We Who Hunt the Hollow, page 1
Hi Mum. This one’s for you.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT PAGE
CHAPTER ONE
Mist clings to the manticore’s sides, glistening on cinnabar fur. Its warning growl rumbles through the alleyway. Stinger-tipped tail lashing. I lift the crossbow. I’ve got maybe thirty seconds before it attacks. Then it growls again, although its toothy maw didn’t move, which means – shit. There’s a second one, padding out into the dim light beneath the single burning street lamp to join its buddy. Shadows pool in the hollows of its eyes.
I bite down on my back teeth, on the urge to panic-laugh. Two manticores. Just one is classified as grade four savage. Extremely injurious, high risk. What does that make two? Certain doom?
And I chose a crossbow. Oh, Priscilla. Well done.
I shuffle backwards. Maybe I have a chance to gracefully retreat.
Then another manticore lunges from the left, closer than the others, scorpion tail arced over its back in full attack mode. Wait. There’s three of them? I pivot to face it, swinging up the crossbow. Can’t believe I picked a crossbow. I release the trigger and the serum-filled bolt slams into the beast’s face, poison slaying it instantly, and I’m loading in the next bolt already but now the second one is way too close on my right, and the first one – hold on, where did the first one go? I spin around to see a wide open mouthful of fangs and –
My vision flashes and goes dark. Glowing text appears, helpfully announcing SCENARIO FAILED. YOU HAVE DIED.
I yank off the visor and push back from my desk with a sigh. Who designed this stupid scenario anyway? Manticores are solitary. They never leak through in packs.
It’s almost like they’re helping me fail.
Hmm, I think that one was all your own doing, Mouse says from her little nest on my bedside table. Maybe if you’d picked the blaster gun ...
‘Come on, that scenario was flawed,’ I complain to my familiar.
Mouse sniffs. That’s rodent laughter – I hear it a lot. Sure, sure. It was the scenario.
‘Hey. You’re supposed to be on my team here.’
I am. Her nose twitches. Which is why I know you deliberately picked the wrong weapon so you wouldn’t pass.
I cough. ‘Uh, keep that yourself, please.’
Mouse is the only one who knows I’m trying not to pass. Luckily she’s mind-linked only to me, so nobody else can hear her sarcastic commentary and figure out what I’m doing.
Tilting the chair to the side, I check the clock hanging on the far wall; the school day is done. I pretend I don’t see the blinking cursor that means my teacher is typing a response to my scenario attempt, and log off from the Hollow Warrior edusys.
Mouse’s whiskers flutter with exasperation, but she doesn’t have any further reprimands. She knows she isn’t going to change my mind about anything – she already tried that. She skitters out of her nest, crosses my desk, and runs up my arm to her usual perch on my shoulder. I switch off the visor and dump it onto my desk next to my edusys screen. Next to it is a datapad showing the stupidly long list of scenarios I still need to pass before I can take my second oath – the oath of service.
It’s going to take months to complete them all.
Which is kind of the plan.
Anyway. Even if I did fail this scenario, surely there are benefits to experimenting with different types of weapons, like knowing what’s useful and what isn’t. Really, a good Hollow Warrior should know every pro and every con for every weapon before they take the second oath.
And the whole reason I’m doing this is because I need to be more than just good.
I wind my way down the levels of our tall, crooked apartment, which is stacked like a haphazard afterthought on top of an old warehouse. I try not to see the Congratulations! banner tacked up over the windows when I get to the sitting room and kitchen. It plucks at an old, familiar hurt, reminding me how there’d been a banner like it for me back when I turned thirteen and took my first oath – the oath of power. How it had felt like a tease, one that only I could see.
Congratulations on your inadequacy, Priscilla!
Followed by all those compliments from my family, each one thumping into my chest like a stone. Compliments, as if the tame power I’d received didn’t matter, as if I were on my way to becoming an incredible Hollow Warrior like the rest of them.
