Glitch Hunter Read online

  "As injured as they were?" Alex asked.

  "Another teaching moment. You don't just hunt Glitch, you are Glitch. We are all Glitch in some form or other. You don't belong in this world, and the world itself knows that. The good news is that you're stronger and tougher than you should be. You're not immortal, not at all, but at least if mundane weapons don't kill you outright you'll survive the day and heal far faster than normal. You said you tried attacking the Aryx?" Yasmine asked.

  "They barely noticed," Alex said.

  "You'd have done better bare-handed than with steel not resonating."

  The fast healing fit what Alex had seen of Nya’s wound. The armor suggested something large stabbed her, but she had almost healed before dying.

  "So, what killed Nya and Vandor?" Alex asked.

  "People, not monsters. There were five of us who called the keep here home. One was out questing, but the other four got taken by someone with the right knowledge—who knew what they were doing. We're looking for answers," Yasmine said.

  They had come to the path, narrow and winding. It was a long way up and they started to climb. Evening seemed to be fast approaching and the bleak skies began a splattering rain.

  "If we're nothing but hired killers and kind of monsters ourselves, what makes Glitch like us any better than the things we're supposed to be hunting?" Helen asked.

  "I'm a killer, not a philosopher," Yasmine said, wiping a few strands of hair back from her forehead. "Shame rain won't wash away the scent of rotblood. We stink."

  "You two do," Helen said.

  "Did I see you got a half-share on one of the Aryx, Glaive?" Yasmine asked.

  "And a full share when I burned the bodies."

  "Nice. It will be awhile until we get to what you can do with that, but you'll find it helpful." "Well, now I just feel like I'm missing out," Helen said.

  Yasmine said, "You'll get your chance. If there is one thing the world isn't lacking for it is Glitch in need of killing."

  The keep was coming into view, a ramshackle stone affair that looked long-abandoned.

  "So, what if I want no part of this? Can I walk away?" Helen asked.

  "I'm not holding anyone hostage. Walk and there will be consequences, but that isn't a threat. For the time being you have an offer of a roof over your head and training on the skills you need to survive," Yasmine said.

  "I can live with that," Helen said.

  "So, you're like us? Alex asked Yasmine.

  "I've been here a little over three years now. I wound up appearing in the middle of the marketplace in Graymark. Some damned fool scavenged the bracer and had it for sale," Yasmine said.

  "Hope you're not shy," Helen said.

  "Not anymore," Yasmine said with a laugh.

  "So, where we appear depends on the bracer location? Not the corpse?" Alex asked.

  "Right. Your bracer has been around for a long time and you're each the last in a long line of Glitch Hunters. As I understand it, we can live a very long time, even centuries, but reality is the life of a Glitch Hunter tends to be short. Especially a new one."

  "You're really selling this whole thing," Helen said.

  They entered the keep. By now it was almost night. Only one building showed any light.

  "I'm telling you to listen to every word I say, and to get better. Let’s go meet the others," Yasmine said.

  4

  “The close of the second age left the world filled with keeps, towers, and walls. Remnants of an age when life was more plentiful, and murder less personal.” Sir Gregor Vale, Travels through Youlash

  Yasmine led the way into the building. It looked as if it must have once been an inn of some sort. A bar had casks behind it and tables surrounded a fireplace. A fire was lit, throwing back the chill of the night air and a welcome relief after the growing chill outside.

  Two men were dressed in mismatched garments and seated at one of the tables. One was a giant with wild red hair and a thick beard, the other was thinner and more wiry, with his hair shaved down almost to his skull.

  "Found our missing two and they only almost got eaten by monsters. Alex Glaive, Helen Ranseur. The big one is Morgan Pike and the little one is Evan Flail," Yasmine said.

  "We are not going with those descriptions," Evan said.

  "I like it," Morgan roared, and pounded his mug on the table. "You sure they didn't die? Smells like it."

  "Rotblood," Yasmine said, "I'll explain it tomorrow. Rooms are in the back, pick one. I'll ruin your drinking if I stick around, so I'm going to go draw a bath. Glaive, I recommend you do the same."

