nox noctis

Monday, April 14th
1:33 a.m.
Fleece, 62nd Zone
The corner of Point Avenue


A streetlamp flickered precariously on the overlapping chains of the mail fence. Time was frozen but relevant as young man in a brown overcoat looked at a pocket watch and sighed heavily for the one thousand forty second time. His feet shifted with unspoken anxieties, as if by moving himself it would somehow bring the one he waited for to him faster. The mysterious figure has been waiting and sighing for the past three and a half days, and running a hand constantly through stiff blonde hair that fell around his ears limply with want for a shower. His patience grew ever thinner as the light bulb placed him in its strange ambience, an ugly orange circle, slicing itself up through the square ridges of the hard plastic encasement.

A flicker of movement shifted the deadbolt stare of his eyes leftward. In the darkness of late night, a shimmer of electric flame bounced off two floating orbs, each comparable to a black pearl. Eyes. The very eyes he had been wanting to see.

The figure under the spotlight finally opened his mouth: “You’re late”; and then: “Never make me wait so long again.” Now that she was here, his patience hardened itself into a point. One thin, gloved hand protruded from the pocket it had been hiding in and snatched a long strand of ebony hair, wrapping it once around his arm with a flourish of his wrist. A lilted moan pealed from the harsh action and the enigmatic eyes of the Snake glossed over him.

“You told me to find them,” she drawled, “you never gave me a time limit.”

If one simply heard her voice, it would have been enough to lure them in; and her face would keep them. Succulent eyes dipped into the skull, peering out from the caverns of her brow with long-lashed enticement. A plump worm of a tongue ran a smooth course across the uninterrupted track of her sanguine lips, corners playing at a smirk. Her nose was small, with nares that flicked ceaselessly, as if always sniffing for some unknown truth that roiled around in the air, unseen, and perhaps unwanted, by normal human eyes.

The man was not persuaded by such tactics. He let the locks slide off his palm, watched the Snake fall to the ground with a satisfactory thump.

“You should know not to keep me.” His voice only touched on anger, implied it; he was unusually monotone. “Make an exception to me, if you give it to anybody. You're lucky you're my Snake. Considering the amount of time you took, you should be surprised I haven’t been eliminated already. …Well, no matter now. Tell me you’ve discovered our prey?”

The Snake pushed herself onto her skinny elbows and shifted on the rain-sodden brick walk, her legs twisted in an elaborate pose comfortable to only the flexible. “Honestly, do you believe I’d ever show my face had I not? I question whether you know me as well as you say, Mr. … Pardon me… What was it again?”

“Seraphim.” The word was hollow as the moonlight.

“Ooh. Seraphim the mysterious,” the Snake purred, extending a lengthy finger to his chin that he didn’t try to stop. “What do you have to earn from hiding behind a name?” A fragile laugh clung to her throat. “Your trust is like the surface of a pond. So calm, uninteresting. Give it a little stir every so often… As I was saying, Mr. Seraphim, I have never once let a target… slip away from me.” The finger pivoted abruptly and traveled down to some spot on his collarbone, tracing the finely stilted bones that pushed at the skin’s encasement. “Go on. Give the water a ripple. ‘Make an exception to me, if you give it to anybody’…”

Seraphim slowly pushed the seductress away.

“I see why they call you Snakes clever,” he said thickly, “but I only want to waste so much time near such a place.” He nodded his head towards the heaps of garbage just beyond the linked metal and helixes of barbed wire. “No, I can wait no longer for this moment. Take me to Hoyette.”

The Snake full-on grinned, revealing elongated fangs whose curve caught the gentle orange of the bulb’s twilight. “As you wish. Impatient one.”

The enchantress turned sharply on her heel and sped off down the cracking sidewalks. Seraphim pounded after her.

“So now you want to save time?“ he yelled at her. “I have connections. A taxi is just a phone call away.”

Her pace hardly faltered as she turned back to him. “Foolish plan, if I may say so, Mr. Seraphim. The fewer that see us, the better. Let’s complete this before we attract attention. Besides, we’re almost there.”

“Hmph… You act like you’re the pro…” Seraphim thought with slight irritation. But it was good enough to be back on the prowl. It was a part of his life he had sorely missed for the past few months. It wasn’t possible to go back to normal once became a Hunter.

The Snake stopped abruptly. Seraphim stumbled so as not to hit her.

“Give me a warning when you’re going to do that,” he commanded. She ignored him. “Wait a moment… We’re really are already here?”

“Yes. That’s it, there.” The Snake pointed an elegant finger towards a red brick house. The steel black bars of the fence spiked up to the moon, just a fraction away from perfect fullness. The windows were lifeless.

Seraphim folded his arms and ground his back teeth. “They’re awfully close. It took you much too long to find them. Don’t expect heavy payment for this bounty.”

