THE HUNTMAN

Chapter 20 : Tate

Today is the wedding Blake invited me to even though I didn't accomplish my mission. Jochen ties my tie while the boys prepare the weapons. Normally Blake is not in the best shape, Ruby announced yesterday that her newborn died at birth. I was scared at first but Ruby's son is fine, he's another child of the hunter. It seems that he is very fertile and not only attracted to corpses. He lost a baby, getting married after that must not be easy.
" You shaved your hair, do you really want to see her again?"
" We're talking about my best friend Jochen, you shaved your beard and cut your hair so you can talk."
Short hair looks strange on the giant, he kept his mid-length hair for more than fifteen years, it's strange to see him like that. He dressed up and took off his wedding ring. I think we all miss her a lot, except Maelan, but he has spent his days at the university since his breakup with Otker.
" I want to formalize my breakup with my wife and get my wedding ring back. Seeing April in a wedding dress is going to upset me."
" Do you want to marry her?"
"We should change the subject," he says when Nate walks behind me.
" You married my little sister and I didn't say anything, you'd rather we talk about that. You had sex with my eighteen year old little sister when we said no little sisters."
" We can go back to April, finally."
I read the time in the oven and grab a knife just in case things don't go as planned. Casey must have been waiting for us in the car for about twenty minutes, I should remember to move my ass otherwise we'll be late for the ceremony and Blake will have one more reason to get us killed. We are no longer close to an attempted murder.
"We should go."
"Yeah, Casey is patient but he's going to yell at God for what we're doing to him."
He and his brother have nothing to do with each other, they are two worse opposites than Calliope and me. We climbed into the car and hit the road.
We are greeted by two bellboys dressed entirely in black, unlike all the guests. Their weapons are in plain sight, hanging from their shoulders. Their muscles are contracted and their postures secure. We sit in the room, the names are written on a board on the chairs. My sister's first name is written next to Jochen's and I'm on the other side on the second next to... Maelan? Isn't he supposed to be at college?
I sit down and look around, a redhead with an open lip and a black eye is chatting with Casey. A brunette with a more than pale complexion cries in Blake's arms. He places a kiss on her temple, as for April, she seems nowhere to be found at least for the moment. I stop my observation when Maelan appears in the room. He lied to us. He seems to know the places well but also the people who settle there. He spots me in the crowd and sits down next to me.
" What are you doing here ? I thought like everyone else that you were studying anatomy in medical school."
" Anatomy level, I learn a lot more here, you have no idea the number of corpses in this house. Who invited you?"
"Blake! How long have you been working and studying anatomy here?"
" It's not important, we're attending a wedding today, we could focus on that."
He's a traitor, he's been studying here for weeks and he didn't think to let us know. The orchestra begins to play the cello, the young brunette walks forward with Blake clinging to her arm. She puts it down then goes to sit in the front row, time passes and at the back of the room April appears in Ruby's crochet, she is wearing a white jumpsuit, with a lot of lace and satin, her neckline reaches her navel and the back naked shows the welts on his back.
My jaw stiffens, my fists clench, I exchange a murderous look at Blake then at Jochen who watches the king's reaction. She arrives next to the hunter while the maid settles down to her left. The king stands up offended but a hunter points his weapon in his direction. He sits back down as Casey begins with a prayer. Ruby nods at me announcing the opening of the mirror.
It all starts now, the introduction of the plan to Save April from Blake's clutches.
"If anyone opposes this union, let him speak now or keep silent forever."
My sister and her neighbor should have been here today to oppose this marriage, but they are absent. Now it's just me, the king, Jochen and a few other people standing up. It's really surprising to see that a good quarter of the guests are already opposed to this union. The hunters start to set fire to the room, we lower ourselves, April and Ruby disappear. I draw my knife then rush out of the room, sneaking it behind the shooters.
I ran into my sister as I was heading towards the cellar where we are all supposed to meet. She is covered in blood, dust and her clothes are torn. She smells burnt and trash, what happened to her?
" What is happening ?"
" The Crocodile has... kidnapped Blake's... children... he's going to attack April... later. I have to... leave before... he... finds me."
" What are you going to do ?"
" Change... identity and never come back. I love you...I have to go. Farewell !"
"I love you Calli."
