New Souls

Chapter 1:Here

         “I’m here.” she thought. After making numerous calls all across the(albeit small) world, she had finally found and traveled to the only hunter house that would take in someone with no experience hunting demons; Sister Margo’s Hunter House. She tipped the driver, stepped out and stretched her whole body, letting her hair fall between her wings as they flutter and drop some loose feathers. She grabbed her bags from the back of the coach and walked up the steps of the small apartment-esque building.
         Despite the rundown appearance of the rest of town, the building looked pretty well put together, which is why she was even more surprised when she got inside. She saw a tall, slender blonde woman with a crew cut sitting behind the desk with a cigarette in hand and an unseen radio playing slow, steady music in the background. The woman was wearing a black tank top and brown cargo pants. The dark, worn look of her clothes contrasted heavily with the white blouse and blue jeans that Miriam had on. It was only when she noticed the nun’s coif hanging from the hat rack near the door, that she realized that this militaristic woman was in fact Sister Margo.
         “Are you gonna come in, or just keep standing there feathers?” the woman called over.
         She jumped at the sudden exclamation, grabbed her bags and hurried over to the desk. “Hi. Yes. I am Miriam.” she stuttered, “I’m the person who called about the opening.”
Sister Margo looked her up and down. “Yeah, you never mentioned the wings. You do know this place is for hunting, not cosplay, Ms.White.” She said motioning to the bright red hair and then the wings shifting awkwardly behind the young girl.
         “They aren’t fake. They’re all real, not that they work. My father was an angel.”
         “Now that’s a fat load. Angels don’t come down here girly. Only one I’ve ever met was a jarhead with a stick up his ass. If he actually got laid then I owe somebody a lot of money.”
         Miriam shook her head again, “Yep. My father’s name was Gavreel, and my mother was Angela White. Both hunters.” Margo paused for a moment, as if choosing her words carefully.
         “Yeah, I knew them. Knew their work. Never knew they got together. I heard that they...”
         “Died? Yes I was one of the first to find out. It was two years ago Miss Margo. I’m not a child.” It was Margo’s turn to be surprised. Despite her meek attitude before, this winged young woman immediately turned stoic and assertive. “So can we continue to the interview or should we talk more about dead people?” Miriam said sarcastically. Sister Margo just put out her cigarette and motioned towards the office next to the desk.
         Margo took a seat behind the large wooden desk as she motioned to the old, worn leather chair across from it. She pulled a clipboard out from a drawer and waited as Miriam situated her wings in a comfortable position behind her as she sat on the edge of the chair. Margo held up the clipboard and read in a monotone voice,
         “Welcome to the Ora City Hunter House. We ask that you respond to this verbal questionnaire honestly and as concise as possible. Even if some of these questions seem personal, they must be answered or your application will be void.” She paused, trying to get a read off of the prim and proper angel in front of her, only to see the same composed face stare back. “One. Have you ever killed a demon?”
“          No” she replied, trying not to let any emotion show through this exchange.
         “Two. Are you related to any current or former Hunters? If so, who?”
         “As stated before Gavreel and Angela White.” The same stoic face, but with a tinge of annoyance in her voice.
         “Three. Do you own anything that can damage or kill a demon? If so, please present it to the registration officer now.”
         “Yes. I have this.” she says as she lowers her head and her hands begin to glow. As the light reaches its brightest point, Miriam brought her palms together, and as she slowly brought them apart, a small, silver dagger with a golden hand guard materialized between them. Margo raised her eyebrows, slightly impressed.
“This is an angelic dagger my father taught me how to summon. Every angel has one, apparently.” she stated, slightly out of breath from the amount of energy exerted to do that.
         “Yeah. I saw him pull it out once or twice. He said it was the angelic weapon he had left, after being out of heaven for so long.”
         “Can we return to the questions please?” Miriam responded plainly.
         “Final question. Would you kill a friend/family member/colleague/innocent to stop a demon.” Margo responded, returning to the flat tone she started with.
         This question gave Miriam some pause. She hadn’t read about it when researching hunting, nor did she expect it, so she didn’t have a response prepared. She thought for another moment, and slowly replied “If it was the only way.”
Sister Margo sighed, “Fine.” She stood up and motioned for the door. After they got back to the front room, she turned towards the stairs.
