Posted by PK on October 16, 2002 at 16:07:55:
Ed was in a dour mood. That bitch had it in for him. Coming here, fucking up a perfect day's
fun. All his plans ruined. She'd pay for that. Amanda fucking Blake, Queen of the fucking
jungle. And that black bitch too. Trying to take Karen - sweet little Karen - away from him.
He'd so been looking forward to skinning her, hearing her beg and plead. That was always
the best part of it. And with all this rain...
His boots sucked in the mud. The rain ran down his neck, it didn't seem to matter what you
wore, it always did. Nobody was going to catch anything. Impossible. He might as well go
back to the lodge and get another drink.
Wait a minute though... the storm was blowing over. That meant the mud would show tracks
that wouldn't be washed out. Game on!
Well, still unlikely, but...
Killing and torturing Karen would be nice, of course, killing Amanda....visions of glory. The
man who ate the Huntress....eternal fame! For a moment he indulged the idea. Kill Amanda
Blake. Yeah, right. Not *that* drunk or that stupid. Suicide. Don't even think about it.
He plugged on for a while and saw something. Footprints. Unbefuckinglievable. Small
footprints in the mud. Before kneeling he looked around. No movement, no sign. He looked
down. The footprints were half-shod. One foot in a shoe, the other bare. One of the runners
had come by this way after the storm, which meant she was not far away and possibly
disabled. Karen.
Unless it was Amanda and this was a trap.
Amanda listened intently. The storm had blown over, the game was afoot. Where to start?
She breathed in, taking in scents, listening to the currents in the air. What was happening?
Not all of the electrical potential in the air had dissipated.
"Hunter's Moon," she said aloud. "Conflict between Jupiter and Uranus. Many difficulties, no
blame."
Can the flippancy, she admonished herself. Okay, bunch of amateurs, but something is going
to happen. Soon. Now...
Flash forward. Karen undressing. Eat her piecemeal. One breast at a time.
Fucking HELL. Backstep. Amanda stood up. What is wrong with me? she wondered. Then
she knew. Boojum. Alanna has slipped the leash, that's why I can't connect. But still...I
caught Rachel after she did that, and she was far better....
That's an assumption. If Alanna's out of the box, there's no way of knowing what she'll do.
Amanda breathed in. Alanna might kill her. Unlikely, very, but not impossible. Rachel almost
had. She breathed out, savouring the faintest touch of fear. Alanna could only defeat her if
she let her. Did she want that? It was an absurd and disturbing thought. The remedy was
obvious, kill Alanna. Unbidden, a vision of Alanna's face came to her. Calm, gentle grey
eyes. Beautiful.
Rachel, she told her anima, I'm going to get you for this. And fuck this woolgathering. How
did I get this wrong-footed anyway? Imagining eating Karen before she's caught, the worst
sort of novice mistake. I thought I was beyond that.
Amanda stripped off the jacket. No gear, no pockets. Just the knife. She couldn't work out
why she was so..distracted? Off balance?
Alanna had found uses for the knife. Better than a Swiss Army job - strictly for Boy Scouts -
this was a six-inch blade of Sheffield steel with a recurve, a modified Bowie. You could carve
tent pegs with it. Or pikes. She remembered Agincourt. Lots of wood hereabouts..
Not enough time to make a bow of stout English yew, but one does what one can.
Karen noted the end of the rain with resignation. Run and hide, Alanna had said. Fat chance.
She only hoped Amanda got her first. She was toast. Her toes curled in her moccasins, she
pulled them off.
Ed was baffled. The footprints had disappeared into the bush.
"Cooee!"
A teasing, feminine voice. He turned...nothing there. Just a movement in the underbrush that
might have been nothing but wind.
Because, Amanda thought, I want to let her play this out. That's why I can't track her. She
declared a duel of honour even if she doesn't know it. Which means...
I can't help her. I can't kill her until she's finished. I'd like to watch, but Heisenberg was right.
No observation without interaction. Not here anyway.
She grinned, despite herself. What's the matter, you think you always have to be the main
event? Go for popcorn...
Catch Karen and eat her. That should pass the time. If Alanna wins, I'll get her later. If Ed
wins, I'll..
What?
Congratulate him. Yeah, right. Amanda snarled. She caught herself. Catch Karen. Eat her.
Concentrate on that. Yes. Breathe...
I'm food, Karen thought, shivering. She was looking at a mushroom, watching insects and
grubs. All fighting their little battles, eating and being eaten. Even the grass gets eaten. Me
too, she realised. Food for worms. Sooner or later, there I go. Buried in the cold, cold ground
and the worms eat me.
Why? Amanda wondered again. Why can't I focus? This isn't working out well at all. Sit
down, analyse. Yes, the middle of a hunt isn't a good time to do this, but what else can I do?
Okay, back to basics. What do I *want* to do. Eat Alanna. Okay. Perfectly reasonable, that's
what I came here to do. Eat Karen. Why? Because she's there and she's tasty. Kill Ed. Why?
