My smile faded as the dust cleared and Jophie was still in the room dangling off a windowsill. A thirty-foot fall lay in store for him but he just wouldn’t let go. I lowered myself down from the ceiling with the pulley system I rigged. Like a jewel thief breaking into a museum, I hovered over the crater.
“Well isn’t this just one big ass metaphor.” I yelled over to Jophie who resituated his grip on the windowsill.
“What do you want, gypsy jerk?”
“You,” Jophie yelled back while catching his sliding grip, “you need my help.”
By this time the rope I was attached to had spun me around and I was now staring at the opposite wall.
“I’m not really getting that sense of need from where I am.”
“Tell you what,” Jophie replied, “I’ll call off my crew if you call off yours and we’ll do this one together. Who knows, we’d probably do a lot better together anyways. What do you say?”
“Wow, you really think so?” I answered with a sly voice accompanied by a pair of pouty lips. I began to swing back and forth from the rope. Taken a bit off guard, Jophie slapped on his famous fake smile-- I swear his teeth were so bright they were emitting radiation.
“Well yeah. Think about it sweet cheeks,” he blathered, “with my skill and your brains, we’d be unstoppable.”
That’s weird; I could’ve sworn I was the one with the skill AND the brains.
“Don’t be so modest, Jophie. I’d be hanging on by a thread without you to guide me.”
We both laughed, he just didn’t know it was for two separate reasons.
“Tell you what,” I said, “let’s shake on it?”
He nodded as my body swung closer to his. I grabbed his greasy hand and in the middle of lifting him over the hole I said, “Naw, changed my mind,” and let go. His smiled shifted to a frown as he looked up and realized I no longer held on.
He floated down to the gapping cataclysm of a grave and in the darkness I heard his body hit the floor-- my bet was he landed on the midget.
Chapter Seventeen: Bloodhound Pete
We cleared the desert over in the next few days and reached the mountainous peaks of Rozet. They were ridged and rocky with very little vegetation. Atticus led the way and as we climbed. I paused in uneasiness for this part of the mountain looked familiar and I knew something waited further up for us.
As the elevation grew, our pace slowed. Thick redwood tree’s begun to sprout all around us the higher we climbed. Soon, the cold chill of the wind was accompanied by snow as thick from your foot to your knee. We wrapped ourselves in heavy coats and continued until the silver clouds swallowed the sun.
We reached a clearing in the trees and that’s when the sounds of the forest grew quiet-- too quiet. I halted our journey and slid out my knife as Alita asked why we had stopped. I raised my finger to my lips to hush her as I took a few steps away from the group. With my peripherals I scanned the horizon. Nothing moved an inch except gentle snowflakes, which rained down from the sky. Without warning a gunshot echoed off the canyon walls and a bullet ripped through the first layer of my coat.
Taken off guard, Atticus grabbed Alita and hit the floor. By the time I had peeled off my jacket, a second bullet whizzed by me and landed in the snow at my feet. Sliding on my gas mask, I disappeared into the forest as a third bullet shattered part of a tree trunk and left a hole the size of an orange.
I sprinted through the tree line and could smell the faint aroma of firewood and baked beans-- I couldn’t believe the fucker was still alive after all these years. He had two feet in the grave even when I first met him. I blew past bear traps and trip lines, dodging them with ease until I reached Themis; the snow covered marble statue of Lady Justice holding a sword with both hands. A blindfold covered her eyes and an evil smirk was pasted on the side of her mouth. To me, that statue was the face of Karma and we all knew what I thought about her.
Standing opposite from me on the other side of the statue was an old man with a rifle gripped tightly in his pale wrinkly hands. A worn out cowboy hat shaded his eyes from the snow. A black scarf wrapped around his face and his three foot long white beard blew in the wind kept his face hidden.
I noticed the snow cling to his clothes as the wind whipped at him. He ripped off his scarf and let it dance to the ground with the wind. Without taking his eyes off me he spit out some of the tobacco he’d collected in his mouth. I broke eye contact with the old man as I watched the spit fly through the air and sink into the snow. I let out an uncontrollable, “Gross.” We stood there like an animals about to be hunted. I dug my feet into the snow for traction.