“Asleep, I would assume,” the Snake whispered, ignoring her partner’s comments, assessing the situation. “And the gate’s padlocked. How shall we proceed?”

“Please.” Seraphim found himself almost annoyed by her naivety. Strange; most people were incapable of driving his emotions. “Stand back.”

Her wide, childish eyes managed to stretch past their proportions. “You aren’t thinking about shooting it open?! Firing a gunshot so early, we’ll be discovered right away! Don’t be so stupid!”

“Don’t get in my way,” the Hunter threatened lightly, reaching into his deep pockets and whipping out a silver pistol. “I’ll clean things up so quick that we’ll be gone before anyone arrives to the crime scene.”

The Snake wrinkled her nose and crossed her graceful arms but said nothing. A brilliant jump of light from the barrel, a piercing crack, and a gentle clink signified the breaking of the lock.

“Impressive,” his partner breathed, crouching down. “You slit it right down the middle.”

Seraphim tucked the gun away with a meaningful grunt. “It could have been your skull. Never attempt to stop me again. Let’s enter.”

The two pushed the destroyed opening aside and crept lithely towards the entrance. Seraphim pulled on the knob and swore. “Another lock.”

The Snake tugged on his sleeve. “Someone’s looking outside across the street. I can see the light bubbles in their pupils.”

“The caution these days… Double-locking things… Everyone thinks they’re going to die…” Seraphim snarled, giving the doorknob a final disapproving twist before releasing.

The Snake rubbed a spot on her back, trying to suppress a nervous tingle running along her spine. “With good reason. I suppose people are finally catching on to the fierce little game they don’t realize has been going on behind them.”

“Let’s hope they don’t get too noble,” Seraphim growled. “I don’t want the fun to end just yet…. Alright. That’s it. We’re breaking in.”

The Snake clucked her round tongue. “As if we haven’t already. No, no; no gun shot this time, sir; I’ll take care of it.” Like a coiling spring, the Snake bent her knees and rocketed through a side window. Flakes of glass showered the ground with an earsplitting shatter, their fine sides easily refracting the eerie glow of the midnight sun. Inside, the girl slithered across the floor, out of the crash site.

“Cut my lip…” she gurgled, smearing the heel of her hand across the gash.

“Never mind that,” Seraphim muttered, hardly listening to her as he pulled himself through the opening. “Where’s Hoyette? For all we know, they could have escaped already…”

“‘Hoyette’? You’re not looking for me, are you?”

Both Snake and Predators’ heads turned quickly in the direction of the voice as a bulb kindled to life on a chandelier and thousand crystal facets blazed. Standing in the entranceway of the family parlor was-

“You stupid girl. You got the wrong house.” Seraphim smacked the Snake upside the head, his tone just dancing on rage. “I’ll kill you where you stand. Useless little wretch-”

“What?! I never mix up a scent!” she hissed in response, baring her fangs at him. “Hoyette is in here somewhere. Ignore the brat. He is nobody.”

“Huh?,” the fifteen-year-old boy stated in confusion. “I… Hoyette is my last name. ...I’m the man of the house.”

“We’re not looking for a ‘man’,” Seraphim sneered, giving him a once-over, which, considering his height, didn’t take very long. Underneath long, deep brown bangs, two fawn brown eyes attempted to stare the Hunter down. The boy’s arms were clamped tightly to his sides, and he was wearing nice clothes as if this were typical behavior; as if he were well-dressed to match the mansion. “We’re looking for a woman. Is your mother home?”

The boy raised both eyebrows in slight shock. “M-My mother?”

“Celso!!”

A woman shoved past the boy suddenly, raising her arms in a feeble attempt to protect her son. Raven hair tumbled over her shoulders, giving off a slight sheen as it cascaded onto the off-green fabric of her dress. Her stare was menacingly feral, supported by the visible clench of her teeth.

“Celso,” Seraphim repeated dryly. “Latin for tall. How unfitting.”

The Snake snickered. “You? You know Latin?”

He grimaced. “Unfortunately… Seven years of it. Against my will.”

“Go, Cel,” the woman said serenely. “Let me take care of this.”

“That’s right, boy. We want nothing to do with you,” Seraphim drawled, waving him off lazily.

The son looked torn. “Mother, who is he?” he stammered, attempting to sound brave and failing. “I... I won’t let him hurt you.”

“No. No. I won’t let you stay. Go. Or I’ll ground you for the rest of your life.” She added the simple threat with amusement curling her upper lip.

Celso's expression was knotted. “Mother-!”

“GO!” Hysterical rage, like a she-wolf to her pup, entered the pitch. Startled, the boy backed off into the shadows, not without extreme reluctance.

It was just the three of them.

The mantle clock counted each second with a perpetual tick; and yet, silence reigned heavy in the room.

