The Anatomy of Terrible Things

Chapter II

She had never lost a fight. Not since she had been thoroughly taught how to win. She never stayed on the defensive long enough for the opportunity of loss to rear its head. The moment the hunter turned, his thorough but human training prompting him to palm a knife in each hand, she was across the room. He didn't have time to fling one of them at her, angle one into her side. Her boot slammed into his side, cracking ribs as it hit home. Before her foot could touch the floor,  her knee sailed upwards into his sternum as he doubled to nurse his injury.

 A fatal mistake, had he been alone. She didn't have time to land her palm into his face before another one of the damned bastards sprinted across the threshold, this one built like a battering ram. She caught the side of his face with her elbow, ducked a responding blow and rolled. Her sword was back in her hand where it belonged, vibrating.

   She had named it Fariaeth, after the rider of war, with good reason. The injured one didn't have much common sense it seemed, as he was back on his feet. Linnea whirled, the hurled dagger glancing off the face of her blade as she brought her sword around. She leaned to the side, a heavily booted foot snapping out to catch the newcomer's kneecap. She didn't hesitate, didn't have time to savor the fight. Any moment now the other three would realize she'd been located and then, then her bedroom would be a fucking war zone. She hooked her foot, dragging him onto his ass before whirling. Right into the first hunter's fist.

  She didn't cry out, didn't so much as cough when the blow made her gouge her tongue with one of her overly long canines. She spat the resulting oil black blood onto the floorboards and lunged for the bastard's throat. He somehow threw himself out of the way just as his partner hurtled himself at her. She caught his tackle, arms hooking under his as he drove her back into the armoire. It shuddered, her spine barked with the agony before she shoved out, boot following up to send him flying across the room.

   The first huddled over his broken ribs, face alight with horror. One blow, one well placed deflection had sent his partner across the room. It hadn't even taxed her. She flipped Fariaeth over in her hand, weighed it like an axe thrower weighed a hatchet. The judgemental gesture of well trained swordsman. He hadn't expected that. The man was ill seasoned, accustomed to hunting down hedgewitches and gypsies.

  Not Lothian Witches. Not hell's finest.

  She would have laughed at the realization, but her elation was short lived. Another hunter tossed himself into the melee, slamming into her from the side. This time, a weapon struck true. She bit back a scream as the thing entered just under her ribcage, not nearly in place to kill her but angled enough to stun her. The hunter on top of her realized far too late that he had misjudged her size, that he had missed his mark. Those inhuman hands shot out, gripping his head, and twisted violently. He went limp on top of her, tossed aside like a paper bag.

  The injured hunter backed against the wall, eyes darting between his recovering partner and his dead brother in arms. So quickly, so easily. She'd killed the man before he'd had a chance to sink his dagger somewhere vital. There was disappointment in the man's dark gaze.

  “You thought you'd waltz in here, into my home and slaughter me in my bed, did you?”

  She kept a keen eye on the recovering hunter, stalking across the room with a predatory grace. It would be the last thing the hunter witnessed, her preternatural grace and honed body. The smooth arc of her sword as she twirled it, wrist dipping skillfully. The last time he'd see was her, all blonde hair and golden eyes and that terrible, wicked smirk.

   “Have you made your peace with your false god, Witch Hunter?”

He was clutching the crucifix around his neck, muttering under his breath now. The hairs at the back of Linnea's neck stood on end, the ink there burning hot like a smith's forge. The second hunter had recovered. She took her eyes off the cowering man for an instant, snarling as she whirled, as she brought that monstrous blade up and through-

    The man dropped dead on the floor before she ever got the chance.

   It was her. It was her, the lion eyed devil. The one they'd been muttering and arguing and taking claims on for weeks now. The blonde witch with the sigil of Lucifer, the mark of a Lothian witch, inked at the base of her neck. Hanna Fallon hadn't thought much of it when she'd seen the massive woman in passing, when she'd noted the top half of the tattoo peeking from under the hood of her pullover sweater in the drug store.

  She was only in Odense on investigation. It had been decades since the order had gotten involved with the hunts, since they'd decided to do something about the murders. Lothian, Grey, White... They'd been murdered all the same. How could they have stayed silent so long?

   She stood in the doorway of the witch's townhouse, clutching the twin match to the dagger she'd lodged in the hunter's back. She had been sent on orders to kill only if need be. She was not a killer at heart, she was a distraction. She was the order's interference before their killers went to work. She distracted. It was rare a white witch killed. All of the order's assassins, all of their killers were Lothian or Grey. Never had a white witch been ordered to kill, circumstantial or not.

  The only thing stopping Linnea Matisson from ripping out her throat was the tattoo on the hand that still held that backup dagger, still clutched it for dear life. She whirled, as if Hanna didn't exist, and raised that frighteningly large sword above her head. Hanna whirled away just as it split the man in two. She nearly wretched at the sound of it, her stomach heaving even as she heard the witch advancing. She heard them before she felt them, those clawed fingers cupping her throat so closely that the nails nearly breached skin. The witch was so tall she had to bend to snarl in her ear, to tighten her grip on her throat.

   “You have five seconds to tell me your name, before I open you up from your womb to your breasts and paint my walls red.”