“I don’t have any beef with you old timer,” I called out to the old man.
He didn’t speak, but then again, he didn’t have to. His empty eye’s told me everything. He didn’t shoot on accident. I slowly raised my knife, gripped the worn handle tight and waited for him to make the first move. My adrenaline pumped so hard the veins in my arms were showing.
With a calm face and lighting reflexes, he raised his rifle up to aim and that’s when I charged him. Without wasting any time he let out a shot, which, I shielded with my knife. By the time I was within arms reach of him; he had fired twice more, both bullets dodged gracefully by yours truly-- even if one of them ended up grazing me.
My blade sliced through the air at his face cutting a snowflake in half. He gently kicked out his right leg, which forced his upper body to lean back, allowing my knife to miss his nose by millimeters. As my arm finished swinging around he used the same leg to try to kick my knife out of my hand. I grabbed onto his foot with my free hand, spun my knife and tried to drag his chest into my knife. While I pulled him closer, he spun around with his back towards me and bowed as my knife missed him again-- it was like trying to fight a ballerina dancer made of spaghetti.
His free hand grabbed my wrist with the knife and he threw me over his back. I flew through the air and landed ten feet in front of him on my feet-- barely.
I turned around and began to run back at him as he reloaded. I used the time to slip my mask back on and flick out a Second Sun canister. He raised his rifle back up to his eye and while he had my face in the crosshairs, I cracked open that Second Sun right in his line of sight. He fired off a shot and shielded his eyes from the intense light. I dropped the canister in the snow and lifted up my mask for a better view. While he had temporary blindness, I turned my knife around I smacked him with the handle clear in the jaw allowing ALL the tobacco in his mouth to be spattered all over MY lovely face. He fell into the snow cross-eyed and I let out a scream so terrifying you’d think he’d shot off my boob.
Drenched in black saliva with chewed up bits of tobacco stuck to my face, I fainted from disgust and landed on his furry beard as Atticus and Alita rushed up to my aid.
***
I quickly rose up on a couch and almost had to lay back down when I saw Mr. Tobacco sipping coffee at his kitchen table.
“You… fuck,” was all I could yell at the horrible prick.
“No thanks Teen Tits, I haven’t even finished my morn’ coffee yet.” The old man replied.
“Morning coffee? It’s like six in the afternoon! Are you sure you don’t need a new pinch of tobacco to help spice it up? That’s if you can find any. Pretty sure you spit most of it all over my face.”
I looked over and saw Alita sitting next to me with a cup of tea warming her hands.
“Uh,” she began, “mind telling us who this guy is?”
“He’s just an old fart with two feet in the grave, AREN’T YOU GRAMPS!” I yelled. “But don’t get too close Alita. He might bite you with his only tooth!”
“Ok. Uh, what’s your name sir?” she asked.
“They call me Pete,” the old man said as he tipped his hat. “Bloodhound Pete. I’m a tracker. Best money can buy too.”
He smiled revealing his teeth-- I miscounted, he had twice as many as I’d thought.
> I heard a toilet flush as Atticus walked in the living room wiping his hands on his coat. He paused and realized all three of us were staring at him.
“What? I washed!”
***
The night air cut through the cabin like a knife and I sat cozy on the couch as Pete walked over and threw a log on the fire. The wood crackled and hissed as golden flakes of fire danced up the chimney.
“So, that’s how you two know each other? You were her teacher?” Atticus asked as he sat across from me in a couch chair. I felt Pete’s eyes wander over to me.
“Yep.”
Pete smiled as he lit up a homemade cigar, leaned back in his chair and said, “When we first met, I thought she was a young boy. You know, the way she acts and everything.” That’s when a pillow flew across the room and hit him square in the face.
“If you’re not gonna tell it right, don’t tell it at all!” I shouted while standing up on the couch in a fit of anger.
