Shadow of the Huntress 1

Standing in front of the gate for Central High School, I was having trouble believing that I was going to spend my whole year there. It had been years since I had done any full-time education, and even then, it was hardly conventional. While it was normal for an eighteen-year-old boy to not wanting to the school due to a range of reasons, be it boredom or bullying, my reason was rather unique.

And it was about the state of the disrepair the school was in -though it was a small miracle it passed a health inspection to allow it to function as a school. The garden was an unpleasant mess, filled with trash and occasional debris, and the building itself was littered with patches of broken paint, shattered windows, even occasional scorched spot; carefully created to give the impression of out-of-control gang warfare, though not well enough to trick me. Still, most of the details were actually correct, suggesting that gang warfare was just a front for something more. 

Something more sinister, something more dangerous… 

Something supernatural… 

Funnily enough, even the presence of deadly supernatural dangers wasn’t the source of my reluctance. After all, I couldn’t have done my job with distinction if I was afraid of a short tumble with an extra-dimensional demon or an eldritch abomination strong enough to pop my head like a grape. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to work as a troubleshooter/spy for a shady governmental agency. It was a tough job without a certain disregard for mortal danger after all. 

No, my reason for not liking the assignment was simpler. I didn’t want to be stuck to the same location for a whole year. Boredom was one aspect of it, but more importantly, holding a stationary position meant that instead of ambushing my targets like I was used to, I was going to be the one being ambushed. 

Moreover, for all my achievements, it wasn’t my combat skills that allowed me to get the position. No, I was there, because I was the only spy in the agency under twenty-five, meaning I was the only one with a realistic chance to integrate the situation with a subterfuge. Apparently, teachers were a much more difficult cover story, enough that the last two attempts had failed, rather spectacularly, even. 

One would think that infiltrating a shitty school shouldn’t be trouble for an organization that, for all intents and purposes, was a spying bureau. Unfortunately, the school was under observation by another organization, the Council of Nine. Not only it was older than his own nascent organization, or even older than almost all countries, but also they had access to several supernatural resources. Through both, it was trivial for them to set up background checks for teachers deep enough to catch any irregularity on the carefully-prepared backgrounds of the spies. 

I was here basically as a bet that they weren’t extending the same resources for every single student, likely betting on the fact that anyone without decades of training wouldn’t be really useful in here, something that couldn’t be attained by someone that was yet to enter his third decade in life without a supernatural trait, something that would be quite easy to detect through scrying spells. 

Unfortunately for them, I was quite unique. 

But consideration on the extraordinary development of my skill set had fallen wayside when my attention was grabbed by a particularly striking young lady, prowling the corridor like she owned it, briefly pausing riposte the verbal jab from another girl who had dressed in a stylish manner that shouted rich girl, sexy enough to hold my attention if it wasn’t for my target. 

I knew the name of the prowling girl from the extensive mission dossier. Her name was Alicia Turner, and she had a pretty normal background for most of her life. An average student whose poor grades more about her lack of focus rather than ability, her above-average athletic abilities applied to get a position on the cheerleading team. A divorced family, custody taken by her mother, with a big sister three years older than her spending most of her time in college. In other words, a completely ordinary background. 

That all changed three years ago, where a confusing police report about her beating two homeless attackers to death with her bare hands; a police report that had disappeared just a few minutes after it had been registered, and soon after, Alicia had fallen off the grid, only to appear three months later, as a student of Central High School, a place with a suspicious number of disappearances, including death of another female student just days before Alicia’s transfer, who had a suspiciously similar background in terms of disappearing police reports and sudden bouts of violence. Rather suspicious. 

Of course, for the people with access to the supernatural world, there was a simpler explanation. Alicia was a Huntress, a part of the supernaturally enhanced female warriors, with a special aptitude to remove threats that the public wasn’t aware of. Of course, the exact details of their powers, their endowment process, or other limits were mostly unknown to anyone other than the Council of Nine, who had the monopoly in managing and leading these warriors in their long and shrouded history. 

I was here to penetrate that mystery. 

Though not only for that, I decided. I would be lying that if I was going to keep my penetrating activities limited to mysteries surrounding her. Seeing her pictures was one thing, but observing her as she walked the corridors with all the grace of a tigress, the tightness of her jeans revealing the shape of her fit hips that nevertheless didn’t give a true hint of the power that was hidden in her depths. Her top was equally tight, displaying her relatively small as much as her tight sports bra had allowed. Of course, I also noticed three well-concealed weapons on her body, one blade under her boots, one thin knife hidden in her sock, and a barely noticeable of a sword in her bag, likely a gladius if I was calculating the length and width correctly from its subtle outline. 

Altogether, she was a delicious, but dangerous package, and even the thought of unwrapping her sent my heart to overdrive. It wasn’t exactly professional, maybe, but they should have thought that before sending me directly after two months where I hunted several snow demons at Eastern Alps with almost no human contact. After that, the school with a gaggle of sexy girl in my age was simply a buffet, and the spectacular Huntress in front of me was the dessert. 

