"Some monsters have a tragic backstory. The ones like me were just born to swallow the light whole."

―Elizabeth Hewer

*tw for gore

"Shit," Lin whispered. "Where's Hadrian?"

Cortez didn't hear her, or even notice she'd stopped. She considered letting him walk on and get lost on his own. Hadrian wouldn't be happy. She grabbed his sleeve and dragged him away from the crowd, toward one of the houses. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.

"What?"

"Hadrian. Where'd he go?"

Cortez blinked and turned around, frowning. "I thought he was right behind me," he said.

Lin rolled her eyes and pushed past him. Her fingers tapped along her gun's holster, unsnapping the clasp over and over again like it would somehow fix everything. She stamped her foot and turned around, scouring the crowd. It was no use -- they were all taller than her. And Hadrian for that matter.

To make matters worse, her sigils were literally screaming in her ears. They seized and whipped under her skin. Witch, they cried. Witch. Everywhere.

Which was utterly unhelpful. Lin bounced on the balls of her feet. The witch -- or witches -- could jump out at any moment. They could kill everyone in the crowd. Which may or may not include Hadrian.

She hissed through her teeth and wheeled on Cortez. "You stupid, useless piece of shit!"

He gaped at her, one hand on his machete as if it would do him any good. Lin let out a deep, groaning breath. Her sigils let up for a moment and pooled into a buzzing din at the back of her skull. "Okay. Yep, yelling helped. Now, you need to go find Hadrian right now or I'll actually kill you."

"You're the hunter with the -- the tracking! Can't you -- "

"No," she felt like she was going to choke on her anger, "I can't. I can only find witches."

His jaw tightened. "Then find the witch and get this over with."

"I'm trying! I -- " her voice died in her throat. Her father was watching them. He was in the crowd, people bustling around him and laughing, but he was the only person who stood still as death. Lin swallowed, tears warming her eyes. "Cortez, go."

He opened his mouth to protest some more. She pulled a knife, one of her long ones, and he shut it. He glared at her and turned on his heel. Lin gave one last look at her father before going in the opposite direction. Her hold on the sigils unraveled, stretching them across her skin. This wasn't how the island usually felt -- this was too much magic. Too much gathered in a single place, like nothing she'd ever seen before. More than Everest, more than jumping through a witch's fire.

It was everywhere and it hurt.

It hurt almost as much as hearing her father follow her.

"Lin?" He wasn't sure. He didn't sound sure. She looked different enough that he might drop it -- he might chalk it up to lack of sleep or too much tea or whatever he'd done the night before. He sped up, his footsteps sounding like hammers above the music. "Lin, stop!"

She did.

He came up behind her, stopping a few paces away. "Turn around."

He used his commanding voice for that, the one that took his baritone voice and made it threatening. He used that voice when she did something wrong. Lin worked her jaw and obeyed. His eyes flicked over her, confirming that yes, this was his daughter. His daughter, but blonde, and with hunter's sigils crawling all over her skin. Meaner than he'd ever seen her. Armed to the teeth. A hunter.

He swallowed, breaths coming tight. "Come here."

Lin put one foot in front of the other, her hands slack and calm. She stopped less than a foot away from him, lifting her chin. He glared down at her.

"What?" she asked.

He grabbed her wrist and made to drag her away -- home, presumably -- but all she had to do was activate her sigils and she was stronger than he'd ever be. He jerked her once, barely budging her, before turning back. "Come on."

"No."

"Lin," he hissed.

"I have a job to do and a friend to save." Lin was keenly aware her voice wasn't as deep as his. Her hand wasn't as broad, she wasn't as tall, but she stood firm and scowled up at him. "Maybe I'm saving you, too."

He worked his jaw. "We need to get home. Now."

"What? You gonna pass this off to Mom?"

"Your mother is better at this than me." He didn't sound angry. She knew he was.

She blew a lock of pale hair from her face. "No she isn't. You just don't want to talk to me because you think this is your fault."

"Isn't it?" He let go of her wrist. "Isn't this my fault?"

Lin clenched her jaw. "No. Everything I did, I did for me. I'm a hunter -- I'm the huntress. I'm the best at what I do, I'm worse than anything you were ever afraid of becoming."

A vein stood out at his temple. "I taught you to fight so you'd never be afraid of anything. You don't need the sigils to be strong. You don't need Lord Greymark."

