The sound of breaking glass came from the front of Amanda’s house. Heavy footsteps followed the noise of shattering glass. Joseph glanced in the direction of the sound. He had come prepared to grab Amanda, not fight. He turned and, with a growl, lunged at her.
Amanda stumbled over a chair and fell to the floor as Dunc entered the room.
Dunc charged at Joseph, guided by the light of the fire lingering on his arm. Joseph was distracted by the same flames. For a brief moment, he panicked and found them more critical than Dunc or Amanda. Dunc slammed into him with his full weight. Both men smashed into a coffee table, sending wood splintering everywhere. Joseph shouted something, and Dunc was thrown across the room by an unseen force. He crashed into the far wall and fell to the ground, momentarily stunned.
Joseph turned away, thinking that Dunc was down, and walked toward Amanda. Dunc picked himself up and recovered far faster than Joseph expected.
Dunc tackled Joseph from the back and knocked him past Amanda, who was trying to scramble out of the way. Joseph began to realize that something was off about the situation even with his armor, and he needed to get out. There were dents in the plating, and a few of them were digging into his sides. How was this man so strong?
“Get off of me!” Joseph punched Dunc in the face, giving him enough room to get to his feet and run. Dunc staggered back, shook his head, and looked up in time to see Joseph pass through the wall in a flicker of light. He vanished. He stared after him with a dazed look on his face. That man had walked through a wall without damaging it.
Joseph was a Hunter. Dunc’s legs felt weak. He had only seen a Hunter once in his life, and that was the day they had taken his father from him. He began breathing hard as panic set in. The sense of being a small frightened boy hit him.
Amanda ran to him and threw her arms around his body, feeling over him to see if he was injured. “Duncan? Duncan?” Amanda called his name and sighed. She would have to explain what happened, and she wasn’t sure if he could handle it. “Are you okay?” She reached up and touched his face. His eyes were locked on the wall.
“How did he do that, Amanda?” He swallowed his fears and stared down at Amanda. He could barely see her in the darkness. He had to hear it from her.
“I don’t know if you’ll believe me, Dunc.” She was caressing his face now, trying to calm him down. She chose her words with care, continuing the gentle motion. “Joseph hunts things for the government. Dangerous things that shouldn’t exist.”
“Like what?” Dunc began shaking again. He knew exactly what she was going to say.
“Vampires. Werewolves. Monsters.” Amanda kept it simple. She didn’t need to go into detail. “You saw him go through that wall. I knew he could do some things, but I didn’t know he could do that.” She gestured to the wall.
“How do you sleep at night knowing things like that exist?” Dunc was still panicking inside. He had to ask questions like he didn’t know any of this already. She wasn’t going into detail, so it was likely she wasn’t one of them. They would keep the details vague when talking to an ordinary human.
“They are rare. I’ve never seen one.” Amanda stood in front of Dunc, both hands on his face now. She could feel blood on her fingertips.
“Then how do you know they exist, and he isn’t lying?”
“I’ve seen pictures. Want to see them?”
“I don’t know how I feel about this.” Dunc wiped a hand over his nose and grumbled. Joseph had punched him in the face and hit the side of his nose. It wasn’t broken, but it was bleeding freely. “I’m getting blood on everything.”
Let’s see if we can find our way to the bathroom or somewhere I can get something to stop the bleeding. There’s a lantern in there.” Amanda took his arm, and they slowly made their way to the bathroom. “You’re taking this really well.”
***
Dunc was not taking it well. He was holding up a good front and playing the part of a dumb human while his mind whirled with confusion and shock. Amanda had helped clean him up by the light of an emergency lantern in the bathroom. He had enjoyed the tender attention to his injuries. They were minor, but there were many of them, and he was going to have to let them heal on their own.
There were many small lacerations from breaking the window to get inside. Dunc had a huge bruise forming on the left side of his face near the cut Amanda had given him. The knuckles on both of his hands were busted open and bleeding. He had punched armor plating. He had gotten into a fistfight with an Arcadian Hunter and survived. That was no small feat.
The electricity came back on after half an hour. Amanda took Dunc up to her studio and brought out a small packet of photos. She handed it to him and let him look through them. Dunc curiously opened it and started going through the pictures. The first one was the body of a Lycan wolf in a hybrid form shot in the head. Dunc winced, then flipped to another.
The second photo had that grinning moron lifting the Lycan lion’s head also in hybrid form off the ground. The head was still attached to the body, but the eyes were open and staring. The tongue lolled out lifelessly. Dunc’s stomach churned. It was a much smaller female. He could see the light spots on her shoulders that indicated she wasn’t even a