But this particular banner is for my niece, not me, and her oath of power ceremony will not go the same way as mine. She’ll receive a power befitting the Daalman name, like everyone else. It’ll be something she’s proud to receive and wield. A power that won’t make her wince whenever she thinks about it.
She’ll fit in.
And we’ll all be here to witness it: the first oath ceremony in forever that every single Daalman will attend. I’m still not sure how, this stormy December, the stars have aligned to allow my whole family to get together in one place. It’s been six years since that last happened, when we managed to meet up for my grandmother’s birthday. A lot has changed since then – we have a whole new Daalman for starters, with my littlest niece – and at the same time, nothing has. My grandmother is still powerful and bossy. My mothers are still busy and dramatic. My sisters are still three versions of chaos. And I still love them all like mad. Maybe it’s been six years because that’s how long it takes us to recover from interacting as a complete unit. Or maybe it’s just what happens when you’re a family of monster hunters, charged with protecting humanity, and evil doesn’t care about family reunions.
A rush of wind rattles hail against the windows, and something tickles the back of my mind. Closing my eyes, I tune out the sound of the wild weather, listening with my other sense. There’s a burst of Hollow energy outside the front door downstairs, tasting sweet-burnt like dark caramel on the back of my tongue. I hurtle down the rest of the stairs, run across the entry hall and yank open the heavy steel door to find my grandmother standing on the doormat, dusting flakes of snow off her shoulders, Blackbird beside her boots.
‘Geema!’ I cry. From her perch on my shoulder, Mouse squeaks in greeting too.
‘Priscilla,’ Geema says. ‘I hadn’t rung the doorbell.’
‘I know, I sensed you –’
‘You sensed me, did you?’ One perfectly groomed eyebrow arches.
Ah, crap. ‘But I knew you were coming.’
‘You still did not know that I was me. You only sensed Hollow energy, child. I could have been a sly demon. I could have been a creeping bog troll. And do you have a weapon?’
I swallow down a tart retort and shove my empty hands into my pockets. For a hot second I hadn’t been thinking about how hopeless I am. Now, with my grandmother’s question, that feeling is back. She’s right, of course. I can’t tell the difference between the Hollow energy that is the source of our powers, or that of a monster from the evil universe itself.
‘No, Geema.’
‘You ought to be carrying a weapon at all times. Next time, answer the door armed, please.’ She steps inside, tugging off her burgundy leather gloves, leaving me to haul her giant suitcase in and close the door. As Blackbird darts alongside her, Geema turns to look at me. The matriarch of our family is also the shortest of the Daalmans, but only a norm would mistake her for a frail old lady. In my mind Geema is seventeen feet tall and indestructible. She’s bold and stern, and one of the strongest Hollow Warriors of all time. She puts her dry hands on each of my cheeks, looking up into my eyes. Snow peppers her flossy grey hair, and despite her greeting bringing my sense of inadequacy back to the surface, I feel calm and seen beneath her palms. She still loves me. I’m so glad she’s back.
‘Priscilla. My listener. It’s good to see you,’ she says. Then she grins. ‘Now, is there vodka?’
‘In the usual spot.’
‘Excellent. Tell your mothers I’m here.’ She snaps her fingers at Blackbird, who flits up to her shoulder, and turns for the stairs. Click-clacking heels trace her progress up to the next level, and the kitchen, and the liquor cabinet. My grandmother takes being off-duty very seriously – maybe because she so rarely is.
Mouse makes a disgruntled snuffle. Didn’t even say hello.
‘Don’t be so cranky. Blackbird was probably a bit ruffled from the teleportation,’ I murmur, patting her soft head with a fingertip. One of the reasons Geema is such a powerful warrior: she can send herself halfway around the world without breaking a sweat, fast enough to bring unmelted snowflakes with her.