How stupid could he get? Lin bit down on those words. "I never said I did. I said I'm good at it. I like it. I like hunting witches, I like killing people -- I love it because it's what I'm good at."

"That's not true."

"Yes! Yes, it is." She wanted to laugh. "Do you remember when I was a kid? Those boys who would always disappear from the delinquent center? That was me. I let them out and I hunted them down and I killed them, and grandpa helped me carry the bodies."

He swallowed hard. His shoulders heaved but she couldn't hear his breaths. "You can still leave."

"Oh, gah -- "

"Your grandfather left, and Razo left, it isn't too late."

Lin grabbed at the air around her head, desperate to keep what remained of her sanity. "Dad -- I don't – this is why I didn't tell you anything."

"Lin -- "

"I'm a killer, dad." She shook her head. "It's all I've ever been good at. It's all I have."

He pursed his lips. "You have us."

"Do I?"

"Yes."

She nodded. "Good to know. I still have a job to do, and I've wasted enough time with this."

He blinked as she turned away from him. Her sigils had silenced in the heat of the conversation, renewing themselves as her focus shifted. The near-deafening thrum of a witch howled in her ears again. 

"Lin -- " He sounded so far. 

"Dad, I'm -- " He tackled her to the ground, practically crushing the air from her lungs. She barely had time to catch a glimpse of golden flames before he covered her entirely. 

The air filled with smoke and screams as the festival shattered. 

Lin cursed and hauled herself and her father out of the way as the crowd scrambled too close, narrowly avoiding the stampede. The wind screeched through the narrow alleys and met in the wide street, streams of fire snaking up through the air like embers above the witch. She'd installed herself at the edge of a fountain, legs crossed as she leaned against the bricks.

Her shoulder barked in pain as she rammed into the wall, shielding her father as best she could. She pulled back and looked him over once. No burns that she could see. She didn't look him in the eye as she shoved him further into the alley and made to leave.

"Wait." His hand shot out and grabbed one of her longest knives, sliding it free.

Lin gritted her teeth and snatched at it. "Dad."

"I've done this before," he said. "Don't forget that."

She pursed her lips and pulled away, leaving her knife in his hand. She had others. 

The witch lifted her chin as Lin stepped into her line of sight, her mouth tight and her arms crossed over her chest. She radiated power, magic lapping at her like a pet.

Lin wanted to watch her head roll.

She hooked her fingers in her belt, grinning across the square. "Third time's the charm," she said.

For once, the witch didn't say anything cryptic or vaguely threatening. She just stood there. Watching. Of course, her magic still spiraled flames above her head, but those were theatrics. the worst she could do is singe the hair from Lin's head. Or kill her father. Lin resisted the urge to check over her shoulder. He'd be fine. He wasn't Hadrian, her father was level-headed and strategic. He knew how fights worked and he would soon find out that this was not one he should join.

Though this witch -- Honora, she supposed -- didn't seem to notice him. 

Honora finally pushed off the fountain, her magic shifting like a tide into a sudden strike. Lin sucked in a breath and danced back as a blinding lightning strike scorched the brick where she once stood. 

The magic kept on churning. Stones lifted from the pavement, glass shattered and flew, the wind spiraled and tore at Lin's ponytail. She grimaced and crouched down, a pole swiping above her head. Her sight blurred for a moment before the blaze of her sigils finally caught up with what was happening. The witch had made a small tornado, dirt forming a wall between herself and Lin. Lin's vision sharpened and she spotted Honora's outline -- statuesque and completely undeterred by the havoc she wrought. 

Streams of orange flares and lightning bursts became the only sources of light as the debris clouded the ever-present sun.

Lin yelped as a shard of something slit her cheek down to the teeth. She clapped a hand over the injury and darted low to the ground. Distantly, screams filtered through the chaos of magic. Hadrian. She'd nearly forgotten he was still out there. Her sigils healed the cut on her face in an almost angry swipe, nudging her to the task at hand. Kill the witch. 

As if I'd forget, she thought bitterly. 

Her hands were so covered in grit she couldn't hold her knife properly. No knife, then. Her gun would be torn to shreds if she took it out. She blinked hard and ducked into an alley between bursts of lightning. The thunder shook her down to her bones.

She panted and coughed in the marginally clearer air. She turned and groaned at what she saw. 

