Fate of the Hunters

Abner sunk into the nearest chair. He looked through his coat pocket and found a surprisingly clean handkerchief. Carefully he cleaned his glasses of spots of dirt, dust, sweat, and “blood?” He slowly let his fingers take assessment of his face. A few bruises that no doubt were already turning color and “ooh”, he hissed through his teeth as he found a cut above his left eye that went down through his eyebrow. He lifted his handkerchief to the wound and held it there to stop the bleeding.

Next in the room was Julie. Strands of her black hair from her braid were stuck to her forehead by sweat. She carefully placed her sai on the table and braced herself with her palms on either side of her sai. Her brown eyes that usually held so much laughter were shut tightly as silent tears fell down her cheeks. Her shoulders did not move other than her steady breathing in and out but inside she was screaming all of her pain out loud.

Cat came up behind her friend. She laid a hand on Julie’s shoulder as she placed her short sword on the table next to Julie’s sai. Her shirt had a cut through the white fabric, some of it now stained with her blood. Cat sat down in a chair opposite Abner and went to work tearing strips of cloth from her long flowing skirt to begin bandaging her cut. Her green eyes focused on her work. Unlike her friend her dark brown hair was still pulled tightly back in a bun.

Last was Sam, he closed the double wooden doors behind him and let out a sigh that he had been holding in all night. He all but collapsed into one of the remaining chairs. His brown eyes were much darker tonight with sorrow that was so fresh. He wiped a bit of sweat from his forehead and ran his fingers through his short black hair that he was sure now held more than a few grey hairs.

“Now what do we do?” Cat asked the others in her warm Spanish accent.

Abner’s grey eyes drifted to the otherside of the room. He could feel the eyes of the others follow his to where four children played in the alcove of the room by a bay window.

The oldest, Stephanie, was eight years old. Her blonde curls all but hid her blue eyes as she focused on the words on the page in front of her. Bright pink glittered nail polish adorned her nails on the fingers clutching the worn leather cover. On the floor on her stomach lay the second and the oldest of the four year old twins, Ally, colored in one of her coloring books. Her dark blonde hair was pulled up in a ponytail, out of the way of her blue eyes that held a very similar focus as her older sister’s. Not far away was her twin brother, Bowen. He was holding races to determine which of his toy cars deserved the title of fastest. He had the same dark blond hair as his twin sister and the same blue eyes as his older sisters. A few feet away on a small purple blanket lay the youngest, Danielle, just two years old. While her green eyes were closed as she slept, her strawberry blonde hair curled around her face.

“I don’t know,” Abner answered wearily. He felt decades older than the four he currently owned.

We know what we have to do,” Cat reminded them. “There is a procedure in place just for this situation.”

Julie’s eyes went wide as she ever so slightly shook her head. Sam let his head drop, but nodded his agreement. Abner continued to look at the children. These kids had been a part of his life since they were born. Was it all by design, yes, but the design had worked. All four of the adults at the table had been at birthdays, training sessions, and family dinners. All of this was put in place so the children would trust them in the event…in the event of this day. This day that he would have to tell them not only were their parents killed but that they would also be saying goodbye to each other. There would be no way of knowing when it would be safe for them to see each other again. In less than one day their whole family would be dismantled.

“Who should tell them?” Julie asked, her voice breaking as she kept her eyes on the children.

There was a silence that paired with the dark outside the window made it seem like time had frozen, the only sounds came from Bowen and the periodic noise of Stephanie turning a page. There was no measure of how long this lasted but at last it was broken by Abner’s hoarse voice, “I will.” After all, he had been assigned to Stephanie, so he had been with the family the longest, it should be him. It would be him to destroy their world. It would also be up to him to protect Stephanie until she could be reunited with her siblings. At that thought he squared his shoulders, smoothed down his light brown hair with his own share of white hairs, and cleared his throat. He crossed the room to sit next to Stephanie. She looked up at him from her book as she slowly closed it and set it beside her on the window seat.

“Steph.” That was as far as he got before her eyes began to glisten as she held back the tears as best she could.

“Mom and Dad?” her voice pleaded for him to not tell her that what had happened wasn’t true.

“We tried so hard to protect them but we failed them.”

Stephanie nodded her understanding as tears started to stream down her face. Abner pulled her to him. Across the room he could hear a strangled sob from Julie. Ally abandoned her crayons to hold her sister’s hand.

“Stephie, what’s wrong?” the younger sister asked. Stephanie couldn’t stop crying to answer Ally but she squeezed her hand. “Uncle Aber, why is Stephie crying?”

For a moment Abner thought his strength would fail him but he cleared his throat again and pushed back his own tears that were threatening to fall. “Ally, your mom and dad died tonight.”

Her small face got very serious. “When will they come back?”

“When someone dies they don’t get to come back, we don’t get to see them again.”

Now Ally had tears of her own falling down her cheeks. “Then who is going to take care of us?”

“We are,” came Julie’s voice as she walked over to join the kids. By this time Bowen was also listening and trying to take in what was going on. Julie sat cross legged on the floor and took Ally and Bowen in her lap, wrapping her arms around them. “It is going to be a little scary because we will each be taking one of you and we won’t be able to see each other for a while until it is safe but I promise you we will do everything we can to take care of you.”

Ally and Bowen laid their heads against Julie’s shoulders, trusting her that they would be okay. Stephanie pushed herself away from Abner, looking up at him with her red face she asked, “It was vampires?”

“Yes,” Abner answered. Part of their role in being involved in helping raise and train the children was being honest with them.

“If you are splitting us up it is bad right?” she asked him.

“It is only in an extreme safety situation that we would split up the Kindress,” Abner confirmed.

“How are we going to be safe if they killed Mom and Dad?”

“The Council is handling that part of it, our job is to make sure you stay safe while that is being done.”

“Right, can’t be sacrificed to the war if we die early,” Stephanie’s words were ice cold.

Sam and Cat came to join the conversation. “Is it fair that your parents were killed tonight? No. But if you think everyone in this room doesn’t love you and want to do the best we can to help you right now then either we have failed to teach you properly or you have failed to listen.”

Abner was tempted to chide Cat for going too far and being too harsh on Stephanie, however, before he could open his mouth Stephanie spoke up.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

Cat’s expression softened. “It is okay to be mad about this, that is natural, just remember who is on your side.”

Stephanie nodded. “Will we still have to do training?”

“You and your siblings are still the Kindress, you are still the hope to keep vampires like those responsible for what happened tonight from doing this to other families, to work with the ones that want to keep peace between vampires and humans,” Sam replied. “If anything we will have to train harder because we know there is an immediate threat to all four of you.”

Stephanie climbed down from the window seat and sat across from the twins. Ally was the first to crawl out of Julie’s lap and over to her sister, Bowen was not far behind. “I don’t want to go without you and Bowen and Dani,” Ally cried softly to her sister.

“I know, but we have to,” Stephanie told her in her best big sister voice.

“I want Dad,” Bowen sniffled.

“I want Mom,” Ally added.”

“Me too,” Stephanie said as she looked up at the adults watching her. “Me too.”