“Like I said,” he went on, “she had some real testosterone built up. I found her wandering around the streets with guns glued to her hands like she was expecting the zombie apocalypse. With a body as thin as cardboard she looked one step away from death, so I took her here to my cabin and trained her to become a tracker like myself. She didn’t want that, oh no. She wanted to be a ruthless killer and use the knowledge I taught her to be a bounty hunter.”
I could hear Atticus’s jaw hit the ground.
“I’m sorry, did you just say that Essa had TRAINING!?!?”
“Well yeah,” Pete said. “How do you think she learned all those moves? God damn video games!?!?”
He let a laugh escape him loud enough to frighten the Gods.
“At first, she wasn’t so keen on the idea either. She thought she’d be a kung fu master or something. But I taught her more than that. I taught her to calm her mind, to use brain over brawn and most of all, how to wield that knife she always carries around with her.” He turned his attention over to me.
“To be honest Elyssa, I didn’t think that knife would last as long as it has.”
“ELYSSA!?!?!” Atticus and Alita yelled together as they burst into laughter. Pete turned to me with confusion.
“What’s their problem?” he asked.
“They’ve only known me as Essa, Pete. But since you’re doing a great job destroying my image, please continue. Why don’t you tell them about all the embarrassing things I did during training.”
Pete paused for a moment and gave the situation some hard thought, then said, “Ok.” And went on for hours and hours. Even though I’d forgotten most of those stories, I know Pete cherished them as if they were about his own children.
In the world you have to sacrifice things that you want for things you need and for Pete, marriage was just a want. So naturally, when he found me tossed in the gutter awaiting death, he thought to himself this would be a good time to play Dad for a while. I’m not going to lie; I ended up loving that old son of a bitch. But the last time I saw him we had a fight and I didn’t think I’d ever see this place again, let alone Pete. It was nice to be back, even if only for a bit. Hell, we couldn’t play pretend forever.
Chapter Eighteen: Faux Friend
That night, I slept in the spare bedroom like I did so many years ago while Atticus and Alita slept in the living room. I raised the blankets up to my nose and a slight smile grew on my face. The sheets smelled exactly as I remembered. Nothing in the house had changed, not even the whistle of the wind through the cracks of the windows.
I closed my eyes and felt my body begin to drift to dreamland but awoke to Pete standing over me in the shadows not making a move. I couldn’t see his face, but I didn’t have to, to know what was up.
“Let me change and I’ll meet you outside. I don’t want to wake the others up.” I said. His heavy feet walked out and shut the door. I slowly put on my battle gear and wrapped a scarf around my face-- I didn’t want another face full of chewing tobacco.
***
By the time I had slipped out the back of the cabin, the full moon had rose high above the tree line. The wind picked up and I could see the loose snow blow off the ground and get carried away like sand. I followed the trail away from the cabin, sinking into waist deep snow. I quivered as I felt the snow melt down my boots. I soon found Pete standing in a ray of moonlight in what I assumed was an empty field during the summer.
“Shouldn’t we go back inside before a pack of wolves come and chews me up?” I asked looking him dead in the eyes. “Or has a wolf already found me?”
He raised his rifle into a ready position and clicked off the safety. Well, that was as much a truce as he’d get out of me.
“I want you to know I did my best to stop him.” He said with a bit of remorse in his voice. “But there’s only so long you can slow down a man like Eden before he makes you say yes.”
“And I want you to know something too, Old Man. I’m going to do whatever it takes to stop him. We all do what we can to survive and I have no regrets.” I said. “So how about we get this thing over with before you catch a cold?”
I threw down my canisters and gas mask into the snow and raised my knife. He cocked his rifle and began to take aim on his frost-covered gun. I hadn’t had a stand off in years. Gloves were off this time and one of us would have to give our life for the other.
