Little Hunter

Dusk and Dawn tore the men in the cars to shreds and destroyed their guns.

The noise was low. No one around or in the house noticed, but they would. Only a matter of time.

Nanku was curious how much. How capable were the Empire's hunters? Were they the same group Iron Rain tried to use to kill her mother?

Killing them now might not solve the problem, but it might help.

The second man returned from the bedrooms at the end of the hall.

"Nothing," he said. "What do you—Hey? Where—"

Nanku drove her knife into the back of his neck, severing the spine while she wrenched his hand away from his gun. She lowered him to the floor and buried him in the cushions and seats.

The den she'd raided before had only eight armed men and two more who tried to fight.

There were twice as many here, and she'd had no time or energy to sleep. The snipers were dead, as were two of the invaders. How many could she get, and how much safer would her mother…

Rose.

She hadn't even thought about Rose.

Nanku's hands tightened.

Kill them all it was.

She crept back down the steps silently, taking the opportunity of distance to expand her spear and release her wrist blades.

Dusk and Dawn clambered out of the bloody vehicles, joining a vast swarm of insects crawling and flying into the woods. Nanku picked her next targets out and set about positioning her weapons.

And she listened.

"There's no one here," one of the men finally said.

"Really?" Alabaster sighed. "All this for nothing?"

"Nice furniture set, though," the searcher said. "This living room is great."

"We don't pay you enough to afford it."

"Thank you for reminding me, sir."

Others relaxed, hands still on their weapons but barrels pointed at the floor.

"No." The man beside Alabaster looked through the living room. "Someone's here."

"Sure?"

"Yeah. I'm getting something."

A cape.

Nanku frowned.

How in the Black Warrior's name did that keep happening? What was even the point? She kept finding new reasons so many clans had ceased allowing their hunters on Earth.

And three parahumans who could see through her cloak was three too many.

"Where?" Alabaster asked.

"Doesn't work that way," the man replied. "Someone's here. Can fee—"

His eyes dropped, and his body shot to the side as her spear flew through his body and out the other side. The weapon peeled out of the cloak smeared with body and pieces of bone. It struck the wall, a charge sparking off the metal while the guns around the room rose.

Nanku stepped to the side and unleashed her swarm.

The men behind the house began shouting and screaming as the insects swarmed. Radios crackled in their ears, though Nanku couldn't hear what the men outside were screaming. A cloud of chitin, legs, stingers, and fangs. Nanku set them biting and stabbing, and the gunfire erupted wildly. One man caught sight of Dusk skittering through the swarm.

Dawn stabbed into his back before he could fire, her wings beating furiously. She took off and pulled him from the ground.

Dusk lunged as his feet cleared, biting into another man and clamping down hard. His scything talons cut, severing an arm as the finger stiffly pulled the trigger. Bullets sprayed through the woods. Her swarm was so thick several bugs were struck and died.

She had plenty more.

At the sound of the gunfire, the men in the house all turned.

"Idiots," the cape snapped, turning in Nanku's direction.

She stabbed her wrist blades through his mouth, grabbed the back of his skull, and pulled him in until the tips pierced through the top of his skull.

No more seeing through her cloak.

Anyone who could do that died.

And just to be sure, Nanku swiped a shuriken from her belt, released the blades, and cut the man's head off.

The body tumbled to the floor, and she threw the head across the room. The men with the guns followed the sound, their eyes confused and their fingers twitching. Most maintained control. Two opened fire and blew the discarded skull apart.

"Shit," Alabaster watched the body crumple to the floor. "Victor's dead… Othala's gonna—"

Nanku cut his head off and started counting.

"Holy shit!" someone snapped. "Right—"

Nanku flung her wrist, and the shuriken cut through the air. The blade sheared through the rifle he held, starting at the front of the barrel and going all the way through into his shoulder. The blades kept going as he screamed and collapsed toward the ground.

Nanku rolled.

Bullets chased her shimmer, splattering across the wooden floor and sending splinters into the air.

"I don't see him!"

"Right there! The shi—"

Nanku bolted upright, lunging forward and throwing her shoulder into his stomach. Her hand grabbed his gun as he fired, turning the weapon so the bullets sprayed the two on his flank. The man looked down and found his resolve quickly. His knee came up as his elbow dropped in an attempt to catch her.

She swung her foot up and around, kicking him in the jaw to stun him, and spun herself free. Wrist blades cut through his leg clean, and the man dropped to the ground, where she slammed her other foot down onto his throat and pushed. He gagged, and she leveraged her strength until the bones in his neck began to crack.

"Six," Nanku added.