I was tempted to go and talk with her, but such action would bring on the scrutiny I was trying to avoid, so instead, I turned my attention away from her, and started walking towards the first class in my schedule, tasked to observe everything around the school, a phase that might take weeks before I had a mission with the slightest hint of action. A mind-numbingly boring task altogether... 

Luckily, there was a lot of eye candy around to make the part palatable…

*****     *****     *****     *****     *****     

For more than once I had to identify the power balance between the paramilitary rebel groups to incite infighting that would make their group implode, all the while masquerading as a fresh recruit. Compared to that, a school filled by hormonal high-schoolers might as well be an open book against my skills. I had managed to map the power structure of the school in less than two days; every petty block, influence area, and possible developments, including a couple of teachers that were likely acting as an informant for the Council of Nine. Though most, I just ignored, focusing on the people around my target, Alicia. 

Alicia’s core group had been surprisingly small. She had her primary handler, a woman in her thirties, taken the lore of the librarian for disguise, quite a sexy one at that even though she tried to hide it with poor makeup and serious clothing. It was easy to discover Alicia was spending most of her time in the library, working as her assistant, which gave her the excuse she needed. But I stayed away from the library. There was no way the handler of a Huntress was inexperienced, and poking around her domain was an easy way to bring unwanted attention, followed by my likely disappearance. It was best not to poke around before I could get a better handle of her abilities. 

Luckily, Alicia had a more accessible chink in her armor, namely, her two friends. I had been expecting her to be friendless, more focused on her extermination missions, so learning that she had two close friends surprised me. I was especially pleased when, after a brief observation, I discovered that they were a pair of normal students without any martial training, but still aware of Alicia’s true nature. I was willing to bet that their relationship started when Alicia had saved their life from mortal danger. 

Her friends were named Emma and Harrison, and from what I could gather, before they started hanging around with Alicia, they were unnoticeable by the other students, happy in their nerdy world, though they were getting more and more attention by hanging around with Alicia. Harrison had a quite obvious crush on Alicia, while Emma nursed an almost equally obvious one toward Harrison, which he somehow managed to miss. How, I had no idea, as I managed to notice it remotely. 

Moreover, I was able to catch my ticket into the group just as easily. Some of the mid-tier girls were quite annoyed by the fact that Emma was friends with Alicia without doing anything to deserve her popularity -not helped by the fact that Emma had a cute kind of beauty, but lacked the confidence to flaunt it by wearing optimal attire or makeup, flaming their jealousy even further. So, these girls took themselves to educate her about the place she deserved through petty bullying whenever she was alone, something she was too shy to fight back, or ask help. 

Hence the reason I had registered into the computer class, a class that neither Alicia nor Harrison took, leaving Emma defenseless against possible pranks by the other girls. For the class, and for my general prestige, I chose my style carefully. There was no way my dressing could be classified as sharp or classy, and definitely not rich, as in a high school, the only thing that created more buzz than a rich transfer student was a slutty teenager. So I dressed poorly, but not as poorly to make it a conversation topic, nor geeky enough to catch the attention of the nerds. As far as the school was concerned, I was another gray transfer student, the kind that might disappear the next day with exactly zero impact. 

I went to the classroom several minutes to spare, examining the setup. I needed to pick a seat close enough to allow me to interact with my target, while still allowing me to observe the whole class. Not that I was expecting to be attacked, but old habits died hard. I doubted I could give my full focus to the task in hand if my back was against the entrance or against the window. I could still function, of course, but it would be much more stressful; not a good start for an assignment that would take weeks, or even months. 

And there was the question of where Emma would sit. Normally, one might expect her to sit closer to the teacher, but I felt that I had enough handle on her personality to know that she would choose one nearer to the back of the class, avoiding teacher’s attention. After all, if she had been willing to ask for help, she would have asked Alicia’s help, or brought it to the faculty’s attention before things had escalated to this level. 

Confident in my deduction, I chose a seat towards the back of the class, but not the one that was directly next to the one that I expected her to pick. My presence would probably have been enough to drive her to another seat, and even if it didn’t, it might have dissuaded her bullies from taking action, which would have ruined my plans to play the gallant knight. 

I took my seat, observing the small trickle of students. Computer class wasn’t one of the popular ones, a combination of bad teaching and old equipment. Most students were in the class a few minutes before the teacher, but Emma waited until the last moment, entering the room just a couple steps before the teacher, who was far too bored and depressed to even comment about it. 

The clothes Emma was wearing was even more drab and unnoticeable than her usual picks, a horrible dark gray top that looked loose enough fit an obese person, and slightly tighter sweatpants, just enough to ensure their presence around her waist. Her makeup was practically nonexistent, and her lovely brown hair was gathered in a careless ponytail. Not a bad attempt to stay invisible for an amateur, though she had overplayed it a bit too much. She dashed towards the back of the class and huddled to a corner, just another part of her attempted invisibility, and turned on her computer. 

But her attempts to hide was doomed to failure, like a dove that had tried to hide only after catching the attention of a pack of hyenas; camouflage was no help once the scavengers had discovered the hiding place. A few minutes into the class, two girls changed their seats, picking two directly in front of Emma. 