Around seven people -- maybe a family -- were all huddled in the nook between a fence and wall. They hugged each other, two children staring out from under the adults' arms with wide, terrified eyes. They were filthy despite their fine clothes, each of them shaking worse than the other as they tried to figure out if Lin was going to kill them or not. Lin grimaced and jumped back into the storm.

Almost immediately, a pipe -- or something long, metal, and cylindrical, she wasn't being precise -- slammed through her thigh.

She dropped to her knees, barely holding back a scream. She grasped the blood-slicked end and blinked hard. It was around three feet long, two of which had gone through the meat of her leg and out the other. She hissed and yanked it free. The sigils scorched through her skin in their haste to heal her, pushing out the grit shoved into it by the wind. Lin kept one hand on the pipe as she rode out the surge of pain.

Her blood provided a good enough grip. It would have to do.

Lin staggered upright, relying entirely on her sigils to remain there. The magic-laced wind tore at her clothes, ripping against her and pushing her away. She kept walking. She'd rounded Honora's outline and come up alongside her. As soon as she was within striking distance, Lin swung the pipe like a bat.

The witch leaned out of the way just enough that the edge clipped her temple. She dropped  away from Lin, flinging her arms out to stop her fall. 

Magic rumbled to a slow, debris falling from the sky as the wind halted. The sun broke through. Lin's sigils tugged at her skin, forcing her away from her target. A flagpole slammed into the pavement between them.

Lin gasped as she put weight on her still-injured leg. She stumbled to the ground, her ass hitting pavement uncomfortably.

The witch was already up, her reeking blood streaked down her face and magic already prepared for attack. Lin put her good leg under her and flung her body out of the way, crashing to the ground a few feet to the right. 

The blow never fell.

Lin looked up, shoving herself to her feet before her eyes truly focused. 

Honora had a knife in her throat -- the knife Lin had given her father. The hilt was pressed right up against the base of her skull and the blade emerged from the flesh beneath her chin, dripping thick red.

Honora wasn't dead yet. Lin pushed off and swung the bloody pipe again, this time sinking into the witch's skull, bone fracturing under the impact. 

Lin rocked back onto her heels, blinking and panting the clean air. 

Magic no longer roiled around the witch, but Honora still wasn't dead. Her bloody lips parted slightly, revealing pink teeth in a smile. Her bloodshot eye rolled to Lin, then drifted past her to something else.

Lin frowned and looked over her shoulder.

A weight lifted off her chest, one she nearly hadn't realized hurt so much. Hadrian stood there, eyes wide and lips parted as he leaned on Cortez. Or Cortez was holding him. Lin couldn't really tell. 

Lin hummed and grinned down at the witch. "Looks like I can protect him."

She hefted the pipe up again and swung it down. And again. Blood splattered her face, but it wasn't enough. She smiled and brought it down again. Bone crunched between stone and metal.

"Lin."

She looked up. Her father stood in front of her, blood streaked across his face from a cut on his forehead. Maybe something else, too, but she didn't think she cared. His eyes were iron. His hands were bloody.

"You get it now?" She never dropped the smile, panting out a breath that tasted more like copper and dirt than anything else.

He didn't say anything.

She nodded and rocked her head from side to side, her filthy ponytail swinging as she walked back. "Thanks for the assist."

She turned then, strides long. She rested the pipe on her shoulder, her own blood mixing with the witch's as she caught up with Hadrian and Cortez. She threw her arm over Hadrian's shoulders. He stiffened and blinked hard, not looking at her. A shot of guilt ran down her ribs, trickling to her gut. She'd been right. Hadrian wasn't cut out for this. 

The whole walk back to Sirenita, Lin kept thinking her father -- or even mother -- would call her name. Beg her back one last time. Maybe she'd accept. 

Just once more and she'd go home.

She jumped onto Sirenita after helping Hadrian and Cortez on, both disturbingly silent, and looked back down the dock.

Her father didn't come.

--

The doomed house of Atreus, cursed by the gods. Its member include Tantalus, Agamemnon, Helen of Troy, Iphigenia, Electra, and Clytemnestra.

"For the Ancient Greeks (as well as Ancient Hebrews: see all humans punished for Adam and Eve's transgressions), the sins of the father are visited on the sons...or daughters, or grandchildren: Fate, or the gods, will justly punish the children of someone who has broken a law or ritual; this punishment, however, will occur through human actions; that is, the gods don't directly punish sins but rather this theory explains why bad things happen – when something bad happens to a person it is because of some past family transgression."