Outside, Dusk and Dawn ripped and tore. They ran and flew through the swarm of smaller stinging and biting insects, taking men from behind or lunging from shadows.

One of the other groups outside moved toward them while Nanku crushed her target's throat.

To her side, Alabaster sat up. "Damn y—"

Nanku raised her hand. She captured her shuriken and swung the weapon through his neck. Alabaster's head rolled a second time.

Five seconds. Did it vary?

A quick look didn't find the first one. Switching vision modes on her mask didn't help. The head was simply gone.

Bullets fired, and Nanku sprinted through the room. The rounds came close, but only one struck her. The shell bounced off her armored chest and rattled her cloak. The shooter twitched as she turned and fired again.

Nanku bounced left and then right. She raised her knee, covering her stomach with the armor around her leg.

Another round bounced off the metal, and Nanku threw her foot out in a kick.

The man's knee cracked, and he toppled. At his side, the next man swung his gun around. Nanku cut it in half, slammed her forehead into his unguarded chin, and stabbed her shuriken into his gut. She forced her hand upward, tearing through his armor and opening him like a gutted pig.

The last two bodies dropped, and Nanku tapped her leg against the floor.

The bullet hurt, but she'd bruise at worst.

Outside, Nanku's swarm swept back and swallowed the second pack of men outside. Dusk and Dawn followed, tearing their way through while Nanku ensured guns were always pointing the wrong way as they fired.

Only one jammed.

Her plan to pack the receivers and barrels full of spider silk hadn't worked out like she'd hoped. Shame. That would have been a useful trick.

With the fall of the second pack, only four gunmen remained. One of them was swelling up. Allergic to bee stings, apparently. Some 'superior' race.

"Really?" Alabaster sighed. "Just gonna kill everyone?"

Nanku turned and looked at him. His eyes swept over her, aware of the spot she was standing but clearly not knowing exactly where she was.

"That's a choice." He rubbed at his neck as he stood. "Even we don't do that."

Nanku would laugh, but that would give her away.

Alabaster grabbed a gun and stood up. "Shit. I'm gonna have to explain this, you know. Especially if you up and ran out—"

Nanku swung her shuriken through his back and severed his spine. The man fell to the ground, and she crouched. She'd been too busy before to really watch, but things were cleaning up now.

Dusk took one of the remaining three men from the side.

Dawn swooped down on another.

The last fired wildly, flailing and screaming as wasps, bees, and black widows swarmed his body.

No more bad bloods.

And she had a prisoner.

That was more than she expected in a much shorter amount of time.

Alabaster exhaled, his body flickering.

It was odd to watch. One moment, he was covered in his own blood with his spine opened wide. The next moment he was fine, pushing himself up and sighing.

"Guess you're having fun," he mumbled.

Nanku looked around. "A little."

The man did the same. "So you're invisible?"

Nanku didn't answer. She crept toward one of the corpses and looked at his belt. She had lines of her own. Hardy and impossible for someone like Alabaster to break. She wanted to minimize her trail, though.

She'd already failed once on that front tonight.

Earth was becoming a damn mess of mistakes and stupid errors. It was exhausting in its own way.

"You know I can't die, right?" Alabaster picked up a gun from the floor. "It's kind of my thing."

Nanku proceeded to cover her tracks.

The webbing from the guns was removed by spiders. Wasps, hornets, and other spiders collected the dead bodies and consumed them or ferried them away. Nanku wanted to keep her advantage for as long as possible. She'd have to gather all the corpses up and destroy them so no one noticed the bites.

It was a good thing she didn't care for trophies.

"I'm basically immortal," Alabaster declared in the same bored voice.

Nanku scoffed and drove her spear through his chest. She pinned the man to the ground with her foot and leaned over. The eyes on her mask flashed through her cloak, and she counted the corpses she'd produced in a short period of time.

"Everything dies."

A backhanded blow snapped Alabaster's neck, and Nanku pulled on the line she'd taken and began binding his arms and legs.

She had questions for Alabaster, and if there was any bonus to a not-quite immortal man, it was that no amount of torture would kill him.

She could work as long as she wanted.

~ ~ ~

Alabaster swung back and forth behind her, suspended from a rafter. The line was taught, leaving his hair sweeping the concrete. She'd bound it tight, ensnaring his arms behind his back and his legs at the ankles and thighs. Never tie only the ankles.

It provided too much leverage.

"Really?" he asked. "We're going Eddie Jemison and Thomas Jane on this one?"

Nanku didn't know who those people were.

And she didn't care.

Her armored toe-tip cracked into his skull.

It was annoying that he didn't just die, but on the other hand, even that had its uses.