  "We're not going to do it together? A shame," Alex said.

  Yasmine shrugged. "If you're offering to scrub my back I'll take you up on it. Play nice, kids. And make sure to get some rest. We meet in the courtyard at dawn."

  Yasmine moved down the hall and Alex followed. Yasmine glanced over her shoulder and flashed him a grin, "You were serious?"

  "Any reason I shouldn't be?" Alex asked.

  "Plenty," Yasmine said, pushing open the door at the end of the hall. It was probably once the master suite of the establishment, now long in disrepair, tattered hangings lining the walls. A large, carved tub took up one corner. Details were fuzzy in the darkness.

  Yasmine snapped her fingers at a candle and murmured, "Calara." A flame sprang to life filling the chamber with a dim light. "Benefits of being in charge. I got the tub. It looks like Artificer work and still functions."

  "So how did you wind up in charge?" Alex asked.

  Yasmine shook her head as she took off her gloves and tossed them on the floor. "You need something else to talk about. I've had enough of playing mentor for the day."

  Alex slipped out of his own gloves and boots, "My memories only go back a few hours. You're just about all I have to talk about. Besides, I'm interested."

  Yasmine moved over to the tub and turned an assortment of cranks. Steaming water began to fill the bath. With that started she leaned against the wall, folding her arms. "Then if you're not going to be an interesting conversationalist, I hope you amuse in other ways. If you're going to stay, take off your clothes."

  "Not going to join me?" Alex asked.

  Yasmine shrugged again. "I haven't decided on whether or not I'm going to send you back to your room."

  Alex was still trying to figure out just what kind of person he was, but knew he wasn't shy. Taking off the armor was easier than putting it on, although recently dried blood made it stick in places. Soon the armor rested in a pile on the floor.

  Yasmine was bold in her look, brown eyes surveying his body with a casual appreciation and a smile tugging at her lips.

  "Entertained?" Alex asked.

  "You're covered in blood, wounded, and stink like a rotting corpse. I'm impressed you managed to be turned on despite it."

  "You inspire me," Alex said.

  "Is that what you're going with? Tell me more about how you and Helen appeared. Was it a large room?" Yasmine asked.

  "Tiny," Alex said.

  "So, you were close."

  "She was on top of me." Alex said, remembering.

  "Did she inspire you too?" Yasmine asked.

  "She did."

  Yasmine chuckled, a low sound deep in her throat. "So it isn't really me that inspires you so much as you are just, generally, inspired."

  "The one doesn't exclude the other," Alex said.

  "Are you here for a bath, or are you here to sleep with me?" Yasmine asked.

  "The one doesn't exclude the other," Alex repeated.

  She said after a moment, "I'm going to go ahead and play mentor a little more, because it matters.”

  "At this point I'm interested in other things."

  Yasmine chuckled again. "I can tell, I don't care. I told you a little bit about the benefits of being Glitch. Glitch all have an attunement to certain types of quintessence, and we're attuned with black quintessence in particular."

  "The Aryx awarded black experience," Alex
said.

  "Black signifies an alignment with death. We deal out death, not life. You'll never father children, most mundane diseases fail the moment they hit you, and even most supernatural ones will wear off with time."

  Alex was interested, despite the difficulty of focusing on what she had to say.

  "Why are you telling me this?"

  "Because it means you're the easiest and safest fuck a girl is ever going to have. Zero consequences, you're usually out the door quickly, and you're appealing from being vaguely heroic, if you are doing what you are supposed to. Peasants are going to try to crawl into your bed and a few nobles might try to order you into theirs," Yasmine said.

  Alex wasn't sure just how he was supposed to take this news.

  "And Helen thought you didn't know how to sell the virtues of this job."

  Yasmine laughed and shook her head. "I agree, mostly. It doesn't solve the problems that arise from crawling into bed with someone crazy. You should be a lot more cautious crawling into bed with a Glitch."

  "Is that a problem?"

