Chapter Nine.

No one paid much attention to our arrival at The Last Drop. Surprisingly a band was setting up on the stage and I can’t remember the last time I saw live music being played here. Usually it was a DJ, set up in the corner just to the left of the curtain or sometimes on quieter nights, just the jukebox. For just on sunset, it was actually busier than I’d expect it to be. Maybe the band were good enough to draw in a crowd?

“Drink?” He asked, letting me go.

I shrugged; one drink wouldn’t hurt. “Sure.”

I followed him out of the staff room and while I went to the guest side of the old wooden bar that was as familiar to me as the Academy was, Cain went for the vodka; soon pouring us both a shot. The demon at the bar gave me a once over as I sat beside him and narrowing my eyes, he didn’t back down.

“What?”

“Forgot you types came here. New management could change the rules.” He snarled; almost demanding it as he turned his gaze on, Leo. How could he just do that changing thing so easily and without me noticing? “Shifter.”

He spat that out like it was a bad thing. Typically I would agree; apart from a small clan miles from here - shifters and werewolves were not anywhere near the top of my list of favourite supernaturals. Cain stood to his full height, the bulk of muscle and beard squaring off against the creature beside me. I casually took down my vodka, wincing from the burn as it hit the back of my throat.

“The rules stay the same.”

“You’re out of your league.” The demon threatened. Stronger than a shifter, but not bold enough to go against a vampire. Interesting. “A few of us are for it.”

This has the promise of getting nasty, as a couple of the figures beside him all join in. They nod, a series of mumbled agreement rising from them. Leo looks like he is one step away from attack mode and while I’ve never been shy around a bar fight, I’d rather not deal with that tonight. If I could get some answers and a drink, I’d be happy. Oh, and to be home in time before anyone knows I’m gone or that I have been out. Any signs of a fight wouldn’t work in my favour.

“What are you?” I interrupt, genuinely curious.

“Demon.” It answers; thick eyebrows bunching together in obvious aggravation. Flaking, rough skin covered the top of his hands, gaining my attention as he clenched his fists. I decide to take the high road, and not piss it off any more than it already was. The urge to tell him about an invention called moisturizer never actually left my mouth.

So instead, I give him a ‘really’ kind of look and motion to Leo for a refill - which I don’t get. “Obviously.”

“Watch yourself, little girl.” He warns.

Leo growled; a reminder of his panther costume that he currently had on. Clearly shifters don’t make good bar help and I don’t hold my breath in regards to fixing the problem of an empty glass..

With a slight flutter of my eyelashes, I instead looked up to the demon and let out a small laugh which only seemed to confuse him.  “You don’t know who I am do you?”

“Hunter.” He says like it’s no big deal. The demon beside him leans over to get a look too, winks at me and takes a long sip of his beer as if to try and impress me. His skin is worse than his buddies, the dryness isn’t just on his hands, but up his exposed arms and all over his face. The dark muscle shirt he has on is covered in tiny white flakes and the vodka isn’t sitting as easy in my stomach as it once was.

“Ten points to you, but I’m the Hunter you should be nicer too.” I try again for a refill.

“Oh?” He turns his focus solely to me now, all of his flakey friends do. “And why is that?”

Then again, I wouldn’t see me as much of a threat right now either. One, I’ve just had a shot of vodka. Two, my head still hurts a little from whatever Cain just took me away from. Three, I’m on my own with a panther as back up an four, he has at least six friends with him. Not exactly a fair fight.

“Heard of Elise Bunting?” The demon nods. “Now you’ve met her too.”

They don’t even try to hide the fact they’re looking at me now. One stumbles off his chair to stand beside this guy and I still don’t have a new drink. Someone gasps, and I can’t help feel a little - proud?

“You let, her, in here?” Demon one turns back to Leo, pointing a rather sharp claw of a nail in my direction. “Do you not understand what she does to our kind?”

“Even your species!” Another joins in.

“Rules are rules. Get out if you have an issue with it.” Leo says much calmer than I think he would have a few minutes earlier.

“The vampire was soft on these things too.” He snaps at Leo. “One day, we will make you all grovel at our feet and beg-” Leo has his hand around the demons throat, his hand shifting to a panthers claw in the blink of an eye. Few shifters can do such changes, or move that fast - and still keep control of what they’re doing without shifting completely.

Leo isn’t like other panthers.

“Get out before I kill you and mount your head on my wall.” He snarls, his teeth sharp and prepared to make good on the threat.

