To catch up on this story, the previous posts start here:
https://steemit.com/succubus/@michelle.gent/dusty-the-demon-hunter-a-short-story-in-a-few-parts-1
https://steemit.com/succubus/@michelle.gent/dusty-the-demon-hunter-part-2
https://steemit.com/succubus/@michelle.gent/dusty-the-demon-hunter-part-3
Impundulu was one of the more nasty Incubi of his genre. It was said that when he seduced a woman and she gave birth to one of his offspring, it would sooner or later, become a vampire. To most people that Dusty knew, that piece of mythology would have been laughed at but she knew it to be very true and had had the misfortune to meet up with more than a few of Impundulu’s wretched progeny. Fortunately, the legends of vampiric beings were also true and there were a number of ways to kill the vampire offspring. They seemed to be not as powerful as their sire nor as powerful as they could have been for though they were immortal, they could also be slain – and often were, sometimes accidentally.
The vulture familiar was a nasty piece of work though; it attacked and killed any lover of the one that the Incubus seduced whether by instruction from its master or for the sheer joy of it. Dusty knew that she’d have to watch out for that if she were to make it back to Ange in her bedroom. If she didn’t make it back, she presumed that Ange would eventually wake up on her own, but that could take days – or she may never wake up, not without the proper incantations.
Ooh bad idea, giving herself bad thoughts in a bad place. Dusty focussed on her destination. The Wraith Mountains were dead ahead and she could still see Impundulu running towards them.
“Why is he running and not flying? It can’t be because of his familiar, it would protect him, wouldn’t it?” She said out loud, if for no other reason than just to break the deathly and ancient silence.
Dusty picked up her pace too and ran. Her Demon side took over on the Astral Plane and she was thankful for that. Her human lungs would not have coped well with the sulphurous air and the constant ash clouds wafting across her path. Sometimes the ash was so thick that she lost sight of Impundulu.
Dusty was gaining on the Incubus as he reached the foothills of the Wraith Mountains but she could still see him from time to time as he struggled over the loose rocks and boulders. Again Dusty wondered why on earth he wasn’t using his ability to fly.
She reached the foothills minutes after Impundulu and followed the path that he had taken. She didn’t take to the air again because she was worried about the vulture familiar but she did take huge leaps over rocks when she could see clearly enough to choose her landing place.
She looked up and saw Impundulu disappearing into a cave in the side of the mountain only a few hundred feet above her and she took one more huge leap which bordered on flight and landed at the cave entrance only moments after Impundulu had gone in.
She rushed in and realised her mistake because Impundulu was waiting for her on the other side of the entrance. He struck her across the shoulders with the full weight of his forearm and knocked the breath out of her. She staggered forward and dropped to her hands and knees but she moved fast enough to avoid the vicious kick from Impundulu’s clawed foot and it swung past her nose as she pulled back her head. Then she was on her feet and facing him. Her knife was in its sheath and she didn’t have the time to take it out so she had to rely on her unarmed fighting skills, such as they were. She also had the knowledge of her demonic powers on the Astral Plane but so did Impundulu and he was full-demon, not half, like her.
The fight was not going so well for Dusty and she caught Impundulu’s fist to the side of her head and as she saw stars and blackness closing in on her vision, her last thought was that she had let Ange, her best friend in the whole world, down – terminally.
When Dusty woke up she was sitting against a large rock and her head was throbbing. She looked around for Impundulu but didn’t see him and wondered why he had left her alive.
Then she panicked and thought about Ange who was still sitting in the middle of a bedsheet, surrounded by salt and burnt-out candles and she stood up. Her head thumped and her vision swam and she realised that Impundulu had whacked her a fair one but she had to get back to Ange.
Again her sight went from normal to tunnel vision and the blackness closed in and she knew she was going to pass out. Shaking her head wouldn’t help but she tried it anyway and stumbled to one side, landing on one knee with a hand to the ground to steady herself. Then she felt a hand under her arm, helping her up. She looked around but couldn’t quite see who or what was helping her but she mentally prepared herself in case it was Impundulu lulling her into a false sense of security.
When she was standing upright again, she feigned dizziness more than was necessary in order to put Impundulu off his guard.
“The deception is not necessary. I know that you are not so badly injured as you are making out to be. You can stand up straight without fear of further injury. If I had wanted to kill you, I would have done it when you were unconscious.” The voice was deep and calming and she looked up in surprise. It was not Impundulu. It was certainly not Impundulu.
The young man that stood before her was taller than she was with jet black hair and violet eyes. The eyes danced with a humour that she could almost feel and his smile was kind. His clothing was contemporary but other-worldly, he had clothed himself as she had, once he had arrived in this world. The chances were, then, that he was human or at least half-human as she was.
Suddenly Dusty was very interested.
“Oh, hi.” She had become suddenly tongue-tied. “I’m Dusty,” she managed.
“Yes you are, but a quick brush down will sort that out.” He looked at her a little strangely and she wondered why for a moment and then it occurred to her that he thought she was describing her state rather than introducing herself.
