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There’s no smoke without fire. That’s what my mom and dad had always told me. I wasn’t religious, not in the traditional sense anyway. My family, and a number of others like mine, looked at the Bible as a fantastic story. A brilliant creation from a mind that existed thousands of years ago.
In our world, all of these magical beings existed—and still did. Angels, demons, dragons, witches; any monster you could think of, it lived, it breathed, and it did so right here on Earth.
Our family, and the others, hunted these creatures, damning them back to the pits of Hell. We all agreed on the viewpoint that Lucifer’s fall from grace had turned him bitter, fuelling his dark actions and thoughts into vengeance on God.
God, unable to bear seeing his beloved humans being tortured by Lucifer’s demons, had turned his back on us, picking ignorance for the sake of his sanity. We could handle the fallout though. The angels had underestimated the power of human determination.
Ever since I had been old enough to understand stories, I had been taught about the tale of one angel. There apparently was one who refused to pick a side and her punishment was to walk the earth alone. Some said the feathers from her wings could turn water into gold. Others said the sound of her voice could coax diseases into leaving bodies. I believed she was nothing but sad and lonely. If she truly did exist.
My parents, and most of the other families, believed she could be our fighting force against an age-old war between angels. Centuries ago, God had sent his angels down to Earth to help battle the demons back into Hell. Those angels blessed certain humans with special powers, enabling them to help in the fight. But, as time wore on, the visits from his angels became less and less, until eventually they stopped.
However, the powers in the humans remained, and they passed on to their offspring. Hence, me, here today. A supernatural hunter with inhuman strength, speed, and intelligence. We have limited magical powers in that we can ‘influence’ the environment around us. For example, if I step outside in the morning and inhale a breath of fresh, damp air, I may think to myself, “It smells like rain.” At that instant, it will start to rain, because my thoughts influenced it to do so.
We lived in the De Soto National Forest, right on the border for Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. We inhabited around one thousand acres, of which, no one knew we existed, of course. Our families had settled here way back with the aid of the angels, their powers marking our territory and gently deflecting unwanted humans away from our borders.
“Ronin!”
I sighed as I heard my mom yell. All I wanted this morning was to clean my bow in peace. Was that really too much to ask?
“Ronin, where are you?”
“Down by the creek,” I shouted back.
The foliage behind me rustled as Mom blundered through the forest, not caring how much noise she made. Dad always taught us, regardless of our surroundings, we must always be quiet.
“If you start being noisy at home, it won’t be long before you slip up out on the field, son,” he said to us, over and over.
“Ronin,” Mom said, pushing her way through a thicket of twigs and branches. “I’ve just had a call from Wanda. She’s ready for you to go see her.”
I rolled my eyes. “Mom, I don’t want to marry Leyani. How many times?”
“Ronin,” she said, standing to my left. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her feet were shoulder width apart, which meant she was most probably giving me her ‘attitude’ pose with her hands on her hips. “We’ve discussed this. You can’t marry any old human. It has to be someone from within the hunter community. The Shipton’s are the only family we’ve never tied ourselves to. It would be a fantastic coupling and your children would gain a whole new level of skills never yet introduced to our family.”
I ran a cloth over my bow strings, sighed, and then looked up at my mom. Yep—there it was. The ‘attitude’ pose. Her brown shoulder length hair sat inches above her shoulders, swaying back and forth as she shook her head at me.
“Mom, I’m not attracted to Leyani. She’s far too young for starters and I just don’t want to sleep with her. End of. Why not let Brandon have her? He’s been obsessed with her since he knew what females were.”
“Because Leyani wants you, Ronin, not Brandon.” She gave me a sympathetic smile, her bronzed cheeks creasing. “And she’s not that young. She’s twenty-four.”
“Ten years is a big age gap, Mom.”
“And you’re not getting any younger, either. The rate you’re going, you’re going to be forty before I get any grandchildren.”
I chuckled and stood up. Placing my hands on Mom’s shoulders, I grinned. “The rate Brandon is going, you’ll have plenty of grandchildren before I’m forty.”
“Ronin...”
Talking about my little brother always exasperated her. Six years younger than me, Brandon had a lot to learn in terms of self-control and his sex drive. My parents hated it as they’d done nothing but try their best to teach us to be respectable men who kept their urges under control. After all, we couldn’t afford to be distracted by a beautiful woman. Chances were she would be some sort of creature we’d have to kill anyway, or if not, she would certainly lead to us dropping our guard and being killed.
“Will you just go and talk to Wanda anyway? Please?”
Seeing the pleading in my mom’s big brown eyes, I sighed and gave in. “Fine. I’ll go see the old witch about tying together two bloodlines, and then tell her it isn’t going to happen, and I wasted her time.”
“Maybe some time away will do you some good. It’ll give you time to think about things. Maybe by the time you get to Wanda, you’ll feel differently. Hey.” She clapped her hands together, her eyes lighting up with joy. “Here’s an idea.”
Oh no.
“Take Leyani with you. Get to know her a little better.”
“Err...no.”
“What harm could it do?”
I stepped back and bent down to pick my bow up. “Listening to her talk non-stop about crochet? A lot of harm. To my mental health.”
“Crochet is a very handy skill for a young woman to learn. It will save you a fortune in clothes when your children are growing up.”
“Oh yay.”
“Ronin. Come on. Please. I’m trying to help you here.”
“No, Mom,” I replied, giving her my best smile. “You’re trying to help yourself.”
“How do you figure that out?”
“Because for some insane reason, you want babies in your house. It’s not going to happen. Not yet anyway.”
“But I’m the only mother with a son over the age of thirty who isn’t married!”
“In our community, yes, maybe, but not in the whole world, Mom. Chill out. No one is judging you.”
“Ha,” she said, snorting. “You haven’t been subjected to those judgemental sympathy ridden looks from Mary Whittaker. Then you’d understand.”
“When’s Dad back?” I said, figuring maybe getting away for a few days wouldn’t be a bad idea seeing as she was on one again about my lack of marriage.
“This evening.”
“Right,” I said. “I’ll pack a bag and leave when Dad’s back.”
Mom leapt forwards and gave me a hug. “Thank you. I promise you won’t regret it.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Mom.”
“I’m not,” she said, drawing back and winking at me.
She turned and skipped back to the cabin, humming away to herself. I followed, grumbling to myself about my inability to say no to my mom.