The suitcase looms before me, zips practically bursting and corners scuffed. It was hard enough getting it over the doorstep. My mother Lydia, with her telekinesis, can move it up to Geema’s b
Leaving the hulking case in the entry hall, I walk along the hallway to the command centre. The lights in the briefing room are dimmed, and the door to Lydia’s office is open to the dark interior – I remember now she’s out on a job, sweeping up some pesky ghouls that leaked through last night. The door to the weapons closet is also open, where Bosco, one of the imps, is stealing a nap on the bottom shelf – skinny grey hands tucked beneath his cheek, drool pooling beneath his slack jaw studded with needle-like teeth. The teeth are all show: imps are vegetarian, and the only Hollow creatures to be classified as benign. I try not to disturb him as I grab a poisoned throwing dagger off the rack and tuck its sheath into the waistband of my jeans. Except then the creature farts loudly as I creep out. I pinch my nose, my eyes watering. They might be tame, but their stenches remain wholly foul. Could be why most Hollow Warrior divisions don’t have imps on staff. Besides the fact many warriors have a hard time working alongside anything Hollow-born, even decidedly not evil things.
But my other mother, Mama, runs things her own way. She says an ally is an ally, no matter where they come from. The boss of our division, she sits at the desk in the main office, concentrating on the array of monitors before her. Shifting pink blobs of forecasted activity crawl over various maps of the world, tracing those areas where the fabric between our world and the evil universe is thin. Places prone to tears, like fault lines are prone to quakes. In the middle is our territory, the Oceania Division, covering the vast continent of the New Pacific Territory across to the swamped coastlines of Aotearoa. Smaller maps display our neighbouring territories in the Drowned Islands through to the eroded edges of Southeast Asia and Pan-America. Everything in Oceania looks quiet. Any high-potential tears would be showing up in orange. Civilian call-ins are marked by black Xs and there’s only one, further up the coast, which is where Lydia is right now.
Mama’s familiar, Tomcat, is curled up beneath a screen displaying the live cam footage from Lydia’s headset. Lydia slams around her fast-moving targets using her telekinesis. The tinny shriek of a caught ghoul comes through the speakers, and Tomcat’s ear flicks.
‘Geema just got in,’ I say from the doorway.
‘Oh, good. Do we happen to have vodka for her?’ Mama doesn’t turn around, her face bathed in the mottled light from the monitors, one hand absently fiddling with the end of her thick black braid. Her goggles are slung around her neck.
‘Of course. She’s getting into it already.’
A ghoul rushes at the screen and Lydia curses. Her hand comes up; she gestures at the creature and it is flung aside. She’s in some dark alley, the shadows seething.
‘I could’ve gone with her,’ I say, trying hard to sound casual about it. Does Mama realise it’s been three weeks since I went out on a job?
‘Lydia’s got it covered, honey. She’s got Rosco and Rosie with her.’ Those are the other imps. ‘Go sit with your grandmother and relax. I’ll be up in time for dinner.’
‘Yeah. Okay.’ I watch as Lydia tosses two more ghouls into a wire trap. Rain sparkles in the dark, and I hear her laugh and say, ‘Got you, you little a-holes.’
Maybe they think I would’ve got in the way. And maybe they’re right.
I head back upstairs to our living quarters, my footsteps echoing. The base is quiet at the moment. Our latest bunch of trainees finished their placements last month, and the next ones won’t arrive till the new year.
Still. That doesn’t mean monsters aren’t continuing to leak through from the evil universe. My mothers haven’t sent me into the field for ages, not even for the lowest classified call-ins, not even as back-up, not even as an observer. I don’t exactly know why, but, ultimately, it has to be because of my power. I think they’re worried I can’t handle it, that I’ll mess up. They haven’t said anything in the four – almost five – years since I turned thirteen, took my first oath and received my power. But they don’t need to. I’m the only Daalman to end up with such a feeble ability: to sense Hollow energy.
I never wanted it. It wasn’t the power I’d thought I’d get. But then, during my oath of power ceremony, as the Hollow energy coursed through me and Mouse appeared at my side, it was what felt right. The power settled inside my skin like it’d always been there. Just like how, in that same instant, I felt like I’d always known Mouse. At least I got a good familiar, even if my power is the worst.
