Chapter 188

He chased it to the trees. Then, as if the shelter somehow gave it a newfound sense of security, it stopped and turned to face him. The claws protruding from its hands had to be at least eight inches long and razor sharp. Ignoring the shouts from the barn behind him, Christian channeled all of his anger from the discussion before--his hatred for Andre Boucher, his frustration with Adele, his consternation with his own mother for prying--and flew at the monster, ramming his shoulder straight into its gullet and knocking it backward into a nearby tree hard enough that the ground shook, and the trunk, which had to be at least three feet in diameter, snapped, falling backward to the ground.
The two of them didn’t fall, though. The creature recovered its balance quickly enough and fought back, swinging its talons in his direction. Ducking out of the way, Christian pulled his knife and jabbed it into the Vampire’s chest, dragging the blade across from one shoulder down to its other pectoral. It screamed as a cloud of ash billowed from the slash.
It wasn’t done, though. Sinking its claws into his back, the monster opened its mouth wide, as if it might gnaw into the side of his head or neck. Christian brought his arms up between the creature’s, twisting his arms out and yanking the claws from his flesh. The sound of his own skin ripping as the Vampire’s arms were wrenched away was as easy to ignore as the pain and fresh blood streaming down his back. Once the bloodsucker’s arms were pinned at its side, Christian slammed his head into the creatures’ nose, breaking the structure from its face. More smoke and ash filled the air. Keeping the monster’s arms pinned at its side, he tipped it backward and brought himself down on top of the man, using his legs to keep its arms down while he resumed hacking at the monster, this time in its neck.
It didn’t take long to create a break in the Vampire’s bone structure. Once he had enough leverage, Christian cast his knife aside and used his hands to wrench the head from the body. Using the same twisting and tearing method he’d seen Robert use in New Jersey, he was able to free the head in a matter of seconds. The monster’s scream filled the forest and left a satisfied smile on Christian’s face.
“Christian!”
The smile was short lived. It was Adele calling for him from back toward the barn. At first, he assumed she simply wanted to talk about her feelings once again and didn’t know how to wait patiently for the appropriate time. But when he turned to look at her face, he realized it was something else.
Thinking of the screams he’d heard before the commotion, he realized someone must’ve been hurt inside of the barn before the monster took off. Returning his trusty knife to its sheath, he got up and took off for the structure, blasting past the small woman in his haste to see what had happened.
The scent of blood hit him before he even crossed the doorway. When his eyes adjusted to the darkness inside of the barn, where the moonlight could not touch, he saw why the odor was so intense. It was everywhere. Glancing around, he saw a few human bodies, mangled and lying in a heap by a horse stall, but the fresh blood flowed from the body lying near the center of the barn where everyone was congregated.
His heart caught in his chest as he stepped a few feet closer. Part of him didn’t want to go. If he stood back by the door, refusing to acknowledge what he was seeing, it couldn’t be real, could it?
His mother was crying. It was the first time he could ever remember seeing tears on her face in the four decades he’d been alive. The others looked just as consternated as they stood about, a few of them kneeling next to her, next to him. Next to what remained of Peter Henry.
Christian forced himself to take a few steps forward so that he was near his father’s boots. Adele’s small hand on his shoulder was shrugged off. He could tell by her gasp that it hurt her. At the moment, her feelings were the least of his concerns. His father, his hero, the man who could handle anything, who could take on seven Vampires and slay them all before breakfast, lay on a dirty barn floor, his bowels pouring out a slash in his stomach so deep, it nearly rent him in two.
Tears clouded his vision, making it hard for Christian to concentrate on his father’s face, but he knew the man was still breathing. For the moment. The others made room for him. He knelt down, taking a bloodied hand in his. His mother, across from him, had her hand on Peter’s arm, but he was right handed and was doing his best to keep his internal organs from continuing to spill out with each breath he took.
It was impossible to imagine the pain his father was in. He wasn’t crying, wasn’t shouting, but tears slipped from the corners of his eyes, mingling with the sweat that drenched his forehead. His gaze didn’t quite focus on Christian’s face. It was as if he was looking through his son. But there was just enough strength left in his grip for him to let Christian know he realized he was there.
His mother continued to murmur that he would be all right, but Christian didn’t see the point in making such bald face lies. Peter Henry was no fool. He was aware that a person couldn’t live more than a few minutes after being disemboweled. How this had happened, Christian’s brain demanded to know, but he couldn’t ask at the moment, not when there were other, seemingly more important things he needed to say. Like, “I love you. Thank you for being there for me. Thank you for teaching me to be strong, to hunt, to recognize my own strength.” He said none of those things either, only sat there, staring at his father’s eyes.
