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“IT reeks…”
Zelaide Silvergray slowed his car as it sped down the freeway. Sliding the silver convertible to a stop on the freeway’s hard shoulder, he hopped out without opening the door.
Chances were the expensive car would be stolen right away without locking the steering wheel and tires, but he broke into a run without giving it a second thought. He reached maximum speed as soon as his right foot kicked off the pavement. His black coat didn’t flutter, but soared behind him like a wicked bird’s tail feathers.
“Hmph. That’s a Bijour’s stench. I’m in luck.”
Zelaide—Zel, as most people knew him, deeply inhaled the lukewarm air. His sense of smell was at least ten times sharper than a human’s. Smell was a hard thing to measure, so the precise difference was hard to know for sure.
Bijour were a particularly rare breed of Muta. Despite being reptilian, the creature walked on two legs and had the appearance of a slim woman. The odor exuded from its crimson, metal, scale-covered body was a prized ingredient in expensive perfumes, and its hide was highly valued for leather. Additionally, its meat was delectable and its teeth and claws were used in art pieces, making it a valuable creature down to every bone, tooth, and nail.
Unfortunately, Bijour were also extremely ferocious and nimble by nature, and highly intelligent for a Muta. Even worse, since they regularly hunted in groups, even an adult human male stood no chance against them when marked as prey. Their hunts were so well-organized that not even midsized guns were capable of taking them down, rendering small caliber firearms useless.
But what’s a Bijour doin’ in a place like this? I hear an engine. The rev sounds like a large vehicle. I’d put my bet on a semi. Somebody’s transporting the Bijour by trailer. Oh, they stopped. Humans…two young males…they’re coming this way.
Zel crouched down and ran through the plains like a wolf.
The capture and transportation of Bijours was strictly regulated. No respectable person or enterprise would transport a Bijour with just one vehicle at an hour this close to rainfall. In other words, capturing either—or both—human and Muta would benefit Zel. For he was a Hunter.
“I knew it. Luck’s on my side,” Zel whispered with a sinister smirk, stopping his full-speed sprint to crouch in the middle of the brush and study the actions of the men getting out of the truck.
He saw in the dark without issue, even from behind his black-tinted specs. The men hid on the side of the highway some kyros ahead of where Zel stopped his car, and they laid in wait for something. What in the frontier worlds were they waiting for three kyros away from the city at this godforsaken hour? Between the Bijour stench and the suspicious men, Zel may have just struck the Hunter’s jackpot.
Oh? Another vehicle is coming from the opposite direction. Normal car. Their target?
A white car came from the same direction as Zel, heading for the city. It bumbled along at a carefree speed without particularly bothering to make haste in the dark night.
The car’s no different from unassuming prey about to fall into a trap. A woman’s driving. Ah, what are you doing? Are you stupid? Do you want to die that bad?
Zel’s fears were proved no sooner than he thought them as the white car came to a sudden stop when the men jumped into the middle of the road in front of it, waving their arms in wide arcs. The men pointed their guns at the car and dragged a petite woman from the driver’s seat. The woman put up a good fight, but her struggle was in vain as they pulled her into the wild plains beyond the freeway.
She’s still a young woman. Why did she have the misfortune of drawin’ their attention? And what’s a woman doing outside the city walls just before rainfall? Isn’t she practically asking to be attacked? Well, it’s got nothing to do with me. But is this related to the Bijour?
Zel hid in the taller brush and left a good gap between them as he tailed the men.
All right, I’ll be watchin’ for a bit to see where you go and what you do.
He spotted a small semitrailer before long. It was probably what the men had driven here in. The peculiar stench of a Bijour wafted from it. Since it didn’t reek of putrid scales, the smell had to be leaking through the air ducts. There couldn’t have been more than one Bijour inside.
Zel closed the distance while keeping a careful watch on his surroundings.
Suddenly, he heard a high-pitched shriek. It was evident the kidnapping had been planned, but the woman hadn’t grasped her situation yet. No matter how Zel thought about it, the woman couldn’t have been an upstanding citizen if she was outside at this hour, but her reaction was oddly inexperienced for someone so far out in the Wilds. Her hair came undone the more she resisted, sending thick blond locks tumbling down her back in a gorgeous cascade of hair that caught the eye even in the dark.
Well, that sucks. Poor woman was pushed onto the ground in no time. Now then, how to deal with this nuisance?
Zel quickly thought up the most logical plan: knocking out the men, taking the semitrailer with the Bijour inside, then selling the Bijour to the black market after he turned the thugs over to the authorities. He couldn’t care less about the woman. His plan would inevitably result in her rescue anyway, but it was up to her to make her way to the police. Her car was still parked on the freeway.
Time to make my move then, Zel concluded, and took a step forward to enact his simple plan, when he spotted the pinned woman thrusting her fingers into the top of her hair. What he had thought was a simple hair accessory released a sharp blade from its comb.
And what he saw next would stay with him forever—
—beautiful eyes that were curiously clear as they fixed on the sinister blade.
Faster than he could think, “ah,” she raised her arm overhead and brought the blade down in a wicked arc aimed for her throat.