Chapter Four: Return to the Hunt

Chapter Four: Return to the Hunt

Courtney reluctantly returned to work, more than a little disconcerted of the events of the night before. She stood on the brakes, as a blockade became visible, as though from thin air. She looked around with confusion, watching as police directed traffic away from the demolition site. She jumped out of the company van running up to the police lines, totally confused. She saw Paul standing off to one side and headed toward him.

"Paul...Paul! What's going on?"

"You didn't hear? Last night shortly after you left there was another body found in the rubble."

"There was someone else in there when it blew?" Courtney said shocked, "You really did your job, didn't you!" he had an exasperated look on his face.

"He was dead long before we blew it, at least that's what the police said."

"That's no excuse for..." she started to protest, but he continued.

"From what I gathered he'd been dead over twelve hours. Whoever killed him had a sick sense of humor, he was bound, hung upside down, then beheaded. They found no evidence of his head anywhere in the wreckage."

"What?" Courtney snapped, her face turning colorless, that vague story told by a friend suddenly becoming vivid reality. Gui'Yata had come here for the hunt, that was obvious now, a body in the same building made it all too clear. But why had he not hurt her?

Paul continued to babble but Courtney did not hear him, she was lost in her thoughts.

"Nice ring," Paul said suddenly, lifting her hand to get a better look at it. She snatched it back quickly, "Where did you get it?"

"A...friend gave it to me." she replied, suspiciously.

"But it's so big, isn't that uncomfortable?"

"It was made for someone with large hands. It has sentimental value." she lied. He was acting extremely strange, and why was the police so willing to tell him about the body?

Just before dark that day, Gui'Yata found himself back at the construction site. He had come to see what he could salvage of his equipment, hopefully he would recover his trophy bag. He probably should just leave it. Unfortunately he could not bring himself to do that, not with his first trophy, no he needed it back. His head still swirled with an inner conflict, debating about how proper it was to hunt these creatures. He moved on automatic through the rubble while his thoughts warred.

Juarez staggered through the remains of the neighborhood tortured by the demons brought on by his drugs. He lashed out with the Bowie knife, slicing air, the demons taunting him for missing. They had led him here promising relief, promising sanctuary, but demons lie. He would get them, he silently vowed.

Gui'Yata poked through rubble unsure where exactly he had been when he was found. He wandered until he came to a place that looked familiar, yes, he was sure this time. This was the spot, there was the slab that had pinned his arm, the blood still registering, and he ran his hand down the rod. It brought memories of the pain and he quickly drew back. His equipment should be just South and East of this position.

He moved to where the approximate spot was and began searching the rubble in earnest. He would be doubly pleased if he could recover the heater.

Juarez froze when he saw the demon scrounging around the rubble. The other apparitions still flew around him and he lashed out trying to get them out of his view of the large one. That was their leader, his demented mind told him, the one who ordered this torture. He would pay him back in kind, he promised. He staggered that direction, his muddled mind putting together a plan.

Gui'Yata clicked happily, he had located it, but he was going to have to crawl under the rubble to get at it. He removed his mask and set it at the side of the small hole. He did not want to get it caught on something backing back out, it was not exactly form fitting, especially twisted as it was. He crawled in the confined space, suddenly claustrophobic, this was too much like when he had been trapped. He grabbed the bag, and the heater that was, luckily, right next to it and quickly backed out of the hole, not wanting a repeat of the night before.

Clearing the hole, he was about to stand when an arm wrapped around his throat, and a knife was plunged low into his chest where the armor ended.

Gui'Yata roared in outrage, and pain.

"Die demon, die! You'll torment me no more!" Juarez ranted, twisting the knife in the wound. Gui'Yata staggered to his feet the deranged man dangling from his neck. He felt flesh tear as the man used the knife as a handhold.

