Cocking her head to the side, Helaina strained her ears to pick up the soft subtle sounds of someone approaching. Her hand tightened around the blade strapped to her hip but she resisted the urge to pull the knife from its sheaf. The moonlight danced on the pale silvery skin of the approaching figure and Helaina felt herself relax at the welcomed and familiar presence.
"What news do you have to bring," Helania asked her fellow Lamiae. The witch they had been sent to hunt down and destroy was proving difficult. Not only was he more powerful than they had assumed but he wasn't alone. Even without having any control over the power growing within him, the two that were still together possessed an impressive skill in combat, one that was proving to be a thorn in the hunting party's side. They had already lost four sisters to the human's hands and though they would do whatever it took to wipe this threat from the world, the price was becoming far too high.
Rosalinde reached up, slipping long delicate fingers under her eyelid until her finger could curl around the fleshy tissue of her eye and extract it from its socket in one swift motion. The muffled plop was the only sound as the eyeball was removed and passed over to her sister who offered one of hers in exchange.
Helaina plucked the eye from the outstretched hand slipped it into her now empty socket with practiced ease. She blinked a few times as the eye slipped into position before closing both eyes and allowing all the images her sister had witnessed to pass through her mind. It was like watching events as though she had been there. The death of her fellow hunters played out as she watched Hansel and Gretel move through the forest. Helaina studied her foe, memorized their movements and resources. Soon all their tricks would be known and they would stand no chance against the coming storm.
"They're good," Helaina offered as she watched the last bit of information play out. The Lamiae had been bestowed a rare gift, like the Fates with the all seeing eye, these watchers of magic could share knowledge learned by each sister by sharing their windows to the soul.
"They can't run forever and they're running out of places to go," reminded the older hunter. Rosalinde had had the privilege of participating in two hunts first hand, though the prey had been mere children and didn't offer the same resistance that the party was experiencing now. "No one will shelter them, they cannot hide."
The younger Lamiae nodded. This victory would prove all the more sweeter because of the challenge.
"Ursula wants us to adopt more sisters," informed Rosalinde with a reserved gleam in her eye at the prospect of expanding their family.
"It's not my place to question our matriarch," whispered Helaina as though she was afraid the woman herself would hear her protests from so far away, "but even if we find those worthy of integrating into our sisterhood, they will be too young and not yet blessed to our family to join us in this hunt. Would it not be wise to send experienced warriors to help with this task before replenishing out numbers?"
"You're right, it's not your place to question," Rosalinde snapped. "Those are our orders and we will follow. Report back once you have searched your quadrant for the witch. We lost him by the river and they were heading in this direction," she commanded before slithering back into the shadows of the forest.
Helaina sniffed the air searching for any scent of the human before taking off into the night to stalk her prey.
Hansel's lungs burned with exertion. The bone deep exhaustion that had set in from barely getting a wink of sleep before the hounds of hell were nipping at their heels each night was making it difficult to think, let alone move but he knew they had to keep going. The Lamiae had been relentless despite taking out four of them in the last month.
One had been killed during another random display of concentrated evil disguised as magic emanating from the young hunter despite his desperate attempts to keep his powers buried where they had been carefully hiding for the last twenty-five years. Another had been purely accident and more due to the wrath of Mother Nature in the form of a rockslide, than any effort on the siblings' behalf. They weren't witch hunter for nothing and through painful attempts, had found ways to despatch the silver creatures from the world. The Lamiae first appeared to be impervious to weapons, healing from gunshot and knife wounds in mere minutes. Their supernatural powers were no match for a shotgun blast directly to the head as long as the blast effectively blew their head right off. With that discovery under their belt, well handled piano wire decapitated like a knife through butter. Proximity was proving to be the real bitch in the whole beheading equation.
Gretel was hiding it well but the tell tale stiffness of past beatings was getting harder for her to hide from her brother's watchful eye. Every wound, every pause to take a breath was another 'I told you so' moment from Hansel and though he never said it, it was clearly written on his face, breaking her heart. If it wasn't for her constant pushing he would have given up long ago. It was getting harder to be the rock, to know that one moment of weakness on her part would be exploited by Hansel to give in and stop running.
