Page 7 of Tattered Huntress
Three
Ishould have used the time it took to travel to the holiday homes at Westloch to calm down, but the further I drove from Neidpath Castle the more my shame turned to fury. Alright, so I wasn’t perfect – but nobody was. Hugo Wankstain Pemberville definitely wasn’t.
The only life that was being destroyed by my addiction to spider’s silk was mine, and he had no fucking clue what had driven me to it in the first place. That bastard thought he could judge me from his lofty pedestal of privilege and position – well, screw him. I slammed my fists on the steering wheel.Screw him.
I pulled up outside the Westloch address and took several moments to breathe in and out, inhaling air into my lungs slowly and steadily. When that didn’t work, I leaned across and opened the glovebox. I’d been planning to wait until after I’d been to Hurley Cave but Arbuthnot’s batch of spider’s silk wasn’t very strong and I needed another hit now.
I tore open the small plastic bag, took out another pill and stared at it in the palm of my hand. Then I bared my teeth and shrugged angrily. I wasn’t hurting anyone. I might be weak, butI wasn’t bad to the bone. I tossed the pill into my mouth and swallowed it. This was my life to mess up.
This time the parcel didn’t require a signature, so when nobody came to answer the door I left it in the porch where it would be safe from both prying eyes and the weather. I only had Hurley Cave to go, and after Hugo Pemberville that would be a breeze. I put the old van into gear, slammed my foot down on the accelerator and sped towards it. Suddenly, I was looking forward to the distraction.
Hurley Cave isn’t a natural cavern; it was originally created as part of a designed landscape a few hundred years ago and is actually an artificial tunnel. To be honest, a real cave with stagnant water, stalagmites and bats would have been far more pleasant because it wouldn’t have been occupied by Duchess, a large misanthropic troll with a penchant for violence.
The package she’d ordered was both cumbersome and heavy; knowing what I did of Duchess, it wouldn’t have surprised me if it contained the severed fingers of vestal virgins or the discarded fur from tortured bunny rabbits. I parked as close to the cave as I could, collected it from the back of the van and shifted it in my arms until it was comfortable to carry.
Tentatively, I approached the small bridge in front of the dark doorway but stopped a metre or two short of it. I wouldn’t attempt to cross it – I wasn’t that stupid.
I coughed loudly to announce my presence then called out, ‘Hello?’
There was no answer. I took a shuffling baby step forward and tried again. ‘Hello? Duchess?’
I could hear a few wood pigeons cooing overhead and the muted babble of the water underneath the bridge but nothing else. I allowed myself to take another tiny step, then another. And another…
It was only when my toes were an inch from the bridge thatthere was finally a deep rumble from somewhere underneath. The ground trembled beneath my feet and a clawed hand appeared and gripped the low bridge wall. I waited.
In a lithe movement that belied her size and shape, Duchess threw herself upwards and planted her bare feet on top of the bridge’s moss-covered surface. Her lower half, which was partly covered by a grubby linen skirt that only just skimmed her thighs, was dripping wet, and rivulets of water were running down her bony green legs. Her upper half boasted a lichen-covered breastplate that didn’t do much to conceal her sagging flesh. She had slicked-back hair, a heavy monobrow, and her grey eyes were narrowed as she leered at me.
I tried not to look nervous. ‘Hi, Duchess.’
‘You made a grave mistake coming here, girlie.’ She pawed at the air in front of her. ‘There might not be much meat on you but I can still crunch your bones and suck out all that juicy marrow. This is my home and you will pay the ultimate penalty for intruding.’
‘You invited me here.’ Sort of.
‘I did no such thing,’ Duchess snorted. She took a heavy step forward and, without warning, swiped her left hand towards me with the sort of speed any predator would envy. The sharp nail on her index finger scraped my cheekbone and immediately drew blood.
I held my ground, aware that stepping back or showing pain or fear would only spur her on to attack properly.
Duchess chuckled and placed her finger to her lips. After licking off the tiny beads of my blood, she smacked her lips. ‘You’re tastier than you look.’
I dropped into a half-curtsey of mock gratitude before nodding awkwardly at the box in my arms. ‘I’m not trying to cross the bridge,’ I told her. ‘I don’t want to sneak into your home or hurt you.’
Duchess threw back her head and laughed. The sound bounced wetly off the walls of the cave behind her. ‘As if the pathetic likes of you could ever hurtme. I dare you to try, girlie. Go on, give it your best shot and in return I’ll show you what real pain feels like.’
If anyone else had said those words, their comic-book-villain melodrama would have sounded amusing, but Duchess spoke with complete sincerity that negated any humour. She wasn’t bluffing. Duchess didn’t bluff.
I nodded again at the box. ‘I’m here from SDS. Swift Delivery Service? I’ve got a parcel for you. You’ve met me before, more than once.’ Several times, in fact.
Her brow furrowed slightly. ‘Really?’
‘Really.’
She squinted at me then clicked her massive fingers as realisation dawned. ‘You’re Kat! Kitty Kat! We were going to test whether you have nine lives or not.’
I shook my head. ‘I’m Daisy. Daisy Carter.’
Duchess’s frown deepened. ‘The elf?’
‘That’s me,’ I said with forced cheeriness. It wasn’t her memory that was the problem but her incredibly poor eyesight; that was probably part of the reason why she was so grumpy and quick to attack.