“He’s handsome enough,” the Snake mused, finally breaking the taciturnity with the single comment. “But I don’t think he’s my type. Shall we kill him, too?”

The right edge of Seraphim's mouth lifted. “Foolish Snake. You know we can’t do that. He isn’t like us.” He clapped his hands together, as a host would at a party would before making a clever comment. “Well, well, Marie Hoyette… Isn’t this a pleasure. Quite pretty still, for your age. And doing well for one with a deceased husband, might I add. Pardon me; two deceased husbands. Oh please, don’t look so surprised; you didn’t think I’d do some background before just showing up? No, no. I know plenty about you at this point. But the one thing that I’m infinitely curious to find out, that I couldn’t pick up: the location of your Cat. Where are have they gone?”

The woman hesitated before admitting, “He… He died. Eight years ago.”

“Really?” Seraphim chuckled to himself; he hadn’t been caught off-guard in years either. “You’re just a sitting duck then! No one’s knocked you off? No one. Of course not. But they haven’t even tried? Honestly, I find this unfathomable. This is almost too easy. No sport in this whatsoever.”

“Why would you hunt me?” Hoyette asked in confused desperation. She looked at his partner, the detail of her stunning features. “You have a Snake, don’t you? But Snakes and Cats have an alliance formed right now. When you have so many enemies- when I am in the useless state that I am, not a threat to you in any way- why would you make me your top priority?”

“For one thing, as I said before, you are completely defenseless,” Seraphim began, fingering at the corner of a nearby side table and rubbing index and thumb together when dust appeared. “For another, I care next to nothing about alliances. They’re stupid, frivolous things to toy around with. They make this little game, -if that’s all this really is, a little game- less interesting. It’s unrealistic in every way. Beasts don’t make pacts. They trust in their own strength. Only an idiot thinks everyone will play fair, like little school children. Only a coward counts on others.”

“What about your Snake?” Hoyette questioned innocently, in an airy voice, sensing how much time there was left for her. “Don’t you care of her?”

A sliver of a laugh managed to slip past the net of his emotion. “I? Care of her? Don’t even.” There was a telltale click of metal on metal, and the gun came from his pocket to meet the side of the Snake’s head; the girl flinched but in no other way responded. “You see? Think I won’t? Just say the word, and I’ll shoot her.”

Hoyette’s eyebrows slouched. “No. Please don’t.”

Seraphim tilted his head. “Don’t you want to see that I’ll really do it?”

“I don’t want to see you harm a child.”

The Snake lifted her chin indignantly. “I’ll have you know that I’m twenty-two-”

“You’re a child!” Hoyette spat, then took a breath to steady her nerves. “The number of years one still has before their dying day is as precious as gold, if not more so. It isn’t like money; you can’t recover when you gamble it recklessly. Don’t be a foolish little girl.” The Snake clenched her fist into a solid force but Seraphim placed a hand on her shoulder to restrain her. Hoyette continued. “My son… is so much less of a fool. He will do well in life and have so many days that he can do whatever he wants with. Leave him alone.”

“I assume that he is the child of your last Cat?” Seraphim interrogated, disappointment almost apparent that no death had yet occurred, but the gun wasn’t put away, clenched loosely in his well-architectured hand. “And how did he take his father’s death?”

“He dealt with everything very well. Celso is a good boy. And a strong one, at that.”

“Good boy, bad name.” The Snake shook her head. “What is it with people these days, names like that? No, it’s not even naming anymore; it’s cursing-”

Hoyette’s eyes sparkled with malignance. “That’s enough! You shut up about my Celso.”

“Temper, Marie.” Seraphim shook his finger. “You want those to be your dying words?”

“We’re wrapping up then? We all saw this coming.” Hoyette was remarkably calm, considering the moment. “No, I’d like my dying words to be something a bit more memorable. Just for you.”

“Go on,” Seraphim said with an overly friendly toss of his hand.

The Snake nudged her associate. “I hear sirens. We have to hurry.”

Hold on, Snake. Just wait a minute.” Seraphim took out the same pistol and pointed it carefully at the woman’s heart, watching as a silver glint of moonlight made a bar across the metal.

Hoyette stood with genuine bravery in its face. “Listen, you bastard: I have more family than you think I do. They’re not all Cats, and they’re not all dead. I have a daughter, an older one, named Nieve.” She took a unsure breath, wondering if she should have divulged this, before continuing. “My son’s name is Celso. He is fifteen years old. I love him more than anything and anyone in the world. And he is going to freaking screw you over.”

Seraphim’s gun hand didn’t waver. “My, my. That’s a big responsibility for a little boy.”

Hoyette tightened her fists. “Just do it already.”

