It was morning, and the loud chirping sounds of birds could be heard from a distance. Those were the only feasible sounds to be heard, as the animals hardly make sounds during the day, and the part where Patricia had her house was deserted.
Almost all the inhabitants of the avenue had relocated when the attacks became too frequent.
Patricia sat on her bed, giving a loud yawn. She stared at the whitewashed ceiling, reluctant to get up.
She stared at the clock and flew up. She found out it was almost eight. She needed to get to the supermarket in town. Her supply was running low.
She jumped to her feet and hurried down to the bathroom to take her bath. She opened the door and was shocked to the marrow at what stared her in the face.
There was blood splattered all around the bathroom wall, like a graffiti design.
"Oh my goodness!" She shrieked as she found her way out of the bathroom. Lucifer heard her scream from his room and ran to where she was, panting heavily. He thought something bad had happened to her.
"What's the matter?" He asked as his pupils darted around in search of what made her scream in that manner.
"How did this happen?" She asked with her hand.
"What's that?" He asked with confusion written all over his face.
"The blood splattered on the wall," she snapped with impatience.
"Oh, that! I saw an animal in there when I came to pee at night and decided to kill it," he said with a carefree attitude.
"You killed it and splattered the blood on the wall?" Patricia asked with a flabbergasted grimace, trying hard not to say something harsh to him.
"Yeah, I actually didn't plan to kill it on the wall. It was moving on it and I tried to bring it down before killing it, but all my efforts to bring it down proved futile abortive, so I had to kill it right there," he said.
"Wow! So what's going on here? Who's going to clean it up?" She asked, staring him in the face, and instead of that thick, old, and weary grimace he had the previous night, he was looking so handsome. "Stop it, Patricia!" She chided herself and returned her mind to the issue on the ground.
"Don't worry! I'd clean it up later in the day when I'm fully awake," he replied on a casual note, like they had known each other all their lives.
She gave a light chuckle. "And do you expect me to wait until you are well awake before I take my bath?" She was getting irritated with him already and didn't hesitate to hide it.
"Oh, I didn't know you wanted to take your bath now. My bad. I'd have it cleaned this minute," he said with pouted lips, and Patricia couldn't help but forget the anger she was feeling towards him.
She returned to her room and laid on the bed, thinking of Lucifer. He sounded and behaved weird, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get the nagging feeling she had in him.
She could see a blurred picture of something in his eyes, but what it was, she couldn't pinpoint.
She stared lucidly at the ceiling, and the memories of her childhood came flooding back. She remembered how she used to run around with the children of her mate, with only a piece of clothing to cover their vagina and penis.
All those were historical. Her adult life was so boring and uneventful. Her days were for cleaning the house, taking a drive, and then tending the gardens, while her nights were for hunting mystical creatures.
Now, she knew Lucifer wasn't leaving anytime soon because he had no family to return to, and it irked her. She couldn't imagine herself trying to build a friendship with someone. Something she hadn't done in more than three years.
She sighed.
Her sex life is zero and nothing to write home about. On one occasion, sometimes last year, she had a man bang her pussycat with so much vigor and pressure that she had longed for more ever since.
She heard a knock on the door, disrupting her thoughts for a minute.
"What do you want?" She snapped at him.
"I just wanted to tell you that I'm done cleaning the toilet. You may go in now."
"Alright, thank you," she replied without emotion.
She waited to hear the sound of his footstep as he left but didn't hear any. She stood up to check if he was there and was surprised not to see him there. It was strange because the floor in her room always makes a sound. When you tread on it, no matter how careful you are when walking,
She found him in the sitting room, staring at a portrait of a wolf hanging on the wall. He had a solemn look on him as he stared on.
"Is it so attractive for you to stare at it for almost five minutes without blinking an eye?" She asked, startling him a bit.
He smiled.. "It isn't attractive one bit... I only remember how my family was killed by them," he said without taking his eyes off the image.
"Oh, I thought it was something else!" She said that and then left for the bathroom. He stole a glance at her as she went, watching with keen interest how her ass swayed from left to right. It made his dick stand, and he had to take his mind off it.
The blood.
He chuckled when he remembered the lie he told her about the blood splattered on the bathroom wall.
The animal he killed was one of the heads of the witches in the underworld. They must have found out that he had turned his back on them when they didn't see him return.
He had gone to ease himself in the middle of the night when he saw the bird perched on the window railing.
It noticed it was him—Lucifer—and was about to fly away to report to the witch head.