“It’s a wonder how useless and ugly some people could be, but still dare to come to the school,” said one of them in a stage whisper, while the other giggled before answering with a comment on the bone-breaking smell of certain people. Neither comments were true, of course, but that mattered little for the bullies; as accuracy was seldom needed in insults, especially targeting someone with poor self-esteem. For Emma, it was doubly so, because, during the night, she had been dealing with supernatural dangers, only to find herself unable to defend against the smallest insults. 

I waited for almost ten minutes, listening to their escalating insults, before pulling a small thermos of coffee from my bag, and walked towards Emma’s bullies. “Sorry, girls,” I murmured, acting shy. “Can you show me how to do we login to the assignment server?” 

“Here,” barked one of them while clicking a folder on the desktop, clearly marked as assignments. “Are you blind?” 

The next thing I was going to do was already planned, but her annoying attitude made it even more satisfying to actually go through with it. I made a show of pulling back in panic, but ‘somehow’, the head of my coffee mug fly off, drenching both girls with lukewarm, smelly coffee. 

“I’m so sorry!” I said exaggeratedly, but chose that moment to make eye-contact with Emma, and winked at her. She gawked at me in shock while the girls raised hell, insulting my clumsiness repeatedly until teacher fed up with it and allowed them to leave early to clean themselves, with a strong admonishment towards my way to be more careful, all without the slightest change in his bored tone, devoid of any infliction.

I walked back to my seat, only stopping enough to send another wink towards Emma’s way to communicate that it hadn’t been an accident before taking my seat. For the rest of the class, I acted like I was listening to the class, though I made sure to occasionally glance towards her way, catching her looking at me with every repeat, only for her to avoid in an instant, with a noticeable increase in her blush.  

I had been hoping that she would gather enough courage to stay after the class to talk, something she obviously wanted to do, but her shyness proved to be stronger, and she was the first one to dash out of the class when it finally ended.

No matter. It wasn’t like I lacked the opportunities to arrange a more impressive first encounter. 

*****     *****     *****     *****     *****     

The next few encounters between me and Emma had progressed in the same manner. Spread across a few days, I had managed to block several bullying attempts, some more directly, some more obscurely; just hanging enough to make eye contact with Emma in every repeat, but never initiating a discussion. She hadn’t done so as well, despite her obvious desire to do so. And from a perspective, it had been a fortunate development, because, during one of those nights, I had an unlucky encounter with a minor demon, which caused a nasty bruise that took a few days to recover, one that I needed to keep hidden to avoid suspicion. 

She managed to finally break her silence in one early morning. Her bullies had tried to corner her in front of her locker, timing their imitation of an assault when Alicia was in another wing of the building for her class, but one of them had stumbled at the last moment, courtesy of my carefully-positioned leg, collided with her friend, and allowed Emma to slid away before they could envelop her again, all without a physical confrontation that she lacked the courage to start. 

I managed to slip away before the bullies could identify as the source of their troubles, but this time, when I returned to my locker a few minutes later, Emma was waiting for me at the corner, obscured from the view of the others, standing still despite her wavering determination. I gave her a wave and a wink as usual, but this time, she chose to speak. It was a soft, wavering hello, one that was easy to miss in the background noise, but I decided to cut her some slack. 

“Hi,” I answered, but didn’t really struggled much to actually bring things to a new level. 

It several more seconds for her to speak once more, once again in a barely-audible whisper. “Can we talk for a moment?”

“Sure,” I said as I took a step forward, bringing me in the same cozy nook she had been hiding. She took a hurried step back to keep the distance, but that didn’t make much difference, as the nook was quite small. “How can I help you?” 

“Why are you helping me?” she said, her tone, while still being a whisper, carrying a much sharper impression, hinting a steely personality that I might actually like, one that she had to have to stand against the horrors of the night. It was too bad that it flashed only momentarily before disappearing behind the wall of crippling shyness. 

“I abhor bullies,” I explained simply. She looked shocked, but I continued before giving her time to come up with a response. “I don’t know why you’re not fighting back or bringing the faculty on it, but I’m willing to believe you have a reason that makes sense, at least to yourself. But still, I can’t really resist someone in need.” 

“I see,” she murmured. “But it’s for the best if you don’t. I need to face them alone.” 

“If that’s your choice,” I said with a nod. “But I have a condition.” 

A more confident person would have bristled against the forced condition, but again, she wouldn’t have been in this situation if she had been a more confident person. “What is it?” she murmured. 

I quickly scribbled a number to paper and passed it to her. “It’s my number. I want you to call me if they dare to actually do something bad enough that you need help. I won’t accept it otherwise.” 

“But…” she murmured, but I cut her off. 

“That’s non-negotiable,” I continued in a sharp, but compassionate tone. “It’s clear that you want to hide the situation from your friends or family for some reason. It’ll be better if you know that you have someone in your corner to help you when needed.” 

Several expressions danced on her face, from shame to exultation, but in the end, it settled into a determined calmness with a hint of hope. “I accept,” she managed to murmur, and dashed away before I could say anything else. 

“Fucking finally,” I murmured after she disappeared, happy that I could finally move to the next phase of my plan...