Prey for Daughters
by David V. Mammina
Two hours later, Kay set up a small
campsite by a large lake. Supported by a
tiny campfire for some light, she suspended her lit lantern off the back of the
wagon and began sharpening her knives.
Julia was soon awakened by the shearing sounds of blades as she tried catching
up on sleep inside the carriage. With
the feint light of the lantern and crackling sticks from the fire, Julia just
figured she join her temporary companion outside. One of the horses neighed as she stepped out
into the stillness of the night. Kay sat
with her back against a raised stump, sharpening her knives even as she came to
sit with her.
Julia looked over the small, popping fire as
she sat in the grass, considering the menacing aura of the hunter. Her striking eyes reflected the fire’s
flickering glow. Her dark duster
removed, Kay’s thin shirt hugged her form loosely. The blades caught the fire’s light just the
same, reminding Julia that there were many weapons in Kay’s arsenal. Like in Booker’s Inn, Julia felt that she had
to initiate the conversation or there would be no conversing at all.
“Aren’t you tired?” She asked with the blackness of the lake at
her back.
Placing sharpened knives of various sizes
and serrations onto an opened fabric, Kay replied coolly, “I slept during the
day. The heat made me tired.”
Julia nodded awkwardly before saying, “I’m
too anxious to sleep.”
Again, the horses were neighing from the
front of the wagon. Kay then said,
“That’s Phobos and Deimos. They have
been my steeds since the beginning—my only friends.”
“Can’t imagine why you don’t have friends.” Julia jested, then instantly regretting
it.
“Human friends?” She countered on cue, “Those don’t work
out. I determined a while ago that
friends are bad for business.”
“And what is your business?” Julia
pushed warily, “If you don’t me asking.”
Rolling up the array of blades brandished
out before her, Kay replied bluntly, “My business is population control.”
“You hunt people.” She said amid the crackling fire.
“The bad ones. The broken ones.” Kay took out her revolver from inside her old
duster laid out next to her, “Unlike my father, The Ashman.”
Julia was frozen. Kay, in beginning to clean her six shooter, heard
her heart rate increase. She smelled her
fear, nearly tasting it in her mouth. It
was an erotic sport, at times. Instead
of leaving her in her trepidation, Kay coldly explained, “There are stories
that follow us like shadows. Even though
you cannot see them in the dark, they’re still there, ready to torment you
after a fragment of light. My father is
one of those stories—one of those shadows that has followed me throughout my
life. He was a vampire hunter, or so he
thought. Even now, every snap of the
fire calls ‘murderer.’ You see, they all
have their stories, girl. They know
nothing. What you heard in that inn was
but a tale of a tale from a taleteller.
If you really knew my father, then anxiety would be the last thing that kept
you from your sleep.”
Her eyes gleamed with an anger tested
through years of nights such as these.
Julia could feel her skin crawl under her day old clothes. She couldn’t believe she entrapped herself
into believing that such a woman could rescue her sister from captivity. There was no escaping it anymore. Julia had run to Mainstay after her spooked
horse raced away from her just the night before, not far from the lake behind
her. Sitting across from such a daunting
woman put her into a sudden panic, fearing for her safety.
Reloading her revolver, Kay followed, “You
need not fear me. You’re my client and I
am at your service. And I am not my
father. I hunt real demons, human ones.”
Finding her mettle, as she often did
throughout her life, Julia said, “My father was hardly a saint. He abused my mother. He abused us—my sister and I. Abuse can have many different forms and my
father was dedicated in all of them. I
had to serve as my sister’s mother, guardian and caretaker for most of my adult
life. He left us alone when I stood up
to him.”
Kay knew she was telling the truth. Underneath all her beauty and fine clothing,
there was a scarred child and war-torn warrior dueling it out for the external
show. She detected it now. It only made her more desirable. Ogling her from across the fire, she asked,
“Where is your father now?”
“Enid cemetery.” Julia replied boldly, “That’s why we’re
here. I’d travel with the daughter of a
vampire hunter if it meant finding my sister and bringing her home.”
Enamored, Kay asked another question to
satiate her peaking curiosity, “Would you kill someone to save your sister?”
