Kerrin's Hunt

Chapter 2: Meet The Hunt

        They walked to a building that was clearly from the end of the Victorian era. The sign declared it to be “Spotted Owl Book Store.” There was a light on in the store, spilling a weird pale gold light out into the street. The Auburn Haired Girl took out a key and unlocked the door, holding it open for everyone to pass through. Kat went in with her last.

                  “How did it go,” A voice asked.

      “Well, we have her here, and I broke a sprinting with weapons record set by Ember,” the girl in the Victorian coat answered.

“Ah, brilliant, bring her up into the living room," the voice said.

     The group guided Kat to a spiral staircase at the very back of the store. They ascended slowly, letting her go first as to take in the new surroundings. She emerged from the staircase onto the second floor, in a well lit room, that had even more books, with two adults sitting at a round table in a corner next to a lamp. They were a man and a woman, and they seemed around her dad’s age. Everyone walked to the table and took a seat. Kat sat across from the two, with the girl in the coat and the Auburn Haired Girl at her side. The woman had curly and long red hair with bright hazel eyes, and the man had dark reddish-brown hair and brown eyes.

         “How do you know me?” Kat asked.

“We are friends of your parents, well, your father anyway,” The woman said.

                “How do you know him, co-workers, a mutual friend, a cult perhaps?” Kat asked, joking about the last option.

       “Well, not necessarily a cult. We are more of a band of hunters.” The man answered without noticing the woman judging him slightly off to the right.

           “Hunters of what? And what has this got to do with my dad and that thing that was chasing me?” Kat asked indignantly.

 “You know, David, when she asked if we knew Sam through a cult, she was joking,” the woman pointed out with a heavy tone of sarcasm in her voice. The man glared back at the woman.

           “I hate to interrupt a good old fashioned argument, but would you care to explain what is going on.” Kat interrupted with the voice her father told her to use in these situations.

     “That thing chasing you is what we would call a demon, but it was of the shapeshifter subspecies. It becomes something that it isn’t so it can unnerve you. It unnerves you to feed off the energy of your fear.” The woman said.

                “That was only the beginning of my questions. Next, who are you people?”

       “Are we going to go around the table introducing ourselves,” a boy asked.

 “Let’s let your sister introduce us to her.”

                 The Auburn Haired Girl immediately sat up. As if “your sister” was her name.

 “OK, so, the girl in the Victorian coat next to you is Nikola, she is sort of our leader. I’m Mikayla, and sitting to the left of me is my good friend and adopted brother, Elm. Which brings me to the next person, sitting across from him is Ember, who is Nikola’s close friend, and Elm's sister. Sitting next to Elm would be my dorky brother Xander, who happens to be the medic, and next to him are our parents, and basically our bosses, and on the other side of my dad is Cate, and she is our advisor, spy, and a lot of other things.” She said.

      “It is also worth noting that almost everyone in this household always calls the parents of the Brown Siblings by their names, which would be Minerva and David.” Nikola added.     

                        “Sounds about right, okay, now how do you know my dad?”

        “He was a part of our group. Our group is called the Hunt. We hunt demons that rebel against the imposed system, which are often called Malevolents, but the children call them Malevs for some ungodly reason.” Minerva explained.

          “Not as ridiculous as some other things I’ve heard, so I guess it’s fairly believable, continue explaining about demons and shapeshifters,” Kat responded.

        “The system is difficult to explain, to explain, but you can learn that soon. Right now what you need to know is that the rogue demons are best known as Malevolents, and they serve purely evil forces. They are something like the worst type of evil, which would add on to human evil, and also helps start some human evil as well,” Cate said.

           “Okay, so the reason I’m here is because my dad knows you people and if I ever get attacked by some creature out of a terrible monster movie I am to stay here,” Kat questioned.

       “Something of the sort, so you are going to have to stay with us until we can find your dad,” Elm said.

              “You can share Mikayla’s room; she has an extra bed in her room, so you won’t have to wait for one to be set up,” David said.

           “Yeah, that ought to work,” Kat replied.

“You seem to be adjusting well,” Xander noted.

           “I’m used to weird things happening; therefore I learn to adjust quickly.” Kat said, and that was the end of that.

           They showed her around a little, and when they finished showing her everything other than the halls of rooms where they live, and then they led her down a faintly lit hallway, it wasn’t necessarily creepy, but it wasn’t as homey as she thought it should be, but she did like the old feel to it.

        They showed her Mikayla’s room, and it was about the size of what she imagined a slightly large dorm room. She and Mikayla walked in while everyone went back to their rooms. The populated side which Kat assumed, was Mikayla’s, was cluttered with a bookshelf overflowing with novels, guides, leather bound books on espionage, botany, and poison making. Her desk had a few test tubes containing pastes and a couple plants, along with some CDs.

   “Be careful, there are a lot of plants in here and a lot are poisonous, so don’t touch any without asking, because Datura Stramonium poisoning sucks,”

           “I need sleep; I think it would work out for me if I just went to sleep now. I’m not rude, just tired,” Kat said, sleepiness dripping in her voice, she crawled into bed, and Mikayla decided to work in the dark that night.