Stray
First time she saw him, she knew she would love him. And that terrified her. Not only because love was a fickle, useless emotion but because she knew she would love him and she knew it would be the end of her.
Love would be her demise and there was no way of stopping it.
Rhys Bailey was her name. And she was a Hunter, a mercenary sent by God to destroy evil.
She remembered him. Strange how she would. But her memory was one that could reach back and touch the Elizabethan era. Anything beyond there though, she had destroyed all memory of.
His face was entirely too familiar. She knew she had seen him before. Her memory was keen and for the most part it was flawless. But his kind had a way of perpetrating the mind. He could have easily slipped past her, disregarded, even if they had known each other particularly well. Unless they were to touch skin-to-skin she would never know who he really was.
She was sent to London last fall by the Order. They had one specific request. Find Matisyn Krüshtoff. Kill him. At the time the command meant nothing to her. Her purpose for living was to vanquish evil and the Order worked as her medium for finding evil. But even before she entered London that November, she had a feeling that something was wrong. She could feel an aura even before the ship reached land. A strong, but quiet aura.
In a typical scenario, she would be forced to find the aura herself, for evil would rarely wish to be recognized by Hunters. But this one was clearly intentional. This one had been sent to her full of purpose. He knew she was coming for him. And he would be waiting.
But where? And why? Did this creature have a death wish in which she was to grant? The act only offended her. Oh yes darling, I’ll take you down. I’ll take you down slow.
Her experience had taught her that evil did have a conscience. But it was not strong enough to be set as a reason of sparing life. Evil was clear. It was never faint. It could be disguised for a time but never for long.
Rhys spent most of her journey, while traveling across the sea to Europe, reading ancient documents and scrolls the Order had supplied her with. The only information she would be offered to defeat Matisyn. These time-stained papers were records of Matisyn’s appearances.
It was evident; Matisyn Krüshtoff was a vampire. A clever one at that. In the current age, vampires were scarce, unable to survive since civilization had industrialized. Most had either went into hiding and eventually died from lack of feed or had been hunted down and killed by the Order’s mercenaries. For Matisyn to be alive even now, he must have been serving a greater entity. Then why would he not run? No one could out last the Order. No one.
The ship steadily coasted the shoreline until it met the harbor. Rhys wasted no time and prepared to disembark. The aura was silent now. Only fragments remained, the only indication that he was still within London. It was little to go on but it was all she had.
If the sailors were surprised by how the young hunter faired on the course of their journey, they did not say. Nor did they comment on her curious behavior; she did not sleep and she ate very little. Obviously the crew was uneasy of her since they so carefully avoided her when they could.
In turn, she avoided them. She did not wish to be distracted from her primary purpose and she had a general distrust for mortals. So it was not difficult to keep her distance, especially if they did so in turn.