Taking the next step in her dark
confessions, Julia riposted in a hesitant whisper, “I already have.”
Kay held her revolver tightly then, pushing
in the last bullet with her thumb. She
was telling the truth yet again, trusting the hunter to handle her bad secret
responsibly. Having finished loading her
gun, Kay rested it on her inner thigh and asked, “And what if this is all just
a big misunderstanding between your sister and someone else?”
Changing her disposition after taking one
of her deep breaths, Julia said, “I want to make it very clear, Ms. Kay. I don’t want any trouble. I just want her back safely.”
Silent, Kay returned the revolver to the
inner pocket of her duster. She then
brought a bag of hay to her steeds, feeding them as Julia sat there by the
fire. Just when she turned her body to
look out at the black lake, Kay spoke, “Barley’s house is just up the way. We’ll scout around before sunup. Try to get some rest.”
Running her fingers through her brown hair,
Julia scratched her scalp nervously and returned to the wagon. Before swapping the starry night for the
cramped bedroll, she called from the side of the carriage, “What if the sheriff
looks for me in the morning and I’m—”
“No one’s looking for you in
Mainstay.” Kay said, “That page has
turned.”
Julia, after a last look out at the dark of
night, nothing for miles, attempted to find some sleep. There was no promise of tomorrow. She juggled the many scenarios of the coming morning,
each one worse than the next, as she laid her head. She shared too much with the bounty hunter,
wondering why she did. She appeared too
vulnerable. When Kit was free, could
they really distance themselves from Kaiya Kay and Mainstay? She tried to fall asleep, knowing that she
made a deal with a stark stranger for the sake of her loved one. Only God knew what the morning would
bring. As for Kay, she petted her
steeds’ heads and stared out into the night, anticipating Delaney’s posse not
far behind.
Flashes of a bloody, screaming massacre
rushed through her head as she slept. A
dream so vile and dooming could make any hard man awaken to a moistening
tremor. Julia burst from her sleep and
whimpered, moving sweaty hair out from her eyes. In trying to become accustomed to her
surroundings, she felt about and then looked down by the end of the wagon. She squealed when she saw Kaiya Kay standing
at the opened back of the carriage, detaching a heavy duster of some kind from
the boot. They typically brushed the
ground as the wagon went along, wiping away track marks from the dirt. It was still dark and the crickets were
singing loudly.
While Julia held her heart in sheer terror
after waking up from her nightmare, Kay asked, “What happened to your mother?”
Confused and shaken, she could only utter,
“What? Where are we?”
“Your mother.” Kay repeated, rolling up the duster and
packing it behind the boot of the wagon, “You never mentioned what happened to
her.”
“Look, I shared too much with you last
night.” She said, defensive, “I paid you for a job and I want to see it
through. Where are we?”
Extending her hand for her client to exit,
Kay answered in full garb of pinched hat and black duster, “We’re here. It’ll be morning soon.”
“The house?” Julia took her hand and climbed out
guardedly, “Where is it?”
“Just up the hill behind us.” Kay replied amongst the crickets, “We are
where you were before you ran to Mainstay.”
She was right. Julia felt naked in her eerie clairvoyance,
remembering where she was when spying on the suspect house one night
earlier. She had to ask, “How did you
know that?”
Telling her straight, Kay declared, “I
smelled you here.”
Again, Julia retreated into herself, her
blood pumping faster through her vessels.
Trying to change the attention to her sister, she composed herself and
said, “What do we do now?”
Looking like she was heading into a
gunfight, Kay checked her blades and guns concealed within her duster. Phobos and Deimos were gone, as if they
evaporated from the hitches. Kay never
left her friends to wait in compromising situations. She never wanted them to suffer. The same for the girl she felt attraction
for. Even just touching her delicate,
but able hand, was electrifying. Then
she told her, “You will wait inside the wagon for me to return. Once I’m finished scouting the area, I may
need you again. As you said, this is my job and I’m good at it.”
Not satisfied, Julia returned agitated,
“And what about Kit? If you see her,
what will you do?”
“Bring her out.” She said.
