A Witch and her Familiars

Chapter Ten - Rhode's First Hunt

"We've been walking for hours," Rhode moaned, her feet dragging on the cracked sidewalk. "Is monster hunting usually this boring?"

"I don't have much experience, myself," Sabine admitted. "Daphne, anything yet?"

Daphne held her wand higher. Though the tip was glowing, it was a dull, dark blue. "Maybe something was here before, but it's not here now," she said. "But personally, I think that's a good thing."

"I don't," Rhode said. "I want to bash some heads!" She swung her bat through the air.

"Careful!" Daphne cried. The swing had nearly clipped her shoulder.

Sabine turned to Rhode, grayish-blue eyes flashing sternly. "Rhode, this isn't a game," she said. "This isn't about killing monsters. It's about saving people from those things."

"Yeah, saving them by killing monsters!"

"I guess. But this isn't fun."

"You're telling me," she muttered. "We've just been walking forever. Definitely not fun."

"Rhode, be serious!" Sabine said. "We've done nothing today. Saved no one." Her shoulders slumped. "I feel like such a failure."

"What?" Daphne asked. "You're not a failure."

"I feel like one. I thought, I don't know, I'd come in with my sword and wipe my new city clean of Reliqua, but I can't even find one. I've done nothing today."

"Hey, that's not true," Daphne said, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. "You made some really great pancakes."

Sabine scoffed quietly.

"You trained the newest member of our team," she continued. "You ate some delicious oranges. And..." She cast her eyes around the empty road, searching for something to cheer Sabine up. A furry tail disappearing behind a corner caught her eye. "And you helped me rescue a cat. Come on!" Daphne tucked her wand into her pocket and ran after it.

"Daphne! Wait!" Sabine shouted, but she started running after her, followed by Rhode. Sabine quickly caught up to Daphne, who was already huffing but didn't mind. "What am I helping you do?"

"There's a kitty up there," Daphne panted, pointing at the black streak in front of them. "We're going to rescue it."

The cat turned another corner. The three girls barrelled after it.

"Come here, kitty," Daphne said under her breath as she ran. "I'll give you a nice warm blanket to sleep on. Come here."

"Don't you have a cat-catching charm?" Rhode asked as the cat ducked its way under a fence.

"No," Daphne said. "'Sides, it's more fun this way!"

And indeed, Sabine's gloom had turned to a smile as she led the way after the kitten. She ran gracefully, like a deer darting through a light-dappled forest. In comparison, Daphne felt like a lumbering moose, but running with her friends like this, she didn't mind. She grinned and pumped her legs faster, screwing up her face; she rounded another corner.

She skidded to a stop. Rhode crashed into her a second later. "Hey, what gives?"

Daphne held up a hand. "Back away. Slow. Go now."

"Daphne, what's wrong?" Sabine asked.

But she didn't speak, because the thing she was afraid of had noticed her and her friends at last.

It was the largest Reliquus she had ever seen, larger than the the others put together. Its body blocked out the setting sun, sun which illuminated its hairless, mottled flesh. For one awful moment, it looked almost like a monstrous mockery of a human, with its long limbs and tapering fingers, but the protruding snout marked it as a monkey. Its dull, apelike eyes bored into her. It bared its dripping teeth.