He dragged it back with a strong spell and slaughtered it with a sharp pocket knife. The blood in the process splattered on the wall.
He vowed at that moment that as long as he was on Earth and with Patricia, he would always kill witches. Not that he liked them in the underworld. He had a duty to them as their king and couldn't do as he wished for them.
Patricia stood under the shower, allowing the cool water from it to flow over her body. It delighted her and made her feel ecstatic. She came out of the bathroom minutes later with her towel, which she fastened around her chest down to her thigh.
She hurried to her room, locked the door, and then wore her clothes with haste. It was a pair of black jeans over a striped blue shirt. She picked up her purse from the small table beside her bed and then strode towards the living room.
"Are you heading out?" Lucifer asked when he saw her.
"Yeah! I need to get some groceries in town," she said, as she was buckling her shoelaces.
"Can I tag along with you?"
"Why? I don't think that would be a good idea."Patricia objected vehemently.
"Please... it's going to be really boring here once you go," he said with a sad face, and Patrica couldn't help but agree to let him go with her.
They stepped out of the house, entered the car, and began the journey to the main town.
"What did you find out this time around?" A member of the council asked the witch's head, who was staring hard at some peals on the floor.
"It's the same thing. I sent another creature with a stronger sense of sight and smell, and it still hasn't returned," she said, raising her head to the women in front of her.
"So what do you think is wrong here? And why hasn't the king returned from his voyage? It's over fourteen hours."
"I don't know why he hasn't arrived, but I have a strong feeling that the failure of those birds I sent to arrive has something to do with the king's failure to arrive."
"What do you mean? Can you stop speaking in parables?"
"Hello? I am not speaking in parables, and if you aren't wise enough to understand what I said, then it's up to you. What I meant was that the king may have planned on not killing the witch hunter after all."
"Wow! But do you think the king can do something like that?" Another member asked, rubbing his palms together.
"And what sort of question is that? Are you a newbie in the underworld? Even a suckling baby would realize that witches aren't the king's favorites."
"Yeah, that's true, but that isn't a good reason to think he might not want to kill the witch hunter."Have you forgotten she also kills werewolves?"
"And what gibberish are you speaking? He can do anything and everything just so we don't get what we want," anyone chipped in.
"We can't come to an abrupt decision without thinking it through. If by the end of today we see no sign of Lucifer, then I would have to travel to earth to find out what's going on with him," the head of the witches said with a note of finality. She raised her left hand and watched them leave one after the other.
She stood up from her position when she was sure they had gone, and then took a stroll around her house. She had a nagging feeling that the king was doing that on purpose. Two of her swiftest and strongest birds had been killed in the span of twelve hours.
Those birds were immune to bullets and ammunition, so it would be so difficult for a human to kill them. Just then, one of her attendants came running in.
"What's the problem?" She asked with a frown.
"Akira has returned," the attendant said, giving a low bow.
Her face glowed in excitement. "And where is he now?"
"He is in the magic room."
"And why did you place him there?"
"He's seriously injured and is being treated by the herbalist."
The witch's head hurried out of the place towards the magic room, praying in her heart that Akira wouldn't give up the ghost before she got there.
"Thank goodness!" She muttered with relief when she saw it was still alive.
She sat by its side and began to converse with it. She was able to do that by going into the third realm, where the spirits of birds and other creatures live.
"What did you see?" She asked with impatience.
"I saw... the..." it said and passed out, never to wake.
"Fuck it, Akira, why did you have to die when you are about to tell me something so important?" she said as she stood to her feet.
"What should we do to it?" One of the attendants asked, referring to the body of Akira.
"You can throw it away, eat it, or anyhow you deem fit," she snapped as she walked away. It was obvious that she was pissed, and only those who were not wise would stay near here at that moment.
During the last full moon, she killed three witches who angered her while she was performing the ritual of life.
****
Patricia and Lucifer rode into town in a few minutes and offered no word to one another during the drive.
"When do you plan to return to your home?" Patricia asked the moment they parked in front of the supermarket.
"Are you sending me away?" He asked with a sad look.
She gave him no response.
"I'd be leaving by nighttime," he responded, and then faced the other side. Patricia got out of the truck and was about to go into the Mart.
"Won't you come along?" She asked with a smile, trying to lighten the mood between them. It had become tense as a result of what she asked.
"No, I won't." He said that and passed out immediately.
Patricia became worried, wondering what could have made him faint. She held him in her hand, shivering as she did. "Lucifer! Lucifer!" She called his name as she placed her hand over his chest to check if he was breathing.
