The Hunter's Haven

Chapter Two - Djamphir

I usually hunt for fun. I mean, I'm a hunter, that's my title. It's not the greatest thing ever, but it's something, right? It keeps me occupied, and even more so because I hunt half-breeds.

I started hunting them when I was ten-years-old. Misa - my younger sister - always used to adore me when I spoke of going hunting; a Daywalker killed our parents, and so I find it easier to avenge them by killing half-breeds. I've never managed to find the Daywalker that killed our parents, but if I'm right then this Daywalker, Flow Constantine, could well be the re-incarnate.

I see a young un-blossomed Daywalker silently flitting through the trees, and I bare my teeth, snarling slightly. It's a natural instinct; Dayhunters are very defiant when it comes to the laws of nature, because it's against everything a djamphir stands for to kill a Daywalker.

The girl stills, and her eyes flash up to the tree branch I am crouched down on.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Daywalker. Don't worry." I lie, and the Daywalker gulps audibly. These creatures only want to get by, without having djamphir watching their every move.

"How should I know that, Dayhunter? It is very clear that you hunt my kind; many others have wound up dead, baring the same fate as I do." Her voice is loud and dominant, for a female, and her accent is purely American.

"I will not harm you, Daywalker. I hunt loup-garou, not your kind. You are safe." I must be rather convincing, because the Daywalker turns her back on me for two seconds, but that's more than enough. I only need a split second to pounce and kill my target.

I grab her by the head, snapping her neck, and she drops to the ground, already dead. I cock my head as I look at her pretty little face; white-yellow hair framing a heart-shaped face, large blue eyes dominating most of her face. They all look the same, Daywalkers. There's no originality in their design anymore.

I nudge her slightly with my foot, and then grimace. Remorse and guilt flash through me briefly, but my instincts cover this unusual and pointless emotion quickly. When you kill something willingly, there's no time for apologies and regrets. You just kill it. It's a fact of life, survival of the fittest. At least, that's what Misa thinks. Misa and I are the last remaining in the Daggers family, which just adds to why I need to kill half-breeds, no questions asked. Misa sticks with me because I kill half-breeds, thus avenging our family. If I were to follow my own opinions, instead of my blood-hungry instincts, I would lose Misa, and then I would be alone again. No one wants to be shunted by their own family and left by themselves, right?

There's no reason why I shouldn't feel bad for killing an innocent creature; I always feel bad about doing it, because un-blossomed Daywalkers are innocent young girls, the oldest ones probably being my age. I can't handle killing the younger ones, because when a twelve-year-old un-blossomed Daywalker looks you in the eyes and tells you to finish it quickly, you just can't do it. It's that simple; the decision is already made for you.

I hear the low growling of a loup-garou in the distance, and follow the sound silently, stalking through the woods. I take a leap at a tree branch, and land on my feet, my fingers barely brushing the bark, and then I see the loup-garou. Half-breed werewolves always look like really hairy guys, with hair sprouting out from the pores, their teeth turning into fangs, their eyes that crazed yellow colour. It makes me sick, just looking at them, but I still feel bad about killing them; loup-garou are another kind of creature that prefers to be left alone. They don't hunt people, like fledged werewolves, but they hunt animals that can be found just about anywhere, and so there's practically no harm done. But Misa seems to think loup-garou created the ills of the world, and spouts some amount of crap against them on a regular basis it's unbelievable.

I take a knife from my belt, figuring out the best angle, and then throw it forward, waiting for the disgusting squelch that means I've hit the loup-garou right on target. I look down at it, and see the blood spurting onto the ground, the creature flopped onto the ground. It's dead, Jace. Leave it where it is, and just get your knife.

