Black Eyes

Chapter 13

“Today we’ll hunt my way” Eva repeated to herself as she worked from the cathedral over the roofs of Zraegan under the faint light of the moon obscured by the clouds. Every now and then her inquiring eye peeked out and the roofs of the houses shone, but Eva was like a shadow in the night. She moved silently and quickly, daggers always in hand. She was spotted by a single Zarka soldier who pointed his rifle at her, but as soon as she uncovered her hair revealing the tangle of blonde curls and the bright blue eyes, the soldier lowered his rifle and let her pass. Everyone at Zarka had her description and she was free to travel Zraegan undisturbed.

As she moved from the centre of Zraegan, from the cathedral towards the East area, she could perceive the radical change that marked the transition from one area to another. Souvenirs and cotton candy stalls, rides and colourful balloons, colourful houses in bright shades of pink and yellow stood. Wealthier people like doctors or lawyers had their apartment buildings painted in a distinct carmine red. They thought it attracted good fortune to the Saints of Zraegan and that they took kindly to the family and protected it from bad luck for generations. All this, as she moved towards the East, left room for dark and narrow alleys.

Buildings all grey or with exposed bricks blackened by the years and by the smoke from the factories stood out like abandoned giants. In fact, most of them were abandoned. The plague epidemic that had occurred more than a decade earlier had decimated the population of the southern area and, given that half of the factories had been closed, it had forced the residents of the Eastern area to starve or move to the South where they still lived from small markets, or to the West for the wealthier or bolder who went to the other side of the city to seek their fortune. Some buildings were in ruins, others burned and charred up to the ceiling. In every free space there was some coloured graffiti, but they surely didn’t help to improve the appearance of that side of Zraegan.

Even the Zarka almost never patrolled there, there was little work to do and the Zarka wasn’t born to hunt demons or thugs: that’s what hunters were for. Eva arrived at the point that interested her: the collapsed roof of a building that was in front of the alleged dimjerì’s house. Eva looked at the sky. The moon was hidden behind a dark cloud.

Perfect. She thought. She needed as much stealth as she could muster. She deftly descended from the roof of the building and took up position in an alley, about fifty metres from the house.

Suddenly she saw a person coming from the opposite side of the Innerstraat, but she couldn’t make out his features. Was it the dimjer? 

Instinctively she put her hands on the daggers, then remembered that she had chosen a not-hostile approach and raised her hands when she realised what was coming towards her was a hunter.

Fuck! Perfect! Eva thought, reworking the entire plan in less than five seconds. The hunter was approaching and she thought it best to stick her head out of the alley, her hood uncovered and she untied her hair which immediately fell over her shoulders and face. When he was close enough to be seen Eva studied him for a few seconds. He wasn’t carrying any minor demon carcass with him, so he was still searching.

Even better. Eva thought.

The man was tall and stocky, as wide as a closet and big, thick biceps. He had little thinning hair, but a relatively long, black, wiry beard. He was dressed in the classic hunter’s outfit, with shoulder straps that closed on his chest full of weapons and a belt that cut his chest in half, an empty bag to carry what he would hunt. The boots made a heavy noise on the asphalt with every step Eva heard approaching.

At the right moment she decided to exit the alley and leaned on a metal fence that outlined what once must have been a park: a rectangle of now tall and unkempt grass and a tree in the centre with a crooked trunk, as if it had adapted to the misery of that part of the city.