The wind kicked up so strong it felt like someone shoved me back but Pete stood solid as a rock. I waited for the sound of his gunfire and smell of gunpowder. Then, like lightning, his muzzle flashed and lit up the surrounding tree line. Like a race, I sprinted towards the only man I ever considered a father. Each step I took was a memory of the past. Each breath a happy thought. Time moved so slow I could see his traveling bullet crawling towards me while birds flew out of nearby trees. I raised my knife and shielded myself as the bullet connected with the steel of my knife. Sparks flew as the bullet bounced off my dagger.
By the time I was done worrying about that one, two more bullets were on their way-- glad to know Pops wasn’t holding back. His muzzle flashed like a strobe light as we danced through the thick forest unleashing fatal blow after fatal blow. He kept me a good distance away until finally, on his final bullet, I was within arms reach. I blocked the bullet that emptied his chamber and pushed away his rifle with my free hand as my knife pierced through his stomach—- I made sure it wasn’t a fatal blow. We both paused as we caught our breath and I felt his warm blood ooze down to the handle of my knife before dripping into the snow. I retracted my hand and Pete fell to his knees along with his rifle.
“You learned some new moves.” He said with a smile.
“If I did, you taught me them, old man.” I replied.
The pain started to take over him and Pete collapsed.
“Oh no you don’t.” I said catching him in mid-air. “Looks like you caught one of those colds I warned you about. Come on, let’s get you inside.”
I picked his fat ass up and dragged him back to the cabin-- he, of course, was no help.
***
That morning he awoke to find his wound had been cleaned and bandaged thanks to yours truly staying up half the night. His cabin was empty and we were long gone. I left a cup of water and note next to his bed that read, “Drink the whole glass and when you’re done, then you can get up if you like.”
When he finished the water, he took his sweet time standing up. He stretched and took a few steps towards the kitchen then abruptly stopped when the chain I had tied around his ankle caught tight against the bed. He looked back and let out a laugh that was cut short by him abruptly wincing and grabbing at his side.
“BUT ELYSSA, I HAVE TO PEE!” He yelled.
Something on the back of my note caught his eye. He turned it over and got a better look. That’s what the cups for it read.
“Yeah right. You wish.” Pete said out loud. He then used his limited strength to lift the bottom of the bed off th
e ground and slide out the chain-- victory was his.
After he had finished his morning duties, Pete laid back in bed and attempted to get some rest but this time he wasn’t alone in the room. Pete didn’t bother moving as Eden appeared next to the bed and knelt down.
Pete smiled while he stared at Eden’s reflection off the bedroom window.
“I can’t wait for you to meet her.” Pete said to Eden. “I wish I could be there to see the look on your face when she tears you limb from limb. What a glorious day. The princess will slay the dragon.”
“Interesting,” Eden whispered, “So, you think I’m some sort of monster?”
“We’ll you’re certainly not the princess.”
Eden smiled.
***
Eden walked out of Pete’s cabin wiping his knife clean of blood and stood in front of his men.
“She’s still on her way. Catch her before she gets through the mountain.” He said as he tossed the knife back to one of his men.
“Yes sir!” the group yelled and ran back to their posts.
Eden’s second in command, Axiel, stood close by.
“What if they make it past?” Axiel asked. Eden paused and looked at his friend.
“Then we sit and wait for them.”
“Yes sir.” Axiel responded as the small army headed out.
***
It took awhile, but FINALLY our hike started to take us into lower elevation. Good thing too, cause it felt as though the sun had been riding on my shoulders since we’d left. I started to have the luxury of feeling my toes again as the snow melted back to muddy dirt. The cool crisp air rushed down my lungs as we descended the mountain. I hated leaving Pete in such bad condition, but I knew he’d taken care of himself in worse conditions. I made a mental note to stop on by on my way back and check up on him. Maybe have Atticus bake him a pie or something. I dunno.
We followed the curve of the trail and came across a large scenic viewpoint. Below was a mountain village filled mostly with what looked like small shops and hotels. From what I could gather, the village was tucked away in a crater surrounded by trees.
When we approached the main street let’s just say we didn’t get a warm welcome-- or any type of welcome for that matter. It was like walking into a western ghost town only everything was well kept and none of the windows or doors were boarded up.