Gui'Yata had no advantage to use a weapon, but he had no need. With practiced ease Coysa would have been proud of, he settled his chin into the crook of the mans arm, using his mandibles to grab it and pulled it closer. He used his second jaw to bite down, listening to the man scream. The bone snapped easily, and the mans grip slackened. Gui'Yata elbowed him hard, as he released his hold on the arm, listening to him land heavily against a pile of rubble. Humans were so very frail!

He turned to face this unexpected assailant, spitting blood and bits of flesh from his mouth. He could taste the traces of drug in his blood, his racing heart and body heat told Gui'Yata that the man was suffering from delusions. His mandibles continued cleaning his jaws of blood and flesh as he approached the man. He slowly pulled out the knife from his chest. He looked at it a moment before sticking it in his belt. He lifted the man up to his level, drawing his hand across the wound, using the blood to trace a line across the mans forehead with green iridescence. He set the man down. Juarez was terrified, never had his delusions been so real.

"You have five seconds to get out of here..." he said, and the man nodded dumbly, turned and ran, staggering out of the area. Gui'Yata shook his head as the man was retreating, cursing his bad luck in all the languages he knew. With this kind of luck perhaps he should just stop the hunt now, before he actually did get killed. He pulled the Bowie knife out of his belt and examined it, shook his head again, and repacked it.

Juarez went immediately to the doctor, telling a frightened tale of the demon that had bit him. He was a regular patient here and always had a good tale to tell about how he had come to be injured. The doctors humored him, listening to his stories, they all knew he was an addict. This, however, was something they could not explain to save their lives. It resembled a pit bull bite, one of the few dogs strong enough to break bone the way this was. The teeth pattern did not match though, they more resembled a snakebite. That did not make sense either, because the snake would have to have been forty foot to have a mouth that large. Snake of that nature, boas and pythons, did not have fangs or the power to break a man's arm. It was unlike any injury they had ever come across. The stripe across his forehead was an enigma, it had been washed at least five times but would not do so much as fade. Juarez would never realize just how lucky he was to survive that attack, Soua did not normally give warnings.

Courtney arrived home shortly after eight, looking forward to a hot meal and a warm bed. As she approached the door, her brain screamed that something was wrong. On closer inspection she found that the door was ajar slightly. Setting her bag just outside, she quietly pushed the door open, listening intently for any unfamiliar noise. It was dusk outside, and hard to see, but the contents of her apartment were definitely scattered to the four winds.

"Jesus!" she exclaimed quietly, regaining her voice.

After making a quiet, but thorough inspection of the apartment, she set herself to the chore of finding out what was absent. The clean up took most of the night, and she was amazed when she found nothing of value had been taken. It was what was missing that puzzled her. The creatures' armband, which she had stuffed in a drawer in the bedroom, was missing. As was the gauze from the trash can, the same one she had used to bandage its arm.

She thought at first that maybe, Gui'Yata had come back and taken it, to conceal any evidence of his presence on Earth. She ruled that out however, he would not have used the front door. But the question remained, who had taken the stuff, and why?

The scientists were busy studying the chemical make up of the blood of the alien. Storen's people had taken it from the women's apartment, it was needed in order to make an effective tranquilizer. They found it to be high in antibodies and an equivalent of white blood cells. That was good news, it meant that the creature was injured and possibly weak.

He had brought the computer too, they might be able to pry some information from it. They were instructed to be very careful lest they trigger the self-destruct mechanism. If nothing else they might be able to decipher an electronic pattern and use it to track the creatures movements more easily, in future visits.

Paul stepped in to see how the studies were progressing, when a man named Santos interrupted him.

"We seem to be doing extremely well this time." Paul said as Santos approached.

"Yes, very well. Though your target seems to have eluded you. We're still a step behind it."

"We will get him, I guarantee that. One of the workers at the site has had contact with the creature." Speaking as if that was news.

"About that, no offense, but why don't you just interrogate the girl? You know it was there in her apartment, she might know where it went."

