A Girl and her Machete

Mila polishes her machete with a tie-dyed cloth she’d cut from one of Violet’s old t-shirts. The fabric is stained more black than the twisting explosion of red, yellow, green, and blues. Black blood from the monsters she kills really is too difficult to wash out properly. Who has the time for such things anyway?

“I want to stress how much this is a bad idea,” Violet whines from where she’s bent over her workbench, crushing ingredients with her mortar and pestle. Plastic yellow dish gloves hide her hands and most of her arms, her dark curling hair in a puffy ball on the top of her head tied with a long purple ribbon cascading down the sides of her face.

Mila flicks the machete, a habit she picked up from her mother, letting the last rays of the day’s light glisten off its sharp edge. The light reflects off the surface and bounces around the tiny apartment Mila affords with her odds and ends jobs. Her real work is killing monsters.

“I’m aware, Vi,” Mila says, jumping from her perch on the window sill to hover at Violet’s side. Mila’s nose twitches, the leftover herb scattered on the wooden slates emanating a pungent odor. She reels back, a gag stuck in her throat. “That’s atrocious.”

Violet harrumphs at her like disproving old lady is her spirit animal. “You know the rules. I require space to work. You’re lucky you didn’t touch it this time or you’d have burns for at least a month.”

“Sounds effective.”

“Very.” Violet scrapes every drop of the concoction into a vial and stoppers it with a flourish. She turns to Mila who is still rubbing at her nose. “All done!”

“Let me grab my coat,” Mila grumbles, stalking to the coat rack where her red trench coat hangs limp. She leans the machete against the wall as she pulls on the coat. It was her mother’s before she died.

“Red brings the predators out,” her mother grinned at her when Mila asked what was so special about it.

Mila wears it on all her hunts now and this one especially. She did up the buttons like lacing up armor while Violet bustled around preparing herself. Mila rubs a thumb over the gold pentagram broach pinned to the left side lapel, fondness for her mother filling her up with warmth. 

Violet stands beside her at the door, a thin jean jacket thrown across her shoulders. Mila wants to tell her to go put on something thicker, but it gets caught. She’s not Violet’s keeper. The instinct to take care of Violet itches under Mila’s skin, making her think she’s getting too attached to the witch.

“There’s nothing I can do to talk you out of this?” Violet asks and bats her pretty eyelashes at Mila. Mila only frowns in irritation. Violet sighs, patting herself down before striding out the door. “A girl has to try.”

A few hours after dusk finds them trekking through the forest taking out a nest of vampires. Mila hefts the machete in her right hand and swings with precision, chopping a vampire’s head off in one forceful hack.

“You scare me with how good you are at killing,” Violet says, drifting along behind her, not offering the slightest bit of help.

“Hm,” Mila considers. She slides her blade along the gnarled trunk of a curving tree to clean most of the black goop from the edges. “It’s almost like I trained for this job since I was a child.”

“I wish we weren’t doing this,” Violet complains, tripping over a root sticking up from the ground. She catches herself last minute. Mila barrels forward, not looking back, body tensed for an attack. “Draken’s been alive for centuries. Hunters don’t go after him for a reason.”

“I know, Vi,” Mila reassures her. “But I have to do this. I wish you hadn’t come.”

“You like to think you’re untouchable, Mila,” Violet replies, still struggling to keep up and avoid the foliage. “But you’re not. I’m back up. I’m the only backup you got.”

Mila sighs. “How did it come to the point where I have a bumbling hedge witch as back up?”

Violet snorts, not in the least offended by Mila’s grouch.

“I, for one, will be happy when you can finally put this madness behind you.” Violet yelps as Mila stops abruptly in front of her, the flat of her machete held out to keep Violet from stepping forward. “What?”

“We’re here.”

A hulking tree the width of ten burly men towers over them, the thick tree branches reaching up high to the heavens full of broad leaves blotting out the sky. Mila glances at Violet, letting a hungry grin spread across her face.

“Show time.”

Violet rolls her eyes, dropping to her knees and sliding her satchel off her neck. She dumps the contents to the dirt floor of the forest and snatches two bottles, one a lime green sludge and the other filled with purple smoke.

