The last day of Gort, Village Woodhaven: 9pm
"I know she looks innocent. And sweet. And helpless. But she'll breed the Velvet Nocturne same as all the other scum we're hunting, and don't you forget it." He glanced to his compatriot, his trainee, then down at the pale, fragile looking little girl at his feet. "Sorry honey, it's nothing personal; just doing my job. You got the Mark, you gotta die." He thumbed the custom trigger on his crossbow, and the silver-plated bolt flew straight into the girl's eye with a sickening noise. Her blood spilled onto the cobbled road and ate through the stone. He and his companion wisely backed away as the foul-smelling liquid spread and ignited, burning the corpse and scorching the building behind it. A mild burnt garlic smell wafted upward on the warm autumn drafts as he turned to the young woman watching.
"Cleanup crew'll get her before sunlight. No one will see- that. She makes three for tonight; I think you've had enough. Come on, kid, I'll buy you supper at the pub." Draping his arm around his student's shoulders he dragged her away. He felt sorry for the kid. It wasn't really her choice she was now his subordinate, after all. Barely eighteen, she'd been married to her arranged fiancé for all of five hours when he and another Hunter busted her door in. He had dragged her off and inspected her for the Mark. She was lucky; she didn't have it. Her new husband- well, she was also lucky she hadn't seen what happened to him. Hunter Rickman wasn't as neat or as nice. He had mutilated the man with those twin silver daggers of his and then burned the house down "to avoid contagion".
Shaking his head free of the memories that gripped him, he noticed she'd stopped and he'd kept going a couple feet. "Hunter Alexander...? Harry's Swan is a street back." He looked over behind him and gave her a sheepish half smile.
"So it is, Squirt."
"I wish you'd call me Magdalena. Or Maggie. Or Lena. Anything but 'squirt' or 'kid'! I am old enough to marry, you know." She did her best to flounce indignantly through the door. The illusion was spoiled when she tripped over the slightly raised wooden floor and had to catch herself on his outstretched arm.
"How about an accord?" he proposed. "I call you by your name when you can walk in here without tripping ... deal?" She looked let down. He didn't care. She was a temporary, a possible candidate for the plague, and she had to be watched. How he got stuck with her he didn't know and he didn't particularly care. He knew she fell every time they went to Harry's, so he'd never have to try and remember her name. She glared at him, but her chocolate brown eyes were far too warm-toned in color for him to feel any real venom behind the daggers she shot at him.
"Fine." She flounced to his- their- usual table in a manner that made him almost laugh out loud. She was already annoyed, though, and the way she was walking meant she was trying to be dignified to get over her embarrassment at nearly falling. He motioned to the innkeeper, who held up two fingers. Nodding he went to sit beside his charge.
"Usual tonight, kid." When she made a face he said, "You should learn to like mutton since you'll be eating it enough while you're with me." Inwardly he groaned... women. Why'd they always have to be so bloody picky?
"So... Why do we use silver? Why not iron, it's cheaper to get and stronger too." Oh God, she's getting curious. That's another thing with women... Too damned nosy, he thought. Out loud he said, "It's because iron won't cause the cleansing fire, and the contagion will spread. We have to control the virus or the Velvet Nocturne would spread like wildfire, and then those damned leeches would be popping up everywhere we looked."