Don't like him. Why not? Okay, one thing at a time. Don't fancy him. He's crude and vicious.
No class. He despises women. So what? I've met his type before. Me, I just kill and eat
women I like. I'm the hero? Fucking hell, what IS this? Guilt? Hypocrisy? Something else?
Karen. She's food. Spit muffin born and bred. She has 'victim' written on her forehead.
Would it bother me to kill her? No. Not at all. Not much, anyway. Amanda shook her head.
This was supposed to have been simple; a fair contest with Alanna. Eat her if she caught her,
let her go with no hard feelings if she didn't. What was bothering her?
Go over it again. And please, somebody attack me, she thought. That's easy.
Possibility: we're allies. I've fought her, made deals with her, eaten with her. I fell in with
Alanna's plan to thwart Ed. I have to let her play her part. I'd like to help her stop Ed torturing
Karen. Okay, how to do this? Kill Ed? Can't. No license to kill him unless he attacks me. He
probably isn't stupid enough to do that. Alanna can, because prey are allowed to fight back.
What to do?
Catch Karen first. Then Ed can't torture her. I can eat her with a clear conscience, she agreed
to the dual hunt. After that, and if I have time, I'll go after Alanna. If Ed doesn't get her first.
And that is definitely not my fault. Alanna chose to antagonise Ed. Full circle. Deja thunk.
What do I really want to do? Kill Ed. Get both of the girls. Can't do that. Boo fucking hoo.
Amanda stood up, realising that her blood was up. She wanted to fight. It was so hard to find
anybody worth fighting. She envied Alanna, if she had really set herself against Ed. That
would be something to see.
Popcorn. If she wasted time catching Karen, she'd miss the main event.
Let it go. Let Alanna work it out. Catch Karen. Forget grey eyes, she'll never love you.
WHAT? She didn't love Alanna. Liked her, certainly.
Ed was getting tired. he'd been following trails for what seemed like hours, and it was
beginning to dawn on him that he was being taunted. One of the runners was playing games.
It didn't take a genius to work it out. Amanda had set him up. This was her idea of a practical
joke.
Amanda set out after Karen, trying to get her scent, but something nagged at her. She looked
down. Tracks. Alanna's, she was sure. And over there in the bushes, blundering along...she
smiled and stepped out of cover.
"You! I fucking well knew it!"
"Hello, nice to see you too." Amanda smiled. "You know what, exactly?"
"You know what."
Amanda frowned. "I'm sure I have no idea what goes on in your mind, such as it is." She
indicated the footprints. "Those aren't mine."
Ed glared at her.
"I just came to warn you," she said on impulse. "Second warning, there won't be a third." She
noted that Ed had drawn his long knife. "Oh, please do!"
Ed thought better of it. "Warn me about what?"
"Boojums."
"??"
"It's the standard warning, you know? Watch out for 'em." Amanda turned to go.
Where the fuck are you going? Ed subvocalised.
"I'm going to eat Karen," Amanda said. The light changed for a brief second and when Ed's
retinas shuttered again there was none of her. Gone.
Sheer bravura and bullshit, Amanda admitted to herself. This hunt was a total fuckup
already. The byplay between Ed and Alanna was distracting her from concentrating on
catching Karen, and she couldn't put her heart into catching Alanna until their confrontation
had played out. One thing she had gained from the encounter: the footprints had to be
Alanna's and she must have made them deliberately. She wasn't stupid enough to have left
an obvious trail unless she was playing some sort of trick on Ed. Suspicions confirmed. No,
there was more. She stopped moving, letting her subconscious monitor the sounds and
scents as the animal self does while her rational mind analysed. What was she missing?
Alanna was risking something, gambling that she, Amanda, wouldn't use her game with Ed to
track her, and she knew that Alanna knew she could. She had seen her do it before. Amanda
had used her confrontation with Jack to track her and lure Sajida.
Amanda froze. Sajida. Alanna had lured Jack and Sajida had killed him. A classic ambush
technique, beautifully executed. That had been accidental, but it had worked. Could Alanna
be working with Karen? At first sight the idea seemed close to paranoid. Examine it. Karen
seemed harmless. Frightened and fatalistic. Could Alanna have recruited her somehow? Or,
wandering off to the far edges of probability, could the pair of them have been working
together all along? Alanna was intelligent. She'd had time to think and plan and she wasn't
intending to give herself up. It was already clear that she was tougher than she'd seemed and
Amanda had never doubted her courage. What she hadn't considered was how devious she
might be. She had already manipulated her into sharing the hunt. Could she have set the
whole thing up to distract her?
What did she know about Karen? Nothing at all. She'd never seen her before. Ed? She'd
heard stories about him, or somebody like him. Nasty type. Nothing special. She didn't pay
much attention to gossip anyway and she'd never met him before. Amanda usually had good
instincts about people, but she had to admit she'd taken Karen at face value and Ed at her
assessment, and Alanna's. Except...
In the couple of times she'd met him, Ed had come across as exactly the type of person the
other two said he was. Or he had played straight into her expectations.