My other sense is always there, in the back of my mind, a kind of listening-tasting-feeling for Hollow energy. Most of the time I hardly notice it, the same way we don’t notice our own breathing. But if I close my eyes and concentrate on it, blocking out the rest of the world, my ability comes into focus – like focusing on breathing. I can sense smaller amounts of Hollow energy, and extend my range further than my immediate vicinity. It’s hard work, and I can’t do it for very long. Geema says as I get older, the power will get stronger.
But it’s not like it will get any more useful.
Everyone in my family is exceptional. They always have been, ever since the first Daalman warrior was formed during the Fires, generations ago, when the Hollow first tore into our world.
And then there’s me.
Geema’s murmuring to Blackbird in the sitting room, both of them nestled on the couch beneath the sloped windows that look out to the glittering wet cityscape. Hail lies banked like dirty snow against the glass. She holds up a scratched plastiglass cup with a picture of a smiling banana on it.
‘Cheers, my darling. You never forget the little things. Did you get my suitcase?’ A sly grin.
‘Ha. Did you pack bricks for a laugh?’ I drop onto the other couch, curling my feet underneath me.
‘I like to pack for every occasion. You never know what’s going to happen. Once, while I was on holiday in the nations of Pan-America, the princess of the New England Realm invited me to supper. Needless to say, I was very glad I had packed my formal ball gown and white gloves.’
‘You have a ball gown in your suitcase? Aren’t you only here for a few nights?’ Although I doubt her claim about supper – the percentage of truth to Geema’s stories can vary – somehow I suspect she does have a gown in her case. There’s always been a touch of glamour to my grandmother.
‘For every occasion,’ she repeats, sipping her vodka. ‘Who’s home next?’
‘Probably Cheryl.’ My second-oldest sister is flying back from the Drowned Islands, flushed with success after a three-year safari hunting a kraken. Only she’s never exactly been reliable. Next to knock on the door could well be my oldest sister, Jet, and her husband, Eddy, flying over from the west coast base for a few days. With them will be my two nieces: Pumpkin, the youngest, and Bree, who has just turned thirteen and is taking her first oath.
I grab a pillow, hugging it to me. ‘Didi will be last, anyway. She and this guy of hers have the furthest to come, from Mexico.’
Geema winks. Didi’s just finished her five years of training placements, with her last one in the Central America Division – and apparently she’s bringing a boyfriend home with her.
Everyone I love is on their way. I’m a tangle of feelings, waiting on their various arrivals. I adore them all to pieces and can’t wait to see them, but family gatherings exhaust me. That sensation of not measuring up, which I try so hard to contain, only intensifies when they’re all around me with their prestige, their power, their confidence. Soon they’ll be filling the empty rooms of this apartment with their voices and messes and laughter, familiars underfoot and powers crackling in the air. My family: the Daalman Hollow Warriors.
Lydia is back from the job by dinnertime, washing her hands in the kitchen sink, a smudge of green ghoul jelly smeared on a cheekbone. Her iguana might have matching splatter, but it’s hard to tell since the lizard is naturally a bright emerald colour. Mama comes upstairs as I lay out the plates. Since there’s only the four of us, we can eat at the little table by the doors to the rooftop terrace. The imps like to have their dinner together downstairs, where they have a kitchenette in their quarters. The fairy lights I strung up the other day blink merrily against the windows, raindrops catching the colours as they slide past outside.
I’ve made Geema’s favourite: miso-roasted tofu cubes sprinkled with sesame seeds, on a heap of crunchy salad. My grandmother is totally sauced by the time we sit down, almost missing her chair with her butt, hooting with laughter as she drops spoonfuls of salad across the tabletop. The familiars gather beneath the table, squawking and chirruping, Blackbird having apparently got over her teleportation-lag.