  Yasmine's expression turned more serious, "You ask that as you try to call into bed with one? Yeah, not just from fellow Glitch Hunters. Vampires, succubi, weres, fey, or even spirits. There are a lot of things out there like that. Most feed on humanity's impulses in various ways, and if you make a habit of giving into yours it can cause you problems. It can get you killed."

  "Are you intending to kill me?"

  "No, but I'd do you a disservice if I didn't explain matters to you up-front. Even casual sex with another Glitch matters and there are often consequences of some kind."

  "Any examples?" Alex asked.

  "Not today. I'm done with mentoring again. Are you still interested?"

  "I am," Alex said.

  "Fair enough. We're going to be here for weeks training and I'm not interested in being celibate, but I'm also not interested in sleeping around the whole class. We do it once, we do it through the rest of your training," Yasmine said.

  "And here I thought I might be being too forward."

  "It won’t go any easier on you in training. You don't get any special favors, I'll probably be even harder on you."

  "Anything else?" Alex asked.

  "That it isn't a secret. If you agree with everything I've said, I'd appreciate something to drink. There’s some wine and glasses in one of the chests in the closet. Find them," Yasmine said.

  Alex did as she asked. There was a storage closet attached to the room with a number of chests piled up, mostly filled with rotting old scraps of fabric. Still, he did eventually find the wine and returned.

  "Helpful," Yasmine said, "I like that. Pour us some glasses and then get over here. I was serious about the back-scrubbing."

  Alex poured wine into both glasses and joined her in the tub facing her. It was roomy enough for two, but a tight fit. Their legs forced to intertwine. Yasmine's skin was a dusky hue, tiny dark nipples half out of the water.

  Yasmine took a sip of the wine before shifting in the tub to present her back to him and handing him a brush, "Scrub hard. I already added some powdered Cada root to the water to help."

  Yasmine's back showed several scars, some of which looked quite old. A recent set of claw marks crossed a jagged one.

  Alex wrapped one arm around her waist, shifting her position a bit closer as he began to scrub. "How did one catch you on the back like this?"

  "I ducked beneath a leap. Missed the front claws, but it landed on my back and sprang off," Yasmine said.

  Alex was careful around the recent wound. "You've a lot of scars."

  Yasmine settled back against him and gave a contented sigh, "I know. When I arrived the only ones I had were across my back, but I've got a lot more now."

  "Why your back?"

  "I'm told they were whip marks. I don't remember why, of course. Like I was telling you two earlier, sometimes I think we're better off forgetting where we might have come from. Harder, on the wound too,” she instructed him. “Rotblood seeps into them and I want to make sure we get the stench out. It's okay if it hurts."

  Alex did as she asked, the wounds reopening and the water turning pink as trickles of blood flowed.

  "I thought you said we healed quickly?" Alex said.

  "Against mundane weapons. Glitch-inflicted wounds like this usually take about a day. We'll both be a bit off our game tomorrow morning, but should be fine by evening. My turn to get you," Yasmine said.

  Yasmine turned around in the water to face Alex, shifting up to straddle his hips, their bodies slick as they slid against each other. It was no accident, one of her hands slipping beneath the water to find his cock and then shifting so that she could lower herself upon it.

  "Oh, this is what you meant by vigorous scrubbing," Alex said.

  Yasmine soaked the brush in the water before dipping her fingers in a vial near the bath and rubbing the contents on the bristles. "Oh no, that we're going to take slow at first. Angle your head up. When I told you to put some rotblood on your skin, I didn't expect you to take a bath in it."

  "I couldn't fight the Aryx, so I'd maneuvered a few of them into fighting each other. There was a puddle," Alex said, tilting his head as Yasmine began to scrub vigorously while languidly rocking her hips, her thighs gripping around his hips tightly.

  "That was clever," Yasmine said. The brush burned intensely and Alex could swear he heard a faint sizzle. Whatever she was adding must be fairly caustic, and it seemed to be getting the job done.

  Yasmine used the brush on his wounds. Alex held in a grunt as they burned.

