Sharyn approached from the darkness amongst the trees on the opposite side of the fire from Kari. The demonhunter met the dark-eyed gaze of the ranger evenly. Sharyn was still half-naked, and she stepped into her leather trousers and came into the circle of firelight. It seemed she had shed her clothes when she took on her bestial form in Barcon, and one of her companions had recovered her things and brought them to this meeting place. What truly caught Kari’s eye was a massive scar that ran from the woman’s left shoulder across to her right hip. It looked like a sword wound, and it had been brutal and very, very deep—deep enough to make Kari question how anyone could’ve survived such a blow.
Soon, Sharyn had her leather armor on again, and she stood across the fire from Kari, neither woman blinking. Why did she look angry? Kari thought she was the only one that had a right to be angry in this situation. She dropped her hands to the hilts of her scimitars, about as subtle a warning as she was ever likely to give. Sharyn had all but completely ruined her plans, but even beyond that, there was something else that nagged at Kari. It went back to what Turillia had said in the bell tower shortly before Sharyn attacked. Kari had been betrayed by someone close to her, and considering Sharyn had ruined her plans, Kari’s gut told her the werewolf may have had ulterior motives the entire time.
“Stupid beast?” Sharyn said at last, a challenge.
“You deserved that,” Kari said. She turned to her left as a brown werewolf started to approach on all fours, and in the blink of an eye, the demonhunter had a scimitar in hand, pointed at the creature. “I’m here to talk. If you want to fight, I’m sure my Order will gladly add werewolves to its list of targets. Back off.”
Sharyn made a gesture, and the werewolf moved over toward her, where it squatted down on its haunches and growled lightly. Even squatting, the creature was nearly as tall as Sharyn was standing straight. Sharyn patted the side of its head but kept her gaze locked with Kari’s own. “I’d think you owe me some gratitude,” the ranger woman said.
“For saving my life in the bell tower, yes,” Kari conceded, replacing her scimitar in its sheath. “But for killing my prisoner? You’ve ruined everything! I finally had my hands on a demon that knows what’s going on in the underworld, and you tore her throat out when she was helpless. I should thank you for that?”
“You don’t interrogate demons, you kill them,” Sharyn countered. “They only tell lies anyway, and if you think your Order is strong enough to have kept that thing in custody, then you’re a fool. You know what she was up to here: She was trying to become a goddess, or a demon king at the very least. How could you be so stupid as to risk the lives of everyone around you to try to get answers from something that dangerous?”
Kari sighed. “Those manacles I had on her once kept someone far stronger completely helpless,” she said. She wiped the gathering moisture from her face, the rain slowing to a stop, and then ran her hand back through her hair. “She was completely under control and at my mercy… you had no right to kill her.”
“I had every right to kill her!” Sharyn shot back. “She was a demon, an invader, and she was a threat to every living thing–"
“She was a threat to no one,” Kari interrupted more forcefully. “Do you think I’d have just left her lying there and turned my back on her if she was still a danger to anyone? Gods, I’d really love to know why everyone thinks I’m an idiot.”
“Your Order has a strange concept of what hunting demons is all about,” Sharyn said. “Love justice but do mercy? There is no mercy for demons. No lies they could tell you, or any truth they could sprinkle in between, will ever be worth the danger they pose. The only mercy you give them is death.”
“And we would have, eventually,” Kari said. “After we got some answers from her. This whole plot of hers, these murders here in Barcon and back in DarkWind… this was all nothing; a sideshow. There’s something much bigger and much more dangerous going on, and that’s why I took her prisoner instead of just killing her.”
“No, you admired her fighting style. I watched you two fighting, and these ears,” Sharyn said, running her fingers up the long, pointed lobes of the werewolf beside her, “don’t miss much. Asking her about her teacher as if you were more interested in learning from her than putting her to the sword? She would’ve never been your friend or ally. She would’ve killed you without a second thought.”
Kari touched her chin and waved her fingers toward Sharyn in a rude gesture. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, her blood beginning to simmer.
Sharyn folded her arms across her chest. “I’m no fool, Kari. I’ve heard all about you, of both of your lives. Widely considered one of the best swordfighters in history… it must really chafe your ass that Turillia was as good as or even better than you, doesn’t it? Even after she killed three dozen people and split your face in half, you still admired her! Wanted to learn from her, or at least find out who her master was so you could find out how someone could be better than you or your own teacher. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Kari shook her head slowly and worked to keep her anger from spilling forth from her mouth. “You’re dead wrong. When I asked who taught her to fight… it was because I was trying to gauge how many assassins of her skill set might be out there. If there’s someone training more of these… half-succubus things to come here and kill people, my Order’s going to be neck deep in situations like this. If I could’ve brought her back to DarkWind, maybe we could have beat that information out of her.”
“Then why did you chase me instead of trying to capture Emma? She could’ve given you answers—and likely more truthfully than that succubus ever could or would have.”
Kari looked away for a moment and sighed through her nose. She met Sharyn’s smug gaze again. “I realized something when I went to capture Emma. She’d hit me with lightning a couple of times before, but both times there was something odd about it. Maybe you felt the same thing in the graveyard, but both times Emma shocked me, I got this feeling like it could’ve been much, much worse.” Sharyn gave a noncommittal shrug. “If I’d tried to capture her after I fought Turillia, Emma would have killed me; her magic cuts through my willpower like it’s nothing. She could have killed me both times she shocked me, but she either held back or there was… a healing element, I guess, added to them. Emma needs me for something, but the danger of her getting caught… my life wasn’t worth that risk to her.”
“But you don’t think she’s a threat?” Sharyn asked incredulously.
“Oh, she is, but not the immediate kind,” Kari answered. “Eli has known her since before the Apocalypse, and though we don’t trust her and we’re sure she’s up to something big, she’s not the kind of direct problem Turillia was.”
“And why do you believe anything that bastard half-breed tells you?”
Kari straightened up and bristled at those words. It was insulting that a werewolf would hold a half-corlyps in contempt on account of his race. And then there was the fact that Sharyn had almost ruined Kari’s plan, whereas Eli had been an important part of making sure it worked. “I have a lot more reason to trust him than I do to trust any of you,” she spat, and neither Sharyn nor the werewolf squatting at her side expected such a response.