Blood, almost black in colour, oozes out from the wrinkled skin where his nails have dug into flesh. The demon tries to fight, but Leo doesn’t even flinch; doesn’t notice and his eyes appear to glow yellow under the bar lights. The group all stand up, unsure whether to fight or flight. No one moves. The band go quiet as they pause, the other drinkers around the bar all freeze, and the chatter from the tables disappears like someone flicked a switch. The regulars know Leo isn’t quite what he seems, just like how they knew Darius wasn’t your average vampire.

These guys should really know better.

“You got a problem with the rules?” Leo asks.

“N-n-no Sir.” The demon stutters, closing his eyes as his struggles to free himself stop. “Sorry.”

Leo lets him go, using enough force so that he doesn’t just stumble back, but falls with a loud thump like he was thrown there.

“Last warning.” Leo tells him, before pulling out his cloth and wiping up the mess that was made when he knocked the demons beer over in the process of grabbing him.

The room comes back to life and the demons gather their fallen friend and shuffle down to the other end of the room, as far away from us as possible. Not one of them dares to look back either.

“Damn, I was really hoping I had a better rep than that. Where was the fear?” I sigh, and finally my glass is refilled. “I was hoping they’d make a run for the door cartoon style.”

“They were scared. I smelt it.” He tells me with a tiny grin that I almost missed thanks to his facial hair. “Now, what were you doing out in that field?”

Ah, back to business.

“What were you?” I ask.

“Looking for you. Portia came to me as soon as you left her.” He shrugs.

“Funny that.” There is no hiding the bitter edge to my tone.

“You’re marked.” His hand reached out to grab my arm, pulling up my sleeve to reveal the trio of moon shapes.

“Yup!” I take my shot.

“Aren’t you curious about it?”

“I was, but, no, not really..” He doesn’t believe me. “I’m going to pretend it’s not there.”

Cain frowns and instead giving me another shot he mixes the vodka with lemonade and a wedge of lime. “Just, pretend it’s not there? That’s your plan?”

“Sure? It obviously means something bad right, I really doubt anything you’re involved in is good and I’m going to be thanking you for it later.” He says nothing. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

He takes way too long to answer, even going as far as moving up the bar to get a vampire a tray of tequila shots. It’s then I notice our little end section has been abandoned, almost like someone has drawn a line around us to keep it sectioned off from the rest of the place.

Maybe I do have a reputation or maybe no one wants to mess with the unusual shifter who now runs the bar.

“It’s not, bad.” He finally answers.

“But it’s not good?”

He shrugs.

“I’ve got so many things I want to ask, that I want to say. I thought I had worked out enough to see Portia and I spent weeks going over and over everything I would demand her to tell me. I read up on Oracles, not just to know what I was dealing with, but to see if there was anything in there about you too. I ended up getting sent back in time, where I thought I could get answers to questions I don’t even know anymore, but instead, here I am and, just, what ever!” I sigh, sipping my drink and wishing it was stronger now.

“Whatever?” He repeats.

“Yup. So who’s playing tonight?” I change the subject and swing myself around on the stool to face the stage.

“I will tell you what you want to know Elise, ask any question and I will give you an answer.” Cain tells me seriously.

“I just asked one.” I motion to the stage.

“Hunter, why were you in the field?” His voice is strained and I’m clearly testing his patience.

What.

Ever.

It’s a good motto, and I feel like it could be catching. Like ‘Hakuna Matata’, but with more attitude.

“What-” I pause, stirring him up further. “-does that matter?

“That field is out of bounds. The fence was spelled so no one could over there. Dark magic leaves more of a footprint that than the light. If you had stayed out there for much longer, well, I doubt you could be recovered.” My chair starts to move, swinging me around to face him again. Cheap trick. “How did you get in there?”

“I climbed the fence. Maybe the magic is broken?” It happens, but I doubt they would have used a young or weak spellcaster to block that place off. So why could I go there?

“You just climbed on over?”

“Yup.”

“Okay, what did you see?”

Why am I even talking to him? Technically, he and Portia are the only real threat I know of right now, but for some reason I can’t bring myself to really think of them, or at least him, that way.

“That night.” I gulp down more of my drink.

He’s clearly expecting more of an answer than that, but I don’t want to give one. I don’t really know.

“Fair enough. Why were you screaming when I got there?”

“That Warlock was coming to get me. You know, the one that killed me.” Again, I get that look that literally translates to, and then… “Huntington, well, Portia’s magic. It worked on me and while I was there, it stopped. I forgot about the curse, the one she told Zane about and then made it so everyone would forget. Including me, only you said-”

“Her magic wouldn’t affect you because of mine.” He finished.