         “XENOS, GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE!” she shouted. After a few muffled grunts, a tall young man came down the stairs.          He was dressed plainly, in black cargo pants and a gray long sleeve t-shirt. His shoulder length brown hair tied back in a low ponytail. The only thing that really stood out about is outfit was the silver choker around his neck, but she passed it off as some teenage fashion thing she didn’t have time for. His green eyes flashed between Margo and the winged creature before him.
He paused for a moment, before finally asking “We taking in cosplayers now?”
Margo stifled a laugh as Miriam’s cheeks became as red as her hair as she shouted, “For the last time I’m not a darn cosplayer. My father was an angel of the lord!” Xenos paused again, his green eyes locking with her blue. “Oh wow, she pulled out the fucking d-word. I never expected such a method cosplayer to swear,” he chuckled to no one in particular. Miriam just closed her eyes and took a deep breath, hoping to prevent any further argument.
         “So what the fuck do you want, Margy?” he inquired once he stopped laughing.
         “She’s a new recruit. She’s not much, but she’s all we got right now. I want you to go out and see what she can do. And it’s Sister. Next time your curse at me, I swear to God, her knife’s going up your ass.”
         Xenos just shrugged and motioned for Miriam to follow. On their way out, he stopped in the kitchen to grab an egg timer, and a bag of beef jerky.
         “Alright. Whip out this holy dagger or whatever, and see if you can cut me.” he says as he picks up a three foot iron pipe that was leaning against the back wall of the building. With jerky in one hand and the pipe in another, he continues “Don’t worry, I won’t hit back. This thing’s just to even the odds a little. You have one hour. Begin.”
         While startled by how abruptly this test began, she re-summoned her dagger as fast as she could, which turned out to be about a whole minute. Finally she grasped it in her right hand and charged towards him, thrusting towards his midsection. He sidestepped, keeping the pipe between him and the blade as he casually took another bite of jerky.
“Too slow,” he muttered through the snack in his mouth. She brought herself around and slashed horizontally, only to be blocked by the pipe already in position. “Predictable.” She swiped up, to which he simply jumped back to avoid. This repeated in a pattern of missed or blocked attacks, snide comments, and chewed jerky for about thirty minutes. “If you want a tip. Fighting is more than just your weapon. Think feathers.”
         She stopped, breathing heavily. He had barely broken a sweat as he just kept on eating. “Think Miriam!” Miriam always had an edge in gym as her abilities were elevated a bit past normal humans, but this was still apparently too slow and weak for the human before her.
         After taking a few deep breaths, she calmed down and came up with a plan. She hid herself from him with her wings as she continued with her plan. After a couple of minutes, she whipped her wings out of the way and threw her dagger at Xenos like a throwing knife. He quickly batted it out of the air and turned his attention back to his snack, only to see her charging back at him. With his pipe still displaced from hitting away the thrown dagger, he raised his knee into the second one’s hilt to be able to sidestep it in time. He was then greeted with two wings wrapping around him, holding him back to back with Miriam. She raised her second dagger, planning to stab past herself and into Xenos’ side.
         Instead she felt Xenos slide his pipe between them and pry them apart just before her dagger made contact. Then the egg timer rang. The hour was up. “Well done. You managed to almost cut a man not fighting back with a hand full of snacks.” Xenos congratulated sarcastically. “How’d she do?”
         He was facing the back door, where Sister Margo was standing with the clipboard. She chewed on the eraser a bit, before saying “Meh. With luck she might be able to kill a possessed baby in a year,” she joked, “but we’re short on manpower, so she’s got the job.”
         “Aww, come on Margy. How will me babysitting a brat with wings increase manpower.” Xenos complained. Sister Margo just glared at him as everyone went inside.
         After Miriam moved her luggage upstairs to her room, she came down to find Xenos and Margo waiting for her.
“We’ve got a job,” Xenos said.
         “There’s a pack of hellhounds near the barrier. They’ve mostly just been stalking the forest, hunting all the deer and bears they could eat, but I guess they’ve finally moved into the slums. The report comes from a poor man whose daughter was recently torn to shreds on her way home from school.” Sister Margo explained, “Now he only found what was left of the body, but that pack’s been spotted a few times since then. About six or seven in the pack all together. Get to it.” And with that she sat back down behind the desk next to the phone, turned the radio back on, and lit another cigarette.
         “Get ready feathers, we leave in five,” Xenos said, climbing the stairs. As Miriam passed his room, she noticed it was like hers, but somehow more plain. No decorations, nothing special. Just a bed with gray linens, a ceiling fan, and a writing desk. The desk was the only thing that looked like it got any use. She continued down the hall to her room to prepare herself for her first mission.