hers. “I fail to see how that is any of your business,” he replied icily.

The little brat made a childish face at him and turned away, her arms crossing in a huff of indignancy. Heaven help him, he still had to deal with this for another five hours. And it was only Tuesday.

Fortunately, he was distracted after a few minutes’ of cold silence by the appearance of one of the resident feeders. He studied the new arrival closely before it trotted into the nest. By shape and smell, it was one of the feeders that usually did not return until much closer to midnight. He wondered if its routine would be changing. If it did, the number of feeders at the nest would be thirteen—not quite all of them, but the most any of the hunters had yet seen at a time.

No more returned that night, unfortunately, although three left a little before ten o’clock. Ryan finally sent the little girl home at ten. He just couldn’t stand any more of her pouting. Let Talia yell at him as much as she liked. Better her than this whiny girl.