She pushed her burning limbs harder, gaining one more mile after one more hard earned mile. She knew they had lost their pursuer three hours ago but any distance they could put between them and the relentless creature would translate in a couple extra precious minutes of sleep further down the road.
Hansel stooped suddenly, doubling over with his hands on his knees.
Gretel's heart pounded wildly as her gut clenched painfully at the sight of Hansel, a thousand scenarios tearing through her mind. Had she missed an injury after their last scuffle and he was slowly bleeding to death? Was it magic related?
"Hansel?" she wheezed, trying to get her breath back as she placed a hand on his shoulder.
"This is stupid," he replied, flopping down into a sitting position and giving into his body's demand for rest. "No more right now," he pleaded, wrapping his arm around her leg as Gretel began to gently comb her finger through his hair.
Her throat closed painfully around the sob fighting for release. "Okay. We'll take a break here for awhile." They had been running both literally and figuratively for so long that she didn't have it in her to deny him this one request; not when he sounded so broken and defeated.
A distressed cry in the distance brought both siblings to sharp awareness. Instinctively hands latched on to weapons as both found their legs and headed into the fray. No matter their personal problems or situations they found themselves in, the desperate cry of a child always trumped everything.
It didn't take long to close in on the scene. There in the forest clearing were two Lamiae and several young girls. The youngest was in the clutches of one of the creatures, its death like grip refusing to relinquish the child to the older teen frantically trying to pull the child away. The other silver beast was standing over the dead body of another young lady while dodging the wild swings of a tree branch being welded by another of the older girls.
"Hey!" shouted Hansel, swinging his shot gun off his back and bringing it to bear on the Lamiae holding on to the child. The second the creature turned his finger depressed against the trigger sending the projectile hurtling forward, shredding everything in its path and showering the young child in a mess of blood and bone.
The other huntress stop short in her advancement on the other children, turning towards Hansel with a wicked smile. Recognition colored her face as she moved swiftly towards the ultimate prey that had offered himself up on a silver palter.
With the threat distracted the two older children grabbed the younger two and ran towards the tree line. The innocent children out of the way, Gretel unleashed a hailstorm of arrow from her cross bow in a bid to give Hansel enough time to line up his second shot. Several found their mark in the fast moving creature but it managed to dodge Hansel's shotgun.
Hansel grunted as the full weight of the Lamiae slammed into him, knocking them both into the grass. She pinned his arms down before bearing her sharp teeth and tilting her head towards his neck. Hansel closed his eyes as he prepared for the piercing pain of the creature sinking her teeth into his neck; instead he got a mouthful of warm thick liquid and dead weight covering his body.
Coughing to expel the mysterious liquid, Hansel twisted to the side and managed to wiggle free of the weight pressing down on him. He wiped the substance from his eyes before turning to see what happened to the Lamiae. It took his sluggish mind a moment to connect the liquid as blood, not his blood, there was too much to be his. Hansel's eyes darted up to see Gretel, wire wrapped around her blood cover hands kneeling beside the freshly decapitated body.
"That was different," mumbled Hansel around a glob of blood he spat on the ground. "They think baiting us was going to give them the upper hand?"
Gretel wiped some of the splatter from her forehead. "I don't think they were using the children to lure us out. If the kids were bait, they wouldn't have killed one," she elaborated, pointing at one of the other bodies on the ground.
"Well that doesn't exactly fit with what we've learned. They were all girls and anyone who's bothered to give us two seconds of their time before slamming the door in our faces has said they only kill males."
"They wanted the girls for something and we should probably figure…" she trailed off, getting to her feet and moving slowly towards the forest edge, her focus pulled to the sound of rustling leaves.
"Gretel?" asked Hansel, slowly following behind.
"Shhhhh." She pointed up to the large tree and began to move around the trunk to get a better view of whatever was concealed high in the branches. With her brother standing a little further back, weapon at the ready, Gretel found an angle to catch a glimpse of who had been disturbing the branches. "Why hello there," she said sweetly.