Chapter 12

Hunter checked the GPS coordinates again. The tag hadn't moved in over three hours, which meant it had settled into a safe place, it's nest probably. His mood was strange however. Although he had hunted more than ten times in foreign cultures, everything felt different this time. He wasn't after a Child but its mother. He also wasn't a lone operative. He had Katie with him and a second line of defense behind them.

His heart told him to tuck Katie away in a safe hideout, but his instincts demanded her presence. He hadn't forgotten his battle with the dragon, none of it. He had prevailed as much because of luck as training and skill.

Sitting alone in the back seat of the van, Hunter mentally prepared himself for battle. Then he straightened his back, reached for the sliding door, and joined the others outside.

The warehouse was old, old enough to have a courtyard for the loading and unloading of the carts and small trucks of another era. He could see it from the street through a gate. The warehouse was two stories tall and made of brick. The windows were high up and dark. The only light they had came from a lone lamp down the street. The area smelled of age and burnt chemicals.

Hunter's party gathered around him, waiting for the plan. He sized them up, approving what he saw.

"Duena," Hunter said, "you and your people are going to barricade this gate. Nothing but Katie and I must come back through it alive. Firearms won't work. You have to use blades, up close and personal if that translates."

"It translates," Duena said.

Hunter turned to Katie. "Your task is to keep the Children away from me. Kill if you can, just like we practiced. If you can't, keep them at bay until I'm done and I will help you. I know what we are up against. No matter what, stay out of my way."

Hunter and Katie stepped through the gate. It was unlocked, which surprised him. Just as the front door to his building as well as the door to his apartment in Paris was locked, he expected the same security. The lack of safety measures fit a new pattern of missteps. With a double-check of the courtyard, he walked through the gate only to be surprised again. The air was still, as if it were dead. Sound did not carry and the edges of the building blurred.

The exit to the loading dock was through double doors that opened outward. They were twice as tall as Hunter and made of roughly-hewn timbers. The doors would not budge. The office door was newer. It was made of grey metal and had no window. It, too, was locked. Hunter pulled out the two tines that he used for picking locks. It was a skill he was not that good at; fortunately, it was not hard to do. After three frustrating tries, the lock gave with a twist of the knob.

Hunter entered quietly with Katie at his back. He was in an office with desks and chairs. The windows on the opposite wall looked out on the warehouse floor. An eerie yellow light filtered down from the high unseen ceiling. The air no longer felt deadened.

To his left was a door. Hunter motioned with his hand to Katie to follow him and together they crept to it silently. This door was unlocked, and as they stepped through, Hunter saw that they had only to turn to the right and take a few steps to enter the greater warehouse area. The yellow light was brighter but they were still in the shadow of the office wall.

"Moroh, you need to feed in order to live," a feminine voice whispered loudly from the warehouse. "The more you feed, the greater you will grow, my little Moroh."

Hunter stepped into the room silently with his rubber soled shoes. However the instant that he sensed her, she sensed him.

A woman in a toga turned to face him, rage across her face.

"Murderer!" she screamed. "You butchered my husband and killed my children, you little worm. You dabble in what you cannot possibly know and think you are one of the great powers. Well, welcome to my home, little worm. With great pleasure I will butcher you and send you to Hades."

She transformed into a viper, towering meters above Hunter. Hunter didn't think. One instant he was staring up at Echidna and the next he was the dragon facing her eye to eye.

She struck as him. He dodged and swiped at her. She recoiled and leapt upward. Hunter spread his wings followed. She turned in the blink of an eye and aimed with her fangs. Hunter twisted and snapped with his own bristling teeth. He caught a nip of flesh and she screamed, sending dust plumes billowing from the ceiling.

Echidna fell to the ground and coiled herself. They paced each other as they moved around the room, striking at and dodging one another. The nip in her side was turning green and spreading.

Hunter kept pressing. She began weaving her head, which Hunter found entrancing. She almost ensnared him. Realizing the trap as she coiled to strike, Hunter spit in her face. Echidna screamed with fury and struck at him. Unable to move out of the way, he dug his claws into her nose and slammed her into the ground. Her body went slack for moment and then snaked around his torso, squeezing him.

"No-o-o," the snake screamed, looking past Hunter.

Hunter heard the thunk of a long knife driven through flesh. Katie had just dispatched Moroh.

Echidna tried to lunge for Katie and Hunter took the opening. Behind Echidna's head, he bit into her neck, trying to crush her bones. Instead, his fang pierced her airway and she sagged flaccidly to the ground, gasping for breath.

The viper transformed back into a woman. She was lying on her back with a gash on her side and a large hole in her throat. A moment later her head went limp.

Hunter snapped back to his true form. Unsheathing his machete from the scabbard on his back, he hacked open the woman's chest. The incandescent orb popped out. Like the dragon's orb, it burned sharp and bright. There was a wrongness to it that Hunter didn't understand. He stared at it as it throbbed on the cement floor.