She felt a little awkward when she called his name. Lucifer didn't seem like the right name a parent would give their child, but it was his name anyway.
She turned to the other side of the truck, hopped in, and immediately started the ignition. She planned on taking him to the hospital, and to achieve that within a short time, she was driving at a high speed.
About one hundred and twenty kilometers per hour. That was really high.
They got to a police checkpoint, and she had to slow down a bit.
"Hi officers," she greeted with a smile, even though all she wanted to do was land them some blows below the belt. She had a strong dislike for them because of how they treated women and people in general.
They act like they own the whole world, caring less for human feelings or thoughts.
"It's the infamous witch hunter," the men said and burst into laughter. Loud, uncontrollable laughter.
"She claims to kill wolves and witches, and yet, we haven't seen a single one of the ones she has killed," they joked again, swaggering around with a bottle of beer in each of their hands.
Patricia counted them all. There were about twelve to fourteen of them. Heavily armed with pistols and AK-47s' while she was all alone with a small pistol she took around in case of emergencies.
"Excuse me, officers, can I leave now because you aren't doing a check here? You are only delaying me," Patricia said without mincing a word or breaking a sweat like most women do once they sight a police officer.
"Woman! You had better keep this sassy mouth of yours shut, or you would regret it. I do not care whether you are a witch and werewolf hunter or even a witch yourself," one of them, who appeared to be the leader of the group, said, standing by the window of the truck.
"I think you lack courtesy and simple wisdom! If you do not, then you would have realized that someone is in the truck with me and he requires urgent medical attention," Patricia bawled without restraint.
"Are you talking to me? It sure cannot be me!" The officer said it with a loud chuckle that attracted the attention of other officers.
"I am talking to you, and I repeat, you are dumb, stupid, and a fucking asshole," Patricia said and spat at him. The spittle landed on his forehead and then rolled down to his nose and then into his mouth, which was opened ajar.
His face became red with anger, and in response, he tried to land her a slap across the face. She held his hand with her right hand and landed the slap he wanted on his cheek. It stung him so deeply that he didn't realize it when he let out a long yell that filled the sky.
"Damn you, Patricia!" He said, facing his men, "Finish them!" He said that, and immediately they began to fire.
Patricia immediately rolled up the car window and started the ignition. It didn't pick.
"What the hell!" She cussed as she hit her hand across the steering dashboard.
She was still struggling with that when she noticed that the officers were shooting at the window, but it had no effect. She gazed at Lucifer and saw him smiling.
She froze.
"I thought you were unconscious a few minutes ago." She asked with a flabbergasted grimace as she continued to fiddle with the control.
"Yeah, but I decided to wake myself up," he said, giving a loud chuckle.
"You Bastard! So you weren't unconscious after all. You brought us into this mess!"
"And I'm going to bring us out."
"And how do you plan on doing that? We are greatly outnumbered, and we do not even have the weapons to use in fighting them. How then do you plan on doing that?"
"You shouldn't be concerned with that. You should worry about why the bullet isn't penetrating through the window."
"Yeah! That's true. Did you do that?" She asked with a contoured face.
"Do I look like a magician to you?" He asked as he collected the gun from her. He fiddled a while with the door.
"What are you trying to do?" Patricia inquired with bulging eyes.
"To fight them, of course," he said, opened the door, and stepped out.
The policemen ceased fire for a while as they stared at the tall, heavily built man that stepped out of the car.
"So it's you she sent to come and fight us?" The police officers asked with a devilish smile and began to fire at Lucifer. He opened fire at them, carefully dodging the bullets they fired.
The shrill cry of men could be heard as the bullets from Lucifer's gun traveled into their skull, leg, chest, and dick before dropping to the floor.
Lucifer had killed about nine of them and was about to fire another bullet at them when he realized he had run out of bullets.
"Damn it!" He cussed as he threw the gun at one of them. It hit him in the eye, and he immediately fell to the floor, groaning and yelling at the top of his voice. Blood trickled from his eyes. He was blind already.
Their leader saw what happened and immediately took to his heels. The two were being left behind when they saw their leader running and joined him. They hadn't gone far when Lucifer muttered some incoherent words, and the trio dropped dead immediately.
"Wow! I didn't realize you were so good," Patricia commended as she got out of the truck.
They were about to leave when three women ascended from the sky.
They were old but still looked sturdy and strong.
Lucifer froze when he saw them. They were attendants of the witch head.