Occam's razor says the simplest explanation that covers the facts is probably true. The
conspiracy theorist will point out that you never know ALL the facts and if you theorise ahead
of the data - a capital mistake, as Holmes would say - that razor might well slit your throat.
Circles again. Solution? Recompile.
Logically, if Alanna was a real threat she should track and kill her now. She didn't know for
sure that she was, this was all speculation. Go home, open a bottle of beer and watch the X-
Files. Amanda laughed out loud. Stay or go. Do or don't. Fuck it. Shit or get off the pot.
Leave Alanna to her own devices for now. Hunt Karen, and if anybody crossed her path, kill
them.
The sky flickered, lightning above summer clouds. Thunder rumbled.
Alanna stood up. Halfway down the slope, she could see Ed tracking her through the trees.
He couldn't see her. All she had to do was move quietly. Standing still, she was just a shadow
in the forest. Amanda hadn't lied, the hunt really does favour the quarry if they're not stupid
and don't panic. And, of course, if the hunter isn't very good. For some time now she had
stopped imagining Amanda appearing behind her and tapping her on the shoulder. It had
taken an effort. Don't think of a hippopotamus.
Killing Ed was another matter entirely. She hadn't come up with anything that would work
without serious risk. The home-made spear she carried was a last resort. All she could be
sure of doing was leading Ed on a wild goose chase. And she knew that if Amanda hadn't
caught her yet, she must be waiting or doing something else. Could the huntress have
guessed that she was leading Ed around? Yes, she could. Why hadn't she caught her?
She's intrigued again, at a guess. But she's going to want to eat somebody. If not me, then
Karen. Maybe if she gets her, the cooking smells will call Ed off.
Amanda surveyed the territory. She'd backtracked Karen's movements as best she could. By
now she was fairly certain that the girl wasn't anywhere near Alanna. Streams and willows,
lovely hiding places for juicy little rabbits. There was a scent..
"Karen?" she called out softly. "Come out. Come out and be eaten. I know you're here. Don't
be shy."
Karen stood up. She didn't want to be dragged out by the scruff of her neck. She scrambled
up the bank, her bare feet slipping on the mud.
Amanda grabbed her wrist and helped her up. Bloody hell, she thought. The Otter eats the
Water Rat.
How did she know? Karen wondered. Does it matter? I knew she would. I knew all along,
didn't I?
"You gave up too easily," Amanda said. "I didn't know you were there, I just...oh, never
mind." She'd been tripping on Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Powerful magic. "Cup of tea?"
"Tea?" Karen stared at the killer.
"Back at the nearest lodge. Shower - have to clean you up a bit. Cup of tea, bit of a chat."
Karen's blank expression said 'aren't you going to kill me?'
"Oh yes," Amanda said. "It's tea time. Four o' clock. All the civilised amenities. China tea
service. Hot water. Then I eat you. Better than cheese and biscuits any day."
Karen gulped. Suddenly, there wasn't enough air. I'm a cucumber sandwich, she thought.
Just a snack. I'm nothing. Nothing to her. Nothing at all.
"Oh, don't think that," Amanda said. "Savour the moment. Shall I give you a robin's egg?
Miles of memory blue sky in a shell."
Karen felt her legs turning to water. So easy to think it would be better to have Amanda hunt
her than the dim-witted sadist Alanna had rescued her from. And Alanna had warned her.
She might have escaped Ed if she'd only tried. Ed wasn't invincible. She'd been stupid.
Amanda WAS invincible, at least as far as she was concerned. There was no way out.
And where was Ed, anyway? Off somewhere chasing Alanna? Dead? That last thought made
her lips curl. I bloody hope so, she thought. Serve the bastard right.
"You have to let it go," Amanda said. "She'll get him or he'll get her. It's out of my hands."
Suddenly, Karen threw up. Amanda held her head as she knelt and emptied her stomach.
She cried a little. Amanda let her, patting her back.
"Better now?"
Karen shook her head. She stood up straight. "How will you do it?" she asked stiffly, noting
with pride that her voice didn't quaver much. It may have been a little high.
"Kill you?" Amanda inquired. "Or do you want to know how I'll cook you?"
Karen's bladder let loose. It was embarrassing. Terror does that, she told herself. She hoped
she hadn't peed on Amanda's shoes. "Sorry," she heard herself say. Sorry? For what? Sorry
I'm sacred? Sorry I'm not pleased that you're going to kill me?
She looked up, straight into Amanda's eyes, wanting to say something. She could only die
once. Do rabbits have anything to say to foxes? The huntress didn't look angry or hostile,
why should she? Cats don't hate mice, they just eat them. She couldn't think of anything.
"How would you like it?" Karen realised that Amanda was still talking to her. "I'm open to
suggestions," Amanda said. Her eyes, Karen fancied, were suns in another reality. Evil
Goddess, Witch Queen, done to death in Disney, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a thousand
daft Sword and Sandal epics. Me, here now, Evil Goddess going to eat me..silly. This wasn't
a story. This was real.