Huntress Blade

I am grateful to Aximal, the demon with the wicked voice and black eyes, not because he was evil, or because he stole my birthright, and not even because he slaughtered my father, the king, and abducted my sister, but because he was the reason I gained my magical powers and became a Fae huntress. I, Ashera Von Lyran, vowed to capture him and free my sister, Shaylee. 

   Across Europe, I tracked Aximal, following police reports of dead bodies and broken lives, and closed in on him in Hamburg, Germany. His signature was always the same. Two puncture wounds on the neck, with a pentagram scrawled in blood nearby, either on the floor or the wall. He hunted at night, searching for the fool or the reckless in dark alleys, or luring them into a cheap hotel room.

    The crowded Reeperbahn, a street of forbidden appetites, forced me to follow him by scent as I pushed through the throngs, surrounded by bright red flashing neon signs. At the nightclub entrances, alluring girls enticed young men, many of them off-duty soldiers, into watching strip shows and buying overpriced non-alcoholic drinks. I had seen all this before in London, Amsterdam, and Berlin. Meanwhile, bar girls sat with these lads, asked where they were from, and complimented their looks, knowing the drunk ones would buy more drinks, leaving those fools with empty arms, empty promises, and empty wallets. These mortals were unaware they needed me to find this dark lord before one of them became his next victim.

    In the night air, my fae ears caught a shrill scream, a gasp, and then silence. I hurried into a side alley ahead and found a dark lump on the ground at the far end. A shadowy figure left the body and crawled up a brick wall like a black spider on its web. I raised my hand and declared in my fae tongue to freeze the demon, but alas, I was too late. It reached the roof and bolted toward the next building. Fire burned in my soul. This creature takes lives; it feeds on their lifeblood and grows stronger with each victim. Damn him. “I will find you, Axilmal.”

    As I left the alleyway, three men with scruffy beards and neck tattoos stopped me. The bigger, or shall I say the fatter, one glared at me like a dog hungry for raw meat. He spoke German, which I understood.

    “Wie viel, Schlampe?” “How much, bitch?” He smiled at his buddies. “Für alle drei?” “For all three.”

    I answered in German, “Don’t you wish to see what you are buying first?” I pulled off my coat’s hood and sneered, revealing my two fangs and pointed ears. With a wave of my hand, I summoned lightning to strike before them, and the heat, boom, and flash flattened them to the ground. “Get up and stand before me!” All three stood.

    The fat one said, “Mein Gott!” “My God!”

    He stepped back, about to run, when I raised my palm and said in Fae, “Freeze!” All three froze. I pulled my hood back and asked the fat one, “What is your name?”

    “Wilhelm.”

    “Are you married, Herr Wilhelm?”

    “Ja.”

    “And your two friends?”

“Nein.”

    In German, I said, “This is what I’m going to do. I will charge you one thousand euros because you are married. Your friends get a discount for being good boys and pay only five hundred euros each.” The three frozen men wanted to bolt, but I held them with a firm magical grip. I passed my hand before each man’s face.

    “This is what you got for your hard-earned money. First, we all went to a posh nightclub, the one with sexy girls and loud music. Lots of people. You tipped the server for a private booth for the three of us. We ordered drinks, I told stories, and we laughed. We had a great time.” I painted word pictures in their minds. They all grinned and nodded.

    “I then gave each of you much-needed advice. To you, Wilhelm, I told you to go home to your wife. Make love, tell her you love her, and promise to be faithful. The next morning, you threw away your drugs, your schnapps, and hashish. I told you to go to the docks and get a well-paying job. Start at the bottom and work your way up. Go to church on Sundays and repent of your evil ways. Live a good life. To your friends, I told them the same thing, except to find a good woman at church, not at nightclubs. Also, no one will believe you saw a pointed-ear fae warrior, so you will forget my face. Is this clear?” All three nodded yes.

Wilhelm asked what he would tell his wife about the thousand euros. I said it was for much-needed counseling. When she sees how much your life has changed, she will feel overjoyed. I asked each man for his credit card and tapped the payments into my phone. “It was a pleasure doing business with you, gentlemen.” “Auf Wiedersehen,” I said, and I snapped my fingers and walked away. The released, confused men eyed each other and enjoyed their new lives.

Counseling was the only way I could earn money in the mortal world. No one would hire a fae huntress, yet I did much good. A good my world denied me. Our armies in our fae lands fought the warlord Zuko Devlin. His demon armies invaded the kingdom of King Perrus Von Lyran, my father, a good and noble king. Through infiltration and treachery, Axilmal murdered my father in his sleep and, through political intrigue, stole the throne from me, my kingdom’s rightful queen, and handed it to Zuko, a human barbarian.

