The Witch Hunter Chronicles: Hunted

“Kenz, we’re here,” Dad said.

I felt him brush a few unruly strands of my shoulder length hair out of my eyes.

“Where’s here?” I asked as I sat up and squinted into the visor mirror. The view of my hair made me sigh. It looked like the clump of wires behind the TV.

Why did I have to hit snooze seven times this morning? Two snoozes mean no shower, three more means grooming consists of mouthwash and rubbing the sand out of my eyes. Seven means… well, this.

“We’re outside of Vacaville,” Dad replied. “And it really feels like we’re trespassing.”

I stretched in my seat as I took in my new surroundings. We were idling behind Merlin’s car, and the old man was fiddling with the lock on the gate on an eight-foot-tall chain-link fence. The sign next to the gate had a picture of a plane, but the words were faded. Past that was a few evenly spaced industrial buildings and then darkness.

I heard the old man curse and then say, “seorsum,” and the lock fell to the ground. He swung the gate open, and when he turned around to return to his car, the gate swung shut. There was more cussing. Merlin pointed at the gate, and Jordan trudged out of the car to hold the gate open

“Yeah, this whole thing’s a little sus,” I said, before yawning. “Why are we here anyway?”

“I guess we have a flight to catch,” Dad replied.

I rolled my eyes. It was expected. “Well thank you Captain Obvious. I hope we’re going somewhere with a beach at least.”

With the gate situation remedied, Merlin got back in his car and revved the engine. The car shuddered like a dog shaking water off its back.

We followed Merlin through the gate and tailed him as he led us down a row of widely spaced, identical buildings, deeper into the dark airport. After taking a hard right between two of the buildings, we finally spotted signs of life. One of the little buildings, which I guess is called a hanger, had its massive doors open and a white plane parked outside of it. Workers in blue coveralls and billed caps were busy moving in and out of the building and doing official-looking things to various parts of the plane.

“It that our plane?” I asked.

“That’s a jet,” dad replied. “A very expensive jet by the looks of it. If they’re here for us, then Merlin is well connected.”

“Well, I am a queen after all,” I replied.

Dad side-eyed me and said, “Don’t get cocky.”

Merlin parked next to the busy hanger, and by the time we pulled in next to his global warming mobile, he was halfway to the plane. The rest of the airport was a dozen or so hangers and a skinny runway bisecting the facility in two. The moon was full, illuminating the entire airfield a pale yellow, and I could make out the lights of a few homes perched on the distant hills. Dim lights and red reflectors marked the runway from one end of the fence to the other, and a lonely smattering of oak trees framed the far end of the runway.

Why would someone plant trees at the end of a runway? That seems like an accident waiting to happen.

“We doing this?” dad asked.

“Huh? Oh, yeah I guess.”

We got out of the car, and dad groaned and grabbed his back as he straitened up.

“The old high school football injury?” I asked.

He smiled, but it was more of a grimace. “Best time of my life,” dad replied. “The pain just helps remind me of it.”

“It’s just people crashing into each other at high speed,” I said. “That sounds like the farthest thing from fun.”

“It’s actually kind of a rush,” he replied.

I’m so glad my body produces estrogen instead of testosterone.

He popped the trunk and started unloading our bags, while I pulled Ben’s cage out of the backseat. Fat boy didn’t stir.

“But there were other perks. The team spirit, the comradery between the guys,” he smiled and added, “the cheerleaders.”

Testosterone. I’m literally SMH. Well, not literally.

“So, you hurt yourself to party with random girls that act peppy in stripper clothes,” I said, as I met him behind the car.

“No, not random girls,” he replied. His eyes started reddening again.

“Wait,” I said. “Was mom a cheerleader?”

He nodded. “I gave her my letterman’s jacket when we were juniors,” he replied. “She wore it to school every cold day our senior year. Even some of the warm days if I remember correctly. It was so big on her that she looked like a little kid.”

