Anachronistic: Endless Masquerade

23 | Her Final Hunt Part 1

- 23 -

The leaves were still falling from the trees, but the air was chill enough to make my tooth ache with each breath. I kept pressing against it with my tongue, devoting more attention to it than my surroundings. My werewolf fang always hurts when the weather gets cold, but this was the first year after I had it implanted; I hadn't learned that yet. Let alone how to manage it.

        While I was playing with my teeth, three pillars of earth erupted up in front of me. I hesitated for a second, then readied my weapon. I closed my off eye, took aim, and placed a round in each one. Renna and I planned to travel into the city that day, but we couldn't leave before low tide, so were spending the morning on target practice; I wasn't doing well.

        "Pandora, what's wrong? You're shooting like you did a year ago."

        Renna was an endlessly kind woman most of the time, but she took training very seriously. I credit my survival these last ten years to it, but this morning it annoyed me. I was in pain and wasn't in the mood for insults.

        "Your eyes are failing you, old woman! I hit all three dead center."

        "Old woman?" Renna laughed. "Since we are so close in age, I guess that explains your blindness. Had they been beasts, the fourth would have killed you."

        She pointed to a pillar that had formed behind me. I don't know how I missed it. The cracking of the rock when they sprouted up wasn't exactly quiet. The mistake on its own was embarrassing, but then I had spoken out like I was right. I think Renna saw the shame on my face, because her voice turned gentle as she said, "You've improved well beyond this. What's bothering you?"

        "My fang."

        "Really? You haven't complained about it for months."

        "When it was new it scratched and cut my mouth; this is more of a dull ache."

        "Cutting and scratching was the whole reason we put it in, but an ache is something else. Maybe you knocked it loose somehow. Open up; I'll take a look."

        Renna knelt down in front of me and ran her thumb over my lips. My heart started to beat faster; it always did when she got too close. I never found the courage to tell her, though.

        "Pandora."

        She was losing patience. I let out a deep breath and opened wide. It's embarrassing to admit, but it kind of excited me when she pressed her fingers into my mouth, at least until she grabbed hold of my tooth. My whole skull seemed to rattle as she tried to wiggle the implanted fang free.

        "It's pretty firmly rooted," She said, standing. "At the very least, I don't think you're in danger of losing it."

        I hadn't even considered that a possibility, though Renna was right to worry. Witches need to link runes together to weave their curses. If you don't have a way to draw blood for it you become powerless. She had at least three ways to cut herself at any given time, protecting herself from losing a way to cast. The same line of reasoning lead me to implant mine in my body. It was harder to lose that way.

        "It's just distracting me is all," I told her. That was the wrong thing to say.

        "You won't live long if a little pain is enough to distract you."