The bullet split the air with its rounded head and met the skin. It felt like slow motion, feeling each vessel snag at the penetration’s momentum as it sliced through with ease. She could feel it enter her heart, the arteries snapping like fishing line and flesh exploding under its merciless touch. She could feel the blood rushing hot on her skin as it dampened the front of her blouse. She could feel her life mucking up in the veins, solidifying then and there, at the grand finale of her forty-seven years.

She hung their like a trapeze artist, during the drum roll just before the daring leap. The oxygen that had remained from her lungs spilled out, causing a bubble of blood to stretch across her lips. Its red surface shimmered grotesquely in the pale light that streamed through ridged, broken window. The raw skin was speckled with light beads, like prized rubies; it was beyond repair, past the hand of the greatest doctor. The still night hung with the anticipation for her to fall.

The kitten cries of the police sirens stopped just outside.

“Come out with your hands raised!”

“Drop your weapons!”

“We’ve got you surrounded!”

Pop.

The bubble broke across her mouth with a noise sickeningly louder and significantly more disturbing than waterfall of blood that soon after lurched from her throat. But to Seraphim’s ears, it was sweet, sweet music. Another body collapsed at his will. Another name to add to the Murder Book. More money to chink merrily in his pockets. A reputation kept.

“What say we get out of here?” Seraphim said lightheartedly to the Snake. “I’m a little hungry. I wouldn’t mind a glass of wine. Would you?”

“How do you plan to escape?” she asked, positioning her hands on the pinnacle of her scalp, attempting relaxation when all around her was a torrent of melodrama.

Seraphim grinned maliciously. “I assumed we’d take the brat as hostage.”

“Mm-hm. I like the way you think.” The Snake toed into the dark room next door. A few desperate, angry words from the boy, like a struggle was going on, and then silence. A few moments later, she came back with Celso grasped behind the neck, his legs the only part of him that seemed unconstrained enough to move; but not at his free will, only wherever the Snake wanted him to.

“Look at him. He’s so cute and lit-tle.” The Snake drew a circle on his cheek with her finger, which he had no choice but to accept with a slight whimper. “So easily intimidated. Do you wonder why you can’t escape from my grip? I’m a Snake, boy. I know my toxins.”

Seraphim blinked, impressed. “You paralyzed him? You’re not half-bad, Snake.”

She shot him a jagged smile. “I’m not ‘Snake’, by the way. Cherri is my name.”

“Cherri… You’re one to talk of ‘curses’. Enough. Let’s get out of here.”

“Very well.” She led the boy forward, where he was forced to comply. The police pointed their own guns ready as the three emerged from the now unlocked door, but all had the same useless response when they saw the captive.

“I think you all understand what we have here. And maybe you can find it in your hearts to let it just slide, for the boy’s sake. We are armed, after all.” Cherri removed a knife from a side pocket with a lightning-fast swipe of her hand and thrust its tip against the hostage’s jugular, the pressure only slight. “You see then? We don’t want to kill him, really, but we have no intention of going to jail tonight either. We had no choice. Now, then; if you’ll excuse us.” Seraphim parted the crowd simply by walking forward. Any policeman with half a brain could tell that he wasn’t someone to be trifled with, that he had managed to slip through the stickiest of fingers many times before. It is also important to mention that this quaint town’s security was not particularly strong, made mostly up of police officers who had never needed to shoot an individual. They could only gawk at his follower, with her fragile doe’s frame and glossy complexion. It was apparent that she followed his requests obediently but had a mind of her own. Neither one of them had lacked in skill. This wasn’t a one-time shoot off they had committed; this was how they lived their lives.

As soon as they were out of the authority’s sight, Cherri let the boy drop to the ground in a secluded side street.

“There was a little extra something in the venom that’ll keep you quiet for the next few hours. So no shouting for help.” The Snake put a finger to her smiling lips. Celso blinked up at her with mixed expressions. “Aw. Little sad? Your momma never told you how she’s paid for you all the years? Or did she give you a lie, a horrible lie? You should be glad we came and messed her up something good.” Cherri cackled wickedly into the starry sky, a sinful noise that seemed to spoil her good looks. “Listen good, Mr. Man-of-the-House: If you really intend to ‘screw us over’, you’ve got some homework to do.”

Celso glared in response. Cherri tugged playfully on one of his bangs, and his stomach dropped at her sickly innocence.

“Well, good luck. Not. Learn what you want, pretty boy; in the end you’ll just be another Hoyette to add to the list of the dead. Bye-bye now~!”

With a final wave, Cherri followed Seraphim into the abyssal night. It was autumn, and with the beginning of the cooling process, the winds blew steadily. Confusion and frustration were high in the abandoned boy, and, with nothing to do but hopelessly wait to be rescued, Celso let the tears flow quietly, the lasting image of his blood-soaked mother forever imprinted upon his memory.