I gave him a hug. He looked like he needed it.

After discretely wiping his eyes, he said, “Why don’t you get Jordan while I find out what Merlin’s up to.”

I found Jordan sleeping in Merlin’s car with his head against the passenger window and his mouth wide open. I knocked on the window until he startled awake.

When he came out, I said, “I could hear you snoring though the closed door.”

“I don’t snore,” he replied.

“So, my ears were lying to me?” I asked.

“Apparently,” he replied.

After grabbing his bag, we headed towards the brightly lit jet idling on the edge of the runway. A pilot and copilot moved around the cockpit checking things on the dash that I assume are important, while Merlin stood at the foot of the small stairwell next to the jet’s entry hatch, chatting with a woman I didn’t recognize. I couldn’t tell her age from a distance, but she was quite a bit taller than Merlin, with straight black hair that was pulled back in a tight ponytail that stretched halfway down her back. She wore blue jeans and a grey blazer over a white blouse. Black boots that started at mid-calf and ended with a serious heel.

“Does she look like Wonder Woman to you?” Jordan asked, gesturing towards the new woman.

“Not the Gal Gadot movie version,” I answered, “but the way pervy old men draw her in the comics.”

You’re going to have back problems girlfriend.

“They’re artists that appreciate the female form,” Jordan retorted.

“Pervy artists,” I amended.

“The terms are analogous,” he replied.

Is he agreeing or disagreeing?

Ben stuck his paw through the cage and mewed at me.

“Who’s my good little fat boy?” I asked in the most ridiculous of baby-voices as we approached the plane.

He answered with a louder, pleading mew. Bennie likes the baby-talk.

“That’s right. You are. Aren’t you, my little orange nacho?”

That’s when Jordan elbowed me in the shoulder. I looked up and saw a man in coveralls that looked like Jim from The Office approaching. I coughed and pretended something was wrong with my throat. I didn’t have to look over to know Jordan was smiling.

“Sir, miss,” the man said. “May I take your bags?”

Jordan handed him the suitcase and then the man held out a hand for Ben.

“Oh, no that’s ok,” I said. “I want to keep him with me. This is his first flight.”

Really, his first flight? Do you know how stupid that sounds?

“The boss-lady really wants me to carry your things,” he said. “What if I put him in the passenger section for you?”

“Sure, ok,” I said. “I looked in the cage and whispered, “Be brave buddy.”

After the man walked off, Jordan said, “He looked just like Jim from The Office, right?”

I shrugged and answered, “I didn’t notice.”

“Your cheeks did,” he replied. “They’ve got a healthy glow to them all of a sudden.”

“Whatever,” I replied.

Merlin turned around and motioned us over. It wasn’t subtle. The woman was speaking with dad and didn’t notice us.

“Hey, why does Wonder Woman have a cleaver strapped to her thigh?” I asked quietly.

“Probably because she’s badass. There’s a bulge under her blazer too,” Jordan replied. “In the movies that means she’s packing.”

As we approached the plane, the African American pilot poked his head out the door and said to the strapped chick, “I’ll be done with the pre-check in five, miss. After that, we’ll be ready to depart.”

“We’ll be ready,” she replied. She couldn’t have been more than a couple of years older than me. Her voice was deep and sultry like a TV femme fatal, and it had a Spanish accent to it.

When she turned away from the pilot, she noticed me, and suddenly she was stalking towards me with a weird gleam in her eye.

“My liege,” the woman said to me, and drew her blade from the sheath on her thigh.

I froze like a deer in headlights. My breath caught in my throat and my heart jackhammered in my ears and felt like it would leap straight out of my chest. Jordan stepped in front of me just as the woman dropped to one knee and presented the weapon to me in her upturned palms.

“Mackenzie Flynn,” the woman called out, “I, Lucía Castíle, swear to defend your grace from all thine enemies, to speak only the truth in council, and if necessary, to lay down my life in your defense. I will never give in to fear, and to only use might for right.”