”Oh no, I mean, my name is Dusty.”
He nodded that he understood and his smile widened. “Is that a nickname of some sort? I mean, are you always dishevelled and that’s why you acquired the name?”
“No, it’s my given name. It means valiant fighter. My mum knew what I was, you see.”
Again he nodded. “Half-demon you mean?”
It was Dusty’s turn to nod. “And you are?” She prompted him to make his introduction.
“Hunter.”
“Of what?”
His brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed as a result and she was taken aback at how very gorgeous he was and suddenly she was on the alert again because she remembered how her mother had been Glamoured and where that had led her.
“I mean, what do you hunt?” She explained.
“No, I am a hunter yes, obviously, but my name is Hunter. My parents knew what I was too. I hunt for bounties though, people and other – ah, beings – pay me to hunt things.” He finished with a weak explanation but Dusty knew that he probably didn’t want to mention demons as his quarry because of her heritage. ‘Hmm, gorgeous and thoughtful... I like that,’ she thought.
“What happened to Impundulu? I have to catch him and bind him so that he forgets about my friend Ange.”
“I have already performed that ceremony on the Incubus; I doubt it will be bothering your friend again.”
“You do understand that I can’t just take your word for that? I don’t know why you had anything to do with this but my duty is not being paid for, it’s personal. My friend is in danger and I’m the only one she can turn to. I need to make certain if you don’t mind, now, which way did Impundulu go?”
“I can take you to it, him if you like.”
They exited the cave, Dusty following Hunter; taking note of the clothes he had adorned himself with on entering the Demon-side of the Astral Plane. His tastes ran very similar to hers. Mainly black and casual-functional, sturdy boots, knife sheath, jeans, t-shirt and leather jacket, although hers were still the dull red colour for camouflage on the ash road. Hunter also had something very interesting hanging from his belt. It was a long silver thread but it swayed as though it was exceptionally heavy.
“What’s that?” She asked once they were down at the bottom of the Wraith Mountains and on level ground again.
Hunter looked to where she was pointing and shrugged. “It’s a rope.”
“Yes, but what kind of rope? There’s something special about it, please tell me.”
Hunter sighed and Dusty wanted to listen to him sigh again and again. She shook herself and brought her mind back to the matter in hand.
“It’s a rope made from Unicorn mane and it makes demons forget.”
Dusty saw a look pass across his eyes and stopped in her path. “Oh, so you’re thinking that if you had used that on me back up in the cave, I would have forgotten about my mission and you wouldn’t be taking me to find that Incubus. You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble if you’d have thought of that,” she said, smiling at his obvious neglect in his duties.
“It obviously didn’t work, did it?” He asked pointedly.
“What? You mean you used that thing on me? How dare you?” Dusty became angry and yet her mind was working overtime. “So you rescued me from the Incubus, wiped his memory and then tried to wipe mine? Did you also try putting a Glamour on me too?” She saw the look on his face and stopped walking again. “You did! Oh I can’t believe this! So, what do you really look like? Show me or I’ll perform the incantations myself.”
The sulphurous air shimmered as he dropped his Glamour. He still looked the same but he wasn’t as irresistibly attractive as he had been. Instead, the young man before her looked like a young man rather than a demi-god.
“Yeah, that’s better. I should have known,” she muttered and walked past him.
“You can’t blame me for trying, Dusty,” he said to her back. Then he ran a little to catch her up. “You took on that Incubus on your own, without your weapon even and I thought you were so brave and I figured that if I helped you, you’d just look on me as a kid and wouldn’t want to know me, so I made you think I was cool before you got to know me.”
“Actually, idiot, I thought you were cool for helping me anyway. How old are you then?”
“I’m almost two centuries old, you see, I’m still very young in all of this...”
“You think you’re...” She stopped talking and walking at the same moment. “Just how old do you think I am, Hunter?”
He did not seem to catch the hint in her voice and he went on and answered the question. “Well, you’re able to fly on the Astral Plane, you can clothe yourself and alter the colour of your clothing to camouflage yourself and the birds came to protect you and I know you’re part demon so I figure you must be easily a millennium...?”
“Really? No, I actually mean it, really?”
He nodded.
“I’m eighteen years old.” She said it in such a cold tone that there could have been ice forming on the words.
“Oh,” was all that Hunter could manage.
“And the birds, that wasn’t my doing. As for the rest, my mother went to great efforts to learn everything she could about my... about the Incubus that spawned me and she studied and taught me for the eleven years that she lived after my birth. Then my grandparents took it upon themselves to continue my studies because they felt that they owed it to my mother to protect me in every way they could. They made me practice my Astral Planing and everything to do with Daemonology. My grandfather is now so knowledgeable about the subject that he gives talks and seminars on the subject and they travel the world giving the talks.”
“Yes, I have heard of your grandparents. I have even been to a few of their seminars, which was another reason for thinking you were so cool. I didn’t realise that you were their granddaughter though. I thought they knew so much because you had been teaching them for their whole lives.”
“Yeah, apology accepted,” Dusty said sarcastically and began walking again.