Hunter

Chapter 18

** Boom!

I woke up with a jump. What was that? An explosion? Stunned with surprise, I looked around me. Sophie, my father's colleague who had taken care of me, had disappeared and Agate slept deeply, huddled against my chest. She slept so well that for a second, I thought I had imagined it all, but a thick smoke appeared to the door of one of the neighbouring rooms.

I sat up quickly, laying a hand in my sister's back before putting her on the couch. I rushed to the door of the living-room before stopping on the threshold. A terrible fear had taken ahold of me. What was I going to find over there? Was my father there? I was petrified. Then, I heard a voice. I had no idea who was talking, but it reassured me. I could not make out what was said, but the tone seemed calm: nothing bad must have happened. I let out a sigh of relief and went back to the couch, when all of a sudden:

"Gustave!"

I wheeled.

Dad!

I rushed over. The thick fog was barely starting to clear off, we could hardly see a thing. When everything finally became clear again, I discovered with horror, my dad sitting on the floor, arms dangling and eyes closed, blood leaking from his right temple and his ears.

"Dad!!" I shouted.

The three men present in the room turned towards me, but soon enough, their attention went back to my father. I was there, paralysed on the threshold. The man the closest to him - he often came knocking at our door whenever dad was needed - grabbed his shoulders and a second man grabbed his legs. The both of them hauled him on the table in the middle of the room.

"Putain!  What the hell happened?!" One of them asked.

"I have no idea, I've never seen him fuck up like that!" replied the closest to me. It was the one who had come at our house to threaten dad, Henri.

The youngest of the group took his jacket off, folded it to create a pillow, he then slid it under the wounded's head.

My skull felt like it was caught in a vice and I had to lean on the door frame not to fall. My head was spinning. Yet, that is what helped me to talk again.

"Is he going to pull through? How did that happen? I heard an explosion and..."

"Did your father tell you about the zombies?"

What? I was speechless. Zombies? Did I hear that well? And how was that related to what had just happened?

When he saw my incredulous face, he pouted and asked the one who had help him to put my dad on the table to explain it to me, some guy named "Gaspard" apparently.

"What? Why me?" he replied.

The one who had originally asked was carefully looking at my father's face. He grabbed his chin and cautiously turned his head to examine his bloody ears.

In the end, it was Henri who explained the mission they had and what was happening, how they had tried to locate the wizard and what had happened a few minutes before.

Wow. Once more, it was a lot to take in. I finally understood why my father tried so hard to keep me from this information. The world we lived in was far from being as rational as I had thought. Although I had always been aware of supernatural activities, I was far from grasping the extent of the phenomenon: he had tried to protect me from that.

As I was trying to process all this information, my brain finally caught up and I realised no one had answered my first question which only increased my worries. I asked again if he was going to pull through and the man who was examining him rose his head and smiled kindly.

"I think so, yes." he said. "It does not look so bad. He is breathing normally, his pulse is fine and no broken bones."

I was filled with relief.

As I opened my mouth to add something, my father sat up, startling everyone.

"Oh la vache!" he grumbled.

He brought a hand to his forehead before shaking his head as if to push away a bad dream and blinked several times.

"Why am I the one getting the blows everytime?"

This remark had me smile. All of my anger against him had vanished with the incident. Seeing him in a critical state had reminded me what he meant to me. It had allowed me to understand his feelings and why he had always hidden the truth from me. As strange as it might sound, I felt light and happy.

**

"Why am I the one getting the blows everytime?"

First, the vampire's bite, then my own son had tried to rip my head off and now, a warlock who was not even physcally here knocked me out. That was a lot in a short period of time.

"You see?" Bob said. "He is okay!"

I rose my eyes and discovered my son next to Henri, near the door. His relief was obvious. I did not dare to imagine the display it might had been a few minutes before. I smiled to him. He smiled back. His brow had swollen a bit and turned bluish. Judging by the way he was firmly holding to the door frame, I guessed he felt dizzy. I, seated on the table, him standing there, we looked at each other in the eye for a long time. He was no longer mad at me. Good.

All of a sudden, with no warning, he let go of the wall and rushed into my arms and held me tight. Surprise and joy filled my heart. Take a blow from time to time had its upsides in the end. I moved to get my legs off the table to hold him back.

"Dad..."

He was sobbing.

"Everything's fine, I'm here. Everything's fine."