"Are you kidding, if I even mention it, my covers blown. She will provide more information without knowledge of who I am. Besides the creature was not there long, she was probably gone when it left, otherwise she wouldn't have been at work today."

Santos and Paul smiled at each other, realizing the black humor in that statement. They would not have really cared if she had been killed. That would be one less loose end to tie up when this was all over.

Officer Cortez checked in at the desk, to be allowed onto the police target range. He ran a hand through his graying hair smiling at the guard minding the store. He looked down at the paunch starting to hang over his belt, thinking that he was going to have to change his ways. His lifestyle was getting much to sedentary. He was buzzed through, and was assaulted with the sound of echoed gunfire. He put his bafflers on to cut out some of the noise and entered in earnest. He took one of the closer open targets. There were five other officers in here practicing.

He laid his .45 semi-automatic on the counter and set three clips next to it. This was the way he measured his reaction time. He took a deep breath to relax himself, then quickly grabbed the gun slammed in a clip, chambered the first round, and began firing, all within about five seconds. He watched as a neat hole formed in the center of the target. He nodded satisfied, at forty he still had it. He ejected the spent clip and laid the gun back down.

He repeated the test, firing only two rounds before he saw the blue flash, and heard the scream. He watched in disbelief as an officer two targets down fell in what seemed slow motion. There was a cauterized hole where his chest had been. Cortez slammed himself into the wall behind him, his eyes darting wildly. What was going on? Where did the attack come from? Several of the other officers had followed his lead, in staggered positions along the wall. The other two were firing into the rafters in the general direction of the attack.

Out of nowhere came a flash of movement, it decapitated one of the officers still firing. On its return arch it severed the left arm of another officer from behind. As it headed back into darkness, Cortez fired after it. They could not see into the rafters, the lights of the range not reaching that high.

The officer closest the door panicked, trying to exit the premises. Cortez watched in horror as the door and the cop exploded.

Gui'Yata was quite enjoying this, even without his cloak he had been able to sneak in this facility and hunt these men without them knowing he was here, until it was too late. He surveyed the two remaining officers. One, the one against the wall, which would be today's trophy. Gui'Yata returned his attention directly below, the other officer was approaching his present position. Gui'Yata lithely and silently changed stands in behind the officer, and aimed the constricting net at the man who now headed away from him. Cortez saw the tip of the weapon, peering out of the rafters, and fired at it, as he yelled his warning to the other officer. Cortez's aim was true and pinged off the weapon as the net left it's receptacle, it threw the aim of the weapon off slightly, but not enough.

The top edge of the net caught the officer just above the knees, the bottom most bolts catching hold in the ground. The officer was thrown to the ground, allowing the remaining bolts to catch. The man screamed, trying to pull himself free. He got out, but his legs remained trapped in the net, the remaining stumps pouring his life out on the floor.

Cortez was retching, trying to shut out the pitiful wailing of the injured officer. This was horrible, nothing he had seen in all his years as a cop, had been this hideous.

He began to slink toward the shattered door, praying that he would make it, whispering a mantra, "Please oh please, please..."

He stopped hearing a scuffing sound, barely audible over the screams, he strained to pinpoint its location. It came again, Cortez's heart sank. He swallowed hard looking up. Standing above him, half lit by the pale reflected light, was the most frightful apparition he had ever seen. He was not given the chance to run from it.

Gui'Yata sank his spear into the human, down through his mouth into his chest cavity. He yanked up hard, pulling Cortez into the rafters like an angler with a fish. He gutted, and skinned the last body, before taking his trophy, just to see how fast he could do it. He then set about leaving his gory mark.

Gui'Yata had gotten out of the room just as the startled guard outside the range had fought through the rubble that was once a door. He climbed out the vent to the roof, his prize strung over his shoulder. Making a moonlight dance across the rooftops to his hideout, he howled in exaultation. It was a harder hunt without his cloaking device, but he was getting immensely more pleasure from the experience. It took real cunning to stay hidden, and he felt the rewards were worth the extra effort.