  "It bought me some time. It wouldn't have been enough if you hadn't shown up," Alex said.

  Yasmine was rocking harder now and Alex's breath was starting to come faster, a flush coming to his skin.

  "I think that you were an adventurer—before coming here, I mean. It’s something of a game, guessing what people were in their past," Yasmine said.

  "Why an adventurer?"

  "You have scars that suggest you've been stabbed, shot with an arrow, knifed, and bitten. A lot of variety, more than you usually see. You're fit, but you don't carry yourself like a soldier. That lingers, Evan was obviously a soldier."

  Despite the distraction she was providing Alex found himself intrigued by the theories. It was just the sort of guesses he'd made about Helen.

  "Lawman? Criminal?" Alex asked.

  "Possible. You're smart and you’re bold, virtues valuable although rare to find," Yasmine said, accelerating the pace of her hips to something fevered, reaching out to dig her fingers into his shoulders as she shifted position to grind down savagely.

  It was a pace that Alex couldn't endure for long before he gasped, jerking up against her even as she let out her own cries of release.

  Conversation stilled for a few minutes. Yasmine continuing to rock slowly while her hands played over his chest.

  Finally she said, "Enough of the guessing games. Bed time for us, seriously. We've an early start tomorrow."

  5

  “Rage is the river I sail upon. Though there are currents I am in control, though there is direction I choose my course.” Overheard chanted during meditation by Kya Norxi, House of Carnage

  Dawn found everyone assembled in the courtyard, or at least almost everyone. They were one short. Yasmine checked the beds but found no sign of Evan, who had slipped out during the night.

  "Anyone know where he might have gone?" Yasmine asked.

  "We were talking last night. I told him what you'd said, about any of us being able to walk away," Helen said.

  "Man had a lot of doubts," Morgan said.

  Yasmine pursed her lips and shrugged. "His choice, at least he didn't try to murder us in our beds or rob us blind."

  "Not that we have anything to steal," Helen said.

  "You and Glaive actually do. Arms and armor, which is more than the others have. The corpses of their predecessors had been stripped clean," Yasmine said, moving into a small outbuilding fr
om which she pulled a bundle and set it on the ground. "Speaking of which, get over here, Pike. I don't have armor that will fit you, but I've got you a Songblade and Songhammer."

  "What kind of poncy sword sings?" Morgan asked.

  Yasmine handed him a sword and hammer. "These are actually crap weapons and you'll want to get them replaced or upgraded as soon as possible. The same for yours, Glaive, although Ranseur's are good for fresh meat."

  "What about armor?" Helen asked.

  "Yours is weak and shredded on top of it. I have a few old pieces you can use, see me after. Glaive, yours is good stuff, but badly in need of repair. Wherever you wind up after training, you'll want to find a talented armorsmith when you have a few coin."

  Morgan was hefting the short-sword and looking at it with a frown, "You armed me with a toothpick, lass."

  Yasmine explained, "You'll want to get one that is larger. The sword and hammer are not the only weapons of a Glitch Hunter, but these are traditional and in the right hands very effective. You never know what a Glitch is going to be vulnerable to and between a Songblade and an enchanted Songhammer you can cover all the usual possibilities."

  "Didn't do me a lot of good," Alex said.

  "Yours weren't the right hands. Have any of you heard a ringing in your ears since showing up here?" Yasmine asked.

  "Nonstop," Alex said.

  Helen nodded, "Could barely sleep with it."

  "We are the House of Bats and we possess the unique ability to hear dissonance. I told you before, Glitch don't belong in this world. We vibrate wrong in comparison to the things around us. It is why Glitch are so deadly to the locals and why we're so hard to kill."

  Alex said, "It got worse down below the more Aryx entered the room with me."

  Yasmine said, "Pike hasn't gotten to experience anything yet. You and Ranseur have. Like, we can see in total darkness utilizing the way our own dissonance echoes off the environment."

  "But I couldn't do that until my bracer had initialized," Alex said, recalling his first experience of scrolling text.