    In the next few weeks, Axilmal’s trail went cold. I scoured the police reports and spent many nights watching for the moment the demon sought his prey. Broken people with broken lives. My counseling among them served as spiritual, supernatural protection against his infiltration. If only this power had flowed through me before he abducted my sister. A power I had gained through many trials with the Fae’s ancient order of Cyneric magic. Then I found the clue I had been searching for. Transylvania, around the city of Cuj-Nacopa, reported several mysterious deaths. I immediately traveled by train to this beautiful medieval city, surrounded by forested mountains, lakes, and a people full of spiritual life. I fell in love with this vibrant place.

    I sat at an outdoor cafe for dinner and coffee, wearing a floral scarf on my head that covered my white braided hair and pointed ears. A young man noticed me and introduced himself as Vlad Popescu. I was lonely, so I invited him to join me for dinner. Maybe I could learn more about local news and do some counseling work. I never learned Romanian, but thankfully, he spoke English. “What type of work do you do, if I may ask?”

“Currently… um…I am in construction.”

    No job, I thought so. Looking for a free meal, so I offered to pay for our dinner.

    Vlad ordered Romanian dishes of cotelet de porc, sarmale, and marmaliga, which are grilled pork, stuffed cabbage rolls, and cornmeal polenta. The works. He ate like someone who hadn’t eaten in days—poor thing. I casually mentioned my travels and the sights to visit in the city.

    Vlad slowed enough to ask, “Your accent. I’ve never heard one like it.”

    He noticed my small fangs as I ate. “South American, but my teeth are a birth defect that affected my speech. Tell me, I am a visitor who has heard about many strange deaths around here. Am I safe walking these streets?”

    “Of course, you are safe. No problem. Those deaths are far away, by some castle. Nothing to worry about.”

    I pulled out my phone. “Show me where on this map.”

    After I got his directions, I ran my hand across his face. He blinked and stared into my eyes. I gave him free counseling on how to improve his life. “Quit gambling and partying. Because you speak English and know the area, go to the train station and the airport. Present yourself as the only tour guide who knows all the popular nightclubs, restaurants, and shows. Use the word ‘only.’ This will set you apart from other tour guides. Whether it is true doesn’t matter. What matters is that you believe it. You have supernatural favor with your clients and vendors. You have an aura that will magnetically attract people. Expand your services at the hotels. Save money for education and get a hospitality business degree. In a few years, you will operate a major international tourism business. Dream big. You will be on television. Riches will come to you when you put customers first. The wealthy and famous will flock to your door.” I paid the bill, snapped my fingers, and left. Another miserable life saved. 

~

I followed about three hundred meters behind a middle-aged hiker in a brown coat and a floppy jungle hat along one of the many forest trails near Dracula’s castle. With my backpack, I looked like any other hiker. The demon’s stench reeked of rotting flesh as I followed his scent. Axilmal swooped from the trees and dragged the helpless man into the forest. I rushed to the spot and followed the drag marks to a clearing, where Axilmal had already punctured the man’s neck. The man had put up a fight, tearing the demon’s cape. With my hand raised, I commanded in Fae, “Freeze.” Axilmal froze in place. The demon’s black eyes looked dead, and a shiver came over me. My power vibrated and clashed with his.

Axilmal said in a high-pitched, gritty voice. “Pathetic. A queen without a throne. A kingdom without people. And soon, a life without a body.”

    Two other demons emerged from the forest and chanted their devilish incantations. To my dismay, one of them was Vlad Popescu, bearing two puncture wounds on his neck. I detected no demon in him last night. Axilmal must have captured and interrogated him, then learned I would be coming here. Another unholy spirit possessed Vlad. The other demon was the unfortunate man in the brown coat.

Surrounded, I found myself standing atop a large, wyrd mark etched into the ground. It sealed my fate, and my power over Axilmal waned. A trap. Axilmal slipped from my grasp. He wanted to drain my Cyneric magic and steal my divine right of sovereignty over my kingdom, a right no political claim could possess, for he knew that without my body he could never sit on my throne.

    I grew weaker as the combined power of the three demons drained me. I dropped to the ground, pine needles pricking my knees and hands. My spirit withdrew into a dark cocoon in my heart. And then it came; a presence slithered into my mind, like a snake coiling around my spine and biting into my brain. Pride, arrogance, cruelty, the need to control a warm body, and torture were the thoughts it delighted in. This was Axilmal, and I slipped into darkness, into oblivion.     