Once more I felt him disappearing despite standing right there. I almost expected him to go over to the others and serve up a few more rounds of orders again, but he didn’t move.

“What does this mean?” I finally ask, holding up my wrist.

“I met a girl once, funnily enough looked just like you.” He starts, scratching his chin. “She helped me, perhaps even saved my life from a cowards attack.”

Me?

“I’ve done a lot of, bad, things in my time Elise.”

“No shit.” I mumble, taking another sip of my drink. He ignores that.

“Why would someone ever help me? Especially like that. For me to die, well, it would have made many very, very happy.” He pours himself a shot now. Not a good sign.

“Like a Siren trapped in a cave, mermaids stuck in their realm. Maybe a cursed God, or the countless others I’m sure you’ve pissed off over the centuries?”

“Precisely.” Cain nods.

The doors open and a group of vampires walk in, nothing interesting about them. One has a human at her side, though the way they’re instantly making out in the back corner is more disturbing than anything else they could have been doing instead. The band strikes up, a Bon Jovi cover filling the room and a crowd appears as the assortment of beings rise up from their tables and booths to dance.

It also makes it harder to talk and Cain realises this as I turn to look back at him, and he shakes his head. Obviously he had just said something to me I couldn’t hear. No words were needed as he grabbed our vodka and his glass, moving towards the staff room. I follow.

“They’re good.” I tell him as he shuts the door behind me.

All we hear in here is a slight throbbing echo from the base and the words of Livin’ on a Prayer disappear.

“They’re okay.” He takes a seat behind his desk and looking around the room, nothing has changed since the last time I came here.

“So, you pissed off a lot of people and really, I should have let you die?” I try to sound disinterested, but fail. I know I sound desperate to hear more and, well, I am.

“If you had, who would have saved your life, or your Trackers or the world as you know it had the Warlocks succeeded?” He taunted.

“You know, I thought that exact same thing at the time.” I mused.

This doesn’t seem to surprise him.

“As I was saying, I met a girl. I’ve seen many changes in my life. Machines and technology, religion, and of course - the people. This girl was stranger still. Her name, was Darius.”

I can already feel my cheeks heating up, but if he comments on it, I’ll blame the alcohol. “Funny! I see what you did there.”

He smirks and takes a shot before offering me on. I decline.

“This girl didn’t just try to kill a god for me, she gave my eyes, my Oracle, a vision.”

“She sounds pretty amazing what with saving lives, giving off visions, totally rocking mens fashion of the era.”

“She is.” Cain confirms without missing a beat. “The problem we had was that we didn’t know when she would appear again. After she left, and we went to the meeting, Portia had enough vision, a string connecting our friend, Alistair to this girl. She was Bunting.”

“Lucky her!” This time I helped myself to a shot. “What did you get him to do by the way? I heard your little pre-treaty assassination attempt chat.”

“Alistair was a brilliant man. I respected him, a lot. Yet, he was so, righteous. You hero types usually are. I was just, fucking with him really.” I barely raise an eyebrow and he shrugged. “He didn’t like killing unless it was necessary. He prided himself on it, tried to get others to think like him. I was going to be weak after this Treaty business, and so, I simply got him to kill a few enemies of mine that may try to take advantage of it. Plus one that Portia saw becoming a threat in the future.”

“He didn’t want to do your dirty work, by killing them?”

“No. For starters, one of them was his brother and another was a vampire who led a small coven that he had already called truce with. It would be like me asking you to kill your vampire and then your vampires blood sucking family.”

Oddly I couldn’t care less about vampires right now or any friendships I had with them. my jaw dropped before I could even try and keep my emotions hidden. I wanted to shrug it off, act like it was nothing only I failed and Cain actually laughed at my reaction. What he said about Alistair was too much, and to imagine someone in my family doing something like that to please someone like Cain had the vodka burning its way back up my throat.

I thought over everything I knew about our family. My ancestor was famous, and surely something would be recorded about a sibling. That was it. Cain had to by lying. Alistair didn’t have a brother. He was an only child!

“You, he, but-” I couldn’t even make the words come out.

“He was little more than the bastard son of a womanizing alcoholic and a whore of a witch. Some how your dearest relative managed to survive his adolescence and have a conscious. Ferguson was everything Alistair wasn’t. He did the world a favour, and I rewarded him by bringing the Treaty to life.”

