Rose, Wilted: Book 1

Chapter 19 - Mad as a Monster

Back in the village a man trudged in from the winter evening with a bang of the tavern door and the frigid air swirling at his back. He tracked slush all the way up to a circular table with two hounds, each skinny as sticks, plodding along at his heels. The poor creatures slunk away to the tavern's roaring fire, which was about as far as possible from the table. A man with scars marring his face glared at Avoln and set his half finished plate of food on the floor for the hounds.

Avoln slung off his gun and leaned it against the table, muzzle up, and threw his coat across a waiting chair. He didn't sit, only muttered to himself and stared at an extensive map laid out across the table. The map itself had seen better days. Deep stab marks from a large hunting knife were evident in both the map's surface and the table's. A monstrous foot trap designed for something the size of a bear lay unsprung over a corner of the map, it's steel jaws glistening with razor blades that could spring shut hard enough to snap bone in two. Fourteen similar ones hidden throughout the snowy forest, lying in wait below the surface of innocent white. Every time one sprang it was always done with a deliberately placed stick, leaving Avoln seething that an animal could outsmart him.

He cursed loudly at his cold feet, peeled off his boots and hurled them against the wall. His socks were worn through from too much use, and he wiggled his nine toes and one black stump to get the blood flowing. Avoln ran his fingers through his greasy black hair and glared at a hand drawn picture that was a horrible likeness of the Beast's head mounted on a wall.

The sound of high heeled footsteps caused him to look up as a short barmaid walked past.

"Hey," he barked. The girl jerked about to face him. "Go fetch me some ale!"

She nodded and walked away, heels clicking against the floor a little faster now. Avoln turned back to the crude picture.

"I'll find you," he snarled. His eyes were bloodshot obsession. "You're safe in your castle now, but I will find a way to get you. You can't hide much longer. The snow is beginning to melt, and then I will be on you. There's nowhere to run."

He bared his teeth in a twisted smile that was more monster than man and went on like that for some time, muttering threats under his breath, thinking of failed hunts and blood and how that grotesque, devilish head would look mounted on his wall.

Blood. There was never enough of it. Never enough of that lovely red paint splattered across the ground, shining on steel. Monster blood was the best kind. Monster blood spilt was blood spilt purging the world of the unnatural, deadly demons that plagued it. His fingers brushed the ragged scar that still burned on his forearm as fiercely as it had fifteen years ago. That first kill, that first blood rush at revenge swirled in his head, stirring up memories like ghosts that denied their death. He shook his head as the flames roared higher in his mind, the house engulfed in blue fire as the drake screamed-

"Um, excuse me, Sir?"

There was a furious blur of motion and a crash. A large mug was lay sideways on the floor and the tavern girl whom Avoln had ordered about earlier had a dark stain spilling down the front of her dress. Amber liquid pooled on the floor and Avoln was wild eyed and wrathful.

"I'm busy!" Avoln roared at the trembling maid.

"Doing what? Talking to your picture?" a man muttered.

The bartender abruptly excused himself from the counter. He placed a hand on the barmaid's shoulder.

"Go to clean up in the back room, Evangeline. Christy will help you," he said. The girl bit her lip, nodded, and disappeared quicker than a hare behind the counter.

The man crossed his arms. He was taller and much stronger than Avoln, especially after Avoln's recent self imposed starvation regimen, but the hunter had the unpredictability of a madman and the temper to back it up. The barman drew himself up to his full height and pointed a single finger at the door. The bar was frothing over with silence besides a solitary drunkard, who was singing loudly and off key, blissfully unaware of his surroundings. Avoln glared at everyone simultaneously.

"Out," the barman growled. Avoln didn't move.

"OUT!" he roared. Avoln grabbed the bear trap and flung it at the bartender, who howled as it clamped around his leg. A crunch sounded and a bright blood stain soaked his trouser leg and began to crawl outwards. Four men rushed to the bartender's aid as Avoln grabbed his gun and made his escape out the door. His hounds didn't follow.

Outside, the stinging wind tossed stale snow into the air and lashed it into Avoln's bloodshot eyes and across any bare skin it could find. The frozen slush on the ground soaked through his threadbare socks. Both his coat and boots were still in the tavern. He stumbled away aimlessly until coming to rest under the eaves of a potter's shop on the outskirts of the village.

Avoln slumped down into the snow, shudders wracking his body. He could feel his fingers numbing from the frigid gun barrel and almost see the black death of frostbite crawling across his toes. Water soaked his clothes, sending chills up his spine and splinters of ice through his heart. He looked up at the glittering night sky, cruel and cold as always, the lights of a thousand souls glaring down on him, without even a sliver of the moon to alleviate it. And then something blacked out the stars, something far more ruthless than any distant glint of light.

"Get up, hunter," she snarled. "I'm not paying you to die."

"And I'm not getting paid at all," he spat.

"You would be if you did what I ordered."

"Orders," Avoln scoffed. "What are you, the Queen?"

Jayla grabbed the collar of his shirt, claws digging into his flesh as she hauled him to his feet. Her eyes sparked, turning amber in the lamplight.

"Not yet," she hissed. She let go of him and Avoln stumbled back, smacking into the wall of the shop and leaning against it for support.

"The Beast has two weeks. You kill him before then and you get paid. But you see that girl and you leave her to me, you understand? She may still be of use to us."

Avoln shook himself, rubbing his head. The girl...

"Her? How?"

Jayla flashed him a wicked grin like the sliver of moon that was missing from the sky. Avoln's bones shuddered.

"There's a chink in the Beast's armor, directly over his heart," she said, "and its name is Annalise."  

------------------------------------------------------------------------

So... Another shorty. And Avoln. Yeah. More evil guys. Next time we get to some really good stuff and really sad stuff. And that's all I have to say for now.

Happy Reading!