    In my spirit, I drifted into the fae realm of the afterlife. In the black void, a pinpoint of light grew in intensity until it became a golden sun, and from that sun stepped King Perrus. He was magnificent. “Daughter, reach into the bowl of your ancestors who have united with the Primal First Cause.”

    In amazement, I fell to my knees. “Father, what does that mean?”

    “Love. The Primal First Cause is love. You can do all things through love.”

    In my vision, I saw a golden bowl, and within it were the prayers of my ancestors, Kings and Queens, stretching back for several millennia. As I reached in, the rush of love’s power flooded over me and embraced me. All the bitter wounds from lost loved ones, all the pain, injury, and death on the battlefield, all the loneliness, fear, sadness, and crying in the night fell away, and in their place came a deep love that said I am cared for, I am worthy, and I am a child of the Most High. 

    I closed my eyes and called for the three human lives within the demons to fight their hosts. Vlad’s life force fought the fiercest. My power joined them, and two of the demon hosts weakened, but Axilmal held on. Love strengthened me, and I awoke. Axilmal’s snake around my spine loosened its grip as eternal love’s light drove away all darkness. I rose to my feet, raised my hands, and called down the light of heaven like lightning. It struck all three demons. I raised my hand and, in Fae, spoke the words to freeze them. They refused to leave their bodies, so I made a fist and said, “Pain!” All three screamed and cursed in agony. I raised my other fist. “Increase!” The demons fell on their backs and rolled in convulsions. After waiting several minutes, I commanded, “In the name of Love, come out.” The bodies lay still, and three black snakes slipped out of their mouths and slithered toward me.

    Aximal, the largest snake, said, “You cannot stop me. Another host I will find.”

    “Silence. No one can destroy a spirit, but imprisoned, yes.”

Axilmal’s snake tongue darted from his mouth. “You do not have the authority to imprison me in hell.”

    “No, but I can send you to the sea polyps, deep in the Indian Ocean.” I snapped my fingers. “Begone!”

    The three demon snakes screamed, then faded and vanished.  

    In front of me lay the body Axilmal possessed. I bent toward her and cradled my sister, Shaylee. Her bruised face and cuts, welts, and scars on her body and arms told the story of the abuse and torture she endured under Axilmal’s control. I pushed back her hood and stroked her head. She opened her eyes, no longer black but her natural emerald. “Welcome back.”

    “Where am I? Ashera? Is that you?” Shaylee reached out and touched my face.

    I hugged my sister, kissed her forehead, and cried in relief. Tears streamed down both our faces.

   I placed my hands over Shaylee’s injuries and, in my Fae tongue, sang the healing incantation. Each cut closed, and each bruise and welt disappeared, though the scars and spiritual wounds would take time.

    Vlad Popescu and the Englishman in the brown coat recovered. I asked Vlad what he planned to do with his life. He said he was going to run a tour company and make a lot of money. I smiled and wished him well. The Englishman was an author, and I gave him advice on the details of the Fae Kingdom of Lyran and how it would make a great fantasy novel. Afterward, he forgot he had met an actual fae, and a demon possessed him. After I counseled them, we parted ways, never to see each other again, or so I thought.

~

As we hiked back to a small village, I asked Shaylee how Axilmal had abducted her. She did not answer right away, and I could see the ordeal had deeply traumatized her. “It is all right. We can talk later.”

   “No, no, I want to share what happened. I think it will help me.” She reached for my hand and squeezed it. “It was the night Father died. I heard a commotion near the royal bedchamber. Mother was away on court business, if you remember, and Father had retired early. War was imminent, and he had not slept since the day before. I approached the main gallery door and saw the two guards slumped on the ground, blood on their necks. I knew those guards. They were able warriors, not easily defeated, and their swords were still in their scabbards. Like a fool, I opened the door and saw the King’s vizier leaning over Father. He turned and faced me, blood on his mouth. I screamed, and that’s when he raised his hand, and I became paralyzed. Why was the vizier acting so evil? His eyes were black, and he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and came toward me. That’s when I saw Father bleeding from the neck, and he looked dead. That’s when I died.”

    I put my arm around Shaylee’s shoulder and brushed my hand across her face. “I am so sorry you went through that nightmare, but it was only a nightmare. Father died peacefully in his sleep; the physician said it was a heart attack. We spent the last two years traveling together through Europe, but now it is time to go home. Rest now and forget.”

My sister rested for a few days at a hotel, and I did more counseling work to raise money to travel to the Scottish Highlands of Torridon. There, a magical portal exists that will take us back to my world and my time, but that is another story.