She blends into the crowd which disperses when Jochen joins me in pulling me into the guest toilet. He blocks the door with his back and pulls a gun from his belt.
"How long have you had a gun?"
" Since when do you stop a mission to talk to my wife?"
"Since she said goodbye to me, I have no idea what's going on. We should go back to help April, Ruby won't be able to keep her away from Blake for long and guarding the king will pose more problems than anything else."
" That's why our plan takes place in the cellar and not upstairs. Ruby said there are stairs behind the toilet, help me find a way to open the passage."
He searches the cupboards, the library while I simply flush the toilet, an old-fashioned toilet in a castle brought up to date, it's a stain. The toilet turns and I find myself on the stairs. Cobwebs greet me, it's dark and my ankle feels like someone's tickling.
"Tate, how did you do it?"
" Take a flashlight and flush the toilet. I'm going to trash my best suit, what shit!"
" Why ?"
" Old castle, very old unexploited passage. You can't hurry before the rat eats my tendon."
Two minutes and a little girl's cry later, we go down old wooden stairs that creak while rats run in all directions. Ruby forgot to tell Nate about the bones that make a new floor in the cellar, we push open a huge metal door that lands us in a sort of pool of corpses and pieces. Is it really Madame Evilhunter floating on the surface?
" What is that thing ?"
" A mass grave, all the people Blake killed who are not completely decomposed. I can't believe he killed his mother."
"The question is: did he do to her what he does to other corpses?" I snicker when I see Otker rolling down the steps across the room. "Oh shit, we're going to have to bring out the big guns!"
"It's not Blake." Otker whispers, reaching out to grab his weapon which has fallen a little further away.
" So who is it ?"
"Who knows the story of the little orphan? I'll tell you about it. When the little boy was still an infant, his dad the hedgehog chose to make him leave his cocoon. The little boy, once alone, became quite limp, his marmoset friends made him stupid. And when he attacked the little mouse, he became the cat Mistigrie but the little mouse grew and grew, the orphan shrank and the mouse decided that it was time to devour the cat. She pushed him off the stairs and prepared to bite him."
The young pale-skinned brunette comes down the stairs, her heels make an impossible noise, Jochen and I hide in a corner of the room. We cannot act until we are spotted by the attacker, in this case a young woman in her twenties with a pale complexion and as thin as spaghetti.
"What are you doing here, orphan? You come to see my brother or your girlfriend, I prefer to see your ex. He has a little crush on Blake, I think. He's been licking his boots for a month now and he's even lying for him. He even watched us make love after I gave birth. Maelan was so helpful, he probably sucked my brother's cock six or seven times."
" You sleep with your brother, you dirty whore. Otker replies by rolling the woman who was lying on top of him attacking him, he gets the upper hand on her, headbutts her numerous times and breaks her hand on the ground so that she drops her knife. Say something else about Maelan and I'll cut your throat."
" Your little slut of an ex ate so much cock here, he was craving sex, are you impotent or just bad in bed?"
She takes him by the feelings and sends a knee to his testicles, she tilts him backwards, his back hits the ground with force, he groans, we hear his back crack and his fingers twist. He's going to need help before she eliminates him.
"You broke my fingers, you bitch!"
He throws his knife in all directions without looking, he hits her once or twice in the face but she sits above him with her knife in her hands, she tries to stab him but Jochen grabs her hands first. He grabs Miss Porcelain Doll's neck and pushes her into the water. She tries to get out but I rush to the corner of the room to close the pool cover before she comes back to the surface.
I trot over to Otker to support him, he leans against the wall and asks me to pull on his fingers to put them back in place. This kind of thing gives me chills so Jochen beats me to it then grabs the knife from the ground.
" Janice Evilhunter is neutralized, eight hunters remain, Blake and Hannah. Come on, hurry up, this cave is huge and we have a princess to save."
" I have broken fingers and terrible back pain."
" I drowned an incestuous porcelain doll. We all face strange things in life so don't complain, I stammer with a touch of humor.
"As if it was your first murder, you owe me one massage as each person you killed."
" You can cut it short, it's not that we're in a hurry but somewhere there's Clovis with a dagger and he's very clumsy so if we don't want a useless death we'd have to get off our ass."
Jochen is right, we all need to come together to save April and bring her home.