During a break from her chores, Courtney fixed herself a quick dinner, and sat down in front of the TV to catch the news.

"Today, police are looking for the person, or persons responsible for a massacre at the downtown police target range. Five officers were killed and another mangled..."

As the reporter kept talking, footage of the carnage was shown in the inset, the picture was small but the slaughter was clear. Six bodies were strung up in front of the range targets, like prize turkeys. Two were headless, one of which held his heads in their hands, tied there so as not to fall out. The second of the headless duo was completely stripped of skin and the guts lay in a pile on the floor. Still another looked as if a grenade had gone off in his chest. A steadily dripping shirt held what was left of another officer. Two still lived and Courtney caught a glimpse of a man whose arm had been severed, carried away in a blood soaked stretcher. The other officer to survive the slaughter had been strung up by his shoulders. His legs three quarters of the way down the thigh were missing, and his head lolled on a neck to weak to support it. His eyes were wide with horror. The investigating officers were stepping through a pool of blood several inches deep. God, Courtney thought, why did the news have to be so graphic? She found herself unable to finish dinner. Whoever had participated in that slaughter definitely had a very sick sense of humor.

"This update; Officer Darsey one of two survivors of this attack has just died. Darsey twenty-one...." they rambled on as she headed for the kitchen.

She took her plate back to the kitchen, setting it in the sink as something dawned on her. The way the bodies had been strung...two missing their heads...her eyes went wide. Gui'Yata! She rushed back to the TV, studying the carnage. She had never realized what a destructive force Gui'Yata was, but now faced with the grim reality...and she had let him loose on the city!

"Jesus, what have I done?" she whispered. She caught a glimpse of a government agent moving through the horrid scene, and she gasped. He was a man that looked all too much like Paul. What the hell was he doing involved with this? She shook her head, there was no way it could be him, and her imagination must be working overtime. Her life was turned upside down already, she did not need this as well.

When the police finished their investigation, and opened the construction site, Courtney was more than glad to get back to a semi-normal day.

She delved into her work, clearing rubble with zeal. When she finally took a break at lunch she was drenched in sweat. But she felt better than she had in days, all her worries had gone away with her labors. She felt she was just waking from a nightmare.

She made her way to the lockers, but paused at the phones, hearing Paul's voice.

"Yes, I'm positive...How? It gave her a gift...a ring, real precision craftsmanship, not of any metal from Earth...No, I'm sure...no, its not man-made...Hm? It was an image of a planet...no, not Earth..."

Courtney plastered herself to the wall, he was talking about her! Her hand went to the ring.

"Yes I've already forwarded the location to you...yes, sir, Griffith park...I know it'll be a bitch to locate, its really overgrown. If we don't move soon we'll lose them all...Yes sir...Thank you sir..."

Courtney slipped away quickly, who was this guy? Who was he talking to and why were they after the alien?

The pieces were beginning to fit. Paul's incompetence at demolition, his intense interest in her "Patient". The police cooperation, the strange questions about the ring. Hell, he probably even had her apartment trashed. But that did not answer who he was and what he wanted with Gui'Yata.

If she ever saw the creature again, she would have to warn him about this, if he would even understand her. She paused in that train of thought. It was killing people, without compunction, without mercy, for any other reason than to kill. Was he any better than the drug dealers and crooks who also killed for fun? No, she should let him be captured, killed, what ever these government cronies wanted with him. Then the massacres could stop.

"Right, only to be replaced by some human produced carnage." She countered sarcastically. She shook her head, again changing her mind.

She could not just arbitrarily hand over the aliens life, she felt somehow obligated to give him a forewarning of the target on his back. Even with that decision made, there was very little chance of their paths crossing again. She had seen nothing of him in the two days since he had disappeared from her apartment.