She presents them to Mila, but she holds onto them for a second, catching Mila’s gaze. “Please keep in mind this is not a game. People are relying on you to remain alive.”

Violet didn’t specify she relies on Mila to stay alive, but she didn’t have to. Mila’s grin disappears, finally freeing the potions from Violet’s grip. She uses the back of her hand to brush across Violet’s cheek before facing the tree again. She rolls her shoulders back, flicking her machete to the side.

“Draken,” Mila shouts, her voice several decibels deeper than it usually is. “It’s time to face me!”

Violet scrambles back as a dark wind rattles through the leaves. It circles the tree trunk to form into a gaunt balding man with sunken colorless eyes and a black cloak standing at Mila’s front.

“You look so much like your mother,” Draken rasps, his voice like insects scuttling across wood. He reaches out a knobby hand with too long fingers as if to touch Mila’s hair, but the shiny part of Mila’s machete slices through the air and lops off his hand. Black blood splatters on Mila’s face and clothes, but she holds her ground.

Draken blinks down at his stump, and as seconds tick by, a high pitch squealing comes from the ancient vampire. His other hand reaches up, his palm a vortex of black wind. He throws it at Mila. She stumbles back, the black wind swirling around her throat. She chokes, unable to breathe.

Mila breaks the green bottle in her hand and slings it towards Draken’s face. The high pitch noise peaks, Mila and Violet’s eardrums ringing to the point of pain. Mila still can’t breathe, but she pushes forward anyway as Draken stumbles back, the green sludge burning the skin off his face. Mila strikes Draken’s chest with a powerful forward lunge. She leans into the blow until her machete is stuck in the tree behind Draken.

“You will regret this,” Draken hisses as his blood dribbles out of him and down his cloak. The wind presses harder on Mila’s throat, and she starts seeing spots in her vision. She breaks the stopper of the purple smoke, and it floods out, attaching to the wind energy around Mila’s neck while the rest floods into Draken’s mouth.

Mila can breathe easier a half-second before Draken’s body begins to crumble into a mix of purple and black ashes. She coughs, testing her throat muscles before spitting on the pile. When she turns around, Violet has ointment and bandages out of her satchel to put on Mila’s hand where she’d broken the glass bottles.

“I’m going to draw a line,” Violet huffs, using tweezers to pick out broken glass. She brings Mila’s hand close to her face, inspecting it thoroughly before dabbing a foul-smelling ointment that only stings a little into the wound. “No more reckless behavior where you get hurt. This hunt was completely unnecessary.”

“My mother’s life goal was to take out Draken. She’s gone now. I had to do it. For her.” Mila flashes a soft smile as Violet wraps gauze around her hand a little too tightly. “You can draw a line. I’ll just have to draw a line under you.”

The air chills around them to the point Mila sees Violet’s breath in the air. She straightens her spine, pulling away from Violet’s grasp to yank her machete out of the tree. She stumbles back, looking around, trying to spot the danger. The sky darkens to the point where she can’t see.

“Vi,” Mila calls out, keeping her tone low and calm. “Stay close.”

“I can’t see,” Violet’s panicked voice a squeak in the darkness. Mila moves toward her with cautious steps.

“I’m reaching out,” Mila says, trying to give Violet something to move towards. “I’m right here.”

“Mila,” Violet’s voice sounds further away, and Mila’s heart starts beating fast. She tries to stifle the reaction, stuff it back down into a little box she keeps in her mind. Her mother’s face flashes before her eyes, and the memory of her bending over Mila as a small, terrified child afraid of monsters seems so clear.

“Panic gets you killed,” her mother yanked her arm. “We do not panic. You hear me? We breathe, we steady, we attack.”

Mila licks her lips, her grip tight on her weapon. “Vi.”

Mila’s not sure what she’s going to say, but she doesn’t get the chance. Violet’s melodic voice Mila’s used to hearing hum when she’s cooking or mixing her potions shrieks far away from her. She sucks in a breath and races toward the noise.

The world around her lightens, the full moon light revealing itself from behind thick clouds. Violet hangs limp in Draken’s embrace, one arm around her waist, the other hand gripping her chin, tilting it to the side and stretching her neck long. Red blood drips out of two fresh pinpricks on Violet’s neck where her carotid artery is, the blood growing thick and dark as it leaks from her body.