The knife was long and straight with a silver handle and a cross guard like Kylo Ren’s lightsaber. The knob below the handle melded into the shape of a bear’s claw. The animal, not the doughnut. I looked over at my dad in confusion, and he pursed his lips and shrugged.

This is Shakespeare Festival crazy. But there’s something familiar...

I stepped forward and took the dagger from the woman’s hands, lightly tapping first her right shoulder with the blade’s flat edge, and then on her left. “I accept your offer of fealty and I dub thee Sir Lucía Del Lago,” I said. “In honor of your family’s noble heritage.”

Lucía looked up at me, and her big, brown eyes were wide with surprise. “You know?” I nodded. “But Merlin said he didn’t tell you yet?”

Ok, what’s happening here?

“I didn’t lass,” Merlin said as he stroked his beard. “I told you, it’s him… well, her…” He mumbled something that sounded a lot like ‘unfortunately’, which I chose to ignore.

“In that case, I humbly ask your forgiveness for my ancestor’s past transgressions,” Lucía said. She’d begun to gesture somewhat wildly in the air with her hands as she spoke, which she suddenly seemed to realize – because she folded her arms across her chest before continuing. “I can never undo the wrongs they inflicted upon you… or to Arthur I guess I should say,” she frowned for a moment, “well, to the Kingdom of Camelot at any rate.” She swallowed hard and continued, firing out the next words rapid-fire, “But we have strived hard to do right by your memory ever since. My ancestor Roland served you in France, and in Spain, my noble uncle, who you knew as El Cid-”

I held up a hand to stop her. “The mistake was unfortunately one of my own making,” I explained calmly. “I thought Guinn would grow to love me in time, and though I always knew she cared for me, I realized eventually that it wasn’t love. Merlin warned me from the very beginning, you know.”

The old man nodded his agreement, and I had the distinct feeling that ‘I told you so’ was on the tip of his tongue. Jordan snapped fingers in front of my face, and I slapped his hand away.

“Are you talking about Queen Guinevere?” Jordan asked. I shrugged and looked over at dad. His jaw was actually hanging open.

Where was this trick during every test I ever took? Seriously, there’s more?

“Regardless,” I continued, “that debt was repaid by your family tenfold many lifetimes ago.” Lucía’s cheeks turned crimson and her eyes watery, but she held my gaze. “Arise Sir Lucía, first knight of my new kingdom.” She stood, and I extended the dagger, hilt first, towards my newly minted knight.

“Oh, no my lady,” Lucía said. “Please, keep it. This is Arthur’s dagger after all. My grandfather discovered it forty years ago at a market in Zanzibar, and we have held it for you ever since.”

“Probably not a good idea,” dad said. “You can barely cut meat.”

I glared at him, but he wasn’t wrong. Still…

I twirled the dagger over the back of my fingers and re-grabbed it. I smiled. I’m pretty sure dad and Jordan both gasped.

“The balance is perfect,” I said.

“Do you not remember, Carnwennan?” Merlin asked.

I looked down at the dirk and thought about it for a moment.

Why do I know that a dirk is a really long knife?

“Maybe?” I answered. “Who exactly is Glitonea?”

“The Black Witch,” Merlin answered. “You sliced her in half with that very dagger in the Valley of Grief.”

That visual brought me back like a slap in the face. “Oh, so this is like an ancient murder weapon that I’m holding. Cool,” I said, looking for a place to put it down. “Has this thing ever been sterilized?”

A movement behind Lucía caught my eye, and I glanced over her shoulder at the wing of the plane. A crow and a blue and grey hawk of some sort were perched side-by-side and peering at me through creepy little bird-eyes.

Do crows and hawks chill together? Oh, no...

Lucía must have seen my expression change because she whipped around to see what I was looking at. As I glanced back towards the wing, I saw the runway blonde from earlier flying straight for me – a sword seemingly made of light in her hand and hate in her eyes.