Hunter: Fate & Fury

Chapter 4

It was quiet outside; the loud kind of quiet that would make it easy to imagine things lurking in the dark and make your ears hurt from the inability to hear anything other than your own breath. I sat against Alfie, who dozed happily with his tail around my legs and head in my lap. I wasn't sure why I came out here, why I stopped, but sitting on the dirt away from everyone and everything with only ghosts of the fallen as company felt right.

A cool wind blew across the field, the taller weeds and grasses sighing softly as if in protest of being disturbed, and as I put my hand onto the sand, I thought of the blood that had spilled here. Closing my eyes, memories of that night ran by my vision like a slideshow, instantly making me shiver with Alfies tail tightening.

Looking now, the golden disc had definitely been confirmed as not the Wheel of Fortune and I felt a bit stupid for even considering it. Why would it be there anyway and why would I be the one to now have it my possession. I turned it over and over in my hands, spinning it around my thumb wondering if I looked at it long enough, it would tell me what I wanted to know. What is it and why do I have it?

"I thought I sensed someone out here. I am glad it is you," V's familiar voice startled me as he appeared from the dark, looking every inch predator. "Are you alright?"

"It was getting too heavy in there. I had to get out." I admit, and he sits in the dirt opposite me as Alfie barely opens an eye.

"Those Gods are truly something." V mused. "I've seen and done a lot in my time. Even being trapped in another realm, I never actually questioned their existence. We live in this world, with demons and otherworldly creatures, and still, we resist the belief of those old myths and legends hold any truth. It is much easier to stay naive than to open up to the possibilities beyond our comfort zone."

I think that was his way of comforting himself and for me, that ship had sailed a long time ago.

"I met Gaia. Mother of all." I threw it out there, enjoying the surprise on his face. "She's my baby's great-grandmother."

"I don't really know what to say." V said softly a few minutes later. I could practically hear his mind working to process that. "To think I tried to turn you into a vampire a few years ago."

"Keyword there. Tried." I smiled.

"You never were like the others, darling girl," He noticed the disc in my hands. "What is that?"

"No idea." Handing it over to him, V looked it over curiously before pulling out a set of keys from his pocket and switching on a little torch. "Getting bad eyesight in your old age?"

"Not my keys, but I thought this could do with a closer inspection."

"I thought it was the Wheel of Fortune." I admit.

"And I presume that's actually a thing?" He rolled it around in his hand, looking closely at the little engravings on it.

"It is. Saw it in Medusa's little cave of wonders." I smirked as he stilled, swallowing nervously before hesitantly handing it back to me. "It was similar to this. I thought it might be a missing part but Cain seems reluctant to admit the two are connected. He's right, this doesn't feel like that one. It's just cold and lacks the feeling of power and life the other piece did."

V looked thoughtful for a while longer and sitting in the dark with the lights of the Academy bright in the distance was a nice change of pace. Our post-crossroads gathering at the castle had ended with Hermes disappearing after Artemis and Apollo seemed unable to talk, while Cain and Hades had a big conversation to themselves before we came back to my home. For whatever reason, dinner with my parents was something all of them agreed on, yet the conversation at the dinner table had been one that should have happened in the other realm as everyone found their voice again.