“You’re a hunter of people.” Julia proclaimed, “But, this is not a time to
hunt. This is a time to rescue her, even
if she’s fine and in love or cooking breakfast or whatever—she needs to be
taken out of that place.”
Fixing her hat to lean just over her eyes,
Kay started up the hill, saying, “You hired a hunter of people, girl. If you want to see your sis again, you’ll let
me be.”
There, holding her forehead in angst, Julia
sat on the open end of the wagon and slightly rocked herself. Watching Kay sneak up the grassy hill and
disappear over the black peek, she was sure that all bets were off. They crossed the Rubicon together. All the questions assailed her mind
then. How was she going to pull her sister
out? Could she convince her to
leave? Would she pummel her way in and
out? What if the law of Mainstay found out? It was a roll of dice.
From the top of the hill, Kay overlooked
the isolated house of Dr. Barley and the city of Blackwell in the far distance
lit by lanterns. In heading down to
reach the fence line of the doctor’s property, she saw two loutish men laughing
together under a single porchlight. It
didn’t fit into the puzzle of things, but the more she glared at them from
afar, she focused in on what they were laughing over. She stumbled upon McCarthy’s bandit
brothers. A pair of roaches like them
meant there were more inside. The Smiley
Smuts patronized Barley’s place. The
question remained, however. Were they
bandits or customers this night?
Unable to collect their bounties at
Mainstay, Kay was eager to cash in big after it was all over in Blackwell. But, first, her real priority. Morning was but an hour or so away, so there
was no time to wait them out. In a
selfish way, she wanted it like this. Stealth
driven, Kay ran along the head of the hill and then crept down the knoll to leap
over the perimeter fence, trespassing the Barley residence. Dashing along the side of the large home, Kay
hugged the edge of the front porch to spy on the two Smut bandits still
laughing like drunken idiots. Sadly, for
them, she needed to make her way inside without eyewitnesses.
With a fast flick of her wrist, Kay cast a
small throwing knife through the lantern hung over their heads. Before they could handle their alarm, Kay
overwhelmed them in the dark. She rushed
in and slit one of their throats, then stabbing the other in the eye
socket. In but seconds, they were slain. Kay effortlessly dragged their corpses off
the porch and nudged them against the house.
She rummaged through their pockets, finding wads of cash and stolen
jewelry. One of them had a revolver
fully loaded. She claimed it as her own,
shoving it into a deep inner pocket.
With the two bandits out of her way, Kay darted for the rear of Barley’s
home unopposed.
It was a bad luck evening for the Smiley
Smuts. Kay only prayed that Kit did not
share the same luck, if only for Julia’s sake.
Making it to the back property, seeking a shady way to break inside, her
keen sense of smell consumed her. The
foul aroma had come from the cellar doors.
It was a stench any feral creature could catch, but Kay knew it as
rotting flesh. Staggered by its potency,
she pulled off the lock with just her grip and entered the cellar with a long serrated
knife at the ready. The odds of Julia’s
sister being brought out alive suddenly took a putrid dive.
Upon entering the doctor’s basement, she unknowingly
interrupted breakfast between three ravenous dogs. They easily noticed her intrusion, though
only one of them charged to attack her.
She did not know dogs, let alone which kind came charging to maul her in
a bloody snarl, but Kay had no patience for a bad one. As it bounded to take a mangling bite out of
her throat, she forcefully took it by head and snapped its neck with a savage aggression. That caught the attention of the other dogs,
compelling them to take their meal outside.
They hurriedly ran passed her with chunks of meat in their jaws, running
out of the cellar without delay. When
they raced passed her, Kay recognized the red meat in their mouths. Human meat.
Taking no chances, she sheathed her knife
and brought out the revolver. The new
depravity of the circumstances made her gnash her teeth in disgust—in a bitter
rage. If there came any other body
before her that was not Kit she determined to kill them. By the inspection of the bloody massacre left
behind by the hounds, as well as its stink and taste, could not have belonged to
Julia’s sister. It had essences of an Apache
or Cherokee male. Controlling her
nerves, Kay growled and headed for the stairs up into Dr. Barley’s home.
*Stay
connected to read the climactic conclusion in a few days...Find out who's really the
good, the bad and the ugly in the final installment.
-DVM
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