Chapter 6

Katie had left only minutes before the family returned. When she was gone, his feelings for her remained strong although the lust abated. Without her, Hunter felt dislocated from his surroundings.

He had adjusted to the life of a hunter with help from his teachers. With this last change, though, he was encountering realities that were much stranger and he was alone this time. Katie was along for the ride, but she was blinder than him on this new path. If the changes were to continue, Hunter wanted a process to help him deal with the surprises. His training had included establishing patterns and routines. It was a practice that grounded him as an operative. When patterns were broken and routines upended, their disruption was a warning to be cautious. Either Hunter was going astray or the circumstances were more volatile than expected. For this reason alone, he was still practicing his movements in the early morning on the back patio and searching databases and news sites daily.

Hunter took his niece and nephew to the movies for the latest summer kiddy flick. He was as amused by it as his charges. Then he took them through the fast food drive thru just because it made them happy.

ESPN was boring. The kids were tucked in bed, asleep. Burt was snoring on the recliner with his feet in the air. He had a hole in the bottom of one of his yellowed white socks.

Penny motioned to him to follow. She walked into his room and shut the door behind them. She sat on the student desk chair and patted the bed for Hunter. He sat.

"I got a call from Katie's mother while you were at the movies," Penny said. "Apparently she disappeared for most of the morning and someone saw her leaving our house. I want to hear your side."

Many choices bounced around his brain. He could be cavalier: What of it? He could be evasive: What did you hear? He dismissed those and several other responses. Hunter finally held up his hand in a gesture of defeat. No words was the best answer. He waited for Penny to go on.

"She is a child, for Christ sakes," Penny said.

Hunter shook his head in disagreement. "When she knocked on your door last night, she was a child, but the moment we saw each other, my world and her world changed. It was instantaneous."

"You sound a bit creepy, Cole," Penny said. "The truth is that you have been giving me the creeps since you arrived. You won't answer our questions and you pretend that you are my happy and concerned brother-in-law. Most of the time you put up a good front but you aren't that good. You are in the same room as us but you aren't with us.

"What happened over these past three years, Cole? Make me understand."

"If I tell you what I can, then you are committed as well. Once you know, there is no backing out, no matter how desperately you want to."

"You just shifted from creepy to horror flick, Cole," she said. "If I listen to your terrible secret, what do I have to do?"

Hunter stood up and paced the room. He went to the door and turned the pitiful little lock on the door knob.

What did he want her to do? A thought struck him.

"You have to guard Katie, with your life."

"Guard her from what?" Penny asked. "Please, sit down, Cole. You're making me nervous."

"Swear to it and I will tell you," Hunter said taking his seat.

"I swear," Penny said with a tremor in her voice.

"People disappear everyday. In the United States alone, about 5000 people go missing but it happens worldwide. I hunt those people, or rather, I hunt those who hunt some of those missing people." Hunter paused. "I think they call themselves the Children, and they have been hunting humans for a long, long time."

"You are either insane or misguided," Penny said, shaking her head in disbelief.

"Last week I was hunting one of the Children in Lithuania. I killed her and saved her victim, Penny. Things went to shit after that. Her father came for revenge. He was something greater, something much more dangerous. I killed him, too, by sheer luck. He infected me with himself."

"Are we in danger of infection? O God, my kids! Cole!" Penny's voice started getting shrill.

"All of you are fine," Hunter said, rolling his eyes. "Infection is the wrong word. Never mind. It's not like a cold virus. My bosses wouldn't have sent me here if they thought I was a danger. My bosses..."

Then a disturbing thought occurred to him. Anger rose up and his finger curled like claws. Hunter slammed his fist into the pillow beside him.

"Sons of bitches! They knew. They knew what had happened. Why else would they get me out of Europe and tuck me safely away in Ohio? They knew."

"They knew you were infected?" Penny asked.

"It's not an infection, dammit," Hunter said. "I took his essence, his source, and absorbed it. And now it's changing me and Katie. I've taken in the source more than half a dozen times and nothing ever happened. This time something is. I'm becoming what I once hunted, only not."

"Why Katie?"

Hunter grabbed Penny's wrist and squeezed gently. "When I touch you, nothing happens. The hug you gave me at the front door was a wonderful family welcome. But when Katie and I touch, electricity jumps between our bodies, real physical electricity. This isn't adolescent babble, Penny. The sensations are real and uncontrollable. For whatever reason, my new nature set off a transformation in her."

Something made Hunter stand up. The air was shifting nearby and he felt a buzz on the edge of his senses. Something like a thunderclap boomed in the distance. It was like that meadow across the ocean, on the other side of a far continent. Something was amiss.