Nanku swept the surrounding streets with her swarm, but there was no sign of any pursuit.

They hadn't sent anyone else to watch, which meant they had nothing. Any evidence burned with the Bakeman family home—and the widescreen—along with anything Nanku could think of. All the bodies, their phones, their guns, and most of the bug corpses.

The Earth's enforcers were thorough.

Nanku hoped she'd cleaned up enough.

Alabaster sighed.

"I know we're not ones to complain," he grumbled, "but damn whoever you are. Not even thirty-six hours, and you've made what? Three dozen corpses?"

"Dead Nazis," Nanku said.

"Yeah, yeah. The only good Nazi is a—"

Nanku kicked him again as she walked past.

The storehouse was dark. The surrounding streets and buildings were quiet. Mostly empty.

The clinic across the street was a bit busy, but it was far enough away. Nanku didn't have a good idea of where else to go. She hadn't had time to find a new den to replace the Bakeman house.

Now that it was burned down, all she had was an abandoned warehouse.

At least she had someone to take it out on.

"You're not familiar"—Alabaster cracked his neck—"with the unwritten rules, are you?"

Her mother mentioned those.

She's searched for them on the internet, but the results were… vague. "Explain them."

"Well, for one, you don't just go straight to kill everyone. That's Slaughterhouse Nine stuff. Fast way to get everyone trying to kill you."

"They'll try."

"You've got the terrorizing voice down. I—"

Nanku drove a spear through his throat and left it there.

"One. Two. Three."

She'd timed out his power. About four seconds. Five seconds, and he miraculously recovered from any wound.

"Four—"

Nanku ripped her spear from his throat, and Alabaster gargled.

"Seriously… You're gonna have everyone after your head."

Would she? "Oh well."

That was likely inevitable. She didn't see the point in worrying about it.

The arrogance to think he was 'immortal' was Alabaster's folly.

Nanku crouched. The lights were out, and she didn't think he could see her. She was certain he sensed her proximity.

All animals had a rudimentary capacity to sense danger when it was near.

"Unwritten rules don't allow killing?" Nanku asked.

Was that why it happened so rarely? Made sense. The Yautja relied on honor codes rather than systematic law. Why not parahumans? Still. Something about action and words didn't line up in her mind.

"Of course not. You just don't jump right to it. Seriously? You have n—"

Nanku supposed they rolled up with two dozen guns solely to give her a stern warning.

"Why are the Pure trying to kill Weaver?" she asked.

"What? Why do—"

Nanku drove her knife into his thigh.

He didn't make a sound of pain in response.

"Do you live under a rock?"

"Why?"

"Damn, black bitches are dumb."

Nanku tilted her head.

Then she slashed his face off and stabbed him through the heart out of principle.

Nazis were something she wished she couldn't remember. They were so profoundly unpleasant. And she'd dealt with a lot of unpleasantness whenever she crossed paths with a clan other than her own.

Nanku rolled her shoulders and waited for him to flicker back to life. She did another check of the area while she waited. Still nothing. Just a pair of women walking their dogs and a few passing cars.

Alabaster restored himself, and she readied another blow when the lights flashed on.

Nanku turned, snarling as one of the women on the street turned toward the building. There was a remote in her hand. A remote for a building. That was a thing now?

"Something unexpected?" Alabaster asked.

She was getting tired of the unexpected.

Nanku sent Dusk and Dawn into the rafters and pulled herself up after them. She caught hold of her own line and pulled Alabaster into the darkness.

"Is this any way to greet a—"

She muzzled him by stabbing a knife into his mouth and leaving it there. At least it kept him quiet, and his power cleaned up any mess. Nanku activated her cloak and sent Dusk and Dawn to the corners where the shadows were dark enough.

The door opened, and the women entered.

They were young. The blonde girl with dark skin was younger, a smile on her face and a golden retriever trotting in ahead of her.

"But maybe we should ask for help?" she said. "You haven't even—"

"Won't do anything." The second woman was tall and muscular, her hair wild and brownish-red. She had a serious, angry look on her face and two dogs on chains. "Not wasting time."

The dogs were a pair. One with a cape collar and another. Small and wiry with a missing eye. The third came in at the rear.

"Rachel," the other girl mumbled. "Um, I mean—"

"Shut up."

"Sorry. Sorry, I—"

"Shut up."

The dogs all snarled, growing as they sniffed the air.

Fuck.

Nanku drew her knife and eyed a side door. She could get out that way, but the sheer number of inconvenient crap—

The dogs looked up and began barking.

The red-haired girl lifted her head and snarled.

Nanku was still hidden in her cloak.

The stupid arrogant piece of Nazi shit wasn't.