chapter vignette 3

Yeah, I was a 	Hunter once. That’s th’keyword. I was. Past tense.

Guess I should start at th’beginnin’. Once upon a time I was a poor, abused orphan girl who’d just gotten away from a cult compound I’d lived on my whole life. They didn’t believe in medical treatment, which Marine says is just a veil for abuse, but it left me blind from a measles outbreak an’ lame from a broken leg that never got fixed. Now take that, n’ put her out on th’streets t’fend for herself for th’first time in her life. Only takes one creep t’make everything go down hill for th’rest of your life.

My creep was what th’vampires call a Follower Of Set. They’re some kinda ancient Egyptian snake cult far as I know from Ros an’ Anya, an’ wanna corrupt th’world far as I know from my sister in law. They love gettin’ their hands on innocent kids, an’ this one thought I was innocent. Started tryin’ to shill me on another cult, but I wasn’t gonna have it. My Imbuing hit me as th’bastard decided to try t’ make me consent t’… somethin’, don’t know what, with a power of his. Couldn’t see no messages so I just heard a buncha screamin’. Didn’t know what else to do, just know somethin’ pinged off my head and it wasn’t nothin’ good, so I did what I would do t’skirt beatings in th’compound. I talked that snake around in circles till the second I heard him holler and burn away from the sun.

Didn’t take long t’figure out I had powers, an’ that other folks with powers didn’t like whatever I was too much. I used th’Sight t’help me get around and I saw all kinds’a critters I didn’t think existed. An’ they didn’t like that I could see ‘em. But talkin’ is a powerful tool. Turns out most sorts’ll understand the fact a snake tried t’kidnap me. Gets you a lotta sympathy and gets y’learnin’ about others. You word somethin’ right and anyone’ll stop and listen. And bein’ able to dodge helps a bunch.

I got outta th’deep south with th’help of some folks I was able to talk down. They were a pack’a werewolves that called themselves Silent Striders, they hated th’snakes enough t’do anything to spite ‘em, includin’ helpin’ someone who was whatever I was. An’ as a bonus, they travelled a lot. Got me up there right fast, they did. I made my way up th’west coast from there. First it was t’Canada. I lived under th’radar long before they made y’need a passport t’cross th’ border. Met a couple girls there. One of ‘em I knew was a werewolf, kinda almost gave me the vibe those guys that brought me up here did. Other one was a sweet little thing, hated th’fact I was livin’ in dumpsters an’ wounded. Offered me their couch, but I never stayed too long.

Didn’t take too long for her to become somethin’ too. I saw it on th’Sight all of once, before I just couldn’t bring myself t’look at her how th’voices in my head wanted me to. Guess somewhere along the lines I got fond of her. They got run outta town by that pack that brought me up here, and I followed ‘em down back across the border. To Seattle. Years passed. We got close. She stayed the same, an’ I got older. Soon I was older than her, an’ I was startin’ to feel my mortality. An’ so was she.

Not everyone wants to be shoehorned into mortality, and definitely not if they’re like me and they got vampire lovers n’ trauma for years. Sure the cell I came from was nice enough. Marine’s still like the ma I lost when I was a kid. But any time one of us got wounded, got sent t’the hospital or I had to call in Ros to fix’em, that mortality just went n’ hung itself over my head like th’world didn’t want me t’forget it. It made Anya start goin’ bonkers too. Thanks t’them I can walk, I can see, but they shoulda never had t’burden themselves with me in the first place if I’m just gonna die anyway.

Well eventually it got t’the point where I was lookin’ for a way out, any way. All I wanted was not t’die. That’s it. Be it by th’ magic of th’ mages, by some weird werewolf rite or… hell, I’d take anything. My answer came from th’Bound. One of my good friends back when I worked at Ermine was a lady named Titania. She fuckin’ loved life and she loved her friends. Looked out for me, an’ looked out for my best friend Candy too. She told me there was a krewe down in Texas who could help me out, an’ even got me an’ everyone else th’bus tickets to get down there.

Th’krewe in Texas told me, if I drank from every river of the underworld an’ made it to the center, I’d be born again free of th’bounds of the Messengers. Wasn’t bein’ a Hunter so much that I minded, opposed t’not bein’ allowed to be anything but mortal. What they got from it was th’glory of makin’ it down to the center, so I guess in the end we all won. They were completely right. When I drank that last river I felt the grip slippin’ away. And when I got to the center and I saw that big ol’ snake, all it did was smile at me. I felt myself die, an’ I felt myself come back in an instant. Didn’t even lose Lucia for it, seein’s as I was pregnant at the time thanks to th’rivers. When I got back out an’ told ‘em my story, Fluff’n’stuff absolutely flipped her shit. Guess I made waves.

My head was quiet for a while. I kinda missed the one voice I knew. When I’d get talked to, usually it was her. Never knew who she was, only knew she got me outta some bad places. But it let me ease back an’ take care of Lucia while Fluff’n’Stuff cleaned up th’mess the other cell left when th’ crazy died. ‘Course then she almost died, an’ when she woke up she was mumblin’ about Gaia an’ leavin’ Seattle t’go where her husband lived. We packed up an’ left an’ soon she plunged herself into the underworld like I did, ‘cept without th’Bound to guide her.

She came out, she made a new tribe. Things started shiftin’ around. My other best friend Reva told me the Hunternet was blazin’ with the words of Hermits sayin’ they’d stopped screamin’ about a lotta supernaturals, an’ that th’Sight had changed. Now not too long before Texas, she’d gotten tangled up in drama with a Wayward here. She helped her outta her madness and made a proper Hunter and not a maniac outta her. That’s huge. Now all this talk was apparently goin’ on of hearin’ speeches from a couple voices an’ th’Sight changin’ an’ all of this. New, unheard of powers.

Didn’t think it was my problem till a blonde bombshell showed up at th’door one day. I didn’t know what t’make of it till she spoke in the same voice as th’Messenger who helped me all those years ago. Couldn’t believe it, but I knew I was meetin’ her. I had no choice but t’let her in. She introduced herself as someone whose name I knew from a couple’a four hundred year old vampires, an’ asked me how I’d been. We had a cup ‘a tea. She told me not to worry about what others mighta said about Texas. I had a lot more t’do than my lifespan would allow me, an’ if I was willin’, she had a gift for me.

Well I didn’t really have any reason not t’trust her, so I went ahead and said yes. When she touched me, I felt all that power that I thought I lost come floodin’ back, but when I tried t’test if the Disciplines I learned were still there, they were. I asked her what all she did t’me, she just smiled an’ said she gave me a gift. Might be the first one ever who can sit here n’say I’m both ghoul an’ Hunter. I like that.