I gracefully jump down from the tree branch, retrieving my knife, and return to the house, sighing. I can see the moonlight streaming through the trees, which means I've been out here hunting for hours on end. I'm exhausted, and I just want something to eat and to have a sleep. I decide that, instead of going right around the building and using the front door, leaping up onto the balcony is much quicker, and so I do so, blurring as I leap onto the white stone balcony. I open the doors, stepping through into the spare room, and then quickly step out into the wide corridor. I leave muddy footprints in the expensive black-and-red carpeting, but frankly I don't give a damn. I make my way downstairs and into the training room, and Misa looks up at me from her iPod, smiling.

"How many did you kill this time?" She asks me; it's all she ever talks about anymore. She doesn't really care for anyone at all, she just...uses people, in a sense. She's not the nicest of people, but...meh. She's someone, at least, yeah?

"Uh...a few loup-garou, and a Daywalker." I reply quietly, and her eyes light up as I mention the Daywalker.

"Great! I thought there wouldn't be any out at this time, seeing as it's a full moon, and fledged creatures tend to hunt more on full moons, but I was obviously wrong!"

Irritation runs through me thickly as she says this; I'm not a fledged creature, and those that are proudly fledged disgust me. Misa is a fledged vampire, and she seriously disgusts me at the best of times, because fledged creatures have no heart. They don't care about anyone but themselves, and if someone 'dear' to them were to drop down dead, the first thing they would probably do is suck their blood out and chew on their organs. I've seen these things, in Manhattan, which is why I thought Flow would have stayed inside.

Flow...that Daywalker. Why didn't I kill her whilst I had the goddamn chance? I ask myself, and then I hear a loud bang coming from the stairs. Misa and I are in the hall at the same time, looking on in disgust as a damn zombie, of all things, shuffles down the stairs slowly, its right foot dragging along behind it comically and its hands hanging on by the arteries. Comical.

"Of all things to raid our house, a zombie comes in here? Come on, I'm already dead!" Misa groans, and then the zombie flits forward. "Oh, it's a hybrid?" I nod slowly.

"Must be. It can't hurt us, though." Misa nods; we both know fine well that zombies have served vampires and djamphir ever since they were created in that Frankenstein screw-up experiment. If they dare to harm either type of creature, they disintegrate, and well know zombies live for the brains.

Misa's eyes bug out of her head as the zombie mumbles a vague sentence. "Where...is...the Daywalker?" Addressing me.

Misa looks at me sideways in surprise, and I shrug, looking back to the zombie.

"Which Daywalker are you referring to?" I ask, the zombie's eyes flare red, just briefly.

"Don't toy with me! We both know that...Daywalker blood is the...sweetest of all, and that there...is a Daywalker...somewhere in here...I can smell her...on you."

Misa growls at me, and the zombie grins, its teeth all missing and its gums black and covered with black gloop that drips down grotesquely.

"What, the one I just killed-"

"No...the one in the city...she smells alive...and her blood must be...so sweet..."

Misa snarls, swinging her arm around, and bashes the zombie on the head. Its neck snaps, and it falls to the ground, laughing like a maniac. I can see the black gloop that can hardly pass off for brains drip onto the floor, and the zombie's laugh is wheezy.

"Just...you wait and see...you may not...preserve them...long enough, but soon...real soon...you'll taste real blood...and you'll keep you Daywalker...around a lot...longer than you thought you...would..." The zombie turns to ashes, and I'm horrified as I look down at the dusty remains of the zombie.

You son of a-

"You've been lying to me?! You saw a Daywalker, and you let it live?! What are you, crazy?! You stupid, idiotic, psychotic...just go and kill it, OK?!" She pushes me towards the door, and then shoves me out. "Go and kill it, Jace. For Christ's sakes, go and get rid of it. I can't even begin to imagine what a Daywalker can do in a crowded city if she managed to mutilate over fifty vampires in one building with just a glance..." I sigh, and the old irritation resurfaces. I'm sick and tired of my little sister ordering me around, telling me what I should and shouldn't do. I'm over five-hundred; I can make my own decisions, can't I? Or is that just another disadvantage of being a djamphir?