Peter couldn’t see him. Christian knew that before his breathing became so shallow it was nearly undetectable. His forehead was still clammy, but the sweat was no longer dripping. His eyes were open wide, unfocused, staring at the ceiling. His mouth began to twitch, as if he had something else he wanted to say, but no words came out. After a few moments, it became apparent the Hunter was gone.
Elizabeth’s cries became louder. Someone, another woman, came to her, crouching down and wrapping her arms around his mother’s shoulders. Christian reached over and closed his father’s eyes and then stood. He wanted to know what had happened, which Guardian had failed in his or her duties to protect this Hunter as he entered the barn and went to slay the Vampire. He wanted to demand answers, to yell, to pass judgment on each of them in order to make sure they all paid for whatever part they’d had in this man’s death.
But he couldn’t do any of that. Not at the moment anyway. Instead, he went out to his father’s carriage, pulled an old blanket from the back that Peter kept there just in case someone didn’t make it out of the hunt alive, and brought it back to wrap his body. Andre stepped in to help, but Christian physically pushed him away. When other men came forward to assist him, he allowed it.
His hands were still sticky with blood, and there was a stain on his shirt. His father loaded into the back of his wagon, he looked down at the red, wishing there was something he could do to go back in time just a few minutes and fix this, to make it so that he was the one entering the barn with his dad so that Peter would never have had to have faced such a savage beast without proper protection. He couldn’t do that, so he waited until his mother was sitting in the carriage and then climbed in beside her, pulling the wagon away without a word to anyone else on the team.
On the way back to their home, the stars twinkled in the heavens as if the entire world hadn’t just changed. The moon lit the way, as if he wasn’t carrying the body of his beloved father in the back of the carriage the same way he would a bag of grain or a farming implement. It seemed as if something should’ve shifted, that the world should’ve changed somehow. But it hadn't. Everything else was exactly the same, even without Peter Henry still in the world.
When he walked into the living room, carrying the bloodied blanket and what it contained, Christian noted for the first time how the house smelled like his father. His pipe rested on the table next to his chair. His hat hung on a peg by the door. His extra shoes were by the fireplace. The coffee cup he’d been drinking from earlier in the day sat in the kitchen, waiting for his mother to wash it.
His extra clothes would still be hanging in the armoire in the bedroom. His side of the bed would still be indented slightly from where he lay each night to rest. The quilt his mother had made him as a child was folded neatly at the foot of the bed. A photograph he and Christian’s mother had sat for a few years ago was in its place on the nightstand. Everything was the same. Nothing was the same.
His mother sat down on the couch in the living room and the rest of the team streamed in, some of them going to fetch necessities. Like a coffin. And coffee. And whatever else one brought when someone had died. Christian rested his father’s body on the fireplace hearth, seeing that the blood was slowly staining the blanket, wondering if it would bleed through and stain the wooden floor. His hands were still red and sticky. He needed to wash them. But even if he did so, that wouldn’t take the blood off of his hands, not really.
A story was constructed, something about a bear, and then the local pastor was sent for. Christian went out to the water pump, deciding he may as well try to absolve himself, leaving the details to everyone else. Outside, the sound of the water gushing drowned out the noise from his mother’s tears.
“Is there anything I can do?” Adele asked, coming around the side of the house.
He looked away from the red water that flowed past his hands and splashed against the rocks, running off and making pink rivers through the mud and grass, meeting her eyes. “No,” he said. Unless she had the power to bring someone back from the dead, what could she do? “We need a Healer on the team,” he said, trying to be practical, trying to plan ahead.
“Christian… I’m so sorry.” Her voice broke as she spoke. She took a few steps closer so that she was standing in the flow of water now. The pink rivulets wet her boots, catching the hem of her dress. She was in the way. She was obstructing the flow of his father’s blood into the ground.
“Just… go, Adele,” he said, not looking at her again. She needed to move. She was an obstruction.
“Christian… I love you. I hope you realize that. I know you don’t love me. That’s fine. Perhaps someday you will learn to. Please, let me stay with you. Let me… help.”
“Go home, Adele.” It was all he could say. He didn’t need her to stay. He didn’t need her help. He didn’t want her there. He… didn’t want her.
She began to cry, but she turned and walked back toward the house. Christian scrubbed the dried blood from his hands, watching his father’s life force seep into the ground and fade away, back into nature, becoming part of the grass, part of the earth and all of the things that would grow there for all of the years to come. Peter Henry was gone, and there was nothing in the world that he or anyone else could do about it.