“Witches are always such a treat,” Draken croons, and Mila wants to stop her mad dash toward him to put hands over her ears. She keeps going, the distance a scant few feet. Draken drops Violet, her body crumpling to the ground in a heap of flowing skirts and tassels. His dark wind energy rushes around him, swirling past Mila as she swings her machete up to take off his head. It bounces off the shield of wind in front of Draken, slinging Mila away with the force of the blow.

Mila stumbles and falls to one knee, her gaze lowered to the ground where one of her hands is bandaged. Blood oozes to the surface of the white gauze of her right hand, and the left grips the handle of her machete. She flicks her gaze up and notices Violet’s body gone from the forest floor. She can’t seem to breathe.

“You turned her,” Mila growls at Draken as the panic in her box barely stays contained in her mind. “You made her into a soulless monster.”

The high pitch ringing starts up again and Mila’s right eardrum bursts, sticky blood leaking from her ear. The pain is exquisite. She slaps a hand over it even though the pressure doesn’t help. Draken glides closer until he’s towering over her.

“You murdered my family. I get so lonely without them.” Draken places a finger under Mila’s chin, lifting her gaze up to his. “She’s mine now.”

 The pain in Mila’s ear steadies her and she breathes through her nose. It takes all her strength to stop clutching at her ear and rip the broach off her trench coat, springing up to slam it into Draken’s chest. He doesn’t move back, his footing stable.

Mila starts screaming the chants her mother taught her as a child. She yells through the pain and the ringing of her busted eardrum and the raging wind around her. She keeps going as it starts to burn her palm and Draken struggles to back away. She reaches the last few words of the spell. It feels like the ground beneath her would split and crack at any second.

She keeps her eyes open, watches as Draken shakes and his skin cracks like a shattered vase, his black blood oozing out. On her last word, he explodes, chunks of undead splattering against her body and face. She whirls around at the great cracking noise behind her in time to see the tree, Draken’s home for longer than she could imagine, wither and die.

She stumbles back in time for the branches to start falling. As the tree crumbles, Mila settles the broach to the ground, still hot to the touch containing Draken’s essence. The broach is one of the first things she could remember her mother giving her. Trying not to think, not of her mother and not of Violet, she swings the machete as hard as she can, chipping away at the metal.

Mila swings her blade over and over until the trinket is nothing but metal shatters. She wipes her face with the back of her hand, smearing tears and blood and black goop across her face. She did it. She defeated Draken. Mila’s good ear picks up the familiar tinkle of laughter from Violet hiding in the trees.

“I told you,” Violet’s whisper carries through the shadows as Mila picks herself up. Violet appears in front of her from one blink to the next and Mila ignores the instinct to reel back. “I told you it was a bad idea. You didn’t have to do this. I would still be alive and human if only you listened to me.”

Mila holds her bandaged hand against her chest as she stares into Violet’s soulless eyes. “Go on. Kill me.”

Violet squints at Mila, trying to make sense of her. She leans forward and sniffs, a crease furrowing her brow. One foot crosses over the next as she begins to circle. Mila shivers when Violet touches the lobe of her ear and pulls it back to examine the tacky blood on her fingers.

“I’m not going to kill you,” Violet decides, rubbing the blood into her skin. “It just doesn’t feel like it would be fun. I’ve got to ask, though. Was it worth it? To avenge your mother?” Mila’s throat tightens and her fingers spasm on her machete. Violet’s smile is cold, strange on her usual open and warm features. “Don’t come back, Mila. I might change my mind about killing you.”

Violet uses her new supernatural reflexes to race away. The purple ribbon in her hair is the last glimpse Mila sees of her. Mila’s knees almost crumble as she sways from the effort of holding herself upright. She has practice moving forward when it feels impossible and so she does, one heavy footfall after another, wishing for her bumbling hedge witch behind her.

Mila tries not to feel the heavy burden of sadness. She tries to tuck it into the box where she puts her panic. Except as she opens her apartment door, she sees Violet’s workbench and the half-made brews strewn across the surface. The panic and the sadness close around her heart. She leans back against the door, sliding down to a crouch and sobs, finally unclenching her fingers from her machete to hide her face.