“It’s built on lies.” I snap.

How could something that is meant to stand for what is good and right stem from this, monster?

Cain only shrugs. “It’s done. Anyway, so Portia found out who the girl was connected to. I guess fate worked in our favour for the first time in a long time. Thing is, she made a deal. To forget. Before that happened, I wanted her to be marked as a reminder so we would know her when we saw her again.”

“Marked?”

“You could call it a curse.” He shrugs again, like none of this is a big deal.

“What did Portia see when she had the vision of me?” I demand, leaning forward in my chair. "If I'm marked, what's the curse?"

So much for not caring, the questions start to build up and I doubt I'll be able to stop once I start asking them. Somehow I keep my mouth shut after just two and Cain thinks them over for a moment.

“You’re my key back home.”

My stomach sunk. “What?”

He took a shot, going quiet as I just stared at him.

“You tick all the boxes Hunter. The first being, you are a Hunter; the product of something good I created. You do good and have conquered great evil, twice. There was a willing sacrifice made in your honour, that Slayer died for you. Not only that, you are loyal to me; willingly without any influence on my part.”

“Am I? I only saved your life for the reasons you mentioned before. I doubt that would count as loyalty and surely knowing only you had the ability to stop them counts as a bit of influence?”

“Justify it all you want. Your actions speak louder than your words.” He pauses, focusing on his glass like it was telling him something and when he looked at me again, I wanted to punch that smug look off his face. “Never mind how you felt when Darius died, how you sought out revenge on that demon.”

I snorted. “Yeah, Darius. Not you.”

“We’re one and the same. Actually, we have that in common don’t we?” He asks coyly.

“If you forgot about my little visit, how do you remember it all now then? Taking up the name I had given you. Really?” I shake my head, knowing that they had to have lied. Portia never made either of them forget, I know it. How stupid was I to think I could ever trust either of them?

“The minute you were born into this world, you were marked and so, we were able to remember again. Good thing we were close by and you were sent to Portia’s Academy. I guess fate has been kind in more than one way. Strange really.”

“So how am I your key home? You said to forget about the curse, that it wasn’t there anymore.”

More lies.

“Every action has its own set of consequences Elise.” He sighs. “Your little time warp seems to have, triggered something. Again.”

“If you undid it once, you can undo it again right?” Fear of the unknown left me sounding like I was begging. I guess I would if I had to, if it could stop the horror of the past playing out again.

A key meant a door, a portal. Have none of these supernatural assholes ever considered how stupid living in separate realms actually was? You’re just asking for trouble and the effort it seems to take to open one or be unbanished was ridiculous. One thing I did know was that I was not going to be involved in any of it.

“Your battle is not with Cain.” Portia had said that. She never denied my accusation that she and Cain were up to something either, in fact she hoped I worked it out. Why?

“Perhaps.” Cain answers, waving his hand in an arch between us.

My wrist started to burn and looking down at it, the moons began to fade into nothingness. Was that all he had to do? Then again, if he wanted to go home and I was his way of doing that - why would he help me now?

“There.” He muses, forgoing the glass and drinking straight from the bottle. He sits it down and leans back in his chair, like a king on a throne looking way too amused. “You’re in trouble, Hunter.”

“What?” I grab my wrist, no burning sensation; no tattoo - so what did he just do? What trouble?

The door opens behind us, and not expecting it, I jump and spin around. The vodka hits me hard then, my sudden movement giving it the ability to travel through me so it can take over. Everything sways before fear helps me see clearly and I don’t know what trouble Cain had in mind, but seeing a rather pissed off Zane made being marked not seem so bad now. I glance back to find two empty bottles on the table between us - when did he even get the second?

“Home. Now.” Zane ordered, sounding completely calm and a hundred percent deadly.

“But-” I slur.

“I’ll just add these bottles to your tab.” A very Leo sounding Cain sings behind me as I slowly take a step towards Zane. “Have a good night, Hunter.”

How long have I been gone for? I was meant to be home before them, chilling with Alfie and Anni when they all got home from checking out those witches. It only felt like an hour at most, but obviously it wasn’t. Stepping out into the bar area, the band has finished, the DJ has returned and I seek out the digital clock by the cash register. It blinks 01:36 in angry red numbers and my mind gives into the foggy blanket only alcohol provides.

“Zane-” I start as we get outside.

“Take us home Alfie.” He says over me, and sure enough, the familiar slither of tail wraps around my waist and the car park disappears.